Our maps have been reviewed, and have been crushed

[UniKorn]

I disagree on some points, and agree on many points. Yet it is hard to take.

 

http://xmaps.map-center.com/reviews/duel_wls.html

[D.L.]

I agree with some of his views (mainly on Imperial Mine, Force Jump and Hoth Base Project)

 

I loved the Where is Indy? map. That was a lot of fun (though I thought the door was breakable )

 

Robot Wars was great. A lot of fun.

 

Duel Power Relay. Loved it except for the glass shattering into Rock!?

 

Jedi Pavillion. Another great map. Good for 5 bot FFA.

 

Duel Dragon was a bit iffy. It looked great but really it wasn't that playable. It isn't a bad one on one map.

 

Bobby Brown wasn't the best looking map. It was nothing special but good for a small duel.

 

WLS Headquarters. Another good map. Had a lot of cool fights on this.

 

Ancient Temple. My favourite map. Loved everything about it.

 

I agree it was a bit harsh. I would have given it a7.5

[Tigris]

Face it guys: You suck! *joking*

 

Ok, I really liked your maps! And to say "I had some nice fights on those" and immideatly afterwards say that their 5.x on a scale 1-10 is strange.

But after all I myself got a 5.5 on the rating system at Jedioutcastmaps and on the other side people won't stop downloading my map... It's a strange world

 

Perhaps you can ask Sergio how many times your pack has been downloaded, that could cheer you up

 

 

Hope you don't take it too personal and go on making some great maps

[VIO]

there just jellous

keep up the great work

[fabrikashon]

Well, at least he is honest. And that is the best type of criticism you can receive from anyone. It may be harsh, but if it wasn't, it's likely you won't remember it for next time you create something similar.

 

I have to agree with most of his views. I haven't seen your maps/map packs before so I don't know how this compares to your other stuff, but to me, it looks a little rushed.

 

Some maps should of been left out, and others kept in. Perhaps more time should of been taken in some as well.

[nitr0]

Analyse his critics, be honest with yourself, and see how you can improves. It whats make you want to do something good, and better than previous works.

 

And these maps are NOT all crap. Some are really nice.

[UniKorn]

As I said I agreed with most of his points. Some maps should have left out, that is something we learned for our next released. I posted this because its all good to post the good comments, but if you receive bad comments you should be man enough to expose that to the public as well.

[Leagle]

The maps looked for the most part very professional, but not very nice. (But the mine and hoth were horrible.)

 

 

The HQ map I think deserved a better rating, as did anchient temple. I agreed with where is Indy, It was nice, but the debris got in the way too much. If you could have the debris on the same scale, but moved down a bit, (Like it had smashed through the floor and sunk) I would have enjoyed it much more.

 

I basically pretty much agreed on everything, but thought it deserved more. (I would have probably ended up with giving it a 7.)

 

My major disagreement is Force jump. I loved it, sure it is simple, but it worked. The map reminded me of Jackie Chan movies. You know how he always has these ridiculous fights? (Especially the final ones.)

For some reason it reminded me of one (crap) movie where he fights on the roof of a train at the end. Unlike other train sequences, it conveyed very well that it was a moving train, and very unbalancing. (For examples of sequences that tried, but failed -or weren't as good- look at The Last Crusade and Octopussy.)

The map worked, it was fun.

 

 

The pack as a whole reminded me of UT, some of the small maps that were good, but I didn't like. Although what the guys says is mostly true, don't be put off by it -the maps were generally of a good quality, but just lacked that spark to make you like them.

[AKPiggott]

Treat it as a learning experience... you learn much better from negative reviews than you do from positive ones...

 

I'll give you an example of my own, here is the review of the first SP level I made for JK:

 

http://www.commandchamber.net/reviews/jk/display.php3?name=vader

 

And here's a level I released later on in my "editing career":

 

http://www.commandchamber.net/reviews/mots/display.php3?name=boamse

 

There's no way I could've made such an editing leap if it wasn't for reviews.

 

Good luck.

[Grets Sirob]

Is he a critic? He sounds like one. Critics are stupid (AOTC sux, *tsk* whatever...)

 

 

 

 

Roger Roger

[Expandable]

Well, yeah, I know it's an old thread, but nevertheless:

 

Originally posted by Leagle

My major disagreement is Force jump. I loved it, sure it is simple, but it worked.

 

Finally someone who likes the map! I know it's VERY simple, and it took me only about 1 hour to build it, but in my opinion it's just fun. I was really suprised that the majority of the community doesn't like the map. Well, I enjoyed it, but that was my last one with this style.

[PainGod]

This guy is being overly critical, imho. Here's what I say:

 

 

Star Destroyer Hangar - My favorite. I warm up on this map.

 

Jedi Pavillion - Played pretty regularly in my house o pain. What the hell is z-fighting, anyways?

 

Duel Power Relay - Another fave of ours. I had the same problem on my map with destroyable stuff becoming rocks. 'Who cares, says us?'

 

Force Jump - Ahhhh. We tend to ban push/pull on this map and it is fraggin beautiful. Another warm-up fave. Makes you think about where your feet are.

 

Robot Wars - Bridge is where we fight. A regular stop for me. My 2nd favorite map.

 

Hoth Base Project - I didn't get it with this one. There's no snow/ice. I've played this map twice total and moved on.

 

Imperial Mine - Didn't understand this one either.

 

Ancient Temple - Regular rotation in my world.

 

Duel Dragon - Cool, but I need to be drunk. Honestly.

 

Where is Indy? - Tied at third as my fave.

 

Bobby Brown - Tied at third fave. Quite possibly a contender for 2nd place.

 

WLS Headquarters - I practice my heavy stance in this map against heal whores. The size allows that to happen. I kill them too. Good map.

 

 

You don't want to sell me death sticks.

 

Pg

[fabrikashon]

Uhm. Might just be me but aren't people supposed to give criticism when something is reviewed?

 

Why is someone who speaks honestly (be is harsh or easy going) classed as 'critical'? If we were all too afraid to say what we thought imagine what the world would be like. Straws would be in very short supply.

[jipe]

I would much rather be over criticized than under - praise doesn't make levels better, it only makes you feel good. If there are things wrong with my maps, I would like to know about them..

[RichDiesal]

And you hafta remember, any negative review means that someone else somewhere might not like that aspect of a map either. The trick to mapping is to learn what the most people like (so that the most people enjoy playing on your map) and make it like that.

 

 

EDIT: Well, I take that back. It's just like writing. Some people like writing books for their own entertainment (self fulfillment or sense of accomplishment) while some other people like writing books because the like to know that they entertained (or challenged or whatever) their audience. Mapping is the same way... some people build for the masses, some people build for themselves.

[Ko'or Oragahn]

!! WARNING !!

 

!! WARNING !!

 

!! INCOMING HARSH POST !!

 

Ok, first, to understand my point of view, I have to present a bit of myself.

So here it is.

I'm a custom map addict. It started with Quake and Quake II, and it got worse with Quake III Arena.

I used to download tons of map, usually consulting reviews sites to decide which ones to get and which ones to avoid.

It's actually the same for Return to Caslte Wolfenstein and now for Jedi Outcast.

I don't oftenly get wrong when I think that a map sucks or not, or when it has potential but lacked finition. Sometimes, it also depends from my own tastes, but I always try to figure what the others would think of the same map.

This finally leaded me to prepare and sort the maps that were played for LANs, maps that were always enjoyed and heavily played.

 

When it comes to test maps for Jedi Outcast, there are many points that I check up.

 

- Gameflow (smoothness obtained by intelligent use of clip burshes - very important -, room for fight, easiness to get to platforms, etc.).

- Atmosphere (which is very important, more than any other game, because every place in Star Wars where there's a huge fight is somehow special and unique).

- Layout (complexity, logic and not to much angular faces for elements of the scenery that are meant to be natural, like rocks, trees and so on...).

- Texturing (generally the use of the original texture isn't a problem for me but I also like new sets).

- Lightning (very very important, as a bad lightning will make your map suck, even if you spend tons of hours into the other steps of creation).

- Originality (the magic spark, the thing which is special, even if it doesn't need to be always original... a box or a platform becomes quickly boring).

- Realism (from a Star Wars universe point of view of course, and mostly if you make a map from a known place, try to make it stick the closer to what it looks in the movies, comics and other various sources you used).

- Choice of music.

- Entities bugs.

 

So now you might understand how I judge the quality of a map.

 

This, after all, is only my point of view.

 

I must agree with the review given to this pack.

 

It's the FIRST RELEASED CUSTOM MAPS syndrome. It's a classic for every game, and I'm glad that the author of the review didn't get caught in it.

What is this syndrome ? Well, generally, a lot of people tend to give good reviews for new maps because they're the first ones to be released, despite their possible lack of quality.

Later, these same people realize that they were too generous in their scoring when better maps come out.

 

Sorry, but to me, this pack isn't worth a download.

 

It would have been far better to let many of these embryo maps out of it.

 

They seem all rushed safe a few ones.

 

I would fairly prefer to have only one map that needed more than ten hours of building process that ten maps that merely needed nothing more than one hour.

 

This is a general statement, but some of the maps included in this pack look more as tests to see how lightning works or how a player spawns than truely playable and entertaining maps. I wouldn't even call some of them maps. I wouldn't have dared to release them. And I wished that more time was spent on maps that had a potential.

 

Somehow we could have expect more from a team called WLS.

Seems that there's a strong lack of criticism inside of this group.

 

...

 

• 
   
  
• Star Destroyer Hangar
   
  I salivated just by the name of this map.
  Hum, this isn't a Star Destroyer Hangar at all.
  It also lacks room to fight.
   
  
• Jedi Pavillion - Bespin
   
  This is the map that feeds the more my regrets.
   
  First, it is symetrical (as other ones of this pack). Bad point. Very bad point.
   
  The stairs are too tight and completely lack clip brushes that would have avoided the bumping effect.
   
  Btw, the Jedi or Sith statues and an Imperial Star Destroyer Window texture for this map seems out of place.
   
  Add to that the numerous z-fighting problems (for the people who doesn't know what z-fighting means, let's say that it's a consequence of two textures located in the same space of your map, thus making the engine bug and hesitate to display one or the other texture and trying to display the two ones, and failing to blend the them together).
   
  I wonder how the mapper let them into his map.
   
  Is it a beta ? Looks like.
  Sad.
   
  
• Duel Power Relay
   
  Could have been really good. Nice idea with the raising platform but the lack of different floors, except the stairways, make it unneeded.
   
  Btw, it's very odd to have metal and glass objects transfom into rocky debris when crushed.
   
  This map lacks some cohesion. It borrows ideas from everywehre but fails to make them properly fit together, without talking about some odd choices of textures for some parts of the surroundings.
   
  The good point is that there's a lot of room and these stairs, but this isn't original at all, thus can't be taken to raise up the overall note of the map.
   
  What I don't understand is that ther's some clip on the main spiral staircases, and not on the others.
   
  But I'd agree that would be one of the most played levels after all.
   
  
• Force Jump
   
  Nice environment texture, but that's all.
  It was fun for a few minutes, but end of story.
   
  Next please.
   
  
• Robot Wars
   
  Despite the robts (I don't really fancy them), this is only a box.
  Nothing special at all. Oh yes, there's a platform on the top. Great.
  Plus the lighting, despite what is said here and there, is overly dark.
   
  
• Hoth Base Project
   
  Sorry, but this could have been left out.
  Nothing interesting there at all.
   
  Btw, as said the reviewer, where's Hoth in there ?
   
  
• Imperial Mine
   
  ???
   
  
• Ancient Temple
   
  Mmm, nice looking but not original at all.
   
  Plus the music becomes quickly annoying.
   
  
• Duel Dragon
   
  It's not Star Wars. The curve experiment would have been a better name.
   
  
• Where is Indy?
   
  This is in fact the only map I'd like to play. But the blocks all over the place are too much, and there's not enough room to fight on the surrounding walkway.
   
  
• Bobby Brown
   
  ... quite simple. A box, but no major graphical bug. The set of textures is coherent and suits well a level that halas isn't worth of a release.
   
  I hope the author will use the same set of textures for a better map, because there's some potential here.
   
  Enjoyable a few minutes only.
   
  
• WLS Headquarters
   
  Don't liked it neither.
   
  There's also this downstairs door leading to a hangar that doesn't exist (proof ? we can see through a glassy gap in the floor and state that where there should have been some platform or something like that there's absoluetly the a room, there's nothing).
   
  Btw, the overuse of stretched textures is highly unsuited.
   
  

 

So I think there's a lot of work to do until the next map pack, but there are reasons to hope that their future maps will be better.