radiant and a blank canvas, this is where the magic happens
I play first person shooters. In particular games in the Call Of Duty series.
I have always been interested in the ‘behind the scenes’ aspect of multiplayer gaming. The ability to create your own content to further the experience of a game was a part of what made the experience for me.
I was particularly interested in making maps themselves and thought it was something i could give back to a community that had given me so much.
That was what i thought when i first started mapping. However the more I get into it. The more my point of view changes from one of community to one of pure self indulgence.
I don’t really want to make a map for all to enjoy. I’ve tried.
Creating a multiplayer map for Call of Duty has certain limitations, as do all games, but Call of Duty maps are quite similar. They are almost all of a circular nature. and the game is played in rotation. For the vast majority this is no problem.
But it’s not for me.
I do not want to have to worry about enemies i kill spawning immediately in front or behind me. Or even in a position of greater strategic importance, just because i killed them. Objectives should be earned. Death should be avoided, not merely a temporary inconvenience.
With the growing importance of console gaming we have seen Call of Duty maps become smaller, vehicles abandoned (only to be revived and not properly supported) an increasing importance on more (quicker) action. Which is not such a bad thing, but i do not know anyone who prefers CoD4:MW to CoD:UO. A game that the community loved so much that Activision have endeavoured never to make again.
The beauty of making your own map is that you can do what you want. Don’t like certain aspects of the game? Do not cater for it! there are very little limitations on what you can create.
Which has proved to be a stumbling block for me in the past. How do you make THE map?
not THE map. I do not want to make a map that the community will adore. I want a map that i like and if other people do then that is all and good. But i will not cater to all ‘requirements’ of CoD gaming.
A good written guide on what to consider when designing a multiplayer map can be found here
>>LINKY<<
for any potential mappers out there it is a good place to start.
however i am not going to start simple, i have an idea for what i want, i always do.
Whether or not it is a good idea, and whether it is possible or if i will even be able to finish a project will all be clear soon enough
join me on my crusade for mapping’s holy grail. Start to finish i will try to blog on as much of the process as possible. Showing my train of thought, what I believe makes up a perfect map, my problems, my fixes or workarounds for those problems my correspondence on who I force my mapping opinion on, my resources, screenshots, maybe even some demo videos, the .map files at certain points to see what i have done in radiant itself and maybe test releases of the map so you can have a run around.
but first we have to have an idea and a working design from which to map from.
This I will cover next, happy mapping.
a finished map in radiant, this is “castle”.