My thoughts on Custom Stories

[Mine Turtle]

Some folks still enjoy seeing jump scares à la flying naked bodies, we can't deny that. The others who have played more might require more from the custom stories that they play. The ones who feel like they need better quality to enjoy, just have to relax and find the things they seek. It may require waiting for that one rare custom story that has had the deep devotion of a mad man working for a hobby. While waiting, you can enjoy the feeling of: "those low experienced people don't have as good taste as me".
You can quite clearly see the "serious factor" of a custom story from the release page and make assumptions if you might like it or not.

Do you think everyone has eye for pretty things/aesthetics, does everyone have patience to learn and master scripting, can everyone stick to developing their story after the first glorious days of creation have passed and the level editing starts to feel boring? Can every modder have enough devotion to go through extensive polishing and testing phase? Should we push everyone to go down to the thousandth of a decimal to stop clipping issues?

Mapping was really enjoyable as I started out, it was challenging, I learned a ton every time I booted up the editor and the sheer joy of creation kept me doing it.
Now when I have released a few stories and have been doing this for a while, mapping feels like work. I can easily say I do not enjoy it like I used to. Even though there is still a lot to learn, it is the same tweaking, fixing, testing and setting pieces together properly. Now what keeps me pushing forward is the joy of seeing people enjoy and appreciate the work done + to grow e-peen and to get recognition. But to get to that point, one must go through a ton of work and discipline.
When you are creating something, you start to feel like you are not doing a good job enough or you just want to release it already. That is something that explains the early beta releases (The Electric Castle), abandoned projects (The Electric Castle)(getting bored might be bigger one for these though) and stories that haven't gone through serious testing phase (The Electric Castle).

Suffer the pain of discipline
or suffer the pain of regret

As for those who have the dedication and willingness to create deep immersive stories, but lack the knowledge or experience to do such, I might try to provide a few tips for the mapping department since I'm a very visual person, that's where I spend most of my development time. These things might be obvious for some, but either most mappers don't know how to do this stuff or are too lazy to do it, I hope its not the latter.

Frictional games has made every tool, model, particle effect and sound for this game. If you are using the stock stuff to build your story with, look at how TDD maps were done. They are very detailed and have used all of the available content to good effect.
For example if you are making a cellar map, while you are mapping, open up a second level editor and open TDD map that uses the same cellar set and compare your map to their one. If you make your map with similar amount of detail, you are doing it as well as you can (if you can't model new stuff).
This does require a lot more work of course than setting up the layout of the maps with just walls and ceiling, giving the player a lantern for lighting and calling it a day.

Pay attention to everything you put around your map. If you place a fog particle, take the time to check how far it should fade in/out, what alpha/color values fit best and check where it glitches inside walls by testing and observing inside the game.

Your knowledge of the models, decals, particles and everything increases as you create more with the editor. When you know where is and what is, you become faster and you have easier time polishing your maps.

If you have an empty spot on a room, cover it with something. If you can't figure out anything to cover it with, decrease the size of the room or think of other cool ways to fix it.

static_objects/decals/dirt_floor_1to3 and moist_wall_1to3 are your friends with low amount of triangles opposed to decal ones. If however you want to cover up round areas, use the decal tool.

Put yourself on the shoes of the player, walk around your map. The only way to release a serious story with clipping issues is without enough testing.
If you haven't gotten bored to hell about your map and don't hate it, you haven't tested it enough.

There is nothing that could prevent you from creating as well made story as Amnesia the dark descent with the very same tools they used. Being willing to use the necessary time to plan, create and polish is up to you.

If you can stick with a project and polish it up, I will salute you, that's a really hard thing to do.
I'm tired... Time to get some sleep.

And btw I find pewdiepie hate retarded... Hate the fanbase, not the man.

youre basicly stating some points inside my mapping detail part. i guess its for the better, but i thought it was clear that good mapping included all these points. atleast now, beginners have some extra ''in with a teaspoon'' explanation . thanks ^^