1.0 Mappool ?

What is the 1.0 Mappool going to look like?

The goal is should be to represent xonotic and it's features as good as possible.

It should be avoided to slap as many gamemode on a map as possible. The quality of the map would suffer. One good example from the past was runningman, where the Deathmatch version just received a wall to the rest of the map, which caused problems for example in keepaway.


Assault:
There is not much demand for more maps then techassault. It plays well and it showcases some features like turrets. Assault is popular in other games, but the playerbase is too small at the moment to justify focusing on more assault maps.
There is also one remake of highspeed from ut99 from SavageX and myself and forseti made few maps too.

Onslaught:
Same as assault, there is simply no demand for this game mode. One thing, makes it much easier to make maps for this mode and that is that you basically can use ctf maps.
There are 2 maps which i would like to point out:
http://dl.xonotic.co/micro_v2.pk3
This a simple and small, but good to get an idea of this game mode.
http://dl.xonotic.co/ons-reborn.pk3
A big terrain map, which also makes good use of the turrets.

For the moment i thing Onslaught on Courtfun is fine.

Race / CTS:
I think like 1 or 2 maps more would be a good addition to the game, as these maps doesnt requiere much work, so the final ammount would be 3.
http://dl.xonotic.co/cts_speedy-lane_xpm.pk3 or http://dl.xonotic.co/cts_stepping_forward_xpm.pk3 would be one suggestion as those maps made use of haggar climb, or with other words they showcase an aspect of the game.
http://dl.xonotic.co/whatthewarp_v2.pk3 What the warp is just a strafemap but the addition of warpzones made it unique compared to the many other strafe maps from defrag
http://dl.xonotic.co/test00_v1r1.pk3 the test chamber maps, which are of course inspired by portal and made use of the port -o- launch, could be a good addition.
http://dl.xonotic.co/nr_caverun_v1r2.pk3 Caverun is a simple jumpmap and has excellent visuals, but the theme might not fit. (needs adjusting)

Nexball:
Nexball needs definitely a map, which uses the ball throwing.
http://dl.xonotic.co/marsball.pk3
This map might not fit xonotic, but its good nevertheless
http://dl.xonotic.co/nb_rocknball_v1r2.pk3

A map which uses weapons might be a worthy addition but its quiet complicated. That's the only map i can think of.
http://dl.xonotic.co/footballfever.pk3

Or maybe something just for fun.
http://dl.xonotic.co/dearbumperball.pk3

There plenty of other nexball maps form the mapping contest a few years ago and they should already work fine.

I will add the other game modes later.

So what do you think? Any thoughts?

Imo, CTS needs to be organized and represented better for local play in general. Most of these maps can't be played with default physics and are sometimes even missing ammo/weapons or teleporters which makes them unplayable.

I agree with the map list you chose, however most of them are unplayable without the defrag mod. Matuka, Packer and Dekry did some decent defrag maps before, some of which could be included as well: http://forums.xonotic.org/showthread.php?tid=4994

Imo, CTS needs to be organized and represented better for local play in general. Most of these maps can't be played with default physics and are sometimes even missing ammo/weapons or teleporters which makes them unplayable.

I agree with the map list you chose, however most of them are unplayable without the defrag mod. Matuka, Packer and Dekry did some decent defrag maps before, some of which could be included as well: http://forums.xonotic.org/showthread.php?tid=4994

That's true, xdf wep configs and physics are different. Homs has done a couple of maps as well.

Here is what my map looks like, but it is not easy, if done right


homs maps:



matuka maps:



packer maps are on the forum thread smily posted earlier.

Added Onslaught to the first post.

Imo, CTS needs to be organized and represented better for local play in general. Most of these maps can't be played with default physics and are sometimes even missing ammo/weapons or teleporters which makes them unplayable.

I agree with the map list you chose, however most of them are unplayable without the defrag mod. Matuka, Packer and Dekry did some decent defrag maps before, some of which could be included as well: http://forums.xonotic.org/showthread.php?tid=4994

The Main question is, what is the goal of this mode?
The next question would be, how do we achieve this goal?
and the last question, What maps are needed to provied a good experience even for beginners?

Race / CTS for more or less local play is a good option, but it needs to have the default physics. So there is an option for people to challenge, with the physics.

The maps i picked can be played with default physics (except caverun which needs some adjustments). Two of them has been tested in the race challenges i organized 4-5 years ago, but the weapon trigger needs to be fixed.

XDF is in my opinion, the advanced online version. Matuka, Packer and Dekrys seem to be made for that mode/physics.
Tacos and Badclimb remind a bit of the Half Life mod Kreedz Climbing. I think small adjustments to the normal physics and they could be an enrichment.

Talked about it with Mario on IRC and my opinion made a whole 360 flip.

I'm now more in favor of removing the CTS mod from menu altogether. Because:
- Default Xonotic physics aren't good for racing anyway.
- Race is 90% of the time played online anyway. Only exceptions are mappers and dedicated players who practice offline, both of who have to tweak physics manually.
- Practicing movement offline on a tutorial like campaign sounds like a better idea to me. (There's another topic on that somewhere)
- I find it more appealing to treat it as an unofficial mod.
- XDF is apparently dead anyway.

The core of the problem is that Xonotic doesn't have suitable physics for racing in first place. The XDF mod copies CPM physics and ports maps from Q3defrag most of which only work with CPM or VQ3 physics. The most notable differences in XDF physics is the ground speed, jump height, acceleration and double jumps. Double jumps wouldn't work with default Xonotic physics due to autohop and stairs. So as long as Xonotic doesn't want a race mod of it's own that work with it's own default physics or if the community isn't willing to compromise with movement tweaks, then I don't see it as a worthy pursuit. Either way, I have no confidence in it being anywhere as popular as the current XDF once were.

Race works in Warsow and Reflex because the physics in their race modes is the intended way to move in vanilla gameplay as well. In other words, there's no physics A and physics B to separate those niches. Xonotic however wants to appeal to beginners with a simple and restricted movement and that's where the problems start as far as the existence of a proper race mod go. Warsow has an option for beginner movement, but even that doesn't restrict or mutate the movement that would affect the playability of race or vanilla in any other way than simply being easier.

Talked about it with Mario on IRC and my opinion made a whole 360 flip.

I've always found this expression puzzling. After you flip 360, aren't you still facing the same direction?

First, let me ask this: does what Samual said here about XPM, XDF, CTS, race still apply today?

I'm now more in favor of removing the CTS mod from menu altogether.

Online CTS has always been too advanced for me. It wasn't until your other post that I started trying out those maps, and then started experiencing how learning movement makes me enjoy the game more, even in regular game play.

Therefore, I agree that CTS is not for beginners like me. And I certainly agree using the regular physics on CTS does not represent the real fun.

However, I worry that removing CTS from the standard release may hurt CTS, because then it only exists in servers.

Warsow has an option for beginner movement, ...

I like this option. We can have "beginners physics" box checked as the default, and something like your recently proposed physics as the core.



Now devs, is it possible/easy to switch between different factory set of physics? When discussing Overkill, Mario told me it's not a good idea to dynamically load Overkill physics from the menu so the script (overkill.cfg) has to be loaded in the console by hand. I failed to understand, though, why can't it be something that we trigger from the menu.

I've always found this expression puzzling. After you flip 360, aren't you still facing the same direction?

I meant to say that my opinion made a full circle and am now approaching this subject differently

Now devs, is it possible/easy to switch between different factory set of physics? When discussing Overkill, Mario told me it's not a good idea to dynamically load Overkill physics from the menu so the script (overkill.cfg) has to be loaded in the console by hand. I failed to understand, though, why can't it be something that we trigger from the menu.

I'm no dev, but I think it should be possible to load xdf physics only for cts using "settemp" and "sv_hook_gamestart_cts". This way cts would use xdf physics without setting these physics for every other gametype.

However, the real question (imo) should be if xonotic needs special physics for cts. Would other gametypes suffer from xdf physics? Most maps are not that big anyways, so ppl won't reach high speed like in cts. Low skilled players will probably not feel a difference and high skilled players should be able to adapt to these changes.

The physics I posted earlier should do the job, however defrag maps that require double/stair jumps wouldn't work. There might also be some jump height issues as I changed it to same as Xonotic default (head bumped to a ceiling in some areas, where it normally wouldn't etc..). Ground speed is also same as default Xonotic, which can easily make a difference in run times in some defrag maps.

http://forums.xonotic.org/showthread.php?tid=6215

I'm now more in favor of removing the CTS mod from menu altogether. Because:
- Default Xonotic physics aren't good for racing anyway.
- Race is 90% of the time played online anyway. Only exceptions are mappers and dedicated players who practice offline, both of who have to tweak physics manually.
- Practicing movement offline on a tutorial like campaign sounds like a better idea to me. (There's another topic on that somewhere)
- I find it more appealing to treat it as an unofficial mod.
- XDF is apparently dead anyway.

XDF and warsow race are more or less copies of defrag.

So the suggestion is make it like a short offline campaign to to learn the movement with the standard physics.
1. a tutorial map, similar to the one in nexuiz 2.5.2
2. leave em behind - for bunny hopping
3. one map for advanced movement (ramp jumps etc.)
4. one map for movement with weapons.

Map 2-4 are with a timer for a challenge.

So the suggestion is make it like a short offline campaign to to learn the movement with the standard physics.

At least for me, I can't learn the advanced movement with the standard physics. It's important for me to get the right feedback when I build my eye-hand coordination and muscle memory.

At least for me, I can't learn the advanced movement with the standard physics. It's important for me to get the right feedback when I build my eye-hand coordination and muscle memory.

I'll build an example map.
One goal, could be to show people that there is more then simple running or simple jumping.

Example:

This does look like a great practice map. Thanks.

Put Airwalk_v3 and Cucumber in 1.0

So the suggestion is make it like a short offline campaign to to learn the movement with the standard physics.
1. a tutorial map, similar to the one in nexuiz 2.5.2
2. leave em behind - for bunny hopping
3. one map for advanced movement (ramp jumps etc.)
4. one map for movement with weapons.

Map 2-4 are with a timer for a challenge.

At least for me, I can't learn the advanced movement with the standard physics. It's important for me to get the right feedback when I build my eye-hand coordination and muscle memory.

I'll build an example map.
One goal, could be to show people that there is more then simple running or simple jumping.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/n1amw1u3qnxdjr...a.pk3?dl=0
Here is the example. Its based on point three. It's made for beginners.

Looks nice! But I never could make this double ramp-jump. The second ledge seems a little bit too high to reach for a beginner. And another thing I always disliked about running maps is that they are mostly blocky rooms with no visual connection to "the outside". It feels like you are a testing rat which has to run through a maze. Keep it up Cortez666, I like these contributions.

It's ok to have a beginner skill training course, but I don't think it's a good idea to limit a tutorial map to beginner level only. A beginner should be introduced to harder difficulties ranging from medium to hard and sadistically hard, just to show what there is to learn.

If a beginner manages to complete an official trick map on their first play, they'll likely go online with false impression of the movement capabilities and likely to assume that anyone who goes faster is hacking. Tutorial should imply that this kind of movement is possible and an intentional part of the game.

Looks nice! But I never could make this double ramp-jump. The second ledge seems a little bit too high to reach for a beginner.

Maybe it's a double ramp-jump, maybe not. Who knows? I definitely dont know it.

And another thing I always disliked about running maps is that they are mostly blocky rooms with no visual connection to "the outside".

well, the problem here is the scale, with models it's way easier to make a running map look good. One good example is caverun, which i linked in the first post.

It's ok to have a beginner skill training course, but I don't think it's a good idea to limit a tutorial map to beginner level only. A beginner should be introduced to harder difficulties ranging from medium to hard and sadistically hard, just to show what there is to learn.

Somehow you misunderstood me. This map is only an example, how a map which introduces more complex movement (then just running) could look like.

I also disagree with you at this point. Tutorials a generally easy to beat. In every Game tutorials are generally safe space for you to get used to the rules of the game.
You basically need to copy all kind of trick jumps from maps into a challenge map and even then it's a false impression, because there are no real opponents. They give the trickjumps a totally different dynamic. A dynamic you can't replicate in a challenge map.

Cortez, thanks for the map. Is it designed to be played with standard factory physic setting?

I'm not sure Smilecythe and you are talking about the same thing. I thought he's talking about training courses, which can range from basic skills to very advanced ones, as opposed to game tutorial.

I'm not sure Smilecythe and you are talking about the same thing. I thought he's talking about training courses, which can range from basic skills to very advanced ones, as opposed to game tutorial.

I am in fact talking about tutorial and a training course as if it were the same thing, because I think it might as well be. Less map switching a new player has to do for training/tutoring the better imo. Sorry for the confusion. Xonotic has teleporters/warpzones am I right? One could divide a tutorial like map into basics and advanced training courses with several difficulty levels. I am basically just being picky about the presentation and in favor for making a project such as this as inclusive and convenient as possible.

Somehow you misunderstood me. This map is only an example, how a map which introduces more complex movement (then just running) could look like.

I think you misunderstood me. I'm pretty confident everyone knows what a tutorial is supposed to look like and pretty sure anyone can imagine how one would go around building it, it requires no exampling. So I'm giving you critique with an assumption that you're doing something actually useful with it at some point.

I also disagree with you at this point. Tutorials a generally easy to beat. In every Game tutorials are generally safe space for you to get used to the rules of the game.

In games where you don't have advanced techniques to comprehend and learn, it's very true. Games with quake esque physics are different story though.

You basically need to copy all kind of trick jumps from maps into a challenge map and even then it's a false impression, because there are no real opponents. They give the trickjumps a totally different dynamic. A dynamic you can't replicate in a challenge map.

I wasn't talking about gameplay dynamics, I was talking about the movement. A tutorial which shows what a player can and can't do is a good tutorial in my opinion. Most of the time it even has replay value. Especially in a game that you play very differently as your skill and experience in it advances.

It's possible to use target_changelevel in a set of tutorial maps, which could then range from easy to hard. That of course requires more mapping though.

What Cortez has built here works pretty well for even beginners, albeit with a bit of a blinding texture set.

. I thought he's talking about training courses, which can range from basic skills to very advanced ones, as opposed to game tutorial.

Yep. That's was the difference i didnt really clarify.


Anyway, here is the map to point 4.
"4. one map for movement with weapons."

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lbld19kqp44raz...a.pk3?dl=0

Suggestions about it?

. I thought he's talking about training courses, which can range from basic skills to very advanced ones, as opposed to game tutorial.

Yep. That's was the difference i didnt really clarify.


Anyway, here is the map to point 4.
"4. one map for movement with weapons."

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lbld19kqp44raz...a.pk3?dl=0

Suggestions about it?

Cortez, I like both your training maps -- they teach me something valuable.

May I suggest that each lesson focuses on one skill, by teleporting back to the beginning of THAT lesson, rather than restarting the whole thing all over again? When I'm learning the timing of weapon jumps, being able to do trial and error in a sequence and do minor adjustment, as opposed to being interrupted by previously acquired/skipped skills, would be more productive, pedagogically speaking.

The trick there is to use teleporters instead of death triggers in the gaps.