Author Topic: The Minor Suggestions Thread  (Read 65018 times)

Offline Pejsaty

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Re: The Minor Suggestions Thread
« Reply #75 on: 25-04-2013, 15:04:36 »
So as a result, this mod will die quicker than you think!

Offline PanzerKnacker

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Re: The Minor Suggestions Thread
« Reply #76 on: 25-04-2013, 15:04:44 »
Well, nobody is playing them NOW, what is there to lose?
He was not wrong. Amateurs talk tactics, pros talk logistics.

Offline Kuupperi

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Re: The Minor Suggestions Thread
« Reply #77 on: 25-04-2013, 15:04:22 »
I've been playing FH2 from the very beginning and I have no plans to go anywhere until the servers get almost empty. I don't think some random custom map would save the mod.

Speaking of FH2 content; nothing else but the official FH2 content is welcomed in my computer. I like the way the maps have some historical background, they're well made and tested. I feel something that isn't in the release I don't also need. So far I've been quite happy of the quality and amount of the official maps even though I totally like few maps from the current release. I'm trying to avoid anything unofficial to the very end.

Offline Pejsaty

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Re: The Minor Suggestions Thread
« Reply #78 on: 25-04-2013, 16:04:48 »
So you never asked yourself why most of the players quit after first 2-4 weeks after each patch release?

Offline Lightning

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Re: The Minor Suggestions Thread
« Reply #79 on: 25-04-2013, 17:04:18 »
FH2 is made by the FH2 developers, not by anyone who can open the BF2 editor. It's not some open source project where everyone can just add what they like. If you're a good mapper - apply to join the FH2 team, it always needs more skilled developers. Then you can work on your map and improve it with the help and support of the other developers.

As for official developer-assisted mappacks, as we did for FH1, the dev team currently isn't big enough to support such a project. As for promoting unofficial mappacks, that would just split the playerbase into two groups. With the limited size of the FH player base that would be an equally bad idea.

Short answer: NO.

Offline Pejsaty

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Re: The Minor Suggestions Thread
« Reply #80 on: 25-04-2013, 17:04:44 »
So improving existing map takes more time than making a map from scratch?  ::)

Offline LuckyOne

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Re: The Minor Suggestions Thread
« Reply #81 on: 25-04-2013, 17:04:13 »
So improving existing map takes more time than making a map from scratch?  ::)

Yes, it does, if it's a badly designed map...
This sentence is intentionally left unfinished...

Offline Ts4EVER

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Re: The Minor Suggestions Thread
« Reply #82 on: 25-04-2013, 17:04:19 »
No, but making your own map is a lot more fun, and the devs are in this for the fun.

edit: And that is only if the map is decent to begin with, which is not the case for 90% of the custom maps I have seen.

Offline Pejsaty

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Re: The Minor Suggestions Thread
« Reply #83 on: 25-04-2013, 17:04:55 »
So you haven't seen many custom maps...

Offline Turkish007

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Re: The Minor Suggestions Thread
« Reply #84 on: 25-04-2013, 17:04:27 »
Of course there are some kickass custom maps, such as Salerno, Warsaw, and Stonne. But most of them are not good.

Offline Ts4EVER

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Re: The Minor Suggestions Thread
« Reply #85 on: 25-04-2013, 17:04:45 »
Oh I have seen a lot. The grand majority of them have two main problem areas, one from the early stage of development and one from the final stage.

For one thing, many custom maps were not planned right or not planned at all. Flags all over the place, no clear routes into combat areas (if they have designed combat areas at all). Some of these mappers seem to use the PR method of mapping, which results in maps that look very natural, but like they were created with a random map generator. Tournament maps tend to suffer from this, although there are some really nice ones and they often have clear routes.

There are also often scalability issues, meaning varying levels of scale and detail that maps look disjointed. To understand what I mean, compare the terrain and city layout of Meuse River and Operation Goodwood. These maps have completely different scales, but they are internally consistent. That is something most community maps (and some early official maps) fail at.

And that is not even counting people who clearly are just learning the basics of the technical side to mapping, where you get hand painted textures and vBF2 objects that fuck up texture loads.

The second big area is actually finishing the map: Creating final lightmaps, trench skirt textures, color correction, envmaps, ambient sounds, minimap, loadmap, music, map description in English and German, strings for game modes, deletion of trenchskirt shadows... show me one custom map with all these things in order.
Many people assume that "FH2 standards" means highly detailed maps with as many objects as possible, but that is wrong. Often inexperienced mapper place objects everywhere, lying in your way or right in your fucking face, but that is not a sign of quality. Every monkey with enough time can do that. Getting a map up to FH2 standards means the stuff I named above and more. None of it is especially hard to do, but it is boring, time consuming and many people don't know how it works. And no dev has the time or energy to explain it to some ding dong who might just give up and vanish the next day or do it on a custom map he didn't make himself.

Offline [QPS]_Sex_Bomb

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Re: The Minor Suggestions Thread
« Reply #86 on: 25-04-2013, 18:04:51 »
Short answer: NO.

Right, the mod team has the final decision to not include custom maps in releases.  On the other hand, the 762 admins can decide that custom maps will be played by the FH2 community on a regular basis.  They own the only populated 64+ server and if they impose a mappack and put the download url in the server name, i'm positive that we will all download it and play new maps.
« Last Edit: 25-04-2013, 18:04:57 by [QPS]_Sex_Bomb »

Offline Pejsaty

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Re: The Minor Suggestions Thread
« Reply #87 on: 25-04-2013, 18:04:23 »
Sorry, but Op. Goodwood is a big map design fail to me. It always ends with allied tankers and piats camping at Axis main base exit... The new version of Meuse River the same... These maps look really nice but they are unplayable... Like most of FH2 maps... Last patch maps are also a good example...

Offline PanzerKnacker

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Re: The Minor Suggestions Thread
« Reply #88 on: 25-04-2013, 18:04:02 »
So...most of FH2 maps are unplayable, you say.

Are we even playing the same game?
He was not wrong. Amateurs talk tactics, pros talk logistics.

Offline Matthew_Baker

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Re: The Minor Suggestions Thread
« Reply #89 on: 25-04-2013, 19:04:47 »
Sorry, but Op. Goodwood is a big map design fail to me. It always ends with allied tankers and piats camping at Axis main base exit... The new version of Meuse River the same... These maps look really nice but they are unplayable... Like most of FH2 maps... Last patch maps are also a good example...

 :-\ Um no, most (hell all) FH2 maps play and look very well imo. If you have any problems with them you can go to the feedback section and discuss them there.

Back to minor suggestions... I still believe it worthy to make alternate 'smaller' layers for every map in FH2