BetaMapFest at }MG{

[tuple]

BetaMapFest at the }MG{ Mercenaries Guild Server
 
Starts Saturday, August 26th at Midnight CST and will run for 24 hours!
 
Please take note - Recent Change to planned Map Rotation
 
Battlezone_b2 has been replaced by Battlezone_final  !!
Update your maps!
 
The planned map rotation is:
 
  marsbase
  UTCSb2
  dark
  derelictb-beta03
  gloom2beta2
  gloom3t
  meepb2
  powergrid_b25
  highrise1
  battlezone_final
  gloom_b1
  procyon-preview1
  pulse-beta3
 
Please Note: this includes the Highrise map which is NOT listed in the download section on tremulous.info, but instead in the articles section http://tremulous.info/index.php?module=news&action=comment&id=159
 
Suggestions as to order of rotation are encouraged.  I don't want 4 really small maps followed by 4 super huge maps
That just gets painful.
 
 
For a couple weeks now, I've been wanting to do a BetaMapFest, where the MG server goes into an all beta map rotation. NO default maps! I have a couple of reasons for wanting to do this:
 
1. To get everyone out of the patterns that we all get into when playing the standard maps. We all think of our own special places to attack, or build bases, etc. Many times I've noticed that people get stuck in habits, not experimenting like they should, myself included. Trying different maps will get you to look at things from a different perspective. It will help to get us to play on the fly, as opposed to playing to a maps strengths and weaknesses.
 
2. To get everyone trying out these maps, and familiar with them! The more people that try them out, the more problems will be located and cleaned up before they go into standard release. Some of these maps you may never see in common rotation on the popular servers, but some will in one form or another. Who better to test these maps out than the devoted fans of tremulous?
 
3. New maps are challenging. I can run around the walls of Niveus very quickly with great precision cause I know em like the back of my hand! Not true of the beta maps, I'll bet the same is true of you.
 
4. Because they are FUN! If you like atcs, you will love UTCSb2! marsbase is huge, and looks like a great battleground. And the marsbase colors are different from any map I've seen, it's a nice change. If you haven't tried pulse, you really should. It is as unique as marsbase, and might be equally as large if not larger, and the video/button room is very cool, as are the double level elevators!
 
Granted, the #dbderelict server has most, if not all of these maps in rotation, and other servers have a beta map or two (or more) in rotation, but my ping to those servers is not so good, and I'll bet that the same is true of other tremulous fans.  It's fun to check out the maps, but serious gameplay is difficult.
 
You can play these maps and more on the }MG{ Clan server right now by voting for them. BUT, anyone who does not already have them downloaded will have to wait for the autodownload! It's painfully slow, and it's usually faster to disconnect and get the map yourself.  WARNING: If there are 12 connected uses during betamapfest and, say, 10 are downloading maps, I reserve the right to discontinue autodownload for the day!
 
Where can you get these great maps? In the downloads section of http://tremulous.info
Some are pretty big, so get them ahead of time!  
 
Also, some inteligent tremulous fans have created tools and scripts to automatically download most, if not all of these maps, information on these tools can also be found at http://htp://tremulous.info and right here on tremulous.net.  

 
For Linux, go to http://tremulous.info/index.php?module=feature&action=show&id=14
For Windows. go to http://tremulous.info/index.php?module=download&action=show&id=28
 
If you ever go to MercenariesGuild.net, you may find that I have been blathering on about this for quite some time  As a result, there are a number of members and server regulars who have been anticipating this.  we reserve the right to save slots for them IF necessary.  I'll push the bandwidth a bit first though.

All members of }MG{ are admins on the server, so there will be admin presence for most of the day I expect (I gotta sleep )


HAVE FUN!

[[db@]Megabite]

This is great! I would love to see a permanent american based beta server, but this is still good news.

If you have any comments on my own map, please put them here: http://www.tremulous.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=5376

Danny

[vcxzet]

please add my beautiful map
http://tremulous.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1763

[tuple]

vcxzet, I've placed your map on the server, haven't had a chance to look at it though.  It should be available to be voted on, and if (fingers crossed) I do this again it will most likely be included.  It starts less than 24 hours from now though, so I'm trying to keep the rotation frozen at this point. (I'm a little nervous my configs will have errors, even though I've tested )

I agree Megabite!  If this is successful, I'd like to schedule it weekly, or for 4-6 hours on certain days.  Or maybe from 1am till 6am nightly.  Just have to see how it goes.

[KorJax]

No offense to the creator, but does Dark have to be on there?  The hallways are overly large, the bases suck, and its a very human-friendly map  :-?

[vcxzet]

No offense to the creator, but does Dark have to be on there?  The hallways are overly large, the bases suck, and its a very human-friendly map  :-?

eh? not really

[Vector_Matt]

Beta map fest!!! YAY!!!

I can hardly wait to play, see you Saturday.

Edit: Oh, no! The controls are getting delayed responses on your serve. My ping was about 100 which shouldn't be high enough to get the lag I was experiencing. :-? Looks like I may not be able to go to that map fest after all, it is a good idea though.

[Mikiupdown2]

I'll play once I download all the maps. Had to reformat last night. Holy hand grenades, I beta start downloadin!

[Basilisco]

marsbase - you'll have people complaining about lag and low fps.
highrise1 - alpha map..

The rest is fine

[tuple]

Basilisco:
alpha alpha, yeah I know  :oops: Still wanted to include it though, any little bit can help the mappers and while it is very rough, I do want to see how it plays

Marsbase may be laggy, I've played a little 2v2 on it and it was fun, not laggy at all (2v2 though), It' s running on a fast machine so I'm hoping that will help smooth out some of the rough edges, though I can't help the client machines  :wink:

KorJax:
Human friendly is the first thing I thought of when I flew through dark so I can definitely see your point.  Still, I'm curious and I suspect others are as well.  I'll get my alien *ss kicked to check out a new map O.o  I'm curious if an alien team that manages to survive to s3 and keep the humans from cleaning up (must be a good team) can rule the big hallways.

In any event, it should be fun

[Jaradcel]

RAWR!!

Then make it so I can actually log in to the MG server Low ping only servers make my engy cry

/paws for new maps

[tuple]

The ping limit right now is set to 220.  How can you play with more?  Even that seems high to me.

It goes well, and seems to be a success so far.  I've been making quick notes using the handy dandy zim desktop wiki    which I love.  What I've noted so far (not in order of importance):

Pulse:
OM can be built in water tank - Not sure how, jtm2000 (I think it was) wouldn't tell me how he did it, but I got screen prints.

Battlezone:
Reactor hits through floor - Default human base reactor can be hit by a goon through the floor
Many of us got this error in the console, though we saw nothing else
ERROR: A particle system has not been registered yet

Gloom B1:
Cube of sky visible - not sure if it matters, but I'm trying to note anything
I also have screenprints of a door that opens and shows a little weird.  Really just asthetic things that I'm not really sure matter all that much.

[[db@]Megabite]

I've just been to the server with my european 150ies pings. Well, atmosphere is very nice!

Give it a try, american players!

Danny

[Howitzer]

Hehe, i have 150ping too
Although i'll try to spectate and moderate in order to be a -bit- useful

[Odin]

Battlezone:
Reactor hits through floor - Default human base reactor can be hit by a goon through the floor
Many of us got this error in the console, though we saw nothing else
ERROR: A particle system has not been registered yet

Do you not have niveus or something? It uses a particle system from that map, but that's the only one it uses one from. All others are directly in the map.
When I map, I only use resources from the default maps, or I implement them in the map itself, to prevent these kinds of things. EDIT: It may be possible that the server does not have this map installed.
Next time, if you get this error, check if all the places that have particle systems are actually there. Here is a list:

• On top of the smoke stacks on both bases, there should be smoke appearing to come out of them.
• The busted wall in the middle hallway(inside, ground level) that allows access to the broken ramp up to the outside has four particle systems that create smoke. If there is no smoke in the hole, then there is a problem.
• The broken pillar in the middle hallway(inside, ground level) has smoke coming out of the broken pipe going through it. If not, there is your problem.
• The broken door on the alien side of the hallway has a particle system in the top corner behind the crates.

I'll have to see the reactor sniping thing for myself, as I've never seen this occur in Tremulous before. Nor did it seem possible. First of all, buildings cannot be built inside of solid brushes, and in fact, the reactor spawns a little bit above the floor in the air and is automatically dropped down to the correct level when you start the map, same with every other building. Second of all, Goon Spines' damage effect cannot/doesn't travel through solid brushes(o my knowledge). If they could people would have been exploiting this for a while now.

If, in fact, you can actually hit the reactor through the floor with a Goon Spine, and the particle problem is in fact not caused by missing resources, then I will release a "Final 1.1" version which have fixes/workarounds to these problems.

EDIT: I will actually fix the particle problem by adding it to the battlezone_final.particle file so that there are no dependency problems there. Expect 1.1 soon, after I investigate the Reactor thing.

EDIT2: By the way, it is nice to see that the alien team is getting to S3 and is actually able to lay siege to the Human base in this version. In b2, the Humans seemed to have the upper hand. I must have fixed that problem.

EDIT3: Ok, I'm recompiling the map with the fixes. It turns out that the surface between the Goon's attack and the reactor was too thin, and the Goon's attack range exceeds that, allowing it to not only snipe the reactor, but to pounce/attack it as well.

[tuple]

Humans at this server have had a nasty habit of trying to take the upper middle section in the first minutes of the game on battlezone.  2 dretches against 2 engineers, not very fair

I did not strictly see the reactor getting sniped ( I had moved alien base into the upper middle section and was building furiusly )  I did pause, write it down, ask if it were true, 2 other players said it was.  I suspect it may have been a goon swipe as opposed to a snipe (sorry, I was putting it down pretty quickly).

Niveus is installed on the server.  However, I did not run the installer, so maybe the map is looking for a full path as opposed to a relative path?  I'll check next time I open the map for which effect is missing though.

[Odin]

Niveus is installed on the server.  However, I did not run the installer, so maybe the map is looking for a full path as opposed to a relative path?  I'll check next time I open the map for which effect is missing though.

No, Quake mapping doesn't work like that. I actually figured out the problem.
You see, the resource for the particle system was actually contained in the Beta 2 version. So every time someone looked at the particle system, it couldn't load it because Beta 2 was not on the server. I fixed it so it looks for the correct particle system.

[Jaradcel]

The ping limit right now is set to 220.  How can you play with more?  Even that seems high to me.

It goes well, and seems to be a success so far.  I've been making quick notes using the handy dandy zim desktop wiki    which I love.  What I've noted so far (not in order of importance):

Pulse:
OM can be built in water tank - Not sure how, jtm2000 (I think it was) wouldn't tell me how he did it, but I got screen prints.

Battlezone:
Reactor hits through floor - Default human base reactor can be hit by a goon through the floor
Many of us got this error in the console, though we saw nothing else
ERROR: A particle system has not been registered yet

Gloom B1:
Cube of sky visible - not sure if it matters, but I'm trying to note anything
I also have screenprints of a door that opens and shows a little weird.  Really just asthetic things that I'm not really sure matter all that much.

Meh, sorry tuple, I play from Asia, so my pings are usually around 280 to 300+++

Which is why I'm the ENGY