How about making a "radical" move and import a popular map from another scene (q2/q3/qlive/painkiller/to name a few)? If a map is popular on a scene many times bigger than qw scene, why not it would be popular in qw? Of course qw is different game with different physics , but the idea is the same; grab a weapon, wait for the armor, take over powerup and eliminate dangerous enemies.
Aerowalk(original q3 map?) seems to fit fine on qw scene as statistics show. At least it would be a fresh idea and maybe it would attract players from another scene in the future.

Just a thought...

Not that it matters much to the point of your post, but I'm 90% certian Aerowalk was first created to Quake1. I also think your idea has been suggested before. What exisiting q3 -> qw conversion maps for 4on4 do we have available, btw?

Slightly OT from original thread, but yeah, Aerowalk was originally released in 1998 based on this review from an Aussie mapper:

http://www.quakewiki.net/archives/frib/aerowalk.html

I'm pretty sure it was one of the maps for a really big LAN in Melbourne in 1998. But I could be wrong

Oh fuck the OT starts I should not have question the originality of the Aerowalk in the first place
I'm not familiar of 4on4 q3 maps but someone who has knowledge of q3 maps in general/availability at qw could step up, please!

The layout is not that suitable for qw movement in 99% of the Q3 tdm maps. That makes it sadly quite failish to try to find a solution from there. One thing I've noticed in most maps that has been tried to fit in to QW is that they usually don't have a "splitted personality". In this case it means a "good side which to control" and a "bad side where to gain some stuff and try to get back the key areas". All (tb3) maps also have the powerups in a quite neutral place, one team has a slight advantage but not a big one. Very simple concept and is the same in all tb3 even if the maps are not looking anything close to each other. DM3, quad in mid, pent in quite mid, ring in mid, ra/mh is the most important area. E1M2, quad in mid, ya is the area to keep while ga on other side of the map. DM2, quad quite mid, armor areas in mid (&tele) support pressuring low rl. All these maps also have one thing that is the same, you need to gain control of the area since there aren't any easy weapons to spawn at the areas where quad/the area to hold/most important armor is

Now think about it and make a great map

I disagree with your point about neutral powerup positioning in tb3. In fact, holding dm2 tele is only a viable strategy because of where quad and RL are, which also contradicts your point that "there aren't any easy weapons to spawn at the areas where quad/the area to hold/most important armor is".

The real trick to 4on4 mapmaking is having a viable control area that grants exclusive access to an important item or two while forcing the losing team to gather scattered (but not inferior) resources from areas which aren't as easy to control, and usually have heavy traffic (dm3 rl, e1m2 ga, dm2 low, etc.). This leads to the dynamic where a team in control of the main, safe areas must constantly pressure the enemy's unsafe resource locations/transit routes to prevent them from gaining a viable stack and favourable positioning which is common to all current tdm maps. DM2's problem is that the secondary resources aren't scattered enough, leading to vicious lockdowns with little recourse, and E1M2's problem is an overall lack of valuable resources, resulting in exaggerated fragility, but the basic formula is there and people generally accept them. There are many maps which follow a similar philosophy out there. Most carry their own problems, of course, but even the mighty DM3 has faults.

Since when do people spawn at dm2 rl and quad so they just can grab them if enemy has control of ya/tele & quad-area? And even if the ya is on "the way to quad" I don't consider it beeing close to it

I don't like to think the maps has faults, in my opinion they have more like feats that make them special and make them work other ways. Tbh I hope mappers don't analyze it as deeply as you did because I am afraid that most of the cases have f*cked up because of not keeping the basics simple

You didn't say anything about player spawns. And the reason to hold the ya in the first place is because it directly controls access to the quad and the rl. That's why people talk about holding tele, and not holding tele ya. The quad there is most certainly not in a neutral position.

And I wouldn't call my analysis deep. On the contrary, it is a very simple description of a horrendously complex concept. I don't know why anyone would possibly consider designing a 4on4 map without some knowledge of the very basic dynamics of 4on4 gameplay. You might as well be throwing darts in the dark trying to get a bulls-eye.


This is a very dangerous line of thinking when you're trying to look at something objectively. Nothing in the entire world is perfect. Everything has flaws, and if you can't see failures as well as successes then you are not learning from what you see.

You are taking it lots to literally to get this conversation anywhere

that's not a feature of the map but a natural ocurrence in a teamplay situation where you have a stacked team "hogging" the best powerups and the weaker team gathering at YA/GA. it's due to that the team that's in control simply can't hold all the important with 4 ppl. cmt4 and 1 both have the features you were describing, powerups in neutral place etc..
it's very much a result of high-level teamplay. you would be surprised how much of this good-side-bad-side gameplay would evolve on some of the newer maps if they were used more.

just my input regarding that point, i'm not gonna argue the map selection again.

well looking at cmt3,cmt4,cmt1b etc they all are very playable 4on4 maps, just some people don't like them. I for one love cmt4 and hate dm2

All 4on4 maps that work have the same features really, 2 sides with armors/weapons, a mid portion with powerups accessible from both sides, spawns on both sides.
The layout of items and map also forces you to put pressure on the other side.
This is the most important and basic part of any 4on4 map, 2 sides which makes it really hard to keep a full lockdown, and items on the other side are strong enough that you have to be aggressive and attack it.

I do however agree that eql admins should enforce a 5-map pool on every season, and maybe have voting after/prior to every season on which 2 maps besides tb3 will be played.

To be honest I really cant see e1m2 falling into this category and I think that makes e1m2 such a good map. Claiming that e1m2 has 2 sides, GA and YA is pretty far fetched. Mega and YA would be more correct but nevertheless e1m2 is far more complicated than that (at least in div3)

Link already tried 1,000 years ago to explain why a map is a good map. 2 different sides, neutral points, takeover possibilities etc blabla. To be honest, personally I don't like to get told why a map is good and others are not, because it's highly subjective. There are maps that would probably get classified as poor teamplay maps but I like them very much, whereas some "maps good for teamplay" just bore me because they are played the same way as dm3, e1m2 or dm2.

The "two sides" description isn't really true. It's just how people like to think of a map that contains two teams, but it oversimplifies the dynamics of 4on4 far too much to be a viable selection criterion. It's as hollow and meaningless as throwing around the term "neutral position". If it were as simple as the team on side A vs the team on side B fighting over the powerups in between, I don't think it would be a very good game (Or maybe it would, depending on whether or not you like Control Point maps maps in Team Fortress 2).


Andy: What makes a good map for 4on4 gameplay is objective, but the subjective part of mapmaking is just as important, ie. making areas that are actually fun to fight in. The problem with using "fun" as a selection criterion, however, is its ridiculously subjective nature. There are even people who think serious dm2 duels are fun. There's no accounting for taste, but there is accounting for game-mode mechanics, so that's what the focus should be on.

Deus, true, most have bad-side good-side. But they usually also have items spread around too much and too many items anyways to get the same teamplay/gameplay as tb3 has.

Two side isn't true, come on? So you are basicly saying that it doesn't matter on which "side" of the map you play Doesn't help much with overthinking some game-mode mechanics as most maps do either in that case

As I said originally, "The real trick to 4on4 mapmaking is having a viable control area that grants exclusive access to an important item or two while forcing the losing team to gather scattered resources". You could interpret that as a map having "two sides" but it would be oversimplifying it and I would object to that description, as did Deus when he said "that's not a feature of the map but a natural ocurrence in a teamplay situation".

[edit]Let me put it this way. If we played 2on2on2, people would say that the maps had 3 sides.[/edit]

well at the least i can agree that the custom maps that have been tested are all over the place with the items... all armors, weapons, powerups. e1m2 and dm2 allow for some interesting gameplay in that regard. but there's maps like runningwild and probably a dozen others that have the same features.

it's about allowing the newer maps to evolve the same high level of gameplay that dm3, dm2, e1m2 display. we need good maps, yes, and also we need the courage to breathe some new life into the mappool.

Alright, let's do an item count.

DM3: 4x15h, 3x25h, 3 mh (total 435h), 1 ya, 1 ra (total 350a), 1 rl, 50 rockets, 1 lg, 24 cells, 1 gl, 1 sng, 1 ng, 325 nails, 1 ssg, 800 MILLION shells (I have no idea), 1 quad, 1 pent, 1 ring

cmt1b: 5x15h, 5x25h, 2mh (total 400h), 1 ya, 1 ra (total 350a), 1 rl, 25 rockets, 1lg, 30 cells, 1 gl, 1 sng, 250 nails, 1 ssg, 637 MILLION shells (Who cares, they're only good for sound cues), 1 quad, 1 pent, 1 ring.

That places it a bit lower in significant items/cm^2 than dm3, far lower than the densely packed dm2 (750 armour stuffed into an area the size of my kitchen), and higher than e1m2, unless you consider shells and nails significant.

And that is just my favourite custom map. For example, you would find even more suitable raw item numbers and density on the majority of the plpak maps (which tend to stray farther away from the CMT project's unnecessarily rigid and sub-optimal directives), and you've probably never even seen those. But maybe I am overanalysing things and should just allow you to continue to say vague things that aren't true. That's what qw's about, right? "Feeling"?




I should point out that these thoughtless statistics are far from indicative of the quality of a map. I am just using them to directly refute inaccurate claims.

e1m2/dm2 don't have lg/pent, most of the cmt's have both and ring and whatnot. it's not about the number of healthboxes... i agreed with 1tsinen beacuse it's a valid point. i think bickering and obsessing over details is gonna take us forward in this regard, like andy said, it's highly subjective anyway.

we should contemplate what we want out of a quake league. slow decline or we go for the unorthodox and risk something. it's time we try the latter imo.

My point is that they can't have "too many items" if they have the same number of items as some of tb3. That is simply false.

With regard to armour and powerup numbers, that's what I mean when I referred to excessive rigidity with regard to the cmt project directives, but that doesn't make them bad maps by any stretch of the imagination. Nor does it make them play the same as dm3, as any dm3-lover will attest.

I'm all for discussions on pertinent facts. I would love to discuss the implications of spawn placement and its significant effect on map control, but I'd prefer to quash misconceptions and inaccuracies firmly and quickly rather than hear them repeated ad nauseum.

Who has time to prac new maps these days anyways? Oh, apart from TKS and SR ofc...

For fast decline instead of a slow one?

It's funny. 65% of players don't want ANY maps in eql besides tb3, not new, not old, not episode, not custom, yet ppl still bother to write about it for 3 pages...

http://www.doodle.com/qckphwwun5mm48ss

Why just taking DM3 as an example, why can't we see comparement of pents on dm2 & e1m2 to cmt3? You are once again as in almost all posts just picking something suitable to write just to write something and comparing stuff to other stuff in the way that you are right, as said before, it's not gonna get this discussion going anywhere further

What's funny is that you don't mind posting that little 'survey' of yours again and again. I think we're all familiar with it by now. No need to mock people for voicing their opinions, especially if you were one of the first people to help this thread get to 3 pages.

Also you got your maths way wrong, even if this would be a matter that is best decided by a majority vote. You got your 'no'-vote from 65% of 119. That's what, 70 ppl? There are 429 players signed up for eql.

argh can't believe i'm arguing this again.

Povdmm4 gets played more because it's the best map for the best mod (besides tdm). Also probably because you play 3 min rounds, in the same time you just play much more povs than dm3s...

I didn't mock anyone.

You do realize that a poll doesn't have to have 100% sample size? 119/429 would probably generally be considered as accurate.

Yeah this isn't a matter that is best decided by democracy. I think it's better that dEus decides what is best for all.

ok in that case:

e1m2
dm3
dm2
cmt3
bay12 (never played it but it looks sexy. also have the mapmakers on standby and optimize the map while the season is underway. any problems in gameplay should become apparent very quickly once it sees a lot of action.)

gl/hf


edit: almost forgot: 4 divisions, variable size, ie. smaller div 1 and 4.

About cmt1b the biggest problem imo is the large size and uselessness of some spaces on the map, for example the pent room and stairs up to crossing, it's too distant from other important locations of the map and besides the cells and sure the mega there is really no point to this space at all and should just be removed from the map completely.
The large size and distances makes the flow of the gameplay to awkward and slowpaced imo.
But again most importantly, the dead space like the pent room is what bothers me the most with it aswell as smaller things like the "bridge" from ya to rl, the other side of that bridge facing away from ya could for example have a wall placed there instead.
Just dead space that you never during playing stand at.

And again, I hope the voting for which maps to be added is done as soon as possible, and admins really should consider making every season a 5-map pool.

I picked those two maps because they hold a similar number of items, so to say that cmt1b has too many items would be implying that dm3 has far too many items. Would you like to argue why dm3 is a bad map because it has too many items?

And let me get this straight. You're accusing me of cherry picking favourable comparisons, but you pick 1 (ONE) item that is not on two of the maps and use that as evidence that custom maps tend to have too many items? I'm not going to let that slide. Here's your comparison.

DM2: 9x15h, 1x25h, 2 mh (total 360h), 3 ya, 2 ra (total 850lololol), 2 rl, 35 rockets, 1 gl, 1 sng, 1 ng, 50 nails, 1 ssg, 1 quad.

cmt3: 5x15h, 8x25h, 1mh (total 375h), 1 ya, 1 ra (total 350a), 1 rl, 25 rockets, 1 lg, 24 cells, 1 gl, 1 sng, idontcarenails, 1 ssg, blahblahshells, pent, quad, ring.

Are you going to argue then that dm2 has notably fewer items than cmt3? Even if they were the same size, they wouldn't be considered especially disparate. They are not the same size.

Maybe your argument isn't even about number of significant items. Maybe you only object to pent/ring. Perhaps you would like to argue that pent and ring are somehow bad for 4on4, and their inclusion makes a map worse? Or maybe you think an item being on more than one map makes everything homogeneous. Why do we have 3 maps with quad then? Perhaps we should remove rl? Every map with rl plays the same, I heard.

(Edited for mathematical failure)

It has some questionable layout issues at the moment, and no one seems to be working on it at all. Including it in the league pool in an unfinished state would be extremely risky.


Agreed. I don't really have a problem with the pent stairs since it is a very common ambush point for people who sneak lg and take it to pent, and it makes pretty good use of the space. Making it narrower would make you easy meat for rocket launchers. Perhaps the crossing that leads from it should be narrower to make it easier to spam, though. Also, I think RA floor should be half as big to make it easier to deal with spawners given the limited supply of rockets available there. The silverdome could easily be narrowed a bit, too. Pent though? That's just empty vertical space. Horizontally it's not that wasteful when it comes to the 6-man party that is pentagram every 5 minutes.

However, these are minor problems. I think the main "problem" is that it's aesthetically alien to quakeworld players. High ceilings freak us out! What are we supposed to splash!?