Common reasons why you didn't finish your map projects ..

[BLazeKraze]

So, After I saw a lot of project threads here on hive, Most of the map projects are not finished yet, most of them are abandoned ....
First, they'll start a thread, people will become interested on the project at first because of the promising features of the map, as the hours - days - weeks - months - years passes, the project starter became inactive, and the project will become unfinished .
I saw many great unfinished projects here, yes, I said "GREAT" because the plans, ideas, are good ...
I felt sad because most supporters will expect something ....

Therefore, what is the common reasons why people abandoned their projects ???

These are my opinions.

6. Planning something "great" that is impossible to make
5. Lack of Ideas
4. Lack of Support
3. Lack of time
2. Unexpected internet disconnection
1. Laziness

So what do you think ???

 

[Heinvers]

1. Laziness

Yeah, that would be my reason :/

 

[Deleted member 238589]

1.Laziness <----> 25.Everything else

 

[Shadow Fury]

Here are the issues listed from the most frequent ones to the least frequent ones:

1- Laziness because it's the worst enemy of map-makers
2- The project becomes boring. After some time you keep working on the same project, it gets annoying
3- Lack of time. Some people may not have the above problems but might have this one. Being busy with school exams or with the job is one of the most common reasons
4- Thinking beyond the limits. Not all people are able to execute what they thought of in the beginning
5- The ideas simply don't come. You may start off with a project marvellously but if you can't go on with what you started, then the whole thing fails
6- World Editor problems. This includes: too slow World Editor/Warcraft, bugs, game crashes and problems in creating skills/triggers
7- Requests. People may need specific models/icons/skins for their projects which are not found on the site

Are there more?

 

[Rui]

I've had a project in development for around 10 years now. The reason why it's not finished is, among other things (read below), because I remade a 350x350 terrain twice.

The first time, I was making a map similar to Azeroth Wars and I already had some code for it, but the 256x256 terrain I was making was way too small, so I decided to remade the terrain.

So I finished the 350x350 terrain, but I came to the conclusion that, conceptually, the map just wasn't unique enough. The only difference was the campaign elements were more enforced.

Yet again I scrapped most of the project. Currently the terrain's probably sitting at over 60%, I've got some code made for it, but since I only work on it yearly I tend to redo most of the code because I have no idea what it does anymore =P

The code is another reason why I tend to not feel the mood to work on the project. Not due to redoing it, but because I like to code for fun. On my informatics engineering bachelor I've been forced to program in a series of languages, sometimes whacked ones for nutball projects, and when holidays finally arrive I just want to free my stuffed mind of all the programming.

Once every month I'll wake up and think «I really want to do some terraining and/or coding in JASS today!», but that's about it.

 

[WhiteFang]

My reasons are laziness,lack of time and lost interest

 

[BLazeKraze]

Last year, If I remember, There's a project thread here, The creator recruited me as a terrainer, I spent many times for the terrain, I put my effort on it, but when I'm finished, the project leader became inactive on his project . I always waiting for his updates but there's nothing... nothing ... duhhh ...

 

[Chaosy]

Laziness has screw up every project I started

 

[Paulus]

Im in the middle of a project and mine are:
Time: a good map needs so much time. Creating spells, terrain, triggers.
To much ideas: i keep adding and removing stuff, because i think they are cool. And sometimes wander away from my main concept. Now its pretty much on a solid rail and going to be finished soon.

 

[Knight of Arsford]

Mine's probably loss of interest... and perhaps the mentality that WC3 is becoming obsolete.

 

[Shar Dundred]

As the others already pointed out, laziness is the main reason. The loss of interest or motivation and the lack of the ability to create a story are also big reasons. There are many projects being started and cancelled again because the creators haven't really thought through their ideas.

I often read people being like "Oh, I don't have the time to finish it and therefore I'll quit!" and I just don't believe that it's any more than a weak excuse. If you have time to be on Hive, you have time to work on your project. If you have time to play games, you have time to work on your project. If you're not working 24 hours a day, you have time to work on your project. Yes, I believe that there might be few exceptions but most cases are not.
The true reason is/are one or more of the four I mentioned above, mostly.

Sometimes it might be a good idea to abandon an idea since it's turning into shit, but damnit, before starting a project, you got to think about it first!
I see too many project threads that make me already think "Well, this will be closed sooner or later. I'm not gonna monitor its progress since I won't see the end of this." just after reading the first post. Some because I think they're bad, others because I simply know it after reading about it.
By hosting a project without thinking through it first and having to quit sooner or later, you'll only disappoint both yourself and those who were looking forward to see the release.

 

[Chaosy]

you got to think about it first!

Meanwhile this is the only thing I consider myself to be good at

 

[Hawkwing]

My first large scale project, which I started 8 or so years ago, was absurdly overly ambitious. It basically revolved around the idea that if something seemed interesting to me, I would find a way to incorporate it into the project. This was at the same time that I was steadily learning about Warcraft's story and practically everything interested me. Among the proposed features were things like 8 new playable races, audio for each new unit and hero, unique muscal scores, new tilesets, an expanded hero system, inventory system, map system. I had no clue how to do any of these things, of course, but I managed to find a number of capable people to help me along the way. I don't think any of them realized exactly what they were in for, and nobody was motivated to do more than offer the occasional favour in form of a model or audio recording.

After that I got a little tired of wrangling other team members and set out on a couple of my own projects, which have progressed well, but I expect they will remain unfinished because of lack of interest. Lately there are many other things I would prefer to be investing my time in. I'd like to one day take these ideas into another format though.

 

[SA Dashie]

To many bits and pieces to put together at the level of standards I have for myself at the time

It's why I only end up finishing maps in contests or maps that are simple enough for me to finish off and not care about further development
So yeh I do have projects that have deep development for a single modder for it, although will be some time before it sees the light of day again :s

 

[Sclammerz]

Yep, Laziness and lost of interest.

 

[PurgeandFire]

The biggest reason for me was that I switched from a Windows desktop to a Macbook, so I very rarely ended up modding (my Windows comp is abysmally slow). Right now, my PC is usually at home so that hinders me as well.

Otherwise, schoolwork and other games. I enjoy making maps a lot, but it is hard to invest the time needed for it. :\

 

[Cherrymage]

My reason: Laziness and Requests

 

[Rheiko]

Laziness, Usually don't have enough time to work on it because of busy days thanks to school ~
and lost interest.

 

[BloodDrunk]

DotA. DotA, DotA and mofo DotA.

 

[Kazeon]

Well, wc3 limitation always slows down my map development progress which eventually lead into laziness. As in my Glideon project right now, who knows these simple MoveLocation and GetLocationZ functions can cause a tremendous issue in the core systems and requires crazy work around, which would delay the next update for maybe more than 2 weeks? These silly stuffs always makes me think twice and more to start another project in wc3.

 

[Daffa]

LAZINESS

The most hated enemy of all mappers.

 

[SA Dashie]

^I used to use that excuse for pretty much everything
I found it quiet effective xD

Well, wc3 limitation always slows down my map development progress which eventually lead into laziness. As in my Glideon project right now, who knows these simple MoveLocation and GetLocationZ functions can cause a tremendous issue in the core systems and requires crazy work around, which would delay the next update for maybe more than 2 weeks? These silly stuffs always makes me think twice and more to start another project in wc3.

There are solutions for these issues, for instance that you have to actually initialize the location in the globals area with registering the actual global as a global then you can pretty much move it around at will at
any time (something that I didn't know till pretty much told).
location l = Location(0, 0)
I never though of this cause doing these kinds of things with other variable types can cause crashing, although apparently non array triggers can be created with the global variable like above.

With the location z issue, I'm pretty sure that only runs into issues with water and terrain deformation by code afaik.

I find it annoying myself how Wc3 doesn't feel straight forward a lot of the time.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

For me, it's two-fold:

1) way too many real-life responsibilities.
Yeah... turns out that being a gamer, playing in a gigging band, having a girlfriend and countless other hobbies doesn't go well with being a modder. Unfortunately, science still hasn't found ways to get rid of sleeping as a basic human need...

2) Perfectionism and OCD.
There, I said it. Perfectionism is the enemy of mapmaking. I always end up remaking systems and features of my mods over and over and over, never ending up with something I would call satisfying. Even if other players disagree. And while the remakes usually improve the status quo, I always end up finding new issues that I'm trying to fix. I always have to force myself to move on, ignoring past issues to actually get anything done.

 

[Rex.]

I surpass LAZINESS. I am God.

 

[BlackEnvyX]

I would start multiple projects, and then finish none of them. Which is why a while ago I decided to trash all of my ongoing projects and am currently only working on one project.

 

[blancfaye7]

It works totally opposite on mine.

Laziness is never an option for me, but for every map I make nobody cares because:
Common Ideas.
Little Eye Candy.
Some sort of a mini-game only.

The only map I shared is my current project you can see on my sig: Insanity Attack

But nonetheless, it's a totally different story than abandoning projects...

I have abandoned projects because:
I become too sad that nobody wants to even test a map. Though this one is not an option for me as well, but sometimes it just strikes you.

When I get busy, I go back to my projects always.

Is it just me, or somehow I can feel that ego in me being struck whenever I don't finish my projects...

 

[BloodDrunk]

2) Perfectionism and OCD.
There, I said it. Perfectionism is the enemy of mapmaking. I always end up remaking systems and features of my mods over and over and over, never ending up with something I would call satisfying. Even if other players disagree. And while the remakes usually improve the status quo, I always end up finding new issues that I'm trying to fix. I always have to force myself to move on, ignoring past issues to actually get anything done.

I cannot agree with you more. OCD and Perfectionism delay my map so much. I am ALWAYS ending up "fixing" or remaking or changing or whatever, never actually leaving it the way it is.

 

[BlackEnvyX]

I cannot agree with you more. OCD and Perfectionism delay my map so much. I am ALWAYS ending up "fixing" or remaking or changing or whatever, never actually leaving it the way it is.

OCD used to be a huge problem for me when it came to map editing, but I learned to just relax and focus on the general picture and how if there was a bug / error I could just fix it with a new version.

 

[SA Dashie]

That kinda fear kinda gets eliminated when I have enough motivation to finish a project to the desired point.
But yeh for more complicated projects there is always that fear of bad bugs that ya miss that could ruin the whole project, but I don't really worry as long as I can make an update to fix.

What's important is getting work out there that your happy with.

 

[Ardenian]

1. Lacking knowledge about how things in WE and Jass work
2. Destruction by polished Hivers
3. RL priority

 

[Rui]

(...)
2) Perfectionism and OCD.
(...)

Agreed! This is exactly the reason why I've scrapped my initial project twice.

 

[Wasabee]

1. Lack of experience and knowledge:
a. Triggering - GUI and JASS
b. Modelling
c. Texturing and Icons

2. Lack of creative ideas

3. Time

 

[Orcnet]

I would gladly accept numbers 5 & 6 mainly on how I interpret a possible map projects I've been holding dearly for like years now and ended up lacking ideas to give it a powerful impact, and yes the impossible can be difficult:

Warhazard - The Series revamp- this was based on the original unofficial game product that somehow I don't get it why Blizzard did not spot this production during an early year, I remembered buying a copy from the mall and end up saving all files in my old cheapo desktop. I managed to upload 1 out of 100+ maps to begin with, the rest end up concept scratch lol.

War of Hatred - its an altered melee that will fully revamp the whole melee outlet by giving it a quick and fast to work with mechanics, along with the ideas of other rts games inside this map. Sad thing is, I lost the notebook were I wrote it all down.

 

[Idaero Ace]

lack of skills and really busy. i dont have much time, must study hard to get to college

 

[A Void]

Yes, Laziness and motivation. I had a lot of projects and maps unfinished and scrapped, most of them did not even see the daylight(so you may not know if they exist).

After the time you spent on doing the same project your creativity and the force that is driving you to make a project - motivation, starts fading away, new ideas are born then and the old ones are wiped out if not forced to fulfill. With new ideas you start to wander off from your current project and it becomes boring after some time.

Two factors: Laziness and motivation are responsible for this.

 

[APproject]

As for me, usually it is because those works that were not finished never really had any deep idea behind it to support its development. It starts just like few ideas for the gameplay, when I come to realise these ideas, nothing happens, the lack of other factors to maintain the development of overall idea kills the map. That's how it turned out for me several times.

As for lazyness and motivation, surely it does play a major role in this, but I suppose it can be fixed after a break, it works for me all the time.

 

[Sclammerz]

As for lazyness and motivation, surely it does play a major role in this, but I suppose it can be fixed after a break, it works for me all the time.

I wonder why it wouldn't work on me. :3

 

[GywGod133]

I don't have much time and laziness