New maps?

[adminless]

well almost lost for example is actually a (semi-official in fact) Quake III Arena map, pro-q3tourney7, as well as the vast majority of the quake live assets. quake live original content is very limited, probably just resumed to a handful of maps, quake live for the most part is a official Quake III Arena (ad-sponsored) modded compilation. so yes, I know, I'm aware that there's already various quake live (mostly hacked) ports to Quake III Arena but I think that pretty much you answered yourself. first of all their quality (as well as origin) is at least questionable and second and mostly they are completely unknown/unavailable to the general public (and as we know the servers are not meant as a distributor platform). but anyways furthermore and beside all that, although is very true (and obvious) that this is based on (and contains) several (elements from) other things (yes quake live included) I don't look up this to be like anything else. I look up this to be a thing in its own self, UnFreeZe, and I believe that that's precisely what this succeeded at.

so look I'm gonna tell you some, you say that there's already quality quake live ports in Quake III Arena yet they fail at have any success. ok, and you wanna know why? simple, I'm gonna tell you, because between a original and a copy/imitation people generally always prefer the original. you can not outmatch quake live at trying to be quake live, for the good or the bad, this will only find success at being itself.

about longest yard (q3dm17) that map was already in the rotation at the beginning of this and it was obvious that it didn't suit this particular mode. as mentioned above that map is obviously a rail only map, something this is not. hellsgate (q3tourney3) also as mentioned above is already in the rotation, thing is that obviously it only loads for tiny (i.e. 1vs1/2vs2) games which (hopefully) very rarely is the case at the main server. that map, q3tourney3, gets a lot more play at the secondary server (FreeFUn/UnFreeZe:27961/UnFreeZeII) just in case you wanna check it out.

as for the voting I also already broke that down long enough plenty of other times around here but I think that, once again, you pretty much answered you yourself. by enabling voting dm12 for example would get skipped probably every single time it loads, which obviously is not the intention with adding it and then it will only lead to on next map the "losers" of the voting start fighting to load it again which eventually it will succeed to get back to the previous point and start over (in few words just the typical endless vote wars we are all familiar with and that lead nowhere but killing the server in the long run). like I said, that's not the way to go, if that map is just proven to not work, not be reliable, do more harm than good or anything else, it will be removed period.

so far I believe that the new adjusted ratios are fair enough. I think that when you run something is obviously very important to always look up for the benefit of the majority (here the average regular player) however is also very important to not completely neglect the minorities either (i.e. the top players that are a bit in the competitive side). let's face it, as you could see people requested that map, they are people, not just one particular player or another, of course not a majority but probably it counts with a 15% (or similar) of fans and probably around that are its current load chances (and that's even only when server is close to full). that in my book is a fair representation of their demands (at least for now) and ultimately also remember that people that don't feel like playing dm12 can always just drop by the secondary server which is actually making its way to the top10 world ranked Quake III Arena servers so they even have an UnFreeZe alternative here at those times. adding the voting will only break the balance and mess the things up big time. to make things change here we use open, honest and direct communication/discussions through this forum.

ah and btw about the voting also don't forget to hang out by the polls sub forum here (which obviously requires registration to obtain verified results).

[umofd]

thank you for the long answer!
i'll just reply to some of the points.

first of all I used to play quake live before they added it to steam. normally clan arena on servers with the maximum amount of possible players (was it 16? I can't even remember anymore)

we used to play all the maps available regardless of the player limits per map. voting maps or shuffling team was always possible and was not abused or overused.
but I understand the huge difference was that at that time there was quite a big community playing the game compared to the few people that still play quake 3 or this particular mod today.
if people didn't like a map that was being played there was still a huge amount of other servers to choose from. maybe that is why maps like longest yard or dm12 worked out better than nowadays.

you did a good job here creating this server which still has a good population in the european timezones. it is fun to play and i only miss some of those maps we played on qlive. i might just buy that again to play some rounds of clanarena.

it's nice to hear that hellsgate is already on the rotation i just haven't seen it yet. with dm12 I only joined for the last minutes of 1 game so far and i can't wait to play another match there. I just usually play too late to catch a full server but that's my own fault

[WhoAmI]

How's your progress Admin?
Yesterday I played a few hours (5-6) and DM12 loaded 1 times. Have you already changed the priority for the map?

I have a question about maps. Overall, I have two questions.

1. Will any other maps be added for testing? DM15, DM18? (Just an example) I am asking because several players were asking me.
I wonder how other maps would be accepted.

2. Do the respawns on the maps have to be so ... annoying?
I mean, I'm respawned among my opponents. Worse, however, is that they are respawn behind my back. For example. I killed 5 opponents and I want to unfreeze 3 allies. When I unfreeze my allies, an opponent or opponents are suddenly respawn in front of me or behind me.
This is sad

[adminless]

no it's as I changed it the other day, that's it around a estimated 15% percent chance when server is full/near full which yes basically translates into that, one expected load each three hours of full server on average (i.e. a couple of times at server prime time). so a occurrence in 5-6 hours for you the other day was a bit unlucky but it's within expected results anyways (1-2 occurrence was the expectancy for that session). keep in mind that much more could be overkill, the other day it loaded under not such "perfect" situations out of chance and only three people that started finished it despite the game flowed reasonably good for the map. so by now I'll stick to those values which seems like the best compromise (fair/safe wise). if on the future (months) things significantly change (in either direction) I may review that as usual.

so far like I said, I won't mess with the maps any more in the short/middle term. this q3dm12 hasn't even established yet, I think it would be a terrible idea to start now changing everything up. on line with the above, first let's establish q3dm12, get it properly played and generally accepted (probably months) and then we'll reconsider any changes to the rotation. the only idea I've been considering so far, would be use the wasted dm12 chances in dm10 (i.e. load dm10 under some situations when server doesn't hit the players for dm12) but to be honest I don't think that it will add anything and it seems more like a personal thing to me (which is something that should never ever even cross my mind just once) so probably is just better leave it.

about the respawns, well I know that some people is probably gonna find this answer insulting but probably those are about the best I can do, sorry about that. the spawn system was discussed long already, truth to be told is that regardless of the system bad spawns will ever take place, and the current (less bad) solution I could find was that. the technical explanation for that is that probably you were one of the few left and in the room next door there was a pack of opponents unfreezing their mates so the allies you unfroze spawned far from you (as at the room next door was the enemy pack) and the enemies spawned near you as at that moment you happened to be far from your teammates (their enemies) and close to the enemy (their allies). essentially the solution satisfied the best ideal condition for everybody but you in that case probably, unlucky, shit that happens. I analyze it and simulated it long long enough and this was the solution that provided best results. problem is that people generally tend to only remember those times that the spawn system fucked them up and forget about the several others the game flowed like a charm.

ultimately also in tune with the rotation and with most of the things here, keep in mind that you fit in a minority group of players. overall the game is thought to favor the vast majority of players (which happens to be the casuals) instead which necessarily comes at the cost of making the game less favorable for the top players. that's one of my main design goals as can not be other way, do you really think that these guys (+100) are going to come here to get beaten by you and other three, four top players in a daily basis like 100-5? obviously they won't and let's face it and be real here but if you as well as the majority is here is precisely because of them not to "duel" a few other top players.

[WhoAmI]

Admin, I think I noticed an error (maybe it's not an error) Yesterday we were playing dm7 and the next one was dm7. It was the same with dm11. We play dm11. Next loaded again dm11. Hehe, many players wrote "please dm12" in the chat That's why dm12 appears rarely because some maps load twice

Of course. I didn't mean that new maps would appear now. I meant generally, whether in a few months you will add other maps to the tests

I understand. If this is the best spawns setting then okay.

Sure. I am also not here to duel who is better 1v1. This is team mode. I mainly play here because I like unfreeze mod. I like team play and, by the way, I consolidate accuracy and try to control map with items: MH, RA, YA.

If I want to duel, I turn on QL CA mode. Then I can play ranked matches. There are also many players playing there. 11v11. Only it is not that easy Everyone is at a high level there.
There, every mistake leads to a loss. But I'm doing fine

Soon I will try my skills in QC.

[Dr.GreenThumb]

I finally had the chance to play it once! ...and maybe I'm the exception, but I liked it a lot

I think dm12 is a map for those who don't make their bread and butter from spawning then emptying grenades immediately, then just spend the rest of the game spamming rockets. Quite a few players like that, especially during peak hours. I know this is expected, but this mindless spamming is pointless to do on a large map like dm12. This is most likely why a railer like Mr. "I dominate dm12" WhoamI likes it so much

...but in all seriousness, I would say clean players shouldn't have much issue with it. Yes, it takes longer, not as snappy as the others, I can see how that's a turn off for many (not to me, but that's personal preference).

I'm happy to have it on board, and rooting for it to show up even if rarely only

ok then hurry up because I'm starting to seriously consider removing it hahaha the map has a +60% quit chance (I haven't measure the other ones but I'm sure that's the top) and on top of that the map suffer from terrible pace. yes although many times it converge in acceptable terms plenty of other times is crap with +45 minutes games and virtually almost any match has various +5 (almost 10) minutes rounds. that's total crap, that's several standard deviations away from the mean of fast paced games this particular game is known and appreciated for.

synthetic game analysis seems to show that that map generalely converge for the "average" match of current "average" players, understood for that as the usual hyped match of good players that play in a "fun"/"light" competitive way, but it fails misserabely other way. in particular at matches of both ends of the spectrum, that's it for bellow average players (i.e. 50% of the players) and the top guys playing in a competitive/over-competitive manner (10%).

my opinion is that is probably better to just remove it, is not worth all the trouble beside at the end rather than make the rotation more varied it makes it less as it sticks for way longer than a "normal" map.

[adminless]

@wtf yes I know green also reported that at other thread. already patched this morning. thanks for report mate. yes, problem was that like I said I'm still adjusting the ratios so let's see if I can get some better compromise for everybody. sure no problem, like I said yes in few months or something I can review the rotation again. it will depend on the situation at that time.

@green yes, I hope the map stick for the long run and it end up working some how. so far it's supposed to load just that a couple of times at prime time but I probably still have to dig the real server load a bit more. thanks for review.

[umofd]

i saw you opened a new server with custom maps
hope it gets some active players and nice matches.

i haven't looked which maps are on it yet but let me name my favorite maps from qlive days:
almost lost, hidden fortress, quarantine, trinity, asylum, hell gate redux, overkill, eviscerated, theatre of pain

hope i can find some of those maps over there and can't wait to play some rounds

on a sidenote i saw hellsgate loaded on the main server the first time yesterday but everyone quit at that point (2v1)
is it possible to enable the map for 3v3 as this seems the lowest amount of players that would actually stay. rarely see a 2v2 where players not quit after few rounds.

[adminless]

yes given the current players load well beyond the thirty players mark (i.e. both servers full/almost full) seemed like the best option particularly giving the circumstance that the server that was parked at those resources was death for a fact.

as for the maps you named almost lost (pro-q3tourney7) and overkill are already in the rotation as we speak. quarantine, trinity and asylum as far as I know are quake live exclusive and as I broke down previously my understanding is that quake 3 version of those maps, though they exist, are going to "feel"/be inferior to their original quake live versions. I'll provably dig those a bit more at future revisions but I think that probably it would be better to stick to good old fashioned well proven/established original Quake III Arena maps (which there's plenty btw). hell gate redux and eviscerated are custom remixed versions of the original q3tourney3 and q3dm4 Quake III Arena maps respectively. the server already contain two well know original maps remixes in my opinion there is no need for any more remixes I think it would be more meaningful to add other original maps. theatre of pain (originally ra3map1 later "standardized" as ospra3map1) is probably the all time best "clan arena" (once again originally Rocket Arena 3) map and the map that essentially started it all. unfortunately this (yes it's very based on it but) is not just clan arena and that map clearly doesn't fit here (endless) beside that map is massive, the typical load for it was from 30 players upwards, not the case here (low twenties max per server). last but not least, hidden fortress (dc_map07 or preferably it's more popular remixed version pro-dcmap7), yes that's a good one and and a almost "ideal" map for this game mode so yeah I think I can at least add that one as you requested it, thanks for the suggestion.

about tny3 at main server like I said, I'm sorry but I don't see it happening. 3vs3 (i.e. 6 players) is way too much for original tny3 and it's not just that, think that loading that map for six players it would mean that plenty of times other 3, 4 or may 5 players may join later rendering it total garbage for real and leading to some serious players discomfort. unlucky, (un)fortunately main server has like at least +5 players like 24/7 (at any time but the late late night) and that map just can't fit that load.

[umofd]

yea i see your point with hellsgate.
i'm one of the late night players but for normal times it is probably useless. we used to play 8v8 on that map on qlive but that was CA guess for unfreeze it would be too chaotic.

with eviscerated i think it's a way better map than the original q3dm4 but could just be my personal opinion

and nice to hear you're going to add hidden fortress i hope i can catch a game there soon

[adminless]

btw for the record about this q3dm12 thing here, as of Thursday 20 of February of 2020 at 22:22 CET secondary server going from (almost) completely full to (almost) completely empty in just a matter of minutes and completely crashing the whole game just because of this particular map as evidenced on the attached screen. consequently q3dm12 has been removed from the secondary server as we speak and I'll keep monitoring the main server for this sort of unacceptable circumstances (there the situation looks still barely on the verge of acceptance so far but on second server is proven a killer for a fact once again). I apologize to anyone who got affected by this situation due my poor and reckless management on this.

[adminless]

well guys this is what I had foreseen and what I was talking about this q3dm12 thing, main server at prime time going from twenties to nothing in just bare minutes as can bee seen on the attached screen. I mean even getting significantly topped by the secondary server. well it's not like I'm gonna remove it right away but needless to say that let this happen just a couple more of times and the whole thing will be completely over. like I said people isn't stupid, the average player (i.e. +60% of the people) isn't buying this map at all. there's no way they are going to be there just to get crushed by a bunch of top skilled players (i.e. less than a 15%) for something like an hour and have zero fun at all, obvious. so sure of course while it was "new" they could still get "fooled" by it but it obviously won't take them long to learn their lesson. so just about a month after I re-added this map as soon as people see the q3dm12 screen something like half of them run away and the half still left follows in few minutes as soon as they remember this bullshit. bottom line I'll still leave it for a couple of days, however the trend seems very clear, as soon as I spot another crash q3dm12 will be gone, I mean, this is non sense.

[adminless]

just for the record funny how on next map the main/secondary servers role got completely inverted and how the "main" one starts to build up population again after the map change. coincidence? hell no, I track this regularly and probably not as pronounced but the trend was as clear as water, I mean, it ended up happening just after one month exactly what I said that it was going to happen. it's quite obvious that people join to enjoy that they like and they aren't buying the likes of a small group of elitist players that severely hurts them. in fact probably had not been because of the secondary server and we wouldn't be talking right now (death community for a fact right now). like I said, I'll leave this as a extremely serious warning but next time the map will be completely gone. in fact, now that I added the glacius server I think that probably looks like the most fair/best option in my opinion.

PS: added a hour later another screen showcasing the server recovering its position despite the time, once again, coincidence? we all know it's not.

[Dr.GreenThumb]

Wow... yes, makes sense that you are seriously concerned. I agree that with Glacius online there is little need for new maps on the main server. That exodus is pretty shocking, maybe best to move this map to Glacius? ...that way we still have the option to organize and join there to play it, but the crowds aren't forced to play something they clearly do not want.

[adminless]

I know, I already thought about that but the problem with that is that, once again, opposite to unanimous popular belief (i.e. again, in reality just elitist less than 15% players self interest) that affirmed that the glacius server would be the first server ever to break the thousand players a day mark, at least!, in reality is hardly struggling just to do ten connections a day at best and with those numbers load a map like q3dm12 makes no sense at all. may be if by chance due some natural disaster or some other force majure circumstance like that that server ends up getting busy I may drop it there, as well as other maps, but by now it would probably end up hurting it yet even more.

anyways like I said thankfully everything went (almost) exactly as I had expected it to go and the secondary server did its job at cover up this mess (had not been because of that this would have died completely for a fact) so it's not that important as of the Wednesday 4 of March of 2020 at 14:00 CET. I'll still keep monitoring it and leave it to run for a couple of days (or more) so there's no more questions about it anymore and nobody can say that it was just a coincidence, a fluke or anything else. that map consistently has more than a 60% quit chance and there's even plenty of games were just as few as three or four guys (from twenty) that started it, finished it, and of the three or four times that loaded on the secondary server it emptied it. not too mention the poor pace it generally suffers most of the time. it's clearly no "coincidence", it's been more than a month already.

then we'll see how long it goes, next time I won't make a post about it, I'll issue a command instead, I think we already tried it long enough. at least one thing have been clearly proven for a fact so far, the guys that claimed that the map is perfectly playable and that there's no issues whatsoever with it and that it's even epic were wrong. I'm not gonna say those statements are rude lies, they are not, but those statements (as well as most of the elitist players) are very disconnected from the actual reality here. those statements only make sense in the context of committed competitive top closed games between top players not in the context of real top public servers where the vast majority of the people are just casuals looking for a quick blast which is what we've got here (and to fantasize about the former you've just got the glacius thing).