trigger_multiple

[Survivor]

We know most custom maps get avoided like hell unless they're what the community finds 'fun' maps. But mappers which make crap brushwork will make crap triggerwork, how's that any different in the amount. Triggers are in most cases harder to get working at all than brushwork anyway, so it might even reduce the amount of lousy maps.

"But having more triggers will automagically make my boxmap awesome."

"But having less surely means maps are better."

Really lava, you're better at discussions than this.

[Lava Croft]

We know most custom maps get avoided like hell unless they're what the community finds 'fun' maps. But mappers which make crap brushwork will make crap triggerwork, how's that any different in the amount. Triggers are in most cases harder to get working at all than brushwork anyway, so it might even reduce the amount of lousy maps.

"But having more triggers will automagically make my boxmap awesome."

"But having less surely means maps are better."

Really lava, you're better at discussions than this.

You misunderstand me, I meant to say that people will hide behind their triggers as an excuse for shitty brushwork.

"Who cares my map is a box, I have a dretchcannon."

[Survivor]

I'll hand you that point, but that map was created, even without these additional triggers. You are concerned that it will increase the amount of silly maps, and it might for a while, but in the long run the difference on that field is 0 while it could actually help in making some interesting gameflow for mappers a bit further along their experience curve.
Quantity just wouldn't change that much, and a map which is shitty now becoming even shittier does not, to me, seem to be your concern.

[Lava Croft]

I'll hand you that point, but that map was created, even without these additional triggers. You are concerned that it will increase the amount of silly maps, and it might for a while, but in the long run the difference on that field is 0 while it could actually help in making some interesting gameflow for mappers a bit further along their experience curve.
Quantity just wouldn't change that much, and a map which is shitty now becoming even shittier does not, to me, seem to be your concern.

My concern is, as I stated, that people will neglect brushwork quality in favor of trigger madness. While I may very well be wrong, I doubt it. Naturally

[Survivor]

The only ones who would do that would be the new guys. Older mappers know that too much complexity fucks projects up and the young ones, well they'll either learn or die off.
Points seem to be in agreement, just the way we approach it is different.

[Lava Croft]

The only ones who would do that would be the new guys. Older mappers know that too much complexity fucks projects up and the young ones, well they'll either learn or die off.
Points seem to be in agreement, just the way we approach it is different.

IR BETTAR! :>

[techhead]

Soubok's pulse is a glaring example of an awesome map with fun triggers.
It had 5 main problems, in my opinion.
1. Map optimization and lines of sight. (The control room didn't help)
2. Map bugs, glitches, and other stuff like that. (Generators, pool room, grate-bugginess)
3. Some novelties that get old pretty quick. (Like the ENTIRE outdoors)
4. Steep learning curve. (How do I unlock doors from human base? I go where???)
5. Map balance issues. (Alien base, where to put it??? Humans in control room, other "Carney holes")

All these added up to a kinda fun map that no-one likes in rotation, with many people who downright hate it.
It could've been great...
But it settled for good...


All this aside, if someone like Ingar, Troy, or Supertanker (Even Overflow!!! (See: Seige)) decided they wanted to make a trigger-happy map, but couldn't, would you accept the blame? Noobs will continue to make horrible maps on their canvas, whether you give finger-paint or finest oil paint. In the digital domain, once invented and distributed by someone, oil costs nothing to produce, so you shouldn't force a master artist to use finger-paints.

[Taiyo.uk]

Amen.

[Lava Croft]

Soubok's Pulse is a pile of unplayable shit, and the perfect poster child to show why triggers do not make a map. It would have been a much better map without players being locked in some confined space for 20 minutes, while frantically begging teammates to open the goddamn door.

If people need all kinds of special triggers to make their map fun, they should look at their map and wonder why they need those triggers to make it fun. This doesn't mean that triggers will make a map suck, but they should never be the basis of your map. A good layout with neat brushwork is what's the basis of a map. As several 'fantastic' maps that utilize certain exoticed triggers have shown, a box map with an intricate trigger system is still a box map and therefore a failure.

[Amtie]

I'd love to hear your view on mission_one xD

[techhead]

Soubok's Pulse is a pile of unplayable shit, and the perfect poster child to show why triggers do not make a map. It would have been a much better map without players being locked in some confined space for 20 minutes, while frantically begging teammates to open the goddamn door.

The only part where you are 100% trapped is the outdoors, covered by point 3. The lack of adequate routes around lockable doors would be covered by points 3 and 4. If only we had more examples of good uses of triggers... all we seem to have are trains (and lifts), doors, and cannons.

Pulse did do a lot of things innovative and right, as much as it got wrong.
1. Best elevators I've seen in a Trem map.
2. Lockable doors that can be accesed from 2 points (Door and control room)
3. A decent idea for an outdoor area that pretty much ended up a flop.
4. A grate & subfloor system that was neither preceded nor emulated.
5. Good brushwork that truly emulated the feel of a sci-fi instalation.

EDIT: Also, I think Lava hates innovation in general, seeing how much he hates anything by Apple or Google.

[Lava Croft]

Yes, making a broken, innovative map is always better than making a non-innovative playable map. Right?

[n.o.s.brain]

hey lava, would you mind showing us by exampe how to make a playable, innovative map?  jk i guess you already did with sokolov...

[techhead]

Sokolov was a pretty map with nice brushwork, but the layout was bland (a simple loop) and gameplay somewhat broken. (Satgnu had a high aliens skew on it compared to on other maps)
ATCS3 was also pretty, but it had overdone brushwork for it's simplistic layout. It also was unfit for a Trem map, in my opinion, boring and rigged towards Humans (Second highest percentage human wins on satgnu of maps played more than 2 times).

I would rather have a broken innovative map than a broken boring map, no matter what quality is put into the brushwork and design.

I used satgnu stats because it is the only server Lava sees fit to play on.

[Lava Croft]

Both Sokolov and ATCS3 were testcases for my mapping skills, and both maps have never been promoted by me as being balanced or playable, just pretty looking, as was the initial intention. They were born purely out of frustration with people proudly releasing their boxmaps and expecting praise, and all the cheap ATCS clones that are/were about. I merely tried to show that you dont have to use the EQ2 texture set and ATCS brushwork to make a map. I have succeeded too, since quite some mappers have been doing different things, and certainly Sokolov's looks have inspired and motivated people to do better than me, which isn't exactly hard either. 

I don't care for innovation if it stands in the way of the gameplay/gameflow. Novelty maps usually have a short lifespan, inherent to their 'gimmick-ness', while maps that are conservative usually last a lot longer. Again, there is nothing wrong about experimenting with triggers and all the fancy stuff, but if the basics of building a good map are ignored, you are left with crap. There is no excuse, not even 5000 triggers, to release a boxmap with shitty texturing and bland brushwork. It does not pay hommage to the awesome capabilities of the Quake3 engine, as well as the artwork created by the various 2d and 3d artists out there.

PS:

I used satgnu stats because it is the only server Lava sees fit to play on.

All your wild assumptions about me are starting to get a tad boring. You have absolutely no idea on which servers I play, so stop acting like you have any idea just to make yourself look more interesting, thank you.

[Survivor]

Both Sokolov and ATCS3 were testcases for my mapping skills, and both maps have never been promoted by me as being balanced or playable, just pretty looking, as was the initial intention. They were born purely out of frustration with people proudly releasing their boxmaps and expecting praise, and all the cheap ATCS clones that are/were about. I merely tried to show that you dont have to use the EQ2 texture set and ATCS brushwork to make a map. I have succeeded too, since quite some mappers have been doing different things, and certainly Sokolov's looks have inspired and motivated people to do better than me, which isn't exactly hard either. 

But you cannot say it was purely sokolov's presence which made those maps exist. Most developing mappers move away from those 2 (EQ2 and ATCS) on their own. Look at yourface and nosbrain, they're still not making the most beautiful maps but they've moved away from their silly starting roots and have tried doing better and are improving.

I don't care for innovation if it stands in the way of the gameplay/gameflow. Novelty maps usually have a short lifespan, inherent to their 'gimmick-ness', while maps that are conservative usually last a lot longer. Again, there is nothing wrong about experimenting with triggers and all the fancy stuff, but if the basics of building a good map are ignored, you are left with crap.

I agree that the outdoors in pulse was not that necessary in its current inception, but the availability of a lockable door, which is in result an ingame turnpoint for gameflow is certainly innovative and a possible useful addition to mapping. This doesn't mean he did it exactly right but it was playable.  The same with his elevators, they are, as said, the best elevators to date. Imagine Meep with the pulse elevator setup, that would have added to meep. The same with meep's activated teleporter. The key point is to not let the amount of gimmicks get out of hand. Pulse had the luck of having a diversified amount of gimmicks so it wasn't that noticable, but it did suffer from it. Imo Pulse with at the location of the outdoors an extended facility would have been an excellently playable and fun map for the larger playerbase of certain servers.

There is no excuse, not even 5000 triggers, to release a boxmap with shitty texturing and bland brushwork. It does not pay hommage to the awesome capabilities of the Quake3 engine, as well as the artwork created by the various 2d and 3d artists out there.

Neither does the nonexistence of entirely possible triggers in the Quake 3.

[techhead]

All your wild assumptions about me are starting to get a tad boring. You have absolutely no idea on which servers I play, so stop acting like you have any idea just to make yourself look more interesting, thank you.

I apologize for my assumtions, all I had to go on was two things. The fact that I have never seen you on any other server but Satgnu under the name "Lava Croft", and your post under the favorite five servers topic.

Who needs a top-5 when you have SatGNU?

If you do play games on other servers, would you mind telling me a couple of them?
I would love to know if any servers have Lava's stamp of approval.

[Lava Croft]

@Survivor: Of course not, but it was one of the few maps that showed that you could do things differently, which was my point. I never stated it as such either, so stop taking it out of context.
On another note, where is your map?

I'll say it again, since Survivor seems to be a tad slow with this: If you cannot even make compelling maps with the basic tools you already have, no trigger is going to make it any better.

@techhead: I play on random servers and sometimes PureTremulous. The random servers are any European server that doesn't use weird gamebreaking balance changing patches.

[Kaleo]

Floor and wall maps are quite boring after a while (atcs, nexus, etc). With satisfactory interactivity, you can create much better maps, such as different ways to attack bases using teleports or target_pushes, etc.

How is nexus6 boring? It's on of the best stock-maps (karith and arachnid2)... And a lot better than most of the user made ones.

[Amtie]

Uh... Well, i can't really say it is, but i personally find it a bit boring gameplay-wise. And the lack of fps.

[Survivor]

Gameplay-wise it's only boring if hardly ever a certain side wins. And what the hell does lack of fps mean, what level of fps are we talking about then. Because anything >30 is reasonably playable and anything >60 should be absolutely fine.

[techhead]

Nexus 6 has the second lowest game-play FPS of default maps (Uncreation is worst), and certain base setups make it worse. (Aliens default, Humans elbow room between top of pipe-room and stairwell). Many people who have their graphics settings laid out so that they have good FPS on most maps and plenty of eye-candy to enjoy will find their FPS drop below the playable threshold, not too mention choppy from FPS down-spikes.