The problem with shooters in general

(I R O N M A N) #61

I understand just fine. But you do sound confused, and it does not seem like semantics.

(Rain) #62

No, bsps ARE the map files. pk3s are zip files with a different extension. Inside the pk3, there may be nothing more than a bsp for Q3, although you’ll usually see additional textures as well, and in RtCW/ET you’ll see additional tidbits like map scripts.

It’s completely feasible to load a bsp without it being within a pk3 (and doing so is rather useful during map development.) To make a bad analogy, just because people are inside cars doesn’t mean that the drivers ARE cars.

(damocles) #63

badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers - Mushroom, Mushroom!
badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers - Mushroom, Mushroom!

Sorry, couldn’t resist. That damn song is taking over the world.

Okay, back on track…

You are stuck in the past. The map file is a PK3 file. The BSP is a part of the map file because it contains more than vertices data. once more: BSP files are no longer the map files for Q3 engine games!

waiting for that to sink in

Actually, you’re stuck in an imaginary future. PK3’s are, as rain already said, merely containers. They simply hold the files in neat, compressed packages ready for use by Q3TA games and are NOT needed to play the maps unless you are playng online where the CRC checks of the PK3 are used to prevent cheaters.

You are the only one here that won’t accept this as the way it is.

(Wraith2k3) #64

badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers - Mushroom, Mushroom!

AHHHH! SNAKE!!!

:smiley:

(I R O N M A N) #65

No, they are part of the map that contains GL and DX nodes and vertices.

Pay attention closely: A CAD representation of a car with all of it’s parts in line form on a computer screen is not a car any more than a Wolf ET map is a representation of lines and joints on a screen (a BSP).

waiting for that to sink in

Things have changed. Map files are differnt now. Now they are PK3 files which contain everything need to create the map on screen. It seems that you are caught up in the misconception that textures and such are not a part of a map. lol You are thinking in a Quake II box. That was then, this is now.

(I R O N M A N) #66

Dude, the server does not send you the textures and they are not on your HD. Guess where they are? In tha map file - the PK3 file.

waiting for that to sink in

Unless you are playing on-line? Um, no. You can’t play it locally without textures and such (unless you like everything looking white, if it would load at all). Guess where the textures are? In the map file - the PK3 file.

waiting for that to sink in

Download a map file for this game from anywhere. What file do you get? A PK3??? OMG. No! You mean the PK3 is the map file???

(Wraith2k3) #67

You only need textures in the pk3 if the map uses custom textures not included with the game. If the map uses the ET textures then you don’t need to include them in the pk3. It’s the same with other resources such as sounds, models etc.

Its possible to make and play a map using only the bsp file. However most maps use external lightmaps, scripts etc that are included in the pk3 for that map.

(Rain) #68

[quote=“I R O N M A N”]

No, they are part of the map that contains GL and DX nodes and vertices.

Pay attention closely: A CAD representation of a car with all of it’s parts in line form on a computer screen is not a car any more than a Wolf ET map is a representation of lines and joints on a screen (a BSP).

waiting for that to sink in

Things have changed. Map files are differnt now. Now they are PK3 files which contain everything need to create the map on screen. It seems that you are caught up in the misconception that textures and such are not a part of a map. lol You are thinking in a Quake II box. That was then, this is now.[/quote]

So, you’re saying that if I make a bsp (which contains all the entities to use, which shaders/textures to use, all the BSP leaves, fog information, lightmaps, and visibility information) which uses textures that are supplied with the game and requires no map script, this is not a map?

A bsp distributed without any of the textures it references is still sufficient to render the world–even sufficient to play a game in (although the default shader is intentionally ugly so that missing textures stick out.)

How is this not a map?

All the files necessary to play a map can be distributed outside pk3 form (although only pk3s checksums are used for the pure calculation, so you would have to run an unpure server)–no pk3, yet a playable map again. Perhaps I’m missing something.

Your CAD analogy is even worse than my driver analogy–not only does the bsp contain more than “nodes and vertices,â€? but you compare something on a computer to something existing in real life versus two things that exist only on a computer.

To take your analogy farther–is a CAD model of a car, without any textures, still a model of a car? Oh. It is? Oops.

Additionally, your arguments referring to Quake 1 and 2 aren’t really relevant either; both Q1 and Q2 had pak files as a container format (although they were not compressed), and textures haven’t been part of the BSP since Quake 1. Maps that needed custom sounds in Quake 1 were often distributed as pak files. Take, for example, Threewave CTF or Team Fortress.

waiting for that to sink in

Oh, another way to disprove your argument–pk3s needn’t contain maps at all. Custom player models for Q3, for example, are often distributed in pk3s.

Voicechat packs for RtCW/ET are generally distributed as pk3s. Custom campaigns for ET are distributed in pk3s so that clients can download them.

I’ve never played on the ‘Sehr gut!’ map nor the ‘6 maps’ map, so I can only assume it’s wrong to say that pk3s are maps.

(I R O N M A N) #69

Read below.

No. It is not. It is part of a map. Could you distribute it for play as is? No, you could not. Because it is not a map file, and the game wants all of the map, including it’s textures and models. You said uses textures (and models???) supplied by the game? Where are these textures and models (md3 files)? They are a part of the map, and rightly so, they are located in the map file - the PK3 file. The textures are a part of the map as much as the vertices, nodes, models, and all other parts of the map. Where are they located? In the map file - the PK3 file. THINGS HAVE CHANGED SINCE QUAKE II

Look at your game’s installation. There are no textures or other map content files anywhere. They have been moved to the map file - the PK3. The contents of the PK3 are required for a map to load playably.

Why this is so hard for you to understand i don’t know, except you have either not looked at your game’s installation folder very well, or you are still…

thinking in a Quake II engine box. :uhoh:

(Rain) #70

Read below.

No. It is not. It is part of a map. Could you distribute it for play as is? No, you could not.[/quote]
I couldn’t? That’s odd. I have before. Was I supposed to be smitten by the Hand of Gob for doing so? Maybe he missed his appointment.

Say what? No, they aren’t. I said textures supplied by the game. In the game’s default installation, there are several of these mystical textures, distributed to be used in the game’s included maps as well as custom maps. If I do not see the need to use any textures outside of the game’s included texture library, I do not need to distribute any textures with my map.

The textures are a part of the map as much as the vertices, nodes, and all other parts of the map. Where are they located? In the map file - the PK3 file.

So you’re saying that Enemy Territory is only distributed with one map, along with another map distributed with the 2.56 update? I think that most of the community will disagree with you on that.

I rather like how you craftily dodged the other points I made (including the one that made your references back to Q2 irrelevant.) Don’t let me logic up your argument or anything, though. :uhoh:

(I R O N M A N) #71

Tell you what dude. You go on and distribute a BSP without the map’s other contents and see if you can find anyone who can play it with you. ROFLMO

Let me in on it. I want to see the “Couldn’t load bla bla bla” on my screen too. :smiley:

(Rain) #72

Okay. I’ll bite.

I’ve just whipped together a tiny map as a proof of concept. It’s not much of a map, but eh… I really can’t be arsed to make a full-fledged map to prove my point. I did go so far as making it something that might be worth playing 1v1 or 2v2.

So here you go: grab this .bsp, put it in […]/etmain/maps/, and connect to 66.138.159.248:27961 – lo, a map without a pk3.

I’ll leave that server up for a few days on the off chance that people actually want to play on the provided map.

(damocles) #73

Wow, rain, that is wayyyy more trouble than I would have gone to just to prove this eejit wrong. And besides, when you provide him with indisputable evidence like that, he might stop talking crap and so then we lose our entertainment :slight_smile:

(Loffy) #74

Loffy gets another cup of coffee. Sits back in his chair, and awaits the further debate.
This has been the weeks best thread. I want to thank all players so far. What an interesting read!

EDIT: Loffy is at work. Calls home, to kid. Instructs kid to find and dl Rain’s bsp and logon and call back to tell Loffy what the map looked like. (Will there be players on it?)

(Rain) #75

Bah, I hadn’t touched radiant in a while and needed an excuse to go poke at it a little bit anyway. :stuck_out_tongue:

(mushroom! mushroom!)

(Rain) #76

Well, like I said, it’s not much of a map. :wink: I can post a screenshot of it if you really want one, but it’s basically a medium-sized room where each team starts in opposite corners, with health/ammo cabinets on either side.

I figure it should be playable as a deathmatch map with limited lives… The health cabinets give 40 health/sec and the ammo cabinets give 2 clips/sec, each with no pack limit, so they should be useful even if you throw a few people on the map. They’re wide open, though, so you’ll either need some intense teamwork (so that you have enough cover to get health) or an awful lot of luck. :wink:

(Loffy) #77

Kid got in. She is on the phone with me and she tells me that she has connected to Rain’s server.
It is a room, with health and ammo. A fun map for fragging.
It worked. And all she downloaded was the bsp.
Now, what did she download? Was it a map? Yes. That was a map.
(What else should we call the thing she downloaded and installed in the etmain/maps folder?)
// Loffy

(Sick Boy) #78

LMAO at this thread! :blah:

I don’t think I R O N M A N is a real person, I think it’s a group of brainstormers trying to come up with the most stupid, incorrect and funny arguments and statements, all for our entertainment!!

And special thanks to damocles for keeping this going!

However, just to give my little input:

RAID setups are used for two reasons:

  1. To preserve data when one or more disks fail (raid 1,raid 0+1,raid 5, raid ADG)
  2. To achieve superhigh speeds reading and writing to disks (raid 0, raid 0+1, raid 5, raid ADG)

So they really are ‘some kind of super fast superhero HD setup’!!
IE a 4 disk raid 0 is about 4 times as fast as a single disk, because the data is striped among the disks(for example 64K on disk one, then 64K on disk 2,…). So every disk needs only 1/4th of the time because they only need to read 1/4th of the data. This is how the highspeed data transfers are possible from data storage servers, because they use libraries which contains tens/hundreds of disks all working at the same time. Access times (what IRONMAN thought it was all about) are not influenced much, they will generally even be longer.

The other raid types use disk mirroring or parity information to be able to recover failed disks.

(Wils) #79

This is going rapidly off-topic.

Ironman, your current atittude towards other forum users is going to become a problem very quickly if you don’t adjust it.