zomg w00t

I am pleased to report that we have something huge going down right now. A couple weeks ago, our moderator Youme received an email from Dario Casali, a prominent member of the Valve mapping team.

From: xxx
To: xxx
Date: xxx
Subject: pl_badwater

I just found a link to the payload contest you are hosting at tf2maps.net and read the thread. It sounds like a fun project and I can’t wait to see what comes of it!

I have a question about the sentence “The inspiration for this contest is of course the not-so-wonderful badwater basin, I'm sure we can all do a better job than valve, don't you?”. I would love for you to send me any feedback you have on the Badwater Basin map. The more input we receive, the more we can improve subsequent map releases. Thanks, and keep up the good work!

Dario Casali

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After a couple days of drafting, myself and the other officers wrote a reply, detailing the stand-out issues of Badwater, and thanking him for his interest in our feedback. It was my decision that our reply should be prompt, which is why we did not share w/ the community at that time. Suffice to say, we told Mr. Casali that since Badwater was updated, most of the present issues are aesthetic. We also pointed him to our wip letter regarding an interview. Three days we got this;

Thanks for your feedback on Badwater Basin! The kinds of details you have listed here are a testament to your interest in level design and the care with which you make your maps.

As far as a focused map making discussion or interview, we are certainly open the idea, what would you suggest?

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And we have just sent out our reply w/ a couple ideas for this event. The methods we suggested are having an ingame discussion or a traditional chat if they would prefer not to do a live thing. I realize that some of you might be rather upset that we did not share this information sooner. That was my decision for several reasons. When Youme got the first email, I wanted the reply to be concise and fast. Spending a week debating the merits of Badwater and the exact wording of our response was something we really couldn't do. Same thing goes for our reply about an interview. That is also why I have summed up said replys rather than posting them here.

However, time has finally come for everyone to get in on the action. Now that we've made the offer for an interview thing, we're going to need some questions. Nothing is set in stone yet, but we want to be ready. So if you can ask something of a professional mapper, a Valve mapper no less, what would it be?
http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?p=42252

Mr Casali has informed us that he thinks the best option is to start w/ an email exchange of some questions so that he has time to prepare solid answers, and consider what is best covered in a live format like pointing out specific parts of a map. The questions thread has been updated w/ the list we'll be sending.