csWaldo

Calling the top contest maps conformist and not innovative and saying their creators are only in it for the prize pool seems to be popular with people who haven't really been part of the community that produces these maps. But it doesn't reflect reality at all. From my experience, for the guys who make these maps, level design and environment art are their passion and the prize pool and competition only serve as an excuse to spend the time required for such a project on a hobby. These maps are the communities best effort to create new competitive Counter-Strike maps. That is also the reason you are not seeing crazy new layout formats, 3 bombsite designs or highly overdeveloped layouts sparsely decorated with stock assets. Competitive Counter-Strike is a massive esport with a huge playerbase. The expected gameplay loops have long been defined. The amount of complexity and control players have on maps is expected to be fine tuned to what people are used to. The aesthetic and its priority in relation to gameplay has long been defined. At this point, for competitive CS making an innovative map really does mean coming up with fresh spins on old ideas. If you don't want to be tied down by those restrictions, the game has a few other game modes that are worth mapping for. Dangerzone and Wingman are getting a lot more attention in the community right now. Both of these game modes have not been around for very long and are still very open to new concepts and ideas. Hostage desperately needs an entire rework of its mechanics and or economy. And nothing is stopping you from developing your own game mode. 3 bomb sites simply do not fit what 5v5 competitive cs is all about. Doesn't mean you can't make a fun game mode around 3v3 maps. Just a bit pointless to complain about all those things not being part of or winning in a contest that is about 5v5 comp maps.

You could say this cliff is made out of rock.

A little more space would be appreciated

Could you post the brightness and ambient settings of your light_environment? The light looks quite yellow and dark to me, making the map look very 2012.

If everyone is stuck making awful maps, just make a great one, win the contest and get into the game then.

This argument would hold more weight if a single person complaining about zenith was actually impacted by it. The rules encourages older projects to be picked up and finished, which is a good thing imo and 8 months is enough for anyone to make a contest winning map. If you can't, then you should probably use this opportunity to practice rather than to tear down other peoples work.

Not sure what any of this has to do with the theme of the contest. Yeah, a really specific theme would have made less already in the works ideas eligible. So what? If the theme was more specific and this map happened to fit that theme, would that be ok because it was less likely? By your logic the way it currently is would be even more fair than a specific theme. If pretty much any map can be entered, then we all have the option to use our old ideas. It's not much of an advantage anyways. Everyone gets enough time to make a completely new, winning map from scratch. This is entirely down to the rules and they allow previously worked on maps by design. It'd be pretty much impossible to check whether a map had been in development or not. Right now the rules make it really easy to disqualify a map that had been largely finished already while still allowing older WIP projects in. I think this is much better than making it about who was able to hide their old projects best, just to be able to submit them here. There's a point to be made about the time lapse in this post. Clearly the map had pretty advanced art before the start of the contest, even if it hadn't been published. I wouldn't worry about it though. Anyone who deserves top 10 will get there, with this map in the contest or not. You probably don't have to worry about it stealing your spot.

That's not entirely true. A lot of these assets (including Yanzl's) are free for non commercial use only. I doubt anyone will be upset if you're just submitting your level to be part of the contest, but if there's any chance of you winning money in this contest with someone elses assets, you would probably want to talk to the asset creator beforehand, unless the assets are specifically licensed for commercial use. Custom assets aren't just set dressing that some artist will make for you in return for prize shares, usually. Environment art is just as much part of a map as is level design. People have different strengths and both aspects require a lot of work hours so most experienced people here will gather in small teams and split up the work to get the project done in time. If environment art isnt your strong side then ideally you should look for a partner to share your project with who can deal with that side of things. Though a single person can still manage on their own. The best example of that would Biome, the winner of the last contest.

Afaik Yanzl allows the use of his assets for commercial use if you give him a cut of all earnings. You just have to talk to him to work out a deal. Doing your own assets is preferable though. Unique assets really help a map to stand out visually.

I can definitely see why youre getting that feedback. Your connectors kinda look like corridors that only exist because the layout needs them to. They look like they are only meant to be walked through, not played in. In the game however these serve as vital areas to attack or defend mid and the bombsites. Try to flesh them out to be their own proper areas. Doing that will probably require them to grow a bit in size, giving you a bit more negative space and map size as a bonus.

The AC isn't perfectly era accurate and part of a gameplay gimmick became slightly less gimmicky. If this is the feedback you get then the map must be near perfect Map looks cool, good job

The path from T spawn to B looks particularly tight and corridor-ish. If the radar is anything close to the actual area you'd probably want to flesh that out a bit more and make it less constricting. From the radar the mid area also looks a bit worrying. It connects to pretty much every part of the map and even withit itself there are multiple paths you can take through multiple doors. Seems to me like its going to be almost uncontrollable and it'll pretty much mean that once CTs lose control over that part the map falls into utter chaos because everyone can rotate from everywhere to everywhere without really being seen. I would probably either cut this into 2 areas, one for A, one for B. Or simplify it into a single, more controllable area with clear chokepoints around it. I'd probably also reduce the number of ways that lead to mid a bit.

Check your compile log and / or share a pastebin of it here. Looks like a major problem that should show up in there.

Negative space refers to the unplayable space on a map. If you look at the radars of official maps, you'll find that most of them have large chunks of empty space between the playable areas. This really helps with giving your layout form and structure. Your layout kinda looks like a single, large courtyard with a lot of walls and objects thrown into it, which usually just makes for weird, chaotic gameplay. It'd probably help you to give your level some more structure. Looking at other successful maps can be a good reference for this.