Project Reality Forums

I've done something like map building in another game where you build missions. Long and tedious with little problems always coming up that take forever to workout.

One time I was able to build a large scale map/mission way bigger than anything I would have the time to do before, but this was because someone had made the same idea previously, which was ok, but not great. I was able to take that and add on to it to make it huge and epic.

My question is more about maps after the thread about Muttrah in suggestions.

Its my understanding that maps and other things on here get made by one persons mountain of effort?

So I was just wandering if the DEVs ever develop maps in teams?

One person starts it, and passes it on to the next, and so on until it is finished to break down the work loads with collaboration.

I imagine something like this goes on with other aspects of PR, but anytime people talk about making maps it seems to be a solo effort?

If an effort of 1, it seems that would limit ideas and possibilities.

The original maps are mostly done by one person since the original map creator has all the files necessary on his PC. While it is indeed possible for us to have maps be built as a collaborative effort via redmine, the issue with that would be that it only works if one person works on it at a time, otherwise you get diverging versions of the map. For example, person A finishes for the day and uploads his changes, which forms revision 300, person B then first has to download said revision 300 and can only then continue from there, since without the download he's on the revision he left it at for A to work on(eg. Revision 299). If person B forgets to do that(or person A once B is done), any work he's doing on the wrong revision is wasted effort and time since there's no way to get the changes B has done into the correct revision, the only exception I can think of would be the placement of objects in world which is a plain text file with XYZ coords of the object name and the rotation of it. By no means is this impossible, but it adds a bit of tedium to the creation process, working only after the other has concluded for the day - so either a time zone difference or a noticeable difference in people's working schedules are required - as well as giving the other a quick update when you are finished for the day which also isn't the worst part, but let's say for example person B cannot reach person A for whatever reason and thus doesn't know whether or not he's still working on his end and thus has to wait until person A updates the redmine revision. You gotta be REAL patient pulling through this over a couple of months at the very least.

Adding to that, as someone who has spent a couple dozen hours with the map editor, I can tell you however that such a collaboration effort would only be possible when both(all) creators have a fixed map blueprint to adhere to - typically not a problem since we usually map out IRL locations -, or if they have defined boundaries, eg. one person does the top half of the map, the other does the bottom half, or one acts as an assistant to the other. The far more common mindset however is that YOU want to finish what YOU started because that's something you can look back on with a sense of pride and accomplishment(yes, I know this is a meme, but for us it's actually true).

The far more likely event is that one creator gets very far into the map building process but then has to quit due to IRL and someone picks up the pace and finishes it. Mineral afaik has done this for Omaha Beach and Outpost, Outlawz has done it for a number of maps as well if memory serves correctly(or corrects me if I'm wrong).