Custom content on ranked servers

(RR2DO2) #61

That was indeed a slight oversight. A better implementation would always require an addon conf in any pak files that can be auto-downloaded. A downloaded pak would then either be a level, or a dependency. Level pak files always have to state when they are dependent on any additional paks.

The result of this will be that custom content paks won’t be loaded for vanilla startups. But at the same time, they will get downloaded when a custom map is loaded.

A potentially undesired side-effect would be that you couldn’t have non-map related custom content. Basically anything that would require to be present at initial startup wouldn’t work anymore. A partial workaround dealing with this issue would be to indeed have a lost of active ‘addons’ that a server loads, which means that you would load them when connecting to a server (allowing for the christmas packages as grenades etc on specific servers). This still doesn’t allow you to do a custom menu without doing a full mod, but that is probably desired. I remember the complaints people had about their W:ET turning French after playing on certain servers :slight_smile:

While quake2/quake3 allowed auto-downloading of entire mods, this is intentionally not done in ETQW as we didn’t want people to auto-download dlls. Executing auto-downloade, untrusted code is a bad thing after all.

(light_sh4v0r) #62

autodownload of ETQWpro works just fine :confused:

edit: apart from the missing hitsounds.

(RR2DO2) #63

Auto-download doesn’t work. You get prompted though. But I’d be very tempted to not allow that at all in the future as you’d be executing code from an untrusted source.

(light_sh4v0r) #64

Imo you should always be prompted for downloads, or at least have the option for a warning to show up when downloading stuff. (and more importantly, a warning that shows you WHAT you’ll be downloading.)

(Ashog) #65

It is currently so that a demo recorded on an ETQW map from a custom map campaign requires ALL the exact pk4 files that were used in that campaign during the recording to be present while later replaying the demo. Why not requiring only the pk4 that corresponds to THAT particular map of the campaign? I think it is overkill, because now it is practically impossible to replay any older demos because the exact arrangement of pk4 files that were used before can’t be always reproduced due to newer versions of maps (and a version number of a map is NOT tracked inside of a demo so it is later unclear which version of a map was used in demo). At least it’s good that a mod version and a campaign name is tracked within a demo file (and can be even checked in Wordpad). That’s a major issue in ETQW with the custom content regarding demos. Can this be avoided in Brink?

(digibob) #66

Requiring the same pk4 files to be present is not an arbitrary decision on our part. It is due to the way the file and declaration systems interact with each other, and how the gamecode synchronizes declaration use across the network. This might change for Brink, but I can’t really say right now :slight_smile:

(Ashog) #67

Well, obviously “the same server-client pk4” requirement for matches and playback of demos is a must, I was meaning only that this check could be realized not on a campaign but on a map level. E.g. a demo from maridia, which was in a campaign with 5 other maps, could require only a tiny campaign.pk4 and maridia.pk4, instead of (like now) maridia.pk4, campaign.pk4 and pk4’s of other 5 maps. It’s a simple question - if I am playing back a maridia demo, why would I need other maps to be present on my pc? :slight_smile:

Pardon if I misunderstood and you answer still applies.

(digibob) #68

All the pk4s for the campaign are loaded when you make the demo, so they all need to be loaded when playing back the demo. So yes, my answer still applies :slight_smile:

(light_sh4v0r) #69

Can’t you just disable the purity check for watching demo’s? I don’t see the problem with that, it’s not like people can abuse it when watching a demo right?

(digibob) #70

The purity check in this case is not to ensure you aren’t mucking around, but to make sure the game runs properly, i.e. you get the right sounds playing, and other things of that nature.

(light_sh4v0r) #71

Ok, makes sense, but then you could maybe turn the check on by default but leave the option as a cvar to be disabled for advanced demo viewing? Could make for some interesting options for moviemaking as well I think :slight_smile:

(Ashog) #72

Anyhow the way it is now is imho far from perfect. In other games they somehow managed to avoid this problem for custom content, didn’t they?

(digibob) #73

Different systems have different pros and cons, simple as that.

(mortis) #74

Without getting too specific, the autodownload feature in W:ET allowed malicious content to be transferred unnoticed from a malicious server to an unknowing client, texture packs for instance that might trigger cheating accusations and such…not to mention executable content (dlls). All kinds of bad things could be done via that path…

(Ashog) #75

Yeah, but this efficiently killed filming for custom maps which were even without that unpopular. I just hope that this will be done differently in Brink in some way, though I cannot suggest anything helpful :frowning:

(Cankor) #76

[QUOTE=Rahdo;201750]See, that’s the thing. I definitely worry about the existence of global leaderboards leading to exploitative behavior in matches. It’s a shame, 'cause leaderboards are teh awesome, but it’s human nature unfortunately to boost, so I don’t know that they’re worth it.

So lately we’ve been talking internally about having leaderboards but only for friends and such. And since they’d just be “friendly”, there’s no reason to worry about ranked servers. And ipso facto everyone’s happy!

So that’s the direction we’re leaning at the moment. :)[/QUOTE]

yes, I was part of that thread on the ETQW Community board you referenced earlier in this thread, and mentioned the idea of having stats for friends and so forth, so thought I would resurrect it, which I did here. The idea being you opt in to any stats site you want your stats to show up in (and you may have to be invited, but certainly you can get kicked by the site manager for padding), otherwise your stats don’t show anywhere, which is good for the guys who just want to play without worrying people will look over their shoulders at their stats.

Now I see that you guys are taking the idea seriously, and that people seem to agree, which is pretty cool. I’m not sure what format the stats are going to take that you give us, put I would really like to see stats for maps included (win times, win/loss ratios, etc. heat maps would be cool but not as important in my book).

I regards to custom content and stats (and maps made for stat padding), maybe giving the stat site creators the opportunity to include custom content to their own stats site on a case by case basis. This map is OK, I will include it in my stats site, but not this one, and so forth.

Also, please spend more time with the stats data we are given (assuming this happens) than was done with ETQW. It was obvious from the state of the XML data for that game that was a halfhearted effort at best. 80% of the info was thrown into a “misc” section, there was missing data (flyerdrones for example), and there weren’t any comments in the XML data (which would have been Ok if there was a help topic, as it was there was never a single answer, ever, on questions related to that data. Don’t mean to look a gift horse in the mouth, the info was there after all (and there was quite a bit of it), it was just really poorly organized and important parts of it were missing here and there.

Also, on a related note, I would really like to see more info written to the console in regards to actions players are taking, including things like revives (who revived who), spawn captures (or their equivalent, sounds like you can capture the outposts or whatever they are called), completing objectives, and stuff like that. Reason being you can use the condump to compile that stuff into match stats like you see at rystats or Dicer’s Data Brain. When you look at those stats it would be cool to be able to adjust kill/death, or team kills, for things like team-kill revives, that sort of thing.

PS, if you need a beta tester for your stats data… :slight_smile:

(iwound) #77

i can. if you continually keep asking digibob for what you believe is right. no let ups, pms, letters, ring him at home say about 2am. im sure that before his head explodes he will give you what you want. because it’s right. dont give up young teabag padawan.

(H0RSE) #78

they said no global leaderboards - stats between friends, and personal stats may still be included.