lost motivation

Greetings,

I am glad to see this site is back up. Last time I checked, it had disappeared.

...

lost motivation

Three years ago, I came up with an idea for a Warcraft III campaign. I thought it out really well, in terms of the plot, characters, and how the gameplay elements would mesh together.

My creative juices were flowing, and I was fully focused on making this campaign a reality. I finished the first map (including cinematics and cutscenes) to almost near perfection, and began working on the second map. At this point, for whatever reason, I felt a bit rushed and did not make the greatest of map layouts. That's not to say it was bad, but I certainly wish I would have spent more time in the blueprint stages before investing so much time in the actual map, cinematics, triggers, etc. (more on this later).

And so I worked on the campaign for the majority of the summer. Now it wasn't perfect, and a lot of ideas were both added and dropped as I continued to work on it, but all in all, it was a very high quality piece of work.

Then September rolled around, and I had to stop working on the campaign (university had to take priority). Over the course of the next few months, due to both academic and personal reasons, I completely lost my motivation to work on the campaign. To this day, it is an unfinished project, sitting on a hard drive collecting digital dust.

I should mention that my campaign still had another two maps to go, cinematic maps excluded. In other words, I was only done about 30% of the campaign, at most.

If I were to continue working on it, knowing how slow I work due to my extreme attention to detail and polish, I would say that it would take me about 4-5 months of consistent, daily work (8+ hours every day) to complete it. And by complete, I mean something worthy of Blizzard's name (I hope).

I think of the project now and then, and it gives me mixed feelings...

• What if I had finished it? How would it fare as a real example of my game development abilities?
• Why did I feel so rushed? I spent countless hours on the second map alone, the very map which I mentioned earlier had been poorly planned out. If I were to revisit the project, that map would have to be completely redone for the sake of quality.
• Was the plot too graphic or inappropriate for general release? It would not make much sense to invest so much time in something that you could not show to the public.

But perhaps the most important of my questions, and the reason behind this post:

• Where, oh where did my motivation go?

I'm sure many of you have experienced a loss of motivation in one form or another during your map-making endeavours. Did you overcome it? And how?

It's called "Losing the muse."

Creativity is a very fickle thing and not something we understand very well. "The Muse" is the fictional person inside you who is the source of all your creativity and pzaz. Sometimes, often for no apparant reason, The Muse just vanishes, even the best and most creative person in the world can lose every single idea literally overnight.

Sometimes The Muse comes back. Sometimes she doesn't, you never see her again and you never have another creative idea.

Some people advocate taking a break, going on holiday, doing something new. Some people advocate relaxing, some doing something exciting and dangerous.


Eventually, The Muse leaves us all and we're left with no creativity and no motivation. Sometimes she comes back, i know for me that when i lose my Muse i need to go away and read a few books, that usually gets the ideas flowing, one of my mates at Uni goes skydiving if her Muse goes away, apparantly that helps.

Ultimately, nobody really knows why it happens, and nobody really knows how to fix it, sometimes it never gets fixed, sometimes it lasts only a day or two.


Personally, i suggest you take a holiday away from work and obligations if at all possible. It can't hurt.

Heh. That happened to me with wc3 modding over a year ago when I quit. I finally barely just got back into it, but it's like Phoenix said, sometimes you just gotta give it time. Creativity isn't something that can be rushed, and sometimes you need another outlet for it instead of focusing all efforts on one project that you can get bored of. Whenever I'm losing momentum on mapmaking I focus on a different hobby for a short period of time til I get it back such as guitar.

Motivation can be revived by good old comments... Without it, or without a decent download number, you wouldn't be motivated... So my advice is... Post your first episode... Just your first...

My ultimate motivator is people that care. If even a single person cares about the work I do on whatever map I'm making, I am far more prone to working on it. That's part of the problem with campaigns, if you hide them until release you may never get the sort of feedback that will motivate you to see it through.

I definitely think getting the first map out is a step in the right direction. Give the players a taste of what they are capable of and they will flock to your work. If it's quality, they will want more, and you will be motivated to make more as a result. At least, that's how it's always been for me!

Vic and Dusk are very much correct. A while back I had a few friends who would test an aos map I had made. Two of them drifted away from war3, and the last just started being a jerk about his comments. That was the death of that project.

But seriously, if you can find your creativity again, I'm sure everyone would love to see it. And yeah. The first map.

Yeah, when I get a bit bogged-down I crack open Morrowind. Either that or mindless stuff like Supreme Commander, where you can just put on some music and sing along.

Yeah I always work with music playing. Also, if you can't find someone that cares about your work, just do it for yourself. Tell yourself you want to see yourself you want to see you finish the project. Even if noone else sees it, you want to prove to yourself that you can do it.

Creativity is for the week. If you want to actually work in a creative indutry, you need to learn how to force it.

Thanks for the advice all.

Lately, I've been considering a complete change in direction - i.e. gaming industry. Seeing as you're in that field, I'm paying special attention to this bit of advice. Quite frankly, it really stood out as I read it. Definitely not what I expected to hear, which is good.

I think the main issue right now is sorting out other things in my life. So much is messed up right now, and has been for a good couple years... I think that may be a huge reason behind my lack of motivation. I guess you could say I'm motivated to become motivated.

As for releasing a map early, I'd rather not. It's just not how I work. Besides, I'm already very critical of my own work. The last thing I need is a bad comment or two to bring me down.

Ripping things from other sources works just as well. There are countless people that have never had an original thought in their life and are doing amazing things. Application, manipulation are all that's required. And I suppose a view for the final product. If you don't know where your headed, you're likely to end up somewhere else.

Now - if you're creative enough - sometimes that can be a good thing.

I think I heard someone say play music while doing the work?

The last time I did that, I made a map that was stupid... That's for me though... Try it, it might work... I guess...

well, it depends on what kind of music. Music with words can often be very inspiring when you're stuck on something. Techno is just annoying.

I hope you're not that doing yourself, scoop; joining the band wagon doesn't truly do anything for the world, you need to walk that road yourself. That's why we have legs. It's also why we cry, and regret.

Dusk, no one knows how many lives would change if one person out of the seven billion people of this world told another person that they cared about them.

No one knows where they're going to be in a year, five years, or even ten years. Ten years ago, I wanted to be a doctor. Five years ago, I wanted to be an artist. Last year, I thought I was going to be biologist. Today, I'm going to a culinary school. Where does that fit? It doesn't, and I don't want it to. I'll make my piece of the puzzle for the world as wicked and ugly as I want to be; if it doesn't fit anywhere, tough luck for me, but I'd hate myself even more for cutting out what I didn't like, just because someone else said so. You can always plan on how to cut your puzzle piece, but it will never be the same once you cut a chunk off. You can try to paste it back together, but then others will realize that you made a mistake, and you couldn't accept what happened. Anyone can tell you how to cut it, they can tell you to move aside, they can relocate you, they can push you out of line, they can threaten you, they can even kill you, but the only one who does the actual cutting is you.

I'm going to regret writing this. Haha.

IgnitedStar: Amen.