Recent Valve change limits creativity for server mods. (Petition)

[drp]

So contribute the damn maps
. If Valve doesn't want your map in their game it's up to them. And if you start to make comments like, "Valve won't roll out enough updates," or, "Valve should care more about the community," I think you should look at what they've done with TF2 so far.

Or if you want to continue on your hobby horse, just re-texture one of the damn maps.

.

 

[voogru]

So contribute the damn hats. If Valve doesn't want your hat in their game it's up to them. And if you start to make comments like, "Valve won't roll out enough updates," or, "Valve should care more about the community," I think you should look at what they've done with TF2 so far.

Or if you want to continue on your hobby horse, just reskin one of the damn hats.

Reskinning them won't work...

I'm shocked at the hostility here. Coming from mapping community on top of that, what if they changed another policy that broke alternative map modes over something very trivial?

Would you care then?

 

[A Boojum Snark]

I was going to say a lot more when I first saw this, but now that I see where this has gone I don't wish to get into that, and I'll just make my initial observation.

A petition? Really? I thought everyone knew petitions are nigh-useless. Valve isn't some big monstrosity that will only respond to a petition from a hundred thousand people. They quite frequently respond and/or do something if you just ask. That's clearly what the prop hunt people did. Have you brought this up with Valve? At worst they'll say no and maybe tell you why they did what they did. At best you'll get what you need in a much easier manner.

I've seen people claiming valve did this for X reason or Y reason, but I have not seen any evidence to support the claims.


Side note: You guys really better not start comparing this to maps. There has always been a significant division between the creativity/customizing aspect of a map and server-side mods (for any game).

 

[lana]

Not really. If, for example, Valve tried to destroy all idle maps in one swoop I suppose the world could live without them. Sure, there will be casualties, but we'll get over it and make more maps.

I don't see why reskinning them won't work. I mean, unless you're trying to force your hats on other players, in which case I wouldn't support this anyway. And let's face it, what are the odds of Valve actually reverting the change?

.

Valve doesn't have a direct contribution system for maps. Though, I guess you could e-mail them...

 

[voogru]

A petition? Really? I thought everyone knew petitions are nigh-useless. Valve isn't some big monstrosity that will only respond to a petition from a hundred thousand people. They quite frequently respond and/or do something if you just ask. That's clearly what the prop hunt people did. Have you brought this up with Valve? At worst they'll say no and maybe tell you why they did what they did. At best you'll get what you need in a much easier manner.

I know, I've asked for things before and surprise, they were in a future update. I've made my case to Valve directly (and very politely), what I want to do is show that people, other than me, care about this.

The petition may be worthless, but it won't hurt either.

Side note: You guys really better not start comparing this to maps. There has always been a significant division between the creativity/customizing aspect of a map and server-side mods (for any game).

Maps are at the mercy of the game logic.

Not really. If, for example, Valve tried to destroy all idle maps in one swoop I suppose the world could live without them. Sure, there will be casualties, but we'll get over it and make more maps.

You can still idle without idle maps...

I don't see why reskinning them won't work. I mean, unless you're trying to force your hats on other players, in which case I wouldn't support this anyway.

So servers should not be allowed to add their own custom hats for their players? Because custom hats are stupid? Because you don't like downloading custom hats?

Then why stop at hats? Some maps are really stupid and I hate having to download stupid maps.

And let's face it, what are the odds of Valve actually reverting the change?

Custom tab removal, and gamerules agnostic server ranking, are major things server ops asked for, and valve eventually came through.

 

[ANova]

Hey voogru I was banned from you're guy's server like couple weeks ago for votebanning to many people Hmmm...... Can you unban me? lol

 

[YM]

I'm shocked at the hostility here. Coming from mapping community on top of that, what if they changed another policy that broke alternative map modes over something very trivial?

You should forgive nerdboy's hostility and the poor quality of his analogies , he has a long history of it, his user title is ironic
Snacks is obviously oblivious as to who you are.

My own position is swinging towards agreeing with this. I'll admit at first I thought it was just breaking your hats mod which I'd always dismissed as a silly mod.

 

[Snacks]

Snacks is obviously oblivious as to who you are.

Nope.

 

[lana]

Maps are at the mercy of the game logic.

Not really. You can always find a workaround.

You can still idle without idle maps...

Not the point.

So servers should not be allowed to add their own custom hats for their players? Because custom hats are stupid? Because you don't like downloading custom hats?

Then why stop at hats? Some maps are really stupid and I hate having to download stupid maps.

Maps change gameplay. Hats don't. You can't reskin an old map in order to have a new experience, you have to have a new one.

Custom tab removal, and gamerules agnostic server ranking, are major things server ops asked for, and valve eventually came through.

I think Valve was aware of what would happen if they made this change. If you really, desperately need custom hats, ask them, like the Prop Hunt guys. Valve removed custom hats for a reason though.

EDIT:

You should forgive nerdboy's hostility and the poor quality of his analogies , he has a long history of it, his user title is ironic

Sorry if I'm coming off as hostile. I'm just saying that it's happened and it's not going back.

 

[YM]

Nope.

Then why so suspicious of the site??

 

[voogru]

Not really. You can always find a workaround.

A workaround for this issue would get patched. So what if your workaround is patched?

Then what?

My own position is swinging towards agreeing with this. I'll admit at first I thought it was just breaking your hats mod which I'd always dismissed as a silly mod.

If I wanted to create an innovative new crafting system for weapons, a real MMO type crafting system, if I were to do such a thing the players would be unable to see the weapons. They'd work, but invisible. So the system would appear to be "broken".

Maps change gameplay. Hats don't. You can't reskin an old map in order to have a new experience, you have to have a new one.

Again and again, this isn't just about hats. This is about anything being attached to the player. What kind of things are attached to players?

1. Hats
2. Weapons
3. Flags (flags have exception)
4. Any plug-in that wishes to add some visual indicator on a player and have it move properly with the player.

I think Valve was aware of what would happen if they made this change. If you really, desperately need custom hats, ask them, like the Prop Hunt guys. Valve removed custom hats for a reason though.

Dirty little secret: PropHunt guys didn't ask for anything. My friend and I pointed it out to Valve and they decided to add a new function so that PropHunt could be fixed. The only reason why PropHunt wasn't broken was because it was pointed out very early to them.

 

[The Political Gamer]

Also whats this thing about custom hats being banned they work fine for me!
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1276735/Pictures/Maps/hl2 2010-05-01 20-14-58-71.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1276735/Pictures/Maps/hl2 2010-05-01 20-15-10-32.jpg
http://www.fpsbanana.com/skins/86484

 

[voogru]

Also whats this thing about custom hats being banned they work fine for me!
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1276735/Pictures/Maps/hl2 2010-05-01 20-14-58-71.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1276735/Pictures/Maps/hl2 2010-05-01 20-15-10-32.jpg
http://www.fpsbanana.com/skins/86484

You are replacing existing hats with custom models, on the client.

This is about servers issuing attached models to the player, hats being one of them.

 

[FireSlash]

Also whats this thing about custom hats being banned they work fine for me!
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1276735/Pictures/Maps/hl2 2010-05-01 20-14-58-71.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1276735/Pictures/Maps/hl2 2010-05-01 20-15-10-32.jpg
http://www.fpsbanana.com/skins/86484

Those are reskins of existing hats. They only affect your client, and affect all of that hat on your client.

Voogru's mod let anyone on his server equip any hat his server supported. So he could upload custom hats to the server and people could choose to wear them or not based on a command.

What valve broke was the ability for mods to attach entities to players. So you can't attach things like hats, weapons, etc to players with a mod.

 

[Leminnes]

I was going to say a lot more when I first saw this, but now that I see where this has gone I don't wish to get into that, and I'll just make my initial observation.

A petition? Really? I thought everyone knew petitions are nigh-useless. Valve isn't some big monstrosity that will only respond to a petition from a hundred thousand people. They quite frequently respond and/or do something if you just ask. That's clearly what the prop hunt people did. Have you brought this up with Valve? At worst they'll say no and maybe tell you why they did what they did. At best you'll get what you need in a much easier manner.

I've seen people claiming valve did this for X reason or Y reason, but I have not seen any evidence to support the claims.


Side note: You guys really better not start comparing this to maps. There has always been a significant division between the creativity/customizing aspect of a map and server-side mods (for any game).

They've been discussing it on the hlds newsletter. I'm pretty sure Valve reads that, so it's probably passed their gaze at some point. The petition was brought up there as well and the reaction was similar to your's: a petition? Really?

I also think some server mods are upset about this because custom hats and "getting access to all valve hats" was what MANY servers used to get donation money by only offering donators this option.

 

[MrAlBobo]

Im really not clear why people are actually opposed to this being fixed/ changed. What would it really hurt? So some people like to have all the official hats, along with custom ones available to them, and are willing to download them, good for them. Personally, I don't, I play on the most vanilla custom maps servers I can find. I still see no reason that anyone would actually be opposed. With a good filter you should never come across any of these servers, so its not like you will have to go through 8 servers running it to find one that doesn't.
I signed it for one reason, limiting what modders can do limits the odds of something being created that you really enjoy.

 

[voogru]

I also think some server mods are upset about this because custom hats and "getting access to all valve hats" was what MANY servers used to get donation money by only offering donators this option.

The primary feature is a high priority/reserved slot, but these contributions keep these servers running.

Hats are nice, but the slots are what people *really* want.

And if I want to have some custom hats made and give those custom hats to contributors? Who cares?

The valve hats I can understand them not liking us using them, but breaking everything is overkill.

Still, this isn't just about "hats" this is about weapons, and anything that is attached to the player.

Hey, you want to create a custom flag entity for maps that does stuff that the item_teamflag won't do, or conflicts with something for that particular game mode? SOL.

Hey, want to make a "tag" type game play mode where the "it" person has an indicator over their head saying "IT". SOL.

And that's just two things that came out of the top of my head.

 

[Dr. Spud]

Where's the evidence that Valve is intentionally stopping these server mods? How do you know they didn't just accidentally bug it out?

The update came out a day ago and already it's RABBLE RABBLE SIGN A PETITION VALVE IS RUINING CREATIVITY. It's hard to take that seriously. And somehow I don't see Valve ever taking it seriously either.

 

[voogru]

Where's the evidence that Valve is intentionally stopping these server mods? How do you know they didn't just accidentally bug it out?

The update came out a day ago and already it's RABBLE RABBLE SIGN A PETITION VALVE IS RUINING CREATIVITY. It's hard to take that seriously. And somehow I don't see Valve ever taking it seriously either.

Because Valve indicated that, it was not a bug.

And there is a new function called: ValidateEntityAttachedToPlayer

I'm not the RABBLE RABBLE JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS type of person, and I'd like to think that I know what I'm talking about.

Heres some more proof for you.

http://forums.alliedmods.net/showpost.php?p=1165145&postcount=389

 

[Sel]

1. Custom, unofficial hats. One example of this is my servers "AWESOME!" hat which is a giant yellow ball with the famous awesome smiley.

Stopped reading here, it's a real tragedy ain't it