Semi-official map status and semi-official art asset status
Soylent_green
Join Date: 2002-12-20 Member: 11220Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2002-12-20 Member: 11220Members, Reinforced - Shadow
<div class="IPBDescription">Use the DLC feature.</div>There will no doubt be some maps made by the player base that reach official status. There will also no doubt be a tonne of maps that never reach official status, ~90% of which will be crap. The remainder will be decent maps that either aren't seeking offical status for some reason(e.g. very non-standard gameplay or layout, like siege maps for NS1) or aren't quite as balanced or pretty as official maps.
In the same way there will be textures and models that mappers want to share with each other; 90% of those will be crap as well.
Downloading from servers is often slow, sometimes even if the game server points to a dedicated download server where the game can download the files from.
What you could do with these maps and these art assets is to lump them into a collections and push 'em out over steam as optional DLCs every 6 months or so until NS2 is no longer current(i.e. you're all working on something new and the support given for NS2 is patches incase of serious bugs).
The quality control required for maps is not anywhere near as arduous as for official NS2 maps. All you need to do is observe which custom maps appear to be popular in the wild and aren't outrageously awful in either performance or graphics.
I'm not sure how your contract with Valve is set up; it is perhaps not possible for you to make freely downloadable DLCs.
In the same way there will be textures and models that mappers want to share with each other; 90% of those will be crap as well.
Downloading from servers is often slow, sometimes even if the game server points to a dedicated download server where the game can download the files from.
What you could do with these maps and these art assets is to lump them into a collections and push 'em out over steam as optional DLCs every 6 months or so until NS2 is no longer current(i.e. you're all working on something new and the support given for NS2 is patches incase of serious bugs).
The quality control required for maps is not anywhere near as arduous as for official NS2 maps. All you need to do is observe which custom maps appear to be popular in the wild and aren't outrageously awful in either performance or graphics.
I'm not sure how your contract with Valve is set up; it is perhaps not possible for you to make freely downloadable DLCs.
Comments
What?
Don't play coy. You know as well as I do that siege maps infest a lot of custom map servers, so obviously someone enjoys playing them.
In this context it certainly does. A game is an entertainment product; if a map is decent at entertaining a subset of the NS2 playing population it is decent, QED. It's not official support by the developers and does not need to conform to their vision of what the game should be.
Show on this doll where the bad siege map touched you;
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1--> /\\\\
|. .|
\_-_/
/` `\
/_| |_\
\_\___/_/
| |
| | |
|_|_|
(__/__)<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
BACK ON TOPIC.
Yes, the devs have stated that they would like to buy up high quality maps/mods and push them out. They did that in NS1 as well.
Using "free" DLC to download map packs instead of waiting for the server to stream it to your system sounds like an excellent idea.
Anyone who answers "yes", please see me after class.
Anyone who answers "yes", please see me after class.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A siege map is nothing more then a giant NS map that focuses on predominantly high-level lifeform battle and is appealing to people, because in a standard NS map there is NEVER enough res to equip the whole team like a good siege map can only provide.
The bottom line is a siege map = less penalizing if you die with full equipment = more fun because more equipment is readily available in marine start. And it allows the com enough res to experiment with, so it's kind of like the ideal stress-free way to play NS. CO is similar to this, but no commander and no building... just the free equipment/high-level-lifeform battles.
=====
I can't imagine why anyone would only want to play PURE NS, when they can play siege or CO. Pure NS = siege map with little res = everyone running around with lmgs vs FADES, and 1-guy with the aimbot that gets a shotgun. O and no jp or heavy, 99% of the time vs super cheap fades that can wipe out your entire team at any moment.
Except Barlow's
Let me ######-slap you in the logic: DLC map packs are an awful idea. Because a significant number of people won't pay for it. Meaning most servers won't run the new maps because to do so would decimate player counts - it changes from one map to a DLC map and takes 60% of the server with it. Then the people who were dumb enough to buy the maps never get to play them, and the next map pack comes out and they go 'why the hell would I waste my money on these maps when I don't even get to play the ones I already have?'
This has happened in every game that has featured DLC maps - even COD4/4.5/5, when a DLC map comes up, it gets voted out of the rotation instantly because most people haven't bought it - and won't, because they get voted out of the rotation instantly.
And I think it's a good idea, however working out what to host and updating it would require quite a lot of admin which I don't think UWE has the time for so unless a community member they can keep an eye on / trust is going to volunteer to do the work for free / on the cheap. I don't see it happening.
And I think it's a good idea, however working out what to host and updating it would require quite a lot of admin which I don't think UWE has the time for so <u>unless a community member they can keep an eye on / trust is going to volunteer to do the work</u> for free / on the cheap. I don't see it happening.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I personally don't see what is wrong with the old fashioned way where every custom server takes care of choosing what maps it wants to run, and then providing them as downloads to any client that needs them.
All this talk about an "official-collection-O-trusted-custom-maps" feels like nothing more then the "vanilla-only" players trying to secure all CUSTOM servers with sv_pure = 1. At the very least it will give rise to many cookie-cutter custom servers running identical map rotations.