4 Star Meats [Quenched]

[dana1971]

Hello Natty Dread,

I think a farm map sounds like a good idea.

For the time being however I've put days of work into this map and would like to see it through. After this one I will most likely do something more traditional involving guns.

Check out my latest update below.

Best Wishes,
Dana

[dana1971]

Hi all,

Thanks for all the feedback good and bad.
Although it was hard to hear sometimes, I do feel the map has been made better for it.
I hope even those who don't like the theme can see some interesting game play elements.

To be clear I never saw this as a silly theme, and I approached with respect as I hope can be seen in the art style.

There is now officially a theme for the map rather than just being a cow. I've had the BSE theme in my head for a while but decided to leave it out to keep it straight forward.

I feel I've addressed most peoples comments by adding more places for people to grow troops, and more avenues to attack strongholds.
I left the neutral 8 in the grass area because I don't see it being used until the army sizes get big enough where a neutral 8 becomes a small price to pay for a short cut.
The Fly Swarm can now one way attack the cow pat and the tail tip can bombard the fly swarm. I've also added an auto deploy to the fly swarm, and allowed it to assault anywhere on the top of the cow making it a more desirable place to occupy. There are several other changes, but rather than go on about them please take a look.

Click image to enlarge.

I hope you'll agree that this map has strong game play elements and is worthy of this great website that I'm addicted to.

Best Wishes,
Dana

[dazza2008]

I thought this was really good from the start and with the extra work that has gone into it it looks great and I think would make an awesome addition to the map.

[tokle]

I thought this was really good from the start and with the extra work that has gone into it it looks great and I think would make an awesome addition to the map.

I agree. I think it looks great.

[J_Indr]

Agreed. I also think this would be a very cool map to have

[jbfloyd]

I think the artwork is 1st rate and a cut above many of the other maps I've seen.

I think It'd be a shame to have it canned because some don't like the theme.

It seems like a number of strategies could work.

From the other comments it seemed like adding a story would give the map a better chance of success. My only comment on that is the text was a little grim for my taste. I think my preference would be to not have a story, since I don't see how the story about BSE fits in the gameplay unless there's an aspect of the flies and cow pat I'm not seeing. Without the story, I think it has a nice bit of levity that I appreciate. (I still think it just looks amazing even with the text.)

[andrewpearce44]

Amazing map idea! I love the ones that are a little bit different, they are a nice balance to all the war ones. Looking forward to playing it!

[Ragian]

This is an absolutely brilliant map to me. I'd love to play it. I also think it has a lot of elements that will make the gameplay somewhat trickier than most maps (autodeploy, one-way assaults, and what not).

Moreover, as several have mentioned, the artwork is outstanding.

I support this map 100% and I hope that you will make it, Dana. I can't see any reason this should be turned down. Great work!

[natty dread]

Yes, the map may have merits in gameplay and graphics departments. However, there are plenty of maps that can be made with good gameplay and graphics. What the map lacks however is a proper theme.

It's a cow. That's the main problem. And while a map of a cow might be fun as a novelty kind of thing, there are certain standards to uphold in the foundry. If we allow any map to be made without regard to what the theme is, then it will discourage any effort to come up with innovative, thematically interesting maps. We could all just as well start creating maps of whatever - here, have a map of a brick. Conquer all the holes in it. Hey, let's make a map of a potato! Or a typewriter! Pretty soon, half the maps on CC are crap that doesn't make any sense.

Adding in some text about BSE is not going to change the fact that this is a map about a cow. I'm sorry, but lines have to be drawn somewhere. There have been extensive discussions about this map in various levels of the foundry, and the consensus is that maps need to have more coherent themes to be allowed. That is the guideline that has been set by the site administration, and that is what we have to follow.

[noddy_nuts]

Hi,

I think the map looks great and a great idea well thought through. Look forwards to having a go on it.

Thanks for the hard work

[thenobodies80]

mmm.....where is the connection between the BSE story (that personally I don't like it so much) and the map? I mean what, a part read those lines, makes this map different while I play it?, it again the same old map of a cow with 4 line of text added...
Add a theme means add a theme, not add 4 lines of story about something that is related in some way with a cow.
You should try to make it different, instead it's a again just a map about a cow.

Dana you have a really good skill but you're lost in this cow thing...if the cow is "your land", you need a real story in which put your land. Is really two lines about BSE with zero connection with the game the user will play on the map the best thing you can find to make this cow map less "just a cow"?

[koontz1973]

To be clear I never saw this as a silly theme, and I approached with respect as I hope can be seen in the art style.

There is now officially a theme for the map rather than just being a cow. I've had the BSE theme in my head for a while but decided to leave it out to keep it straight forward.

Dana, you say the theme is mad cow but adding words it not a theme. You have left the drawing itself almost untouched. Show us mad cow if that is what you want. A cow that looks mad, a background that shows it going for slaughter. Mad cow ment that cows could not stand but your one is, this alone is against your theme and needs to be corrected. You want a mad cow map, but you also want players to buy prime cuts of beef. One or the other, not both can be expressed. bse was spreed though the feed so having the cow pat and flies spreed it is not within your theme as of now. Why does the cow pat have an auto deploy if it is going to spreed a deadly dieses.

As for the picture itself, it does not represent mad cow or even prime cuts as of now. It is a picture of a cow, neither is shown. Does not matter how many hours you have put into this, my best advice is to scrap the current picture and start completly from scratch. Either this map done better or a completly different map. Personnaly a different map would be nice. If you want something different, look at doodle earth, patch works and knights. All 3 take CC into a silly direction but have CC at its heart. You do not need to have a war map to play a war game on, but it helps if you have it in the background.

[DiM]

somebody has been sending out pms asking people to come and support the map.... tsk tsk tsk.
community support does not mean getting a few people to post here for the first and only time.
dana, sending pms to your clan (the new crusade) to come post in your map and support it will, in my opinion, do more harm than good.

[J_Indr]

somebody has been sending out pms asking people to come and support the map.... tsk tsk tsk.
community support does not mean getting a few people to post here for the first and only time.
dana, sending pms to your clan (the new crusade) to come post in your map and support it will, in my opinion, do more harm than good.

I for one did not get any PM, I'm not the New Crusade. (That said, I realise that some of the people above probably were such a case.)

If we allow any map to be made without regard to what the theme is, then it will discourage any effort to come up with innovative, thematically interesting maps. We could all just as well start creating maps of whatever - here, have a map of a brick. Conquer all the holes in it. Hey, let's make a map of a potato! Or a typewriter! Pretty soon, half the maps on CC are crap that doesn't make any sense.

Why would a cow be such an issue? The map is well-crafted, looks nice, the gameplay might (might not, I can't say now, but I can't never say about maps before they're in BETA) be interesting. And the map is innovative. It is 100% more innovative than "just another" map of a country, of a USA region, or some randomly created fantasy-land (unless it's got an interesting gameplay such as Dawn of Ages or the AoR series, for example). At least third of CC maps are worse than this. and you know what - for that reason, I don't play them. So, if people don't like to play on cow, then they don't have to.

I absolutely subscribe to, and would always support, the sentiment that we should have, as much as possible, only high-quality maps on CC. This map is definitely not low-quality. It is something, I would call it controversial. I don't find it more silly than Madness - map of a house, which is interconnected through toilets (toilets, really?). I don't find it less fighting-related than Patch Wars or Crossword.

A story to help support the theme

That said, I don't think that BSE is a clever theme. If you want to make this about a virus, make it a robot cow infected by a computer virus or something
I actually don't think you need a "story". Patch Wars doesn't have story either.

[natty dread]

Why would a cow be such an issue?

Because a map of a cow is not a proper theme. It's a gimmick, a novelty that is funny for a while but not for long.

I could make an allegory to the early days of computer games. The days of Atari 2600 and Commodore 64. Back then, the industry was at it's infancy, and a lot of new games were being made of various subjects. In those first days of games, a lot of game makers thought it exceptionally funny to "think outside the box" and instead of having the "usual" themes for their games, they would involve such "hilarious" themes like walking typewriters and flying cabbages and such. Wow, that's different, that's unique, that's never been done, so hilarious! Right?

Well, the novelty wore off pretty quickly. Very soon it was realized that a novel gimmicks like that were no subsitute for well-thought-out stories and themes.

The same process can be seen in many other things. Look at the first experimental movies, where it was considered hilarious and amazing to use such tricks as stopping the camera and moving objects to make it appear like they disappear from the picture. Such elementary camera tricks were enough to literally blow people's minds back then.

So, you point out to crossword or madness for reasons to support a cow map. But in fact, they are exactly the reasons NOT to support a cow map: those are CC:s equivalent for the early experiments with gimmicks and novelties, which we have now moved past. Standards were more lax in the early days of CC mapmaking, because no one really knew what they were doing back then. We know better today, we have experience of what works and what doesn't, we know to avoid subsituting coherent themes with gimmiciks and novelties.

[Flapcake]

I think the artwork is 1st rate and a cut above many of the other maps I've seen.

Really

[dana1971]

community support does not mean getting a few people to post here for the first and only time.

Sure I posted a link in my clan forum. Why not? I also told a few other people about it.
What am I supposed to do, sit on my hands and hope people stumble across it? Just like everything in the entertainment industry you need publicity otherwise no one will see it, and it will fail.

Perhaps you can suggest a better (more acceptable) way to let people know about my map?

Best Wishes,
Dana

[DiM]

community support does not mean getting a few people to post here for the first and only time.

Sure I posted a link in my clan forum. Why not? I also told a few other people about it.
What am I supposed to do, sit on my hands and hope people stumble across it? Just like everything in the entertainment industry you need publicity otherwise no one will see it, and it will fail.

Perhaps you can suggest a better (more acceptable) way to let people know about my map?

Best Wishes,
Dana

i think you don't quite understand how the foundry works. asking people to come and post in your map thread and then claiming that to be community support not only does not work but it also hurts your map.
no foundry veteran is gonna be fooled into thinking this map has support when most of the people "supporting" came at your request made a single post and then left for good. just look at the kind of "support" they're giving you. it's nothing constructive no feedback, nothing. just mindless "this is great" "awesome" "can't way to play". posts like these don't help a map progress, in fact they give the wrong impression that the map is fine and ready when it's nothing but.

anyway, you don't need to advertise your map. it's not like you're directly competing with other map makers. if you want to advertise something then advertise the foundry. it's one thing to tell people "come visit the foundry look at the maps and share your thoughts" and a completely different thing to tell them "come post in my map thread how much you like my map then don't bother coming back or visiting other maps"

[natty dread]

The thing is, whether you get people posting here in support of your map or not is not what decides the future of your map. The foundry is not a democracy, you don't get a map through here by showing that lots of people want it.

Ultimately, the CA:s have been appointed by the site administration to represent the will of the site administration in matters related to maps. If the CA:s and the foreman thus tell you that your map will not go through, it won't go through even if you manage to get a 100 people posting in support of it.

What am I supposed to do

Get a coherent theme for this map, make it something other than simply a map of a cow, or put your effort in some other project.

[AndyDufresne]

I still like the map. It's novel. We need a few more novel maps.


--Andy

[koontz1973]

I still like the map. It's novel. We need a few more novel maps.


--Andy

You are right Andy, we can always have a few more novel maps, but there is a right way and a wrong way to do things. Patch Works is the right way, this is then wrong way. At no time has this map changed for the better in style or theme. Right now, apart from the obvious posts of "I love it", nothing has rally been taken on board by the community and changed. Right now, the foundry veterans and people who have been in the foundry more than once have asked for a simple thing, theme, but this has not come about in god knows how many updates. The BSE theme is not represented on the map image. natty is right that this novelty will wear of fast.

IMHO, this map needs to be scrapped, and redrawn from scratch with a theme well thought out and incorporated into it. Not just some random text placed at the bottom.

[AndyDufresne]

I still like the map. It's novel. We need a few more novel maps.


--Andy

You are right Andy, we can always have a few more novel maps, but there is a right way and a wrong way to do things. Patch Works is the right way, this is then wrong way. At no time has this map changed for the better in style or theme. Right now, apart from the obvious posts of "I love it", nothing has rally been taken on board by the community and changed. Right now, the foundry veterans and people who have been in the foundry more than once have asked for a simple thing, theme, but this has not come about in god knows how many updates. The BSE theme is not represented on the map image. natty is right that this novelty will wear of fast.

IMHO, this map needs to be scrapped, and redrawn from scratch with a theme well thought out and incorporated into it. Not just some random text placed at the bottom.

I'll just politely disagree with your assessment of right and wrong. I don't by any means think the map is done or perfect, but I think this can be a fun and unique map.


--Andy

[koontz1973]

I agree that it could be a fun map, which is why I have posted comments on GP to try and get this moving along in the right direction. I may not love it but I do not hate it either. It has to be the map maker to take all comments on board and run with them, but it does seem that after the initial burst of activity nothing or the bare minimum is being done.

For that alone I am surprised at as this is a first map and I know how it feels to get things done right and get the community on board with you. It is really great to play a map for the first time and Dana could make this happen.

[pershy]

LOVE the map! Love the theme and the artwork and humor and you've obviously put a lot of thought into the gameplay Dana. I can't wait to try it out!!! Good to see something so original too.

[DiM]

LOVE the map! Love the theme and the artwork and humor and you've obviously put a lot of thought into the gameplay Dana. I can't wait to try it out!!! Good to see something so original too.

you're late to the party, the other clan members posted hours ago