first of all I want to say that by throwing up this without any consideration of the mapmaking scene you have greatly disrespected me and other mapmakers.
then again, the mapmaking scene is in a very poor situation and I'll welcome any efforts to publicize maps
On February 08 2016 23:22 PengWin_SC wrote: (something that many other mapmakers have been absolutely awful at doing)
This is probaly because there isn't a way for a humble mapmaker to get populairity. The only way to get noticed for your mapmaking, without the pressence of a tournament or another community member promoting you, is by being very aggressive, which could easely make the public view you as a nuisance or obnoxious.
I don't really agree. It would be seen as obnoxious if you posted a map on Reddit like 6 times, but posting a new map that's just been completed shouldn't annoy anybody. That's the first step for sure. A lot can be learned from the way Avex does things, even if you think it's obnoxious to go around posting your stuff. At the end of the day, people know his work because he posts it on Reddit, and his maps have ended up being streamed by BaseTrade, Scarlett and State recently. I can't really say the same for anybody else except that I saw Antheia on Reddit as well, which prompted me to look more into Kantuva's recent stuff and include it.
except theres many out there that that have been posting their maps for YEARS and YEARS without ANY results at all, you are completely disconnected from the realities in the mapmaking scene, giving us advice on what to do is just arrogant.
On February 09 2016 01:14 Liquid`Snute wrote: if i was a map maker truly passionate about a map and not wanting to be obnoxious about spam and being a social media hero i'd do the following: A) save up money from work or find sponsors to throw a $100-125 tournament with bo1's/bo3 semis&finals where all games are set to be played on this ONE map. i think this is important because it's hard for players to learn a full map pool of 7 maps at once. putting your event on a quiet date with 3-4 days advance notice helps. EU events have the highest turnout and viewership so that's the best thing to aim for.
(yes i know money absolutely sucks, but that's how it works if you want to kickstart something without an existing follower base or major interest, think of it as drink money for a launch party i guess ... or an expensive frame and rental spot for your painting at the local gallery. if it is your dream to have people play your map at least once then this is a very real way to do it - we all know blizzard won't just randomly add good maps to their 3month ladderpools so might as well let having your map in the ladder be a lottery win type of dream and focus on small steps)
B) contact BaseTradeTV, SC2Improve, etc and see if one of them can cast the event C) Make a reddit thread and start posting there, even if it sux and even if you don't have an account, just DO iT D) TL thread and adding event to calendar asap E) post a tweet with a gfx including link to the map/tournament signup that people easily can RT ... etc etc ...
very few people are going to play custom maps without there being some special event to it i think, that's why custom maps have been limited to GSL, proleague and foreign showmatches mostly. sorry if this post offends anyone ala "lolol u want me to spend money after putting in 50 hours of mapmaking work" type of thing, i think it's constructive and a good idea to do something like this if you want maps played
there are few mapmakers who have that wealth at their disposal, keep in mind that making a good map is also very time intensive, to also pay for and organize a cup for your maps, which unless you're already famous, which none of the mapmakers are, will just end up with no publicity.
basetradeTV are not interested in working with any mapmaker but avex for some odd reason, they don't even want to as much as talk to us.
and just to repeat, posting your maps on forums for publicity does NOTHING.
Very pleased this event is happening, happy for Avex who's been working hard for visibility, and it shows.
I don't think there's anything wrong with SC2Improve using maps from just people they know. Plus there's the benefit of seeing Albatross's maps, as I didn't even know they existed.
Next time, build some hype by putting up a poll for your viewers to pick maps!
I like the thought, but some of these maps are no better than this season's ladder maps. I don't think it would have been very difficult or time-consuming to communicate with more mapmakers to get a better pool for this.
thanks for doing this and please don't let a cabal of self styled mapping elites bring you down. certain people will find any excuse they can to take offense that the world isn't validating their efforts and declaring them the creative kings of the scene
i respect mappers for what they do and understand their desire for exposure and recognition, but you are creating the event you want to create and honestly absolutely nothing entitles any one user to be included. if mappers want to be involved by you they should show respect and show interest in working together rather than trying to create a psychotic narrative that makes you morally wrong for organizing it
if you organized a paid showmatch between low GM ladder players, would you be morally wrong for not including players who are closer to pro level and "need" the money more? no. you can put on any kind of show you choose with your personal time and efforts, and people can agree or disagree with their viewership and with comments that aren't belligerent and arrogant
imo Templar has been quite respectful and constructive in disagreeing here and there's no reason for others not to follow suit
But anyways, I'm looking forward to some nice games! I'm actually particularly interested on Avex island map, players will dislike it and Liberator builds will probably reign supreme, but I'm very looking forward to seeing some games there!
On February 09 2016 03:17 Xenotolerance wrote: Next time, build some hype by putting up a poll for your viewers to pick maps!
Also, I think this could be a very nice solution to all the drama, even when a sizeable chunk of the population vote on visuals alone it is a very nice way to build expectations for the tournament and maps!
Excited for any future tourneys that will consider submissions from all mapmakers.
And yes as someone said it is his tourney / money and he can do w/e he wants, so you can't really be bitter or anything. Just like there was some guy named Incubus a few years ago that held a tourney for his own maps. They weren't good at all but he had a little cash so there you go. I wish I could do the same but it's hard to justify that kind of thing when you're supporting other ppl besides yourself financially.
Truth is while he may not be the absolute very best mapmaker yet (although some of his maps are very good), Avex has been making more effort than the rest of us lately to gain visibility and that is our faults for not also trying similarly. (Then again it can be tiresome and you feel like you're annoying everyone if you post for visibility all the time so I guess I can see the other argument a little.)
On February 09 2016 04:33 Fatam wrote: Excited for any future tourneys that will consider submissions from all mapmakers.
And yes as someone said it is his tourney / money and he can do w/e he wants, so you can't really be bitter or anything. Just like there was some guy named Incubus a few years ago that held a tourney for his own maps. They weren't good at all but he had a little cash so there you go. I wish I could do the same but it's hard to justify that kind of thing when you're supporting other ppl besides yourself financially.
Truth is while he may not be the absolute very best mapmaker yet (although some of his maps are very good), Avex has been making more effort than the rest of us lately to gain visibility and that is our faults for not also trying similarly. (Then again it can be tiresome and you feel like you're annoying everyone if you post for visibility all the time so I guess I can see the other argument a little.)
Yep, the visibility I'm fortunate to have is something I take very seriously and carefully. I frequent certain channels, and always make sure I'm not flooding their chats or anything, fortunately they enjoy my work and are okay with me posting those links. I've been figuring out when and where to post pretty quickly and if that's abused, or figured out by others, it would hurt all mapmakers instead of help them. I can think of plenty of ways on how to advertise maps and they all require a bit of work to put in.
On February 09 2016 03:17 Xenotolerance wrote: Very pleased this event is happening, happy for Avex who's been working hard for visibility, and it shows.
On February 09 2016 02:17 Meavis wrote: first of all I want to say that by throwing up this without any consideration of the mapmaking scene you have greatly disrespected me and other mapmakers.
stop taking things so personally, sure i'm a bit annoyed i didn't get to submit maps, but implying that pengwin is intentionally trying to screw over mapmakers is ridiculous.
for the record: making a map takes a significant amount of time and work, so a lot of mapmakers (myself included) often only finish a map's texturing/decorating process if there's a chance that it will actually be used, even if we have a lot of layouts/ideas lying around. so yes, it can be frustrating if there's an opportunity like this, but with no "preparation time" to finish things up and publish.
however that isn't a valid reason to criticize pengwin, who has no obligation to the mapmaking community and doesn't even follow it closely or know how it operates, or those people (uvantak/avexyli) who have put in the extra effort to consistently post maps (although i have absolutely no clue how albatross's maps even got found in the first place lol, honestly i don't think they're tournament ready).
it would be great if future showmatches have open map submissions, but pengwin already said that's probably happening, so again, no reason to complain.
On February 08 2016 23:22 PengWin_SC wrote: (something that many other mapmakers have been absolutely awful at doing)
This is probaly because there isn't a way for a humble mapmaker to get populairity. The only way to get noticed for your mapmaking, without the pressence of a tournament or another community member promoting you, is by being very aggressive, which could easely make the public view you as a nuisance or obnoxious.
if i was a map maker truly passionate about a map and not wanting to be obnoxious about spam and being a social media hero i'd do the following: A) save up money from work or find sponsors to throw a $100-125 tournament with bo1's/bo3 semis&finals where all games are set to be played on this ONE map. i think this is important because it's hard for players to learn a full map pool of 7 maps at once. putting your event on a quiet date with 3-4 days advance notice helps. EU events have the highest turnout and viewership so that's the best thing to aim for.
(yes i know money absolutely sucks, but that's how it works if you want to kickstart something without an existing follower base or major interest, think of it as drink money for a launch party i guess ... or an expensive frame and rental spot for your painting at the local gallery. if it is your dream to have people play your map at least once then this is a very real way to do it - we all know blizzard won't just randomly add good maps to their 3month ladderpools so might as well let having your map in the ladder be a lottery win type of dream and focus on small steps)
B) contact BaseTradeTV, SC2Improve, etc and see if one of them can cast the event C) Make a reddit thread and start posting there, even if it sux and even if you don't have an account, just DO iT D) TL thread and adding event to calendar asap E) post a tweet with a gfx including link to the map/tournament signup that people easily can RT ... etc etc ...
very few people are going to play custom maps without there being some special event to it i think, that's why custom maps have been limited to GSL, proleague and foreign showmatches mostly. sorry if this post offends anyone ala "lolol u want me to spend money after putting in 50 hours of mapmaking work" type of thing, i think it's constructive and a good idea to do something like this if you want maps played
ilu snute but this isn't a solution.
(A) Hedging your bets on a single map is a poor strategy to get your map on the ladder. This is because of the randomness of map contests which are the vehicle for getting maps on the ladder. Investing that amount of money/effort only for it to be knocked back really really sucks. See: Emerald Plaza as an example of this strategy failing (well, at least IeZaeL has more than one map but the point is that map got played quite a bit and was showered with praise from the community).
(B) The created:accepted ratio of maps is massively skewed towards the created side. And that's okay, maps are difficult to get right and some concepts should never make far. But at the same time it takes experience to just let a concept/map go and move onto something else. It's very common to see people pushing to see a particular map get played when realistically the map has no place in a competitive ladder pool.
(C) Even if we assume that we have a good candidate map and we're happy going all in on the candidate map, it's questionable whether one tournament would be sufficient to get the data required to make a map good. During TLMC revision periods we have to extensively iterate on possible solutions and make best guesses as to which direction leads to the best play. One tournament can show that an existing problem exists, it takes a second tournament to know if that's been fixed and possibly more to iterate. It's unfortunately a poor way of developing maps.
Having been involved in the map revision process for a while now, I think TL does a pretty good job ironing out obvious problems with maps and getting them to a tournament-ready state. Blizzard get the final say and sometimes those changes jeopardize the map (e.g. the LoS blockers being misplaced on Bridgehead empowering a particular all in necessitating a fix). I'd love for us to work closer with Blizzard to enable mappers to produce their best work while staying true to Blizzard design goals, I can only hope that we move this way over the next few months and move away from relying on the crapshoot this is map contests.
On February 08 2016 23:22 PengWin_SC wrote: (something that many other mapmakers have been absolutely awful at doing)
This is probaly because there isn't a way for a humble mapmaker to get populairity. The only way to get noticed for your mapmaking, without the pressence of a tournament or another community member promoting you, is by being very aggressive, which could easely make the public view you as a nuisance or obnoxious.
if i was a map maker truly passionate about a map and not wanting to be obnoxious about spam and being a social media hero i'd do the following: A) save up money from work or find sponsors to throw a $100-125 tournament with bo1's/bo3 semis&finals where all games are set to be played on this ONE map. i think this is important because it's hard for players to learn a full map pool of 7 maps at once. putting your event on a quiet date with 3-4 days advance notice helps. EU events have the highest turnout and viewership so that's the best thing to aim for.
On February 09 2016 02:17 Meavis wrote: first of all I want to say that by throwing up this without any consideration of the mapmaking scene you have greatly disrespected me and other mapmakers.
then again, the mapmaking scene is in a very poor situation and I'll welcome any efforts to publicize maps + Show Spoiler +
On February 08 2016 23:22 PengWin_SC wrote: (something that many other mapmakers have been absolutely awful at doing)
This is probaly because there isn't a way for a humble mapmaker to get populairity. The only way to get noticed for your mapmaking, without the pressence of a tournament or another community member promoting you, is by being very aggressive, which could easely make the public view you as a nuisance or obnoxious.
I don't really agree. It would be seen as obnoxious if you posted a map on Reddit like 6 times, but posting a new map that's just been completed shouldn't annoy anybody. That's the first step for sure. A lot can be learned from the way Avex does things, even if you think it's obnoxious to go around posting your stuff. At the end of the day, people know his work because he posts it on Reddit, and his maps have ended up being streamed by BaseTrade, Scarlett and State recently. I can't really say the same for anybody else except that I saw Antheia on Reddit as well, which prompted me to look more into Kantuva's recent stuff and include it.
except theres many out there that that have been posting their maps for YEARS and YEARS without ANY results at all, you are completely disconnected from the realities in the mapmaking scene, giving us advice on what to do is just arrogant.
On February 09 2016 01:14 Liquid`Snute wrote: if i was a map maker truly passionate about a map and not wanting to be obnoxious about spam and being a social media hero i'd do the following: A) save up money from work or find sponsors to throw a $100-125 tournament with bo1's/bo3 semis&finals where all games are set to be played on this ONE map. i think this is important because it's hard for players to learn a full map pool of 7 maps at once. putting your event on a quiet date with 3-4 days advance notice helps. EU events have the highest turnout and viewership so that's the best thing to aim for.
(yes i know money absolutely sucks, but that's how it works if you want to kickstart something without an existing follower base or major interest, think of it as drink money for a launch party i guess ... or an expensive frame and rental spot for your painting at the local gallery. if it is your dream to have people play your map at least once then this is a very real way to do it - we all know blizzard won't just randomly add good maps to their 3month ladderpools so might as well let having your map in the ladder be a lottery win type of dream and focus on small steps)
B) contact BaseTradeTV, SC2Improve, etc and see if one of them can cast the event C) Make a reddit thread and start posting there, even if it sux and even if you don't have an account, just DO iT D) TL thread and adding event to calendar asap E) post a tweet with a gfx including link to the map/tournament signup that people easily can RT ... etc etc ...
very few people are going to play custom maps without there being some special event to it i think, that's why custom maps have been limited to GSL, proleague and foreign showmatches mostly. sorry if this post offends anyone ala "lolol u want me to spend money after putting in 50 hours of mapmaking work" type of thing, i think it's constructive and a good idea to do something like this if you want maps played
there are few mapmakers who have that wealth at their disposal, keep in mind that making a good map is also very time intensive, to also pay for and organize a cup for your maps, which unless you're already famous, which none of the mapmakers are, will just end up with no publicity.
basetradeTV are not interested in working with any mapmaker but avex for some odd reason, they don't even want to as much as talk to us.
and just to repeat, posting your maps on forums for publicity does NOTHING.
sorry to say so but your approach seems very counter-productive to my uninformed eye
you say you like the initiative but spend most of the post complaining about it
obviously some mapmakers have had magic success through some kind of promotion. is it networking?? having a positive image??? any other kind of occult trickery? we don't know, and you as a self-proclaimed spokesperson for the mapmakers should probably be interested, but you just spit contempt and insult people instead of absorbing wisdom from the (real, cold, hard, unfair) outside world
holy shit albatross' korpulu sector 3. reminds me of the sick BW 1v1 maps where the map was elongated and you fought upawrds or downwards. Sc2 needs more of that shit. I thought avex was good but albatross' maps are even sicker
Unfortunately, being a well known mapper isn't really going to do much since the game completely revolves around blizzard. A lot of us who have been mapping since BW just don't really give a shit anymore until a TLMC or Blizzard contest comes around. I mean, at least before there were MLG, IPL, Proleague specific maps so there were more chances but now a day it pretty much revolves around blizzard. I'm not bashing blizzard or anything but when the whole goal of most mappers is to get into a high level tournament and/or ladder it's very slim pickings.
@Plexa yeah i didn't even consider the idea that mapmakers would be making maps exclusively for the sake of getting it to the ladder/wcs/gsl or having it played on a regular basis for months or creating a legendary map. My approach to it was more like my previous painting example: putting a lot of work into creating it, wanting to share it with people and be happy to pay a rent fee to the gallery so ppl could watch and enjoy. Maybe my standards are insanely low but i'd be happy with just a few hours of showcased gameplay on basetrade and a replay pack, doesn't have to be 3 months on the ladder :p like in these showmatches: a bit of sponsorship, showcasing new maps, good players, maybe some good games, maybe some bad, but far better than nothing at all and fun for the mapmakers, players and viewers
EPT
