Welcome to MD-1224's Map-Building Theory Section. This section will give theories as to help map builders make maps with certain playing charateristics.
People who have played many maps know the different kinds of maps that are out there. There are large maps and small maps. Some maps are flat, some are vertical. There are maps with an artistic bent, and maps with a more functional bent. This map-building theory section will help you achieve these ends in creating a map with a certain goal in mind---how fast or how slow you want a map to play.
The main thing that causes a given map to play faster or slower is its size. If you build a map that is large, games will play more slowly, giving it a more strategic "hunt-and-kill" feel. Maps that play faster will require quickness of mind and reflex and agility.
To make a slower playing map, think big. Visualize a plan of a large layout in your head. Use longer corridors, hallways and tunnels. Put the largest room in the center of the level, so as to give the level a "ballooning" effect, and do this on other rooms as well. The main goal is you make sure that it would force you to extend the length of the corridors, hallways and tunnels and surround them and feed into them. Make sure that those corridors, halls, and tunnels wrap themselves completely around the rooms. Sometimes giving a map vertical structures will make a map play more slowly (if you do it correctly).
Good examples of slower-playing maps are Minerva and Athena, where the main room is positioned in the middle, forcing the maker to expand outward and lengthen the surrounding corridors, hallways, and tunnels.
To make a level that plays faster, one should first decrease the size of the map. One of the ways to do this is to *not* concentrate one of the rooms in the center of the map. Instead, a hallway should be put in the center of that map instead of a room, thereby forcing you to concentrate the rooms near the edges of the level. This make a level more compact. You can increase the size of the edge rooms without affecting the fast-paced play of the level significantly.
Another way to increase the pace of play is to make blocks to fight around. In my Sicilian Dragon and Accelerated Dragon, no block is wider than 60 level units across, and 20 level units in width (there are a couple in the Sicilian Dragon that are L-blocks, which break this rule, with a combined Length and Width exceeding this limit).
You can create artistic designs with pillars to fight around, but be careful that you don't make the pillars too small so that people get stuck on them, or too big around, that play is slowed. Perhaps pillars that are 20 x 20 or at most 40 x 40 in Length x Width are good enough. If you use small or thin pillars, ranging from 10 x 10 to 20 x 20 in Length and Width, don't include too many of them in one area, as people again, don't know what they're backing into.
Good examples of these kinds of maps are the Sicilian Dragon, Accelerated Dragon and Neptune. All of these levels concentrate either all or most of their rooms towards the edges of the level, though their structures are more functional than artistic.
There is one exception. Kicker is a map made by Flyhard that has a central room. But what makes it play fast is its small design and blocks to fight around on both sides of the level. I observed in a four-player game that games in this map are so brutal, and more brutal-playing than other maps. It seemed to make players more aggressive. I looked at the structural design and noticed that there were 40 x 20 and 60 x 20 blocks in the level. It's no wonder, that I observed, that some players charged at other players, using those blocks as shields from incoming fire as they creep up on them.
As a result, this map, along with Neptune, has inspired me to create my entire Dragon Series, but especially the Sicilian Dragon. Then the Sicilian Dragon showed me that it played fast, but it could still play faster. So that map helped me to build the Accelerated Dragon. Then the Accelerated Dragon helped me to build the Vertical Dragon.
If you want to create a fast-playing vertical map, use only one or two rooms, and the rooms MUST be concentrated at the edges of the map, with the corridor feeding into only one side of the room(s). Certain maps have a hallway that encircles all the way around the main room---be sure to avoid that. Visualize a single straight hallway that feeds into room from only one side, that doesn't wrap around the entire room. If you want a hallway that wraps around the rooms, make sure it only partially wraps around the rooms. The less it wraps around the rooms, the faster it will play. After you have determined your flat structure, create your vertical structure, and follow the same principle for the second floor, and keep the level as small as possible.
Good examples of fast-playing vertical levels are maps like the Vertical Dragon and the Black Dragon, two levels that I have made. They were in response to a player who told me "Vertical levels are too big and too slow-playing for them to be of any fun." So I set out to disprove what he said.
Unfortunately, I had to dump a lot of designs for the Vertical Dragon because they had flaws. Then I finally came up with a good design. I had a large room with some horizontal pillars-blocks (80 x 20 x 40, Length x Width x Height) that someone can use to protect them from enemy fire as they close in on their opponents, as well as for using them tactically. I thought of a hallway that would encircle the whole room, but it would play too slowly because the room was vertical, and so the hallway feeds from the bottom of the room and from the top of the room, and the corridors would connect vertically to each other (creating 40 x 20 x 40 blocks, in Length x Width x Height). That would make it play too slowly. I suddenly came up with a thought that the corridor would NOT wrap totally around the room, but only half-wise. Then a few seconds later, I thought of a corridor that would NOT wrap around at all...it would be a straight hallway, feeding into the room from one side. Then BANG, I got my design. But when I got into the level, I thought it was too small! So I added in a corner room diagonal to the main room.
The level DID play fast. I reached my goal. But someone told me that they played a smaller level than that. So I made a new design based on the Vertical Dragon---the Black Dragon. In the vertical Dragon, the side corridor fed into the room from six openings, the first three openings on the bottom floor and the second three openings from the top floor. I reduced the openings down to four---two on the bottom and two on the top. That also reduced the amount of pillars in the room. Now it played even faster than ever. Once again, I have made a theoretical design that I can use to help me in creating future, fast-playing vertical designs.