It is very important for me that the map I create must be included in the Director's Cut.
In my life personally, I think there is only 1 thing I ever uploaded to Hive that was considered Director's Cut. And that is a tool program called "Retera Model Studio."
So, you can take what I say with a grain of salt. Because it is only partly related. But in my experience, getting
Director's Cut on my tool did not happen when I put a lot of effort into it. I started the program in 2011 in high school, and I rewrote it almost entirely in 2017 based on my new vision for how I wanted it to be. Inventing a new idea for combining 3D animations in 2012 didn't make it Director's Cut. Reinventing my vision for the program in 2017
didn't get it Director's Cut. Upgrading the program to support the new Reforged game in 2019
didn't get it Director's Cut.
In my experience, what got the program to get
Director's Cut was actually the random whim of the reviewer system, or maybe... Another way to think of it is that they do something like
Director's Cut when the resource you provide has evolved until it helps other people in their interests, and their goals, and not simply your own.
In my case, in 2022 there was a lot of drama in my life as a Warcraft III modder. I said some regrettable things, and it exploded on the internet and it made me look very bad, and it made me want to stop modding Warcraft III. And I did all of it as part of my rebellion against the Reforged, where I tried to rip out the heart of Warcraft III and escape to another universe of technology where there was no Reforged and I never had to think about that.
And it was in all of that drama, and when it was becoming clear I was not a good person, that I went back and I thought I should forget myself and do something good for the people of the Reforged anyway, even though it kind of hurts. And so, to help those people, I changed the Retera Model Studio program so that it would render with newer shaders, and I learned about the shader programming to make the metals shine in the preview of the Reforged models, and I published that as an upgrade to help everyone, even though I probably don't care about Reforged anymore and it doesn't help me, really. Other than for the fun of learning, and seeing what it's like to try to render shiny metal from code.
It was always a little bit weird for me because it doesn't seem like that upgrade was necessarily the crowning jewel that makes what I have done noteworthy. I have done a lot of other things. But maybe, for some other people, it was the thing that made my contribution useful
to them. And that's probably the really hard part of
Director's Cut, to really appreciate that what the site staff are looking for is that kind of general good that's going to help the people even if it doesn't help the author of the project themself.
Edit:
Partly what I really mean to say is also that I do not advise measuring your success on the opinions of other people.
Sometimes, if you are unlucky, other people might decide not to appreciate what you create due to totally random bias and their own ways of thinking or interests. If I play your map and then I say it's bad, what does it matter? Who am I to say that to you? Why not decide for yourself that it is good?
, High quality
or Recommend
?
