After spending some time scouring filefront for quality original maps, (ya i looked at nearly every one) this too became kind of an issue for me. I spend alot of time sharing and play testing mods and this is what I find to be the truth.
What the world definitely doesnt need is more terrain based maps. Terrain based maps exist because most of us are not proficient 3D modellers and artists, and so we begin to think we can make our dreams come true just using the terrain. Stop and slap yourself, lol im just kidding. I too used to think "maybe". But there is no maybe. Terrain is just boring. At first you may feel a sense of uforia as you speed along through the valleys and rip over mountain tops with your jets. But minutes later you want to be back in the action again. And thats what a good map has...action.
It doesnt matter if its just a square, if it has the action it will be better than roaming around through a giant world. The game is about shooting and dodging and stuff, and is not an everquest adventure. Of course you cant just have a square.... and so what do you need? What people really really want is to have a little bit of openess combined with alot of corners and other types of cover. They dont want to have to run to far to get back in the game. Vehicles are usually a bad idea unless its generally a vehicle battle.
If you dont believe me so far, just ask yourself what your favorite map is that actually came with the game. The answer for nearly everybody out there will be either Death Star, Mustafar, or Coruscant. Some runners up might be Utapau or Mygeeto, or maybe Tantive. And the funny thing is that in all six of these examples there is no landscape at all. The best maps are going to be some chunks of meshed objects from the original game put together, or if you have the talent to make your own mesh objects and put them in... all the better.
If you really cant stand working with the objects and placing them ever so correctly, then a lanscape mod can be ok if its a simple concept that focuses on gameplay. Let me say again that you want to avoid the whole "explore my world" mentality and stick to a premise. Example: A lanscape mod that might be fun would be a land based tie fighter battle that takes place in a giant canyon or asteroid with lots of peaks for cover and collision danger. It could just be some tie fighter bases and some command points and thats it. Because the focus is on being fun for multiplayer, and coz its easy to make a good looking canyon using terrain, this would actually be a good map.
The focus on multiplayer is very important and is under-stressed. Setting the correct number of bots for a single player arrangement is never going to apply to a multiplayer scenario. Even with the addition of one or two players, the speed in which you mow through bots changes alot. What feels cranked up for single player doesnt hold back 2 or 3 of you the same way. And lag is a major major component of the multiplayer game, and so you need to able to adjust the bots to reduce the lag, and still have the map play "not-to-bad". You will only get so much mileage making a single player mod for you to watch your friends try and win it. The real thrill is playing online with your buddies, or looking for a server and seeing some people playing your map, and then joining them.
So its generally a bad idea to use SetUberMode(1) and start jacking up the bots, because you need to be able to increase or decrease the number of bots on the map, so that kind of leaves you stuck with 32. This is another reason to keep things tight, but not the most important one.
The most important factor is gameplay and this needs to be well tested. Release a beta and play it with your friends to see how things will really happen in the multiplayer environment. Also your buddies will find the bugs for you ( like missing award weapons ). Play your map alot when developing it, and make sure you are having fun, not just looking at it and saying "kuuuuuulllee... it worked". As difficult as it is, try not to be in a rush. A good cure for this is to keep releasing and playing betas until you are happy. Really go out of your way to resolve as many sound issues as you can, even though it is difficult. Make sure bots arent running off to their death, or endlessly running into a corner, or spawning underground, lol. Sometimes you just cant make the bots behave, i know, but do your best.
While I agree its good to make your bots more aggressive, dont over do it. The reason to make bots more aggressive is not totally so they can kill you better, its so that less bots do more. Having better bots will enable you to use LESS bots, so that fighting two of them is as difficult as fighting 4 regular bots. What you want to totally avoid is giving the player the feeling that the bots are better than they are. The player wants to feel like the greatest player in the game, but doesnt want the bots to be too easy either. Using less bots that are slightly more aggressive helps keep up gameplay while reducing lag for multiplayer games.
OK so get out there and make your next latest and greatest. Have fun.
Oh, and by the way....the two best maps I found are Naboo : Theed Hangar (awesome light bloomage) and the Battlefront 1 version of Bespin ..... but it wasnt until I took the map.lvl file and made my own teams for it that the gameplay was good enough. Same with Theed, it didnt come alive until I had my own jedis in there. If you are interested to try them goto www.freewebs.com/smdworld2/swbf2mods.htm
Congrats to Koolaid7g for the best original map out there. Koolaid please download the -SMD- expansion packs and see what I did with your theed.
lol he's gonna be mad coz I ditched his side.
