glacius server promotion

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Dr.GreenThumb
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Re: glacius server promotion

Post by Dr.GreenThumb »

I have to say, it's exactly the fast paced ridiculous games I enjoy on this new server :D Something different. Where strategy and teamwork isn't as critical as there is not enough time to have one before the round ends with -3 frags :lol: ... but it let's some steam off and just generally have a few fast rounds. Honestly, playing on spacious made me laugh a lot and was super fun! ...it's a different dynamic. I wouldn't expect anyone to be "the best" on these maps, who cares. It's just good fun, and it's amazing to play unfreeze on these classic maps. I really enjoyed the games there so far :thumbup:
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Re: glacius server promotion

Post by imprecise »

i I agree with you Dr. GreenThumb, these space maps are fun to play
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Re: glacius server promotion

Post by adminless »

yes, it seems so, it looks like it received mostly positive critics and it even hit the eight players load expectation right away. I mean, the difference with the original galcius is like day and night. ok, for sanity and peace of mind to prevent any potential load spike I capped it now to 12 players which is probably my fair estimation as a reasonable max for those maps. is probably slightly above the ten players max canonical value discussed before but anyways we talking about a couple of players above/bellow the canonical value, nothing extreme. as explained (I guess) that the server is not gonna do 12/12 24/7 so you're always going to have to go some above to compensate/stabilize the usual drops/spectators/connections/disconnections and so on. I think that 12 players max at the moment is probably the right value compromise wise to get this server going and then we'll see. by now I'll leave all four maps running to give them a head start but if on the next weeks the games really start going I might start looking to tune them depending on the load too as usual.

well and I think that this should be it by now. as mentioned across the thread, if the server really ends up getting overrun, or simply impossible/difficult to connect to, then we'll start considering more options (other server/other maps) but by now I think that this should do it for some time I guess.
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Re: glacius server promotion

Post by PacMan »

Admin can you add the last map q3ctf4 please , don't need flags obviously but in discussion in maps seems to be the last one we need
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Re: glacius server promotion

Post by adminless »

yes, I saw that some requested it but as I said previously on the the thread, I'm not so sure about it. q3ctf4 already plays big time on the ctf server, those who are interested in it are probably better just joining there for a few games. one of the intentions with the server is bringing something fresh and "different" (to some extend of course) so I don't think is a good idea to start repeating maps across servers just like that. furthermore, I even played that map a couple of times outside of ctf and I can tell you that it's no good at all and by "no good" here I don't mean according to gameplay quality canons, I mean, no fun/non-sense.

so anyways, we'll see, may be I could give it a try at some point but initially while the server still starts to go I'd rather keep things more traditional/well proven.
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Re: glacius server promotion

Post by PacMan »

Ok cool thanks dude
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Re: glacius server promotion

Post by imprecise »

hi Adminless

there is a space map that I like a lot and which is very nice to play with 2, 4, 6, 8 players it's "klhights.pk3" (kleskonian hights), I would be happy if it was added to the rotation of Spacius and I'm sure it will appeal to other players

thank you in advance for taking my request into consideration

map and info on the map available here: https://ws.q3df.org/map/klhights/

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Re: glacius server promotion

Post by adminless »

that map looks good indeed, but seriously, I think that even I never heard of that map ever or may be, as much, just briefly heard it mentioned a couple of times at most. I very very highly doubt you're gonna have any significant amount of people here currently ready to play that map (i.e. installed and with at least plus hundred hours of competitive online gaiming experience on it as we speak). so no sorry but custom maps are clearly out of the window here, I mean, that was exactly what led to spacius, get rid of the custom maps. if I were to start throwing custom maps at the server then I would just bring the real deal back, glacius, with the results that we all already know and think that was even with a set of unquestionabely top quality and popuar custom maps. not gonna happen sorry.
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Re: glacius server promotion

Post by imprecise »

ok I understand the reasons for this rejection of personalized maps here and now, but it bothers me and saddens me to see that other players do not want to play other maps than the usual maps known to all, it is is a shame ... :cry:
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Re: glacius server promotion

Post by imprecise »

anyway for custom maps I think we should add at least one or two maps to the Spacius rotation because the map rotation is fast ...
which ones :?:
I suggest dm19 to start
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Re: glacius server promotion

Post by adminless »

I'm sorry to have to disagree again with you but experience, as well as even UnFreeZe/glacius, seems to suggest that people rather play the same maps over and over than play anything else just for the sake of it thus as I said above, I'd rather keep this old fashioned and well proven than just throw "anything" there for the sake of growing the rotation. q3dm19 doesn't even look like a commercial map, matter of fact, q3dm19 doesn't even look like a finished map to me but rather just like a rushed refill map they threw there just for the sake of completing the sixth tier. it may probably do it for the single player or may be even for a casual ffa here and there but I don't see it doing it for UnFreeZe at all. but anyways despite my personal thoughts about it, that can obviously always be wrong, the fact here is that in more than a decade already it never ran on any of my servers nor any significant amount of people ever requested it either. given all that unless things change a lot and now it becomes a top request I don't think I'll add it. if I were to try something it would probably be ctf4 but unfortunately I have the feeling that overall this is about the best spacius can do and to be honest with you I think we should even be very satisfied with how it's doing already with games happening on a daily basis.
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Re: glacius server promotion

Post by imprecise »

I know you're right, I saw it by frequenting Glacius, most players prefer to play the same maps over and over again but at the same time, if they are too locked in boxes, they will never come out ... .

you are more competent than me when it comes to the choice of maps and rotations and I will therefore respect and accept your decision

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Re: glacius server promotion

Post by fau »

Same maps over and over? There are some Russian duelers who haven't played other map than ztn since 1999 :P Actually map selection on fpsclasico servers is pretty wide. I still haven't achieved my goal of recording a single game on each map, on my youtube channel.

I've played on spacius and I must say that I don't think these maps are well suited for unfreeze format. They are gimmick ffa maps - there is limited weapon selection and a rail hidden somewhere that's supposed to give you these "superpowers". When everyone has these superpowers then it's reduced to hide-and-peek instagib. Or doing silly moves to entertain oneself, because smart moves would be too boring.

On the other hand I can certainly appreciate good custom maps. I don't know why glacious wasn't popular. I think it would be best to add one or two custom map to rotation on unfreeze server, but I understand it's impossible due to lack of autodownload? Why exactly? Iirc original udp autodownload can be fixed serverside to reach pretty high speeds. I've been a developer/maintainer of open source engine fork for another id tech 3 online game (Jedi Knight 2) that's used basically by everyone in the community, and fast autodownloads made a huge positive change for the community. You can put any map on a server and try it out. Ppl may hate it but it's not a big deal to give new map a try. Or just jump around some wonky map on a single evening, have some fun and never see it again. Players still love playing their old and trusty "same maps" but there is a lot more variety now.
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Re: glacius server promotion

Post by adminless »

I think that you pretty much answered yourself about glacius, despite any auto-download "issues" (rather excuses as note that just to start with all those maps are already included on the provided official UnFreeZe package a large group of people is either currently using or at least have downloaded/installed at some point) the real root cause is that the majority "haven't (bothered to) play(ed) other maps since 1999" and they aren't going to start just now that they are adults and don't even have time because some guys at the forum/server feel like it. that's the reality, there's really no significant amount of players with the maps already installed and with at least plus hundred hours of competitive online gaming experience that place them in a competitive position on every single one of those maps as we speak so they clearly aren't going to risk their elitist reputations and wasting their time joining a new map to start figuring out where the items are. people really like doing those things they are "masters" (or at least skillful) at, there's little "fun"/reward for someone who spent plus five years of his live "mastering" (learning) the standard maps to now go and throw away all that just to join a custom maps server to get raped like a noob and have to go through all those plus five years of dedicated hard work and suffering just to be able to enjoy a game again. beside "mastering", or at least be competitive on, the custom maps typically require a level of skill considerably higher than that of the standard maps and that it's something that generally far exceeds the abilities of the average public server gamer. the reality here is that customs maps are assets created by elitist players mostly to meet the demands of other elitist players and per definition the elitist portion of a group of people is always a minority. in the other hand the standard maps are assets created by a commercial studio for the purpose of being commercially successful and to accomplish that they obviously target the typical regular player rather than just a reduced elitist portion of them. for the most part that's the untold truth here and that's why exactly as I foresaw outside of the organized meetings here and there, that are obviously not a sustainable playing model for a public server in the long run, glacius peaked at five or six two min connections a day at best with most days doing zero connections while spacius just got games going and gamers involved right away despite obviously falling short from glacius (according to gameplay standards).

for the rest, yes, of course, I know the space maps are obviously rail dominant maps and they overall fall very short behind the standard of gaming quality that is offered at main UnFreeZe. sure, that's exactly why those maps aren't on the main servers, just as I said. that being said, I insist, it doesn't mean they are just unplayable either. I think people can (and do) also enjoy playing them and serve the purpose for a third supporting server as well as overall bring some variety to the community just right.

as for using the server idle cycle to serve download frames instead of just sleeping for the remaining of the frame time or until a packet arrives, I already know about that, no big deal, the code you talking about is the one on this commit here. but just as I broke and I explained several times, no sane person should ever allow in-game downloads according to 2020 security standards and I won't even serve any downloads in-game either. not to mention the game comes with these downloads off by default and for a good reason, they are potentially a great way to distribute a virus or a malware. but ok, let's even forget that for a moment and assume that the auto-dowloads would always be legit, there's even no way to tell that the files you're serving aren't going to conflict with other ones the client have installed. here a very large group of people (virtually the majority) is playing all with different files and most often than not when you start just dropping files on your installation like that you end up with conflicts and all of the sudden you end up with broken textures that fuck up your maps, broken shaders that fuck up your models, broken files that just fuck up your weapons or your game just start crashing out of nowhere (some maps for example don't even work on all engines/cfgs) and when that happens then you have to go through a ton of files to figure out which one was that your fav smart ass admin placed there that fucked up your entire game, no good, trust me. so look, there's no way I'm gonna go through all that trouble just to get a couple of noobs to disconnect from the server after a couple of minutes of loading a custom map at best.

that being said I don't discard I'd ever get back glacius again provided there's really enough interest but that would be it. I'd brought it back as-is for some meetings and so but I won't fuck with the well know established servers at all nor with any other kind of downloads outside of this site.
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Re: glacius server promotion

Post by fau »

If these custom maps are in unfreeze pack already, then I'd consider adding one small and one large (ones that play similarly to retail maps, not space maps or anything) to rotation, eg on unfreeze2 server. If ppl complain a lot about it - let's hear why.

I agree that having cl_allowdownload 1 on retail client is asking for problems, but my client and many q3 clients go a long way to make sure nothing wrong can happen - making sure that qvm mods are sandboxed properly and downloads can't escape the fs_game directory jail (first thing is making sure they can't change fs_game cvar themselves as on retail client...). Ofc it's a lot of work and fixes to the original engine. Downloads should go to fs_game directory not baseq3, then they won't break anything on other servers. If all these maps are already in the pack then it's probably not worth the effort.