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This time, I got ahold of Scorpio Uprising, one of the best mapmakers in NA. He has achieved much fame this season, with the inclusion of cp_standin in the season, and then the playoffs. So without more fanfare, hit the jump for the interview.

1. A controversial topic has been the inclusion of standin in the playoffs. How do you feel about this? Do you think it deserves to be in there? Why or why not?

I  feel that standin deserves to be a map in esea or any other league. Its certainly quite a bit different from other maps, requires players to actually scrim it in order to understand how it plays, and, most of all, requires actual thought and adaptation on the fly in order to succeed. I personally feel that these qualites, along with it generally being quite a freeflowing, stalemate free map, should ensure it being played for quite a bit to come, but obviously I'm only one voice on that topic. As far as playoffs in particular, I don't see why a map that was played in regular season without any signifcant gameplay issues (too many matches going to time limit, bugs that make matches unwinnable for either team, etc) should be left out.

2. After this ESEA Season, opinions are split on standin. One of the hugest problems is the decay rate. Do you think, this can be fixed? If not, do you think that the decay rate is a serious enough problem to vote standin off?

The decay rate can be fixed, but unfortunately its not up to me to fix it. Valve have to implement some sort of entity or option on their end for me to be able to alter the rate at which points decay. I've sent them an email, but haven't heard anything as of yet. I'll be trying again soon, but I'm just not sure how willing they would be to enable something like that. I don't think the map should be removed if the decay rate can't be adjusted. The map has been shown to play well, even with teams abusing or exploiting the decay rate. And, even if a team is able to manipulate it, oftentimes it actually starts working to their detriment, as they can't reliably finish the game out once they've managed to grab another point. That was the point of view of Sigma, whose team tried to use that tactic to start with, but then abandonded it later on.

3. Of your other two maps, cp_metalworks and cp_process. Do you believe that they are good enough to replace any maps in the current ESEA rotation? If so, which ones would you replace?

I feel much more comfortable with metalworks being in ESEA than process, but I feel like both are equally valid entries for a 5cp map in league rotation. If I had to take out a map it would be either gullywash or warmfront. Both maps have incredibly difficult last points to push, while also suffering quite a bit in other areas as well. Warmfront is essentially a granary clone, with a slightly altered middle, but due to the removal of yard, defending second always occurs far further back. This often leads to a grindy stalemate as you wait for the enemy team to push in. Gullywash has a similar issue, as the only two chokes to second can usually be defended fairly easily, and the only real way to push in is usually an uber. Snakewater is getting close to being a map I would like to see taken out, but its second and mid are still reasonable enough (and unique enough) that I don't think it needs to be removed just yet.

4. When you are creating a map, what is your general thought process? As in, for ex: Do you make sure that demos can roll out properly? Make sure there aren't choke points that are unbearable?

The initial planning stage of a map is fairly broad. I have a general layout plan that I try to implement with early, rough geometry. This is usually trying to implement something like a shape, such as with metalworks which started out as a U shape with the middle point as the bend (that of course changed in later versions). From there, I'm careful to examine the layout in terms of sniper sightlines and a general sense of how far or close players can see each other (you want to ensure that players can flank one another, and so forth), and then cut things up to make sure areas have a good flow. I gauge chokes largely based off how much use they are likely to get and how short they make travel. Shorter travel distances, I tend to let the choke be a bit smaller, whereas a longer travel distance you can open up the choke a bit. This makes it so the shorter distance is best to uber at, while the longer distance you can cover for a period of time before you pop the uber. I don't really focus on rollouts throughout the map, but if a problem emerges later on when people start playtesting, I do consider changes. Luckily, most of my maps have had pretty reasonable rollouts so I haven't had to change anything major, with the exception of process where the initial map had a fairly direct connection between last and middle, making it far to easy to get there and leading to a pretty spammy mid battle.

So what do you guys think? Agree? Disagree? Any questions you think I should have asked? Leave a message below!