Fu, now that I seem to have seen you playing a bit more recently, have you considered doing a custom map night like you used to do? It doesn't have to be totally custom, maybe every second or third map is a custom..... but post a list up on the forum of the maps that will be available to choose from (which I appreciate will take time to sort out what maps are suitable) I have always enjoyed Twilight for the manic change of pace (Nightfever seemed to be a bit like that as well) and I did enjoy playing Kismayo for the first time in ages last night despite having a crap score lol Another map I enjoyed, but it can turn into a bit of a sniper battle was ad_egon_world Stu - what is this 'teams' talk you mention?????
The problem with custom map nights is that until we play the maps with a full/near full server we dont really know if they are suitable. There is nothing worse than selecting a map, having all the players download it, only to then poo poo it before the end of the warmup round and having to switch map again, no one wants to spend an evening looking at a download progress bar. So if I did start custom night I would probably post up a map pack for players to download ahead of time. I think I will just start to introduce some customs here and there and see how they go with a view to running two profiles, one leaning more towards the standard maps and one with a few customs thrown in, then we can switch between the profiles once a month or fortnight to keep things from going stale. We still have a few issues thrown up by the Orange Box updates that need to be sorted as they are making it harder to manage maps, as well as other things like AFK management. I am hoping to put some time in this week to fix or find a way round some of these bugs and, as has always been the case, I have to do everything through MPUK so it may take longer than we would like. I am still open to suggestions on custom maps as there are so many to choose from on the server, it would be handy to go directly to ones that people already know to be good for a 32 slot public server.
I understand exactly where you are coming from there Fu and I appreciate the hassle involved in finding decent maps as I am sure the majority of people do - A map pack is certainly the best way to manage it assuming there is somewhere to host it If I can find time I am happy to have a browse through some of the maps that are available on the server (will get the maplist and pull them down from FPSBanana if I think they might be possibles) - feel free to give me a shout via Steam friends if I can help in any way I have played a few custom maps that I enjoy but I know fine well they are only good for small numbers of players and good teamwork (such as Meridian which is a hostage map on a small yacht) so I won't suggest them lol
So, what happened to these new maps and trying more customs? The server got a bunch more admins, and I've noticed Stu putting on a few lesser played maps and it's been good (we had a good Dust game the other week) but I thought the idea was for this to be a regular thing - not once every couple of months - which it hasn't been. Just the same old maps over and over again. I haven't admined a server for a long time, and wasn't particularly involved in the map cycle side but really how hard is it to introduce some different maps or fiddle with the cycle a wee bit? Personally, I advocate the bringing back of Dust, Nightfever, Tides and Militia. I wouldn't mind seeing Compound come back, and Assault, but appreciate that they can be server emptiers. Getting rid of Havana and Prodigy would be a cost worth paying imo. And of course it's not going to please everyone but everyone likes a bit of variety now and then...
Was going to swap out twilight for Nightfever just now in order to freshen it up slightly and tides was swapped in for havana last week. That's not to say havana won't be seen again at some point. I did think about all the customs that at one time or another have graced the cycle and together they could make their own list suitable for a decent custom session sometime, I listed : de_deltamill de_middleages (I think) de_rush css_galleria ad_egon_world de_losttemple_pro de_dust_pcg de_nightfever cs_kismayo de_contra de_courthouse_final There may be a couple more that escape me, I'm sure you'd all be quick to point them out. The whole custom thing was put on the back burner due to the server being constantly shagged by the numerous updates we've had in the past couple of months. I don't think everyone is aware of how much time fu spends fighting mpuk to ensure you get a game of any reasonable description, let alone worrying about the most popular maps.
For me, real life and GT5 have got in the way to a certain degree, not to mention that everytime I get the plugins updated and stable enough to do things automated, Valve release another OB update that breaks everything. All the latest versions of the plugins will be uploaded to MPUK and installed hopefully by the weekend, then we can hopefully get things moving again. I really want to try and get this team balancer working as well as having the different mapcycles, as Dutch mentioned in the other thread, maybe reduce the map time so more maps get played in an evening.
I would like to see a mapcycle with three or four custom slots, and the customs rotated once a week or so, oldest one removed, newer ones moved around in the cycle a bit, and a new one added. Back that up with changing the start map once a month or so to stop the same maps being played at the same time every night indefinately. It would be a relatively large amount of work to maintain compared to other mapcycles, but I doubt it would be more than a few minutes once a week, but I don;t know how clanforge handles editing the mapcycle. I'd be willing to do it. We could also have a night dedicated to customs once a month or so, to try and pick out some decent customs to add to the selection, and try out any suggestions. It may be too complicated or confusing for some, like the change from cs_kismayo to de_kismayo, but I think it would be an improvement. The teambalancer would also be a large improvement in my opinion. If it's anywhere near as effective as the last one it should make some of the more extreme maps a bit more playable.
So I made a few changes to the mapcycle, port and chateau out and a couple of decent customs in, and moving a couple of other maps around. Let me know what you think of it. Theres a couple of other maps I have in mind to try at some point and if they are good then they might make an appearance in the cycle in a little while.
