2009 September 18 - MKWEA Map Update

[FadedOasis]

Big server update incoming.

The following maps are being removed from rotation. This means they won't come up in the map votes or nominate lists, but admins can still forceswitch the server to these maps.

Map Name	Reason(s) for removal
arena_2fort_b2	abundance of maptype; hated; rarely voted for; server killer
arena_mach2	abundance of maptype; rarely voted for
arena_watchtower	abundance of maptype; hated; rarely voted for
cp_blackmesa_final	abundance of maptype; hated; often rtv'd away; rarely voted for; server killer
cp_castle4	abundance of maptype; hated; rarely voted for; server killer
cp_convoy	abundance of maptype; hated; often rtv'd away; rarely voted for; server killer
cp_corporation_b3	abundance of maptype; often rtv'd away; rarely voted for; server killer
cp_desertfortress	abundance of maptype; hated; often rtv'd away; rarely voted for
cp_follower	abundance of maptype; often rtv'd away; rarely voted for
cp_science2	abundance of maptype; hated; often rtv'd away; rarely voted for; server killer
cp_stag	abundance of maptype; hated; rarely voted for; server killer
cp_vertigo_beta3	abundance of maptype; often rtv'd away; rarely voted for; server killer
cp_warpath2	abundance of maptype; often rtv'd away; rarely voted for
cp_yukon_final	abundance of maptype; hated; often rtv'd away; rarely voted for
ctf_2docks	hated; objective commonly disregarded; often rtv'd away; rarely voted for; server killer
ctf_aerospace_b4	often rtv'd away; rarely voted for; server killer
ctf_chaos	hated; objective commonly disregarded; often rtv'd away; rarely voted for; server killer
ctf_impact2	hated; often rtv'd away; rarely voted for; server killer
ctf_sawmill	hated; rarely voted for; server killer
ctf_steamroll	often rtv'd away; rarely voted for; server killer
ctf_turbine	objective commonly disregarded; often rtv'd away; rarely voted for
pl_dbheights_b2	hated; often rtv'd away; rarely voted for; server killer
pl_frontier	hated; rarely voted for; server killer
tc_meridian_b5	hated; often rtv'd away; rarely voted for; server killer

Note: "Hated" means "disliked by more than three people."

The following changes are occuring.

• cp_gravelpit dropping down to two rounds. You love Gravel Pit, but you hate to play it? I don't get you people.
  
• All symmetrical 5-point maps (like badlands, granary, well) are changing from a 20 minute map limit to a three round map limit. This will force the mapvote to appear at the beginning of the last round, removing cases where players are unable to vote.
  
• All arena maps are changing from a 20 minute map limit (bet you didn't even notice that change) to a 15 round map limit. Additionally, I'm going to try to tweak the map vote so it comes up about five rounds before the end instead of one round. Can't fix that. Oh well.
  

[atenthirtyone]

turbine! =(

[phevnil]

CTF_Sawmill =(

[Jeziah]

Turbine: "objective commonly disregarded; often rtv'd away; rarely voted for"

Many maps had this kind of voting results and are not on this list. I personally love turbine, and I know many people share my opinion. On the other hand, both Faded and Rhench let it be known that they hate this map (although from Rhench it's a hate of all ctf). This map's removal from the list is definetely based less on player feedback than admin prejudice.
Keep the turbine!

[FadedOasis]

ctf_turbine (2|0|3)

Jeziah, "one person shares my opinion" is not the same as "many people share my opinion." Also, name one map we didn't remove that isn't always just fooling around.

Actually, name any map we kept that meets any of those criteria.

[probie]

I shall mourn silently for the loss of pl_frontier. =(

[Jeziah]

arena_offblast_final
cp_egypt_final
ctf_mach4
pl_cashworks_rc
pl_cave_b6
pl_cranetop_b8

All of these all rarely voted for, and almost always voted away. Some instantaneously.

Going through your list of removed maps, I've noticed that ctf_aerospace_b4 has been listed as often voted away and server killer; yet I've only seen it played once, on new map night. It may be linked to a few crashes people experienced at the time, but you can't condemn it without more testing.

And I never knew cp_stag was on the rotation. It's my favourite map! I can't believe I missed it. Can we have it back for a few rounds, please? How about any map whose presence on this list people find objective, we give a going-away few rounds? Just to remove any festering doubts, or make a correction if people find that it does deserve to stay.

[FadedOasis]

Wow, Jeziah, when's the last time you played on the server? Every single one of those maps gets voted for and played. And aerospace has been voted for at least twice since new map night.

cp_stag was added to rotation sometime before May 27th, when the "Maps" section of the forum was created. Its picture was in the list of maps. It was in the nominate list. You really don't pay attention much, do you?

[docsfox]

I've never seen any of those maps get rtv'd Jeziah. Not once.

cp_stag was played on a few occasions and fell quickly into the pile of maps no one wanted to play anymore.

I am surprised castle4 and frontier are going though, not that I'll really miss them though.

[dbone]

I am also sad about Frontier. I replied to that thread specifically to add frontier to the love list. The small amount I am on the server it usually wins after I nominate it. Anyway, I know its ultimately up to you, just politely expressing my opinion.

[pneuma08]

Follower and Frontier and I suppose Impact I'm a bit sad to see leave, the rest eh. But I didn't care enough to vote so I can't complain much. (I suppose of those three, I only played Frontier regularly, albeit with something like 8 people max, usually.)

Some of those maps are "server killers" because they're custom maps that no one has. This makes me sad. Every ctf map is a server killer except turbine? Really?

[fex]

I have to say that even though turbine, follower and yukon are gone, I think that this is a vast improvement. It used to be that map votes maybe had one decent map in them and it was something like dustbowl, it would win and you would basically be stuck there for the eternity that it takes those maps to finish. But from playing last night I felt like the choices have improved because now that map votes have a few good maps in them the bad maps that are left are less likely to win a vote.

[scrambles]

RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE
They are just maps! We can Totally Vote them In!
RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE

p.s. (Faded I was being teh sarcastic when you yelled at me for casting a saving throw for frontier)

[FadedOasis]

Sept 19, 2009 12:05:41 GMT -5 fex said:

I have to say that even though turbine, follower and yukon are gone, I think that this is a vast improvement. It used to be that map votes maybe had one decent map in them and it was something like dustbowl, it would win and you would basically be stuck there for the eternity that it takes those maps to finish. But from playing last night I felt like the choices have improved because now that map votes have a few good maps in them the bad maps that are left are less likely to win a vote.

Yay, someone gets why it had to be done!

pneuma, yeah, pretty much every ctf map kills the server. Nobody really likes that game mode, which I think is pretty sad.

[FadedOasis]

There seems to be a lot more disappointment then I thought there would be. I'm going to let you guys process these changes for a couple days and then hold another quick poll to see how we can improve this further. For those who haven't noticed, I'm doing this like Valve does TF2 updates. One huge change, and then a bunch of tweaks along the way.

[carbad]

as I've mentioned before, I prefer to err on the side of having more maps with shorter turnover times. I think some of these maps wouldn't get rtv'd if they only lasted 15, maybe even 10 minutes, which in the case of some 5pt cap maps, arena and maybe even KoTH is plenty of time for a few rounds of enjoyment but not so long that people are mashing nominate and rtv

speaking of rtv and map voting in general, some servers I've played on have actually disabled such features because it means they play goldrush, dustbowl and badwater all day. Forcing people to play on a greater variety of maps means, A, more maps get server time so undiscovered gems can gain popularity and, B, people who like maps or game types that tend to get outvoted get a chance to play on maps they like too (ex. I like follower, but if it shows up in a poll next to dustbowl, guess which maps wins).

If you combine this with faster map turnover, I feel you get better variety without boring anyone to death.

Not to say that the map list couldn't do with trimming - if everyone hates a map (CORPORATION AAAAAAAAAAAAAA) then good riddance and indeed I agree with most of the removals. but if a map merely suffers from obscurity but is potentially good perhaps it can be salvaged.

Not sure if people will agree with me though, map voting stuff seems pretty "hip" and "groovy" these days, like jazz music.

[clicheguevara]

it doesnt matter steamroll got removed.

ILL FIND A WAY.

[FadedOasis]

Carbon, I've actually done a couple things to ensure some variety. The number of maps in the poll has lowered from 5 to 4, and the number of recent maps that won't come up (and can't be nominated) has doubled from 4 to 8. Already, we're seeing a greater variety of maps played.

I do, however, disagree with the "shorter is better" mentality. I want every map to be played for about the same amount of time. Let me say that again, because I think it's worth repeating. I want every map to be played for the same amount of time.

Unfortunately, 2 rounds of Dustbowl or Gold Rush takes an hour. what I'd really, really love to do is to drop down every hour-long map to one round, but everyone will complain about how you can't play both offense and defense. So, I figured "about 20 minutes for everything that isn't stupidly long." That's about how long two rounds of Gravel Pit lasts, and I figured it'd be fine since it's the only Attack/Defend CP map* of a reasonable size.

*An Attack/Defend map is any map where you're either attacking or defending, but not both simultaneously.

[carbad]

to be honest I would go ahead and shorten dustbowl or goldrush to one round if one push takes more than half an hour. If both teams take really long to push, the map can easily last an hour and a half, maybe even two hours. I get bored after stage two, which could be as little as a quarter of the total time the map might run. I guess I feel that a part of the server feeling upset about not being able to both attack and defend might be the lesser of two evils compared to a part of the server getting map fatigue

[FadedOasis]

An additional problem, carbon, is if I set it to one round and red successfully defends point 1-1, the map is over in less than 5 minutes.

[carbad]

is there a way you can set it so it'll continue onto another round if that happens?

[FadedOasis]

Not really. I mean, I can do something *like* that, but it's horrible.

I can set a maximum number of rounds and a maximum time per map. Whenever it hits either of those, the map switches. I'm not entirely certain, but if I set the max time to be 20 minutes, and it takes 21 minutes for BLU to cap all points up to 2-2, I think the map switches before stage 3. That's horrible.

Yeah, I know. I don't like how Valve set this up either. I think the only way to deal with the excessively long maps is to just not play them as often, which is why I rigged the system so you can't play any map twice without 8 maps between.

[clicheguevara]

dont mess with dustbowl ):

[.: sora]

Sept 20, 2009 13:00:13 GMT -5 carbad said:

is there a way you can set it so it'll continue onto another round if that happens?

!votescramble
/vote extend

:]