MAPPING STANDARDS AND COMMERCIAL GAMES

the fanatics' tower is so boring compared to the rest of the game! way to liven up this soul crushing dungeon of despair and not just recolour zozo

I think 'mapping' is just another way of saying/compartmentalizing 'making shit look pretty' as far as the environment is concerned. So yeah, with that said, I like pretty shit.

post=202612
But how about you? Have you ever been turned off by the *mapping* of a commercial RPG?

Yeah. Those ugly planets in Mass Effect were pretty damn ugly. Topology map with some tiny texture plastered all over it. What kind of mapping is that?

That's probably the only game where it bothered me.

That and in Civ2 when I used too many nuclear bombs the game started to use the three tile rule which was strange for the environment :D

post=202612
I have noticed that commercial developers don't *necessarily* put effort into their maps (You see things like wide open spaces, simple square mapsetc.), and I don't *necessarily* get turned off by simple mapping, as long as it isn't detrimental to navigation or whatever.

But how about you? Have you ever been turned off by the *mapping* of a commercial RPG?

The world RM developers live in is a vastly different one. When you create an entire level, tileset, structure, etc, you have nothing to base it off of except your own skills. Final Fantasy 6 maps don't look as good to RM users now because they associate them as tools more than a game experience. That's why Crimson (and probably 99% of us) have never looked at a new 2D commercial game and said it looks bad. It's a fresh, new experience. And you can't be the judge of a commercial games 'mapping' when they're the first (and in reality, the only) people to create that experience. If it was impossible to rip and make a game that used resources from Final Fantasy 6, and you erased all images of RM games that used any resource from that game, it would still look just as good as it did when it was first released. RM users basically have somewhat of a tarnished image of the game because of this. Seeing something being used over and over again does this to you.

In a world that is now mostly 3D, you can say that textures and lighting look bad. However, it's a lot harder to say that in a 2D game using tiles. Level design, empty spaces, and what most users here call 'mapping' is a different issue altogether.

To boil down what Crystalgate is saying: you don't need solid level design in a game where the action doesn't take place on the level itself.

To boil down what some other people (Darken/Neo) are saying: good commercial games balance functionality with prettiness. RM* devs tend to go to either extreme.

To stir those two broths together: plan out your worlds before executing the prettiness process. If you want people to enjoy spending time in your levels, make them interactive and affect the meat of the game (battles). Chests affect battles, so make getting chests more than walking up to them through a straight corridor. Hero's Realm and Final Fantasy 9 are particularly excellent at this. ("That shopkeep in standing in front of that barrel! There must be something in it, so I'll come back tonight and steal it while he's sleeping." "I'm kupo for kupo nuts!" "I heard that the weaponsmith hid his supplies under a tree while the village was being ransacked." "You received Cancer!" "Amazing Funhouse!")

For more reading on this subject, please read this article by Brickroad.

I don't consciously think about such things when I'm playing a game, whether it's 2D or 3D, and whether it's commercial or amateur. The only time I intentionally look at the maps for quality is if I'm reviewing the game.

However, bad graphics are bad graphics. They make the game less interesting, the areas harder to navigate, and your experience less memorable. Even in 1995 when I played FF4 as an eleven year old kid, I knew that the magnetic cave was boring to walk through, the hidden passages throughout the game were bullshit, and the passage to the land of summoned monsters was too weird looking for anyone to be able to tell what it was supposed to be. And then a year later when I played FF6, the environments weren't what stood out to me, but they're probably a big reason for why the game stood out to me. Not only could I tell what things were, but the game felt so alive. I loved the setting in FF6, and I wouldn't have if its setting didn't feel so detailed in comparison to other games at the time.

In World of Warcraft, the first time I traveled through the Barrens, my thoughts were "Wow, this takes forever. The 'Barrens' is right. This is so boring and flat and huge. Couldn't this have been condensed so it doesn't take ten minutes to run across? There's nothing here. Ugh, I'm already sick of these damn quillboars after only one quest." The first time I traveled through Hellfire Peninsula, my thoughts were "Oh, this bombing quest is sweet. Oh nice, the next NPC is right below me. Wait, the Alliance built a castle here already? Oh my god, that robot is HUGE. Oh, Hellfire Ramparts is an instance? Oh shit, there are red orcs still alive. I thought they were all dead."

You'll note that when the maps are bad, I notice them, at least to the extent that I get fed up with them. When they're good, they don't draw attention to themselves, they draw attention to the world. Is that different? I feel like that's meaningfully different. And they also help lead me through the gameplay, which makes the game flow better.

I would say when the mapping is seamless with the presentation of the rest of the game, and that you interact with it not in its own right but in an unconcious acceptance of the whole game, then it has acheived its best purpose.

That Pokemon map is pretty much all you need - flawlessly efficient without being boring. It has enough nice little touches (the signs) to make it vaguely interesting. There are also two or three NPCs that you can talk to as well, which are an integral part of the map.
(Side note: What the heck are those little fence/ice-block/cylinder things surrounding the town? I don't think anyone making an RM game would get away with that unharassed.)

As far as Locke was talking about WoW, the Barrens was supposed to feel barren, obviously. It was big, it was sparse, and it was dead (besides a few towns and oasises). As an MMORPG, WoW can impress its players with more realism and atmosphere than other genres. Unfortunately, the problem lies in that deserts are for the most part very boring. They probably should've kept the Barrens until level 40 so you could at least have your mount. Then it could feel big without making the player actually walk through all of it.
(I always thought the Barrens was cool until I played the Alliance or Blood Elf starting areas. Damn, they are so well done.)

I don't think there is anything wrong with mapping in commercial games. In most early games (Say, for instance, FF4 and earlier) the graphics available were pretty basic and they didn't have a lot in the way of resources to devote just to making maps look pretty. You had walls, a door, a tree, and you moved on. These standards of "no empty space" or "The Three-tile rule" were invented by these communities and do not exist in the industry itself. Later games like FF6 could devote a little more attention to detail, though, so you end up with the steam-powered Narshe filled with boilers and clouds of steam, or the cyberpunk dystopia Vector that was all steel and darkness. These maps are entirely functional and probably surpass most RM games in terms of their overall aesthetics. The graphics were made with these areas in mind rather than forced second-hand into a game by someone who thought a steam engine would look cool.

I think people in these communities put too much stock into mapping. and it's easy to see why. There are hundreds of games on these sites and most people need to find someway to stand out. A screenshot of phenomenally pretty mapping will draw more attention than a game made in the RTP. In the end, it is marketing strategy that many people have been forced to adhere to, otherwise their game is likely to be ignored.

post=202670
The tube things were the "game boundary, you can't go further" generic objects in Gen I.

Oh, I know. Link's Awakening (and tons of Gameboy or SNES era games use those kind of fences) but its one of those things your brain completely passes over unless something or someone points it out to you, or you're looking for it (like while playing an RM game.)

post=202671
I think people in these communities put too much stock into mapping. and it's easy to see why. There are hundreds of games on these sites and most people need to find someway to stand out. A screenshot of phenomenally pretty mapping will draw more attention than a game made in the RTP. In the end, it is marketing strategy that many people have been forced to adhere to, otherwise their game is likely to be ignored.

It is pretty lame, but it's the nature of the beast when all you can show off is screenshots. Still, I wouldn't care if a game used the RTP if it had a great story, great gameplay, or both. As long as the graphics don't hurt my eyes, I don't care. I appreciate custom graphics, but the production time for them is staggering and often detracts or kills the game itself.