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Hello all. You may not know me, but I played a little bit of the original MCI and a lot of MCI 2.0. I have made my fair share of maps, and feel like I have a lot of knowledge that should be passed on to the rest of the MCI playerbase, especially those looking to build maps for the server. (That aren’t cod remakes)
I’m going to start this off with clearing up some of the vocabulary when it comes to building maps:
Vocab List
Many of my maps have never even seen the light of day. I spent a lot of time pondering these map designs and trying to see how the map flow would work. This led me to discover the 3 core map principles.
The Three Core Map Principles
The three core map principles are the following: simple, small, flat
At first, these principles sound counterintuitive. How can a fun map be simple, small, and flat? To answer these questions, I am going to split up the 3 principles and explain why they lead to a great map.
Simple
At first, this map principle sounds bad. How could a simple map be fun, if there isn’t a lot of small little nooks to discover? If there is no complex design of branching buildings and secret spots? What about web spots? Parkour spots?
At first I will concede. If MCI had only 2-3 maps, more complex maps would be necessary. However, MCI has more than 3 maps, and will constantly be adding more. Therefore, maps need to be easy to pick up and understand.
Simple maps are more new player friendly because it is easier to know where you are going. Simple maps are also more fun for experienced players because they flow a lot better. Infected will not get lost in all the twists and turns, and will more easily get to places that matter, or the point of interest, which I will explain later.
Small
This principle is more than what it sounds like on the surface. You can’t just make a map then cut the size down, because locations will not be proportional. What I mean by small is having the map only consist of necessary locations, which are Simple and Flat.
If this is hard to understand, just think of Nuketown. It is a small map. It is just 2 houses on opposite sides of each other. The map is not overly big with convoluted buildings and giant roads, which lead to bad flow.
All in all, in order to make a map that is small, it should only have things that are necessary for its function. Some of these things are; 1-2 hiding spots that are somewhat obvious but people don’t often check, 1 good tanking spot (MUST be flat with few obstructions, if any), and a simple infected spawn with obvious directions to go.
Flat
This is probably the most challenging of the core map principles. As an avid builder it feels unnatural to not build up and down and build with elevation on mind. However from my experience, this leads to poor map design mostly for 2 reasons.
The first reason is when you have a bunch of different elevation levels, you must connect these elevation levels. These “connection points” as I call them, usually and bland and nobody goes there unless they need to. These are different from the infected spawn because the infected spawn is in one distinct back part of the map, and connection parts are usually strewn throughout.
The second reason is that tanking, the best part where MCI shines, is completely annihilated when a map is not flat. It is very difficult to tank when your elevation is constantly bobbing up and down, and you can’t grasp an equal footing for your life. That is why every duel server has duels on flat ground and that is why your MCI map should be mostly flat.
Note: This DOES NOT mean your map should have ZERO elevation differences. This means that maps should be separated into multiple “zones” and those zones should be mostly flat. Also keep in mind that Tanking should be a more viable strategy than hiding, because tanking is the most fun way to play the game. Humans will do what is more efficient
Map Design
You might be tempted to just start building the map, but that is not a great idea. You could get lucky, sure. But more likely you will end up with a badly designed barren wasteland with poor map flow.
The first thing you want to do before building the map is draw a map layout. You don’t need any fancy programs if you don’t have them, even MS paint should be fine. One example of a map layout that I am using right now is below:
The bottom of the layout should always be a small box, which symbolizes the infected spawn. I would not recommend changing that because it generally works the best.
This map’s anatomy has 1 tanking spot, 1 hiding spot, and 1 exit lane.
I am now going to show how to label a map to help you build and understand it
The GREEN represents the map flow. The circle is where the infected spawn. As you can see, more of the infected went to the left because of left bias. You can capitalize on this in 2 ways. By having the tanking spot be on the left, so more players will find it and more infected will be there, being more enemies for the tankers. Another way to capitalize on this is by having the hiding spots on the right. Since less infected will go to the right, hiding there will be a better strategy.
The BLUE represents the lane in which all players and infected must go through. I call this the infected lane because all the infected must run through that lane. This lane should be easy to understand and highlight the other areas of the map. No points of interest should be in this lane, but they should all be near this lane. Think of this lane as the “artery” of the map, and the infected spawn of the heart. If the artery can’t take the blood from the heart to the rest of the body, the body will die.
The ORANGE represents the hiding area for the survivors. It is to the right of the infected lane, to make sure that fewer infected pass by.
The RED represents the tanking area for the survivors. It is flat and to the left of the infected lane, to make sure more infected are there.
I have built the four major map designs. Feel free to use these, but you can also modify these designs and build your own.
Theme
Congratulations for making it this far through the document! The next step for map making is choosing a theme for the map. Try not to use overused map themes, like post-apocalyptic and industrial. Your map should represent the theme through and through, and should not break from that theme at any point.
Ladder/Web Spots
Contrary to popular belief, ladder spots and cobwebs do have a place in MCI maps. They just need to follow a few rules.
Ladder spots rules:
Now that you’ve built your map, you need to share it. I recommend making it a schematic first because that is a lot easier for the owners to put in the game that way. I would also make a promotional video or a very good screenshot to allow people to “preview” the map.
And that’s the whole guide so far. Thanks for reading!
I’m going to start this off with clearing up some of the vocabulary when it comes to building maps:
Vocab List
- Map Flow: This refers to how infected move throughout the level.
- Point of interest: The different places on the map
- Map Anatomy: What the different points of interest in a map are
- Left Bias: No this is NOT political. Left bias explains how people naturally will go left in a multiplayer map. This happens because we read left to right.
Many of my maps have never even seen the light of day. I spent a lot of time pondering these map designs and trying to see how the map flow would work. This led me to discover the 3 core map principles.
The Three Core Map Principles
The three core map principles are the following: simple, small, flat
At first, these principles sound counterintuitive. How can a fun map be simple, small, and flat? To answer these questions, I am going to split up the 3 principles and explain why they lead to a great map.
Simple
At first, this map principle sounds bad. How could a simple map be fun, if there isn’t a lot of small little nooks to discover? If there is no complex design of branching buildings and secret spots? What about web spots? Parkour spots?
At first I will concede. If MCI had only 2-3 maps, more complex maps would be necessary. However, MCI has more than 3 maps, and will constantly be adding more. Therefore, maps need to be easy to pick up and understand.
Simple maps are more new player friendly because it is easier to know where you are going. Simple maps are also more fun for experienced players because they flow a lot better. Infected will not get lost in all the twists and turns, and will more easily get to places that matter, or the point of interest, which I will explain later.
Small
This principle is more than what it sounds like on the surface. You can’t just make a map then cut the size down, because locations will not be proportional. What I mean by small is having the map only consist of necessary locations, which are Simple and Flat.
If this is hard to understand, just think of Nuketown. It is a small map. It is just 2 houses on opposite sides of each other. The map is not overly big with convoluted buildings and giant roads, which lead to bad flow.
All in all, in order to make a map that is small, it should only have things that are necessary for its function. Some of these things are; 1-2 hiding spots that are somewhat obvious but people don’t often check, 1 good tanking spot (MUST be flat with few obstructions, if any), and a simple infected spawn with obvious directions to go.
Flat
This is probably the most challenging of the core map principles. As an avid builder it feels unnatural to not build up and down and build with elevation on mind. However from my experience, this leads to poor map design mostly for 2 reasons.
The first reason is when you have a bunch of different elevation levels, you must connect these elevation levels. These “connection points” as I call them, usually and bland and nobody goes there unless they need to. These are different from the infected spawn because the infected spawn is in one distinct back part of the map, and connection parts are usually strewn throughout.
The second reason is that tanking, the best part where MCI shines, is completely annihilated when a map is not flat. It is very difficult to tank when your elevation is constantly bobbing up and down, and you can’t grasp an equal footing for your life. That is why every duel server has duels on flat ground and that is why your MCI map should be mostly flat.
Note: This DOES NOT mean your map should have ZERO elevation differences. This means that maps should be separated into multiple “zones” and those zones should be mostly flat. Also keep in mind that Tanking should be a more viable strategy than hiding, because tanking is the most fun way to play the game. Humans will do what is more efficient
Map Design
You might be tempted to just start building the map, but that is not a great idea. You could get lucky, sure. But more likely you will end up with a badly designed barren wasteland with poor map flow.
The first thing you want to do before building the map is draw a map layout. You don’t need any fancy programs if you don’t have them, even MS paint should be fine. One example of a map layout that I am using right now is below:
The bottom of the layout should always be a small box, which symbolizes the infected spawn. I would not recommend changing that because it generally works the best.
This map’s anatomy has 1 tanking spot, 1 hiding spot, and 1 exit lane.
I am now going to show how to label a map to help you build and understand it
The GREEN represents the map flow. The circle is where the infected spawn. As you can see, more of the infected went to the left because of left bias. You can capitalize on this in 2 ways. By having the tanking spot be on the left, so more players will find it and more infected will be there, being more enemies for the tankers. Another way to capitalize on this is by having the hiding spots on the right. Since less infected will go to the right, hiding there will be a better strategy.
The BLUE represents the lane in which all players and infected must go through. I call this the infected lane because all the infected must run through that lane. This lane should be easy to understand and highlight the other areas of the map. No points of interest should be in this lane, but they should all be near this lane. Think of this lane as the “artery” of the map, and the infected spawn of the heart. If the artery can’t take the blood from the heart to the rest of the body, the body will die.
The ORANGE represents the hiding area for the survivors. It is to the right of the infected lane, to make sure that fewer infected pass by.
The RED represents the tanking area for the survivors. It is flat and to the left of the infected lane, to make sure more infected are there.
I have built the four major map designs. Feel free to use these, but you can also modify these designs and build your own.
Theme
Congratulations for making it this far through the document! The next step for map making is choosing a theme for the map. Try not to use overused map themes, like post-apocalyptic and industrial. Your map should represent the theme through and through, and should not break from that theme at any point.
Ladder/Web Spots
Contrary to popular belief, ladder spots and cobwebs do have a place in MCI maps. They just need to follow a few rules.
Ladder spots rules:
- Ladder spots going up are fine, since survivors have the disadvantage. However, excessively high ladder spots (like in Village) or not very fun and conducive to high strategy gameplay.
- If the ladder spot goes down, make the ladder 2-3 blocks wide, and no more than 7 blocks down.
- NEVER use cobwebs in place of a ladder in an otherwise ladder spot. They are ridiculously overpowered and are just scorestreak farms for survivors
- Cobwebs should be used to guide players down specific paths in necessary. Although, players should never be forced to go through cobwebs.
Now that you’ve built your map, you need to share it. I recommend making it a schematic first because that is a lot easier for the owners to put in the game that way. I would also make a promotional video or a very good screenshot to allow people to “preview” the map.
And that’s the whole guide so far. Thanks for reading!
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