Custom maps for Competition (server)

(senator) #21

www.rtcw.jolt.co.uk is only accepting downloads from the UK ATM :confused:

Are there any other mirrors available ?

(Sauron|EFG) #22

The Jolt downloads works fine for me (from Sweden), but look again at DG’s post and you’ll find other mirrors…

(DG) #23

supposably theyre working on some system where downloads to people with IPs from isp’s on the LINX network (uk & several euro isp’s) are to be uncapped (which is what works atm) while international ones are slower (i.e., some way to do international cheaper :confused: ) i keep moaning at them but theyre taking bloody ages with it, getting a tad annoying. :bored: Though tbf might be fault of rtcw.co.uk for them changing it, or rather the 111,000 downloads of 260mb ET.

the other mirrors should be fine though? i’ll get another for rommel

ps. cathedral axis spawntimes probably going to be changed up to 30 as this is what cb think they will be using (not sure the +5sec is necessary but nvm).
cathedral author (blushing_bride) said their might be a new version out soon, i’ll be away next week :bored: but hopefully kendle will swap it in & add a post with links

(Ifurita) #24

Bump.

Hate to say it, but after Dubrovnik, I think I’m calling it quits to mapping for the comp community. While I think there are a lot of appreciative people (props to DG, Kendle, Dashiva, and a bunch of others) out there who are really trying to make a difference and get out of the same-six-map rut, it seems to me that the majority of comp players out there, (not targetting those who are playing on this server, which by the way seems to be pretty empty most of the time - IMO a good measure of how serious comp players are about trying out new things) are close minded and refuse to consider anything that isn’t like radar or supply depot. Yep, it truely motivating when you spend all of your time making an effort for others (whether leagues have to play the same 6 maps until the day the cows come home has absolutely no effect on me) and your work is dismissed as ‘shitty’, ‘it’s not radar’, ‘it’s not like supply depot’, or 'it’s too complicated (two objectives??!!). Sorry, but the average pub handles maps with complex objectives much much better than your comp player. If all you want downwards sloping box maps with a single, easy to navigate objective and no lighting to spoil your visibility, then I suggest you all download Radiant and learn how to put together the 5 brushes it would take to create your map and have a blast. Sorry if my tone changed during the course of this post, but I’ve about had it.

(KingJackaL) #25

D:

Dude, no way. Not all leagues are the same:
http://www.mgleague.co.nz/et/content.php?content.5
…in fact, I see TWO of the maps you’ve worked on in our list.

/me cries

(Ifurita) #26

Thanks - let me know what feedback you get on Vengeance. We are definately willing to redo parts of the map and recompile, basically as a new map, just need to know what needs to be done to make it more comp friendly

(KingJackaL) #27

Will do :slight_smile:

<3 <3 Comp mappers

(Kendle) #28

I appreciate what you’re saying Iffy, the response from the Clan community over here as been very disappointing, and the server is empty most of the time.

Cathedral was played in week 2 of a UK tourney currently running, and after 1 match and no practises on it several Clans were more than happy to say “nah, that’s no good, next?”. It makes my heart bleed to think of all the hours you guys put into making these maps for them to be dismissed in such an off-hand way.

As it happens, however, Clanbase have been quite brave and added Cathedral and SvarVadel to the map pool for their Fall 2004 Cup, and they’ll almost certainly be added to the ladders as well as a result. So it’s not all doom and gloom, but it sure is hard work and I sure as hell wouldn’t even want to contemplate map-making as it sounds like a soul-destroying occupation to me.

Just an update on the server btw, which is now running Cathedral Beta4 and Rommel Beta2, the very latest releases.

(Mean Mr. Mustard) #29

… I think I’m calling it quits to mapping for the comp community. While I think there are a lot of appreciative people (props to DG, Kendle, Dashiva, and a bunch of others) out there who are really trying to make a difference and get out of the same-six-map rut, it seems to me that the majority of comp players out there, are close minded and refuse to consider anything that isn’t like radar or supply depot. Yep, it truely motivating when you spend all of your time making an effort for others and your work is dismissed as ‘shitty’, ‘it’s not radar’, ‘it’s not like supply depot’, or 'it’s too complicated (two objectives!!!). Sorry, but the average pub handles maps with complex objectives much much better than your comp player.

I feel the same as Iffy. While the overall team mapping experience for Rommel and Vengeance was awesome, trying to cater to the comp community was not. We tried early in the process to get feedback(which we did and incorporated). Now that we are near the end (beta 2), not much is going to be changed. To hear such specific comments as: the map ‘is shitty’ - ‘bumpty terrain is not good for fighting’ -‘insert whine here’, etc etc after there was plenty of opportunity to affect the map in fp and b1 - is very disheartening and totally worthless.

In contrast, the pub community has not complained about Rommel in any way…

BTW, the original design for Rommel was ‘exactly’ radar - except the mirror image and in the desert. I kid you not, the layout was almost exactly the same. We decided against it because it was just ‘radar in the desert’ – guess we should have just regurgitated radar… but I’m sure there would have been just as many complaints with that also…

If I do map for other games down the line, I can assure you that they will have complex objectives, long play time and lots of details specifically incorporated to avoid the competition community :smiley:

EDIT: Cathedral is awesome!!

(evilsock) #30

pubbers 1 - clanners 0 :smiley:

(blushing_bride) #31

i agree with Ifurita 100%. Even if you make a map that is like radar (like me) people still hate it. I would not mind the hate or the negativity if it was based on actual expereince but its not. People hate the map before they even play it. Its sounds stupid but its true, i read so many web sites now looking to get some feedback for my maps that i hear all sorts of nonsense. In fact i honestly wonder why these people play ET at all, all they do is whine. Well done to CB for forcing change.

(Java.Lang) #32

Well just from observing the conversation, I will share a few personal opinions of mine…

I learned a long time ago that playing for fun and playing for competition didn’t nearly coincide, and that the pleasure one gets of playing for just the “experience” was different than the pleasure one may derive from playing to win, to beat down another team, or to play cohesively with your well-trained team.

In any respect, I have always stayed away from mapping with the intent of pleasing the comp community, because at least in my mind, it isn’t possible.

So what I am doing, from within the Lang family of gaming and development, is structuring our servers and game development in such a way that will be satisfying to our core memberbase, and community affiliates.

We are in the process of devising a “League” or Tournament which will be one that caters to pubbers as well as a percentage of comp gamers.

I would assume that a much better acsertion of teamwork could be tested in a new environment, moreso than one the team has played multiple times. Throw a team into a new place and see how they deal with it… That’s a test.

In any case, I see how you guys feel as mappers, and I agree that most comp gamers are narrow-minded and fat headed, and care little for change. Change requires them to change and that is usually a bad thing for someone who is in their groove.

The League thing is in development, the concept anyways, and it is one you may hear more about further down the road. But I encourage you mappers to keep doing what you do because you like it…and try to keep the idea that others will enjoy it aside. Like mentioned before, it just doesn’t measure out… the time it takes to put into a project versus the little publicity it may receive.

Surely there is a better way, and as best I can, I am on top of devising it.

(Kendle) #33

I can’t defend the Clan community’s response to your efforts guys, as even I’m not stupid enough to defend the indefensible. For what it’s worth, Rommel and Cathedral are awesome maps and I love them both. I’ve said on other forums and I’ll say it here, if these maps had been part of the original 6 distributed with ET Clans would be playing them now without complaint. By the same token if GoldRush, for example, had been a custom map it would’ve been sneered at. Too big, too many objectives, totally unsuitable for Clan play. But the stupid thing is, it’s the most popular map for Clan play! Go figure!!

Cathedral Beta 4 looks spot on BB, btw. I hope it’s inclusion in the CB Fall Cup sees it adopted as a standard war-map. It’s just a damn shame that such talent as yours may be lost to ET because of the short-sighted ignorance of those who need your talents the most.

(Ifurita) #34

I’ll have to disagree with Mustard on this a bit. Overall, I was and am satisfied with the feedback process. We did get a lot of people who were willing to provide very good, solid, and constructive feedback during the development and beta phase. Rommel wouldn’t be where it is now had we not gone that route. Overall, I still think that comp players tend to give maps in development a more rigorous workout and can generate more, higher quality feedback.

Where the process breaks down is in the acceptance. It seems that players don’t want new maps because 1) they aren’t perfectly balanced, 2) they don’t want to develop new strats, or 3) the number of slots in preseason to test new maps are very limited. In preseason, it seems that teams don’t really put any effort into developing a strat since it won’t be used in regular season where it ‘counts’ and hence new maps in preseason are basically pubbed.

What are the implications for the comp community? IMO, any feedback and/or efforts required that are specifically aimed at tweaking a map for good SW play will be marginalized. If a map is designed right, then I think that it often doesn’t take much to tweak what would be a good 30 minute campaign map into a 10 minute SW map. However, it takes a lot of iterations and testing to get the balance right. It’s that last step that’s going to fall by the wayside.

I think that mappers will still go to the comp community for feedback and input, they just won’t go the extra mile to tweak and fine tune maps for comp play.

(Sauron|EFG) #35

It’s sad that the maps are not widely accepted by the competetive community, but unfortunately I can’t say that I’m surprised. I hope you all will keep making quality maps, and know that there are people that appreciate both your efforts and your maps. <3

(Mean Mr. Mustard) #36

I’ll have to disagree with Mustard on this a bit. Overall, I was and am satisfied with the feedback process.

I think you read my post wrong (or maybe it just wasn’t clear :wink: ) I agree we received good and valuable feedback from initial concept to fp to b1. But now that we are at b2, it’s a little late (IMO) to make major changes. If comp players had problems with the map. they had plenty of opportunity to impact the map before b2. Now it’s just too late.

The problem with comp players (again IMO) is they don’t want to invest time into evaluating a map until it’s beta2+ – by that time it’s too late. Really, how long does it take to test a map - 15-30 minutes??? Ask a mapper how much time it takes to make a map. After you invest 200 hours to make a map, some one walks around and says ‘shitty’ – oh, thanks for the valuable feedback (/mapper pushes make unshitty button in radiant to correct map)

We made an effort to get feedback early and often. We did receive very good feedback that we incorporated. Rommel is much better because of it. But for comp players to say it’s not comp worthy now need to look at their feedback – they guided the map. So, do they not know what is comp worthy then (sorry for being cynical). Here is an example: there was a majority who said ‘clip the roofs – too easy for axis to defend’ — we made access to the roofs harder (instead of clipping them – now the feedback is ‘with harder access to the roofs, it’s even easier for the axis to defend’ – hello, the comp community told us to deny all access to the roofs. Seems ironic that their input made the map worse for competiton :wink:

Anyway, it doesn’t really matter. Rommel will be accepted by the pub community :smiley:

(Ifurita) #37

good point. BTW, where is the unshitty button. I haven’t found it yet

(blushing_bride) #38

well we’ve done out parts in making the maps. people like kendle, DG and others in the cup/web admin side of things have done their part in getting the maps out there now its up to the players themselves to decide. The choice is simple…its accept new maps or accept no maps.

(Java.Lang) #39

It’s right beside the Balance button.

(Kendle) #40

Rotation has been updated to inlcude Iffy’s latest project, Dubrovnik, as well as another map being talked about atm called Delivery. Details in this Jolt Forum Thread cos I can’t edit the original post here. :wink: