CS-Nation

Covering the future of Counter-Strike
map-quest
article: map-quest
Counter-Strike has relied on the artistic talent of its community to keep the game looking fresh and keep the thousands of devoted fans wanting more. There has been a great milieu of public created additions to Counter-Strike. From custom-made AK-47 sounds to the remaking of player models, the public has always played a major role in the look and feel of the game. By far, the most important and dominant role that the editing community has held has been as creators of Counter-Strike's varied maps.

For many mappers, having their map go official becomes the holy grail of their map-making experience. This holiest of holies, however, does not make a map great. There are many official maps that are never played and are simply removed from most server rotations. We all know how quickly a server will empty when cs_747 begins and how quickly the same will fill with a map such as de_dust.

Making a map on the Half-Life engine is truly an art. There are many out there who ask why many talented mappers don't move on to newer and more versatile gaming engines and thus gain a new found freedom.

For many mappers the limitations of the half-life engine allow for truly creative solutions to tricky technical problems. One such mapper is 3D_Mike, who created the infamous de_survivor. "The fun thing about mapping is the fact that you've got such limited resources and so many limitations. I mean online maps are a long way from having real-time reflections and shadows, let alone the polycount," said 3D_Mike about the challenge of mapping, "Which is pathetic. It's the trick to use a little as possible and still get an interesting good-looking result. To me that's where the fun lies." (Planet CS)


cs_prison was one of four maps included with the first CS beta. The CS team had low standards.
A map creator must be versatile. He must be able to choose a good map layout, create that layout within the confines of Valve Hammer Editor (aka Worldcraft), and clothe the architecture in suitable, appealing textures. "[Textures] obviously help immensely," said DaveJ, the creator of de_dust, "If the map has to look good. They don't help so much if it has to play well, unless the players are computer-controlled and ignorant to the appearance of the map. Players will play better if a map looks good and proper."

As the community has grown, we have seen an increase in the detail and authenticity in texture art. The standard seems to have been raised with the release of cs_backalley. Barking Dog created a map that had both a great atmoshphere and a great amount of realism. One only has to look at the quality of the textures in the first official maps released, and compare them with the latest two maps that were released with 1.4. A striking example of the difference in texture quality is cs_prison (above right) and cs_havana. The textures for the map cs_prison, which accompanied the initial release of Counter-Strike, are drab and bland. Compared to the new map cs_havana, which sports flashy and very realistic texture, cs_prison looks like it's from the Stone Age.

Havana was created with a great amount of technical skill, but will have to prove itself worthy in the hands of the public, as all maps will. Especially those that look good.