What makes a map good?

What makes a bad map good?
What makes a good map bad?

I dunno... I always thought about it. But I want a map to be good so that it attract public people as well as my own friends. Yet, everytime I make a map, they find it too complex, or too boring, not enough storyline, blah blah blah. Any suggestions would be nice.

It all depends on your mood

Sometimes you want to aimlessly go around killing thing, sometimes you want to be tangled into an awesome story

but buggy and maps with 1337 tooltip crap are always annoying.

I see... Thanks, heh. I hope that's not all :x

Generally I would say varied gameplay. Give the players a lot of options - even if it's an RPG with a linear narrative, there should be more going on than simply running through a maze killing things.

Basically, in gameplay, the more a player has to think about, the more engaged he will be. Now, setting the game up so that there's instantly a whole lot to control and if you can't keep track of all of it you're going to lose - not so great. But, easing the player in and explaining all the different functions at his control, you can end up with quite a lot of complexity. You can pack a surprising level of complexity into even the simplest games, like top-down shooters or fighting games.

Irreversable choices are always good too, like picking an element, a hero, a tech, a race those kinds of things makeing it so you have to play the map 10 or more times over to have tried everything.

The best maps are those were common sense is evident in the making. What does this mean, exactly?

1) Spelling. This is rather a minor thing, but when a map is full of typos, it gets really annoying and starts to detract from the map. It drives me mad when I play a map and I have to struggle just to figure out what I'm meant to do because the objective was spelt horribly.

2) Large numbers. Large numbers are bad and usually means imbalanced. As a general rule, units shouldn't have so many HP that the number vanishes in the HP display because it's so large. Likewise, damage should be kept relatively low. It's highly annoying to have a skill on a unit that does 300 damage, but my regular attack does 500 damage.

3) Rate of attack. Keep this sane, please. It's very annoying when my hero attacks at a rate so fast that the game has trouble keeping up. Unless the unit is designed to have a streaming attack (which should be relatively low damage), you really don't want the attack speed of a unit to surpass 100% of its regular attack speed.

4) Splash screens. Keep these of a relatively sane size if at all possible. Also, ask yourself if you really need one. Also, don't add it in early versions of a map. When I see a splash screen on a map that is marred with bugs, it instantly tells me that the maker is more concerned about making a "pretty map" and not an enjoyable, playable one. Also, try to make them appropiate. Keep in mind that there is a wide range of age groups that play WC3.

5) Sound files. To be perfectly blunt, these really don't belong in multiplayer maps. They just make the map file too big to be downloaded over battle.net.

6) Quests Menu. Utilize it. It drives me mad when I'm roaming a map, trying to figure out what I am meant to do because it was explained poorly Often I just happen to stumble upon what I am meant to do.

7) Give directions on what to do. I distinctly remember one RPG where I wasn't told what I was meant to do. When I finally triggered an event, I was under the impression that I had just skipped roughly 90% of the plot.

8) Speaking of plot, if you're making an RPG - include one. Plots are what seperate the good RPGs from the bad ones.

9) Variety. This is what kills maps. Too little or lack of variety. Often times the only variety is who you are playing with. Random events are always good. When I can close my eyes and navigate my hero around a battle because I have a good idea how it's going to resolve, something is wrong.

10) AoS Maps. Strategy would be nice. For example, there's one AoS map - whose name escapes me at the moment - where there are locations your team can capture for some bonus units. Do something similiar and scatter them around the map - don't put them in a heavily trafficed area. Clicking "Hold Position" and watching melee units run blindly to their death is rather boring and sort of detaches the player from the game.

11) Ask yourself if you would want to play it. Look at it objectively. Would you want to spend your time playing this map?