GoldenEye 007 Nintendo 64 Community, GoldenEye X, Nintendo 64 Games Discussion

[Gamma]

I am a 12 year veteran of an RTS game Starcraft which has a map editor and the concept of "Standard Maps". Before that I played the RTS game Dune 2 for 6 years before Starcraft 1. Basically the idea behind the "Standard Maps" is that a map or a few maps can have all of the best features leaving very much else unwanted. Starcraft is played by millions of people so perhaps it is ahead in mapping and we can draw some ideas from it.

Here are some examples of "Standard Maps" that have the various elements in an RTS game condensed down to make other maps less desirable and the "Standard Map" more desirable.


Stanard map that encompasses the idea that starting locations don't have to be necessarily the same distance away from each other. This is an "obstacle" map, and the "obstacles" in the middle effect the way games play out.


This map is a "Standard" map in that the first two bases the player goes to are on a flat ground and from there on the defender has an advantage on each hill and in the middle "Meeting ground center location". It also has smaller and bigger bottlenecks that effect RTS balance. I believe smaller and bigger bottleneck "door openings" could make a standard map more versatile and lessen the desire to play other maps.


Python has many features that could be desired in a map for RTS games. It is for four players, has two islands that each pair of two players must fight for, has two mineral ONLY nats that people must fight for, a third base in the corner people must fight for, and openings to the bases to allow some balance. The four starting locations have the advantage of high ground being on a hill and each base is equal distance from each other.

http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/maps/74_Gaema%20Gowon.jpg
The next type of map is one in which it is hard to get a normal economy going because of backdoors in which people can go around your expansions. I believe this type of map could be the equivalent of "Sniper maps" where it is hard to leave one's own base or area.

Now I took the time to describe what maps I thought were "standard maps" in that they are the most played and have the various ideas behind that genre of game.

I believe that the concept of "Archetypes", different types of game elements from fps games, could be included to form SUPERIOR "Standard Maps" in perhaps one, less ikely two, less likely three, less likely four, or at the least likely no more than five maps.

There would be one dominant map and the other ones would have less features than either did not fit or would have made the other maps.

Would mappers here be willing to allow me and some of the regulars FPS fans of this site to brainstorm the various concepts of FPS games, like frag maps, sniper maps, rush maps, obstacles, etc that could make this possible?

[Dragonsbrethren]

Moved to General Gaming Talk, since this doesn't seem to be GoldenEye-exclusive.

[Wreck]

If you'd like to talk with FPS gamers and find out what seems to make certain styles of maps play well, than I'm behind it. I still think personal opinion factors into it too much, but a general idea never hurts.
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[radorn]

If you guys manage to make a detailed and well explained study of your theory which is also well adapted to the characteristics of the GE engine, I'll be sure to read it with interest, but I have to say, for starters, that I'm not very keen on the idea since I don't really see how it can fit GE and give a result that doesn't look too "artificial".

One of the key elements of what makes GE's maps interesting is that they were made to look appealing and interesting without knowing how they'd be used in the game, and then they made the setups that defined how these would be played (this is explained in an interview at zoonami's site).
This standard map approach, in which all features are well planned and balanced and stuff seems to me to be diametrally opossite to that.

Plus, in these games, even if the number of human players can be as low as 2, 3 or 4, like in GE, in RTS games you actually control lots of units, while in GE you are just one person and don't have control over a large area of terrain, so what matters most is what you'll find at the next corner of a corridor, and going from place to place, not to mantain control over this and this area, or gaining terrain, etc.

Also, I have to say that I find most other FPSs I tried to have really boring and dull levels. Not that I have played that many, but all that I played suffered from that, in my opinion.

Even with that said, it could be an interesting read if you guys come with something well thought out.