Solving QW's custom content

[Apples]

/me thinks stroggefier is a kind of sect’s guru! too much belief and enlightment words in his posts!

[Stroggafier]

@Apples, I’m a Senior Project Manager for one of the world’s largest software development and integration companies, and have been for over 30 years. The problem I see here is one of misaligned perspectives, of “techies” telling end users what they need, and a lack of cohesive vision of what’s needed to expand use of custom maps.

@shirosae, Did I miss something? Have you provided any positive suggestions, or are you only willing to rat on those I present?

And, no, “remove stats” is not a positive suggestion. And certianly not enough. I would understand if you did not know how to move this forward. What I don’t understand is how to get the message across that at this stage this is not a techncial problem, and that “techies” telling users what they need is a dead end approach.

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The funny thing is I agree with you guys about the stats being not good enough.

[QUOTE=shirosae;207327]No, the promod stats are a good example of non-destructive stats that don’t influence player behaviour. That’s a good thing. The problem is that pubbers have access to XBOX style achievement stats on ranked servers, and they’re not willing to give those up.
[/quote]
Right, XBOX has raised awareness…which means, No, the stats are not good enough. You may not like the XBOX system, but its obviously working. If lack of adoption isn’t enough evidance those unranked attempts at stats are not enough, how about lack of intergration with the current stats, and lack of an accepted baseline of difficulty that the majority recognizes.

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Is it such a stretch to imagine that without some kind of official sanction, unranked will simply not be adapted? No amount of brow beating or name calling is going to change that. So, if you want to expand custom map play, the best and possibly only hope is for said official sanctions.

[QUOTE=shirosae;207327]
No amount of fantasy patches for imaginary problems are going to fix that either, because the problems you list don’t exist, Activision aren’t interested, and the pubbers aren’t interested.[/quote]
No, possibly the only way to expand custom map use is to get official sanction. Your constant saying that it won’t happen doesn’t constitute proof that it can’t happen.

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I will repeat myself if for no other reason than to break the mantra that pubbers are the problem, especially since pubbers pay the bills.

[QUOTE=shirosae;207327]
Why would you want to break that ‘mantra’ when it happens to be utterly true?[/quote]
Has this approach been working for you? You make my case. Until you stop with the mantra, you will make no inroads into expanding custom map play. This is a dead end approach as it satisfies the wrong group at the expense of the majority. Did you forget where the greatest revenue comes from?

[QUOTE=shirosae;207327]
Pubbers aren’t willing to play on anything other than ranked servers. Pubbers want ranked servers to remain pure. These two conditions prohibit use of custom maps.[/quote]
Expand the definition of pure to include officially certified custom maps for ranked play. ala expansion pack. Don’t repeat that this can’t be done. Make suggestions how it might be done - that’s how to move things forward.

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[QUOTE=Stroggafier;207323]We need:

1. An install/uninstall function [/quote]

[QUOTE=shirosae;207327]
Already exists.[/quote]
Only a good start, I’d say. The form in which it exists is not good enough. Several people have already said it needs fixing

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[QUOTE=Stroggafier;207323]
2. Standards that include bot play for SP or at least bot play in support of MP when players step out.[/quote]

[QUOTE=shirosae;207327]
Which won’t happen, because the people who want bot play aren’t willing to test the bot behaviour on maps, and won’t play the maps even if the bots were added, developed, and finished.[/quote]
Players are not required to help develop maps. So get over it.
They might play if other criteria were met also. Understand that although bots are required ,they are not sufficient.
Even @light posted that he uses bots in MP.
No bots means the product is narrowly aimed - solely at full roster unranked MP play, making it incomplete from any other the perspective.

[QUOTE=shirosae;207327]
You don’t develop products for people who aren’t going to use them.[/quote]
People won’t use a product if it doesn’t exist. Besides this is just another unsubstantiated opinion as was the “won’t play” portion of your previous above assertion.

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[QUOTE=Stroggafier;207323]
3. Official sanction that may range from something rigourous or less so, that would include a certification process and guidelines and benchmarks.[/quote]

[QUOTE=shirosae;207327]
Which won’t happen, because Activision didn’t even support the game when they were still under contract to do so.[/quote]
Yes, this will be a difficult item to accomplish. Maybe you have no idea how to do this? But please, enough of the “if I say it can’t be done enough times then it must be true”.

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[QUOTE=Stroggafier;207323]
4. A repaired executible[/quote]

[QUOTE=shirosae;207327]
The executable isn’t broken.[/quote]
It restarts twice. Call it what you will. I call that broken. Besides, changes would be needed to expand the pure system to include custom with ranks - which may not be strictly a fix, but rather an exhancement.

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[QUOTE=Stroggafier;207323]
What we have now may be a significant part of the answer, but it is not enough. It is not enough to say;

• we have an automated install/uninstall, but…manually dl to fix, or whatever[/quote]

[QUOTE=shirosae;207327]
This makes no sense. If the http server you’re grabbing files from hiccups, you lose connection. That’s not a problem with ETQW or promod or the absolutely functional autodownload.[/quote]
Stick to that story, but the problem is, it doesn’t work.

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[QUOTE=Stroggafier;207323]

• we have bot play, but…only on one of the maps, only for some areas…[/quote]

[QUOTE=shirosae;207327]
Which isn’t surprising, given that none of the people who want that bot play are willing to help make it happen.[/quote]
Right. No one is required to help develop maps. Find another way, or stop mapping. The constant ragging is not helping.

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[QUOTE=Stroggafier;207323]

• we have stats, but…they are not interchangeable, not based on a benchmark, created in an arena where anything can be adjusted…whatever[/quote]

[QUOTE=shirosae;207327]
Don’t you feel even slightly hesitant before posting when your list of points includes “whatever” as an argument? The stats include stuff that’s actually useful for checking how well you’re playing - K/D ratio, headshot ratio etc.[/quote]
The “whatever”, refers to whatever other reasons you may come up with for not trying something, for ignoring the big picture, or for any other unsupported rationale for why something can’t happen. Since I don’t operate in that mindset, please feel free to expand on the “whatever”, but somewhere else, please.

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[QUOTE=Stroggafier;207323]

• here are custom maps, but…only unranked and multiplay, or alpha ready, so please be a tester[/quote]

[QUOTE=shirosae;207327]
Except for the finished maps, which the pubbers won’t play on either.[/quote]
The maps may be finished, they may be exceptional, they may even be brilliant, but they are not in the form that pubbers will play them. You know why…because they are not on ranked stat servers.

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It appears to be all there, but somehow it is not!

[QUOTE=shirosae;207327]
Doesn’t this cause you to suspect that perhaps your summation is incorrect or incomplete?[/QUOTE]
It causes me to think that the viewpoint of a few, i.e. that it is all there, is not supported by the evidence from the majority, that it is not all there.

[light_sh4v0r]

wall of text crits you for 1048… :o

[timestart]

[quote=Stroggafier;207345]Players are not required to help develop maps. So get over it.
They might play if other criteria were met also. Understand that although bots are required ,they are not sufficient.[/quote]

Maps won’t move out of ‘testing’ phase if no one tests them. We don’t have a huge QA department in a basement somewhere to make maps better so we need people to play them.

They aren’t required to help develop maps, but maps won’t get developed without someone to test them.

Even @light posted that he uses bots in MP.
No bots means the product is narrowly aimed - solely at full roster unranked MP play, making it incomplete from any other the perspective.

Bots are rarely used for MP because people prefer playing with other humans. And the number of people requesting bot support for offline play is next to zero. All in all it’s not worth the huge amount of effort to get bots working. Better to focus on making maps better balanced for real players.

I don’t understand what you mean by “interchangeable” stats, and establishing any benchmark surely requires initial data.

Wouldn’t mind you clarifying this, if you have already then I missed it.

Now, reasons why we can assume Activision won’t do anything for this game, since you seem to think we reached this conclusion from dreams and fairytales.

[ul]
[li]Activision provided next to no promotion for the PC version of the game, when they realised they hadn’t made an absolute killing from it and would likely lose a lot on the console versions they put some effort in here, about a year later.
[/li][li]Activision / SD’s contract to support the game ended after patch 1.4 was released, when that was incredibly buggy and unfinished SD, out of their own pocket, developed patch 1.5 with permission from Activision.
[/li][li]The official websites for the game are either down or broken and have been for quite some time now (the stats site has been on and off broken for months)
[/li][li]ETQW has a very very small player base compared to other Activision titles - why would they want to support them when they can just make the next Call of Duty or Guitar Hero game and make over a million times more money than they could from an ETQW expansion?
[/li][/ul]

:stroggtapir: :armadillochase:

[Stroggafier]

He started it.

So what, its your fault.

No, its your fault.

No way, your fault.

Nuh huh, Yours.

Get lost, hoser.

No you get lost, hoser.

Is that better @light_sh4v0r?

[shirosae]

[QUOTE=Stroggafier;207345]@Apples, I’m a Senior Project Manager for one of the world’s largest software development and integration companies, and have been for over 30 years. The problem I see here is one of misaligned perspectives, of “techies” telling end users what they need, and a lack of cohesive vision of what’s needed to expand use of custom maps.

@shirosae, Did I miss something? Have you provided any positive suggestions, or are you only willing to rat on those I present?[/quote]

Translation: Your repeated posting of where and how my assumptions are wrong don’t solve the problem that you’ve just shown doesn’t exist, therefore your criticism is invalid and the problem does exist.

Except it is. If you say that white needs to be changed because it’s black, and I say that white isn’t black, you don’t get to claim that my statement ‘white isn’t black’ is false because it doesn’t offer a way to stop white being black.

And, no, “remove stats” is not a positive suggestion. And certianly not enough. I would understand if you did not know how to move this forward. What I don’t understand is how to get the message across that at this stage this is not a techncial problem, and that “techies” telling users what they need is a dead end approach.

No, ‘techies’ are telling you that your assumptions about the technical nature of ETQW and the interests of the pubbing community are wrong. You are not all pubbers, and you do not speak for them.

Right, XBOX has raised awareness…which means, No, the stats are not good enough. You may not like the XBOX system, but its obviously working. If lack of adoption isn’t enough evidance those unranked attempts at stats are not enough, how about lack of intergration with the current stats, and lack of an accepted baseline of difficulty that the majority recognizes.

I see. So pubbers are only willing to play on ranked servers, and demand that ranked servers stay pure. But this doesn’t prohibit the use of custom maps, because ranked servers are good.

…

No, possibly the only way to expand custom map use is to get official sanction. Your constant saying that it won’t happen doesn’t constitute proof that it can’t happen.

You constantly claiming that doesn’t mean that the only reason that it doesn’t happen is that I’m claiming it won’t happen. Two can play this game.

Note: It hasn’t happened. Also, you’ve done nothing to make it happen.

Has this approach been working for you? You make my case. Until you stop with the mantra, you will make no inroads into expanding custom map play. This is a dead end approach as it satisfies the wrong group at the expense of the majority. Did you forget where the greatest revenue comes from?

Again, you fail to understand that my goal here isn’t to make pubbers play custom maps. My goal is to show you where you’ve made false assumptions.

Expand the definition of pure to include officially certified custom maps for ranked play. ala expansion pack. Don’t repeat that this can’t be done. Make suggestions how it might be done - that’s how to move things forward.

Well, there are two ways:

1. Read this thread. I did it more than a year ago, and no pubbers were interested. Activision could have given a big rubber stamp if they had been. Guess what? Neither party were interested.

2)Pay Activision a few million pounds/dollars/whatever.
Get the attention of the entire ETQW pub community.
Ask ETQW community which maps they’d like to be official.
Make ETQW community play existing custom maps so they actually know which maps they want official.
Realise ETQW community won’t play existing custom maps.
Invent mind-probe device to determine which maps ETQW community would most enjoy.
Get ETQW community to all agree which maps they want official, which changes they want made, how those maps are to be organised, how they want the pure system changed.
Manage to work out an agreement between the billion different camps who want different collections of custom maps, and the group who wants no custom maps and for ranked servers to stay pure.
Realise ETQW community won’t agree.
Invent mind-control device. Force your own opinion.
Realise you might as well have just made them play on unranked servers to begin with with the mind control device.

Only a good start, I’d say. The form in which it exists is not good enough. Several people have already said it needs fixing

I want there to be vanilla flavour ice-cream!

What’s that, it already exists?

Well, that’s only a good start. What we need is more vanilla.

Players are not required to help develop maps. So get over it.

Players are not required to make maps. Get over it.
Players are not required to make bot support. Get over it.
Pubbers are not required to care about custom maps. Get over it.
No-one is required to accept your flawed premise. Get over it.
Mappers have accepted that pubbers don’t care about custom maps. Get over it.

If you want bot support, you need to demonstrate that it’ll be used by enough people to make it worth doing. Get over it.

They might play if other criteria were met also. Understand that although bots are required ,they are not sufficient.

Bot are not required. Get over it.

[QUOTE=Stroggafier;207345]Even @light posted that he uses bots in MP.
No bots means the product is narrowly aimed - solely at full roster unranked MP play, making it incomplete from any other the perspective.[/quote]

From the ‘limited perspective’ of pretty much everyone who actually plays custom maps, makes custom maps, and runs custom map servers.

The custom map/mod situation has adapted to fit the needs of the people who actually use them. Not the other way round. You want it to be different? It’s not required to be different. Get over it.

People won’t use a product if it doesn’t exist. Besides this is just another unsubstantiated opinion as was the “won’t play” portion of your previous above assertion.

Unsubstantiated… by the complete lack of pubbers playing custom maps for the past two years.

Yes, this will be a difficult item to accomplish. Maybe you have no idea how to do this? But please, enough of the “if I say it can’t be done enough times then it must be true”.

As opposed to the “If I say it can be done enough times everyone will ignore the past couple of years.”?

No, I know an incredibly easy way to do it.

Step 1:) You get the ETQW community, and you have them play the custom maps and offer feedback. Then you get a thread together and people vote on how they want them organised.

Step 2:) Then Activision come along and rubber stamp the whole thing.

We all tried for 18 months or so and didn’t manage it, but maybe you’ll succeed where we failed. Good luck!

It restarts twice. Call it what you will. I call that broken. Besides, changes would be needed to expand the pure system to include custom with ranks - which may not be strictly a fix, but rather an exhancement.

The client needs to change the virtual filesystem it has loaded. Clearly a restart is unwarranted, when the magical data-fairies could come down and sort it out for us.

Stick to that story, but the problem is, it doesn’t work.

You are still claiming that promod’s autodownload doesn’t work?

Last night I clicked refresh on a webpage, but it timed out. Turns out my router had choked. Must get an ETQW patch for that.

Right. No one is required to help develop maps. Find another way, or stop mapping. The constant ragging is not helping.

Right. No-one is required to develop bot support. So find another way, or stop asking. The constant ragging is not helping.

The “whatever”, refers to whatever other reasons you may come up with for not trying something, for ignoring the big picture, or for any other unsupported rationale for why something can’t happen. Since I don’t operate in that mindset, please feel free to expand on the “whatever”, but somewhere else, please.

It would help if any of the reasons you actually did gift us with actually applied to the stats promod has.

You don’t measure K/D ratio or headshot/bodyshot/miss ratio on a bell-curve, so the idea of using a ‘bvenchmark’ doesn’t make even the slightest sense.

If you don’t operate in that mindset, you may want to try learning a little bit about that area before you claim to understand problems with it.

The maps may be finished, they may be exceptional, they may even be brilliant, but they are not in the form that pubbers will play them. You know why…because they are not on ranked stat servers.

And if the pubbers want ranked servers to stay pure, custom maps can’t go on them. Which means that pubbers can’t play custom maps, because the pubbers demand that the only servers they play on stay free of custom maps.

It causes me to think that the viewpoint of a few, i.e. that it is all there, is not supported by the evidence from the majority, that it is not all there.

The ‘few’ you refer to are the people who have actually shown interest in custom content over ETQW’s lifetime.

The majority you refer to are the people who have not shown interest in custom content over ETQW’s lifetime.

You want to have an entirely alternative custom content community which appeals to the people to whom it doesn’t appeal? Good luck with that, we are not required to do it for you. Get over it.

[Stroggafier]

As usual, very helpful, @shirosae. Thanks! :rolleyes: Did you forget the topic again?

@light_sh4v0r, does the wall of text comment apply to that reply? (just trying to get the rules straight)

@timestart,
Yes indeed, map development is wholey volunteer. So, if testers aren’t coming forward, then another approach is needed. Regardless of the issue, the buck will always rest with the sponsor - in this case the mapper.

I’m sure the folks that are playing custom maps volunteer to give feedback. Working in a volunteer organization requires more diplomacy than usual, among other things. You are probably a better judge than I how that’s going.

The best way for me to describe “Interchageable stats” is to use a currency analogy. The three elements that are needed are 1) a reserve, 2) an exchange rate, and 3) a regulatory baseline

1. A reserve would be permanent stats that have been accumulated to date, such as those in the existing system. These stats would be used as the base for an individual’s rank/points. An individual does not have to start with a reserve, but if they have stats already, those need to be recognized. Thereafter, anywhere that person goes to play, those stats (reserve) would be there, and any new points would be additive rather than supplantory. A stable custodian is needed to add credibility. Everyone thought AV was that entity. We might have to find a new custodian “cough” SD “cough”. If not, and a person could not accumulate points or if the points he/she had accumulated were lost/discarded the moment he played on another server, then a founding element is missing, and ranked players will probably not participate.

2. An exchange rate is a factor that could be applied when wanting to add points into a persons permanent stats (reserve). The factor might vary with how difficult a custom map is, compared to, say, a vanilla baseline. In the current rank system, all maps have an exchange rate of 1.0
   An exchange rate is needed for custom maps to allow a person to play any map, while still being able to justify a ranking compared to the existing system. Setting an exchange rate for each map is the hard part. Vanilla maps have bots that play at a certain level on ranked servers and the play within a standard set of rules/parameters. That level of difficulty sets the vanilla standard as a baseline (in this case the standard Ex is 1.0).

3. SD set that baseline - which likens them to a regulator. Custom maps without fully developed bot scripts have no such baseline and hence cannot participate in a ranked point scheme. Bot scripts of a certain quaility are an essential part of establishing this baseline, as are a rather immutable set of ranking parameters or server rules. Mappers could develop the standards and baselines themselves. For example, we could figure out what a map without vehicles is worth compared to vanilla, what 6v6 is worth compared to 8v8, etc. Or we could rank a map using one set of rules (the vanilla rules). However its done, certification from the founding regulator would certainly contribute significantly to the veracity of any custom map point system, as well as pave the way for an “official” map pack.

Interchangeability is result of these three concepts working together. It would mean that a player could play any sanctioned map, custom or vanilla and still accumulate meaningful, comparable points. Since points are the minimum requirement, this mechanism is one solution to extend custom map use.

[Stroggafier]

Sorry if this is a double post…missed a critical point @timestart was making…

[QUOTE=timestart;207381]Now, reasons why we can assume Activision won’t do anything for this game, since you seem to think we reached this conclusion from dreams and fairytales.

[ul]
[li]Activision provided next to no promotion for the PC version of the game, when they realised they hadn’t made an absolute killing from it and would likely lose a lot on the console versions they put some effort in here, about a year later.
[/li][li]Activision / SD’s contract to support the game ended after patch 1.4 was released, when that was incredibly buggy and unfinished SD, out of their own pocket, developed patch 1.5 with permission from Activision.
[/li][li]The official websites for the game are either down or broken and have been for quite some time now (the stats site has been on and off broken for months)
[/li][li]ETQW has a very very small player base compared to other Activision titles - why would they want to support them when they can just make the next Call of Duty or Guitar Hero game and make over a million times more money than they could from an ETQW expansion?
[/li][/ul]

:stroggtapir: :armadillochase:[/QUOTE]

These all seem like valid concerns. I recognize the history is not very supportive and I don’t mean to imply that making headway with AV will be at all easy. On the contrary, it will probably be very hard, if not impossible to get them onboard.

In the context of finding a solution to custom content, when that solution so obviously includes stat support to which AV is a major party, it simply behoves us to try.

I’m afraid that fear of failing with AV has clouded the view of the community to the extent that we believe nothing can be done. Thats very defeatist. For example, do you know first hand of any proposition made to AV that they have turned down? Is it possible our observations are a self-assessed viewpoint and conclusion?

And if we can’t get their cooperation, they might suggest alternatives?

[light_sh4v0r]

Yes, all of that definitely counts as wall of text. Where’s Szakalot, he’s good at this.

[Stroggafier]

You mean good at wall of text?

[shirosae]

As usual, very helpful, @shirosae. Thanks! :rolleyes: Did you forget the topic again?

Did I forget the topic? Well, let’s take a look:

Tokamak wants custom maps on ranked servers.

You made a post which was composed pretty much entirely of wrong assumptions, and requests based on those wrong assumptions.

Multiple people corrected your false assumptions, and you ignored them over and over whilst restating those requests.

Multiple people corrected you again, and you ignored those corrections again whilst trying to convince us that those false assumptions aren’t as important as the requests you based on those false assumptions.

Even if I grant you that the topic is now suddenly not Tokamak’s request for custom maps on ranked servers, but instead your bunch of requests, the false assumptions you based those requests on are fundamentally on topic.

You see, at first I thought you were just uninformed, but essentially well-meaning, and was willing to cut you a break and explain where you’d gotten stuff wrong. I had assumed (wrongly) that you’d read the stuff, look at your own post, see where you’d went wrong, and then re-evaluate your opinion to see whether it was still valid.

Instead, you’ve tried a bunch of ways to convince everyone that your enduring wrongness is somehow a separate and unrelated thing to the requests you based on those wrong assumptions.

You don’t need to worry about me calling you on your wrongness though, because I’m only interested in finding out what the other person’s position really is under the logical fallacies and circular arguments and double-standards and stuff. I lose interest once I work out what the other person’s argument really is, which in this case is this: I WISH NEW OFFICIAL MAPS.

[Violator]

Players are not required to help develop maps. So get over it.

Thats like saying ‘Pilots are not needed to help develop jet fighters’. By that argument you’d have the guys building the computer systems for the aircraft flying the thing as well to test it out.

As a ‘techie’ myself (senior dev) I know full well that coders aren’t as expert as the end-users in their chosen field generally (don’t have the time even if we had those particular skills) and being expected to test your own code with no external input as about as useful as a chocolate teapot. Every bit of code we write in our company is reviewed by another dev before it even goes to testing. Then we have internal testing followed by weeks of customer UAT. After that as QuakeJoe would say its OFFICIAL!!

The same process applies (or should apply in an ideal world) to maps as well as code, and I’m sure SD follow a similar process to above as do most software companies. Just expecting the mapper to make something with no feedback for version after version until it somehow becomes Official is crazy talk. Consite for instance is designed for 12v12 but as we can never get those numbers we have to make best guess. Bots helps but as said elsewhere its no substitute.

Without all the ideas suggested by other players for maps none of them would be where they are today (official or not). Do you seriously think the official maps were just written by ducks and co in their bedrooms and then no-one saw them until release day? Without players who have no involvement with the design (preferably with little or knowledge of the map - that unique ‘first time go’ feedback is golddust) its gonna be doomed.

[Stroggafier]

@Violator, you may have taken that quote out of context.

Of course testing is necessary along with Peer reviews, walkthroughs, spec sessions, sign-offs. Couldn’t agree with you more on that count.

What that quote is referring to is that, no player is obliged to help test a map. It doesn’t mean to say testing by knowledgeable people is not important or required.

The quote is in reference to the lament that there is a huge untapped player base that refuses to play and provide test feedback. Unfortunately, the onus remains with the mapper to get his maps fully tested, regardless of how many have refused to help. So don’t keep blaming others for not helping, get over it, and find another way to get your map tested.

[Violator]

If you meant ‘no particular player is needed to test maps’ then fair enough but it seemed like you meant ‘you don’t need any players to test maps’ - apologies.

The problem is there IS no other way to get your map tested. Like I was saying, an individual can only ‘debug’ their own stuff to a certain extent, it always takes fresh pairs of eyes to finish the job unless you’re extremely lucky to hit it first time (not seen a map that does that yet). You need other players to say ‘its good’ or ‘its crap’ until the right mix is found. If no-one is going to play test (or even play) your map then what’s the point in trying to make one? I’ve stopped mapping for QW apart from the odd mess about and anticipation for Brink for just that reason.

[Stroggafier]

+1 on that @Violator. I stopped mapping for the same reasons. It simply became too much of a chore to test and retest the maps, to have to take a break to refresh, and weeks later go at it again. By the fourth year of mapping, and similar to ETQW today, the game had a shrinking player base, and a new, impoved option was looming ahead.

There were ways around it. We called it a test farm. Several mappers got together and we agreed to test each others maps. We gave up asking for help from the player base. The last map I made had an imbedded request - “if you download, please drop me a line with your comments” . Only eighty-five people downloaded the map, not even one returned a comment. It was time to quit.

[dervykins]

Sadly, I think the Q2 maps that I’ve made in recent years have gotten more play, downloads and feedback than that, and the game is 10+ yrs old with only about a thousand players left worldwide at any time.

Seems like ETQW isn’t a very good title to make maps for unless you’re a masochist.

[light_sh4v0r]

Unless you like mapping you mean. I can see why people keep mapping for ETQW, the tools are great, and the experience they gain with them will carry on into later games’ SDKs.

[tokamak]

By pure you mean the ruleset then? Because you try convincing my client that custom map servers are pure when I launched the game with the regular executable

By pure I mean exactly the game as offered by the developers.

[timestart]

By pure I mean exactly the game as offered by the developers.

Somewhat confusing definition when pure also means clients running exactly the same data as the server. How about calling it “unmodified” instead, to avoid confusion?

[tokamak]

Yeah or ‘official’.

The point is, it should be easy for people to distinct between the game they bought, the content recommended by developpers, and custom. Three filters.