Gaming Dad

Working at the urgent care clinic today, I saw a little kid with a cold. But that's not what makes the visit memorable. As soon as I walked into the exam room, I noticed that the dad was wearing a Splinter Cell T-shirt.

After checking his kid out, we started talking about gaming. He was impressed that I am a fellow gamer, but he was even more intrigued when I told him that I map for Half-Life and Source. He used to play the original Counter-Strike, so he's familiar with what mapping means.

I showed him my SnarkPit profile and told him about using Hammer to make maps. By the time they were leaving, they asked me to be their son's pediatrician.

Who doesn't want a mapper to be their doctor?

satchmo said:
Who doesn't want a mapper to be their doctor?

I don't. To sum it up in one word: Habboi.

BTW, just kidding habboi, but you are one goofy son of a gun sometimes...

I have yet to meet my first "real world" half-life player, let alone mapper. :sad:

HL is either not very popular in arkansas, or i need to get out more. :/

I actually don't meet many HL players where i go either. and NEVER met any mappers. are you all just AI programmed to screw with me? ARE there any REAL mappers?

Sometimes when I am at a large gathering (i.e. the Los Angeles
Airport), I wonder to myself just how many mappers are within this
crowd right now.

There are enough gamers out there, but mappers are hard to find.
We're a rare breed. It takes a lot of motivation to map for a
game, certainly more than merely playing it.

I belive I used to know one of the official mappers for NS... I thikn
he was doing a sketch of ns_lost or whatever was the map with that big
shuttle bay where the marines start.. I remember trying to get him to
add a dropship there as a 'rine spawn, and him teling me that that
would be too much of a performance hit... good times...

I have yet to meet my first "real world" half-life player, let alone mapper. :sad:

HL is either not very popular in arkansas, or i need to get out more. :/

Didn't you meet up with Tracer Bullet once? (Or maybe I'm just delusional, which is very likely TBH)

Bah, I haven't met any HL mappers. I met someone once who was coding an
RPG, and had some experience mapping. He sorta disappeared, along with
his game.

OMG J00 H4X I KNOW THE GUY WHO MADE THIS WEBSITE! lol

Mappers aren't a rare breed! They live in the millions... now animators, they are the rare ones!

lol, ive met 2 of my fellow hl players, as i introduced them to the
kickass game, and told them to go buy it, wait, 3 fellow hl fans :biggrin:

well, weve got a mini gaming community at our school, cept we cant play
the games at school, so we tell of funny stories that happened the
previous night. god its fun :biggrin:

i only know one HL player and he isnt too involved in it and he doesnt map. hes more into CSS. but your right mappers are hard to find

fraggard said:
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quote:</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>I have yet to meet my first "real world" half-life player, let alone mapper. :sad:

HL is either not very popular in arkansas, or i need to get out more. :/

Didn't you meet up with Tracer Bullet once? (Or maybe I'm just delusional, which is very likely TBH)

</div></div>

yes i did, and i met half a dozen of my old clan members too, but i was thinking more of just meeting someone i never knew before. i set out to meet obie, and the rest.

/me reitterates, i have never met someone outside of the net whom play's HL or maps for it.

I would love to meet Orph and Nickel especially :biggrin:

I met one mapper :wink:

I might have to drive over to your house Orph and meet you when I come up to Arkansas this summer.

One of my unfulfilled dreams is to watch a veteran gamer play my custom
map for the first time. I mean, watching in person, in
real-time. I would like to see their reaction first-hand, and
find out how they approach the open-ended gameplay and how they learn
from their mistakes.

I had one of my old high school friends play one of my original HL map
before (Museum Lockdown), but he wasn't all that good at FPS, so he
died repeatedly. Wasn't much fun then.

So far, my fiance refuses to play games of any kind. She even
gets bored watching me playing HL2, but he's nevertheless
supportive. Did I mention that she bought me "Far Cry" for my
brithday? :smile:

I have a co-worker who's into downloading games, but he never plays
them after he's downloaded them. Very strange...I just don't
understand him. But he's the one who solved my rebooting problem
on my new machine.

satchmo said:
So far, my fiance refuses to play games of any kind. She even gets bored watching me playing HL2, but he's nevertheless supportive.

I saw the word he in that sentence and for a second I thought you were gay. Lol.

Lol so did I :biggrin:

If you had the choice of meeting any mapper who would YOU meet?

I wouldn't mind meeting a pro mapper such as Rabid, David Johnston, Gwil, Lep and any other famous mappers.

If there's anyone in the industry I would like to meet, it's John Romero.

Andrei said:
If there's anyone in the industry I would like to meet, it's John Romero.

Where is he nowadays? What's he up to? Does anyone know?

I heard that things kinda went downhill after the original Doom series (from various interviews).

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting habboi</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>I would love to meet Orph and Nickel especially :biggrin:

I met one mapper :wink:

</DIV></DIV>

Hab, You'll have to wait til i am in UK next time, you missed me the last time.

If there was one mapper in the whole world that i wanna meet it's GUSTAVO. He is the most coolest most awesomest mapper in the whole world. I love Gustavo more than a f**ktard loves the Steampowered forums!

I would like to meet the guy who made fy_iceworld... then punch him in the face.

Well you'd probably have to deal with his brother then too, they're twins don't you know.

PIT and RD.... they really did some clever stuff with entities back for HL1 and CS.

I remember when they were working on a suicide bomber map for CS. Didn't they do rambohulk as well?

Most people I come across that even know anout Half Life are
counterstrike players. I tell them that CS is a HL mod, and they look
at me funny: "I thought HL came from CS....." Enough said..... Mappers
are rare in around here. Most of the ones I know are the ones my friend
got started (me included :biggrin: ).

My wondering here is how many people at the snarkpit actually map (as
in keep it up)? I bet you the majority of people that have joined the
snarkpit (around the time when HL2 was going to come out) just joined
so they could be considered part of the "Half Life" comunity.

Well the only "real" person i could say that ive met that play's HL is
one of my mates. all my other mates havent evan herd of it. (dont
worry, i gave them plenty of shame) But ive had a LAN party with 6
mates playing HL and it was good. Untill Half of the peopled sodded off.

Spartan said:
I might have to drive over to your house Orph and meet you when I come up to Arkansas this summer.

with a bit of warning, you'd be welcome. you know my schedule, i would need to make sure that i'd be home :smile:

Satchmo - John Romero is working on the new Gauntlet game at the moment.

Nickelplate - Gustavo is now known as Keved and pops up around these parts occasionally.

Never met another mapper myself - or at least, not knowingly. Shame I never got the chance to bump into Gwil since he lived pretty close to me before I buggered off to Lincoln, and he disappeared to Australia :wink:

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Nickelplate</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>

If there was one mapper in the whole world that i wanna meet it's GUSTAVO. He is the most coolest most awesomest mapper in the whole world. I love Gustavo more than a f**ktard loves the Steampowered forums!

</DIV></DIV>

And all this time, I thought that I was your hero.

Keved, yeah.. he's ok :razz:

whispers

jk Kev :razz:

i tryed to make my firends mappers, but only one tryed hammer out.

his mapping experience ended with hours making a map, only to place a player spawn and notice his map was out of porportion, i think he thought liek 8 units was player hietgh.

Dan Grafstrom.

(<3 <3 <3)

Addicted to Morphine - Not only are Pit and RD not the same person, but they did not make FY_Iceworld. I can't believe how many people actually buy that. RD says/does anything he can to get attention, including producing a map where you bomb a cross just so he could piss off a CS Forums moderator.

I've bumbed into several ex-mappers in the army. They've mapped for Doom,Duke Nukem 3D and Quake, but given up after that... Weird. I've never thought of giving up mapping...

I dont think its really mappers that are hard to find, I think its
ameture mappers who take it seriously. I'd venture a guess that
there are about, 45 people here on the pit that really know what they
are doing. That number would hold true for a hand full of
websites (VERC for one). So thats about 200 or so...

I've never met anyone in real life who mapps, but I have met
gamers. I think that there are more people out there than you
really would expect. Gameing seems to still be a kinda taboo
subject, its not something your going to brag about at a party or bring
up with your doctor.

I haven't met any mappers, though I did get to shame one guy who told me I didn't know anything about Half-Life. :razz: Then I taught one guy how to use Hammer... his levels sucked, but at least I only had to tell him how to fix his problems once, which is quite the contrast to a lot of places. :smile:

A couple of my friends got into mapping at the same time as me. Other
than that, I haven't ever met a fellow mapper. For that matter, I've
never met a another 3D modeler either. I know a few artists, and a lot
of coders though.

DrGlass said:
I'd venture a guess that there are about, 45 people here on the pit that really know what they are doing.

me has to wonder, exactly what variables you used. perhaps my ideal goals are a bit lower than you but i think the numbers are a tad higher, unless you are only counting the members whom "share" their knowledge then that number you quoted may be right. :

personally, i think if you can make a map compile errorlessly, you succeeded. after that? well the mapping public is fickle... look how many Idots still frag killboxes. the most successful form of map, requiring the least amount of mapping knowledge/skill to produce. :sad:

Dan Grafstrom.

Addicted to Morphine - Not only are Pit and RD not the same person, but they did not make FY_Iceworld.
I can't believe how many people actually buy that. RD says/does
anything he can to get attention, including producing a map where you
bomb a cross just so he could piss off a CS Forums moderator.

I'm mistaken. I guess I was jsut going by what I remember hearing when I used to visit the Counter-Map forums.

That's pretty low of them. Who made fy_iceworld?

Evidently a fairly experienced mapper, I think. The level is symmetrical and without leaks; the lighting differentiates the Terrorist from the Counter-Terrorist spawn, aiding navigation; and despite its flaws it happens to be one of the most popular maps played on one of the most popular online FPS'.

I think that a decent mapper simply knocked it up out of boredom and either left the mapping community or is too ashamed to take credit for his work.

Sometimes the best map doesn't end up to be the most popular one.
And sometimes he best game doesn't become the most played either.
Just look at Halo 2 and Half-Life 2.

There is no question that Halo 2 is far more popular than HL2, despite that it's an inferior game.

And sometimes the dumbest person may actually become the head of state for the U.S.

fy_iceworld is so often imitated. but was it indeed the first of it's type?

DrGlass said:
I'd venture a guess that there are about, 45 people here on the pit that really know what they are doing.

/me has to wonder, exactly what variables you used. perhaps my ideal
goals are a bit lower than you but i think the numbers are a tad
higher, unless you are only counting the members whom "share" their
knowledge then that number you quoted may be right. :/

personally, i think if you can make a map compile errorlessly, you
succeeded. after that? well the mapping public is fickle... look how
many Idots still frag killboxes. the most successful form of map,
requiring the least amount of mapping knowledge/skill to produce. :sad:

There are lots and lots of people that make maps, I'm talking about
people who are part of the community and who create maps that are the
opposite of a kill box, something tthat took alot of thought and care
to create. Maybe my number is a little low...

fy_iceworld is so often imitated. but was it indeed the first of it's type?

no, I dont quite recall but I think it was before cs 1.3 that a map
called cs_deathmatch (maybe) came out, basicaly it was an O shaped room
with blue and red lights (like iceworld) buy zones a few obsticals and
raised platforms on each side of the spawns. It was very much
like ice world in many ways, I think that iceworld was just a copy cat
of that map with a few additons.

That is what really bugs me about the 'noobie' area of mapping.
These kids take something that is good, then add as much crap to it as
they can. some times it comes out better, but for the most part
they ruin what ever good there was. imitation elevates some
s**tty maps (like iceworld) to a ultra famouse status and ruins other
maps (like dust_4, dust_2002, etc.)

At the risk of sounding elitist:

I don't know, I'm a little more sympathetic towards the mappers who
imitate and add (poorly). Perhaps its because I'm an optimist,
but I have hopes that a small number of people who create techinically
unsound and uninspired dross will eventually desire to create something
new, original, and well-developed. If just one of these mappers
ends up producing something truly great, then I can put up with all the
others.

We all have to start somewhere, the problem is I wish more people would move beyond that initial phase.

At the risk of sounding elitist:

I don't know, I'm a little more sympathetic towards the mappers who
imitate and add (poorly). Perhaps its because I'm an optimist,
but I have hopes that a small number of people who create techinically
unsound and uninspired dross will eventually desire to create something
new, original, and well-developed. If just one of these mappers
ends up producing something truly great, then I can put up with all the
others.

We all have to start somewhere, the problem is I wish more people would move beyond that initial phase.

I agree to a point, I like everyone else started at square one.
but unlike most I didn't inflict my s**t on the world untill I knew
what I was doing, even then my first true map (a death match map) was
unique! It wasn't hard to make a kill box with some diffrent
stuff in it... as I moved on I did make a few more death match
maps (I'm talking about CS maps btw).

I dont think I have anything that some one else cound't have. I
feel the real problem is that people just dont want to take the time to
learn, I mean, it took me 3 years to come out with a map. I've
seen people release maps after a few weeks of mapping.

Imitate maps all day and night, just dont clutter the mapping community with more crap!

satchmo said:
<DIV class=quote style="WIDTH: 90%; HEIGHT: 19px">
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Andrei</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>If there's anyone in the industry I would like to meet, it's John Romero.

Where is he nowadays? What's he up to? Does anyone know?

I heard that things kinda went downhill after the original Doom series (from various interviews).

</div></div>

he was in this months UK PCGamer i think

I agree to a point, I like everyone else started at square one.
but unlike most I didn't inflict my s**t on the world untill I knew
what I was doing, even then my first true map (a death match map) was
unique! It wasn't hard to make a kill box with some diffrent
stuff in it... as I moved on I did make a few more death match
maps (I'm talking about CS maps btw).

I dont think I have anything that some one else cound't have. I
feel the real problem is that people just dont want to take the time to
learn, I mean, it took me 3 years to come out with a map. I've
seen people release maps after a few weeks of mapping.

Imitate maps all day and night, just dont clutter the mapping community with more crap!

Hmm good point and I agree. I've mapped off and on for about a
year (mostly off) and I haven't released anything yet. Don't
worry, I won't inflict anything until I'm proud of it and I'm 90
percent sure its not s**t.

(satcho examines x-rays)

satchmo: ah.. ma'am, i think i finally found the problem.

woman: really??

satchmo: yes, the leak was right behind your elbow.

woman: huh?

satchmo: i'll patch it right up.. you'll be able to VIS just fine in a day or two.

woman: omgwtfbbq

woman: omgwtfbbq

roffle coppter

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