So...where's the foundry?

[DiMtopia]

i know there's one.... but keeping it hidden? really? :laugh:

 

[ORBOTRON]

What's a foundry?

 

[DiMtopia]

oh, a map foundry. i believe you call it a map studio here.
i just joined to see how the foundry/studio works here but apparently that's a state secret or something.

 

[Badorties]

It's here, http://www.majorcommand.com/Clans/Clan.php?clanid=2

 

[DiMtopia]

so it's a closed group? why isn't the foundry open to the public?
also why are there only 3 map makers (you rj and widow)?

 

[Shepherd]

actually, there are only three mapmakers so far, but you didn't get them quite right. There will most likely be four in the not so distant future.

Unlike mapmaking at other sites, we've come up with a public/private hybrid system. There will be a public map 'foundry' (our Studios), but we're waiting to get out of BETA before we launch it. More detailed info can be found here...
http://www.majorcommand.com/wiki/Map_Studios

The rationale behind not recreating the 'foundry' as you know is simple: we've all lived with that other system and we've found it severely wanting.

 

[DiMtopia]

wow, this really is worse than i thought. what a joke.
so if i want to make a map i come up with the idea but somebody else gets to do it?
no matter how talented a couple of guys may be, they will never be able to do the work of 20 guys. rj is a really talented guy but he has his own style and anything outside that style won't be nowhere near as good as what he usually creates. same goes for widowmakers or any other cartographer. everybody is good/great/best at something. conquerclub's map foundry has many flaws but one of the many great things about it is that it churns out lots of different style maps that will almost certainly fill all the needs of the community. here on majorcommand all the maps look almost the same. yeah they are nice but they look like copies of each other.

in my opinion you've managed to make a foundry that's even worse than the original one. i get it that the intention was to have top-notch graphics but somehow you managed to restrict everything so much that you managed to screw it up.

mc has the potential to be far better than CC so i will check back on this site in a few months to see if it still exists.
cheers.

 

[Badorties]

Fundamental difference of opinion DiM. Is CC's 200+ maps a good thing? Do we want the output of 20 amateurs? No thanks. We have the output of small group of the best Risk map makers on the web, and that's fine with me.

Remember, Risk fans got along just fine for decades with a single map. Even now, MajCom has more maps than Hasbro does. The number of maps should grow with the number of users. Currently on CC, the inverse is happening.

 

[masterjskye]

This is my first Risk site, I did see CC when I was looking around for somewhere to play but the payment straight away and the look of it put me off. What I'd say though is that the idea of 200+ maps sounds like total overkill to me. I'd rather have quality over quantity any day so Thank You map makers! You're doing a great job.

 

[RjBeals]

Thank You map makers! You're doing a great job.

thanks masterjksye

Dim - sorry you feel that way. It's not a total joke. It's just not a free for all like conk. And really, there's only a handful of people that make maps over there that are halfway decent. You're one of them. But there's so many more that make crap. The foundry really isn't really that big of a place. Same regular users do all the commenting. The majority of conk is there for the gaming experience, not making maps. Badorties knows this.

 

[Chilly]

More detailed info can be found here...
http://www.majorcommand.com/wiki/Map_Studios

Thanks for supplying the link. I know I read that ages ago, but I hadn't revisited for a long time. Are all of those features listed on Map Special Features really coded already? Talk about delicious. Can't wait to see some of them. It may even inspire me to sketch out a few ideas myself.

We've already got maps of the world and the continents.

I would say that somewhere on down the road, for the sake of completeness, we need an Africa and an Australia map. Unless I can mobilize the penguin constituency, we might be out of luck for Antarctica though. :wink:

 

[DiMtopia]

the only thing that brought me back to CC after 3 years of absence was the desire to make a map. and that same desire is keeping me there.
here map making is something only a few are allowed to do so for the map making process is precisely what's making me go away.

 

[ORBOTRON]

I would say that somewhere on down the road, for the sake of completeness, we need an Africa and an Australia map. Unless I can mobilize the penguin constituency, we might be out of luck for Antarctica though. :wink:

Funny you should mention the first two, stay tuned

the only thing that brought me back to CC after 3 years of absence was the desire to make a map. and that same desire is keeping me there.
here map making is something only a few are allowed to do so for the map making process is precisely what's making me go away.

I'm sorry we aren't offering what you're looking for, but what would be the point of creating a new site if everything were going to be exactly the same? If you like to make maps, more power to ya, I'm glad CC offers you that opportunity. I'm not really sure where the animosity is coming from. You wouldn't walk into a restaurant and freak out on them because they made your salad for you, you'd just go to the budget buffet place down the road where you could sculpt your own unique and wonderful plate of lettuce and assorted vegetables, lol.

 

[mapguy]

Fundamental difference of opinion DiM. Is CC's 200+ maps a good thing? Do we want the output of 20 amateurs? No thanks. We have the output of small group of the best Risk map makers on the web, and that's fine with me.

Remember, Risk fans got along just fine for decades with a single map. Even now, MajCom has more maps than Hasbro does. The number of maps should grow with the number of users. Currently on CC, the inverse is happening.

MC has many things that are a big gigantic improvement over CC, BUT dim has a good point that you are not quite getting bossman. Yes I think that we all understand, QUALITY over QUANTITY is the goal here. BUT I totally get what dim is saying. He is talking about variety in style, that only can be achieved by having more graphic artists. You have indeed managed to capture the best artists from CC, but as good as they are, they alone can not supply the variety that dim is talking about.

I certainly can get behind what you are saying about the crappy maps from crappy artists, that have been getting quenched over at CC lately, and I can get behind you 100% to see that that does NOT happen here. Yes, the Foundry over there is shit, and it is producing shit. but maybe there is a way to fix it's flaws, without throwing out the baby with the bath water.

 

[DiMtopia]

what would be the point of creating a new site if everything were going to be exactly the same?

in my opinion anybody should be allowed in the foundry to both comment as well as make maps. an open transparent foundry.
but it should be lead by a team of proven mapmakers with tight regulations that ensure only the highest quality maps are created.

both CC and MC fail at creating the perfect foundry but each because of different reasons. get the best of the 2 sites and you'll have the perfect map making mechanism.

 

[Badorties]

Mapguy, I think you are placing a too high value on "variety in style". We have 4 map makers here, all have a different style and we can also produce very different maps. Widomakers can do any style at all. Variety does not require more mapmakers, that's short thinking. If "sameness in style" becomes an issue that people complain about, then we can take steps to fix that. But thats a huge IF. I think its a pretty low concern of users who come to play strategy gamers, and if it's a concern at all, it would only become a concern after hundreds of games played.

 

[Shepherd]

Wow, this is increasingly becoming a who's who of conk mapmakers. DiM, I respect your work a great deal, and I've always appreciated your smarts and your candor, and I do hope you check in here every now and then to see how this site progresses... because it will grow and progress.

What we are creating here is not meant to be a copy of the conk foundry, but something entirely new. There are sites that allow anybody and everybody to post any old file up for use as a map, without a vetting process or any limitations - that's one extreme. There are sites that control map production 100% and have no public map forums - that's the other extreme. Both this site and conk have come up with systems that lie somewhere in the middle, allowing for both quality control and public participation.

As time goes on we may find that our system too much emphasis on quality control, but we know for sure that the other system errs way too far the other way - quality control there has slipped with every passing year. Everybody on the team here is a stickler for quality, and in my opinion that's a good thing. I hope that this will be reflected in everything we produce.

As for rate of production suffering here with fewer mapmakers, is the rate of production at conk very good? Some of the maps currently being considered have been in the system since I was running it four year ago - that won't happen here. No, we won't have 200 maps any time soon, but I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing.

And just because we have just four artists now doesn't mean it will always be that way - we may uncover some hidden talents that we enjoy working with and expand our ranks.