Solving QW's custom content

AnthonyDa · 2010-01-11 18:15:31 UTC

I don’t hate you…unlike conshit. But it would be nice to you to listen to what everybody is complaining about the map (like you did for andes) and not saying some old “Lean2play” bullshit like someone did on the old etqw forum (RIP).

light_sh4v0r · 2010-01-11 21:13:59 UTC

Of course valley is not the same. If it were, then there would be no point creating custom maps.
And even if you’re right it’s not a valid point, because all I said was people made use of botsupport, valley has nothing to do with that. I’ll play whatever map I want, I don’t need you to tell me that.

Stroggafier · 2010-01-11 23:01:34 UTC

Thanks, @light_sh4v0r. With that explanation it seems to me that the mapping logics, if not mechanics, are very similar and therefore would have similar “standards”. How this would work is to gather “best practices” from the community and use them, at least, as a standard for programming bots.

“Build it, and they will come”, @chr1s. Its a self fulfilling problem, otherwise. Besides, think of the “best” map and what it would contain. Undoubtedly, bots would be part of it. Can you imagine SD releasing a map without bot support!?

The last part of the customization agenda for me was always a Readme file with a standard set of sections that included; 1. Author, version and release date, 2. Revision History, 3. Installation instructions, 4. Dependencies and file/sub file list, 5. Key features (in the case of ETQW that would be things like, full/partial/no bot support, map size, megatexture yes/no, number of objectives and factions), 6. Back-story, 7. Spoilers, 8. Contributors

I considered maps to be complete only when all elements were finished. Subsequent revisions were released when anyone provided reasonable feedback and it made sense in the context of the map/campaign. I assembled a full zip package and a home page for anyone interested in downloading the maps/campaigns.

IMHO, How to fix ETQW custom content dilemma:[ol][li] Step back to basics and advocate for a full custom map experience.
[/li][li] Have an official place to advertise custom maps, (official certification of maps or even a set of “standards” from an official source would help to establish a bar for quality). Even a stickied thread prominently displayed in a forum such as SD would go a very long way.
[/li][li] Make it very clear how to install (better yet, create an auto install program). Readme files front and centre.
[/li][li] Keep the number of ETQW executables at one. The greater the number of program versions, the more fragmented the community will become - witness the vanilla-promod debate. Any new releases of the executable should always be backward compatible and able to fully supplant any prior release. Specialty mods must be uninstallable and the uninstall routine should be available along with the mod. (Perhaps a first step would be to have a place on this forum, where folks can replace their vanilla executible for promod??)
[/li][li] Think of the player as your “customer” and keep the elitism to a minimum (e.g. I don’t want to create maps for folks that can’t even find the /base directory, harrumph) No gripe is too small, well, you know what I mean.[/ol]
[/li]
Let the flame-fest begin.

AnthonyDa · 2010-01-11 23:24:23 UTC

Most of the things you are asking for are already done, it’s not like we waited for you to tell it to do so

Susefreak · 2010-01-11 23:27:04 UTC

Already been done, it’s the pure system. You can choose your mod from a menu, the base_ETQW will stay untouched

shirosae · 2010-01-12 00:47:23 UTC

I have a really freaky idea. This is going to blow your mind, but please hear me out:

How about you compile the bot support for maps, by asking some mappers very nicely for their source files? How about you get a group of people who also want bot support and together make a project to sort bot support out?

http://www.splashdamage.com/taxonomy/term/18

Download files X and Y. Put file X in path A and file Y in path B. Or connect to the ICE nirvana and let it install absolutely everything for you. It doesn’t get much easier than ‘connect to server and have everything done automatically’.

Mods in ETQW don’t work by using a modified executible. Everything you ask for is already in place.

Community mappers on ETQW: Hey guys, we’re making a bunch of maps. Will you help us test them so they can be awesome?

ETQW community: No, we want maps to be perfect, and only then will we play them!

Mappers: But how can maps be perfect when they’re untested? It’s not like it takes a huge effort to play on one server for an hour and give some feedback on what sucks and what doesn’t.

ETQW community: I WISH NEW OFFICIAL MAPS.

Mappers: Why would you want them to be official? Who’s going to do the quality testing? Not you, apparently.

ETQW community: We want custom maps on ranked servers!

Mappers: Well good luck with that, but in the meantime could you maybe play on our custom maps so we can make them better?

ETQW community: No, I don’t want to play unfinished maps with CHALK written on half the walls. We want official custom maps on ranked servers!

Mappers: No, really, we’re willing to get together and put a lot of effort into our maps, if only you’re willing to help us develop them. They can be great if you help us out.

ETQW community: We want custom maps on ranked servers!

Mappers: Okay, fine, piss off then and bug Activision.

ETQW community: Elitists!

Before you complain, every community remark I’ve paraphrased above is genuine.

tl:dr; It’s not elitism, it’s that when you spend six+ months on a bit of work for the community to complain about things outwith your control that don’t even make sense without the slightest comprehension of what they’re complaining about, you very quickly realise that you cannot please these people and move on.

If you’re going to make an argument which states that something should happen for a bunch of listed reasons, and none of those reasons are actually true, people are eventually going to get annoyed. The way to stop that is to do a little research to see if your argument actually makes sense before you present it, not to pre-empt those responses with a passive-aggressive claim that they’re flames.

Donnovan · 2010-01-12 02:30:57 UTC

Dear diary,

Today is 12 january, 2010, and i’m thinking with my self, why i do bots?

I can’t meassure how much people use it. I use it to test the map, and this is good… or not. I believe is good

Also, ZigZag sayd long time ago “Bot support is quite simple to implement” and i decided to implement it in Andes…

Was a hard work on a long road, and i always had in my mind “I’m kiling my self to do something that is supposed to be ‘quite simple to implement’”…

Athonished with my poor abilityes with something that is quite simple, i found my self needing to choose about two ways to go:

Way 1 - Give up and say “I have give up to sun 1+1… after killing my self for days and days trying to solve it”, or
Way 2 - I will continue trying, but cant remove all the hard work already put on that, i will say on the future “i killed my self to death to reach something that is simple as 1+1”

None of the options was good, all of then was EGO killing… Can’t just back on time and say “Naaaah, don’t want to try bots, don’t like ‘quite simple things’, will consider bots done since it’s quite simple!”. So i looked to the sky, with my poor abilityes proved invariavely, and got option 2

I leaved the “it’s quite simple to implement” phrase alone, and continued the work… Nothing to loose, i was on a closed gueto, logic finger already pointed to me saying “Haaaa! You suck!”.

Now i’m a hero!!! Errr… Not really, []V[] is the bot hero.

May be SlpashDamage look those shots and think “What? This guy did 3 versions of the map just for bots? Hahahahaha cough cough Hahahahah”.

Btw, this is help me to do bots for Brink :D:D:D

Stroggafier · 2010-01-12 03:04:53 UTC

Two analagies come to mind:
A man with a five-piece puzzle using a microscope to put it together -or- Five blind men feeling different parts of the proverbial elephant and then describing five different animals.

In either case, what they are missing is THE BIG PICTURE.

No one is obliged to help a custom mapper create, test, or deploy a map. In the years I had been mapping, only three people gave me test feedback. I got over my frustration, because I realized I was doing it for the fun of doing it. It was my personal challange to make the map pack as solid and professional as I could; to learn the tools, editing and scripting, compiling, testing and publishing; to seek out and organize help; or to give up. When the fun stopped, so did my map/campaign making. I knew that by polishing the package, the community benefited, as much as I knew that my doing less than that would wound the community.

There are plenty of maps/campagins in DII that are less than adequate, they detract from the rest and make it harder to get players engaged in custom play. I don’t look to those as a model for whats wrong, I look to the ones that have made it, and ask how and why did they succeed?

As @Donnovan eluded to…everything is easy, yet somehow it is not. I am no longer a custom mapper, nor do I aspire to develop maps in ETQW. But, I can say as an informed observer, that the elephant has not been described, despite the five espoused visions or the minute details of where to look to solve problems.

Everything is here, yet somehow it is not! :eek:

light_sh4v0r · 2010-01-12 08:59:35 UTC

There is no way to get pubbers into custom maps, they simply refuse. It’s a shame the official forums are down, because you could ask QuakeJoe, the spokesman of the pubbers.
No matter what you do apart from integrating the maps completely into vanilla will get people to play them, and even then I suspect there’ll be complaints.

shirosae · 2010-01-12 12:38:57 UTC

[QUOTE=Stroggafier;206876]Two analagies come to mind:
A man with a five-piece puzzle using a microscope to put it together -or- Five blind men feeling different parts of the proverbial elephant and then describing five different animals.

In either case, what they are missing is THE BIG PICTURE.[/quote]

I have a better anology.

A child wants to go to the moon, so he asks for a balloon that he can ride up there on.

His father explains that the atmosphere doesn’t go that high (because this is a freaky alternate universe where adults understand physics), and so the balloon won’t reach.

The child says “DETAILS, DETAILS, you’re missing THE BIG PICTURE.”

You see, the child doesn’t want to put any effort into understanding how to get to the moon or how the atmosphere works or how balloons work, and thinks he can make reality change by restating his original flawed argument and insisting that any flaws are trivial details, when they are in fact fatal fundamentals.

By that logic, you shouldn’t expect bot support, and shouldn’t expect an official patch, and shouldn’t expect any custom maps to be good at all.

Either you leave custom content alone to develop as it will, or you get involved.

You do not insist that custom content needs to develop on its own whilst simultaneously making demands of it.

Unless you’re the ETQW pub community, in which case that’s all you do.

[QUOTE=Stroggafier;206876]There are plenty of maps/campagins in DII that are less than adequate, they detract from the rest and make it harder to get players engaged in custom play. I don’t look to those as a model for whats wrong, I look to the ones that have made it, and ask how and why did they succeed?

As @Donnovan eluded to…everything is easy, yet somehow it is not. I am no longer a custom mapper, nor do I aspire to develop maps in ETQW. But, I can say as an informed observer, that the elephant has not been described, despite the five espoused visions or the minute details of where to look to solve problems.

Everything is here, yet somehow it is not! :eek:[/QUOTE]

If you say “ETQW needs an official patch to add the best custom maps, for the reasons that promod uses a different executable and there’s no way to load custom maps without losing the default maps”, and it turns out that those reasons are utterly incorrect, then when someone points that out they are not ‘espousing visions of the minute details’.

They’re showing you where your entire argument is based on fantasy. You don’t get to jettison all the claims you’ve made so far so easily.

[QUOTE=light_sh4v0r;206897]There is no way to get pubbers into custom maps, they simply refuse. It’s a shame the official forums are down, because you could ask QuakeJoe, the spokesman of the pubbers.
No matter what you do apart from integrating the maps completely into vanilla will get people to play them, and even then I suspect there’ll be complaints.[/QUOTE]

I managed to integrate custom maps into a pair of files which you could put into your vanilla folder and play custom maps without the restarts and without anything breaking.

Responses from the non-modding community: 0

They’re not interested, because they live in a fantasy world where a bunch of imaginary bugs in custom mapping eat your hard drive and pee on your config files if you so much as look at custom content.

Susefreak · 2010-01-12 14:12:51 UTC

Even in TAW we had problems getting custom content going, due to various people who were being conservative and reluctant to accept new content in the game, because of nasty experiences in the past like black mega’s, redoing binds etc. After that people in general seem to freeze up, rather than pushing on and even ask for a possible solution. Even after various solutions and work-arounds have been published.

Just because of problems like that I think that Pro/QWTA are the future (or there must be a patch coming out which enables Megatexture extraction and auto-download for Base_ETQW, which in case it will be a very cold day in hell IMHO). They are configurable and make installing custom content really easy, but then again, people are afraid of change, so they do not want to try things out. It’s a vicious cycle, which I think can only be resolved if people stopped hosting Ranked servers.

Apples · 2010-01-12 14:12:55 UTC

I have a solution to solve the custom content problem on etqw:

Start ETQW
click on “play online”
Double click on the server : TAW - ICE custom map NIRVANA
Wait
Wait
Game will restart once (maybe twice if you havent promod yet, not sure about that)
Map loading
use F5 or F6 to choose a team
Enjoy…

Dang! And I thought it was so hard!

Peace

AnthonyDa · 2010-01-12 17:13:21 UTC

You are forgetting filters only showing ranked serv for pubers, so they won’t join nirvana, NEVAR !!!

Stroggafier · 2010-01-12 22:14:38 UTC

Modders will do what it takes to play mod versions

Mappers will do what it takes to play custom maps

Almost everyone else will play the OFFICIAL version.

So, @shirosae, your argument to make eveyone a mapper is sound. Otherwise, they have no right to play custom maps or to expect there to be any quality in those produced. :rolleyes:
And, if that viewpoint is representative of the mapping/modding community, well, the road ahead will be rocky, so good luck!

My solution is still the same. I’ll pay $19.95 for an “Official” expansion that will provide a new campaign or even $29.95 for two campaigns. I won’t be modding or mapping anytime soon.

BTW. Got my vanilla executible to work properly.
It was not the ATI card. I run Intel E7500 cpu, 6 GB Ram, Vista Prem, ATI 4870 - v8.1 drivers, set to highest settings, CC disabled, displaying on Sharp Aquos 32" at 19200x1080 res - “Great picture quality”

At first it didn’t work:

Downloaded the map pack and unzipped into /base folder.
Launched Promod version. Started the bot campaign - Some maps w/ black textures. Quit game.
Launched vanilla version. Started the bot campaign - Some maps w/ black textures. Quit game.

A day later, it repaired itself

Launched vanilla version. Started bot campaign - Some maps w/ black textures. Quit game.
Launched the promod version - This time got some PB message about not being up to date. Ignored the message. Started bot campaign - No maps with black textures - now it was working. Quit game.
Launched vanilla version. Started the bot campaign - Working! (nothwistanding the double restart, of course)

Nothing was added to /base/megatextures folder, no change was made to the vid settings.

timestart · 2010-01-12 22:31:57 UTC

A bigger balloon won’t help.

Scrupus · 2010-01-12 23:02:51 UTC

hehe - we’ve been on that road for almost 2 years now, it’s been rocky all the way and only Makron itself knows how many issues we’ve met and worked around during that time. Some of them have been impossible to work around, but most of the fixable problems, have been fixed.

So please forgive (or understand) some of the frustration expressed in this thread - the answers (especially what shirosae wrote) have been pretty accurate, but the discussion itself might have gone a little out of control. Group hug anyone? :magicpony:

My solution is still the same. I’ll pay $19.95 for an “Official” expansion that will provide a new campaign or even $29.95 for two campaigns. I won’t be modding or mapping anytime soon.

Problem is, it’s really unlikely there will ever be an official expansion pack. The product is owned by Activision, SD can’t do anything without their permission. And Activision haven’t done anything since early 2008 as far as I know - last thing they did was probably to legally approve the 1.5 patch, and that was it. Game over man!

A third party expansion pack might still be possible. I like the idea of an installer to take care of all the installation stuff - something that can detect the etqw game paths and put the files in the right place. It could also extract the megatextures so we don’t depend on any mod to do it. This is the problem with the zip pack - it’s hard to say exactly where each player should put it, since it’s different with different languages etc (thanks to windows brain dead “translate everything” architecture). An installer could solve that.

But one problem still remains, even with a 3rd party pack - the pure system, the restarts, and the ranked servers. It’s possible (and easy) to make an expansion that will load custom maps without restart. But the moment you go to a ranked server, it will restart - unless the ranked are upgraded as well. (which will need official blessing).

The pure system is what worries me the most, also for Brink. I do not know in detail how the pure system work, and I’m pretty sure there are good reasons to have it inside the engine - but it’s a pain in the butt to live with it, and impossible to workaround it.

Since Brink is running on the same (improved) etqw engine, I really hope SD do whatever they can to workaround the current pure/reload problem. It can maybe be as simple as running a frontend that show a splash screen telling “please wait while game reloads” or something like that. Or maybe it’s possible to only reload parts of the game, keeping the main UI intact but reload all map and server specific stuff.

Actually, since the idea is that you can go over from single player to coop to multi without disruption in Brink, I guess they already have some solution for it. Let’s hope that will cover the custom content as well.

…

Launched vanilla version. Started the bot campaign - Working! (nothwistanding the double restart, of course)

Nothing was added to /base/megatextures folder, no change was made to the vid settings.

But that’s great! See you next sunday then

Not sure why it didn’t work on your first promod run - it should automatically install mega on the first run, but I think there where some discussion in the old forum about this not always working. It has always worked as expected for me though - I always test new maps with autodownload from server.

:armadillochase:

Stroggafier · 2010-01-12 23:52:29 UTC

@Scrupus, I do understand the frustration - I’ve been there myself. Indeed , I see it as a call for help - which is the spirit in which I make my suggestions. (Hug acknowledged)

ETQW players are not some unique version of humans. These issues are the same regardless of which game community we’re talking about. No secret, its always the same key elements to a “quality” product, namely:

Complete and playable map/campaign
Install and uninstall as easy as the original purchase
Accurate instructions and/or readme files
Any obvious bugs patched.

Please don’t think that I don’t understand or appreciate the huge amount of work, talent, persistance and results that the map/mod community have achieved. Not only is it mind-boggling that such a difficult task would be undertaken by anyone, but that the results would be so overwhelmingly positive is a huge achievement. My hat is off to the community.

The problem, as you say, is how to get to the next level when the original stakeholders, who must be party to the discussion, are not at the table. By asking the question, sometimes, we get the answer. i.e. How can we bring the vested parties to the table? We need names and an agenda.

The community has a known agenda, what it needs from these stakeholders:

Certification of “official” status for maps/campaigns, and therefore, published guidelines or better yet, “development standards” and a certification procedure
…Thus allowing ranked servers to play custom maps
Distribution channel(s) for maps/campaigns packs (with all due respect, its a bit more than a thread on a forum) and executible
Pure system updated to get around the obvious start bug
Installer/uninstaller

Obviously, we have the technical talent. Now, do we have the champions, “cough”, SD “cough”, to make it happen?

Apples · 2010-01-13 00:00:35 UTC

For one more time than there are stars in the universe, SD cant do anything without activision’s blessing, and assuming they care as much as they did with the community site, you can now enjoy the same 12 maps again and again.

peace

Stroggafier · 2010-01-13 00:09:14 UTC

@Apples, with all due respect, anyone can achieve anything as long as they have the drive/motivation and abilities. No need to give up.

Almost certainly someone at SD is in a particularly good position due to their business relationships with key people to champion the community cause.

Someone at AV could be a champion, also. If the community had a relationship with AV that was as close as we have with SD, that might even be a good suggestion.

We need names!

shirosae · 2010-01-13 02:12:01 UTC

Yup.

Also yup.

No, because the OFFICIAL version doesn’t exist. This is not a trivial problem.

[QUOTE=Stroggafier;206979]So, @shirosae, your argument to make eveyone a mapper is sound. Otherwise, they have no right to play custom maps or to expect there to be any quality in those produced. :rolleyes:
And, if that viewpoint is representative of the mapping/modding community, well, the road ahead will be rocky, so good luck![/quote]

Me: If you refuse to play custom maps and offer feedback, you shouldn’t be making demands on those maps.

You: So no-one is allowed to play custom maps if they’re not a mapper?

/facepalm.

No:

Occasionally playing a custom map and offering some feedback doesn’t make you a mapper. You don’t need to be a mapper to jump onto an unfinished map and give some advice on what you like and what you don’t like.
If you do want to give advice or make requests of someone who’s making custom content, play the f*&$%ing content first so you’re not speaking from a position of absolute ignorance.
Don’t say “I want you to do X,Y and Z, oh btw I haven’t actually played any of your stuff so I have no basis on which to make these requests, also I’ve got no intention of actually showing up to help you develop the requests I just made.”

My argument is that you should play custom maps if you’re going to make demands of them. This is not complicated.

Excellent. Now you just need to get a few hundred thousand of your mates to also pay $19.95, then organise a joint message to Activision, telling them that you’ll buy an expansion for ETQW. Then Activision can wait another year or so until Splash Damage have finished the contract they’re currently doing with bethesda, and then another couple of years whilst SD actually develop the maps.