by natty dread on Mon Mar 01, 2010 9:18 am
What I mean, is that your map needs a real theme & background story.
Ok, so the hive is a huge beehive. One could say that the bees are waging war against each other, for the control of the beehive. That map has a theme, and a story.
Or we could take poison rome for example. There's a family of ancient romans, who fight each other by assassinations and poisioning each others' foods and stuff. The map seems abstract, but it really has a working story & theme when you look under the surface.
So far, what you have here, is a picture of a bull divided into territories. Kinda reminds me of the maps in landgrab... They have these silly maps, like a map that is shaped like a skull, and divided into territories... what's the point of that map? Are we conquering a skull, or a land that is shaped like a skull? For what reason, what's the idea there? Your bull kinda has the same problem.
So what's the story of your bull? The players are going to need a reason for fighting over a bull. Some kind of story that you can use as material for your map, like, the players are fleas and are fighting over the control of the bull, which is their food & home... or something like that, but you'd need to implement that theme to your map both graphically and gameplay-wise.
Look, I know what it's like being a new mapmaker. Good ideas are hard to come by. When I started making maps, my first map was a map of a protein. I worked hard on it, and tried really hard to develop a theme for the map, that would make the map interesting to players, but in the end, the concept was still too vague, and the mods told me so although I didn't want to believe them at first, as I had worked so hard (and some people, probably some chemistry nuts like me, really liked the map which had encouraged me to keep working on it) but eventually I had to let go of it, and accept the fact that just because I thought my idea was good, it never would have probably been a very popular map. Because, in the end, it was still a map of a protein, and there really was no background story that would explain why the players were fighting over a single molecule.
I'd almost like to advise you to drop this project, since it will surely be an uphill battle if you pursue it, and there are easier, more suitable subjects for a new mapmaker. But, I don't know, you could make it work, if you really put some thought and energy into developing the map. But I'd hate to see you go through the same troubles I did when I first started.
Well, in the end, it's your decision. Good luck whatever you decide.
That's kinda funny... but the main reason i choose a bull was because of the game play... i like how a bull head looks for game play... but if people don't like it then i would drop it for sure... 
