To be honest, I don't find these current-gen massively-modular environments very fun or memorable. This is just my personal opinion, but I do kind of miss layouts more like Zelda, where 90% of the level design had a purpose. To me, those were memorable and nostalgic.
It might be the reason I never really got into WoW. Massively intimidating landscapes, that didn't really have personality. Everything is huge, there are tons of mountains and epic structures, not enough landmarks. In games like Zelda, everything was a landmark (go up this path, there's a clock. Go down that path, there's small house, walk up this ladder, it's the only windmill in the game).
Environments now are more realistic, but in my opinion, more boring
Could also be because less human imagination is put into everything and it's becoming more automated.
(Multi-player shooter maps are usually great though, because they are carefully thought out).
First of all i just want to start off by saying that i've been a actively contributing member to crydev (and crymod of old) since 2007, so I sure as hell know what im talking about when I say this.
The reason for me being here is that I want to hear the voice of players, Fans and usual people, Your thoughts about the maps you like to play, The style, The object placement, Environment, Atmosphere or whatever is related to level design.
This forum is a place where ACTUAL industry professionals and aspiring hobbyists come to share ideas, projects, and participate in all sorts of community events like contests. Even though many of the people here do enjoy gaming, I wouldn't consider polycount anywhere NEAR a good place to look for a layman's opinion on game development. Quite simply the amount of genius found in any single thread here on polycount is far greater than whatever crydev produces in a year.
I do receive a lot of feedbacks from CryDev but I believe those feedbacks are from the visions of developers, all professional developers there not end-user people.
This is the part where I really fell off the wagon. The only thing that could be considered even close to a professional developer on crydev is the HR team at crytek who run the forum (and thats still quite a reach). Admittedly there are a few pearls that shine out of the mud every now and then (for example when Millenia posted some renders of his weapons there) but in the end it all just gets engulfed in the sea of wannabe gamemakers who bought crysis 2 yesterday and decided that they are fully glorified industry professionals because they can double click editor.exe.
To be brutally honest, I don't find these current-gen massively-modular environments very fun or memorable. This is just my personal opinion, but I do kind of miss layouts more like Zelda, where 90% of the level design had a purpose. To me, those were memorable and nostalgic.
It might be the reason I never really got into WoW. Massively intimidating landscapes, that didn't really have personality. Everything is huge, there are tons of mountains and epic structures, not enough landmarks. In games like Zelda, everything was a landmark (go up this path, there's a clock. Go down that path, there's small house, walk up this ladder, it's the only windmill in the game).
Environments now are more realistic, but in my opinion, more boring
Could also be because less human imagination is put into everything and it's becoming more automated.
(Multi-player shooter maps are usually great though, because they are carefully thought out).
:thumbup:
Games that send you through the area multiple times to achieve an ultimate task are fun or memorable. Games that have you complete the task and move on to the next eye popping over-lit area repeatedly usually aren't.
I remember every area in Majoras mask down to the last pixel because of how many times i had to go back in time and redo an area or in Prime 2 where you're overly forced to go through each of the 3 areas (Which all had a fresh enviorment theme) to get power ups or solve puzzles to progress
I'm crying...I don't know if it's because I'm sad, just got stabbed, or laughing because in one post alone you contradicted yourself twice, missed the idea behind PC and beyond.
Good luck with your endevour you crazy, crazy pickle.
This page is an interesting read I could recommend you.
With interesting sentences like: "Created, maintained and contributed to by professional videogame artists"
"the best News & Forum website for videogame artists" and
"over 50,000 contributing professionals or hobbyist game artists"
all the feedback from here will also be 'from the visions of developers'.
Hey, You all got angry of one sentence that I wrote I want feedback from usual people ?
that much offense you felt ?
This is what I wrote on CryDev: "Can you introduce me some other website related to games ?
I want to collect feedback over my stuff from usual people, Their vision is different than all the pro devs here. Have no idea about the end-user ppl and their thoughts
Thanks"
So they pointed me here, How was I supposed to know you people was in game industry from the beginning of creation and you all was born as developers ?
12 replies here and not a single feedback but the first post thanks to Selaznog.
You can imagine me as a 10 years old kid who just double clicked the editor.exe, Isn't that decent to give some advice instead of ...
You people continue your shining work and ruin the threads of everyone who registers. No doubts everybody wants to kick others, Goodbye.
To the other poster's defense, it usually makes sense to look around a forum a bit before posting and making sure you reached the right place, and then phrase your post accordingly. I think if you spend like 5 minutes looking around then it should be pretty obvious - especially if you're a dev yourself - that this ain't a gamers or end-users forum. Instead you managed to look uninformed beyond common sense
But people here are usually quite friendly - want feedback your maps' looks and layout? There should be a section to post your work. But it'll be feedback from professionals mostly who also happen to be gamers though.
the thing about Polycount is nobody is going to pay much attention to a map made with stock assets - especially if it's a tropical Island environment in Cryengine.
The only feedback I can give on your screenshot is that it looks like the thousands of other Cryengine tropical beaches.
Looking for feedback? I find it shallow and pedantic. No, wait. A tropic beach? I never seen one in CryEngine before! Where did you come up with such an original idea? My advice. Add a sun flare, then star-wipe and fade.
"(Thread will get updated with a new screenshot after I get a good amount of feedbacks on every image)"
This made me chuckle. PC isn't a popularity contest where you keep us all in suspense over your fantastic artwork until we hit a preset number of replies YOU feel is necessary to share your amazing talent with us.
You post your art because you want to post it, not based on how many replies you might get.
Justin summed it up pretty well, as well did Olli.
And I'm starting to think a direct Google translate of your native text isn't doing any favors to anyone since I just realized you were being serious.
And the reason most likely CD pointed you here is because you thought you wanted to become a Dev and want to mingle with other people from the same trade, no go around collecting data on how to make a game on market demand.
I'm serious, the text you're writing can be very confusing for someone who needs to get back to their job in 5 minutes and doesn't have time to decipher the true intention behind a post on the spot.
To everyone else... Clearly English isn't this guys first language. All that matters from the first post (I gather), all he wants is advice on map design. Maybe he's an aspiring level designer, and not an artist? Some people would rather build maps than assets, so I don't see anything wrong with using pre-built assets to achieve this.
Max-dev, if I'm right about this, you should post screenshots of a top view. Throw in some arrows of where the player should be directed. Do you have a concept on hand? We could take a look at that too.
Yes, lots of us have jobs in the industry, but I'd say most of the users here are in school/out of school/hobbyists (myself included). One thing connects us all together though; we are all gamers to some degree!
So yah, in the future, this sort of thread would belong in Pimping and Previews. If you just wanted to have a discussion about level design (not having to do with critiques on personal art), then this would be the place.
Replies
It might be the reason I never really got into WoW. Massively intimidating landscapes, that didn't really have personality. Everything is huge, there are tons of mountains and epic structures, not enough landmarks. In games like Zelda, everything was a landmark (go up this path, there's a clock. Go down that path, there's small house, walk up this ladder, it's the only windmill in the game).
Environments now are more realistic, but in my opinion, more boring
Could also be because less human imagination is put into everything and it's becoming more automated.
(Multi-player shooter maps are usually great though, because they are carefully thought out).
This forum is a place where ACTUAL industry professionals and aspiring hobbyists come to share ideas, projects, and participate in all sorts of community events like contests. Even though many of the people here do enjoy gaming, I wouldn't consider polycount anywhere NEAR a good place to look for a layman's opinion on game development. Quite simply the amount of genius found in any single thread here on polycount is far greater than whatever crydev produces in a year.
This is the part where I really fell off the wagon. The only thing that could be considered even close to a professional developer on crydev is the HR team at crytek who run the forum (and thats still quite a reach). Admittedly there are a few pearls that shine out of the mud every now and then (for example when Millenia posted some renders of his weapons there) but in the end it all just gets engulfed in the sea of wannabe gamemakers who bought crysis 2 yesterday and decided that they are fully glorified industry professionals because they can double click editor.exe.
:thumbup:
Games that send you through the area multiple times to achieve an ultimate task are fun or memorable. Games that have you complete the task and move on to the next eye popping over-lit area repeatedly usually aren't.
I remember every area in Majoras mask down to the last pixel because of how many times i had to go back in time and redo an area or in Prime 2 where you're overly forced to go through each of the 3 areas (Which all had a fresh enviorment theme) to get power ups or solve puzzles to progress
i lol'd
well you won, thread.
Amir's Portfolio Environmnet
Welcome to Celeryland!
Good luck with your endevour you crazy, crazy pickle.
With interesting sentences like:
"Created, maintained and contributed to by professional videogame artists"
"the best News & Forum website for videogame artists"
and
"over 50,000 contributing professionals or hobbyist game artists"
all the feedback from here will also be 'from the visions of developers'.
Maximum-Dev, take a second to use the searchbar on the top and type in "Cryengine". I think you mistake this place for a fan community
that much offense you felt ?
This is what I wrote on CryDev: "Can you introduce me some other website related to games ?
I want to collect feedback over my stuff from usual people, Their vision is different than all the pro devs here. Have no idea about the end-user ppl and their thoughts
Thanks"
So they pointed me here, How was I supposed to know you people was in game industry from the beginning of creation and you all was born as developers ?
12 replies here and not a single feedback but the first post thanks to Selaznog.
You can imagine me as a 10 years old kid who just double clicked the editor.exe, Isn't that decent to give some advice instead of ...
You people continue your shining work and ruin the threads of everyone who registers. No doubts everybody wants to kick others, Goodbye.
But people here are usually quite friendly - want feedback your maps' looks and layout? There should be a section to post your work. But it'll be feedback from professionals mostly who also happen to be gamers though.
you posted in the wrong forum... General Discussion isnt for feedback.
The only feedback I can give on your screenshot is that it looks like the thousands of other Cryengine tropical beaches.
"(Thread will get updated with a new screenshot after I get a good amount of feedbacks on every image)"
This made me chuckle. PC isn't a popularity contest where you keep us all in suspense over your fantastic artwork until we hit a preset number of replies YOU feel is necessary to share your amazing talent with us.
You post your art because you want to post it, not based on how many replies you might get.
And I'm starting to think a direct Google translate of your native text isn't doing any favors to anyone since I just realized you were being serious.
And the reason most likely CD pointed you here is because you thought you wanted to become a Dev and want to mingle with other people from the same trade, no go around collecting data on how to make a game on market demand.
I'm serious, the text you're writing can be very confusing for someone who needs to get back to their job in 5 minutes and doesn't have time to decipher the true intention behind a post on the spot.
To everyone else... Clearly English isn't this guys first language. All that matters from the first post (I gather), all he wants is advice on map design. Maybe he's an aspiring level designer, and not an artist? Some people would rather build maps than assets, so I don't see anything wrong with using pre-built assets to achieve this.
Max-dev, if I'm right about this, you should post screenshots of a top view. Throw in some arrows of where the player should be directed. Do you have a concept on hand? We could take a look at that too.
Yes, lots of us have jobs in the industry, but I'd say most of the users here are in school/out of school/hobbyists (myself included). One thing connects us all together though; we are all gamers to some degree!
So yah, in the future, this sort of thread would belong in Pimping and Previews. If you just wanted to have a discussion about level design (not having to do with critiques on personal art), then this would be the place.