[split] Map discussion

[Undead]

wasteland, oasis, avenue, venganza, swamp.
havnt played the others enough to know.

but seriously the only way you're going to get another map official is if you spam RK for like 30 days straight telling him to add it to AC.

on the subject of servers, 24/7 douze servers are allowed but 24/7 dust2 (better map) servers arnt allowed? also, maps like rifle@xcamper or w/e it is are put on map rotations also are allowed.

[OpenSource]

You got a point there, Undead.
There are some servers running 2-3 rifle@xcamper maps only.
I have not reported this via mod/admin forum but i guess its about time to make a post and see what the DEVs say/do.

And for maps, oasis, avenue and venganza should become official imho.
I love oasis and avenue.
I could have ctf on them 10 times on my server but im scared they ban it. :(

BTW, i do have dust2 on it. ;)

[flowtron]

I've been discussing this with the dev-team - trying to find a better way to keep the stream of maps in our sights - what I'm saying is:
When the "just the best"-ruling was established it was when community provided maps weren't any good at all - of course, now this is totally different - and we're all pretty much in agreement that new maps should make it into the official package.
But we should also push out more MediaPack-s - they might not give the mapper that extra-special tingle of being featured in the core-package; but for some maps this will be the only sensible form of release.
See - a simple map doesn't bloat our package size in any significant way, even 10 won't. But the issue to watch out for is the requirements a map has on textures, models and other media. Those are the files that have pushed AC from ~20 MB to now ~50 MB .. I know, it's still a puny download-size compared to other games - but we're getting close to having tripled our package size from the humble beginnings, so I hope you see my point that we should carefully consider each addition.

RE: server-maprots and banning
The maprot-analysis was mainly done during the static-1.0-M.S. times - the dynamic M.S. is (obviously) harder to maintain in this regard; I guess basically it comes down to: Nullo actore, nullus iudex - (where there's) no plaintiff, (there's) no judge.
After all, AssaultCube does comes with an editor - it's just at the time we were flooded with servers that abused the engine and our public service (of the M.S.) for what we felt were unacceptable purposes.
In the end it'll still be a case-by-case decision - as long as you provide proper contact-information and take heed of any constructive criticism we might send you, you'll be fine I'd say.

[Apollo{TyD}]

But we should also push out more MediaPack-s ... but for some maps this will be the only sensible form of release.

Well, this idea isn't that new. Back in 2009 - of course after a long discussion - The "official map pack" project has been started. In the corresponding readme file you can found

[SELECT ALL] Code:

This is version 1.0 of the AssaultCube Map-pack. The map-pack provides a place where good maps by the community can be found in one easy download. It's perfect for maps that need some custom content to be played.

After 19 months there is still no release of this map pack available. Therefor a lot of people started to collect maps (with all relavant stuff like textures, sounds etc) and released them to the community for oneself. Also a few mappers started to do a compilation. So this is is already happens.

The described solution in the wiki means to do a lot of re-editing the files and also needs some organisation.

[SELECT ALL] Code:

To get your index-number (the xx bit) please speak to a member of the development team, but you can also just assume the number following the last released one - unless someone else is bundling one in parallel (and get's there first) that number will be correct.

From my POV and experience all this will become again the work of only one dev team member (RK), who will be flooded then with requests of all the mappers. Considering the result of the last project (no offense) I have doubts that we will see such a media pack in the near future.

See - a simple map doesn't bloat our package size in any significant way, even 10 won't. But the issue to watch out for is the requirements a map has on textures, models and other media. Those are the files that have pushed AC from ~20 MB to now ~50 MB .. I know, it's still a puny download-size compared to other games - but we're getting close to having tripled our package size from the humble beginnings, so I hope you see my point that we should carefully consider each addition.

Beside the fact that I have doubts that we have now (2011) the same technical situation regarding internet connection speeds like 4 or 5 years before (and there a lot more signs for that to get) - the main reason why a mapper is often dependent to get his map into the official package is unchanged: AC is still unable to transfer additional stuff like textures, sounds and mapmodels from the server to the client (to see a working example: play UrbanTerror). And that's the true reason why the official package is now that "big".

Well, worse things happen at sea. Years before we haven't have any kind of auto-getmap (is someone else remembering this annoying sendmap/getmap-stuff ?); in the meantime the player gets also a hint that he is playing a different version (nice stuff).

So what would a mediapack change? Not much. The mediapacks have to be installed on the client side (so the packs have be promoted very well). Otherwise you will see wrong textures and some wrong mapmodels flying in the sky again, cause the server is still able to send cgz- and cfg-files only (mediapacks installed on the server doesn't change that fact). So if someone want a smaller official package and a lot of full working new maps a new technical solution is something which should be considered.

[Mr.Floppy]

I see loads of people crying for more and more maps and at the same time you can't play a custom map without people voting for desert/douze all the time. However,...

We could have 1,000 official maps and it won't change nothing as long people can't be bothered to play the game as intended. No matter newbies or seasoned players with all sorts of clan tags. Too much people call votes for the silliest map-mode combinations and go mad if you hit F2.

This guys obviously don't even like this game. I wonder why in hell they don't leave and look for another one which will fit their needs better? If I don't like the music of a band I won't try to talk them into changing their style...

Seriously, I don't think it's a matter of maps (at the moment), but a matter of servers. In my honest opinion there's way too much 'freedom' given to server hosters and the overal quality (pings, maprots, maxplayers, administration) is quite low these days. Not that there were no good servers, but for some reason you hardly find a player on the better ones...

[Apollo{TyD}]

^^ totally agree.

But we have had such discussions before and every time some requested ... say a more closer look at the game, then someone else turned this into a general debate about the freedom of speech, open source blablabla...

[MorganKell]

Why not require servers to run a standard map pack? The officials plus any of the semi-officials as a basis that they must have, modes could be optional, then allow them to add what they will. As long as they have a solid main maprot, the other maps they want to add would be merely icing. Good for a break after intense fighting on real maps.

If this idea has already been suggested sorry for the repeat.

[V-Man]

This guys obviously don't even like this game. I wonder why in hell they don't leave and look for another one which will fit their needs better? If I don't like the music of a band I won't try to talk them into changing their style...

Too true!
Too many people are trying to turn AC into their idea of what a good FPS should be, when instead they should be shelling out money for some commercial fodder.

[Undead]

I honestly dont understand why "gemas" were banned from the game also, i can safely say that a large amount of the members in the community ( not including the people who play for a week on pubs ) enjoyed playing on them.

[flowtron]

Apollo: Uhm, there's one MP out already - jamz & R4zor did it.
@all:
The way this works now in-game is that if you encounter an MP-packaged map the client will alert you: "This map requires the following mediapacks: 1001" - "Download it from fake://26things.com/something/or/other" (dunno the URL ATM, but it gives you one!!)

I agree - there's still room for improvement here - like allowing ZIP-D/L-and-unpacking during play .. but I really can't see myself putting energy (again) into this area unless I see it's going to be used.
ac_stef is probably going to be ROFL-ing about this whole segment of the discussion, since when he started the mediapack-code inside AC we two had very different opinions on how this should be implemented - the energy I put into this was to take the excellent base-work he'd done and implemented the map-header info-bit and D/L-URL-output; so instead of having one (steadily expanding-in-size) MP we can have two (yes 2!) MP-releases per week each year w/o any trouble - each MP would be miniscule in size and the re-usage of material provided in one MP doesn't make your map require people to DL "too much", but just enough to make it work. It's now time for the community to use this feature.
It's partly my own fault for not pushing the information on MP-creation out there much sooner (see quoted wiki-page history).

[Apollo{TyD}]

@flowtron: you like to read only the half of my post, right?

Apollo: Uhm, there's one MP out already - jamz & R4zor did it.

I mentioned already that people outside of the development team have released their own package. The missing media package (or map pack) I was pointing at is the promised "official one" (as you can see this link redirects to the AC repository).

I agree - there's still room for improvement here - like allowing ZIP-D/L-and-unpacking during play ..

Yeah, that's why I pointed to UrbanTerror (as an example). Also a lot of content management systems are using similar techniques for adding/installing plugins. It would be also the next logical step after the automatic download of cfg/cgz-files.much sooner (see quoted wiki-page history).

[Alien]

* downloading materials can be problem for server hosters and their traffic and limits, AC is only about cfg and cgz, not hundreds pictures and mapmodels

There should be closed servers with MP, it means you cannot enter if you haven't installed their MP. The global MP can cause problems with versions. It requires work and permanent attention.

[Apollo{TyD}]

* downloading materials can be problem for server hosters and their traffic and limits, AC is only about cfg and cgz, not hundreds pictures and mapmodels

Hundreds? As far as I know all kind of game resource (texture, sound, mapmodel) is currently limted to a maximum of 256 slots cause only one byte is used for the identifier. Beside this, the most available slots are already in use (which is the reason why you have to replace carefully default entries with your own whenever you want more). Furthermore I'm on a different opinion (how surprising) that there is no need to expect a flood of maps with 100 or more custom items now. From what I have seen so far in the past years that a map which is using more then 10 custom items is still a curiosity.

[flowtron]

The big issue here is that the server doesn't actually have anything more than the CGZ.
IMHO the MediaPack-code as is can work just fine for the community, if a map is voted that you can't play "to full extent" (due to missing media) it will alert you.
I accept that the current situation is a hassle - it means getting the posted URL out of your console-log and getting it "by hand", unpacking "by hand" and then reloading the map/match.
As I said - I'm more than willing to make AC capable of a D/L in-game and instant usage, but this will require some effort and time - apart from my current near-total-absence I usually have too much to do with organizational and bug-fixing chores to give you any favourable time-scope for this feature :-/
Help is always appreciated!

[VenteX]

Temporary fix: Learn to be creative enough with the default content to not need more than a CFG and CGZ. ;-)

On a serious note, I really think less is more with the amount of official maps. As mentioned earlier, the package size has gone up over time to almost double its original size. It's very easy to just keep on adding maps, but I've yet to see much discussion on removing any official maps.

If it isn't one of the best damn maps you've ever played on, maybe it doesn't belong in the official map package; and no offense to any of the mappers out there, some of the official maps really aren't that great. I'm not going to name any names, though.

Maybe some sort of survey should be created(?)

[Nightmare]

How many "official" maps do you think the game should have ventex? :o

[Viper]

In many more high-end FPS games especially on consoles since you can't really do much modding and manual stuff yourself, automatic downloading of new game settings/maps occurs each time you connect to the masterserver. I would imagine that a media pack and maybe even gameplay changes could be done by this route. I'm not asking for this in AC or telling you flowtron to try to get this done, but I just want to know if this whole idea is even possible for AC and if so, could such a service could be implemented how much of a change would this make?

Secondly, I understand both sides of this discussion: apollo/flowtron, but still am lost as to the scope of the situation. Could someone explain?

[Lantry]

I thought the reason it didn't automatically download stuff you didn't have was more because it is supposed to be light on bandwith?
however, this would be a nice feature, or at least having an option to download it and everything right in AC (which is what flowtron is suggesting, if i am not mistaken)

[Robtics]

ac_iran is a really nice map too, just needs to be dusted and updated a bit :D

[SnowOak]

I'm just wondering why we left it so late to add more official maps, I mean there are too many of them to count now :D

[wolfbr]

I agree with what you said above, some official maps are not fun, and people just like to play five or fewer maps(in most games,i see people voting to play only 2 oficial's maps)...

no offense to the creators of maps or the developers or any other person, I think that some maps can be removed, several maps have fun out there, maybe a little Search, and polls can help.

I do not know the opinion of most people, the maps more tedious to me are those most closed, I do not give you room to move(shotgun fest), and others maps ate to big and tedious.

the coolest maps are the most balanced, those where all weapons are good, and of course the most strategic maps, challenges are the coolest most balanced.

in these maps all weapons are good, and of course the most strategic maps, the 2 most votes maps by a majority on the servers are like it.
like snipers maps(small, open, strategics, that satisfies any style of play and player).

[Nightmare]

@wolfbr
Adapt to the map. :D

*crosses fingers for super mapping release next year with 100+ new mapmodels and textures.*
*realizes it won't happen and we will get another balance release after people rage about the new guns.*

[V-Man]

in most games,i see people voting to play only 2 oficial's maps

That should tell you more about the players than the mappers.

[Duckett]

IMO, there should be nothing done to the official maps, alterations, or additions to the maps already in the package, and I do not think that anything besides the best maps should be added to the official map status.

Also, not to offend anyone, but some maps are more overused, and misused than others, and I'm fine with that, as long as there are still servers, and people that care about quality.

[Nightmare]

ac_snow's layout is so complex, I always get lost T_T
two giant long spaces on each side with a hallway in the middle. Its easier to get through my hedge maze map! We need arrows on the walls so I can get through that H - shaped map! And the detail is amazing. Like that box in the road. And umm that hook in the base that you can walk through without getting hit on the head by it. And umm that box in the other base. So much detail, its insane.

<3 the official maps <3

[wolfbr]

I did not say that the official maps are necessarily bad, just not very good, mainly to have official status.
that is not a feature unique of BC, so many games are in relation to maps

exemple: counter strike: many official maps, however, few are actually played; aztec,dust2,italy,assault and inferno- only 5 maps.

AC does not need many official maps, only maps that everyone likes to play, I do not want to mention names of maps, but everyone knows the most played maps : )

[tempest]

I did not say that the official maps are necessarily bad, just not very good, mainly to have official status.

Well, what maps are good then?

[wolfbr]

some custom maps, I see some in sniper servers , or ctf severs.
many of these were mentioned in the topic.

the good oficial maps for me; douze, rattrap, depot, shine, sunset and maybe scaffold- arctic and ingress for sniper mode. I did not put in order of preference, taste some more, some like less.

others, I even play, but I do not much fun(personal opinion), is not that bad, but, not good fo oficial maps, I do not find fault with respect to the creators of the maps : ).
some maps are confused, very closed, very open, labyrinthine,camper fest..

[Nightmare]

You picked a lot of popular maps that you like. :D
Except rattrap. I know a lot of players who think it needs to be killed off.

[Andrez]

Except rattrap. I know a lot of players who think it needs to be killed off.

I'm one of them, along with ac_snow.