How much is too big for a battlenet map?

Thread Necromancers are not particulary helpful...

Well, whilst this has been brought up again - what's the problem with a little artistic integrity in a map? I'm referring to the "skins don't mean jack" mentality. Why is it the second a map tries to have a running theme, and a little integrity people jump up and bitch about it? I'll take as an example my footman wars style map - I used acolytes as the cannon fodder because they fit a theme, the most common complaint I heard when I asked people who told me "this sucks" was, and I quote "OMFG wats dis - wtf get some propa units not dese gay acos" custom skins and models are much like using a slightly esoteric unit in your map - if they fit the theme, why not? Personally I nigh-on jump for joy when I see beautiful custom-made skins and models, because I know the map has been a labour of love and will be better than the hundreds of poor-quality clones of an initially poor map, yes harrypottermaul, sexmaul, corpsemaul and 40k maul, I'm looking at a few particularly bad offenders in that section of the universe. In my opinion custom skins good, custom models better, the prettier the map, the more likely it is to play well. I don't mind downloading for a while if the map plays well, I guess I'm in the minority.

Good point! It is my observation as well that gameplay and art quality go hand in hand: if a mapmaker paid much attention to details in the graphics department, then it is likely that he did the same for gameplay. So, on the bnet, I like to see bigger maps; there's more hope for them to be good; I'm not saying that small maps are all crap (or that every map that has a custom skin is the best out there), it's just that statistically you have a better chance of finding a good map to play if you look among those with greater filesize.

And, art and gameplay are interconnected: we play games to not be bored (altrough some people play maps like "mauls" for some other reasons, apparently :) ), and not being bored often requires new concepts; that is why we make custom maps in the first place. You can concieve new, different gameplay elements, or/and you can make new graphics; both will have an "ooooohh, shiny!" effect on the players' minds. Both will contribute to this abstract thing we call "good gameplay experience" that keeps us glued to the screen. So saying "art means nothing, only gameplay mechanics matter" is ignoring those little subconcious mechanisms that get excited at the sight of new art the same way as your rational mind gets excited at seeing a map that offers wide tactical choices and interesting, dynamic gameplay.

Everything below 1 MB is fine ;)

no way dota the original for roc is 500. tob is like 1500 same with dota 2

i think even up to 4MB is acceptable, as certain maps that are hosted on websites can be easily downloaded (ie, ToB is insanely popular but its a little over 1MB) altho im not saying you shouldnt care how big it is, im saying, if what you put in your map is worth the space it takes up, then it is just fine.

Its according to where i dl it at to how big i think it should be,less than 1meg B.net, more than 1 at a website.

I have 56k and hate when i get booted just because we might have to wait 2-3 more minutes. :( it gets frustrating.

The max physical size of a map is 4mb, but everyone who plays Battle.net games knows anything bigger than ~600k will fall flat on its face as NOBODY will play it due to the massive wait before a game starts. Once your map gets popular you can chance your arm with higher filesizes because people know they're getting a quality map, not some shitty hack-job pumped full of custom skins for the sheer sake of it.

users with weak connection will never get map bigger than 2 mb! in my opinion maps should be 500kb - 1mb

Yeah thats a nice size...
but as said before skins and models take loads of size...
but if your making a rpg and want some good charcters then don´t worry about the file size.

Coincedently... downloading a map via B.net is slow anyway, and even if someone on Cable or DSL is there, if they are downloading it from someone on 56k... ugh, its horrible i tell you...

It is my opinion that bnet maps should be less than 500kb. Frankly i don't think that there's a valid excuse to have anything larger than that. I have my reasons:

1: Texture Compression. Textures can be compressed. i find that a compression level of 25% quality has no significant impact on how textures look in game. Also, you can use smaller textures (256x256 as opposed to 512x512 skins).

2: Map protectors also decrease map size pretty good (my tank commanders map goes to half its size after i run it through extprotect).

3: Useless files. Custom models are nice and all but before you randomly chuck one in a mapper really has to ask himself, "is it worth it?" Much of the time adding a 2nd-rate model detracts rather than adds to a map. The stock models and skins are top-notch quality, often player made stuff isn't up to snuff.

4: Fat music. This is something i REALLY hate about some maps. Dark Deed's Fight Club theme music for example. Most of the time, custom music is downright annoying. The rest of the time, its stupidly large. A larger majority of mapmakers are more familiar with gfx editing software than sound editing so they tend to forget to compress their music files. A full length mp3 can go as low as 500kb (i've got a version of white stripes seven nation army compressed down to 566kb). In any case, most music could be looped a little.

5: Loading screens. The latest .mdl has it pretty small (100kb IIRC) but its still pretty pointless. Realyl sweet, but pointless. Don't get me wrong, i'd consider it a must-have for a single player map or custom campaign but chucking 100kb into a part of the map that your players will only see for at most a minute out of a game that could potentially last hours...

On the other hand, i'd advise mapmakers NEVER to skimp on one part; the minimap preview screen. I would say that this is the first thing players look at before deciding if they really want to try out a new map. A sweet minimap preview can really reel in the peeps.

Th15, the points you made are quite valid, but I must point out another factor: artistic integrity. Making maps is a creative process, and as such it can be considered a work of art. Tha terrain, the skins, and even the gameplay as such, they all contribute to the "image" of the map, sort of like an aura, if I use a Warcraft term. :)

If a mapmaker has a vision of what he or she wishes the map's final image to be, than I believe that that vision should be pursued. It is not a direct negation of your points, I think they should be followed by anyone making a map, but if despite following such guidelines the map exceeds 500kb, then it should be left as it is, not further chopped down, because that would mean puting out textures that the maker has earlier decided that it "is worth" having them in; or throwing away a custom loading screen that the maker might have drawn himself because he wanted to express himself that way and the minimap preview was too small for him...

We all make maps because we like to, and if we have strong feelings about artistic design, then filesize cannot matter enough for us to compromise it. Of course, if you are just making a map so that as many people as possible will play it, then do not put any custom art in it at all, and do not burden yourself with questions such as "how big may my map be?"

Well, truthfully my arguement boils down to this: Chucking shiny stuff into a map for the sake of having shiny stuff is stupid. It's reall silly when mapmakers randomly grab stuff off here or other download sites and randomly chuck them in.

Perhaps if said mapmaker made the skins himself then theres some small justification; at least he bothered to do all the hard work.

This is one of the things i don't like about ToB. Sold, top notch quality skins. But they don't really do much for the game (the extra SFX models are sweet, but its the hero skins...) while pushing the file to 1mb.

On the other hand, considering the amount of extra stuff ToB has its quite impressive that its only 1mb.

I guess we shouldnt measure what the optimum size of a map but rather how much effort is put into making the map as small as possible. Quite simply, we are dealing with a mass medium and bandwidth is a fundamental issue.

If a map is big only because of skins, just reduce them to 256x256 or 128x128, You can put 2-4 times as much stuff in if everything is reduced and it'll still be the same size. If you don't know how to reduce them, It's simple...

1. Convert the .BLP to .TGA
2. Go into Photoshop and Reduce the image size
3. Save and convert back to .BLP

Tada, smaller file.