I'm feeling bad about mapping...

I don't know if school shootings even make it to world-wide news anymore. So, in case you haven't heard: Some disillusioned, German teenager once again felt like the international nerd community likes him to take bloody revenge by shooting random schoolmates. Fortunately, except for his suicide, nobody was killed.

The really bad part is: The guy build a map of his school in Hammer. sigh

For a week or so German media is infested now with ignorant and sensationalist "background reports" somehow mixing up making youtube clips where the guy poses with pump guns, self-made bombs and black leather suits and RAF terrorist speeches in the background... and playing counter-strike. It's so frustrating. Like blaming surgery for the butcherings of Jack the Ripper.

But it's a fact that if this guy came to the forums, it could have been me giving him f**king optimization tips. I wouldn't have if he told me this was a map of his school but just thinking about it gives me shivers.

I've seen the map on TV. It's the kind of s**tty frustrated teenager "ICANTeHMAP" map with comments about how manga sucks on the walls! and... I don't know what to think. Probably I'm just pissed. At the media and the stupid German kid. I haven't heard a single word about natural born killers. Seems movies are out and games are "in". It's in to blame them for being inspired by the assholedom of the world.

Nobody had concerns playing his victory-speeches on TV all day, allowing him to get his message across single-minded idiots everywhere. Nobody asked how a labile teenager can acquire such an amount of weaponry. But German politicians are discussing banning FPS games once and for all. I'm not really concerned but it still sucks. It all sucks. The whole discussion makes me frustrated, just looking at Hammer. I don't want to land on any Austrian FBI list for telling my friends I'm making harmless sci-fi maps in Hammer.

:sad:

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Why snark works.

Hey, what's that I smell?

sniff

Smells like another excuse for whack thompson to jump up and scream bloody murder :/ I do believe I remember someone posting a map about their high-school here -- don't remember who it was, though :x Though, one can't automatically assume that just because they find a HS based map, that it's the person we're talking about.

Apart from that, I've felt that Germany has always had rather stupid censoring ideas on Video Games -- they're no different from movies, and as far as I'm concerend, if FPS are banned, then you must ban action movies.

But no, they can't do that -- that'd cause the economony in Germany to crumble :rolleyes:

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Breaking the laws of mapping since 2003 and doing a damn fine job at it

Yeah, I heard about this.

The reason why they're targeting games is because, frankly, they're an easy target. They supply a very convenient pathway to higher political agendas as well (like getting elected for a better official position.)

They target them for their personal reasons. In addition to this, it shows a appeases everyone who is implicitly outraged at the event and single minded enough to buy a direct attack at some form of independent thought.

Here's an idea: he drove a car to the school ... and ended up kill people ... lets ban cars. No, I guess that logic doesn't work in other situations ... or any situations.

This is, as it was and always will be, a social situation. He was like this and did these things because of his upbringing and all the experiences he had in his life. Not because of counterstrike, or something else as equally far fetched.

Games just supply the pedestal of personal gain for politicians. As always, they aren't trying to fix anything, just make everything look okay and get their own ass more money.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

There's no reason to stop mapping because some whack job liked to do the same thing you enjoy. He had different motives. We make maps to be creative, he made them for practice for a real life crime.

The whole point of games is to do things you wouldn't do in real life. GTA is a prime example. Any idiot knows if you purchase a hooker's services then beat her down to get them money back, then kill the ambulance driver trying to resucitate her, then back over six pedestrians and blow up a cop car with a rocket-launcher... you will most likey go to jail for the rest of your life.

Politicians will always blame the easy target, gaming. They never blame the parents for not noticing little Johnny loading up on weapons or his anti-social behavior. There are always warning signs, and most people ignore them. Hindsight is 20-20 and people will always tack on an "after the fact" scapegoat to let themselves sleep better at night.

I thought guns were controlled in Germany...

and EVERYONE makes a map of their high-school. We had a local mapping/HL lan-party club when i was in high school and all 10 of us mapped out high school. we even placed a scientist in each classroom so we could have something to shoot. we didnt have anything against the teachers or anything. we just liked shooting stuff in-game.

This is bullcrap. Don't stop being who you are just because some mentally inferior asshole could not stand that he was criticised for who HE was! BooHoo, poindexter.

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

Just because he made a map of his high school, does not mean that he was using it to "train" for the deed. Like Nickel said, everyone makes a map of their high school, not because they want to vent their frustrations in it, but because they want to make something that they know.
People make maps of their houses, their rooms, and their schools, they make models of their flat screen monitors, their cars, and paraphernalia in their rooms. They don't copy things to mangle of manipulate them, they copy them because they know them as well as they do.

I'm not going to let this hinder my mapping, and I'll stifle any attempts from third parties to do the same, including bombarding Jack Thompson's email account if that's what it takes.

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

A lot of schools have a really nice DM layout. Very symmetrical and lots of avenues of annihilation.

The HS I went to would be an awesome map (I still think so today). Not as a school, but, as a building.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

I've made maps of both high schools I went to, and parts of the university I go to now.

As for banning games, this whole thing is retarded and will move on to something else in a few years.

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"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

This thread makes me remember a topic in a newspaper the other day.
It said something like:

"three out of ten girls is afraid of going out in the dark, is it because of video games or movies?"

How about the newspapers? Isn't that an option? Why don't they blame the media? I guess nobody likes to blame themselves.

I made a map of my workplace, and all my co-workers enjoyed playing
it when we went to lan parties together.

This is a coincidence cause I remember a guy making a map of a school on the V.E.R.C. forums but that guy was from I-raq and we all know what it's like out there... :biggrin:

Taking into account all the guys that made maps and didn't kill their schoolmates, I'd say the press has found a black sheep again. As if that wasn't obvious. And as if the killing wasn't bad enough, there always has to be pointed a finger. As if that solves anything.

I won't say playing violent games doesn't have an effect - I believe they can accustom people to violence - but I also don't believe that such games set up people to kill others. There's far more factors involved than just that.

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

Yup. The very first map I made was of my parents house so that when I played LAN games with my brothers we could slaughter each other in a familiar environment... yet we're all still alive, never having had the urge to act out those imaginary battles!

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Some people are like slinkys...

They aren?t really good for anything, but you can't help but laugh when one tumbles down the stairs.

how was he able to be raised (if at all) like this? how'd he get the weapons? who was telling him right from wrong? telling him they loved him? sigh. all the GTA and counterstrike in the world can never outweigh a good parent.

dumbsh*t german politicians stroking the dicks of parents that think video games cause kids to do these things.. it's dumb. the parents and politicians.. they're so quick to blame something that can't defend itself -- let alone who's really responsible; themselves.

our violent media doesn't create a violent society, our violent society creates a violent media. =|

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the players tried to take the field
the marching band refused to yield

We can't go a week without bad press for the industry these days sadly. Ignorant politicians, sensationalist journalism, and weak parents all teaming up to pile onto a scapegoat rather than look at the real issues :sad:

Obviously not as startling a news story (if school shootings being linked to games is really "startling" anymore), but more ignorant controversy just stopped a new survival horror game coming out in Europe. Not much of a loss - apparently "Rule of Rose" is a rather mediocre title at best - but the eagerness with which so many politicians and journalists condemn something that they have zero factual knowledge of depresses me. Apparently it features scenes in which children are violently tortured and has sexual scenes between children - something which people who have actually played through the game seem to deny categorically. I've not played it myself, and I must admit that the trailer did look a little suspect, but I'd be more inclined to take the word of the people who have played it over those that have "heard rumours". The publishers invited the concerned parties (including the Mayor of Rome, who was one of the most outspoken on the issue) to view the game for themselves, but I don't think of them could be bothered taking the time out of their busy schedule of spreading misinformation to take them up on it.

I hope that the Mayor of Rome never gets shown Clocktower 3 - pretty brutal violence against children right there; hows a sledgehammer to an 10 year old girl's cranium sound? That scene still shocks the hell out of me; by far one of the "least acceptable" scenes I've seen in a computer game. Certainly sticks in your head though; Clocktower 3 might not have been a great game but boy did some of the cut-scenes make it memorable in a most disturbing way.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

yeah, children getting killed in Prey was a little messed up.
One girl was smashed to death while a small boy was impaled on a spike
if memory serves. That kinda thing is hard to forget and I could have done
without it. Still a decent game though.

It's a bit interesting how violence in games has flip-flopped over the years -- back in the days of Doom, Quake, and Resident Evil, "violence" was blood and gore all over the place, whereas in games nowadays, it appears that developers are going for more gruesome seens rather than gore and blood.

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Breaking the laws of mapping since 2003 and doing a damn fine job at it

• This makes me sad that I've been telling everyone I want to go to Germany for my exchange program. They're probably all like "...dumbass..."
• The way it is in Europe is always just a few years ahead of the way it will be in USA. With our new liberal congress, I think things are headed the "germany" way soon.

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com