Digital Paint Discussion Board
Paintball 2: The Game => Paintball 2 Discussion => Topic started by: m7feettall on June 26, 2010, 07:43:02 PM
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Myers has raised the age-old question of the default hi-res texture pack in the (latest) future of dp thread. Certainly a new texture pack would make the game more visually appealing.
But apart from textures, I think DP in it's decade-plus lifespan may have reached the point that it just has too many maps. And some of them are not very great, and not very pretty.
The map-making community has been a strength over time. And I think that we have reached a point of more precision in the maps that have come out lately. The maps now make things look better and play faster, with more emphasis on speed and jumps.
But the huge number and variety of maps is not necessarily good, at least in my mind. And it grows all the time.
One of the reasons that I am not wanting to get back into the clan scene (apart from the fact that I cannot aim and get capped on) is that it takes time to learn all the maps necessary to play at an adequate level.
Even taking a break from DP for six months and then coming back meant I had to learn a number of new maps just to consider matching. And for someone just joining the community it is an even more daunting task. The game has a big learning curve to start with, but to match you have to learn all of the jumps, and all of the lining spots for all of the maps.
Many of the most popular maps, often older ones that have stood the test of time, play well but do not look good.
Could both aesthetics and map issues be solved by a re-boot of sorts?
What if the community settled on 30 maps that encapsulate everything they love about dp, and re-did them to look and play better?
They wouldn't just have to incorporate better grass and stone and plywood textures, but why not change the basic look of dp to be more modern?
The current dirt, grass, wood and stone backyard warrior motif comes from actual paintball. But actual paintball isn't what this game is about. It is about fast paced, jump oriented, one-shot-one-kill gameplay. And if you could really play paintball anywhere, in any kind of arena, and jump as high as you wanted without killing yourself, without worrying about real-word problems such as cost, would you make it somewhere as ugly as some of the dp maps?
The engine that dp uses is just not designed for lots of fine detail and organic matter. Trees have almost always been hideous beyond belief in dp, and plants are usually not much better.
So why put those things in? Why not make it more about large spaces with fast jumps and more modern textures?
What if dp did not look visually terrible? What if everyone could focus on learning a core of decent looking, decent playing maps? What if two issues could be solved at once?
What if the more skilled mappers of today were to build on the proven ideas of yesterday to create a new core of maps that would be played most of the time. (You could still have some classic servers, the engine wouldn't change)
I imagine some would get bored by the same maps all the time. But it is the people that add challenge and variety, not so much the map. And everyone gets bored of a particular game at some point.
We could have a decent looking game and competition might be benefited by having a set of maps that everyone learns and knows well.
Maps are one of the things that can be customized by the community. For a lot of features Jits needs to be involved. But to re-boot the maps he doesn't have to be. He could certainly get on board if he wanted to though. And with the faster downloading of today a default texture pack is less important.
To get server operators on board perhaps a whole new re-launch campaign could be designed. The site could be updated a bit on the aesthetics, the name could be changed slightly, either dp3 or some new twist, and some buzz could be generated.
It would give new players an excuse to check it out.
So what are your thoughts? Don't hold back. Not that holding back is usually an issue for this crowd.
And Jits, what do you think? You have said before in the past that there are some maps that should not be played and should not be on servers.
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The two in the name is not a version. It's because the game is based on the quake 2 engine, i think.
Everything else is old. Here are some links:
http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/feature.php?id=10107
http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/feature.php?id=10019
http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/feature.php?id=10099
http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/feature.php?id=10080
http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/feature.php?id=10136
http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/feature.php?id=10124
http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/feature.php?id=10201
http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/feature.php?id=10145
http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/feature.php?id=10148
http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/feature.php?id=10202
and all of this:
http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/index.php?type%5B%5D=2&status%5B%5D=0&category%5B%5D=5&category%5B%5D=4&category%5B%5D=7&category%5B%5D=1&category%5B%5D=10&category%5B%5D=2&category%5B%5D=9&category%5B%5D=6&category%5B%5D=8&category%5B%5D=3&summary= (http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/index.php?type%5B%5D=2&status%5B%5D=0&category%5B%5D=5&category%5B%5D=4&category%5B%5D=7&category%5B%5D=1&category%5B%5D=10&category%5B%5D=2&category%5B%5D=9&category%5B%5D=6&category%5B%5D=8&category%5B%5D=3&summary=)
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The two in the name is not a version. It's because the game is based on the quake 2 engine, i think.
Everything else is old. Here are some links:
http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/feature.php?id=10107
http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/feature.php?id=10019
http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/feature.php?id=10099
http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/feature.php?id=10080
http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/feature.php?id=10136
http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/feature.php?id=10124
http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/feature.php?id=10201
http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/feature.php?id=10145
http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/feature.php?id=10148
http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/feature.php?id=10202
and all of this:
http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/index.php?type%5B%5D=2&status%5B%5D=0&category%5B%5D=5&category%5B%5D=4&category%5B%5D=7&category%5B%5D=1&category%5B%5D=10&category%5B%5D=2&category%5B%5D=9&category%5B%5D=6&category%5B%5D=8&category%5B%5D=3&summary= (http://dplogin.com/dplogin/featurevote/index.php?type%5B%5D=2&status%5B%5D=0&category%5B%5D=5&category%5B%5D=4&category%5B%5D=7&category%5B%5D=1&category%5B%5D=10&category%5B%5D=2&category%5B%5D=9&category%5B%5D=6&category%5B%5D=8&category%5B%5D=3&summary=)
I am not suggesting most of the things you just posted, other than the textures, which I mentioned being an age-old question.
Those that you posted are all about engine changes, etc.
The map requirements for new maps is closer to my idea. But I am not suggesting requirement for new maps but tanking the old maps and re-starting with higher quality ones based on the CURRENT engine and abilities. A new visual theme would be called for.
The current engine is not capable of a lot of things. But it is still fun. It still works for the game. I don't think we need most of the things in your list of feature votes, though they wouldn't hurt. But they take work from Jits, or a fundamental change in the way updates are done, and his time is a limited commodity.
The current texture theme is based around things that are ugly even if you do get a good image of them for a texture. Plywood and dirt are not likely to look good even if they are more realistic.
And the outdoor thing would be fine but the engine cannot handle it. So why put so much dirt and grass?
I am just suggesting that we keep the engine but redo the aethetics AND trim out a bunch of maps.
As to the name, I wasn't aware of that. Thanks.
In that case dp 3 would not make sense, but a new name that incorporates the dp idea would be helpful to a re-launch.
On a related note I was just in the CC pub and the first two maps that came up were palmtree and ecclissi.
Those are two hideous looking maps. If those were the first two dp maps a player ever saw what would they think?
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I have thought recently about a similar idea to this. This is basically it:
- Stop releasing alpha builds for a few months
- Concentrate on one build with major updates:
- Change and update the map format so more can be accomplished in maps
- Upgrade renderer likewise - this may remove support for super old cards, but 2002+ cards should be fine - make it scalable
- High res texture pack
- Work on open sourcing the gamecode for more active development. The anti-cheat component would not be immediately required with the new protocol and map format.
- Change the version either to Beta instead of alpha or Paintball 2.1 or 2.5 or something.
Not sure just maps+textures would be enough.
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- Stop releasing alpha builds for a few months
Lol, that sounds like we have a new build each month...
Thats a good, short list with enough work for a few years.
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I have thought recently about a similar idea to this. This is basically it:
- Stop releasing alpha builds for a few months
- Concentrate on one build with major updates:
- Change and update the map format so more can be accomplished in maps
- Upgrade renderer likewise - this may remove support for super old cards, but 2002+ cards should be fine - make it scalable
- High res texture pack
- Work on open sourcing the gamecode for more active development. The anti-cheat component would not be immediately required with the new protocol and map format.
- Change the version either to Beta instead of alpha or Paintball 2.1 or 2.5 or something.
Not sure just maps+textures would be enough.
Enough for what? To make it look decent? Maybe not. But it would certainly be an improvement. There are some maps that are not horrible out there now.
You probably have a lot better idea that I do of what your list would take. But that sounds like a lot for Jits to do. And up until now at least Jits is the one doing the major work, and has not seen fit to open up all the source, at least from what I understand. So how would the list get done?
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Enough for what? To make it look decent? Maybe not. But it would certainly be an improvement. There are some maps that are not horrible out there now.
You probably have a lot better idea that I do of what your list would take. But that sounds like a lot for Jits to do. And up until now at least Jits is the one doing the major work, and has not seen fit to open up all the source, at least from what I understand. So how would the list get done?
Most of the people play quake with awful picmip settings (makes the textures one color) and it looks very awful. What I mean by this is that the good looks is not vital.
Redoing the maps? Impossible. Most of the most played maps are made by fellows who are long gone. And I do not think that you can just release map after map which is based on an old map :/. Dunno, doesn't feel right.
I agree about there being too many maps. And some clans use maps what are unbalanced (one route dominates rest of the map [that snowy map by the dude who made prolandr is the best example]) to get an edge in a match. Just does not feel right.
DP has like what 1000 maps? More? I think it is impossible to select 30 out of those. I think many of those maps are never played. Most rarely. And few special maps get played every day.
Maybe tournament organizers could change something here. They can create their own maplists (as good and fair as possible), which makes the clans play those maps in regular matches as well. Of course there are tournaments atm, but I think most clans are ignorant and care about their stupid record more than playing in tournaments.
Most important, imo, is that you can not just concentrate on the pubscene and newbies. You have to keep the old player base intrigued. If the matching scene dies, then have fun with your pubstars, who come and go, but never stay.
And m7, Vic is developing dp:pb2 too, not only jits :)
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Most of the people play quake with awful picmip settings (makes the textures one color) and it looks very awful. What I mean by this is that the good looks is not vital.
Redoing the maps? Impossible. Most of the most played maps are made by fellows who are long gone. And I do not think that you can just release map after map which is based on an old map :/. Dunno, doesn't feel right.
I agree about there being too many maps. And some clans use maps what are unbalanced (one route dominates rest of the map [that snowy map by the dude who made prolandr is the best example]) to get an edge in a match. Just does not feel right.
DP has like what 1000 maps? More? I think it is impossible to select 30 out of those. I think many of those maps are never played. Most rarely. And few special maps get played every day.
Maybe tournament organizers could change something here. They can create their own maplists (as good and fair as possible), which makes the clans play those maps in regular matches as well. Of course there are tournaments atm, but I think most clans are ignorant and care about their stupid record more than playing in tournaments.
Most important, imo, is that you can not just concentrate on the pubscene and newbies. You have to keep the old player base intrigued. If the matching scene dies, then have fun with your pubstars, who come and go, but never stay.
And m7, Vic is developing dp:pb2 too, not only jits :)
I don't see the issue with re-designing old maps. They could get credit for the idea.
On the too many maps issue, that would be for the competitive scene too. A set number of quality maps would reduce the time to select tie maps, would allow folks to hone their skills to a greater degree on less maps, etc.
It would help noobs not to have to learn them. But helping noobs does help the clan scene. If you don't ever get noobs to stay you do not get future clan members.
Has Vic been given the source, or is he only allowed to develop to a point?
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Has any of the old players stopped playing pb2 because of it looks? Don't think so.
Source code for b26 is to be downloaded from Files/Downloads section (http://downloads.sourceforge.net/paintball2/paintball20_alpha026_src_20090227.zip).
Helping the newbies out? darn, tried that 3 years ago, can't name one newbie that stayed. They don't even know how to use chat in game. They do not communicate. And those who do, they find a way to get more info, be it coming to forums or asking others in game.
Making the game look better? Okay, standardize HR4 textures, I'm all for it. Remaking maps is different thing though. I do like the way shazam22 look. Old players do not care about the graphics, at least most of them, while newbies depend on pub servers. You can make awesome maps, you can't make server hosters put them into rotation.
I wouldn't do anything for the newbies. I'd concentrate on implementing crucial things for players that are around for long enough to show they have still some interest in this game. By that I mean interpolated hitboxes, better cheat detection, NOT allowing to release crappy maps that are played by some Czechs.
What made you all people not stop playing this game after several days or weeks? It certainly weren't looks or sounds. It's the fact that you can get better, compete against others, or simply have fun. If you play only because you like the graphics, I advise you playing single player games.
Just to sum up, I'm not against improving the looks of dp, I'm just against putting it on first place on 'to-be-done' list.
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Has Vic been given the source, or is he only allowed to develop to a point?
Nope, I'm not sure if T3RR0R15T has either, but most of those changes (map format/renderer/protocol) reside mainly in the opened source code.
The reasons that things near the top of the feature vote don't get done might be something like this:
- Many of the top features need gamecode changes, which jitspoe has to do due to the closed source.
- Jitspoe hasn't got much time, and so is unlikely to dive straight into a large addition like player names on shirts when it's just eye candy and would mean the next build would take a long time. Instead, useful but quicker features like autobalance are focused on.
- T3RR0R15T usually focuses his development on the server side of things (often running into the closed source barrier) and also on the serverbrowser, so his contributions are less noticed by the casual playerbase.
- Sometimes T3RR0R15T/I do not work on a feature simply because it seems idiotic or unnecessary to us, and we are not technically tied to the feature vote. Jitspoe has probably felt this too on occasion. I think that just feature suggestions might be a better system than a vote, because at the end of the day, no matter how many votes there are for names on player jerseys, it's not going to be a make-or-break feature, but more of an interesting side project for an interested developer.
edit: I think the point that feature votes "don't get done" might actually have been from another thread, oh well, it still makes sense here.
edit2: more detail:
So basically here's a theoretical plan:
After several months of hard work from jits, the game is made open source. The existing game remains as it is, maybe a new development blog or similar is set up to keep interest up. Hopefully the announcement of the open sourcing will draw some interested devs to help with it. It also means there can still be some bugfix patches on the 'old' alpha codebase, so the existing game is left in a reasonable state. A couple of months of planning the changes and new features. Then changes are made: new map format/renderer/protocol (they're all interlinked), new textures, maybe new menus, maybe with a new font system, a tutorial if somebody can make one, and call in the mappers for your plan m7. All in all this would probably take ~24 months, depending on the level of interest/support generated. The release of the new version should get a bit of interest from players old and new.
One to bear in mind: careful attention is required so that the matchscene will continue under the new version - so no drastic changes in physics or anything like that.
I don't think it's likely to happen though :/
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Hm, does sound quite unlikely if you involve renderer and map change formats. I didn't figure those would have to be done just to redesign some plain ole ugly maps. There are some maps that don't look terrible now.
Well then if nothing else the high rest texture pack should happen. I don't exactly get the hold up on that one. Maybe you could explain it. There are already a variety of packs to draw on. Is the concern that some are not drawing on free use images, or is it something else?
Or is it just more work than it seems like?
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Hm, does sound quite unlikely if you involve renderer and map change formats. I didn't figure those would have to be done just to redesign some plain ole ugly maps. There are some maps that don't look terrible now.
Well then if nothing else the high rest texture pack should happen. I don't exactly get the hold up on that one. Maybe you could explain it. There are already a variety of packs to draw on. Is the concern that some are not drawing on free use images, or is it something else?
Or is it just more work than it seems like?
You'll have to ask jitspoe to know for sure, but the possible reasons I can see are:
1. Free use images like you said - I think jitspoe wants all-original content
2. Some textures don't have hr4 equivalents in any pack
3. Some textures in other packs are just horrible
4. Many textures come in sets - you can't mix and match them because there will be seams - this is for things like the team splat logos, the grass/mud borders, team coloured woods etc.
5. Making textures well does actually take quite a lot of time/effort. Luckily the engine doesn't support specular/normal maps as well or we'd be waiting forever :P
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The two in the name is not a version. It's because the game is based on the quake 2 engine, i think.
incorrect, i think. look at the title of the pages on this site -- they say "Paintball 2.0". What is 2.0 if not a version number?
Another reason it's a version number is that Paintball 1.0 does exist; it's available on the downloads page.
So you could call the current version 2.0a30, 2.0.30, or 2.0.20100525 i guess.
Incidentally I'm thinking about putting together a new batch of game sounds (not gun or surface sounds -- talking about like capping, round start/end, etc.).
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Incidentally I'm thinking about putting together a new batch of game sounds (not gun or surface sounds -- talking about like capping, round start/end, etc.).
mewa and i were interested in this before. look us up if you want some help, sorry to volunteer you mewa :P
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Incidentally I'm thinking about putting together a new batch of game sounds (not gun or surface sounds -- talking about like capping, round start/end, etc.).
Do it!!! I would like to change the sounds up a little.
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incorrect, i think. look at the title of the pages on this site -- they say "Paintball 2.0". What is 2.0 if not a version number? [...]
I doubt this now. In the external server browser, there are some actual version numbers shown.
(sorry, just searched my gmail for 'digital paint' and found some new-post-notification emails I never read.)
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I think a map committee might help with some of the things you mentioned. Given how resistent the community is to change, I don't think it would be possible to just drop all of the existing maps and expect people to move on to a small selection of new maps. We could, however, enforce some hard standards for match maps through a committee. Maps that are popular for matches now could be fixed up to meet the new standards and gradually replace the old maps.
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That's a very nice idea, jitspoe. I thought about something simliar the last week. I wanted to pm you already, but I didn't get enough time.
I like the game and it makes a lot of fun. But the maps - one of the big parts of this game - aren't as good as possible. There are thousands of maps, lot's of them have leaks, bugs, 100% misalignments, are without vis, without light, unbalanced or they're just unfinished. And more maps like this are added all the time. It's totally confusing today. In my opinion the high count of those maps destroy the game a little bit. It doesn't make much fun anymore.
My idea was an official maplist. I don't know if it is really "my" idea, but I couldn't find a discussion about something like this. Maybe a pool of a few hundred "good" maps (good mapped and playable maps; not just the maps people like). The selection of these maps should be enough. The other "bad" maps should no longer be possible to play on the servers.
A "map committee" need to decide what maps are ok for the official maplist and what maps shouldn't be in there. New maps can be added only if they go through the whole beta stage here on this forum. That would be nice. But it needs a lot of time and effort to open such an official maplist. The map committee has to decide for thousands of maps, if they are ok or not.
All in all this could raise up the quality of new maps (because bad mapped maps won't be able to choose on servers), raise up the quality of the maplist (only good mapped maps here, also more clear/less confusing) and raise up the quality of the whole game (maps are very important :) and this part of the game can be a lot better/more fun - with or without a new mapformat).
A big +1 for an official maplist, for the fixing up (hmm...don't kow how to write it better :)) of popular maps and for a map committee.
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A map committee, which makes an official maplist of good mapped maps (not only the maps players like atm) sounds really good.
How do u want to fix the old maps? Most of the *.map files are deleted. Decompile and fix it could be a little too much work and is only possible for maps without a model.
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A map committee, which makes an official maplist of good mapped maps (not only the maps players like atm) sounds really good.
How do u want to fix the old maps? Most of the *.map files are deleted. Decompile and fix it could be a little too much work and is only possible for maps without a model.
It's not like most of the popular maps are that complicated. They could probably be rebuilt from scratch in a day or two, then polished up for a week or two to make them look better.
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The two in the name is not a version. It's because the game is based on the quake 2 engine, i think.
Jitspoe was trying to make a game that uses the Quake 3 engine. Sort of like a Paintball 3. He stopped working on it because of all the problems in mapping the game.
The errors were probably not just for the mapping part of the game, but some other parts too (I think). I remember him saying that the bots have really bad accuracy or they would shoot all over the place or something like that.
I guess a way to improve the graphics is by making the textures pictures of real stuff. I'm not sure if they are or not.
I guess another problem is getting more textures. Most of the time, if I want HD textures, I have to download them manually. Some maps came with them when I played them for the 1st time on a server. One of the maps that came with the was Urban Night.
Some times, I get an error message in the console saying that the server couldn't find the file or refused download or something like that. Making me have to download them manually.
I guess the game could come with all the textures that are currently available for the game (including HD textures). The textures should also be automatically updated.
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Can anyone prevent this Narga (idk who the .... is that) from re-opening every single old thread?
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Can anyone prevent this Narga (idk who the .... is that) from re-opening every single old thread?
+16156843894315
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Can anyone prevent this Narga (idk who the .... is that) from re-opening every single old thread?
What are you talking about? I thought old threads were 3-4 years old? Was I wrong? Well, I'm sort of new to the forums. So all these "old posts" are new to me.
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What are you talking about? I thought old threads were 3-4 years old? Was I wrong? Well, I'm sort of new to the forums. So all these "old posts" are new to me.
No one is trying to stop you from reading them, but you don't have to post in them so they show up on our recent posts sections...We don't want to talk about the topics anymore!That's why they died!!!
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No one is trying to stop you from reading them
I've had a different experience.
but you don't have to post in them so they show up on our recent posts sections...We don't want to talk about the topics anymore!That's why they died!!!
I've found it convienient that there's a link that says "show unread posts since last visit".
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I've found it convienient that there's a link that says "show unread posts since last visit".
probably the most of us enjoy this function. I think you're either not expressing yourself in a proper way, or you do no understand the function of this button.
To get things straight: There's no problem reading old topics. Just consider posting in old topics before doing so.
"Is it smart to post an opinion to a discussion in 2006?" No.
"Is someone who needed help in 2008 still waiting for an answer?" No.
"I have a question, but I'm not sure if anyone else ever had this question." Use the search button before (re-)opening a topic and try to find your answer first.
Of course you are very welcome to participate in active discussions, just like every member from in community.