Remember back before custom maps, where there was something really unique about the fact that you'd never play the same map twice because they were custom generated? Now that we have custom maps with carefully planned areas, nests, bunkers and buildings, the generated maps have sort of fallen out of favour. Consequently:

The default server map generator badly needs an overhaul.

Good as the custom maps are, I think a strength of this game that hasn't really hit full potential yet is the custom map generation. Take a look at minecraft for a moment- when you start a new world you've got your lakes, mountains and valleys same as the AoS ones do, but you also have trees, cliffs, distinct climate areas like sand, rocky, snowy (all could be emulated just with the right colour), whole oceans, and caves. It's also completely random- meaning no low lying river system always to the east, mountains to the west etc.

Can you imagine how much more diverse the battles would be if the default maps generated more like that? Anyone who's played on the paradise map knows how amazing it is when you're digging a tunnel and you stumble on a big underground cavern, and then find yourself having a firefight with the startled enemies inside. Imagine if flat areas looked like the blue half of incomplete fortress, with trees and bushes dotted around? Supposing very simple bunkers got put down as well for people to occupy and pimp out?

At this stage having one weapon still works just fine, but the introduction of custom maps has all but rendered the default ones obsolete, and now barely any servers use them anymore.

It would be a major shame if this procedurally generated content in the game went to waste because it didn't measure up to the custom maps.

All it really needs is some dynamic minecraft like scenery for people to draw up their own frontlines and tactics around. If they were less like the same old setup in the current default ones and looked more like Incomplete fortress, Mesa and Paradise, every single game would be like playing in a whole new world.

nice spoken, I agreed!

better generated maps would be great. as it is even though its random they still look very similar with almost no difference between the different maps.

Yeah, a generator with options like levels and types of forestation (using pre-built tree models in varieties like pine, oak, poplar, cedar, birch, cacti, etc), different sorts of climates (changes to the overall color... frozen, lightly snowy, summer, muddy, desert, etc), hill density and height (mountains, rolling hills, ridgelines, plains, canyon-split plateaus, etc), and river settings (marshy, normal, wide, snaky, narrow creeks, etc), and even landmass types (borderless, island, archipelago) could be really cool. Server hosts could choose to make their battlefield a WWI or WWII European environment, a jungled Island for WWII conflict in the Pacific, or a jungled, river-crossed landlocked area for a Vietnam War feel. Maybe an alpine conflict? The possibilities are pretty unlimited...even five true/false settings would deliver 32 different map generation parameters, with an infinite number of random options in each...

One wonderful thing about this game when I started playing (back with Beta 0.26!) was that whatever map I joined, it would be something new and unexpected... the vanilla code didn't offer a huge amount of variation, but there was enough that I wasn't entirely used to the battlefield. Add in the building factor, and I frequently had no idea what kind of map I'd get. Unlike many previous shooters, which have a fixed number of maps, I could count on a new map every time I clicked a link.

Now that we have custom maps, it's actually gotten MORE like the dreaded COD. Aside from a few inspired demo versions I've popped into once and never seen again (lots of fun, let me tell you), I'm getting all too familiar with Hallway, Faceoff, Normandy, and the like. Normandy's a great map, but it's always the same... no single map is fun for hours, over and over again.

So yes, I'd like more options in the map generation. The current vanilla options should be the defaults, but it would also be nice to have adjustable parameters (and possible a random function, which chooses totally random parameters for a random map, with totally unpredictable, and fun, results).

And for the record, I like this more than my unbreakable block idea. Thank you, Beret, for this brilliant suggestion.

Good point! This is not COD. I think that the core of this game is the blocks and the things you can do with them. COD's static maps have been carefully designed to be balanced and remain unchanged during a match where AOS strength is the dynamic terrain. We negate this strength by "reverting" to static maps. The randomly generated maps improves the chances of outsmarting the enemy by a factor that COD could only dream of, that is the way to take this.

The terrain is what makes this game awesome. Not the weapons.

there is a random map generator you idiot!
http://silverspaceship.com/aosmap/

I JUST made a thread about the opposite.

http://ace-spades.com/forums/topic.php?id=2095

Yeah, the map gen could use more diversity and adjustable options but in the meantime those generators by Nothings are pretty cool.

I'm working to address some of the desires of both camps with the pyspades mapmaker. You will be able to mix some amount of customization vs. randomization.

I'm not actually all that fussed about everything being adjustable manually- minecraft works pretty well without them, and Simcity players back in the day were often happy to just let the game do the 'reticulating splines' for them and work it out from there.

What I'm saying is that being able to edit the parameters of everything in a new map would be pretty fantastic, but it's not overly important. The map generator should be able to do it all itself first, so absolutely nobody on the server would know quite what the map will turn out like. Good to have the options there if someone has something particular in mind (for example if they were set on having an arctic themed map), but if the generator is able to make all the decisions itself, that's less tinkering server side if the host doesn't really mind how the new map turns out.

The intended use I'm going for isn't really that admins make maps - mappers still make maps, but they get some options to allow the more diverse, randomized experience to take place without coding their own algorithms from scratch. If I only made a singular "map generator," it would only make the kind of maps I like. So instead I'm going for a toolbox that lets people sculpt a little, and have the algorithms fill in details.

So, for example, you might have a map that has prefab bases, but the no-mans-land gets randomized. Or the opposite - a prefab middle and random bases. Or only shorelines are defined, but the land varies. Or the shape of city blocks are defined, but the buildings themselves are autogenerated. Things like that.

@Beret: Goodness, I still have a version of the original Sim City sitting around somewhere...

Yeah, the current vanilla generator does a pretty good job, and a it's nice to just sit back and let it do the job for you. These maps really come into their own if they can go a long time with very little griefing and lots of building. Early on, when I first started playing and griefers were only beginning to find out about the target that is a developed AoS map, I'd encounter heaps of maps that were this way, and they were consistently awesome. I haven't enountered a map like that since .30, though. The game's become too noticed. This game is suffering through griefers at the moment, and until we can come up with a good solution for them (smashing their computers, burning their modems, and locking them in a lead-shielded room where they have no hope of any connectivity comes to mind, but sadly that's not entirely legal), this game will continue to suffer a bit, no matter what other updates come our way.

Lexsym, please continue on Serverbot... I think your speed record for kicking a griefer, that I've seen, is half a second from the time of report. Go admin controls!

I never actually played the original- just saw footage and a few screenshots. I really got into SimCity 2000 though, but I've found no SimCity since has really had quite the same charm to it.

What? Everything is more important than new weapons because new weapons are completely pointless.

OT: I agree.

I agree on this too, although I still want different weapons :P

Well hey, I'm not saying we shouldn't have new weapons, just that at the moment the generator probably needs more attention, considering how much custom maps are leaving them behind

Yes.