Hall of Fame Eplanations and Warnings

How to not abuse this site

For over a year, people have been requesting that this site be created. Some have suggested that a "Best Of" site would inspire better mapmaking, as authors tried to get on the list; others felt it would be a nice way to recognize the finest work; but mostly, people wanted this site for convenience. There were so many maps out there, it was hard to tell what was worth downloading... and they wanted some place to go where they knew whatever they downloaded would be great.

Which is exactly why I avoided creating this site.

Mapmaking is an art, and the value of the product is, as with other types of art, completely subjective. The features that make a map great, to me, might be exactly the features that make you toss that map in the trash. A few times in the last two years, "Best Of" lists have shown up on Marathon web sites. They're usually described as "The maps we think rock the most", or some such. And with no exceptions, I've been at a loss to determine how they make their decisions. There are no discernable patterns, and there is no background from the site creator. Makes the whole thing kinda useless, if you ask me...

So why am I involved now? Because it's time.

Because there are too many maps for most people to evaluate. And because with the imminent arrival of Forge, the potential for overload has increased dramatically. And because there are maps (and mapmakers) out there that deserve to be recognized.

We were extremely careful to detail exactly what criteria we use to rate maps. Read the Guidelines page, and decide for yourself whether or not to pay attention to our suggestions. (Or, if you find the Guidelines page too much, you'll find a short synopsis at the top of each map type page.) You don't need to download all the maps to determine if our taste matches yours...

What you should not do, however, is ignore the vast body of maps that are not mentioned on these pages. This is not intended to be a "here are all the good maps ever made" site, or even a "here are most of the good maps ever made" site. This is a list of maps that, in our opinion, stand out from the crowd as shining examples for mapmakers. We're saying absolutely nothing about maps not on this page-they could be bad, good, or awesome. All we are saying is that the maps on this page are great. Period.

MaraMaps Hall of Fame Seal

The Hall of Fame Seal, visible here, is available for use by mapmakers whose work appears on these pages. The are granted the right to use this seal on web pages devoted to the map in question, or in electronic documentation associated with that map. The seal can be altered in size to fit the mapmaker's uses, but it cannot be used by anyone who does not fall into the category described above, or for any use other than those described above. The artwork is Copyright 1996 by Richard Bushey. We ask that anyone using this seal on a web page link back to the About This Seal page, in order to give visitors the opportunity to see the conditions under which the map was chosen. The following html code can be placed directly into your local document, after changing the image URL:

<A HREF="http://marathon.bungie.org/maphof/about.this.seal.html">
<img src="your.seal.url.here" border=0 hspace=5 width=112 
 height=108 alt="MaraMaps Hall of Fame Seal of Approval"></A>

The seal may be downloaded directly off the page, for those whose browsers support it, or may be found here, in binhexed format. (12K)

The MaraMaps Hall of Fame is intended purely for entertainment. No profit has been made from anything present here.

Now go look at some awesome maps!

Last updated: September 14, 1996

errera@ese.ogi.edu