Title says it all.There are alot of great custom maps out there and I was just wondering what was needed to get them into the official rotation.Thank you.

They have to be good
They have to play well
They have to conform to certain limits e.g Texture Limits
They have to be politically correct i.e. No Offensive material
Valve has to like them

Plus more.

you have to marry someone at Valve

:P

Give some backhanders to the big fat guy who guards the Activision porch.

On a serious note- everything GL said plus: good r_speeds; good graphics (well if you look at CS or the strangely titled Sven Co-op you might think otherwise!); a degree of equality (ie no bias for team X); something which makes a map stand out; something which is plausible in WW2 (hmm still, it makes you wonder how flash got in...).

No one mentioned that it has to be fun.

The map has to be fun and stay within the limits. I would worry less about trying to get a map official and just strive to make a fun map.

Not fun like lego land type, but a serious fun map. Serious as in no jump pads or roller coasters with flying sheep.

high quality is very important, in textures and brushwork. no mis-aligned textures... no poorly contructed hills... and no bugs or exploits. everything has to built very well. You can tell a top quality map has been compiled a hundred times to fix every little thing, and tested over and over again to make sure of it.

outta the favourite custom map 'candidates' to become official, campagne is very high in quality, theres not a single poorly built block or misaligned texture (that i could find). falaise and northbound is up there too i reckon (although the snow mounds could be better made)

it has to be good
it has to be fun
it has to have no bugs
it has to have good brushwork..


i wonder why some official maps went official, looking at these criteria...

- every official map has bugs/exploits (specially anzio with the walk on the roof bugs near allied spawn etcetc)
- not all the official maps have good brushwork (looking at merderet, caen)
- fun depends of the ppl who play... but to me, cs kinda maps with 500 rooms to camp in = no fun/not good (switch)
- deathmatch maps are no fun/not good in dod (flugplatz)... well unless its ment to be a funmap.. but like kami said, those kind of funmaps dont get official)


only official map that comes close to everything = donner (but this has the worst clipped models ever)

Umm Caen can't have more detailed brushes, because theres so many entities and open areas (thus increased detail would be at the expense of r_speeds).

Flugplatz isn't deathmatchey! Well not when I've played it. You must be getting confused with Fuzzdad's other map, released at the same time "para_raiders".

Donner isn't one of the best maps- in fact its one of the ones I hate most of all!

The best official maps ATM are Charlie (I've warmed to it), Caen (ditto- somehow its better in 1.1), Kraftsoff, Ava, Forest, Glider, Zalec.

S-Bolt: How on earth could you possibly draw any connection between cs and switch? Cs maps half the time don't even let you go in buildings let alone have "500 rooms".

Some other stuff:
They have to be newb friendly, I'll decline to say more
And clearly different maps appeal to different people so try to get something different than other maps out there.

Kami's right, you should make a fun map above all but imo I think many mappers in the long run are trying to get maps official whether they will or not, custom maps often don't get the playtime they deserve.

Originally posted by Kamikazi!
...with flying sheep.

But flying cows are acceptable aye? :)

Originally posted by skdr
But flying cows are acceptable aye? :)

Pfft, cows own sheep hands down. I thought every one knew that.

Originally posted by Kamikazi!
Not fun like lego land type, but a serious fun map. Serious as in no jump pads or roller coasters with flying sheep.

dam, i might as well throw my dod_funkyjumpymariosheep down the drain:(

Getting a map official is a combination of all the above, plus gameplay is PARAMOUNT (a nice looking map with crappy play will not make it), add in good timing and a little bit of luck and the ability to compromise and to work well with others and you have a chance.

Once the team takes interest in the map you might make hundreds of requested changes in the next few weeks to get it up to a loose standard....then have to wait for several months while details with the release get worked out...then there are more tests...more changes/fixes and so-on-and-so-for. It's a very itterative process. You end up getting a ton of support for the dev team and the other "official" mappers and texture guys. For instance...I created the bridge blow up sequence for IR in escape and he did some texture work for me...you also get in touch with Waldo a lot as he is the sheppard to his flock of mappers and texture artists.

When I was contacted about glider...it was for the para map series...I had to make months worth of work to get it out the door because at the time it was a regular flag map (as it is now)...the intro glider-crash sequence itself took a month because I didn't know what I was doing (a month=working for several hours every night after work). DoD_flugplatz made it after I took my little itty-bitty map para_raiders and expanded it out...after three months of work I sent it to the dev team and had a few of them playtest on my favorite server and after that they pitched it with model help and after another month or so we got it to gold standard.

so basically ya gotta have connections :p

um...what FuzzDad said.

/me shakes hands with fuzzdad

I wub deh IRski....


And...it goes without saying...if you already have one official map in you'll have a better chance of getting your map before them. Think of it this way...you've already turned several "A-standard" papers to your history professor so he'll probably read your next submission before he reads the others...but he can still give you an "F" because as always...

...the cheese stands alone. So...we're only as good as the last map we submitted and each map is evaluated on its own merit.

So, when are we gonna geta Steam version of Hammer that can browse the game cache and all that good stuff. I had to reformat my computer, and I really don't want to have to install HL and download/install DoD in addition to having just gotten Steam up and running just for mapping.

Nem's has a beta file extractor thingy:

http://countermap.counter-strike.net/Nemesis/index.php?c=74#p74

/me shake hands with Fuzzdad IR and Izuno :D

The DoD team take so much more pride in their work than the CS lamers, the maps are changed every new version and the ****ty maps are thrown out, look at cs, its so blocky and ****ty.. and so my point is "Dont do drugs"
seriously, R_speeds must be at a minimum, small wad file would be good balanced game play - you could get it on a LAN cafe rotation and ask people their opinion on the balancing, that is very important. i dont like low sky boxes too, u cant throw nades far cause they hit the ceiling... j3su$ i rant a lot.
Showing them u can use entities well is good too, to cut down the render speeds and just make it look better, note the cool grass on charlie and the Venicilenaetsdfsdgsdg map;. i cant spell it.



i better stop i am ranting now. Last msg, post your map EVERY where and try to get it in map packs and stuff.

Errr wrong!

Basically, from DOD 2.0+ there have been great official maps, many of which were cut from the official line up:

dog1 - texture problems on some PCs, but had great gameplay (lost in 2.1);
heutau - huge, great gameplay, but had too many entities for 1.1;
schwetzingen - great map...;
zafod - another good un;
etc...

Flash needs some serious work. Since Xerent is not mapping any more, will someone on the DOD team sort it out? IE make it non-symmetrical!

Originally posted by CptMuppet
Errr wrong!

Basically, from DOD 2.0+ there have been great official maps, many of which were cut from the official line up:

dog1 - texture problems on some PCs, but had great gameplay (lost in 2.1);
heutau - huge, great gameplay, but had too many entities for 1.1;
schwetzingen - great map...;
zafod - another good un;
etc...

Flash needs some serious work. Since Xerent is not mapping any more, will someone on the DOD team sort it out? IE make it non-symmetrical!



dog1-was removed because the author refused to cut down the texture data .. it was his own chooise

heutua- was remove because the author was in the german army and couldnt upgrade the looks and add entities needed for 1.1

Although I here he is working on a new one now :)
Says will make everyone FORGET heutua (*sp)....


Listen to FuzzDad... the maps he has made are Outstanding. He has worked with some of the best people in the mapping and texturing people in the dod world. And those people that he has worked with have made more of the best maps out there.

Oh... and test the living crap out of it. Get people that you can trust will put out honest and real feedback!

I <3 FuzzDad, he is in it for the game! And you can't ask for more than that!

Originally posted by Cranbarry

I <3 FuzzDad

don't we all ? :)

/me shakes hands with IR Fuzz and Kleineh

did i say this already, but variety is spice of life. if all official maps played exactly the same, it would not be a very interesting set of official maps eh?

every release there have been maps i hated, maps i loved, but i'd go through phases of which maps i played the most.

but i digress...ok back to work.

What ever happened to maps that were based on real battles in WWII. I'm tired of seeing maps that the battles never even existed being made part of an official dod map.

Originally posted by mrballz
What ever happened to maps that were based on real battles in WWII. I'm tired of seeing maps that the battles never even existed being made part of an official dod map.

But in most battles, the soldiers ended up shooting bullets out of their guns, and thats the most important part. If youre so hung up in the "background story" of the maps, then just re-write the readme file for each map. Placebo effect.

Originally posted by Instacrome
But in most battles, the soldiers ended up shooting bullets out of their guns, and thats the most important part. If youre so hung up in the "background story" of the maps, then just re-write the readme file for each map. Placebo effect.

If you want to flame me, put down some valid points instead of using sarcasm.

A lot of the 1.3b-3.1b dod maps were based on actual battles that took place, since the mappers lived in europe, they could go to where the famous battles took place, and start working from there.

This really set dod apart from most WWII mods.

Now, it seems maps are being made to attract to the average UT and CS players like Instacrome, that don't even realize that it is a WWII game, and look at it as just another FPS.

/me battens down flame retardent hatches.

The point Insta was trying to make is the closest your gonna get to a real town is the name. No ones gonna go round town's and recreate every single detail to make it look like the original. Besides being a waste of time and money no ones gonna know any different. Plus having a real town name means that if the inhabitants of that town play DoD there gonna get *****y because its a poor representation of their town.

Even if you did goto a town these days, its changed a lot since 1945 so you cant go there and "start work"

Caen looks nothing like Caen.
Sicily looked nothing like Sicily
Cherbourg looked nothing like Cherbourg

The only realistic part was the name and the background story.

Originally posted by mrballz
If you want to flame me, put down some valid points instead of using sarcasm.

A lot of the 1.3b-3.1b dod maps were based on actual battles that took place, since the mappers lived in europe, they could go to where the famous battles took place, and start working from there.

This really set dod apart from most WWII mods.

Now, it seems maps are being made to attract to the average UT and CS players like Instacrome, that don't even realize that it is a WWII game, and look at it as just another FPS.

Which 1.3-3.1 maps were based on actual battles with recreations of the battlefield?
Some examples :

Dod_oslo - Americans were never in Oslo, and I live in Norway, Oslo looks nothing like that.

Dod_koln - Americans were never in the battle for stalingrad :P

Dod_cherbourg - A good map, but cherbourg doesnt look like that.

The names and storys of the map however, were pretty accurate.
The actual architecture however, was not.

As for me making maps to appeal to the "UT and CS players", sure, why not? I make maps because I want people to play them and enjoy themselves, that all comes down to gameplay and balance, not the name of the .bsp and the story in the readme file.

Also, I agree with everything Gingerlord said.

@Insta: <3

@mrballz: I made a map. Check out the picture below. I hope you like it.

i think the topic is starting to get lost and turning into a discussion nobody is gona win.. i believe fletch had a perfect phrase for this but lets not quote that here :P

anyways try keeping it on topic please ;/~~

Originally posted by Instacrome

Dod_koln - Americans were never in the battle for stalingrad :P


Which is why it was renamed to Koln, and reputedly set in Cologne!

Cherbourg IRL is a seaside town.. it would be interesting if it was updated to reflect this.

Remember dod_ramelle... hmmmm! That was a REAL battle!
dod_omaha... well that looked more like super mario than anything else :P.

But anyhow, lets be honest - no one really ever bothers to read the readme crap!


dod_oslo, snowtown and kalt are all progressively updated versions of the same map, right?

Originally posted by CptMuppet

dod_oslo, snowtown and kalt are all progressively updated versions of the same map, right?

eh no.
Oslo and snowtown both used to be in DOD back in its younger days :)
Oslo was made by arcturus (same guy who made dod_forest), snowtown was made by Vicious, Kalt by Waldo :^)™

But Kalt has the same basic layout right?

I presume that Waldo the .rmf from Artacus, as he did with Caen.

It's nothing new that only good (well balanced, textured etc.) maps get official.

But it is interesting to hear that the last bit to get a map official are the connections to the dev team. Because (as Fuzzdad said) the good maps only get official after months of work together with the dev team to make the map nearly perfect.

I'd like to know if the DoD team still looks out for good maps to make them official. Or is the mapper in the position to convince the team that his map must be official? Or does the mapper have no chance to get his map official when the dev team does not contact him?

Well if the mapper is not contacted by the team this means they are probably not interested.
You can't submit a map and expect it to get into the game without any changes. And in order to find out what needs to be changed so the map corresponds with the team's likings you need to work with them and organize and attend playtests and try and get as many of the dod crew in as you can for optimal feedback.
Most if not all of the latest official dod maps were tested by the guys over at CoJ Spies (/me points at Shane) and numerous ppl from the DOD team before they went on to the in-house Valve testers. It's a llllllooooong process :eek: :D

Originally posted by CptMuppet
Remember dod_ramelle... hmmmm! That was a REAL battle!


Not really. Ramelle = fictious French city on the Merdret River invented by Speilberg for Saving Private Ryan. Sorry to derail the thread even further...

Hello Mr Sarcasm.

/sarcasmdetector

the answere to the discussion in a nutshell,


you'd have to be sexy like me ;/~~

sexy ? dude don't make me post menkmapping.wmv

D::: ohmay i thought it was trown in the fires of mount doom


kill litleluka and takes it we must