Player limits on maps...

[jitspoe]

Well, this idea has been tossed around for a while -- put minimum and maximum player limits on maps, so the server doesn't load, say, arctic when there are 20 people on it.  Instead it loads something bigger.  If I were to implement something like that, should it force the server to never load large maps when only a few people are playing, and never load tiny maps when lots of people are playing, or should there be some kind of... randomness or something involved?

[Anrkist]

That is also a good idea.. I think if brainstorm were to be next.. and there was only 4 people on it shouldent be next.. but definatly have a limit for things like arctic and strap.. who would get to decide whats the right ammount of people for a map though ? map maker or server admin ?

[Shreds]

awesome idea

would that be some type of server option where they can pick what maps gets what # of people? some maplist.cfg?

[meat]

I like that idea alot sir, it would definatly deter people from abandoning servers as a poor map arives.  And how come. generally speaking, the maps/servers seem to support 6v6 at the most.  Im not sure about everyone else, but the occasional larger games would be welcome on my part.

[Anrkist]

Server bandwidth issues.. I dont remeber to many q2 server that supported more then that..

[jitspoe]

In theory, quake2 can support up to 256 players.  I capped the client bandwidth somewhat in 2.0 -- it can only send a max of ~83 packets/sec now.  That's still a lot, but better than like 300.

Here's what I had in mind.  Some kind of file -- it'd prolly go in the maps directory -- which would contain the following info:
min players, max players, supported game modes.

I wanted to put something in the new version where people could vote on the game mode of a map.  I've designed several maps that can be played in multiple game modes, but... there's no way for ppl to choose.  I think halfpipe would be fun in dm mode

[meat]

alright, i guess i play too much hl with more than 12 ppl.  Although, its a shame i dont have the bandwith to host out my server.  But that voting on game modes should be kinda fun

[RoyalBlood]

Thats a great idea, but what would you do in the situation when a map loads and THEN everyone joins or leaves and it becomes too much/too few for that particular map.  Thats more common than what you were exactly talking about.  If you go on Er33t during peak hours, it will be full on small maps like arctic or rally.  But as soon as it changes to brainstorm, everyone leaves.  So if the server automatically changed maps according to how many are playing for that particular map, they would consantly be changing and only settle on a few medium sized maps.  The popular maps are the small ones that demand less people.  You see the prediciment?

[jitspoe]

Well, in that case you'd have a nice balance of big and small maps, because it would alternate a lot.

[Snipen]

Well guys how about you just use a  voting box with the option of 3 or 4 maps to pick from. Let the players vote on next map.. then next vote have the other maps that where not picked with a new one added... plus lets say one map got no votes then next vote that maps not a choice, you have 2 new choices..that seam the best way to me and if the other players dont like that map they can sit out a round..That way if there are 2 or 20 players it doesnt matter about map size. I think the main complaint is that on the smaller maps theres not enough resources to support 16 players,, so how about instead of which map loads for the amount of players there be more guns ammo and co2 on the map related to the amount of players.

[Fryth]

Yeah, this is a really good idea. Just get the server to build a list of possible nextmaps based on the number of players on the server, and then pick randomly from that list. Crates would have a rating of 1-4 (or whatever), Arctic maybe 1-8, ksplat2 4-16, etc.

[jitspoe]

Arctic should be more like 1-2  That map is smaller than the housing around here...

I don't like the idea of more equipment on small maps.  My beef with small maps and lots of players is that it's just mad rushing and spraying with no stratigy.

[RoyalBlood]

Preach on brother Jits.  However the REAL problem is that the typical DP'er is ignorant and doesnt know that this isnt fun.  Same thing with the whole spraying issue and the bunny hopping abuse.  People just cant even comprehend what we are talking about.  Personally I think this issue on maps is pretty irrelevent.   No matter how many people are on the server, they will still want to play crates, rally, or shazam over brainstorm or really anything big at all.  Its up to the server admins to put better maps on their servers and hopefully the typical DP'er will learn to be more open-minded about these other maps out there that have more to them than just mindless and repetitive rush-n-spray gameplay.

[oddjob]

Most n00bs think that arctic and other small maps are the only maps to play, if something like brainstorm comes up, they say this map sucks and then procede to tell people to change to a certain color so that the map can change