So it’s been nearly two months now since Half-Life 2 Deathmatch has been released. Since then, a host of custom made maps have flooded the internet to join their CS: Source counterparts, each littered with exploding barrels, crumpled cars, and enough melons to last a zombie a lifetime. (my melon…) However, if you’ve grabbed any of the map packs available out there, you’ll find that a good number of these maps, if fact a majority, are unplayable, unfinished, SDK-rookie messes. Not to say I don’t support the community in it’s attempts to liven the multiplayer scene, but it does put a strain on the multiplayer experience when you are presented a long awaited multiplayer mode with just two official maps and an software developer’s kit that spawns a plethora of maps you be could hardly interested in.

Of course I shouldn’t discount the number of quality maps that are out there, yes they do exist. A new version of DM Depot has just been released, and this is one of the finest pieces of map work that I have seen across any FPS. No doubt one of the reason such high quality maps are hitting the servers is because of Valve’s Half-Life 2: Deathmatch Map Making Contest (deadline tomorrow), offering thousands of dollars in cash prizes to a few mappers who can get their best work noticed. And you have to admit it, Valve is sneaky smart. Why bother creating any official maps at all when you can simply release an SDK and let your loyal community do it for you? Dangle a cash prize in front of them and watch them set their wheels in motion, as nVidia proved along side Epic with its larger scale million-dollar Make Something Unreal Contest. However, the difference between that contest and this one, besides it’s obviously larger prize pool, is that Epic already set an example by providing numerous official maps and mutators to enjoy. Granted, UT2k4 was a multiplayer focused game whereas Half-Life 2 is not.

But with the talent some mappers have shown in creating Source-based maps, I’m wondering how hard would it have been for Valve to offer more than just its two official maps? Half-Life 2 itself was an awe-inspiring display of the Source engine with its gorgeous backdrops and detailed environments. I would love to see more of Valve’s touch on bringing those environments to the multiplayer scene. The Ravenholm setting just begs to be turned into a sawblade-flinging, car-dropping, multiplayer arena. And with more official maps it certainly would ease the strain on users in finding a server that actually hosted maps they had and knew. How often do you sift through the list of severs and find you’ve never heard of more than half the maps that are being hosted? Perhaps one of the reasons Deathmatch was delayed until a month after release was so that the expectations wouldn’t be as high, seeing as how you’re getting it as a “free update” rather than paying for it in your initial purchase.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the mod community. It’s the biggest leg up us PC gamers have over the Halo fanboys and the console community. Anything that game developers can do to encourage interest and lengthen the life of their game while getting users involved in the game development process is a great step forward. When people say Half-Life 2 will have a long shelf life, it will be thanks to the potential modding power of the Source engine. But with the focus of HL2DM more on “potential” than real “material”, I just hope that in the future the game companies don’t lose their focus that they are creating a game first, and a mod tool second.