A request to all you mappers from an Admin...

(Fynbos) #1

Hi guy,

first of all: Great work you all do here!
No question, ET wouldn’t be the game it is to so many people, if you mappers wouldn’t put all the efforts into building great maps. :slight_smile:

But, as an admin of one of the larger server groups running ET with custom campaigns, I have to ask you kindly one thing, that drives us (admins) crazy.

Could you all please
a) state for how many players your map is intended,
b) if it was tested with what amount of people,
c) if in doubt, run the map on a big server, to make sure, its smooth?

Great maps (in terms of what player love to fight on) often have the problem, that they increase the players pings, even though they are not that big sized.
I am sure, you all know some reasons for that and I am also sure, you all know ways to avoid those “lot-of-people” lags.
But that would, I asume, kill the joy of work, if you would have to work with crappy textures or raw shaped objects.
And that is not what I ask you for. :wink:

All I ask you, is that you consider to tell us admins, who check the maps suitability for our servers, for how many players you suggest the map could be working.
A good place for that would be the README.txt, for example.

Oh, and if you ever need a server to test a map on full 64 players, just give me a ring here or via mail or ICQ or whatever.
I (and my fellow admins) would be more then glad to help you.
After all it would take only a few seconds to fire up a new map.
(And most players love playing map testers, if you ask them. :D)

You actually won’t believe how few maps really run with 64 players without map caused lags. :frowning:

Thank you for your time.

Fynbos
www.Kernwaffe.de
Enemy Territory Servers since 2004

(S14Y3R) #2

Yea, that’s a good idea, I agree its a good idea for a mapper to recommend how many players a map is “designed” for. Like whether its for 16 or 64 :smiley:

Its great to see admins willing to communicate with mappers :smiley:

(Loffy) #3

Hi
That is true.
See also:
http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3843
http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8153
http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5761

Good admins who host custom maps are gold.

//Loffy

(Tyrlop) #4
  1. my map is good for many players maximum ammount is 12 i think if not 16 :stuck_out_tongue:
(stealth6) #5

making a map with 64 players in mind :o
task seems daunting

(Avoc) #6

Rofl, indeed. I am actually about to alpha test a new map, so if you could upload it (it will be up tommorow, check this forum) and test the map with atleast 32 players it would be awesome :slight_smile:

(Diego) #7

I have almost never played on server greater than 24 or 30 players. I find that any map, stock or custom, gets laggy with 64 players and all that artillery and heavy weapons going off.

So I map for the size I like to play on. I include spawn support for up to 32 players on a big map. But have never tested with more than 18. I’ve been told my map Praetoria crashes big time on larger servers. But it has some pretty complex scripting and a lot of objectives so I don’t think there is much I can do about it without hacking the map to pieces.

I did include a note in my readme about the spawn support. But I agree, it would be helpful to include additional testing info.

(Fynbos) #8

Oh, that Pretoria was from you?

Yes, we had it running (people LOVED it so much), but it did crash indeed about half the time.
Sadly, I must say, because it is a very great map.

(Except of the SS-Poster I had to make a patch.pk3 for. Sorry, but we german admins have to check on stuff like that.)

Anyhow, I am glad to help you people, and Avoc allready contacted me about his map.
Sure I will test it on my servers.

I promised and I keep my promises. :wink:

Anyone else, please just PM or mail me.

(Diego) #9

I had an SS poster in there?

Sorry about that. I thought it was just the swastica that was banned. I’m busy working on Praetoria: Mission Two right now. They use a lot of the same textures so I’ll remove it from that one. Maybe you guys can help me test the second map later.

I’m a little worried about it because part 2 has a Tank, a Truck, a Rail Car, 2 cranes, a steal objective, a fireable anti-tank gun, and a tank upgrade facility. So most likely I’ll be having more entity issues.

(Avoc) #10

Why don’t you make it into the “Praetoria: Campagin” ? Even though it might lose some of its dynamics.

(macbeth) #11

yes it is crazy to play on servers with more than 32/35 slots dunno where is the fun when FF is on with a 64 slots server :? and with NQ how lag this server :smiley:

we run a NQ server who is still a popular one and will be great to have some maps for 16 players :obviously we cant have a server always a fully one
so some small maps are always welcomed

ty mappers for the great job your are still doing for the ET players

(system) #12

Dude i have been waiting for Praetoria 2 since part 1 wich we still run.
I hope you open up a test server so i can join to test it, very excited about a new well designed map from Diego :slight_smile:

(macbeth) #13

Diego i still can host your map on one of our servers and will it will be passwored for the test

i added you today for my new msn
i dont use anymore the older one
see you

(macbeth) #14

hello Loffy long times not saw
we are running this week your map"loffys_tram_prefab"

same if it is a prefab we enjoy to play it :lol:

(Avoc) #15

I would very much appriciate if more admins would try to advertise their servers and maybe accept a certain amount of new “test” maps so that they can help out mappers to test their alpha version maps before they release them for final “major” tweakings.

Quid Pro Quo :smiley:

(Diego) #16

Well, since I couldn’t put everything I wanted into one big map, and I am really using a buttload of custom textures and sounds, I was hoping to eventually release it as a Trilogy of maps in one .pk3 file. But I think that would probably hit aroudn 60 -65 mb in file size.

So probably what I will do is have a separate release for each map. But each of those will be pretty large. If I have time I will make another attempt to get mission one from crashing on larger servers and perhaps make a final cleanup pass on all 3 maps at that time and release the trilogy pk3 as a grand finale version.

Mission 3 I will probably not be able to start for a long time. But I intend to keep that one down to a more intimate map size. But I’m sure I will find some way to make the scripting a complicated nightmare just the same.

(Fynbos) #17

As I said:

Gimme a PM and I will test your map.

Ask Avoc, he now as a bunch of work to do, after we tested his map with 40+ players 3 rounds today :smiley:

(Avoc) #18

Rofl, indeed :smiley:

And Diego, Praetoria is an amazing map, hopefully you’ll have the time and will to release the two final maps on ET aswell.

(kamikazee) #19

Just a note to mappers: never include .campaign files within .map pk3, it causes a mess if you have loads of maps.

A seperate pk3 is fine.

(Avoc) #20

Just a note to mappers: never include .campaign files within .map pk3, it causes a mess if you have loads of maps.

A seperate pk3 is fine.[/quote]

That wasn’t what I was saying though >.>