FAQ: How to get help with your map

(Ifurita) #1

I’m a new mapper and have run into a problem. How do I get help?
(paraphrased from the FAQ header on the RTCW 4 Newbies website)

  1. First, please do not post your question in multiple forums and do not keep generating new posts regarding the same problem. Most of the people who can help will check forums on a regular basis. Someone will be around to answer your question. “But what’s the harm?”, you ask. The only person that this hurts is you. If you post in multiple forums or make multiple posts, it’s hard to keep track of your posts. Often, finding a solution is a collaborative effort with everyone pitching in. Help them out.

  2. Provide as much information about your problem as possible. After all, you would never see your doctor and tell him, “I hurt. Make me feel better.” Provide the following info:

a. Give us an overview of the problem. Tell us what is supposed to happen and what is not happening correctly.
b. Provide any error messages you may have received. A lot of people can tell you what’s wrong based on the error messages – that’s why they’re there.
c. Describe what you have done to research and solve the problem on your own.
d. Tell us if you used a tutorial. This is important particularly with respect to objectives since many tutorials were written for RTCW and may be slightly different in ET.
e. Provide any entity keys and relavent script blocks. It’s really hard to make guess about fixing your script if we can’t see it.
f. Post a screenshot if that will show visually what is the problem. A picture is worth a thousand rambling thoughts. Be considerate and keep your screenshot at 800 x 600 or smaller.

  1. Don’t be a butthead. People are there to help and are doing it for free. Appreciate that and be gracious about it. After all, we’re looking to help out, and maybe find another high-caliber mapper in the process.

Remember, the easier you make it for someone to help you, the more like it is that someone will help you. People who make helping a really painful process only get helped by those who are 1) masochists or 2) are so bored they have nothing better to do.

Any other suggestions?

(P4nth3r) #2

Try checking the sticky’s on this forum might be a good one.

Greetz Panther aka Way2Evil

(Sauron|EFG) #3
  1. Be patient. Some people live in other time zones, and some some even have what we call Real Lifeâ„¢, so it may be a while before anyone responds. (Get some fresh air in the mean time. :smiley: )
(EB) #4
  1. Using the search tool is a big help, you can spend 3 minutes to find the answer or ask a question that will take someone 3 days to acknowledge. Being skillful with your ‘Search’ terms is always a benefit to quickly solving your problem. If you’d like to search for anything with ‘tanks’, you might search for “tanks, barriers, turret, splines and more”. Afterall, there is a load of information in the archives of SD forums. I am sure that what you are looking for has been dealt with a number of times(in most cases).
(Ifurita) #5

Added to the FAQ:

Where can I research a problem I’ve run into?
There are a couple of mapping forums with super groups of really good, experienced mappers.

Splash Damage: http://splashdamage.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=pnPHPbb2&file=index
Surface: http://www.wolfensteinx.com/surface/forums/
Quake3World: http://quake3world.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=10

Start off with the sticky threads in each forum and then use the search functions. 80% of your questions can probably be answered thru a little bit of research on your part.

(P4nth3r) #6

A real life?? cool!! where can I download one?? :banana: