New maps?

[AriannaGrande]

How about a few more maps (from the standard Q3A version) on the server?

We were discussing this case in-game the other day with few players and most of us agreed that a few more maps would be fantastic. There is also this one map (with corner and a lamp, i don't know its name) which most of us hate. I postulate to create a poll, so active players of this server can decide. Do you agree on enhancing our experience of entertainment mr Admin?

---
If you are reading this - whoever you are - I wish you a fantastic day!

[adminless]

hello

I know this has already been brought to me by mail a couple of days ago. here's my answer to that:

hello

I know, unfortunately this has already been discussed several times, problem is that there's no more suitable maps for this kind of game from the standard Quake III Arena assets that everybody have installed and people can't play maps they haven't installed.

just for example, do you have installed map_phantq3dm1_rev or qxtoueny1 on your client as we speak right now? and don't tell me that you can just install them, sure of course you can, just as I did, but guess what, most of the people will find out that the server stopped working for them and won't even have a clue as to why.

as a matter of fact in more than a decade of running these kind of top servers I never got any single custom maps servers to work, not even by chance. in fact, by 2017 (couple of years ago) I remember I used to run custom maps on the second server following suggestions like this one and it completely killed it almost forever for the reasons I just explained.

then I'm sorry but custom maps doesn't work here, trust me on that.

happy new year mate

you can also probably backup most of those statements here for the main server as well as here for the secondary server. as a matter of fact, just manually loading overkill (the all time most popular custom map) at the main server the Tuesday 20 of March of 2018 at peak times and under ideal circumstances immediately halved its population into the "unplayable" range. I mean, some people who requested it, didn't even have it installed. in addition, running a set of all time most popular and best custom maps 24/7 at the secondary server during the whole 2018 February completely broke the trust the players that visited it had on it and consequently killed it altogether for more than a year. it took more than a whole year of serious re-work to get it back on track as can be seen on the attached screen for reference.

as I'm saying those are well proven documented facts not assumptions, that had already been well tried and it was proven to not work. I think it would be absolutely irresponsible and terrible poor management to carry on something even knowingly that is hurtful for a fact. sorry about that.

[WhoAmI]

Alternatively, players would have "allowdownload" enabled.

From these larger maps:

Q3DM12
Q3DM15
Q3DM18

From these smaller maps:

Q3DM16
Q3DM10
Q3DM9
Q3Tourney3
Q3Tourney5

But if you add standard maps, then nobody would have to download them I think so. But I do not know.

Nobody likes the Q3DM14 map - there is only spam from grenades and rockets in one place.
One team defends the RA, the other tries to take over the RA, and vice versa.

For sure the first three that I mentioned are big and it would be great to play them.

Maybe at least for one weekend, admin?

[...jutuli...]

DM15 - a lot of lava, just two bigger places for bigger battles, DM18 full of void. Can you imagine the mess at these maps? DM12 could be OK, but there is a lot of corridors and just one bigger place, others with void... It will end with 22 players at one place and without chance for use any skill, just mess and hoping to survive for 2 sec and more. Maybe it could be worth to try these maps, but I am affraid a lot of people will complain the same after a few games.

I am also bored sometimes from repetitive cycling the maps here, also from the new respawn change, where now players comes in packs and everyone shooting below each other feets constantly, but every change someone find as good and someone find as bad. Nothing will oblige by everyone.

[camka]

put on the card pro-q3tourney4 permission for more players equal = q3dm6

[adminless]

@wtf I think that pretty much jutuli answered you on my behalf. as already addressed a couple of months ago here:

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=12&p=246#p146

(about q3dm12) added the Monday 23 of October of 2017 after some people requested it just like you have done now and it completely crashed the server. half a hour with a score of 1 versus 1, I think it got to be of the very few times that I was forced to unceremoniously issue a emergency map change. same with q3dm15 too btw

as for the maps beyond q3dm15 (16, 17, 18, 19, tny6) those maps are mainly for rail only servers, those maps clearly do not suit this. I remember on the first months of running this I used to run q3dm17 (the all time most popular of those ones) and games were complete garbage (campers versus spammers all the time, total boring non-sense). q3dm9 and q3dm10, also ran here for more than a year since the beginning probably and they were removed as most people hated them. q3dm10 in particular and though q3dm9 was more of a mixed reception, overall, unless the elite guys showed up and the room mood was very up, many/most of the time it ended up being a pain. after a year it was consensus to removed them. q3tourney3 is actually on the list but only for tiny games which generally is not the case thus it loads rarely but it actually does too and q3tourney5 is total garbage. I think that there's no even need to argue about that (pretty much just a tiny demo map to show off the idtech3 fog capabilities/graphical benchmark of the time and similar).

as for the autodownload thing I also addressed that on the posts I referenced on my previous answer. in short, in-game downloads were completely obsolete by the 2010's and by the 2020's they are no longer a option. I mean, first of all, the game comes with the in-game downloads disabled by default and definitively for a good reason, by 2020 they do not meet any security standard/protocol (there's no anti virus/trust check just to begin with among a huge list of things I could name). secondly, by 2020 nobody is gonna wait like 2, 3 minutes to download a 2 mb map to find out that it sucks and what it's worse, that later they don't even know how to uninstall it. as a matter of fact, in-game downloads are shit by 2020 standards. third and last, with the huge differences among everybody installations there's no even guarantees that the distributed files will work and won't conflict with others on the end-user installation at all times, you could potentially break some one else game, hell no. bottom line here, is the players business to take care and personally chose and ensure the trust of the files they install, not mine. I mean, if you compare this with quake live for example, like I told you by 2010, they completely replaced that functionality by the steam workshop (a direct external informed trusted download platform) likely, among others, for the reasons I just put.

as I wrote other times after several years running this unfortunately I feel like this is the peak of what this game has to offer. for the rest, let's see if I can bring another different server/s and some other things to this to grow this a little and add more variety. I've been planning around that some time but it will still take me some time so as usual I'm messed up here at the moment, sorry about that.

[Sad fan]

I still can't over with the fact that we can't we here dm12.

[WhoAmI]

@adminless - Alright, I understand. You are right on many issues.

Q3DM9 and 10 - They are small, tight, and for many people they would not be suitable. But I think 5v5 could be okay. Nvm

Q3DM16, 17, 19, 20 - right, I'm not even talking about these. They are suitable for instagib.
Q3DM18 - In my opinion this is big, that's why I replaced it, but too much "wrong place" unless the server would have the option of automatic defrosting/unfreeze after jumping into "wrong place"
What do you think?

Q3DM12 - Okay time for this map. I played it on many freeze tag servers. There were no problems. There are a lot of corridors, that's true. But that's great. This is a big map. I remember there is one narrow passage. Maybe two. But for example on 9v9 or 8v8 it would be okay. I think even on 11v11. I often played it in turret mode

Q3DM15 - In my opinion it is smaller than Q3DM12. There is a lot of lava. And what if lava didn't do any damage?

And all in all QDM14 also does not like Everyone is spamming on it. Everyone shoots grenades and RL in one place. At the entrance gate to the RA and to the basement entrance.

Q3DM8 - also has very narrow corridors. But it's okay.

It would be nice if something new appeared. Maybe a turret server would be cool. I do not know. I am speculating: D
These are all just my thoughts.

I have a question. How did these Q3DM12 and Q3DM15 maps destroy the server? What was wrong with them? People didn't like them? Were they too small, too tight?

In general, I dreamed recently that I am entering the server and loading Q3DM12! I woke up. And sadness remained

BTW, 14 votes for yes, and 2 votes for no!. Not bad!

[adminless]

dm9, dm10 like I said, yes, they loaded at mid server loads for more than a year and they just didn't work out besides there's already "enough" mid-size maps. that's not really the problem here, the problem is mainly at big loads that there's essentially just three maps, dm7, 11 and 14.

there's already a auto thaw feature when you fall in "inaccessible" sites, like void or lava/slime, to make the game "fair" of around a minute which is essentially the average round time (or about three times the average frozen time). any lower and then you'll get people intentionally jumping into pits to get free fresh spawn as it already happened so not even a chance. and something similar goes for the map damages, for the good or the bad, they form part of the map geometry to make some places "inaccessible" (harder to access) like some items or hideouts, remove them and then the game become "cheap" and "crappy".

I said it before and I'll say it again, dm12 and dm15 loaded and trashed the server big time. furthermore review from number one contender here were as follow:

Hi Adminless,

I know you have just added q3dm12 but this map is so boring.

Since everybody got railgun it is very campy and really no fun at all. I would love to see this map removed as soon as possible and for all times

Best regards,

Toni

about dm15 I have no "review" but trust me that it was pretty much the same shit. but look ok, anyways, it's not the end of the world, you wanna give a try to dm12/dm15 again? no problem I think I can go for it. I believe that now on the current situation with the secondary server going strong it's a possibility and you'll see whether I'm right and this essentially keeps being the same or if some unknown thing I can't understand or fail to see changed. at the end of the day they can be just removed as people massively escapes towards the secondary server, just give me a couple of days to set it up and I'll add them.

about dm14 well the funny thing is that there was a time when that was the big map favorite. I know that now along with dm8 are the two most hated maps but the thing is that obviously when people is voting for new maps it makes no much sense to remove maps instead as response. anyways both of them have the lowest priority in the map pool.

as for the voting like I said, sure I know that too well, I've been getting asked about this in a regular basis for more than a decade already unfortunately there's a big difference between wishes and how we would like things to be and how they actually are and how they actually work and the servers figures back me up on this. so just votes without a strong credible/factual argumentation unfortunately doesn't represent more than just that, wishes and desires that doesn't always relate with the actual reality.

yes like I said some of the goals for this season are bringing up another server here as well as update the servers along with other things. I've been already starting to work that out but with the Christmas season and so I took a break from this (beyond just the regular maintenance and so ofc) so I hope I resume that task "soon". anyways as you may guess bring another new custom server it's not a one day task, I'm not committing to a particular date or anything, but we're clearly talking about the middle/long term with that.

[WhoAmI]

@adminless I understand. So with defrosting time it was a bad idea.
So with deactivating lava damage it would be the same. I understand

If it could destroy the server forever or for a long time by entering this map e.g. for a few days then don't risk it. If you know that nothing should happen because a lot of people play then you can try. I do not insist. I just speak on behalf of all players. Players in the game speak a lot, but they don't write anything on the forum. I'm not talking about everyone. But many more players in the game talk about Q3DM12 or 15 maps.
If it would be really bad, you will eliminate it immediately. All in all, this is not just my wish, but I wrote in the name of many players.
If it fails, we will write reviews on each of these maps and no one will ever ask for them again.
The final decision is yours, admin.




It's nice to hear that there will be something new. You probably won't reveal this secret. But okay ... New server, maybe "touretts": D Or something completely different. Sounds great. We are also waiting for more information.

So something new will be introduced to current servers?

[adminless]

I know that it's not just your thing so don't worry that if something horrible happens I won't put the blame solely on you hahaha ultimately I'll be the one responsible for the mess as always. anyways I'm going to be honest with you one of my personal favorite maps was q3dm10 (for 3vs3/4vs4) and I also think that q3dm12 should be a good choice (for twenty plus players of course) however I'm not always right and experience proved me wrong there. like I said I don't think that loading a uncommon map a couple of times after two years of clean rotation is gonna completely bring the server down however I can see waves of raging players coming here to dis it big time. shall be the case I'll just remove it. anyways if I happen to the be at the desk at the time of loading and I notice something like 30 minutes of play with the scores tied at one or some other ridiculous thing like that, I'll unceremoniously issue a unacceptable manual map change for the second time and the map will be gone from the rotation.

after think about it now, I think by now I'll start by adding only q3dm12 which is mostly what was requested. q3dm15 wasn't as requested and also not only I know that it doesn't work for a fact that I don't even personally think that it's a good map for this server. q3dm15 is essentially a big version of q3dm9, that's it, a campy narrow map mostly good for railers and campers. it could work in my opinion for free for all or even for some rail only freeze servers but not here probably. then by now I think I'll just split q3dm14 rotation chances among it and q3dm12 and then we'll see. let's see if I make it in time for tomorrow if not probably the Wednesday it should start loading.

for the rest, no the UnFreeZe thing is pretty much finished. for other than the usual minor changes/additions here and there (like this and similar stuff) is rock solid. there are no further plans for it. the only thing left to do with it is update the UnFreeZe client that I started past season but as usual I got messed up with something else (I think that it was the summer server instability issue that caused four minutes of cumulative lag time, as serious as it gets) then I'm also looking forward pushing that this season here. unfortunately I think that at the moment the focus moved something else here and it seems like it's probably better to handle other tasks first. we'll see.

[...jutuli...]

maybe "touretts"

off topic:
Tourette syndrome on the server could be a very funny modification
Just imagine players with twitching heads and screaming random nasty words all the time around.

[WhoAmI]

@adminless - Cool. I am glad that it will not be because of me

So don't add Q3DM15. In fact she is small. There is plenty of space to fight outside but it is full of lava. I think half the bodies would be in lava.

Q3DM12 - Yes, 11v11 can. But if it would be too tight, it can be set to 8v8.

Q3DM15 - it's small enough that I think it could be in the game, but on 5v5, 6v6 maybe 7v7: D Maybe it would be an interesting option. I do not know. Your decision. You are the boss

@...jutuli... - I didn't mean turret syndrome Just these turrets in the game You know But you did a fun joke!
I think that many players already have this syndrome

[adminless]

btw dm12 was finally added yesterday but unfortunately it didn't have a chance to hit today due players constrains because of the network issue. unlucky, let's see if it hits tomorrow.

[WhoAmI]

Ahh. I'm just waiting for this map I don't know when to join the game. There must be 22 people to load. Maybe today between 17-24. I will be today so maybe I can play it several times