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Author Topic: The history of maps  (Read 1774 times)

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Offline TheKaren

The history of maps
« on: July 28, 2017, 05:00 PM »
So, lalo's post in the "Background legends" thread made me think...

I wonder who is responsible for taking each scheme to the next level with their map designs.

I remember a lot of history when it comes to players and leagues, but not so much maps...

So i'll try tell the schemes I was most involved in and the most notable moments where things changed from my perspective, I may have made some mistakes so please correct anything you see that's wrong:


ROPER:


I remember Roper receiving a drastic makeover, fabrousse took pro roping maps to what I consider an acceptable limit, making them slightly harder than the roper/warmer maps players used back in WACL, look at the difference here between 2 known early roper maps, and 2 roper maps i'd consider suitable, then 2 random evil maps that people play today:

1:


2:


3:


4:


5:


6:


Of course, the 1st 2 are too easy, the 2 last ones are just ridiculous lol, but the 2 in the middle are just right.

Then guys like Mablak, TheDoGG, franz and angus made the most recognisable roper maps that became the standard(maps which end up with a lot of crate rape).





BnG:


So when I started playing League BnG people were playing on maps like this:







You simply load a random Team17 Cavern map, delete the top, fill the bottom, make sure you have 0 bridges and full objects, and voila!

Nowadays people play on maps like this:







I'm fairly responsible for the BnG League standard -forest maps with lots of good hides and raised edges at the edges, after a while it became clear the old Team17 style maps were too open and easy to attack, it wasn't just me who thought "oh, i'll change this and that", it was actually other players asking for more/better hides as I was becoming insanely accurate and consistent with a variety of shots so they were getting hit and pushed pretty much every turn without even getting a chance to shoot back, so that's kinda how evil hides were born...

All I done for 3-4 years was play BnG almost every day all day, with as many people as possible, people were learning how to shoot with low gravity, how to push worms around, do fancy shots, destroy land in advance(open/dig/destroy), BnG actually has strategy to it and maps cater to that better now, of course, not everyone likes this and gets bored easy lol.

I don't take credit alone as these maps were created while playing hundreds of games with b2b and other BnG enthusiasts, Ramone/wormf00d helped validate this style a lot, especially Ramone making the most insanely fun BnG map pack ever:







Other personal favourite BnG map designers would include, lacoste, KRD, Roperz(ArsGoetia), K1NG, madog, Chicken23, Jigsaw, Reso, dillifag, surgeon Jago and NiCo.

A special mention to Resonance, who sat with me for months practising and helping to create the future of BnG :)





Darts:


With Darts, SiD created the classic map, where you had to time disabling the drill at the right moment to land on vertical targets:



Then Phanton decided to make a flat horizontal target which opened up so many possibilities:



Of course my initial Darts maps sucked in graphics but had fun playability:

Son of Sunshine:



Bank It!:


And with ridiculous amounts of testing with various dS guys we ended up with a standard sort of design and interesting ways to play which eventually led to a breakthrough in playabilty and map design:




Other maps that raised the bar:

Pepar - Muta:



Hurz - Deviation:



XanKriegor - Double Deviation:



Komito - Starfox:



Drumstick - Ride The Saw:



Hurz & Pepar - Walk The Plank:



tita - Worms At Work(Komito Remix):




Golf:


Golf, not much so say on this as I haven't played it much but what IS weird to me is that I remember playing Golf in like 2002, before colour maps etc, it was just a Team17 map that we edited with gaps n obstacles and made a hole at one side in the water, something like this:



You only had bazooka and low gravity, shoot your worm through the course from S to F and into the water hole. I guess this went on to become Boom Race?

I was surprised(in a good way) to log on one day(many years later) and see someone hosting a Golf game with this map:







Warmer:

Last but not least, Warmers :)

So I started WA in June 1999, I didn't start roping until later that year, and it wasn't until 2000 where I was involved in the Warmer scene and starting to get good, so yeah for the next few years these were the kind of maps the people I played with warmed on:

Gundam:


dOgMa - Phat Ropa:


sikz - hookdam: (I don't know why there is a girder in the preview but it wasn't in the original map.)


Tflenker - Tflenker:


*unknown author* - Cheesy:


Vahagn - NR5:



I don't know if it was OutofOrder/Auto who started this style, but it was his style of maps I noticed popping up round about when Mablak/Anubis were at their peak:




The main switch I ever saw for Warmer maps was when someone decided to start using oversized WxW maps like these:


ExZo - Gym:


Ka1ser - Razer Warmer:



Personally that's when I feel like Warmers died, I don't mean they became crap all of a sudden, I just mean like, the spirit of Warmers just vanished, people just don't get it anymore. It's still an interesting story though and i'd love to hear more on Warmer maps from someone who knows way more than me.

Could anyone please share similar stories about the following schemes:

Bungee Race
Golf(more in depth than me)
Elite
Team17
Shopper
Big RR / Tower Race - What actually defines these maps? When hosting with hosting buddy it seems to load maps that aren't even Big RR...
Battle Race

Or anything else you can think of :)
« Last Edit: July 28, 2017, 05:07 PM by TheKomodo »

Offline STRGRN

Re: The history of maps
« Reply #1 on: July 28, 2017, 05:29 PM »
you didn't include boomrace in the scheme list at the bottom, I'm dissapointed

Offline TheKaren

Re: The history of maps
« Reply #2 on: July 28, 2017, 05:59 PM »
But I did mention Boom Race ;)

Offline Korydex

Re: The history of maps
« Reply #3 on: July 28, 2017, 07:36 PM »
Btw afaik back in the day in ranked channels roper was played on custom maps that come with the game, like "Horny". And BnG was even played on CAVES! It was completely different scheme back then though :D

Offline Hurz

Re: The history of maps
« Reply #4 on: July 28, 2017, 11:03 PM »
Skorpuz made that dartsmap not phanton.

Offline Ryan

Re: The history of maps
« Reply #5 on: July 29, 2017, 07:16 AM »
Regarding warmer maps:
I find that the older maps don't allow you to be very creative and you might aswell just rope fast with no style on them or even just kick/tap around/scroll along the roof - very little skill involved in that!
The OoO maps I find to be great. Enough room to do your roof tricks and enough land to be creative with. Makes sense given how creative a warmer OoO is.
The new wxw style warmer maps are horrible. I know there are new school warmers that are very skilled on them but it is the same tricks being performed on them.

Offline Husk

Re: The history of maps
« Reply #6 on: July 29, 2017, 01:07 PM »
not a take on battlerace's map history because i'd have to mention too many names i can't remember.

one moment that stood out for me was when Wyvern made yoshi's merciless island, before that u pretty much saw the path to finish, but with this new kind of map, u didn't know where u had to go, so not only did u have to try to get to somewhere but once u were there u'd find out it was the wrong way


Offline TheKaren

Re: The history of maps
« Reply #7 on: July 30, 2017, 07:39 AM »
Husk, i'd say you have some sort of impact in the Battle Race scene.

I remember spectating that game with you testing the map, it's incredible how insanely accurate your map design was and even more impressive watching you test it and take notes for possible adjustments.

How far back do you go with that?

Offline Korydex

Re: The history of maps
« Reply #8 on: July 30, 2017, 02:19 PM »
yeah Husk's elite made battleraces were really next level!

Re: The history of maps
« Reply #9 on: August 05, 2017, 04:58 PM »
Hey.

Not sure if you're aware of this already, but about 10 years ago, c0o1 and I kind of did this for Warmer (and in part Roper as well), in the shape of this compilation map:

https://wmdb.worms2d.info/5954

It's just ten of them, so not nearly every significant map is included, but the description there sounds relevant to the point you were making about the evolving complexity and the tendency for maps to get higher and stranger. I think our right-most map was made around 2004 or 2005, though, so the trend definitely continued afterwards, and I agree that the peak of tastefulness came with OoO's maps, and those inspired by them.

If I were making a second compilation like that today, I'd definitely include this one of aNgus's Warmers, by the way:

https://www.tus-wa.com/maps/map-2077/

Re: The history of maps
« Reply #10 on: August 06, 2017, 08:33 AM »
Even I played offline warmers on OoO maps.
<Ramone> we're just nicknames
<Ramone> isn't that sad..

<Johnny`> !fart
* Johnny` has farted out 0 Scoville units.
<Johnny`> Sonova

My W:A related channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/HighCostage


Offline TheKaren

Re: The history of maps
« Reply #11 on: August 06, 2017, 11:36 AM »
I may have in the last couple of years(for a brief moment), but I never ever played OoOs Warmer maps, I had already gave up roping and had turned to BnG by the point he was making those...

I like that huge map KRD, I could actually use it as a gigantic roper map lol.