Hammer, Meet Anvil - CS:GO customs interview show

    Hello! I've started an interview show themed around CS:GO customs. You can check out the first episode with poLemin (author of Guard, Feast, Manor) at the link below.

    https://youtu.be/kcUJ7G44NBE

    And the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=…2JA27l3FQc2jKfH

    As a bit of background, I initially planned on limiting my coverage of CS:GO customs to map analysis videos. However, I think the larger community of CS:GO would benefit from having more public-facing content regarding customs, and I also hope to tease out insights from developers of custom maps that will in turn help up-and-coming mappers to better conceptualize map design.

    While I personally have not made maps in CS:GO, I have been making content for Starcraft: Brood War for over 15 years now, and thinking about level design in that context has helped to shape my understanding of level design in CS:GO. While I can't claim to be an expert in 3D level design by any stretch, I know and understand more than your average layman, and I believe that will help to shape my interview questions for the future.

    I'm interested in any criticism you may have about the content, as I'm still quite new to interviewing, and hadn't fully mapped an outline of how conversations like this would go. If you have any ideas as to how I could make this content more insightful for mappers and enthusiasts, let me know.

    I really like the idea of giving custom maps more exposure that's not just "Here is the map.". The conversation about interpretation and intent of certain elements in maps is fascinating, especially as a mapper myself. I think especially newer mappers can benefit from conversations like that.

    I appreciate the time you took to talk to me as well as on your map reviews where you go pretty deep into a map's design sometimes. I hope you keep up the good work, and that more mappers come onto your show to share their thoughts.

    Just listened through the interview and well done @Pr0nogo, interesting format and topic choice. If there something I would like to see improved would be editing in bits of gameplay to show what it's being discussed (just walking around and pointing at stuff would be good enough) -- I think the host of Level Design Lobby does that, or at least he used to in early videos. Maybe have the mapper point stuff themselves on their maps (like 3Klik did with Bubkez for Mirage). It's something that would still work just in audio for those who know the maps, but if you are watching you might as well watch something proper.

    OT: Is not like I'm babyfaced but... damn @poLemin, you gave me beard envy! :D

    Hey @blackdog, thanks for the feedback!

    I actually plan on having a different, more focused and cut-down video series where I take a deep dive into the maps with some flyovers, WIP screenshots of the development process, and stuff like that, fused with info from the map authors. I haven't decided whether it'll be in a similar format to 3kliksphillip's videos or if it will involve some speaking role from the mapmakers. That part will probably be down to the individual mapmaker on a case-by-case basis.

    My stock and trade will be in long-form interviews so I think I'll keep the format consistent for the time being. I appreciate that custom maps can be showcased in a more visual manner, but I personally have always been interested in more in-depth conversational content, and I haven't seen any, so I decided to remedy that myself. To that end, if you guys have any feedback on how I can better tailor some questions to go deeper into more interesting subjects, I'd be happy to incorporate that into future interviews.

    I'll have some more episodes of this show out soon. I actually intended to have one out earlier this week but we ran into some scheduling issues. I'll be sure to post here when I release them.

    Just wanted to clarify what I meant with "gameplay inserts"; I wasn't referring to that as a way to just showcase custom maps, but a visual way to punctuate the discussion (read: a screenshot would work just as well)... is something like this works perfectly in podcast form and leverages the YT video aspect. I didn't mean to suggest all videos should be in-depth walk-throughs on a private server with the dev, like you say people are busy and I can imagine few people could also go through this on top of finding the time to chat, but something to keep in mind ;)

    Otherwise everything sounds interesting @Pr0nogo, looking forward to see what you'll come up with!

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