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On October 23 2012 17:19 EatThePath wrote:
You think we can't get community maps used without proving expertise. You think we can't prove expertise.
You think we can't get community maps used.
...?
Almost, I said you can't get maps in the regular seasons of tournaments like MLG without expertise probably. That is why I believe the NASL segment is the best solution. Get some people (NASL is most likely I believe to to this) to dedicate a special segment to letting pro gamers have showmatches on unknown maps and let people vote if they like them, that way the maps get proven without risking the regular season because I currently do not believe that tournaments are willing to risk their regular season over unproven maps.
On October 23 2012 17:23 HypertonicHydroponic wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 05:11 EatThePath wrote:
Sisko, where are you on this chart? I can only believe you want map rotation Okay, Sisko... please try to take this with neutrality -- I have not engaged you in this debate, and I have even quoted you as basis for my position in this whole thing. What I want to know from you is: 1) *Why* you want the map pool to change? And maybe, corollarily, why did you became a mapper on TL? I like to see fresh new maps. I became a mapper because I was bored and opened up the editor to try some ideas I had. I'm still not really a mapper like most people here because I don't make 'serious' maps. All my maps are highly experimental mainly for me to test if such unorthodox layouts can work. I posted some of them on TL because a friend of mine asked me to and she has a tendency to not speak to me unless I do when I make one.
2) *How* do you see your maps potentially making their way into the ladder, tournament map pools, etc.? Not at all. As said above, my maps are experimental and probably "bad", I make maps with unconventional properties to them mainly because I want to test with friends how they play out. I aestheticize them up a little bit because I enjoy doing that.
I mean this is the first map I ever made. It has a couple of 3mineral+1gas expansions on it, no way Blizzard would ever accept that madness in the ladder. I do enjoy playing on that map with friends though and games get kind of weird on it. The map sort of has its own metagame and expansion timings.
I have to tell you, that I can see your argument to a certain degree. If what you say is true, and any mapper must prove his worth in dollar signs to the people who control map pools, then any one of us, as an individual, group, or whole community, must do so *prior to* the map pool controllers giving the maps any credence. But if that is the case, what can any of us do? Why are any of us even mapping let alone trying to figure out some way to get custom maps into map pool rotation? These are businesspeople, can you blame them for not wanting to risk their viewer numbers over unproven maps when they have proven maps?
That's why I believe the dedicated NASL segment is the best shot specifically to try out new maps and prove them and let progamers play on them.
To be fair, there are other reasons why one might enjoy making melee maps and even posting them here on TeamLiquid. Granted, it is likely the overwhelming majority that wish to get their map(s) into tournament play, or the ladder. But other possible, and even likely motives are: to improve mapping in general by getting feedback, to find others who might be interested in playing their maps, to put forth mapping ideas for others to see, to gain recognition as someone who maps, to display great map art, to collaborate on a map, to feel a sense of community in the enjoyment of mapmaking, etc. I'm sure a lot of people have their different reasons yes. But I do believe that wanting to get maps in tournament play is probably the biggest motivation for a lot of people, I never really cared that much about that.
I for one, while I certainly have hope that at some point a map I create will catch someone's attention as something really interesting for tournament play, I primarily make maps for my own enjoyment, for the community of mapping, and in the hope that if I don't get a map into tournament rotation myself, that maybe one of my ideas might rub off or be stolen (!) in a map that does.
Why do I want custom maps in the map pool rotation? Because I like to see new ideas tested, and I enjoy watching progamers come out with some awesome build for a new map. This is why I loved the OSL and MSL in BW. The new maps always made for an exciting change, in addition of course to all the other hype regarding matchup, personalities, etc. I know what map rotation did for BW -- I want to see that again in SC2. BW is definitely more daring to be experimental than WoL in terms of maps. But it's important to note that BW is also far less balanced as far as maps go. 40-60 was acceptable in BW, in WoL fans no longer accept that.
Unlike probably many people here, I think there are a TON of *good enough* maps to see this through on. Some better than others to be sure, so then the question becomes "well which ones do we pick"? To be perfectly honest, I do not think it matters all that much, I think just getting better map rotation in place is more important. That being said, I definately have favorites over others that I'd rather see played or play on myself. So the question remains "will which do we pick"? Honestly, I agree and I think people are being elitist for the sake of it, acting like maps are all bad to appear serious and critical. The point is that of the supposedly only 4 maps they claim exist are 'worthy', each has a different 4 sets of maps, so yeah. Again, the thing of 'authority' is that if two people disagree they can't both be authoritative. Ask every physicist 'Is the speed of light constant and absolute?' they will all say 'YES!', that is why they are authoritative on such matters, they agree with each other.
But that is where I see the major problem with this endeavor. It is not in the "how are we going to prove to X organization that this map is great for viewership", it's in the "how are we going to put together an advocacy group that has one voice for the mapping community". As far as I see it, that voice doesn't exist, even within mapping teams. I agree, it's one of the many problems. This 'council' will create unrest because many people will feel that the council does not represent the mapping community as a whole. the council will advocate map X, significant parts of the community will not like map X.
Sisko, the way I see your argument is kind of like the following analogy. You are the guy who says "macro better". When you say this, you say it knowing well that in order to execute a strategy effectively, you need to have the mechanics to back it up. You say this to the rest of us with the idea that you are saving us time in improving our game. However, the exception is that our game isn't based on mechanics, we're playing chess. Not really, it's more that you people ask 'How can I get 60 roaches at the 8 minute mark' , I'm saying "You can't!" You must look for another strategy to win than 60 raoches at 8 minutes.
Essentially you are answering the question "how are we going to get rotation?" with "you need to figure out how to get rotation" -- do you see what I mean? It's sort of a chicken/egg scenario -- you prove rotation with rotation working. That really isn't helpful and begs the questions at the beginning of my post. No, I'm sayingf that at this point it is an unrealistic goal to influence the rotation lf major tournaments heavily and you need to start smaller, like with the NASL segment.
So if your argument is really more that only the best maps are going to be able to prove rotation working for the map pool controllers, than really you just need to argue: we need to pick the best maps, we have no REAL consensus as a mapmaking commnity for which the BEST maps are, ergo we need to figure out how to reach a consensus. It definitely helps to prove that you're authoritative, if every famous mapmaker advocates another map and they also say the maps that the other advocates are bad then tournament organizers are going to think they have no place in listening to them yes.
I think the biggest stumbling block to this idea is simply the trust of the deciders to whom we grant the voice of the mapmaking community for the sake of advocacy. MAybe the Mapmaking community will trust them, are they going to be democratically elected though?
THe bigger issue is, will tournaments trust them?
Now again, I would be happy to see ANY consistant map rotation. But that being said, I fear having the danger of a precendant that will not be easily undone in forming yet another mapmaking clique as I see it. I am disappointed enough in the relative lack of general sociality within the little niche world we have here as a group of mapmakers. I understand we are all competitive about our maps in some way. I understand we are all competitive gamers to some degree, who get our thrills off of figuring out how to get the mental upper hand on each other. But really, when someone like NewSunshine who just a few weeks prior I was having a great time with on one of my few trips to skype-land starts sniping about why I shouldn't map in a certain style because my motivations (?) are wrong...... not that he's one of those on the council or whatever, but the community just doesn't HAVE a solid, unified voice. They don't, also, to be a bit more cynical, many mapmakers are like what, platinum league, diamond league? IronManSC is gold league I believe? Is his understanding of the game great enough? Apparently it is. I would say that as a high master player frequently facing GM's I know the game a thousand times better than he though. So why does this guy know better what makes a good map than I? It's a yes-no game until again, one party can proof that they can accurately predict which maps are going to be popular. Which can't be done because map pools are static and maps don't really fight for merit.
The first part of the solution, and this may sound somewhat contradictory given what I just said, IS some sort of community voice / advocacy group. And I think that for all intents and purposes, it does need to promote a certain subset of maps **for initial rotation**. But I think that the main goal of the group should be simply to advocate for map rotation IN ITSELF and not for any given map. Dig up statistics on the success of such a format in, OSL, MSL, GSL, whatever. Develop a solid argument, and lobby to the tournament makers. It can be an active voice and a community approved voice if it stayed as unbiased toward the maps themselves as possible. This can be achieved to some degree by a collective vote of Mapmakers on what their favorite maps have been. Maybe every gives a top 5 and the top 10 are filtered out. Then, a TL wide, reddit wide, B.net wide, whatever poll can be taken and then we will get our maps for initial rotation that we can all agree more or less fairly are the ones that are """the best""" at least in terms of what we collectively see in maps (more or less) AND perhaps more importantly what the community at large wants (more or less).
No it's not scientific. It doesn't have guaranteed results. But when viewership goes up because new maps are being introduced, if one's a flop, throw the next one in. The numbers in terms of potential viewers from community involvement should at least make tournament organizers listen, even if not every map "proves" to be a super awesome fighting spirit. Even maps that wind up being broken and replaced generally wind up producing some really fun and watchable games (until the one, and perhaps even including the one that breaks it, e.g. Flash on Monty Hall).
Anyway, that's how I at least see this advocacy group working out.
The second part of this, is where I see another facet to this advocacy group that I don't think is talked about enough, and that I think NEEDS to be discussed more, is the angle of attack we might be able to take in getting community support for the kinds of ideas that would make playing melee within SC2 better. While I understand as Plexa put it many times (including to me in a PM a while back) that "TL is not B.net" this is the home of melee mappers for SC2 by and large and we need to figure out how to spill over into B.net, reddit, whatever the good ideas that would make SC2 much more custom map friendly.
It probably works the best, but the point is, tournaments are taking a risk here instead of sticking what what they know works. Maybe this is the best system for the sake of getting good maps, but are tournaments willing to risk it. They are risking their income, not mappers here.
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I seriously hope this will stop being just talks and start being actions, I suggest you make a date and ask for possible candidates, and maybe something like a week after, we make a vote. Or maybe it shouldn't be democratic, I don't know, but it should happen as soon as possible. Right now there are so many different opinions that collide with each other, therefore I think that a single voice consisting of the best mapmakers that argue together until they decide something is the best solution to the pluralism. Also, there should be a chairman which then talks to the organizations or w/e to get things done, cause having a single person in charge is the BEST thing that we can do.
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On October 23 2012 18:09 Samro225am wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 17:23 HypertonicHydroponic wrote:
3) I want this advocacy group to be a voice solely for advocating map rotation, while being as unbaised toward maps as possible.
if it is purely about letting blizzard know that map rotation is needed, than why connect this idea to a council that is the brain child of the map making community? connecting us with the idea to ask for more maps is going to lead into counter-arguments that say map makers want attention/profit share etc. possibly there actually are better platforms, coming from a player/caster/watcher direction, to approach blizzard and ask for more map rotation. if there was more map rotation on ladder than we had more new maps in tournaments-and the other way around. But taking viewing experience as the starting point one would argue that low-level player and watchers and high-level players who are being watched hsould play on the same maps long term (that are being rotated regularly btw). so to put it all in one sentence: a council formed by map makers in order to promote more divers map pools is a nice lobby, but possibly not the one with most street credibility and on the long term this will not help to produce better maps, hence the outcry for more map rotation has to come from another side here. reddit?Basically what you ask for is a group to motivate the use of more custom maps - it is the promotion-role that Diamond took. It helped, but in the future we need better ideas beside promoting some map as the best map ever. yet the promotion is needed, but i want to argue if this is the map makers role. players cast occasionally, not most of the time 
Well, I think that's a fair objection, but here's my take.
First, and I'm sorry I didn't specify as clearly in my TL;DR, I think that the advocacy for *tournament* map pool should be one of the two primary focuses of the group. I don't think Blizzard needs to be lobbied in terms of saying "hey, you should rotate you ladder maps more often" -- I think the community already does that, as you pointed out. For the *tournaments*, the ones that are conducive to a more regularly changing map pool should be targeted (so not the MLG's as much). If they already do it "regularly", is it regularly enough? Are they considering any of ::infomercial wave:: these options? Did they know that the X statistic of frequently changing maps in Y tournament yielded Z? Et cetera. I mean whatever we can throw at them in terms of arguments, salesmenship, whatever, I do have a specific plan per se. :p But I would hope the group could lead the way in discussing / planning those specifics.
Second, there's no money involved for the mappers, or the advocacy group. At least not right now. Maybe there will be down the line. But as is, the only thing that custom mappers could get is attention, and I mean really, are the tournament organizers going to not say "and here's Barkfligon by Samro of TeamLiquid" (you can't have that name btw XD)? If custom maps, and thier mappers start to gain cred, *could* there be talk of money in the future? Sure, but things are not really there yet -- not even the arcade is set up for that stuff and Blizz has been talking about it for how long? And once the cred comes, are they going to be surprised when mappers would like to be compensated? I doubt it, and I doubt it is that much of a stumbling block in terms of the big picture.
Third, I absolutely would want casters, players, the community at large to start to praise custom maps, and to give the best testimonials. However, we still have to be our own best salesmen. You can't go into an interview and say, "hey umm.. I do this really well, but uh, I want you to be the judge of that" and expect to land the job. You have to go in with confidence in yourself and your product. Once you get someone hooked, you leverage word of mouth, hence my idea for community input on the "initial maps for rotation". Maybe if there were some notable pros or casters to show up on that survey, it adds to the cred going into the talk with tournaments. But as far as selling the tournaments on it, I think that it pretty much has to come from "us", and that we should be more active as a whole (i.e. the advocacy group/subset) in selling oursselves and the product to tournaments. If we don't have the confidence to approach and say, "oh we just make the maps, but we wish you would use them", how much cred do you think that gives us? And I mean, part of the objection I've read about Diamond bring the voice of mapping is simply the fact that he has an ulterior motive... at least "our" intentions are clear when we promote "our" maps as a whole.
Fourth, in a similar vein but not exactly the same, the second primary focus of the group should be to advocate to Blizz, not *that* the ladder should change more frequently, but *The Specific Ways In Which* the ladder (or non-ranked matchmaking) can be used in ways that actually promote custom maps, custom ladder pools, more frequently changing maps, etc. I mean like, think big stuff. For example, an idea I've had (one of many) would be to allow a group to purchase account right to host a ladder & tournament through the game client. The group selects the maps, people sign up for it. Blizzard gets a percentage *Through The Game Client* of enterence fees, bounty, flat fee, w/e. The top 32 on the ladder qualify for the tourney, the game takes care of the transition to the tournament. Boom, people get custom map selection, can play in the places they want to play. I'm sure it means work for them, maybe they thought of it. But if we tell them exactly what would be good, what we might be looking to systematically help everyone win, AND get the community behind it....? Do I need to go on? I mean worst comes to worst another game looks at our ideas, implements them and now Blizzard has more pressure to actually follow through on something we want.
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I mean, I get that we would all like in some way for their to be a universally agreed upon map pool, that is all at the same time the best objectively, and the best in terms of viewer attractiveness (cuz the first guarantees the second, right?), but the best in terms of the present I think is getting it to the point where the "best" will inevitably make it into play because the pools are rotating enough. Eventually, the MLG's will come around, too. (And I realize some staple maps are good for the scene as well, but at this point -- been there done that... time to move it along.)
On October 23 2012 19:56 moskonia wrote:
I seriously hope this will stop being just talks and start being actions, I suggest you make a date and ask for possible candidates, and maybe something like a week after, we make a vote. Or maybe it shouldn't be democratic, I don't know, but it should happen as soon as possible. Right now there are so many different opinions that collide with each other, therefore I think that a single voice consisting of the best mapmakers that argue together until they decide something is the best solution to the pluralism. Also, there should be a chairman which then talks to the organizations or w/e to get things done, cause having a single person in charge is the BEST thing that we can do.
I think this would be quite foolhardy to just rush into something for something sake because there's not much agreement -- how much authority or pursuasion would such an intiative have then?
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On October 23 2012 18:38 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +Now again, I would be happy to see ANY consistant map rotation. But that being said, I fear having the danger of a precendant that will not be easily undone in forming yet another mapmaking clique as I see it. I am disappointed enough in the relative lack of general sociality within the little niche world we have here as a group of mapmakers. I understand we are all competitive about our maps in some way. I understand we are all competitive gamers to some degree, who get our thrills off of figuring out how to get the mental upper hand on each other. But really, when someone like NewSunshine who just a few weeks prior I was having a great time with on one of my few trips to skype-land starts sniping about why I shouldn't map in a certain style because my motivations (?) are wrong...... not that he's one of those on the council or whatever, but the community just doesn't HAVE a solid, unified voice. They don't, also, to be a bit more cynical, many mapmakers are like what, platinum league, diamond league? IronManSC is gold league I believe? Is his understanding of the game great enough? Apparently it is. I would say that as a high master player frequently facing GM's I know the game a thousand times better than he though. So why does this guy know better what makes a good map than I? It's a yes-no game until again, one party can proof that they can accurately predict which maps are going to be popular. Which can't be done because map pools are static and maps don't really fight for merit.
do players have to show how good their understanding of the game is by analyzing as a co-commentator? some do and are good at it. do map makers have to cast? maybe they should sometimes in order to prove how well they understand what makes a good and entertaining match.
but honestly i do not understand your calculation here. both map making and playing need dedication, understanding and time. someones macro mechanics could be bad and he will never be a top player. someones texturing-mechanics might lack significantly and he wants everybody to believe he is super elitest because his gameplay-first attitude does not allow him to make some nice visuals.
why do i write about all this? i am trying to get back to your starting point and the quote that it might be hard to find a group of people that speak with one voice. there are so many different understanding what makes a good map and what attitude helps to produce a good map. while there is a lot of talking, few things happen. i am here long enough and lucky enough with maps being played (or not) in tlmc and motm might be one of the guys whos maps seen some plays at least - yet i think map makers should focus more on maps and at the same time desperately needs others who do the selecting, highlighting of maps.
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the reason why i strongly support the idea of a council is that melee map making needs a head, a spokesperson to orchestrate the "lobby" for map making that has to operate on very different levels. the lobby could be a network of people that is open, everybody should be part of it really. I try to make better maps and present them in a way it gets bigger attention, yet i can also be someone who is in a map making team who supports others and gets feedback from them. at the same time i can think about what could come next for map making "after motm" and what could be good formats for melee maps. i know some guys are working on a map data base and this could be a strong force in the map making community. Yet another thing is a vocal head/council - if you are not happy with its work select a new one. or get together a council that is appointed and supported by TL, including sticky threads for outstanding maps or even map feature threads (like featured news).
here is a lot of stuff that can be done in various ways through different protagonists. a council does not take away the responsibility from every map making individual anyway. it is just a selected group of people YOU want to trust.
and this is where the whole "union" idea comes from imo. if you do not trust that group that is to be formed, that don't be part of it.
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Well put Samro.
What I think would be useful to our cause is if we could get a well known SC2 personality to write an article on TL about the benefit of a more regularly rotated map pool. I think ideally day9 would be the perfect candidate as his brood war credentials give his authority more weight but someone like Doa would be great too.
This is something that we could do ourselves but then you run in to the problem of it looking like we only want to further our own agenda. Either way I feel like it would get a lot of attention from the community as it is clearly something that is a hot topic right now.
A combination of larger community support/pressure for new maps, advocacy from well respected SC2 figures and a Mapping council that delivers viable alternatives to the current maps, would, in my opinion, be likely get those that pick the SC2 map pools to make changes to the current system that we have.
My preference for the name of this council is currently the TLMC (Team Liquid Mappers Council) but I am open to alternatives.
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On October 23 2012 20:12 Samro225am wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 18:38 SiskosGoatee wrote:Now again, I would be happy to see ANY consistant map rotation. But that being said, I fear having the danger of a precendant that will not be easily undone in forming yet another mapmaking clique as I see it. I am disappointed enough in the relative lack of general sociality within the little niche world we have here as a group of mapmakers. I understand we are all competitive about our maps in some way. I understand we are all competitive gamers to some degree, who get our thrills off of figuring out how to get the mental upper hand on each other. But really, when someone like NewSunshine who just a few weeks prior I was having a great time with on one of my few trips to skype-land starts sniping about why I shouldn't map in a certain style because my motivations (?) are wrong...... not that he's one of those on the council or whatever, but the community just doesn't HAVE a solid, unified voice. They don't, also, to be a bit more cynical, many mapmakers are like what, platinum league, diamond league? IronManSC is gold league I believe? Is his understanding of the game great enough? Apparently it is. I would say that as a high master player frequently facing GM's I know the game a thousand times better than he though. So why does this guy know better what makes a good map than I? It's a yes-no game until again, one party can proof that they can accurately predict which maps are going to be popular. Which can't be done because map pools are static and maps don't really fight for merit. do players have to show how good their understanding of the game is by analyzing as a co-commentator? some do and are good at it. do map makers have to cast? maybe they should sometimes in order to prove how well they understand what makes a good and entertaining match. but honestly i do not understand your calculation here. both map making and playing need dedication, understanding and time. someones macro mechanics could be bad and he will never be a top player. someones texturing-mechanics might lack significantly and he wants everybody to believe he is super elitest because his gameplay-first attitude does not allow him to make some nice visuals. That's nice, but that's not what I'm saying, what I'm saying is, how can tournament organizers know this difference? As pointed out by many people, they don't actually know a good map from a bad map, to decide which maps are going to be in the pool, numbers are all they go by.
Again, the people here expect tournament organizers to trust them blindly without having some numbers to back it up, they won't do this. However, unless someone endorses the map who has some tangible number, say '2 GSL trophies' backs the map up and endorses it, that's something tangible.
and this is where the whole "union" idea comes from imo. if you do not trust that group that is to be formed, that don't be part of it.
It's not about if I trust it, it's about the fact that tournament organizers most likely won't trust it and as such nothing will get done by it. Again, I'm not talking about whether or not these people are right, I'm talking about that they need to be able to trust tournament organizers that they are right or tournament organizers won't listen to them.
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there is a problem with the way the quote is edited @SiskosGoatee
nobody here claims tournament organizers should follow the council blindly. Yet the fact that map makers from esv and tpw as well as others who are in this community for a while are interested in this discussion proves that it is important. the idea to create an "entity" that draws its legitimacy from a wider basis is crucial, because the means of communication and promotion of custom melee maps was not very successful so far. One positive attempt was NASL who just just trusted TPW and the team provided maps for a season. Was it a success for the game? i do not know, but if there was just more of this, custom mapping would have a chance to develop further, e.g. through more replays.
from my perspective I can assure you replays from any random game can tell you so much more than specific map tests. because players (in the replay) do not care about giving feedback, they play a straight forward game and want to compete and win in the end. in this MotM i could easily understand where my map and the idea for a wider centre and hence more possible attack paths failed and where it worked just fine. right now i am in the process of evaluating certain changes that i was able to come up not by specific feedback, but by a few games. sure players also have to adept to a new aspect in a map, but you have to help them and make the map's concept clear enough basically. my point here is: mappers can do better, and they need the help from non-mappers which again needs better promotion and more play-time.
personally i partly blame map makers for not making better maps, but overproducing - too many maps but also too many new concepts lately that are not thought through - that happens to me often enough, too.
one also has to point out that although we are all very happy that MotM happens regularly, players seem to take these maps less serious and do not play the maps to their potential - mainly because they are not yet used to them. and here again it is the lack of map rotation that we can blame, because players are not motivated to practice or adept to new maps!
think about blizzard producing more melee maps and initiating map rotation. suddenly it would be so much easier to introduce custom melee maps.
@SiskosGoatee: i think most people in this thread understood your point by now and i appreciate your long and elaborate posts. yet i have the feeling that we are talking cross-purposes :/
On October 23 2012 20:50 OxyGenesis wrote:
Well put Samro.
What I think would be useful to our cause is if we could get a well known SC2 personality to write an article on TL about the benefit of a more regularly rotated map pool. I think ideally day9 would be the perfect candidate as his brood war credentials give his authority more weight but someone like Doa would be great too.
This is something that we could do ourselves but then you run in to the problem of it looking like we only want to further our own agenda. Either way I feel like it would get a lot of attention from the community as it is clearly something that is a hot topic right now.
A combination of larger community support/pressure for new maps, advocacy from well respected SC2 figures and a Mapping council that delivers viable alternatives to the current maps, would, in my opinion, be likely get those that pick the SC2 map pools to make changes to the current system that we have.
My preference for the name of this council is currently the TLMC (Team Liquid Mappers Council) but I am open to alternatives.
not so much interested in names yet, be it for the form of organization or people who we need to get on board. yet i will try to get together a nice writeup of reasons for some form of non-team organisation.
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@ SiskosGoatee -- I'm not gonna quote the quote, that's getting messy, and I don't really have much to respond to from that last one (the big quote of my long post), so:
1) You seem to keep getting hung up on MLG, and suggest NASL, and that's fine. I get the reasons for doing so and am fine with that (even though nowhere did I mention MLG). But the way you present it stiill makes it sound like it's not really an option. What I'm saying, and what I meant about the "macro better" things is that this isn't about black and white timings and mechanics, no matter how much you say it is. If the parameters you are dealt don't work for what you are trying to accomplish: Change The Game. That's what we are trying to do in actuality (to a degree), there's no reason not to do it metaphorically. There's always another way -- in this case, there's the option to raise popular opinion somehow even if there isn't (yet) an argument from authority. And that's what I'm arguing that the council should really be focused on, raising general awareness/popular opinon, in order to then influence tournaments, and thus gain/earn authority. So in the end, the council finds it's entry point into what is otherwise a catch 22.
2) I don't really fully accept the argument about risk. While any entertainment medium wants to stick to "what works", part of "what works" is offering something interesting, and quite often offering something interesting involves offering something new. Without any risk, there is no reward and no growth. I don't think static map pools is an item that is so completely entrenched and calculated *in every case* as you seem to keep saying it is. So in some cases, like the NASL as you cede, it would be a good place to *start* to sow the seeds of revolution (rotation, w/e XD, of the map pool). And eventually, if everybody's else is doing it, and everyone is clamoring for it, eventually, MLG too will fall (if they are still casting SC2 at that point >_>).
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On October 23 2012 21:36 Samro225am wrote:there is a problem with the way the quote is edited @SiskosGoatee nobody here claims tournament organizers should follow the council blindly. Yet the fact that map makers from esv and tpw as well as others who are in this community for a while are interested in this discussion proves that it is important. the idea to create an "entity" that draws its legitimacy from a wider basis is crucial, because the means of communication and promotion of custom melee maps was not very successful so far. One positive attempt was NASL who just just trusted TPW and the team provided maps for a season. Was it a success for the game? i do not know, but if there was just more of this, custom mapping would have a chance to develop further, e.g. through more replays. from my perspective I can assure you replays from any random game can tell you so much more than specific map tests. because players (in the replay) do not care about giving feedback, they play a straight forward game and want to compete and win in the end. in this MotM i could easily understand where my map and the idea for a wider centre and hence more possible attack paths failed and where it worked just fine. right now i am in the process of evaluating certain changes that i was able to come up not by specific feedback, but by a few games. sure players also have to adept to a new aspect in a map, but you have to help them and make the map's concept clear enough basically. my point here is: mappers can do better, and they need the help from non-mappers which again needs better promotion and more play-time. personally i partly blame map makers for not making better maps, but overproducing - too many maps but also too many new concepts lately that are not thought through - that happens to me often enough, too. one also has to point out that although we are all very happy that MotM happens regularly, players seem to take these maps less serious and do not play the maps to their potential - mainly because they are not yet used to them. and here again it is the lack of map rotation that we can blame, because players are not motivated to practice or adept to new maps! think about blizzard producing more melee maps and initiating map rotation. suddenly it would be so much easier to introduce custom melee maps. @SiskosGoatee: i think most people in this thread understood your point by now and i appreciate your long and elaborate posts. yet i have the feeling that we are talking cross-purposes :/ Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 20:50 OxyGenesis wrote:
Well put Samro.
What I think would be useful to our cause is if we could get a well known SC2 personality to write an article on TL about the benefit of a more regularly rotated map pool. I think ideally day9 would be the perfect candidate as his brood war credentials give his authority more weight but someone like Doa would be great too.
This is something that we could do ourselves but then you run in to the problem of it looking like we only want to further our own agenda. Either way I feel like it would get a lot of attention from the community as it is clearly something that is a hot topic right now.
A combination of larger community support/pressure for new maps, advocacy from well respected SC2 figures and a Mapping council that delivers viable alternatives to the current maps, would, in my opinion, be likely get those that pick the SC2 map pools to make changes to the current system that we have.
My preference for the name of this council is currently the TLMC (Team Liquid Mappers Council) but I am open to alternatives. not so much interested in names yet, be it for the form of organization or people who we need to get on board. yet i will try to get together a nice writeup of reasons for some form of non-team organisation.
I definitely agree that a lot of the maps produced currently are not 'tournament level' maps, but are rather 'proof of concept' maps. I feel that this is a symptom of our current situation. MotM is currently the highest prestige that a map can realistically get, so people make maps that they feel is of MotM quality.
Going back to my previous comment about the council picking single maps to promote, I feel like this would help with the map quality issue as it could be very tightly quality-controlled. Especially if these maps are going to be promoted to the larger community as 'the maps that the mapping community thinks are better than our current maps'.
It's difficult because it seems like a lot of the best mappers have dwindling interest. If they made a concerted effort to give detailed feedback on maps that they feel are getting close to tournament quality I think that would really help.
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On October 23 2012 21:58 OxyGenesis wrote:
I definitely agree that a lot of the maps produced currently are not 'tournament level' maps, but are rather 'proof of concept' maps. I feel that this is a symptom of our current situation. MotM is currently the highest prestige that a map can realistically get, so people make maps that they feel is of MotM quality.
Going back to my previous comment about the council picking single maps to promote, I feel like this would help with the map quality issue as it could be very tightly quality-controlled. Especially if these maps are going to be promoted to the larger community as 'the maps that the mapping community thinks are better than our current maps'.
It's difficult because it seems like a lot of the best mappers have dwindling interest. If they made a concerted effort to give detailed feedback on maps that they feel are getting close to tournament quality I think that would really help.
from all your points one could basically derive that the map making scene needs a platform that helps to produce better maps. for reason like legitimacy and openness i would suggest this entity should be community based and not team-related.
motm could be a starting point. what where the maps in motm that were good, but not good enough for top5. did the map makers try to take the feedback from the judges to make their maps better? where are these maps today? if the producer did not try to make the map any better, one had to ask why he did not try! same with top5 maps: did you watch all replays? are you planning to make the map better or do you think it is as best as it can be? is your map ready for the big stage?
and after this whole thing the council comes into play, highlighting maps.
and if you do not trust people to judge maps than go the other way really: map data base, popular vote, tournament organizers pick from there.
don't get me wrong, this is a powerfull and important tool - yet personally i like the council version, because it creates interaction with the public and between map makers and also because the beach map does not take it all in the end 
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On October 23 2012 21:36 Samro225am wrote:
there is a problem with the way the quote is edited @SiskosGoatee
nobody here claims tournament organizers should follow the council blindly. Yet the fact that map makers from esv and tpw as well as others who are in this community for a while are interested in this discussion proves that it is important. the idea to create an "entity" that draws its legitimacy from a wider basis is crucial, because the means of communication and promotion of custom melee maps was not very successful so far. One positive attempt was NASL who just just trusted TPW and the team provided maps for a season. Was it a success for the game? i do not know, but if there was just more of this, custom mapping would have a chance to develop further, e.g. through more replays. Well, they don't have to trust them blindly, but they have to trust them for this idea to be successful, in how far are they willing to do this?
Mapmakers believe rotating quickly is good for tournaments and for the scene. Tournament organizers disagree, why should they trust people who in their eyes have a conflict of interest?
from my perspective I can assure you replays from any random game can tell you so much more than specific map tests. because players (in the replay) do not care about giving feedback, they play a straight forward game and want to compete and win in the end. in this MotM i could easily understand where my map and the idea for a wider centre and hence more possible attack paths failed and where it worked just fine. right now i am in the process of evaluating certain changes that i was able to come up not by specific feedback, but by a few games. sure players also have to adept to a new aspect in a map, but you have to help them and make the map's concept clear enough basically. my point here is: mappers can do better, and they need the help from non-mappers which again needs better promotion and more play-time. I am not sure I understand the point you are making here or what it is addressed to, please specify.
think about blizzard producing more melee maps and initiating map rotation. suddenly it would be so much easier to introduce custom melee maps.
@SiskosGoatee: i think most people in this thread understood your point by now and i appreciate your long and elaborate posts. yet i have the feeling that we are talking cross-purposes :/ I am quite sure they don't, even last post, you talked about having to convince me while I dove in the mind of TO's, I don't need convincing, they do and I'm not sure you're going to succeed, to get back to the original Tweet timetwister linked.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/NCiQA.png)
Look at his mentality, you may argue that it is the wrong way to think for him, but this is how he thinks, this is how businesspeople think. In order to convince him of your ideas that certain maps are bad and swifter rotation is good, you need hard numbers to show him. These are the people you need to convince, you can argue all day long that numbers don't tell everything, but numbers are all they understand and they won't buckle so unless you come with numbers he's not going to change.
You will never convince TO's to change the map pool quicker unless you come with numbers which indicate it is in their best interest, not the interest of the community, but their interest. It's not about who's right or wrong, it's about that they hold all the cards and have all the power and that you need to convince them in some way, and this council will not do it because again, they need numbers to be convinced, which this council cannot provide.
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On October 23 2012 22:29 SiskosGoatee wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On October 23 2012 21:36 Samro225am wrote:
there is a problem with the way the quote is edited @SiskosGoatee
nobody here claims tournament organizers should follow the council blindly. Yet the fact that map makers from esv and tpw as well as others who are in this community for a while are interested in this discussion proves that it is important. the idea to create an "entity" that draws its legitimacy from a wider basis is crucial, because the means of communication and promotion of custom melee maps was not very successful so far. One positive attempt was NASL who just just trusted TPW and the team provided maps for a season. Was it a success for the game? i do not know, but if there was just more of this, custom mapping would have a chance to develop further, e.g. through more replays. Well, they don't have to trust them blindly, but they have to trust them for this idea to be successful, in how far are they willing to do this? Mapmakers believe rotating quickly is good for tournaments and for the scene. Tournament organizers disagree, why should they trust people who in their eyes have a conflict of interest? from my perspective I can assure you replays from any random game can tell you so much more than specific map tests. because players (in the replay) do not care about giving feedback, they play a straight forward game and want to compete and win in the end. in this MotM i could easily understand where my map and the idea for a wider centre and hence more possible attack paths failed and where it worked just fine. right now i am in the process of evaluating certain changes that i was able to come up not by specific feedback, but by a few games. sure players also have to adept to a new aspect in a map, but you have to help them and make the map's concept clear enough basically. my point here is: mappers can do better, and they need the help from non-mappers which again needs better promotion and more play-time. I am not sure I understand the point you are making here or what it is addressed to, please specify. think about blizzard producing more melee maps and initiating map rotation. suddenly it would be so much easier to introduce custom melee maps. @SiskosGoatee: i think most people in this thread understood your point by now and i appreciate your long and elaborate posts. yet i have the feeling that we are talking cross-purposes :/ I am quite sure they don't, even last post, you talked about having to convince me while I dove in the mind of TO's, I don't need convincing, they do and I'm not sure you're going to succeed, to get back to the original Tweet timetwister linked. Look at his mentality, you may argue that it is the wrong way to think for him, but this is how he thinks, this is how businesspeople think. In order to convince him of your ideas that certain maps are bad and swifter rotation is good, you need hard numbers to show him. These are the people you need to convince, you can argue all day long that numbers don't tell everything, but numbers are all they understand and they won't buckle so unless you come with numbers he's not going to change. You will never convince TO's to change the map pool quicker unless you come with numbers which indicate it is in their best interest, not the interest of the community, but their interest. It's not about who's right or wrong, it's about that they hold all the cards and have all the power and that you need to convince them in some way, and this council will not do it because again, they need numbers to be convinced, which this council cannot provide.
1. I stated that i think right now there are not enough maps that are ready for rotation, yet more rotation in general would be good for the game (entertainment) and players had a higher interest to play new maps (adept quicker). this would imporve map quality long term.
you just cannot have numbers without games and you do not get better maps without things like NASL's TPW partnership experiment or TLMC/MotM.
2. I stated that the NASL-TPW partnership was interesting, but not perfect - yet it is a prove of concept: leagues already have put trust in map teams and are interested in more maps. map making community yet has to step up its game. Why do you say it is a problem. either we succedd in changing something or we don't. should we not at least try?
3. I stated that there is a problematic clash of conflict and that i do not see the map makers /mapping teams being the head of such a council. Also I do not see the council as the ultimate solution.
4. I have no idea what your motivation is to post in here when you do not agree to most ideas presented in this thread. it seems like most of the time you are busy proving someone else wrong and i have the feeling this could kill all positive discussion long term.
I feel like you quote my statement and put them in another context by generalizing. reading your last posts again feels like you see a situation that is you (who understands what is going on) vs. the other who you want to prove wrong only because they demand something from tournamnets what you think they will not get.
this leads nowhere.
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On October 23 2012 22:29 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 21:36 Samro225am wrote:
from my perspective I can assure you replays from any random game can tell you so much more than specific map tests. because players (in the replay) do not care about giving feedback, they play a straight forward game and want to compete and win in the end. in this MotM i could easily understand where my map and the idea for a wider centre and hence more possible attack paths failed and where it worked just fine. right now i am in the process of evaluating certain changes that i was able to come up not by specific feedback, but by a few games. sure players also have to adept to a new aspect in a map, but you have to help them and make the map's concept clear enough basically. my point here is: mappers can do better, and they need the help from non-mappers which again needs better promotion and more play-time.
I am not sure I understand the point you are making here or what it is addressed to, please specify.
unsure what there is left to be specified?
Astro Haze was chosen as Top5 in the last motm. Replays helped me a lot more than many map makers' feedback, because players just wanted to play, instead of proving where my concept was not good enough. by watching them playing i understood what could be changed. also they where not in a testing environment but played in order to win.
does that help?
(hi barrin, sorry for double post, but these quotesinquotes make me sick)
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On October 23 2012 21:58 OxyGenesis wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 21:36 Samro225am wrote:there is a problem with the way the quote is edited @SiskosGoatee nobody here claims tournament organizers should follow the council blindly. Yet the fact that map makers from esv and tpw as well as others who are in this community for a while are interested in this discussion proves that it is important. the idea to create an "entity" that draws its legitimacy from a wider basis is crucial, because the means of communication and promotion of custom melee maps was not very successful so far. One positive attempt was NASL who just just trusted TPW and the team provided maps for a season. Was it a success for the game? i do not know, but if there was just more of this, custom mapping would have a chance to develop further, e.g. through more replays. from my perspective I can assure you replays from any random game can tell you so much more than specific map tests. because players (in the replay) do not care about giving feedback, they play a straight forward game and want to compete and win in the end. in this MotM i could easily understand where my map and the idea for a wider centre and hence more possible attack paths failed and where it worked just fine. right now i am in the process of evaluating certain changes that i was able to come up not by specific feedback, but by a few games. sure players also have to adept to a new aspect in a map, but you have to help them and make the map's concept clear enough basically. my point here is: mappers can do better, and they need the help from non-mappers which again needs better promotion and more play-time. personally i partly blame map makers for not making better maps, but overproducing - too many maps but also too many new concepts lately that are not thought through - that happens to me often enough, too. one also has to point out that although we are all very happy that MotM happens regularly, players seem to take these maps less serious and do not play the maps to their potential - mainly because they are not yet used to them. and here again it is the lack of map rotation that we can blame, because players are not motivated to practice or adept to new maps! think about blizzard producing more melee maps and initiating map rotation. suddenly it would be so much easier to introduce custom melee maps. @SiskosGoatee: i think most people in this thread understood your point by now and i appreciate your long and elaborate posts. yet i have the feeling that we are talking cross-purposes :/ On October 23 2012 20:50 OxyGenesis wrote:
Well put Samro.
What I think would be useful to our cause is if we could get a well known SC2 personality to write an article on TL about the benefit of a more regularly rotated map pool. I think ideally day9 would be the perfect candidate as his brood war credentials give his authority more weight but someone like Doa would be great too.
This is something that we could do ourselves but then you run in to the problem of it looking like we only want to further our own agenda. Either way I feel like it would get a lot of attention from the community as it is clearly something that is a hot topic right now.
A combination of larger community support/pressure for new maps, advocacy from well respected SC2 figures and a Mapping council that delivers viable alternatives to the current maps, would, in my opinion, be likely get those that pick the SC2 map pools to make changes to the current system that we have.
My preference for the name of this council is currently the TLMC (Team Liquid Mappers Council) but I am open to alternatives. not so much interested in names yet, be it for the form of organization or people who we need to get on board. yet i will try to get together a nice writeup of reasons for some form of non-team organisation. I definitely agree that a lot of the maps produced currently are not 'tournament level' maps, but are rather 'proof of concept' maps. I feel that this is a symptom of our current situation. MotM is currently the highest prestige that a map can realistically get, so people make maps that they feel is of MotM quality. Going back to my previous comment about the council picking single maps to promote, I feel like this would help with the map quality issue as it could be very tightly quality-controlled. Especially if these maps are going to be promoted to the larger community as 'the maps that the mapping community thinks are better than our current maps'. It's difficult because it seems like a lot of the best mappers have dwindling interest. If they made a concerted effort to give detailed feedback on maps that they feel are getting close to tournament quality I think that would really help.
I suggest the question of "whether there is an over-production of maps and what can/should be done about it" be brought up in a new thread. I think it is ultimately irrelevant in itself to the discussion of the advocacy group, or any alternative ideas to such a group, and what it can/should do. While it may be tangentially relevant, such as to whether its a symptom of the problem, or a demonstration of a point upon which the community does not agree, it is hard to enough to shake off one blinding tangent...
@ SiskosGoatee -- okay, enough with the MLG and Sundance... seriously, if MLG won't budge, then so be it, we can tackle this beast from another angle. Fk'em (for now...) But also, you can't mean to tell me you believe that all TO's think exactly alike. If MLG, or whoever is the red-headed stepchild, we'll spank them last. XD But to hammer this home over and over is really starting to be unproductive when there are still viable lines of dicussion of to play out. You really ought to highlight your suggestions (or support for current suggestions) on how to get *around* the problem than reiterating the warning yet again -- I really think we've gotten it. (that said you have nearly single-handedly been keep this thread popular XD)
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On October 23 2012 23:06 Samro225am wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 22:29 SiskosGoatee wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On October 23 2012 21:36 Samro225am wrote:
there is a problem with the way the quote is edited @SiskosGoatee
nobody here claims tournament organizers should follow the council blindly. Yet the fact that map makers from esv and tpw as well as others who are in this community for a while are interested in this discussion proves that it is important. the idea to create an "entity" that draws its legitimacy from a wider basis is crucial, because the means of communication and promotion of custom melee maps was not very successful so far. One positive attempt was NASL who just just trusted TPW and the team provided maps for a season. Was it a success for the game? i do not know, but if there was just more of this, custom mapping would have a chance to develop further, e.g. through more replays. Well, they don't have to trust them blindly, but they have to trust them for this idea to be successful, in how far are they willing to do this? Mapmakers believe rotating quickly is good for tournaments and for the scene. Tournament organizers disagree, why should they trust people who in their eyes have a conflict of interest? from my perspective I can assure you replays from any random game can tell you so much more than specific map tests. because players (in the replay) do not care about giving feedback, they play a straight forward game and want to compete and win in the end. in this MotM i could easily understand where my map and the idea for a wider centre and hence more possible attack paths failed and where it worked just fine. right now i am in the process of evaluating certain changes that i was able to come up not by specific feedback, but by a few games. sure players also have to adept to a new aspect in a map, but you have to help them and make the map's concept clear enough basically. my point here is: mappers can do better, and they need the help from non-mappers which again needs better promotion and more play-time. I am not sure I understand the point you are making here or what it is addressed to, please specify. think about blizzard producing more melee maps and initiating map rotation. suddenly it would be so much easier to introduce custom melee maps. @SiskosGoatee: i think most people in this thread understood your point by now and i appreciate your long and elaborate posts. yet i have the feeling that we are talking cross-purposes :/ I am quite sure they don't, even last post, you talked about having to convince me while I dove in the mind of TO's, I don't need convincing, they do and I'm not sure you're going to succeed, to get back to the original Tweet timetwister linked. Look at his mentality, you may argue that it is the wrong way to think for him, but this is how he thinks, this is how businesspeople think. In order to convince him of your ideas that certain maps are bad and swifter rotation is good, you need hard numbers to show him. These are the people you need to convince, you can argue all day long that numbers don't tell everything, but numbers are all they understand and they won't buckle so unless you come with numbers he's not going to change. You will never convince TO's to change the map pool quicker unless you come with numbers which indicate it is in their best interest, not the interest of the community, but their interest. It's not about who's right or wrong, it's about that they hold all the cards and have all the power and that you need to convince them in some way, and this council will not do it because again, they need numbers to be convinced, which this council cannot provide. 1. I stated that i think right now there are not enough maps that are ready for rotation, yet more rotation in general would be good for the game (entertainment) and players had a higher interest to play new maps (adept quicker). this would imporve map quality long term. I believe that, you believe that, can be prove it to TO's? Again, it's not about who is right, they hold all the cards and we have to convince them.
you just cannot have numbers without games and you do not get better maps without things like NASL's TPW partnership experiment or TLMC/MotM. Indeed, this is the 'circular' part of it what makes it so difficult, they aern't willing toa dd maps which aren't proven, you can't prove maps without them adding them, pretty unfortunate.
2. I stated that the NASL-TPW partnership was interesting, but not perfect - yet it is a prove of concept: leagues already have put trust in map teams and are interested in more maps. map making community yet has to step up its game. Why do you say it is a problem. either we succedd in changing something or we don't. should we not at least try? I feel that efforts are best directed at something with a higher chance of success. I do not believe the council/union is the optimal form. Rather, someone, say Diamond, has to approach NASL directly to either get maps into the pool without the council which I do not think adds any swaying power at all. Or to try the segment where they host showmatches on unknown maps. Similar to Doa's Carthography, but more high profile and better players.
3. I stated that there is a problematic clash of conflict and that i do not see the map makers /mapping teams being the head of such a council. Also I do not see the council as the ultimate solution. I personally don't think the council adds anything and mapping teams basically need to be more active. However I do think that a melee mapping community could perhaps be made which is more than a subforum on TL which gives spotlight to exceptional maps as well as just in general content and interviews with good mapmakers about the ins and outs of it as well as offering tutorials and that kind of stuff to bring melee mapping to more attention.
4. I have no idea what your motivation is to post in here when you do not agree to most ideas presented in this thread. it seems like most of the time you are busy proving someone else wrong and i have the feeling this could kill all positive discussion long term. Proving ideas wrong for the most part is what happens if what people want to achieve is very hard and almost impossible to achieve. If it were easy to achieve it would've been done already, the reason that most ideas have a hole in it, I believe, is because it's just a very hard thing to achieve.
Again, it might not be in tournament's best interests to quickly rotate maps.
I feel like you quote my statement and put them in another context by generalizing. reading your last posts again feels like you see a situation that is you (who understands what is going on) vs. the other who you want to prove wrong only because they demand something from tournamnets what you think they will not get.
this leads nowhere. There's not a lot to go to. Like I said, I believe that the things people want to achieve are very, very difficult to achieve. You can think 'Hey, I want to achieve this, how can I do this?' but the truth of the matter is that many things are very hard to achieve. I want world peace, any idea I have to get there will ultimately have huge flaws in it because world piece is pretty darn hard to achieve. I do believe there are a lot of flaws in most ideas presented, which stems from a very large part from a, I believe mistaken, belief that tournament organizers do not know what they are doing.
I still believe that the NASL segment is the best shot there is at the moment.
On October 23 2012 23:29 HypertonicHydroponic wrote:
@ SiskosGoatee -- okay, enough with the MLG and Sundance... seriously, if MLG won't budge, then so be it, we can tackle this beast from another angle. Fk'em (for now...) But also, you can't mean to tell me you believe that all TO's think exactly alike. If MLG, or whoever is the red-headed stepchild, we'll spank them last. XD But to hammer this home over and over is really starting to be unproductive when there are still viable lines of dicussion of to play out. You really ought to highlight your suggestions (or support for current suggestions) on how to get *around* the problem than reiterating the warning yet again -- I really think we've gotten it. (that said you have nearly single-handedly been keep this thread popular XD) It's an example of a TO whose view is clearly documented. I do think most if not all think like that since that's the way you make something big, you don't follow your heart, you follow numbers, numbers don't lie.
However, as I said, long tournaments will be more likely than short tournaments to add new maps, so NASL is our best hope I feel since GSL is clearly out of reach.
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On October 23 2012 23:55 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 23:06 Samro225am wrote:On October 23 2012 22:29 SiskosGoatee wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On October 23 2012 21:36 Samro225am wrote:
there is a problem with the way the quote is edited @SiskosGoatee
nobody here claims tournament organizers should follow the council blindly. Yet the fact that map makers from esv and tpw as well as others who are in this community for a while are interested in this discussion proves that it is important. the idea to create an "entity" that draws its legitimacy from a wider basis is crucial, because the means of communication and promotion of custom melee maps was not very successful so far. One positive attempt was NASL who just just trusted TPW and the team provided maps for a season. Was it a success for the game? i do not know, but if there was just more of this, custom mapping would have a chance to develop further, e.g. through more replays. Well, they don't have to trust them blindly, but they have to trust them for this idea to be successful, in how far are they willing to do this? Mapmakers believe rotating quickly is good for tournaments and for the scene. Tournament organizers disagree, why should they trust people who in their eyes have a conflict of interest? from my perspective I can assure you replays from any random game can tell you so much more than specific map tests. because players (in the replay) do not care about giving feedback, they play a straight forward game and want to compete and win in the end. in this MotM i could easily understand where my map and the idea for a wider centre and hence more possible attack paths failed and where it worked just fine. right now i am in the process of evaluating certain changes that i was able to come up not by specific feedback, but by a few games. sure players also have to adept to a new aspect in a map, but you have to help them and make the map's concept clear enough basically. my point here is: mappers can do better, and they need the help from non-mappers which again needs better promotion and more play-time. I am not sure I understand the point you are making here or what it is addressed to, please specify. think about blizzard producing more melee maps and initiating map rotation. suddenly it would be so much easier to introduce custom melee maps. @SiskosGoatee: i think most people in this thread understood your point by now and i appreciate your long and elaborate posts. yet i have the feeling that we are talking cross-purposes :/ I am quite sure they don't, even last post, you talked about having to convince me while I dove in the mind of TO's, I don't need convincing, they do and I'm not sure you're going to succeed, to get back to the original Tweet timetwister linked. Look at his mentality, you may argue that it is the wrong way to think for him, but this is how he thinks, this is how businesspeople think. In order to convince him of your ideas that certain maps are bad and swifter rotation is good, you need hard numbers to show him. These are the people you need to convince, you can argue all day long that numbers don't tell everything, but numbers are all they understand and they won't buckle so unless you come with numbers he's not going to change. You will never convince TO's to change the map pool quicker unless you come with numbers which indicate it is in their best interest, not the interest of the community, but their interest. It's not about who's right or wrong, it's about that they hold all the cards and have all the power and that you need to convince them in some way, and this council will not do it because again, they need numbers to be convinced, which this council cannot provide. 1. I stated that i think right now there are not enough maps that are ready for rotation, yet more rotation in general would be good for the game (entertainment) and players had a higher interest to play new maps (adept quicker). this would imporve map quality long term. I believe that, you believe that, can be prove it to TO's? Again, it's not about who is right, they hold all the cards and we have to convince them. Show nested quote +you just cannot have numbers without games and you do not get better maps without things like NASL's TPW partnership experiment or TLMC/MotM. Indeed, this is the 'circular' part of it what makes it so difficult, they aern't willing toa dd maps which aren't proven, you can't prove maps without them adding them, pretty unfortunate. Show nested quote +2. I stated that the NASL-TPW partnership was interesting, but not perfect - yet it is a prove of concept: leagues already have put trust in map teams and are interested in more maps. map making community yet has to step up its game. Why do you say it is a problem. either we succedd in changing something or we don't. should we not at least try? I feel that efforts are best directed at something with a higher chance of success. I do not believe the council/union is the optimal form. Rather, someone, say Diamond, has to approach NASL directly to either get maps into the pool without the council which I do not think adds any swaying power at all. Or to try the segment where they host showmatches on unknown maps. Similar to Doa's Carthography, but more high profile and better players. Show nested quote +3. I stated that there is a problematic clash of conflict and that i do not see the map makers /mapping teams being the head of such a council. Also I do not see the council as the ultimate solution. I personally don't think the council adds anything and mapping teams basically need to be more active. However I do think that a melee mapping community could perhaps be made which is more than a subforum on TL which gives spotlight to exceptional maps as well as just in general content and interviews with good mapmakers about the ins and outs of it as well as offering tutorials and that kind of stuff to bring melee mapping to more attention. Show nested quote +4. I have no idea what your motivation is to post in here when you do not agree to most ideas presented in this thread. it seems like most of the time you are busy proving someone else wrong and i have the feeling this could kill all positive discussion long term. Proving ideas wrong for the most part is what happens if what people want to achieve is very hard and almost impossible to achieve. If it were easy to achieve it would've been done already, the reason that most ideas have a hole in it, I believe, is because it's just a very hard thing to achieve. Again, it might not be in tournament's best interests to quickly rotate maps. Show nested quote +I feel like you quote my statement and put them in another context by generalizing. reading your last posts again feels like you see a situation that is you (who understands what is going on) vs. the other who you want to prove wrong only because they demand something from tournamnets what you think they will not get.
this leads nowhere. There's not a lot to go to. Like I said, I believe that the things people want to achieve are very, very difficult to achieve. You can think 'Hey, I want to achieve this, how can I do this?' but the truth of the matter is that many things are very hard to achieve. I want world peace, any idea I have to get there will ultimately have huge flaws in it because world piece is pretty darn hard to achieve. I do believe there are a lot of flaws in most ideas presented, which stems from a very large part from a, I believe mistaken, belief that tournament organizers do not know what they are doing. I still believe that the NASL segment is the best shot there is at the moment. Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 23:29 HypertonicHydroponic wrote:
@ SiskosGoatee -- okay, enough with the MLG and Sundance... seriously, if MLG won't budge, then so be it, we can tackle this beast from another angle. Fk'em (for now...) But also, you can't mean to tell me you believe that all TO's think exactly alike. If MLG, or whoever is the red-headed stepchild, we'll spank them last. XD But to hammer this home over and over is really starting to be unproductive when there are still viable lines of dicussion of to play out. You really ought to highlight your suggestions (or support for current suggestions) on how to get *around* the problem than reiterating the warning yet again -- I really think we've gotten it. (that said you have nearly single-handedly been keep this thread popular XD) It's an example of a TO whose view is clearly documented. I do think most if not all think like that since that's the way you make something big, you don't follow your heart, you follow numbers, numbers don't lie. However, as I said, long tournaments will be more likely than short tournaments to add new maps, so NASL is our best hope I feel since GSL is clearly out of reach.
Sisko, please, stop.
We got it 3 pages ago.
You are just regurgitating now.
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On October 23 2012 23:55 SiskosGoatee wrote:
I feel that efforts are best directed at something with a higher chance of success. I do not believe the council/union is the optimal form. Rather, someone, say Diamond, has to approach NASL directly to either get maps into the pool without the council which I do not think adds any swaying power at all. Or to try the segment where they host showmatches on unknown maps. Similar to Doa's Carthography, but more high profile and better players.
why should Diamond care for a wider group of map makers? he has his own agenda. also why should map makers make themselves more dependent on one single person, when every map maker who is interested could deligate his energy to a board he has trust in?
On October 23 2012 23:55 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +3. I stated that there is a problematic clash of conflict and that i do not see the map makers /mapping teams being the head of such a council. Also I do not see the council as the ultimate solution. I personally don't think the council adds anything and mapping teams basically need to be more active. However I do think that a melee mapping community could perhaps be made which is more than a subforum on TL which gives spotlight to exceptional maps as well as just in general content and interviews with good mapmakers about the ins and outs of it as well as offering tutorials and that kind of stuff to bring melee mapping to more attention.
teams have a number of problems. they depend on inner-team dynamics, they cannot speak for bigger parts of the community and most importantly they do not have a wider legitimacy beside promoting themselves. there actually is quite a collision of interests, even within teams, because a team would have to promote maps from everybody in the team and say that the maps are great (Diamond's approach, at least what was seen publicly).
a board could pic 0 to 10 maps every few month, say three times a year probably, and suggest their use.
such a board is more legit than a team because it is on a bigger level and gets the support from bigger chunks of the community hopefully.
if you cannot agree on these two points I guess you have no reason to support this idea and i would like to ask for your motivation to post here. maybe after reality proved us wrong you want to say you knew it from the start? 
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On October 24 2012 00:13 Samro225am wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 23:55 SiskosGoatee wrote:
I feel that efforts are best directed at something with a higher chance of success. I do not believe the council/union is the optimal form. Rather, someone, say Diamond, has to approach NASL directly to either get maps into the pool without the council which I do not think adds any swaying power at all. Or to try the segment where they host showmatches on unknown maps. Similar to Doa's Carthography, but more high profile and better players.
why should Diamond care for a wider group of map makers? He shouldn't, but he obviously does care deeply about the entire mapmaking scene and he's notable and an active member of the community. so he's a good shot.
he has his own agenda. also why should map makers make themselves more dependent on one single person, when every map maker who is interested could deligate his energy to a board he has trust in? He just needs tog et the ball rolling and open collaborate with them to get the segment going, that's it, after that the segment exists.
teams have a number of problems. they depend on inner-team dynamics, they cannot speak for bigger parts of the community and most importantly they do not have a wider legitimacy beside promoting themselves. there actually is quite a collision of interests, even within teams, because a team would have to promote maps from everybody in the team and say that the maps are great (Diamond's approach, at least what was seen publicly).
That's why all teams need to promote themselves. Council members will also end up being part of teams in the end so it does not alleviate the problem or what function the Council serves because:
- It is already established that the mapmaking community is not unified in its consideration of what maps are good, therefore, the council does not speak for the mapmaking community as a unified voice, they may claim they do, but other parties will find it hard to consider it as such.
- The first obstacle to overcome is to convince tournament organizers that map pools need to rotate and be fresh, something a council structure has no impact on.
if you cannot agree on these two points I guess you have no reason to support this idea and i would like to ask for your motivation to post here. maybe after reality proved us wrong you want to say you knew it from the start?
I mean, I want to see games being played on new and fresh maps and I believe that doing it like this gives the highest probability of success.
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On October 24 2012 00:28 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2012 00:13 Samro225am wrote:On October 23 2012 23:55 SiskosGoatee wrote:
I feel that efforts are best directed at something with a higher chance of success. I do not believe the council/union is the optimal form. Rather, someone, say Diamond, has to approach NASL directly to either get maps into the pool without the council which I do not think adds any swaying power at all. Or to try the segment where they host showmatches on unknown maps. Similar to Doa's Carthography, but more high profile and better players.
why should Diamond care for a wider group of map makers? He shouldn't, but he obviously does care deeply about the entire mapmaking scene and he's notable and an active member of the community. so he's a good shot. Show nested quote +he has his own agenda. also why should map makers make themselves more dependent on one single person, when every map maker who is interested could deligate his energy to a board he has trust in? He just needs tog et the ball rolling and open collaborate with them to get the segment going, that's it, after that the segment exists. Show nested quote +
teams have a number of problems. they depend on inner-team dynamics, they cannot speak for bigger parts of the community and most importantly they do not have a wider legitimacy beside promoting themselves. there actually is quite a collision of interests, even within teams, because a team would have to promote maps from everybody in the team and say that the maps are great (Diamond's approach, at least what was seen publicly).
That's why all teams need to promote themselves. Council members will also end up being part of teams in the end so it does not alleviate the problem or what function the Council serves because: - It is already established that the mapmaking community is not unified in its consideration of what maps are good, therefore, the council does not speak for the mapmaking community as a unified voice, they may claim they do, but other parties will find it hard to consider it as such. - The first obstacle to overcome is to convince tournament organizers that map pools need to rotate and be fresh, something a council structure has no impact on. Show nested quote +if you cannot agree on these two points I guess you have no reason to support this idea and i would like to ask for your motivation to post here. maybe after reality proved us wrong you want to say you knew it from the start? Well, like I said, I believe that the effort of the council could best be directed not at convincing tournaments to update the map pool but rather organize things like the hypothetical NASL segments. Because I doubt the former will be a success, the latter is a more realistic goal I feel. I mean, I want to see games being played on new and fresh maps and I believe that doing it like this gives the highest probability of success.
What you suggest is what we've been trying to do from the beginning. It isn't working so we are trying a different approach based around community. It will be difficult, we know this. Please stop saying the same things over and over in every post, it is getting quite frustrating to read.
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On October 23 2012 22:29 SiskosGoatee wrote:
In order to convince him of your ideas that certain maps are bad and swifter rotation is good, you need hard numbers to show him.
Providing numbers proving that different maps will lead to higher viewership is very hard to do. First you need a major established tournament that already has lots of data on their viewership with the old map pool. Then you need them to commit to rotating their map pool and collect extensive data on the viewership after the change. Once you get that to happen there are major technical impediments to making a good argument, for instance, it depends on what else is going on at the time and not just other e-sports tournaments, what players are in the tournament, who is casting etc. Because there are all these variables you would need extensive data that varied all of these factors to truly isolate the effect of changing the map pool.
In summary you need to make the change in the map pool and gather data over several tournaments to prove statistically that it works. By that time it should be fairly obvious whether people like it or not and statistics are no longer necessary.
Did Apple gather statistical evidence that the Iphone would be successful or did they just make it? When you are being innovative there is nothing for you to look at as your model. You just need to have balls and go for it.
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EPT
