What makes you most likely to quit working on a map?

[EdvardMunch]

Imagine: You've just played the greatest SC RPG ever made ("An Ultralisk Rapes A Zergling RPG v1.08 Diamond Ultima", of course) and you are brimming with inspiration. You must make a map. It doesn't have to be an RPG, it's whatever, but you feel you must make a map.
However, if you're 99.997% of us, your motivation will run out and you will quit. I believe the reason we run out of motivation is because the creation process is not paced quickly enough, and our patience runs out.
What, do you think, is the biggest problem with the map making process and will make you quit?

- Planning: You can't develop a workable idea or you write yourself into a corner from which there is no escape.
- Not Enough Planning: You do not develop your idea enough, and you find yourself staring at a 128x196 blank jungle wondering what the Hell it is you're doing anyway.
- Terrain: You cannot seem to develop decent terrain.
- Triggers: Just making triggers, lots and lots of triggers.
- Not Enough Skillz: You simply don't know how to do what you want to do.
- Bugs/Misc Errors: Your triggers refuse to cooperate, you can't get StarForge to do what you want it to do, whatever. Some technical knot that's gonna take quite a while to unravel.
- Fear Of Failure: You are afraid everyone will hate your map, so why continue? Alternatively, you think your map/basic idea sucks.
- Lack Of Motivation: The creation process is paced very well, and you have no problems. Nonetheless, you just plain lose interest.
- Other

[UED77]

I go for Planning, altho it's a bit more complex than just that.

Usually, I can't decide what I want to do in a map.
However, back in BlizzSCUMS, I eventually abandoned Maze Game because altho everything worked together perfectly, the game was just way too boring.

Lack of Motivation is another biggie. Dunno why but sometimes I just lose interest and wanna do something totally different, and I never come back to the idea.

UED77

[Nahotnoj]

I go for lack of motivation. I have about 10 map projects running right now (pretty much always like that) the lack of motivation is usually more like a lack of interest, I lose interest in the project because i thought of a much better one. To this day I have only released one map (which completely sucked cuz I completely sucked with triggers) Eventually I will finish them all and release them! Hey, you cant beat optimism.

[GiaDragoness]

--For me, its everything you mentioned except 'lack of skillz", and "fear of failure". Too often, the only problems i face are the fact that the triggers fuck up my map completely for NO APPARENT REASON WHATSOEVER, like in my "battle.net Experence 2" map, but about 80% or more of the maps i start, i just end up staring at the screen, trying to understand how to do what i want to do, then figure out that i no longer have any idea about what the hell i was even trying for in the first place.
--I have a folder right now, labeled "Unfinished projects", and well, its sad really, that i have about 2 dozen sub folders in there right now, all catagorizing them by name. My last count of all my unfinished maps was, i beleive somewhere around 237. About one fifth of them have the terrain and unit placement all there, but the only thing in the triggers are little footnotes of what i wanted in the triggers. Lack of motivation do do all the insane amount of trigger work and genral laziness are key dropout factors in this unlucky 20%.
--If i had all the time in the world, and didnt have to worry about college, getting a job, and about half my chores, i could reduce the size of unfinished maps in that folder i have there by about 90% or so at least. It's just that we often dont have time to make maps these days, unless we put thm on our "top priority list" which usally is takn by, schoolwork, job, family (like it or not), etc.. The list goes on. It's too bad we have to worry about a little thing called "living", to devote our lives to such things. And to those who manage, I salute you, brave and noble warriors, who probably live, in your parents basement, or make it your job to do such.

[Whiteknight]

Personally, the only thing that keeps me from making more and finishing my maps is that there is little or no time to invest in a big project like that. I also usually lose interest too. Triggers are no problem for me, I am pretty good with terrain, but I usually am kept from doing them, which leads to me getting bored with doing them. If there are repetetive triggers, then I really get bored with them.

[bomber7]

I picked other because My comp has memory problems and sometimes crashes. So reapted crashes makes me quit.

[Uuugggg]

Dang, I must've worked on 6 maps..
1 - PPG madness. Quick, easy, and simple. Good for large games, for fairness sakes. Done 100%
2 - Unreal Tournament CTF. Amazingly well-done, finished, and updated a bunch. Played that 'till I stopped SC altogether.
3 - Some RPG - I almost finished it, a cool random plot, nicely upgradable heroes, but then I accidently erased it when I deleted an extra System (make backups, everyone!) Man, that was so long ago, I wish I finished that.
4 - Test your D. Made player and enemy bases, and one assault of many. I figured, we have melee for this and stopped.
5 - Fuzy CTF - based on the z-tec maps, but I hated the green vats and other things I forget. Colored names and extensive testing never happened, so it's 90% done... about that time I quit SC.
6 - Sniper CTF. I made the basic layout, then stopped SC.

So overall, I stopped developing maps because I stopped playing SC =P



In WC3 - Marine CTF. Mwaahahahaha.

[StealthyDeath]

I'll have to say I usually quit due to my lack of motivation and triggers. I have about 14 maps that are about 45-80% done, but I no longer have any ideas since I lose my interest once I'm half way through the triggers.

[Nozomu]

I only quit maps when I have spent hours devising some inticate and masterful trigger system, only to discover some inherent flaw in the system that prevents me from completing the map. Rather than rework the entire system I usually just start a new map.

[peace_machine]

Too often I have gotten half way through a map and then thought fuck it! Its when I have all those looooong dull repetative triggers or loooooong dull repetative other things. If I do complete a map though it is always fin to spend a few weeks debuging it.

[Doom_Dragoon]

I only quit maps when I have spent hours devising some inticate and masterful trigger system, only to discover some inherent flaw in the system that prevents me from completing the map. Rather than rework the entire system I usually just start a new map.Exact opposite of me. If I can manage to get to triggers (as I do the map in sections, Unit Names, Terrain, Story, then Triggers) then I'll just get really pissed off, say I'm going to quit, get a few "You can do it"s and then crash the whole system and rebuild it. I did this with checkers. I think I restarted that map more than 8 times. I'm glad I did though. I took it from thousands of triggers to a couple hundred.

[ReprisalII]

Terrain. I hate working on terrain. But I usually get past this obstacle using the terrain of a already made map of mine or a map you get originally.(And occasionally someone else's map.)
But I am already making a 10-12 mission campiagn and have got most of it done. And its only a part of a trilogy of campiagns, the 3rd one being made when SC2 comes out.

[Merovingians]

The only problem for me, #1 problem :

Possible lack of interest by the SC community

If I think the map is going to be regarded as a "sucky map" even though the game is sophisticated and intelligent, fun, and creative. SC is filled with immature kids who just want to mass kill stuff. No patience, etc...many times they don't even read Mission objectives, ask questions like "Wtf do I do? this map sucks bye" and then leave.

I will not spend so much time in the creation process of my map just for it to be treated like that. For me, it takes me many hours over weeks or maybe months to complete a great map without flaws. My current RPG Pirates of the Caribbean is suffering from this. People join my game and just want to kill stuff. My interest in it has decreased so much, that I work on it like once a week.


This is the main problem for me...the rest are no sweat.

[Kamikaze_Chicken]

the only reason i quit making a map/campaign/mod is that i get bored with what im doing either that or i have a lack of inspiration

[Doom_Dragoon]

The only problem for me, #1 problem :

Possible lack of interest by the SC community

If I think the map is going to be regarded as a "sucky map" even though the game is sophisticated and intelligent, fun, and creative. SC is filled with immature kids who just want to mass kill stuff. No patience, etc...many times they don't even read Mission objectives, ask questions like "Wtf do I do? this map sucks bye" and then leave.

I will not spend so much time in the creation process of my map just for it to be treated like that. For me, it takes me many hours over weeks or maybe months to complete a great map without flaws. My current RPG Pirates of the Caribbean is suffering from this. People join my game and just want to kill stuff. My interest in it has decreased so much, that I work on it like once a week.


This is the main problem for me...the rest are no sweat.Which is the reason I don't make many maps, as I have barely release 1 real playable map. I spend too much time making the map perfect for someone to tell me it is boring. The people who actually know how difficult it can be to reproduce some of your trigger effect, terrain combinations, or character names and such tell you good job, but the general public looks at it and compares it to everything they have ever played and never takes a chance to attempt to look under the hood.

Crap! I keep forgetting to release checkers. *slaps self*

[GiaDragoness]

The only problem for me, #1 problem :

Possible lack of interest by the SC community

If I think the map is going to be regarded as a "sucky map" even though the game is sophisticated and intelligent, fun, and creative. SC is filled with immature kids who just want to mass kill stuff. No patience, etc...many times they don't even read Mission objectives, ask questions like "Wtf do I do? this map sucks bye" and then leave.

I will not spend so much time in the creation process of my map just for it to be treated like that. For me, it takes me many hours over weeks or maybe months to complete a great map without flaws. My current RPG Pirates of the Caribbean is suffering from this. People join my game and just want to kill stuff. My interest in it has decreased so much, that I work on it like once a week.


This is the main problem for me...the rest are no sweat.


--This and what nozomu said are so damn true it's absolutly sad. I have many times, gotten up this really fragile, delicate, and extremely complicated trigger system set up, then when i test it out, it f*cks up horribly, and because it is so complex, i dont even know where to start. This has happened about a dozen times to me.

--The thing about the guy i just quoted, about how people just say "it sux, bye" just brings tears to my eyes because i know it's true. People just dont get how hipocritical (spell check please) they are sometimes. I have wasted time, put off schoolwork, gotten my parents pist off at me, doged my chores, and for what? Some snobby little 14 year old shit that would prefer a bland, primitive, and unimaginitive em-masse slaughter, or an rpg where you just go around killing things, get bored 2 minutes in because they havent killed anything yet, or because as you said up there, peopleskip the damn briefining and then say "wtf do i do?" I lauged my ass off when i read that because its so damn true.




:smash: Smashy Smashy! :smash:

[EdvardMunch]

From the sounds of things on the thread, fearing that the idiots on b.net will not be able to recognize a quality map when they see one and a lack of motivation are the two biggest killers. Unfortunately, it would take an act of a few Gods to increase b.net's intelligence by the IQ points necessary for them recognize a good map, but maybe we can do something about lack of motivation.

How, in everybody's opinion, can we increase motivation?

[Nahotnoj]

I think to increase motivation, we should post ideas for maps here and post feedback and whatnot.

[Icemant90]

I voted 'other' because I have not finished one of my MANY maps, because I get an idea for a new map about half way through the one I'm working on.


Which is frustrating.

[zaarock]

Well my usual problem is the lack of imagination... my RPGs keep repeating themselves and people are getting tired of that , as i know becouse i usually make my RPGs pretty hard (for example the Prisoner Assaults) i have to test them public, i learned making maps almost totally by myself becouse i actually made my first map without ever being to battle.net ( sucky: yes ) also in my first maps wich were hellishly sucky i got used to the problem Merovingians said, i have totally gotten used to this problem and it is really annoying that when u make a hard rpg almost no1 reads the brief and so : they are killed at the start. Plus i need a better editor and these days i lack of motivation also. Before i continued making my maps with much joy, but now my maps are getting too repeative.

I cannot pretty much make anything exept RPGs for example my Unreal Tournament map series went to pretty much of a failure, but raised my old clans (the-silents) level. and i also hate madnesses but as i trained alot of movie making in my upcoming Trapz2 and my movie frenzy map , i will now start making more movie maps.

[peace_machine]

I voted 'other' because I have not finished one of my MANY maps, because I get an idea for a new map about half way through the one I'm working on.


Which is frustrating.
Ahh that has happend to me a few times. Then I go back to my old map and think... Fuck It!

Fear of people not liking my map does not really bother me as the map is ultimatley for my own enjoyment. Peoples opinions do matter to a degree and can improve the map but if they don't like it then... Thats their problem!

[pWn4g3]

seems no1 has enough motivation these days including me...
damn we're lazy ^.^

[GiaDragoness]

seems no1 has enough motivation these days including me...
damn we're lazy ^.^

It's not really that we are lazy, well, ok, sometimes it is, because we get the idea for a map with an insane amount of triggers, then run out of will to do it because we realize we have just wasted like, 5 hours and dont even have all the triggers done for 2 players yet. Most of the other time, we are like, watching a movie, or playing a game, or something, and we get the idea in our head, and think, "hey, this would be realy cool", then start working on it, and about a couple hours later, the passing idea leaves us, we work on it for a little longer, because we started it, then when we come back to it later, we just look at it, and think, "ok, what the hell was i thinking? Why did i want to do this again? This is just so stupid." and we quit. For me, it's because i have ADD, which translates into a very short atten-* hey look! birdie!!!




:smash: Smashy Smashy! :smash: