CS-Nation

Covering the future of Counter-Strike
davej
interview: davej
David Johnston, a famed Counter-Strike and Half-Life mapper, has recently come out of hiding long enough to sit down with CS-Nation's Sublyme. He asked us to state that he had no time or interest in doing further interviews.

DaveJ has created four official Counter-Strike maps: de_dust, de_cbble, cs_tire, and de_dust2. He recently completed his work on Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and ETC 2, a sequel to a popular Half-Life single player experience.

CS-Nation: You've been in the mapping community, both half-life and Counter-Strike alike, for a good while now. Excluding your own maps, which cs official map stands out to you as a great achievement/work/favorite?
DaveJ: BackAlley. I'm not entirely sure why, but I think it's because its so seamless, so involving, and probably the most 'real' of all the CS maps. It looks cool, it plays well (no, really, it does if you bother to learn it), and I've had more fun games on it than any other map.
CS-Nation: How will you be adapting your current and future maps to fit the new playing style being brought forth in CS 1.4? For example, at the lower bomb site of cobble, one will not be able to effectively jump up the hill to meet rushing terrorists.
DaveJ: I won't. Valve (well, Cliffe at least) has the source files for my maps - if they want/need to change anything, they can do it themselves.
CS-Nation: Condition Zero is scheduled to go gold relatively soon. In working with Gearbox and having to listen to the criticism of others, how has this affected your mapping? Have you changed anything you really wanted to keep?
DaveJ: Both the maps that I worked on for CZ had originally used textures that I created, and perhaps was very proud of. Since then, they've both had huge texture overhauls (I prefer the originals, naturally). I can see the reason for the changes, but I would have still prefered the original textures, even if some of them were pretty bad ('bad' in that I intended to recreate them, but ended up liking them as they were, shadows'n'all).
CS-Nation: A map you were working on named after CS-Nation's very own rizzuh, radiorze, is scheduled to be incorporated into Condition Zero. Care to give us some "inside" info on this wonderfully fishy work?
DaveJ: Looks cool. Or it did, last time I saw it. Doesn't play particularly well, or didn't, last time I played it. Gearbox have changed it since then.
Has dust had its day?
..? Uh.. I love dust!
It's overplayed or deathmatchy, get rid of it.
Keep it in, it has great gameplay.
CS-Nation: Fill in the blank: when not mapping or playing Counter-Strike, I enjoy a good game of _______.
DaveJ: Team Fortress Classic. When I get a chance.
CS-Nation: You seemed to enjoy making the ETC series of maps. What kind of challenges did they present?
DaveJ: They taught me a lot about how the Half-Life engine worked, a challenge in itself was working out how all the components fitted together. They also taught me that large projects really do require planning, something I did very briefly, and not much for ETC2 (hence its 2.5 year delay). They didn't present challenges as such, rather insights.
CS-Nation: Do you have a continuing interest in developing single-player maps? Which are more rewarding, SP or MP maps?
DaveJ: Both have their advantages. I like watching someone play an SP map of mine and see them get involved - perhaps by jumping, or being more cautious as they play. With SP design you tackle someone's thoughts and have to work out how the average player will approach, react and deal with a situation. With MP maps, it's enjoyable to see the numbers of people playing a particular map. With Dust, that's particularly rewarding, but I can't say much else is.
CS-Nation: Soldier of Fortune 2: Double Helix ships with a random map generator for both SP and MP play. While single player maps may always require the human touch for scripting, do you think MP mappers will eventually be phased out with the thrill of playing in new environment on a daily basis?
DaveJ: Not within this half of my lifetime. Especially with team/objective-based maps, its easy to generate a random map, compared to the very difficult task of making the map play well. Until computers are fast enough to test maps out in a simulator (trial and improvement), the best maps will still be human-made.
CS-Nation: How has the competitive scene of Counter-Strike (i.e. the CPL) influenced your mapping?
DaveJ: It hasn't.
CS-Nation: Besides Condition Zero, do you have any plans to release more Counter-Strike maps?
DaveJ: No.
CS-Nation: A map I was always very fond of, pa_fact, has been very quiet for quite awhile now. Not only that, but wartorn retirement home is also sitting quietly somewhere on a bookshelf. Any plans to revamp and re-release some of your past works?
DaveJ: The source rmf file for pa_fact is freely available on my website in the second open source pack - anyone is welcome to take it and update it.

I have considered updating it myself with fresh textures and a cleaner layout, but in the end I'd rather make something original. As for War Torn Retirement Home, I like it as it is. Even with its numerous defects, it was my first CS map and one I am most fond of.