What Makes A Great FPS SP/MP Level?

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I'm primarily concerned about thoughts towards the Jedi Knight series as that is the FPS series I have the most knowledge of. But if you must, do indeed tell us why you thought (fill in the blank here) was good. In either case, if you can please provide examples.

What elements distinguish a good sp map? What elements could you do without?

On the flip side, what kind of maps do you enjoy playing with others online? What are common aspects of the most awesome mp maps out there?

(Answers can be for any game, but you get bonus points if you touch on the JK series )

 

A good map has is big, but constructed in a way that allows for a fairly quick moving around the map. It contains eye-candy to please all sorts of tastes, but not as much as to become a complete chaos. It has different rooms allowing for smaller more private conflicts as well as bigger ones. There has to be those wide areas to allow people the space they need to react, and then the more narrow ones to bring in the acrobacy and feel of change, further keeping the boredom at bay. In addition, a good map must have those few little extra routes that require advanced skills to get there.

Short put, the map has to be appealing both in terms of graphics and gameplay. It also has to have enough challenge to allow for so many different tactical approaches that no one style will dominate over all others, making it too repetitive. And it must be constructed in a way that will grant a player familiar with the map an obvious advantage, without giving the new players too great a disadvantage either.

That's for the multiplayer map.

For singleplayermaps, raven got everything right in Academy save for one thing. They made the maps too linear. In singleplayer it's not about one map, but about many. You must have your spacious map, your narrow-spaced tight map. Your winter environment, and your desert environment. Forest and city. Linear advancing and incredibly complex mazes. Going into any one of those overly much will ruin the game. The maps also need to be realistic in a sense. That means that the map needs to be immersive, by offering realistic surroundings relative to the game world. This counts in debris, geometric planning, lighting, other people, AI, etc. A good example of an error going into this direction is the map in Outcast where you need to force-jump in a sort of rubik's cube. Who ever planned a password bypassing system into an imperial ship that took out an incredible amount of useless space, having one button on one console in one room between every 30 meters, that was only accessible by a Jedi or someone with a jetpack in the first place?

 

for sp the map has to have some eye candy, have a good plot, have plenty of people to kill, good weapon placement,challenging and lighting.a GREAT example of this is half-life and return to castle wolfenstein. As far as multiplayer all of the above - plot.

 

What makes a great FPS SP? The mood and atmosphear of the game. Like in Call of Duty or MoH - Something. Nothing beats trying to get up the beach while everybody gets shot down next to you and you can just hear the MG42 shots fly through your ear. Needless to say, a great audio side is highly recommended.