Wondered what your ideas are about this matter..

On most city maps (or all) you can see blocks of houses on the outside, but when you enter a house, you can walk indoors for ages ending up on a whole different part of the map. Basically it looks like several houses are linked together by doorways.
This makes up for cool indoor fighting and supplies you with shortcuts, but is not realistic at all. Most houses especially in villages were quite small.
If you'd make them more realistic however, it'd be hard to move around indoors.

I find it hard to decide on the right balance between realism and gameplay.
Any thoughts?
.r

DoD has never been realistic. So in case you're about to make a map, consider the gameplay aspects to be more important.
Most maps have unrealistic room structures, but are extremly popular due to good gameplay. DoD has become a relatively fast paced arcade shooter, but you as a mapper could slow down the gameplay by going for realism. Some people will like it, some may not, if they aren't used to it.
As long as all enterable houses have a clear purpose, without people getting lost in deadends, it's a-ok I.

Realism versus gameplay is a difficult discussion. Every game has to do concessions to realism because of gameplay. I think Dod is doing that great in 1.3; in source i feel less enthousiastic: more realisme, but worse gameplay imo. The last sentence should not be discussed in this thread, though, cos TONS of threads are dealing with that. I only mention it because of the balance between gameplay and realism.

Make it gameplay-oriented only up to the point where it does not feel authentic - ie, make the architecture and building style realistic, but as for structure and placement, go all for gameplay.

I tried realism. Don't. Trust me. Your testers will love you for it.

You deffinately want gameplay, weapons that look accurate like ww2 is about all the realism dod has ever had. Hell look at some of the best maps out there... dod_harrytown I would consider to be the best dod map ever made and its pure gameplay - no realism at all. Doesnt stop it from being awesome.

I think you have to strike a balance. you want your map to appear realistic, but on closer inspection it is obviously built for gameplay. one thing that can be done in the situation you discribe is to have the walls blown up between houses. this way you get your realistic small houses, but also provide that backside path that is needed for gameplay. why do you think there are so many destroyed buildings in dod? ;)

I think if you are worth your salt as a mapper you can have both.

Yup deffinately gameplay before realism, afterall, this is a game, not a movie.

I say both and why the hell not.

glhf with that.

i don't know what to do regarding whitnall... yet

As someone who's making a map now, I try to make my houses as simple as possible so as not to clutter anything, yet keep it realistic. It may not be Euro-tight, but it's tight.

Hi,

In any game goes that gameplay is more important than realism. If we want the real stuff, we don't need the game.

Nevertheless I believe that a good game and an average game distinguish on the point of realism or believability (that's not English, is it? - Hope y'all understand it :D ).

What I'm saying is that a game, or a map for that matter, must have great gameplay, but that realism definetly adds value and can make the map better.

H.

Generally the "interconnected houses" in the official maps are connected by broken walls rather than doorways. It can be a bit silly sometimes, but it's better than nothing when you do need an inside route and can't justify a single building that big. In Argentan I simply forced the players to go outside to switch to the next building, but the doors are close to each other or there's some cover. (E.g. from allied cafe to hotel, or from axis apartment to the station)

yes I really liked that in argentan. altough it does still feel you are walking trough a strange block of (I think 2) houses.

Anyway, thanks all for your thoughts.

I'd go gameplay everytime

Three of the most popular maps on our server are poolday, tides and alterna, now arguably not in any way realistic WWII settings in any of them but the game play is great and thats what gets them voted for.

Realism.

It can be both. Just because something isn't exactly like it is in a photograph doesn't mean it can't be realistic.