Forum :: EO Server Building :: New mapper in the works - looking for criticism

After all this time, I've finally decided to start trying my hand at mapping. The gfx I'm using is from the server I'm helping with. These are legit my first ever maps.

Map 1: Water Arena - (Come on, who didn't expect the demon of arena to make an arena map)

The overall design is my own work, though as I didn't have a grasp on walls at the time so someone helped me with those. I also tried different objects for the lines but it didn't work out so I reverted to wooden lines. The theme is a jumping arena and the map size was 60x60.

http://i.imgur.com/DIx46fo.png

Map 2: Zeno Bridge - (Placeholder name as I couldn't think of anything better).

This one is completely my own work with no aid whatsoever. My friend advised that I should have used right walls on my bridge, but when I tried it, it made everything look off (possibly due to the tileset). I would have fixed it first before uploading but it wouldn't have been worth the effort. It doesn't look that off andfor me this is a learning experience for future maps. The bridge tile itself I only had like 5 of, and most were for the other direction so that affected it as well.

http://i.imgur.com/Mv8hd76.png

Listed what I saw as possible observations and I completely agree. Feel free to mention them again though and what I could possibly change in the future. I haven't made my third map yet, but I'll be experimenting more with elevation when I make it. I'll probably upload it here too when it's finished.

Anyways, criticize away!

Just gonna comment on the 2nd one. Very blocky........ Rivers and roads generally tend not to be perfectly straight, even in EO. The inner dirt tends to skew in at some points, and the actual edge to the roads aren't entirely straight as well (For the most part). Not a whole lot of detail going on, you will clearly notice that once you are actually playing on the map. 

Here is a image of a blank template I did a few years ago. Didn't really put any objects in because I was making them so that people could edit them the way they wanted.

http://oi49.tinypic.com/2nld012.jpg

And two more I guess :

http://oi46.tinypic.com/15bo5s.jpg

http://oi46.tinypic.com/246q9g2.jpg

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Former multi-server mapper.

Just going to tell you what I would change rather than saying you need this you need that this is how you do that blah blah blah

First off.. FE GFX?

For the water arena I would choose a different tile to use inside the arena, and if those rocks are objects I'd get rid of them. I can't remember if they are it's been a while since I've done any map editing. Also, the top corner and the top left corner are completely empty. I would work on adding more objects to the areas of the map that seem empty. You must remember, you must make the map so that it looks nice to the people who are playing on it; not nice to the people who are viewing it in the map editor window. This means all symmetrical methods, pretty patterns, etc are pretty unnecessary, as anyone who's actually playing on the map would not even notice. So I guess my advice is to just make it seem more full and complete. And I get what you're doing with the tiles inside the arena, you want to make it look like they're hopping on rocks and fighting eachother. I think it's pretty impractical considering the whole hopping effect would probably reduce people's arena ability, and all of the rocks placed on the water would cause an outrageous amount of lag for whoever is fighting on the map lol. Cool concept though.

IN the second one, I'd make the path not straight, the river would be not straight, there would be more than 10 objects on the map, I'd change the bridge walls to those railing things.. I'd make it look more like that halloween map I made last year for that treos map competition. Also what is up with the water in the bottom right corner? Anyways just work on making the map feel better. Imagine you're walking through the woods and come across a river. Is the path perfectly straight? Is the river completely straight? Are there only 6 trees and tons of open space? Probably not. Of course with that being said, it takes time to learn which objects can be used with each tileset. Maybe the GFX you are using aren't as straightforward as the basic EO ones, I don't know. Just try to figure out which objects you can use in each style of map. Once you do that and quit being afraid of having too many objects, you'll be on the right path.. just don't go overboard.

I'd love to show you an example but the map I'm trying to screenshot wont fucking work. The screenshot program I've been using wont capture the fucking water and just leaves it black. Just keep it up you'll get the hang of it. Also Misca knows what he's talking about, listen to him, too.

And um... what program are you using to screenshot your maps? I think I'm in need of a new one.

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Tire me.

The program itself is png2emf. I asked around before taking a screenshot and got recommended that. I found it in a dropbox on the forums, though if you can't find it I could upload it somewhere.

Yeah I completely agree. I was looking at the gfx in the server files I'm helping with, and I wanted to try mapping with that because it's a great looking tileset. The tradeoff is that the tileset itself seemed limited and it was hard to add much variety to the dirt. I do think I should work on making things less straight though. The bridge tileset was mainly something I wanted to try, but I agree it looks odd so I'll probably try changing it. As for the water in the bottom right, I'm the kind of guy who likes to encourage exploration. The idea was to have that to imply water continuing on to a new map, as well as the single dirt tile near the well to be a visual cue to a hidden secret map (not made yet). Feel free to tell me what you think of the idea though. It could be too subtle, and the idea of making it look like its continuing to a new map might not have been the best idea.

I think my biggest thing to work on right now though is filling up maps better. I have this mindset where I think putting too many objects might make the map feel claustrophobic, but at the same time too little will make it feel empty, so I'm still working on trying to find the right balance. I'll see what I can do about feeling up the maps, and I'll try to fix the straightness a bit too. I don't think I can do much with the road straightness but I'll play with the tileset.

Thanks for the feedback! After I play with the maps a bit more I'll probably try working on my third one.

I think the top half of the map looks good the bridge needs help..what is the railing the side of the boat? I think you can find some more visually appealing railing in wall gfx. So I guess from the bridge down "in my opinion" needs to be remade I would put a little curvature to the river I would also remove the little stream and move the well closer to the big river.I also think the house sits funny where its at by the path ect ect maybe the house is whats throwing the map off?Stagger some objects and apply random spaceing to make them look natural.

I'll change the bridge end. I was mostly trying it out, and because it was only 5 different tiles for it I thought it was meant for some sort of bridge. Sadly the direction I chose was missing bits and it just came out weird.I'll try a more standard bridge tile when I start editing soon.

As for the house, that's a really good point that none of the others mentioned. Currently I struggle with building houses, so I kept trying to move it around so that it didn't end up in the river. I'm going to try facing the house a different direction so that it sits with the back of the house toward the river, rather than the side of the house.

I like the idea for the water arena, jumping around while fighting sounds like it could confuse the players a bit, I am not sure if change of the movement animation has any effect on how the arena gameplay would work but if it does, it would be interesting to see how the slight change affects players and how they adapt.

A issue I have with the design is that it seems pretty much the same as the original arena, just has a lot of random objects which don't seem to fit well with the theme.

The pillars surrounding the arena seem out of place and they're just overall a terrible object to use, the graphic quality is very bad and with such bright color in the background you can clearly tell that there's some transparent pixels on it. The dark blue chairs stand out too much, the aeven statue looks bad spammed around the map like that, obelisk objects kinda don't fit with the theme, like I would even understand the lane of aeven statue guys like some hero reminiscence place, but I don't get the obelisks. I like the idea of the graveyard assuming that would be the place where you spawn when killed in arena? However, those grave tombs completely blend in with the ground tiles behind them. The rocks in water seem very repetitive and have a bad quality compared to alternative objects you could of used. Stairs that send you to the middle platform don't really connect with the stairs on the platform, use the same tile so it looks like you went underground to a room which takes you to the platform (could even make the underground room also). You shouldn't display the outer walls, those should be "see-through" walls, otherwise they are just pointless overlay which makes the edge of the map kinda weird. Really nitpicking now but I think the lanes are too wide, making it look like you should be able to walk on 2 tiles instead of 1, and they're also too short - only 1 or 2 spots per lane.

I made a ""edit"" for you which is actually done from scratch but inspired by your water arena theme and uses some ideas you had, just to give you some ideas on what kind of color palette you can go with on this map design, and what kind of objects/walls/tiles you could use to make the map look more original. There is a issue with the walls I used, I couldn't find any more fitting ones, but if this was my map/my server I would of made custom walls out of those Atlantis ones, it is very easy to do (like 5mins of work).

http://i.imgur.com/6d74gvw.gif 

Applied walls also to show you how you could make proper width of the lanes etc.

Also had an idea for this kind of object you could either use in your map or get some ideas from: http://i.imgur.com/zVYXLSS.png

Elevating something and giving it a fence and stuff can make for a cool statue, not having to use custom gfx. Had an idea for this object also, perhaps the server could host some arena events where the winner becomes owner of the trophy, the map is updated after the event so when players click the trophy it says who is the owner of the trophy AKA the champion of the arena!

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As for the other map, I assume the tileset you are using is limiting you to make any more natural looking road/river so since there's nothing you can do to improve it I'll just ignore that.

However what you can improve, is placing more objects and applying shadows to the trees/bridge. Maybe add some stuff that would make it look more like someone lives in that house, like fences/more dirt (like a road going from the doors)/boxes & barrels I dunno. Try to balance objects on the map, when you look at the screenshot you can look at it as a picture, and atm the composition of the picture is quite bad, like bottom/left side has some very heavy stuff (huge tree/house), while top/right (above the road) doesn't have much going on.

Btw that bridge fence, I am pretty sure I made it just for a specific use on a boat cabinet map I made for my server, on the stairs here.

Sorry if I seemed harsh about anything - goodluck, and enjoy mapping.

Edit: Oh wait I made a bit of a mistake with my edit, you shouldn't be able to jump on the rocks while underneath the water at same time. xD lol

I was trying to use the pillars you put in corners of your map while keeping the idea of jumping on rocks at same time.. Ohwell.

That's quite detailed feedback. I appreciate it. The pillars were an odd choice, and since it was my first map I was heavily experimenting with objects. I was thinking of an ancient/hero like theme but in hindsight you are right, the pillars are an odd choice. With the Atlantis pillar I was trying to block off the corners, but it was probably a bad idea to use an underwater pillar for a map where you aren't underwater.

The rocks were intentional, but there may have been a better object I could of used. I was thinking that the big flat rocks would be something that are easy to jump on rather than a smaller object, and I didn't think a pointy object really fit in with that. The reason I spammed the same object is I wanted it to be obvious where you could jump, and I didn't want the arena to feel too chaotic either. My thought is that people will have a hard enough time keeping up with the battles with all the jumping around, so at the very least I should keep the tile set basic. I do understand your thought on that, but for the purposes of arena I'm not sure if it's something I should change.

The biggest reason it seems like a replica of red arena is that I did want a balcony like area where you can watch the fights due to the size of it. With a smaller arena it wouldn't have been needed, but given the size I thought I should include it. I agree with the staircase as well. The better idea would have made a downward staircase lead into a small hallway like map, and then have the staircase going upward in there (because I like the little details).

I do like your choice of objects on the sample map you made, and I do think there is much I need to improve on since I'm just now starting to practice mapping.

As for the second map that would explain why I didn't have a whole lot to work with on that tile set I used. I'll fix it up with a more suitable one. I don't think there's much I can do about the road due to lack of dirt variety (best I could do is make it turn like I did at the top), but I do have the option of making the river turn (similar to that of the roads), but doing so might make it feel more natural than the straight river I made.

Thanks for the feedback, and I'm going to keep at it!

It feels like water arena has a lot of sharp fine elements, and not many flat elements, where as Zeno bridge has a lot of flat unused space that can be filled with more details (looking at the grass)

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I not hacker

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its
whole life believing that it is stupid.” - Albert Einstein : Really Great Quote Ramy!