glacius server promotion

[adminless]

yes ioq3v6-unfreeze-client-v20.5.zip, which is the official package, contains all the glacius and the masters maps and more. 2017 I added some custom maps to UnFreeZe2 and it killed it for a year (proof), also around that time, the Tuesday 20 of March of 2018 after overwhelming requests I manually loaded overkill, arguably the best and most popular custom map ever, under optimal circumstances a couple of times to the main server and it completely killed the room (halved it into a irrelevant game proof). so no, I have no problems in give a try to things or even a second look to things despite even knowing almost for a fact that they don't work but what I'm not gonna do is keep trying the same stuff over and over again without sense. so no, I repeat every thing belong in its place, to try stuff and load custom maps it was glacius, more than half a year without any single significant game happening outside of the organized events. facts, I think it can not get any clearer than that.

I think that you probably didn't understand what I meant. sure the parent directory auto-download hack is the first thing to look for which precisely applies to the standard engine (as you're even noting yourself) and that's the engine you would be targeting with the downloads change you refereed me to btw making the suggestion a little questionable knowing that. but anyways, as I told you, let's now not discuss about any hacks/exploits, the reality is that, even if it legit and properly placed and all that, ultimately you don't even know if the files your server is distributing are going to break the client game, consequently is the sole responsibility and exclusive right of the client to exactly control and know at all times precisely what they are installing, where they are installing it and how to uninstall it in the event of a potential conflict with other files (ex. someone had a nice textures pack on baseq3 that override some files on baseq3 and once you put new files on fs_game it overrode those of the texture pack getting it back to "stock" or just other values, furthermore the fs_game files only overrode the shaders and the textures depended on a third baseq3 pak that wasn't downloaded as it was external to the map leading to broken textures on the client once in game). that's the kind of stuff I was talking about on my previous answer and ultimately why even on custom engines nobody should ever allow downloads on their clients at any single time and why my servers won't ever make them available either.

[fau]

exclusive right of the client to exactly control and know at all times precisely what they are installing

This is why we have a popup asking about each file before downloading it like this: https://jk2mv.org/wp-content/uploads/20 ... ttp_dl.mp4

I don't know why "nobody should ever allow downloads on their clients". Almost everyone does over there and it's controllable and secure. Ofc there are asset conflicts or broken assets out there but you can get them from internet as well. I've got auto downloads on in q3 and sometimes some silly paks get downloaded and I just remove them. It's less work than googling for each map manually. I don't hop between servers very often anyway.

Anyway, it doesn't matter if all maps are in the pack.

PS And if overkill killed activity then I have no comments, we're stuck with these maps

[fau]

Well, I have to admit we've made some more changes to make it controllable. auto-downloaded pk3s have dl_ prefix and they get loaded only if the file is referenced by the server

[imprecise]

@Fau unfortunately the main problem is that many players do not want to play on maps other than those of Unfreeze and Freefun

We have been several to promote and play on Glacius several times and unfortunately the majority of players have not made the effort to join Glacius, apparently they do not want to learn new maps ...

[adminless]

look fau I don't mean to be rude with you but I think I made my stance on this very very clear already and keep discussing this any further seems like a waste of time on both ends. for the rest I think that once again you're answering yourself "why "nobody should ever allow downloads on their clients"" because "Ofc there are asset conflicts or broken assets out there but you can get them from internet as well (sure, but you know what broke your game right away, you don't have to waste your time later looking up for them among hundreds of assets and that's even if you know where they are because sure you know that too, as well as me, but the average player you're targeting with the auto-downloads does not). I've got auto downloads on in q3 and sometimes some silly paks get downloaded and I just remove them (again this does not stand true for the average player as a typical request on any random q3 server is, hey I just connected to X server and now my hud is "fucked up" [it just changed] someone know how to uninstall the X server paks?). It's less work than googling for each map manually (really? is less work going through all that mess on both ends than downloading yourself a tested, well proven and verified complete package?).". and in addition "auto-downloaded pk3s have dl_ prefix and they get loaded only if the file is referenced by the server (aka true server full pure mode)" which takes away from the players the freedom to run their own legit paks and/or custom mods and pisses everyone off. honestly, at this point I think that you, yourself, have made it very precisely clear why the whole auto-download thing is so so bad and why I will never run it and why nobody should.

[adminless]

ok, now on-topic again about this new spacius server report that I finally decided to add now q3tourney3 to the rotation too in a effort to bring a bit more variety and balance to it. q3tourney3 (hell's gate) is unquestionably one of the favs at UnFreeZe but unfortunately due the size of the games that typically go at the main servers there's people who have wanted to play it at peak times over the years but couldn't because of that. I think that this is a very good opportunity to finally give this map some more playtime. in addition, although unfortunately it's not a space map, nevertheless, it's still a small map mostly rail dominant which should lead to about the same kind of fast and direct games as the rest of the current rotation. I think it should fit just fine for the overall spacius setting. ok and with this I think this should finish spacius at least by now, as I said, if on the future it starts to show signs of exhaustion we can get glacius back or just try anything else. by now I think this should go at least for some months as I don't see many other opportunities for this server. as I explained ctf4 is much better played at ctf than on UnFreeZe and I don't really think there's much people interested in play dm19 outside of the single player and/or probably any of the other unused maps either.

[Dr.GreenThumb]

That's a great addition, thanks! ...and while not "spacey", there is a deep fall so it's not completely irrelevant.

So far the server has been super fun

[imprecise]

thanks for adding Hell's Gate q3tourney3, it's a very good map, I like it, it will hopefully allow me to play it more often

[imprecise]

Hi Adminless

What a pity that you removed the dm18 map from the rotation of Spacius

I know this is not the most popular space map, and that many of us have fallen into the void over and over again on this map, but despite everything I find that it had its place in the rotation and I was taking pleasure to play it

and it is by playing it that we learn to master it better and to fall less into the void ...

[adminless]

I didn't, I just made it that it only load (at random btw) when there's at least 6 players as for less players it was found to be kinda boring and bellow the spacius standard (slow). unfortunately that means that you won't see it that often but as the server continues to progress, hopefully, you'll see it more frequently. if I see that such condition never (or hardly ever) meets then I may consider adjusting it for four players for example, we'll see.

[imprecise]

Ok now I understand why I didn't see her anymore last night, 6 players minimum on this map seems to me to be a good choice

thank you Adminless and apologies for wrongly accusing you of deleting the dm18 map

[adminless]

yes. q3dm18 is probably not very fun bellow six players. on that same line I also increased the minimum number of players for q3dm16 to four (all human) as it doesn't probably play very good for the bots (i.e. slow). to make up for that (loss at low loads) I also dropped q3dm1 now at the server for up to six players. this will probably break up a bit the space theme but well at least it should give it a boost to get it started by now. anyways, as I see it here, it seems to be doing reasonably good so far. of course some days is more busy than others (just like any service) but overall it's hitting its intended target of fun 6/8 players games here and there at peak times on a daily basis and it's already making around 50 different players a day as we speak. seems good enough to me and clearly a massive improvement over glacius that pretty much nobody even bothered to connect to.

[adminless]

the current situation as the night of halloween on spacius is dramatic. it looks like the changes here acutally ended up doing it way beyond expectation so as a emergency contingency meassure for this situation I think I'll break the standard now and I'll give all four space maps when server full (currently the standard only called for dm18 when server full) and probably I'll analyze metrics in the following days looking forward increase the slots and probably bring q3dm10 or something else for top loads. we'll see unfortunately at the time of writting I can't come up with anything better (btw just on a side note compare this now with good elitist fashioned glacius, I mean, what a total joke).

[adminless]

ok done, just increased the number of slots on spcaius to 16 and dropped q3dm9 and q3dm10 there for "high" loads (i.e. +10 players) now live. I believe this should now accomodate any potential load spike that may take place at spacius. this will break the spacius theme again, now on high loads, but I can't come up with any other better solution in five minutes at 1 in the morning from a backup micro laptop away from home. I'll try to look for better options (though I don't really see much margin here) but in the mean time this should subsanate this extremly serious situation. ok, I'm very sorry for the guys that tried to join spacius but they couldn't today, nothing else by now so as usual just let me know how you see these changes or if there's any more issues.

[...jutuli...]

I was surprised a lot, yesterday night, by Spacius occupancy - a big fun on space maps with many players there. Good idea to add some maps and slots, love dm9. It seems some players (including me) need some short time change, from time to time, from srv 1+2 routine. Thanks for keeping us busy
.