Removing monolithic restrictions for new maps

For a long time I've wondered why is there such a strict criteria for maps being brought to the community. Here are some of the reasons why I think these restrictions/expectations should be drastically lowered or removed all together.

First thing's first, allowing more maps through, benefits the community:

• 1. This point is kind of self explanatory. If we allow the majority of the maps through the map checking process, the players will have more maps to play, thus potentially increasing player retention/interest.

• 2. Another benefit of this would be to encourage more mappers to start mapping. If I had to spend a significant portion of time (for the sake of argument let's do 1 week (let's say ~150 hours) into making a map and is deemed "not up to par" with the "standards" of what is expected, then it is kind of a mood killer to continue mapping. From personal experience, feedback can be quite picky/touchy/overly analyzed for maps to go through and in some cases even personal. Rating/reviewing maps is vaguely objective and is more subjective in my opinion. And as a mapper I would like to see others set times on the maps I create, not for me to play them in "new game".

• 3. I personally do not believe that players look into how "beautiful" a map is that much. It rarely catches my eye, even for major works as the hb_hopez (that took 3+ mappers over a year to make) that was recently created. This map had models, effects, you name it, it had it, and still, it barely crossed my mind to look around and enjoy the views. This is why I do not think environment restrictions should be necessary for a map to be accepted. It can be a simple room with a lightbulb and a few jumps and I think that would satisfy the majority of the kreedz players as long as the map is fun to play (has combos, is challenging, has new tricks, etc).

• 4. Textures. It is a pain point for me, since it touches on the "beautiful" part of the argument once again. Even if the textures are old, they can still be used in my opinion. I've seen newer textures that had a difference in perceiving the ground on them making it difficult to bhop (it is a rare occasion but it does happen). So making something "beautiful", again I will reiterate that beauty is subjective, doesn't necessarily make it better, in terms of experience for the player.

• 5. Mapping information. Currently, there are some guides out there on mapping, but the things I've wanted to create in the past were very obscure and not a lot of information was out there, as a majority of the knowledge is gatekept by individuals that have been mapping for years (by gatekept I mean it is not commonly available to everyone as you would have to ask those individuals for advice on certain matters, and I do not mean it in a negative way). This is why removing most or all of the restrictions on map acceptance would again benefit mappers as even more simplistic maps can be accepted and played by others (simplistic in shape, path, environment, etc). The previous statement would obviously exclude certain content on maps that is breaking the map, client, has performance issues, etc. I am mainly referencing beauty standards.

• 6. Nothing is preventing the greatest of mappers to invest hundreds of hours into a map they are creating, but I do not think, newer mappers or those who just want to create a simple map with a cool route should be penalized for not meeting those subjective beauty standards. All-in-all, kreedz is a route from point a to point b (in most cases) and that is the goal.

Proposition. Open a new server, if you are unwilling to "compromise" the standards of the current servers. The server's purpose would be to host new and only new maps, meaning that it might have a mixture of difficulties (all difficulties on the same server). The server will not be hosting any old maps (and old can be considered maps that are older than 1 year, the time frame is subjective and can be determined by the community if necessary). The whole point is to boost the creativity of the community and look at all sorts of "janky" maps with cursed combos, paths, environment, etc. The one thing I am uncertain of is whom will be creating/hosting the server. In previos years we had dedicated xtreme-jumps servers, but nowadays I do not believe they exist. So it can either be hosted on the kreedz.bg, or kz-rush, or any other provider willing to give this a shot.

The map testing will be limited: By limited I mean, check spawn positions, light levels, crashes/fps drops, and anything else worthy of checking in terms of performance (that is not a beauty standard). This way, the map checkers can still ensure valid maps are being submitted, but it wouldn't require vigorous map testing/checking for each map.

Accepted maps are to be hosted on the new server or the current servers if my overall proposition of "lowering" the standards is accepted.

Recently, track mania was given as an example for the creation of the map of the day server. Why don't we take yet another approach from their community, being the mapping. Anyone there can create a map, upload it to the open planet (their main community) site and from then on, the map is included in all sorts of categories based on the tags the mapper has provided and players can easily play it. Our community is much smaller than trackmania's and I think that we should eliminate as much of the sandgrinding as possible to allow almost anyone to contribue to the mapping scene.

"Why don't you just spend more time to polish your map?". I have 1 polished map to my name and it didn't make the cut even after tremendous help from the map checkers at the time. I addressed all of the feedback that was provided and yet again, I could only upload to cosy where the map was never explored by anyone besides the map testers and some players I gave the .bsp to. The main critique being I copy pasted the levels (environment) and that was not up to the standard at the time. For reference, this is the map (https://cosy-climbing.net/maps.php/5267/tn_train_escape_h/)

Personally, I do not value beauty standards in maps, and in my opinion it should just be a bonus to have beautiful environments, but not a requirement.

Let's discuss,

`RaZzoX

I see where you are coming from and understand your frustration. It's indeed a desire of every mapper to see their map being played by everyone in the servers, especially after all the effort put. And if the map can't make it to XJ due to weak visuals or any other reason, Cosy-Climbing comes into play. The difference in maps' visuals and effort was initially why we had XJ and CC. If you don't want to sweat for crazy looks and you think they're meaningless, you can just upload the map to CC and it will surely get released, and people will play it on all of the servers no problem.
Hence, i have a question for razzox: why not upload your maps to CC? Historically there were many mappers who sticked with CC for a long time and it didn't stop them from becoming one of the most known and recognizable creators, such as: mls, HaMMa, smk, dydka, hfour, and probably many others, who i can't remember. My point is, their creations are consistently featured in the servers because people like them.
If you think that your map will soon be forgotten among other thousands of CC maps shortly after the release, it's kind of true, but it doesn't necessarily stop people from putting it in the servers, like cd_666 is played so damn often, even though it's one of the ugliest maps, people still like it and keep playing it. Moreover, once you lower the standards and open the gates for all the creators out there, XJ will very soon become just as problematic as CC in terms of "my map will get forgotten in the pile of 5000 other maps", and that's exactly why we have division between XJ maps and CC maps. If some creators sweat their asses like crazy, creating unique atmosphere and environment, they are rewarded with being featured in the map pool of just several hundred maps (exclude the pre-2006 era "garbage" maps, altho i still like many of them, and they deserve that spot historically), which is much smaller, and therefore guarantees that the map will be noticed and played.
Besides, copy-pasting the environment is indeed not the most brilliant idea. There is fu_replayhop on XJ , but i was never fan of it anyway, and i guess it's just an exception.
Let's summarize it. Should you upload your maps to CC? Yes, of course! If the gameplay and ideas in it resonate with the playerbase, they will be played even despite being CC maps. Should XJ standards be lowered? I vote against it, because, once that's done, XJ will suffer from the same disease CC is suffering, and that, i assume, discourages you from releasing your maps on CC.

• Very interesting point of view. And to some degree i want to agree... but
  
  

• Flash has good point , other mappers help in discord too and give opinions how to improve it.
  
  

• sekai and SAJKEE say some important stuff. CC has the entry for any map and RJ servers will upload for people to play and do times on them once they get released there. That separation was so good esp in the 2012-2016 when i was really active, many mappers was posting their "test" maps there and gaining experience as mappers and seeing people play their maps on server , making them improve and eventually try XJ.
  This connects to Flash idea, a way to submit a "starter" map from even early development, and once it gets at some point or after multiple maps you can finish it and be accepted ... or some similarity on that route, sounds very interesting.
  
  

• So what i agree with is this : Yes 100% that the more maps are released the more mappers want to make maps -> more activity and more chances for better and even different type of maps and not same stuff-> players get more content= more activity and talking in general(good or bad)

  Most players indeed dotn care about how it looks.
  

• Now, given that i agree with that, i believe that this "separation" is still good , and also people while they dont care for visuals, they sure as hell notice it when it skyrockets .And also they can shit on your visuals if they dont like gameplay, but are way more open to compliment a "ok" gameplay map if the visuals are nice. And for that im the best example, i dont make the best gameplay, but if i put effort on the triangles tech and make the map cool looking and you can notice some work done, people are more "lenient" and dont criticize as much.(at least non toxic ones , i have 1 person that always has to throw shade... at first i thought was joking, but after 5-6 maps i realize some people will shit on whatever you make for some reason they have in their head , dont bother with that and keep doing your thing)
  
  

• My view right now , is that the system is still "fine" and has biiig room to improve for sure !!

But the problem is with how its handled....... it still extremely slow, months of "checking" a map and even more.. the most insignificant small details are "required" even for non-kz-tag maps... like the freaking texture align that everyone seems to be obsessed with, if its not perfect or 1 edge miss align= big ugly and must fix... and its easy to fix, but almost everyone these days plays and looks for those misalignments , they put so much weight on texture misalign that its ridiculous, i had random player in server point out a cylinder miss-align...(cylinder......cylinder misalignments are technically possible to fix, but anyone who’s tried knows how impractical and awkward it is....especially for something 99% of players won’t even notice) ... awful standards for visuals in a 30year old game.

The obsession with overly analyzing visuals is a big problem on this site for sure and while you point out about this , you are going 100/100 so yeah..while im only maybe 40 power on that :D

• What i wish is that this site had more openness , more communication, more interactions , from the team especially.

The site is sitting at 15/15 maps right now and there is no way to know anything , or a small short news on how cool that is and to expect this month a big release maybe... or something anything ...the site is quiet , slow and just waits for mappers to be active, instead of being open and constantly getting out in the "square" and say to the people , "hi how you doing today, we gonna have rain hope you got your umbrella , see you tomorrow for tomato throwing stand" some bullshit would be great, just to talk and say and express the most meaningless that is meaningful thing-> "hey community we still are"

• We can fix so easily the problem of having the few mappers left in this community being disheartened(like it happened with you)...if only the site took it seriously and was actually there for those mappers, making space for whoever is left and inviting mappers that never made maps for the site, like the chinese ones that apparently they are active but only on that part of the world... 2-3 mappers from there would be great...
  
  

• I will try talking with poker at some point in future, and i will try to push for a more direct way... but i highly doubt any of my simple but too direct ideas would be liked.

  Like an example of idea is, maybe we could have a page where people post their map submission, then a picture of it appears and under it will be the feedback . The mapper does changes and is posted on that page what was done, then the update of the status becomes 'Accepted, waiting release' , while before would be 'in-test/check' .

  People could offer help and they could get access if the mapper wants to. But the point is to have the open communication there, live updates where we stand and mappers and community could know. This can be a lower tier system than the normal submission, if the mappers dont feel as confident in the map, this will open the gate for 'any map' as the thread wanted.. but still keeping the standards at the end of the day, just more open in the early testing process that is usually hidden, slow, and overly fixated on the visuals.....
  
  

Anyway everyone is old..... the game is old ... and any energy left is somehow not noticed .....there’s a sense of complacency in the community ... things are slowly fading, but nobody wants to shake the boat...passion seems to be gone from most users...the ones that get it from time to time come back do something for a while->they see they get no response->they leave for awhile again(or forever losing another member of community).... is sad imo