In this post, I’ll be explaining why it would be beneficial to the game and to the player, if 4.0 had restrictions on map making for the community workshop.
Argument One: It would almost ensure quality content.
When you open 3.0’s workshop page, you will be guaranteed a flow of mediocre maps that drown out any resemblance of quality. May it be Washington++, or PEI (With NPCs!) *that don’t actually work due to them belonging to a different map. They are unavoidable. This is because 3.0’s map editor is easy to learn and quite user friendly which allows anyone to make a simple map. Making the map editor require more skill would help in lessening any badly designed or lazily made maps.
Edit: I didn’t explain what my point is with the 3.0 editor exactly how I wanted to, I meant to say that while the 3.0 editor is pretty easy to learn (and that’s obviously a good thing), it doesn’t lead people to make good maps. People often just make simple islands and leave it there, if there was a way implemented to encourage them to continue, that’d be great but as of now, we don’t exactly have the answer to that (or at least I don’t).
Argument Two: Diversity within maps.
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Maps in 3.0 typically don’t include any custom content, whether it’s materials/foliage, custom items or hell, even simple objects. This is honestly quite saddening, as maps are the foundation on which players play the game. Without a good map, the game gets stale and boring quickly. The 4.0 workshop should include a way to reward creators who create custom content for their maps. The more content, the better. It would not only help players not get sick of the same few maps over time, but it would create a tonne more diversity regarding maps.
When was the last time you saw some sort of custom content in a map for 3.0? Practically never. Either because those maps got curated, or the creators didn’t want to spend much time making more stuff because why would they? It’s just a workshop map. Getting featured is always nice, but it’s not always good content due to it being based on popularity (See “The Workshop’s Community Mind” ). Rewarding certain maps and their creators in some way would be a good incentive for people to create said custom content to put into their maps.
TL;DR + Animatic doesn’t know how to write anything: Include tutorials to help people make better content for the workshop.
The map editor doesn’t need to be purposefully anti-user-friendly to ensure quality content. Unturned II’s Dev Kit (a modified version of the Unreal Dev Kit) is basically a better version of Unturned 3’s Devkit (which is a better version of the original editor, despite lacking some notable features of the original).
Very few people use Unturned 3’s Devkit. Since the Unreal Dev Kit is more comparable to Unturned 3’s Devkit than it is to the vanilla editor, there’s already going to be less people making maps. It’s similar to how people say “Blender looks too hard,” or “Unity is too difficult to use.”
I enjoyed the older version of featured content, where Nelson pointed out random community-made things he’s seen. Something similar to timed curation (but just purely for featuring mods) would be alright, too.
Of course, the automatic system (based on Steam’s algorithms and unique to the individual user, I’m sure) isn’t awful either, it’s just not as rewarding as I think it could be.
For argument One, making the interface harder to use might also result in poor quality maps, since it’s easier for the user to miss x or y mechanic or technique that would improve the map if used no matter in what way.
Apologies, not what I meant, obviously having something be anti-user-friendly isn’t the best way to do things. What I meant was that the map editor should be worked with in such a way that people don’t make simple maps. The editor should encourage depth and help the creator with what they’re making.
Exactly, this is practically what I said in my quoted post, having Nelson or someone close to Nelson point out some good content every week or so is a good way to reward creators.
im not so sure about that. a lot of people make good maps, but over complicating it might make some people who have good ideas unable to make a map. I dunno.
Too bad I could never figure that one out anyway
Regardless, I’m actually excited to learn how the kit works and find out tricks and such, rather than being daunted by the task.
While I get your point about how there’s a lot of garbage on the workshop right now, part of what is so nice about the editor is that it is easy to use and learn. Think if it wasn’t easy, a lot of early mappers might have quit right at the start (hell I probably would have). Instead of locking people out of the editor, why not include tutorials within the level editor so new map makers know how to make nice looking maps?
