I just found out that one of my neighbors is a game designer.

Looking at the Frapper map for SnarkPit, mappers indeed appear to be a
rare breed, especially serious mappers. Even though there are
thousands of us at the Pit, we're scattered all over the world.
And the opportunity to meet another fellow mapper seems truly slim.

Now I can talk in person with someone who shares my sense of enthusiasm for the gaming world. It is a momentous day.

---

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

Never met another in my life.

---

My Pit

I've got a rising mapper living very near to me... :smile:

In other words, I'm teaching my little brother mapping and he's picking
it up quite well. Besides him however, I haven't seen a real
level-designer yet, though I've heard of some brothers of friends and
such who mapped and recently I found out another Dutch mapper lives
about a 15 km west of me, but that's probably the closest I've seen so
far.

And yeah, it's always nice to see someone else who has the same 'tick'... :wink:

---

Create-ivity - a game development blog

it's really rare to see a mapper here in peru, i don't know anyone else that maps (or at least that knows how to) for HL or any MOD... well, i know there's another mapper near to me, but he only shows himself when i look to the mirror.

I got introduced to mapping by a group of friends of mine. There was about 7 of us, in a town of ~2000.

The others have since moved away or stopped mapping, or turned into jerks and... forget it. Anyway, Mappers are pretty common here i think. or at least they were. I am getting Fatstrings hooked on it now too!

---

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

I've tried to get friends into mapping, one made a decent first map, but none really got into it.

---

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

• My yr11 Economics teacher

Yeah, I impressed all my friends with my l337 mapping skills, the most I ever got them to make were things like... hollow rooms with prefabs and the occasional ladder.

---

One day you'll know what you're talking about, I can hardly imagine

Maps! - Audio blog!

Never met a mapper in real life, but then again I don't go around asking people if that's one of their hobbies.

Well, I know a few... but I'm the one thanks to who they have ever touched hammer though.

I just thought one day when I was playing quake, that it would be great
to make something on my own like this. So I started searching... I
found a small page on the internet which was estonian language and
described the making of ladders and such, and windowses. (if we live in
a world without walls, why the hell we need gates and windows?)

Anyway, I started looking for materials on my own, I have a huge Worldcraft manual somewhere...

But I'd really like to meet a level designer irl, you can then have
someone you can talk face-to-face about level design and actually you
would be both interested in it. Also, sharing knowledge is a key
element :smile:

---

HL2 tutorials 'n' stuff: http://madedog.pri.ee
217.159.236.34:27050 - CSS Server - Clean | koffer.ee

Hello, nice to meet you. Are you a mapper? No? Oh well, what's your name bytheway?

:biggrin:

Well, about sharing knowledge and idea's, I've had two fellow Dutch
mappers on the phone a few times and there's a few German mappers I'm
on IRC or MSN a few times a year and those are always great talks, so,
yeah, a real-life mapper would be nice :smile:

---

Create-ivity - a game development blog

Madedog, I told you I'd come up there to see you some day. we can talk about mapping after I beat you up!

:biggrin:

---

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

I have met one DoD mapper, and oddly enough he shares the same birthday
as me as well as he's lived in the same city his whole life like
me...except he's on the other side of the city and a completely
different race. :razz:

I've been pushing one of my friend to map as it's something to talk
about, but generally I just have friends wanting to see what I've made
and they aren't as into the actual construction.

I am a very selfish mapper , i make maps .. play them by myself and then delete them when i'm done. =.

i tried to get a friend into mapping , and obviously he was unhappy with his results.

I do'nt make maps, and therefore don't call myself a mapper. But
every once in awhile I'll make something and play it and then not post
it, because normally they're CS killboxes (They're more fun then you
think, guys).

Yeah, I make killboxes, but with some excitement, and theyre lots of fun.

i used to map killboxes for cs too. i like them.

When you've played games as long as some of us have, killboxes don't do it for you.

Gorbachev said:
When you've played games as long as some of us have, killboxes don't do it for you.

Unless you custom texture the walls with star trek pictures....

---

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

Gorbechev is the closest mapper to me yet ive never met him. I just dont have a real hankering to meet somebody who does the computer thing. Id rather be out partying then in adark room filled with computers and geeks.

---

I sell useless stuff to stoned people

PixelGames

Mapping is an unusual hobby. In fact, if you ask most of your
friends what mapping is, they would probably think you're talking about
making a topography of a hiking trail or something.

And that's why I think The SnarkPit is such a close-knit
community. If we meet other mappers in real life everyday,
there's no need to come to the forum and discuss about our obsession.

It's hard to find someone who can get into a heated discussion about displacement surface and entity settings in the real world.

---

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

I've got a rising mapper living very near to me... :smile:

In other words, I'm teaching my little brother mapping and he's picking
it up quite well. Besides him however, I haven't seen a real
level-designer yet, though I've heard of some brothers of friends and
such who mapped and recently I found out another Dutch mapper lives
about a 15 km west of me, but that's probably the closest I've seen so
far.

And yeah, it's always nice to see someone else who has the same 'tick'... :wink:

Cap, I live in Zeeland woohoot...it's relative close(considering the mapping world is still large americanized)

I met another mapper once, in a McDonnleds/gas station...

he was cool, whinned too much about not being able to shoot dead bodies
out of the RPG in HL2 like you could in the good-ol-days of HL1.

Its alot like art, artist just look at the world in a diffrent way.

mappers look at the world in a very... very diffrent way.

Id rather be out partying then in adark room filled with computers and geeks.

I'd consider that a party... as long as there was beer. Otherwise it would be a forum of like-minded individuals, without beer.

Edit:

I'm in a beery mood.

---

o

DrGlass said:
he was cool, whinned too much about not being able to shoot dead bodies out of the RPG in HL2 like you could in the good-ol-days of HL1/quote]

Where theres a Wil5on, and a pirate copy of .NET, theres a way xD

Has anyone ever talked about mapping to girls? I've impressed a couple of girls by sending them screenshots of my school maps... it hasnt worked yet, meh. Mapping schools has been fun for lan parties, I've had randoms join my games and say "hey, I used to go to this school, awesome map dude". Thats what its all about.

---

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

• My yr11 Economics teacher

A lot of girls I met in college thought it was really cool, as does my wife now. I never won any over with it (nor did I try, mind :smile: ), but even if they didn't understand it they thought it was pretty impressive.

I met a guy my freshman year of college who did some dabbling in worldcraft here and there and even lived something like 20 miles from me during high school; he e-mailed me after being told by another frequenter of the Valve ERC IRC channel that we were both attending the same school. Turns out he even lived in the dorm right across from me and we had some classes together second semester. He was the first guy to hear of the idea for Nightwatch and also watched me draw the original layout for Eclipse in the boring bits of our calc class. :smile:

As for knowing people in person, I know like 20. Pfft, get with the program :razz:

(yes, that's a joke)

---

www.button-masher.net

I have met about 20-30 leveldesigners throughout my life.

I hapened to get into the crew of swedens biggest (and only?)
Leveldesign community a few years ago. During those days, many people
where interested in having a leveldesign-LAN but no one took the idea
seriously since nobody knew how to get money or a place to arrange the
LAN.

However my dad owns a big house which had a big empty space just under
the roof where you store stuff (dont know what its called), where we
could arrange the LAN.

Luckily enough, the administrator of the site did live in the same city
as I do aswell as a few others in the crew, so we desided to meet and
take a look at the place and discuss wether it was a good idea or not
to arrange a LAN.

After some discussion we decided to give it a go, however we still
needed money to get some LAN equippment such as Switches and stuff.

This was a bit trickier, but after some research we got aware of a
swedish association that, with support from EU and the goverment, gave
finacial support to small LAN and roleplaying groups. We submitted a
request for some money to our Leveldesign-LAN, and actually was granted
~250 dollars. We bought switches and stuff and arranged the LAN.

Almost all the 24 places where taken and half of the "group" had been traveling

more than 2 hours to get to the LAN, some of them had been traveling
for 5 hours. We all had a great time and I got lots of new friends
during the LAN.

Since then we have arranged four more Leveldesign-LAN's, where most of the oldies returned and brought their friends.

The leveldesign-LAN's have been the funniest events of my life and I have gotten friends for life.

MrBister, that sounds great. I wish I were there.

Girls in general, from my experience, have absolutely no interest in
computer games. When I first started mapping, I was so excited to
show my wife my maps. But after a few chilly receptions, I gave
up on showing her. She's nice enough to play along, but I know
that she really has no interest in these maps (or any maps).

The only time she was impressed was when she looked over my shoulder
when I was playing Half-Life 2, during the metal bridge frame
level. She's fascinated with the idea of combat underneath the
bridge. I thought that was one of the greatest levels in HL2.

---

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

I loved that level too, very novel situation :smile:

When I first got into level design I had a mate that would often come
over and watch while I was building stuff, or sometimes have shots
himself. He would always slag me off for having no creativity... hell
he still does! I've shown my stuff to quite a few people over the
years, once to a girl who SEEMED impressed but was most likely just
being nice :biggrin: When I told my mum I'd won a contest here a while back
she insisted on me printing out anything of the sort that I'd done (eg.
PHL level of the week awards :biggrin: ), but I think that was more motherly
pride than actual care for the work!

Now that I'm at uni on a games course, quite a lot of people around me
have tinkered with mapping but I think I'm the only one in my year who
is particularly interested in the area. It is a programming course so
it's not a great surprise. My flatmate has played about with mapping
for HL1/source but not very seriously, though he has just bought an
editing book for Unreal that he seems interested in using to further
his skills.

---

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

Satch, I've noticed the same thing. All the ladies I've ever shown
something on the computer besides peniscut or tubgirl etc I get either
indifference or fake enthusiasm/politeness. It makes me feel like a
three year old showing off what done did painted at school today, so I
don't bother. That said, I don't really think I like the idea of a
woman TOO enthusiastic about anything computery; they already go
through your pockets, best leave the folders alone :biggrin:

Digging into some Ld-lan forum threads i found an old group picture
from LD-lan #3, not sure if everyone was present though.

http://home.no/lmhost/ldlan3/gruppnamn.jpg

satchmo said:
Girls in general, from my experience, have absolutely no interest in computer games.

true in most cases. But my ex liked playing doom2 dm against me. and zoo tycoon.

as a matter of fact, I showed my current gf Black & White 2 today. As i expected, she was enthusiastic about the creature and the graphics (landscape). Apart from that she got bored after 5 minutes, and i got the feeling Mephs so accurately described.

i met a guy, a friend of my bro, who attempted some mapping but he didnt feel good enough / bothered to learn.

i think i was at the same Lan party as ForceFlow once, but i didnt know him at that time.

---

These words are my diaries screaming out loud

I know quite many girls who play computer games. They're playing the
same games like us males, they just don't keep much noise about it.

A number of my male friends wanted to learn mapping at one point so I
offered to help them. Everyone of them learned the basics, but once
they understood how much of a work it is to actually finish a map they
gave up. Thus I don't know anyone in person who happens to be
intrested in map making...

---

''Everyone wades in s**t until they're competent enough to walk on it. Jesus style.''
Dystopia - Empires

I truly believe that a different type of blood flows through our veins compared to the average/normal person. It takes a special devotion and perseverance to be a good mapper, or even a decent one. Most gamers have too short of an attention span to complete a reasonable map.

Since most of the members at the Pit are in the teens, I wonder how many of us are going to grow up and become someone very important in the computer or gaming industry. Who knows, one of us might become the next Bill Gates in ten years.

And there are a few exceptions to the rule that girls have no interest in gaming. I personally know a friend from high school who plays games on a daily basis. In fact, she probably spend more time playing WoW than doing other leisure activities. But she's married to a game designer, and she's unusually smart. She finished Calculus by the time she's fifteen.

I'm not saying that girls who aren't into gaming are not smart. For one, my wife's is extremely smart, she's a computer programmer. But she can't garner enough interest to spend more than a few minutes with any game, even with my encouragement.

---

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

Satch, would you agree it's the same reason why games are easier and shorter now?

I find it odd that your wife is a programmer and doesn't like games. That's weird. Seriously. What is her field? (Software Engineering, AI, Languages ... etc)

Finishing Calculus doesn't make someone smart. Knowing Math doesn't prove someone is smart either. :smile: (Especially something as backwards as Calculus)
For all we know her parents could have taught her basic math at a younger age, and kept it up through her teen years. That's not too difficult. The problem is most schools go too slow. (They have to, so everyone can stay at the same pace, it's too fast for some people, but too slow for others)

---

Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

I think all this talk about girls not being interested in games is
nonsense. I know several girls that play games, some play games like
Rollercoaster Tycoon and the Sims, but some others play fps just like
'us'. I do think there's less girls who play and that they have some
different tastes in games in general but it's not that they're so rare
to come across.

Anyway, yeah, a mapping-LAN always sounded interested to me and we
really have to organize something with a few other Dutch guys, but so
far finding a suitable location and transport is the biggest problem...

---

Create-ivity - a game development blog

I recently had an interview for a level design job here in Australia,
and it involved discussing mapping in general and my levels in
particular with the Head Designer and one of the mapping team. It's
been ages since I've actually spoken (not including internet) about
mapping to anyone, and not have to explain it before hand. It was
great, we discussed the trends in mapping communities, some recent
games, noobs, and the rest. The best thing was these guys were really
cool, the kind of people you want to work with.

I'm dreading having to look for work in the Graphic Design industry,
its so cut-throat and the Art Directors and Studio managers are often
style Nazi's who shoot you down in the interview. Not much fun :sad: .

---

Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'

I purposely avoid talking about game design with my "real-life"
friends. If I do my job properly, they don't even know I play Half-Life
2. I'm not really sure why this is the case, but I think it's a
combination of hubris and embarassment on my part.

I live in Iowa, and most people around here are interested in cars, girls, or farming. I guess I'm all alone. :smile:

I've never met anymore who was interested in mapping. Kinda sucks, but that why I have you guys to talk to.

---

Dark_Kilauea
DVS Administration
http://www.dvstudio-production.com/

I've got my girlfriend hooked on most of my movies and games. She plays
World of Warcraft with me, plays Guild Wars sometimes, watched me
intently through Metal Gear Solid 3 and a few other games. I prefer
girls who at least have a general sense of games. It's not that hard, I
can grasp basics of chick stuff (whilst complaining to my girlfriend's
enjoyment) so I at least in a relationship would like the same courtesy.

She's the one telling me to go for the headshot or spade in DoD right after she proclaims "That's gross."

I find it odd that your wife is a programmer and doesn't like games

Why is that so hard to accept? I dare to say that most programmers don't like playing games, and for sure most of them are not mappers.

And there are many girls who like games, but just not shooter games. There are very few exceptions from my personal experience.

---

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

Because, they're good examples for learning which are used throughout the field.

I said nothing about not accepting that as the truth, I just said it's odd. You should clarify what you mean by "programmer". Systems Programmer ... web programmer. Very different individuals for both. And I would argue that comment, "Most programmers don't like playing games." It's just bizarre since games are learning examples. You also have little basis for this, past, I imagine, what your wife tells you.

It'd be even more odd if she had any training in artificial intelligence, while it can be used for many things, games is the easiest way to explain and understand AI.

But, you didn't answer my question. :razz:

---

Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

I've got my girlfriend hooked on most of my movies and games. She plays
World of Warcraft with me, plays Guild Wars sometimes, watched me
intently through Metal Gear Solid 3 and a few other games. I prefer
girls who at least have a general sense of games. It's not that hard, I
can grasp basics of chick stuff (whilst complaining to my girlfriend's
enjoyment) so I at least in a relationship would like the same courtesy.

She's the one telling me to go for the headshot or spade in DoD right after she proclaims "That's gross."

beautifully put gorb ;D i totally agree , i think that even if a girl
doesn't like a game , she should be able to understand HOW a person
could enjoy it. and at least enjoy it with them to some degree.

---

.else /me ~kill you
www.arclan.net

But, you didn't answer my question.

Sorry, I neglected to respond to your inquiry.

She's a programmer who works with Java tools. She primarily deals with big business or government agencies and help them set up programs that can handle database transactions and web input/output/data processing. Some of her previous clients include Merill Lynch and SKG Dreamworks.

She was intrigued by the AI aspect of mapping. I showed her how I setup info_nodes and have the combines hunt the player down and patrol around. But she wasn't interested enough to play the maps. I think one thing preventing her from playing is that she's not used to playing these shooter games, and she dies almost instantly. In addition, she gets motion sickness from FPS.

---

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

Ah. It all makes sense now.

Most DB programmers care more about theories, as I've experienced. I HATE database programming.

Another hint that she has no interest in any type of gaming is using Java. Not the fastest programming language out there. Relativly easy too :smile: (That's not a bad thing, but it's a poor choice for run time instensive stuff ... which isn't databases)

There's a lot of money there though. But, I hate that stuff. AI is harder, too (Not implying she doesn't have any experience in that area, of course). You can't think of anything like how a person thinks of it ... very confusing sometimes. :smile:

---

Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

And thats just the area I chose to do my honours project in - wonderful. It's certainly interesting stuff though :wink:

---

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

Artificial Intelligence?

If so: that's cool. I'm trying to think of what I should do my Masters in. I'm leaning towards either Software Engineering or Artificial Intelligence. I'm sure, eventually I'll finish both. AI would be more fun, and has an easier expansion into a Doctorate.

I'm taking my first AI class this term. So far we've had to make a Sudoku solver. The one I'm behind on is a 9x9 solver (which, just happens to be able to solve many more puzzles of different sizes.)

Maybe I'll post it up here when I'm done. Give some instructions to run it under Windows too.

In the class we have a student defined project to do. I was thinking of doing Tic-Tac-Toe. It'd be a coordinate system for input though. Still not sure about that. One of my friends is doing a "Simulation" of drivers. With routes on city streets and doing stuff with accidents and stuff. Really crazy, if you ask me.

---

Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

First-year AI is hilarious, they can barely teach anything because the foundations of the theory havent been introduced properly. It had the most awesome practical though, you had to write an AI bot for a robot fighting game and make it compete against others. The game is at http://robocode.sourceforge.net/, the bots are written in Java (hence youll need Java runtimes and possibly compiler). You should show your wife Satch, she might be more interested in a game that only requires coding skill :biggrin:

I've had girls beat me in AoE. I've had girls try to arrange CS matches with me, only to find their pirate copy wouldnt work on Steam. I've shown girls screenshots of my maps, and they asked for copies. There are girls who play games, you just have to find them.

---

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

• My yr11 Economics teacher

Yeah it's an AI project, I'm going to investigate social AI and develop
a system to make background characters in games more believable. I'm
sure you've noticed that in most games they either sit about repeating
some simple behaviour loop, or patrol a path with little variation.
Those that have been more ambitious tend to have their characters act
like f**king idiots (eg. Fable), so there is definately room for
improvement :biggrin: There are things that demonstrate believable socal AI,
but not often running in the background characters of a real time game.
Gotta look into some basic psychology papers and presentations to get a
grip on key behavioural traits, determine what is feasible to implement
and what implementation technique is most suitable, and then develop a
demonstration. Should be fun :smile:

We haven't had any formal classes on AI through our course (yeah...it's
a bit of a joke :sad: ), so its a new area to me but one I find more
interesting than the technical side of things...

...at which I suck.

Don't think I knew you were going for a masters Crono, do you have an honours or degree already?

Funny you should mention the Tic-Tac-Toe thing, as we did something
somewhat related near the start of the course. We had to write a
program that worked out how many legal board layouts there were in
Tic-Tac-Toe if crosses start. A lot of people got different answers,
but mine were 19683 positions in total, 5869 of them legal, and 820 of
them entirely unique. Looking back at that program it's like I didn't
know globals could be local :biggrin: I appear to have used variable names as
if they were pointers, when I quite clearly wasn't using any. Madness.

---

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

I met a fellow mapper a week ago!! Go to www.twhl.co.za and check out Slasher101! He goes to a school close to mine.

---

I would love to change the world, But they would'nt give me the source code.

I have noticed, at least in my limited way that gaming has shifted. Quite a bit in fact.

I meet only 2 kinds of gamers now. The first is into those stupid X-box or Game cube machine type games. The second is into Pay-to-play fantasy games.

I haven't met any serious gamers in ages. I mean, serious as in the mindset it takes to play a game like Civilization or some other strategy game. In short, a game that requires a bit of dedication other than mindless rampaging. The new games like car driving and such, its so short sighted its sickening.

I have never met another mapper in person. I had met a couple TFC players back in 99/00 but those fellas were also into a bit of mindlessness. Sniper's were all they talked about. :rolleyes:

Anyway, I would love to meet someone I could share ideas with. I wouldn't care if it were their home or mine, just the sharing process would be nice.

---

There is no history until something happens, then there is.

Underdog, go play some Shadow of the Colossus and then talk about seriousness or short-sightedness...

---

www.button-masher.net