I don't want to be rude or anything, but is it just me or does this not really make sense?
The main reason is 'It would take too much time to edit the maps so they are a high enough quality' which I understand for 90% of maps, fair enough.
But for the remaining 10% of maps that have been highly supported and upvoted by tons of members (including Builder staff ranks), as well re-edited time and time again by the creators so they're good enough deserve to be added, right?
If a large part of the community thinks the map looks amazing and agrees it would be fun and offer unique gameplay, why would that need editing if it meets all those conditions? At the end of the day the maps are built for the players afterall, so why not give them what they want?
Hi so going to use this quote as it was the most liked response, and does ask quite a few good questions.
I know a lot of you are annoyed by map submissions closing, especially those of you that are working on maps. I understand it must suck. Minecraft creations is still open, you can still share your creativity and show the community what you can achieve, that will never be taken away.
Maybe 2-3 years ago there was a time when we needed lots of community made maps, as the build team could not keep up with the demand as we were rapidly growing in players. However, the build team has become so much more experienced, so much more talented, and completing tasks faster than I can give them. There is simply no need for community maps right now, when our build team is full of very experienced mini game map builders. Who all understand gameplay, never sacrifice gameplay for aesthetics, who know how the maps are configured, who inspire eachother to create more innovative map concepts. This is another reason barely any maps were accepted, since we accepted a whole 2 or 3 maps during 2016, out of hundreds and hundreds of submissions.
One issue which has occurred before, users who have submitted maps here, often post it on multiple servers forums. This has resulted in our competitors having some of our same maps that we have released. This can create a few awkward situations.
The few maps that were accepted, was also built by
@MartijnMC who is now part of the build team. His EggWars mushroom map submission had a lot of potential however it needed so much work, which took a while to edit, it also took the time to send an essay of feedback on what he could do to improve on future map submissions as I knew he had potential, which am so glad he took everything on board.
So there are some rare cases were there is a decent map submission, and so many community members are backing it, going to use the mushroom map as an example. When the community see it "omg new map this needs to be added! Looks amazing!!!", all I see is, oh god so much needs changing, hasn't added team colours, left heads everywhere so people will just keep running into them, the tree is too tall will be such a nice place to camp and be annoying, all the terrain is too hilly can't have a proper PvP fight. Myself and
@Alex_de_Grote then edited the map.
- Redone two of the mushrooms on the starter islands
- Redid the bottom of the islands so they weren't as spiky so I could move the map further down, so players weren't falling for as long
- Removed a lot of custom heads as they're awkward to PvP around
- Removed the trees at inner island and built mushrooms instead so players couldn't camp on top of them
- Redid the mushrooms at inner island
- Completely redid middle terrain, moved tree down so players didn't have to struggle getting to it.
- Made the whole map fairly flat so you could get balanced PvP matches.
- Added team colours
- Added glass cages
- Changed where gens were added config to them
- Made all the bridges the same so it was balanced and fair.
- Made the terrain more green, and removed a lot of the //replace spam
- Created clearer paths
- Changed the biome so it looks more lush.
- Added better lighting to interior
- Slightly edited the layout and moved islands a bit closer
Bare in mind, this is one of the best map submissions we've received and we made this many changes. Building mini games maps isn't always visual, you have to think a lot about the player, a lot! I've learnt from my mistakes in map making what works and what doesn't. After I gave Martijn advice on mushrooms he came back with more map submissions which were so much better, and I wanted him to become a builder. Since building for the team he has vastly improved and is helping produce more maps for the community, someone who was once strongly supported in map submissions is now a builder due to his hard work and listening skills. 'Obviously' not everyone who receives feedback is as good or has as much potential to become a builder.
"As well re-edited time and time again by the creators so they're good enough deserve to be added, right?"
This is what it feels like when I give feedback and the map creator will come back saying it's finished
until it gets to the point were I just give up and ask for the world as it's so much easier doing it myself, this is from my experience when I actively went through map submissions. This is simply due to their lack of experience building for large networks as they will always make the same mistakes and do what they think is best rather than what a player will
"If a large part of the community thinks the map looks amazing and agrees it would be fun and offer unique gameplay, why would that need editing if it meets all those conditions? At the end of the day the maps are built for the players afterall, so why not give them what they want?"
"But for the remaining 10% of maps that have been highly supported and upvoted by tons of members (including Builder staff ranks),"
It's not always a good thing constantly hearing the community think it's amazing, and not providing any constructive feedback or helpful information other than "Add this map now!" "I love it!" "How is this map not added yet" "Looks great". 'Possibly' so they can their likes up, or they think it's amazing and can't see anything that could be improved. I completely understand not everyone has the same amount of experience when looking at something, and you see things that others may not see. Personally I don't know how you can improve if someone doesn't give you honest feedback, which I feel certain staff members in the past have done just because they don't want to be "mean", but this just gives the user false hope. Don't get me wrong quite a lot of the community who love building do give great feedback. This is the feedback I gave to Martijn.
The spoiler screenshot also shows me blabbing about competitors, we accepted lots of maps 2/3 years ago because we were small and wasn't one of the biggest networks in the world! I feel a lot of community members have forgotten this. So much has changed, so has the standards and we need to be the best, always producing brand new map concepts and introduce gameplay that has never been seen before for certain games.
I'm focusing so much on Martijn as my main example as he was one of the few that had his maps accepted in 2016. He was a decent builder back then, who had played days and days of EggWars (he literally has like 15/20 days game time). You'd think he would be perfect at making maps for EggWars, but not until he joined the build team, he learnt so much more what makes a map good.
This is why I want to keep map building to the build team for now. Proof that we create more content than we used to are the Christmas updates. 2015 - 10 new maps, 2016 - 26 new maps! It's pretty evident from these type of updates, such as seasonal ones we can create content a lot quicker, since the team has become more experienced and bigger. Easter last year we only released 3 maps, Easter coming up, well... you'll see ;) Be eggcited!
Now I did say in the original post, that I would consider adding map submissions in the future. That is still 100% true, even though this seems quite negative about map submissions as I'm simply listing reasons why I dislike them and their issues. That doesn't mean the system can't be improved, I know plenty of ways it could be and I'd love to see it implemented in the future.
