Where are they I have yet to see one?
I would like to see a ubi ran contest and put the winner or top3 on the list for ranked servers. we need some new maps. The few new ones they gave us are very poor examples of what the editor and great level design can be. motabi creek and watchfire(when not lagging) are the only decent ones. Don't see how pinnacle even made it in there at all .

I've seen pretty impressive maps that won't overloaded had great, layout to them and very polished.

sage tim's "Bio"
Reyule Reborn's "Blood money"
Shortbull NL's "Red Harbor"

to name a few, none of which are on my friends list. if you have this for 360 and don't have these well worth checking out.
I only have one map done "Babylon" with over 80hrs and 25hrs of playtesting. It could use a little more work, but it would hold it own in a contest.

Sounds great, I'll have to check them out.

Before I can get to my 360 though. What specifically about 'bio', 'blood money', and 'red harbor' makes them impressive maps?
Generally speaking, what size maps are they? How many playrs have you played against on these maps?
Which game mode is each one the strongest with?

Is 'Babylon' completely finished? I noticed you said it could use more work. What were you hoping to achieve?

I personnaly think motaba creek is a bit annoying to play. there are some stuffs getting in the way in some places.
renavista seems fine to me, but players always use the same strategy on it.

yea for once i agree with fauch (im actually frightened by this....) i cant stand motaba creek, and of the approved maps pinnacle and renavista i would say are the best of the 5 or at least the most fun.

i dunno personally i cant justify spending 100 hours or more making a map, thats excessive

quote:

Originally posted by CIB24:
i dunno personally i cant justify spending 100 hours or more making a map, thats excessive

With that attitude, you shouldn't be shocked when 100+ hour maps are respected more than a map that was made in an afternoon or two.

Daithan, I just recently checked out you Babylon map and I don't see 80+ hours of effort here. Are you sure you're only counting the amount of time you're actively in the editor and not the time span between the moment you made New Map to the point you hit Publish? Maybe I saw the wrong Babylon. Is yours the one that has a tree on top of a fountain on top of a fuel reserve?

I suspect that perhaps Daithan is just having a little fun with us with that map. If not, then you definitely want to spend a wee bit more time in the editor before submitting this for any sort of contest.

@can't say I've even played enough of the game types on each to give their strong suits. Blood money spawns are swapped for CTD. Bio and blood money are small and Red harbor is more app to 8v8

@Fauch&ClB guess it all boil downs to opinions. cause to me renavista is a slaughter house. The most kills I've ever gotten in a single game was on that map. 72/12 and wasn't the least bit fun. Pinnacle just looks like an afternoon job. I did forget the palace one, it's probable the best design wise

@at the rest +80 is an estimation from the time I sat down till shut off. not including mess with the family, getting sidetracked & and *ahem* smoke breaks which would explain the slow going LOL.. I would put some more time into if a contest was ahead. Clean-up terrain though wall, redesign the middle and change the CTD points..
if your butthurt cause I didn't like your maps oh well *hands dave a midol* get over it and at least give me some helpful criticism instead of just insults

Over the years I have organized and hosted several map contests at fcmaps.net

For FC2 we had over 5 different contests conceived and was actually working on setting one of them up with direct ubi involvement.

Problem with the Contests though is that many people think there is some vast conspiracy involved in them.
Also Between the two facts of Ubi no longer really actively supporting this game and the vast majority of people dropping the game becuse of that lack of support, makes having a contest sort of a wasted point.

Bottom line, don't expect one anytime soon.

quote:

Originally posted by Daithan:
Pinnacle just looks like an afternoon job.

lol. you are challenged to do better in only one afternoon.

Loved your use of stretched urban ground pathway walls on Babylon, Very intuitive I must say. Also loved how pointy you can make that terrain, takes me 80+ just to get mine that sharp. Last but not least, loved how you made the pathways so small!, I felt like Goliath running down a dirt road.

5 Stars!

quote:

Originally posted by CIB24:
i dunno personally i cant justify spending 100 hours or more making a map, thats excessive

My Temporal Expansion level took me over 100 hours to make. The original, Temporal Takeover took me about 40-60. Since they are pretty much the same map, it is really like Temporal Expansion took me 150 hours.

That was way excessive

quote:

Originally posted by Daithan:
if your butthurt cause I didn't like your maps oh well *hands dave a midol* get over it and at least give me some helpful criticism instead of just insults

Please accept my apologies if I offended with my comment. I'm happy to share some ideas for improving your map.

LAYOUT:

This map is really, really big. There are lots of wide open areas. Plus its also vertical. I'd scale back the overall size so that players can find each other in a reasonable amount of time.

AESTHETICS:

I'm not really sure where you were going here. I'm guessing that "Babylon" really didn't have anything to do with the map?

The use of terrain as walls, while effective for reducing your budget for other things, unfortunately just doesn't look very good (due to the way it stretches any paint texture you apply). Of course, budget does not seem to be an issue as you used less than half the items you could have.

You used all kinds of buildings, so there's no real flow or theme to the map...consider using less different styles of buildings. In fact with the cave you have, I'd get rid of all of the Colonial buildings and use more Dogon and Hut structures, unless you are feeling really ambitious and want to try creating a custom structure from scratch.

The rock work throughout is very unnatural. You have the flat bottoms of the rock pieces sticking out everywhere at odd angles. I try to avoid having any exposed bit of flat rock bottom, unless it's because I'm trying to use the flat part to make it look like a pathway was carved out of the rock. The cave ceiling in particular could use a LOT more work. I'd suggest simply adding more rock and flipping them upside down so it looks like a real cave.

Some of your pathways cannot be traversed without having to jump because of tree roots, and some of your stairways need to be tweaked for the same reason. You want to be sure that wherever a player goes they are not suddenly stopped by a map design flaw. I'd also widen the pathways. There's an option for making them wider in the pathway editor.

You should also raise the birds out by the barge since they fly right through the barge.

There's a lot to consider when making maps, obviously. Since this is your first map, it's a given that there will be a lot of room for improvement. I will say that you were a lot more ambitious than I was with my first map!

I really am curious as to what you don't like about my own maps though-we all get better at this with constructive criticism. Can you give me specifics? Thanks!

Some of the comments in this thread point out exactly what happens with map contests. You can take any of the custom ranked maps, and you'll find lots of people who absolutely love them, and you'll find lots of people who think they're utter garbage. Heck, you can take just about ANY map on any given game - Halo, COD, Gears of War, etc - and you'll find plenty of people who think that map sucks.

Because judging a map is inherently a subjective process, there are always those who vehemently disagree with the results, and therefore charges of conspiracies always crop up.

quote:

There's a lot to consider when making maps, obviously. Since this is your first map, it's a given that there will be a lot of room for improvement. I will say that you were a lot more ambitious than I was with my first map!

at least I can kinda brag about my 1st fc2 map, since there wasn't any major flaw, apart from very bad perfs. Renavista or far cry palace are also proofs that 1st maps aren't doomed to fail.
I downloaded a lots of maps as soon as I bought the game, beginning by JC Karlo's ones, so I knew what to do quite quickly...

quote:

I really am curious as to what you don't like about my own maps though-we all get better at this with constructive criticism. Can you give me specifics? Thanks!

they are better than his maps
well, actually, I haven't looked at his map yet, but it's near impossible to do better than CUD, on the technical side only, his maps are flawless or almost.

If you don't play Ranked on a regular basis, your opinion holds much less influence than those that have maximum diamonds unlocked. If you don't like Renavista, then stop playing it with 16 players. It's the most popular map for 4v4 squad battles.