Criteria for a good map - discussion

I want to have an impression about what you care of, while playing through a kreedz map. I will not explain this any further, because I just think it needs no explanation. You can also relate your post to XJ's system and view.

I will start with my personal opinion.

I do not care about the design. We play a ten years old game and the reason for that is its gameplay. I love the physics, the engine, the movement and the tactics in aiming. The only thing I seriously do not care about is graphics.

I love buggy, unrealistic, unstructured, random and arbitrary maps. Also shortcuts are always unique and special. A nice architecture is good as well, also it is more about the jumps itself.

In my eyes a "good map" can not be defined. Also mappers can not build such classics as like golbhop or gigablock on purpose. These maps build itself, randomly.

So guys what do you think?

Long easy maps without wallbugs and good fps , some oldschool textures and dunno maybe without shortcuts :-)

I like maps which are enjoyable to jump and don't rape my eyes. Length is a very important factor also as well as the feeling of heights. Good mapping as in no wallbugs is somewhat essential.

Unique and innovative jumps that are not repetitive are always nice to have as they are rarely to be seen nowadays. Funnily, same qualities apply to textures: Unique, innovative and non-repetitive.

It's nice to see effort in the map in terms of design. Well-thought architecture is a very good add to a map's quality. What I want to see is innovative solutions to hide the imperfections of the old engine. I'm talking about innovative texture usage, bug-free vertex usage (nope, I still haven't seen a single map with well done vertex job for environment, so go for it) and quite some other stuff. I don't like looking at texture bugs or maps that look like they're someone's first map (e.g. tri_complex). If that would be considered as the ideal design, there would be tons of bland maps like that. It would be hard to see fast if the mapper is skilled or not skilled, has he used effort or has he not? It's a great way of prejudicing to just look at the map.

While aesthetics are nice to look at, jumps indisputably should be the number one focus in mapmaking. Unfortunately, this very important section of kreedz climbing hasn't evolved for years. I like to see creative out-of-the-box jumps in kz_ maps. It's horrendous to look at mappers that do a great design and put a lot of effort in it, but after that is done, they just apply a few jumps where you just have to run and jump straight to make it classified as a kreedz map. And rarely I see a solution where the architecture of the map is used as a part of the jumps. In this case, architecture limits jumpability. It should be the other way round; The jumps should be thought of first and then creating an environment around them. This is a lot more interesting than creating an environment first and then adding jumps. For example, have you ever drawn a comic? Would you first draw the speech bubble before knowing how long the text inside it would be, or would you first write the text and then draw a bubble around it? (Tip: Latter is more efficient) In this case, the text would obviously be jumps and the bubble is the environment.

Those are just some of my thoughts.

Good jumps is the most important thing in a kz map, but still when I read your posts it looks like the look of the map is almost useless... I think that plain maps with squary rooms and no structure aren't interesting to play. Just look some maps on cosy climbing and you will understand the difference between very old xj maps (which are meant to be ugly most of the time), it's still one level up. We shouldn't encourage mappers to build ugly maps without ambiance with good jumps only.
I also think that a theme isn't needed (with theme I mean something like a temple, so a cave, a cliff etc arent meant as themes for me)

So, in my opinion, a good KZ map is a map with fun jumps (a mix of KZ and bhop is the best, if the bhops aren't a too important part of the map // also big blocks are often more fun to play), a structure (which means that the rooms are not bot big hollowed squares, some pillars in it to fill it in, etc...), an ambiance (lights, shadows, few sounds, and for some theme maps, few models).

For me maps need better skill level progres fx: i would see kz_synergy_x or somethink like that.

If every jump is unique and challenging. If there's no shortcuts.


Still waiting for plane's bhop map to be accepted.... Why hold the community back rather than pushing it forward? makes no sense.

1) New, interesting jumps (Like the slidething on one of the cgturnier maps)
2) Cool atmosphere
3) Jumps that fit into the map (Not blocks where you ask "Why the fuck is there a block floating in middair)
4) No bugs (Wallbugs -_-)
5) Balanced (Meaning not easy - extreme - easy; either you make an extreme map or you don't, but extreme jumps in the middle of a speedrun map just suck)

The rest is personal taste, I like hard, long map the best, but I know many people like 2-minute shortmaps very much too

it all comes down to flow!

maps you understand even if you play them the first time. i hate standing around looking for the way... only if thats the case the jumpcombinations are truly unique and worth to remember.

maps with the same difficulty all way or at least not way harder jumps at the start/end. you have to be able playing them "fluently" without any fear for unbalanced single jumps (not including shortcuts)

maps with a original style, they can even have different themes for different parts but the mapping style (textures, architecture, environment ect.) gotta create a catchy ambient throughout the map

perfect kz map: cellblock

I assume this thread relates back to a similar discussion we had the other night chrizzo, and i believe there is no style of map that can satisfy a large, or even moderate portion of the community.

I think it all comes down to expectations, and as you oh so wisely said "mappers cant build such classics as like golbhop or gigablock on purpose. These maps build itself, randomly." - yet people are expecting mappers to produce them release after release. I myself, enjoy the newer maps (deathvalley / lostworld / problock etc) - It's all about playing that map as an 'individual', learning and creating the combos that make the map fun instead of comparing it to other classics.

I personally agree with lagster - fun maps come down to flow, perhaps a call for more jumping enthusiasts to become more involved in the map checking - ie. not only checking for texture bugs and whatnot (which is how it appears to be currently) but also for map combos / what jumps don't fit in with the flow of the map etc etc, of course I'm ignorant on the technicalities of mapchecking so feel free to disregard.