Wutville

PL Wutville beta2 - final

r13

Train God
Aug 30, 2010
259
286
i got the trees to work properly.. there was a bug in it's qc file.

i got the train to not kill you if you mash up against the cab as the train moves around. the detailing was off a little.


i'm also done with this map and tf2 mapping. i'm done with fighting the community, done with begging for basic playtests, done with idiot trolls, done with the 100o's of hours i've put into my projects and have gotten nothing in return but frustration. i'm done. uninstalling and i'm out.

Read the rest of this update entry...
 

MaccyF

Notoriously Unreliable
aa
Mar 27, 2015
914
1,544
As far as i'm aware you've never put your maps up for our impromptu or scheduled testing, (we have hundreds of mappers fighting to get testing, this is the only real way we have to organise it ) and you ignore feedback regarding how completely your maps deviate from TF2's artstyle. I really don't see how what you're complaining about is anyone's fault but your own. As to having gotten nothing in return for your efforts; take a good look at your maps, do you really think they match the gameplay and overall style of anything valve has in the game?

You're an excellent modeller and have a great grasp of the hammer editor, but do you really think a map that looks like this and has these gameplay flaws is ever going to get any more recognition than as "the map with the wrapping-paper buildings"

Please don't take this as a personal attack on you or your maps, i love how wacky and out there they are, but you have to understand that something wacky and out there isn't going to get any real attention other than in a very small niche of people who like that sort of thing.

As to trolls, if its within the site report it to the staff, else i can't really say anything other than that people are idiots.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
2,579
I keep checking in on this thread and thinking "This sure is a nice looking map; it'd be great if I'd actually get to play it sometime." It's on you if you never submitted it to a gameday or anything.
 

Jekyllson

L3: Member
Jun 20, 2015
115
67
I keep checking in on this thread and thinking "This sure is a nice looking map; it'd be great if I'd actually get to play it sometime." It's on you if you never submitted it to a gameday or anything.

I back this 100%. You've made a truly special map, r13, and even if it never is made official, there are so many people who would really, REALLY enjoy playing it. :) Myself included. ;)
 
Aug 30, 2015
359
451
If I came across as overly critical, know that I only did so because I thought the objects of my criticism detracted from an otherwise fouckin' A grade map.
 

Trianon

L1: Registered
Feb 25, 2015
15
14
i'm also done with this map and tf2 mapping. i'm done with fighting the community, done with begging for basic playtests, done with idiot trolls, done with the 100o's of hours i've put into my projects and have gotten nothing in return but frustration. i'm done. uninstalling and i'm out.

Sad to hear that, that's a really special map. Nowadays almost nobody makes great custom maps, good veteran mappers are stuck to tf2 meta, and new mappers are only capable of doing another remake of cp_orange.

I'll host this map on my server: 151.248.114.30:27015, everybody's invited to join.
 

r13

Train God
Aug 30, 2010
259
286
every time i've approached this community trying to get my maps playtested, i was always either ignored completely or told that the same 5 maps that has been tested for the last week would be tested again for the next week. "I shouldn't ever expect anything" was another awesome response i got when i tried. wonderful community service as he was telling me the truth. I totally get thats is a community thing and i'm not in your community. i tried many times to follow your rules and was told "no" the few times someone felt it necessary to even respond. after a while, i learned to stop asking. so yes, this is my fault for learning that this community or the people in charge of gameday was not interested in anything i had to offer. he only reason i even continued to post my maps here is out of respect to Crash and Frozen and a few of the other top admins. I knew they appreciated my efforts to try to show that doing the exact same thing for ten years is maybe not the only path to level design.

on the other hand, i totally appreciated the recent feedback i got, i responded to them and made changes. cheers to those guys. they got me to do more work on it that i had intended. i was literally in shock that someone cared enough to run around the map and give me feedback on it. i told friends about it. i'd give them each a fancy hat as thanks.

As far as my maps not matching the art style... yah i get that its a fine line of your opinion and everything else is wrong. i didnt point my post at you or this community and you have no idea what my end goal is. You couldnt even guess at it. Yet you felt attacked enough to point your own finger and tell me this is my fault? yes this is my fault. i didnt say it was your fault or even this community's fault. getting a map into the game would be great, we always agree on that, but it was not my own end goal. as usual, you guys judge everything from a set of rules from 10 years ago that you dont even understand.

So you'll ask what is my own goals? Ideally it could have been something as simple as people asking how i built something or even why? To have people engage me in positive conversation would have been more than enough to make me willing to continue. But that's not going to happen here. That's not what happens here. Instead, I get feedback from people telling me to remove all the textures and props from my maps as they don't think an alpha map should have them. Guess what? That shuts down any potential ability to engage that person. They are reading their responses from a clipboard. I know to ignore that person. But after years of that and everything else ...And it's mostly the everything else... i'm done.

Try to remember that i wasnt going to share all my issues publically. I have spoken to Crash a few times on the topic over the last year. I know he's not happy with my choice to leave. He is also aware of these issues exist within this community. But it's not for me to solve. It's not for him to solve either. He and the admins can only do so much. The community has to choose to be better.

I genuinely hope that you guys find whatever success you are looking for and deserve. if this post makes upset, instead of telling me why i'm an asshole, take a look at your own actions. Are you a positive member of this community? Are you just hanging out here? How do you make this place better?
 

Berry

resident homo
aa
Dec 27, 2012
1,056
1,898
I really do like the looks of this map (unique styles are always fun and grab my attention), and would actually like to try it despite never have seen it anywhere else except on the recently updated section of the forums. If it's never been tested: Have you been in chat and added it to the bot list? That's pretty much the only way maps end up being tested these days as we have a much larger amount of maps being requested for testing.

"Not matching the artstyle" is an odd argument and I think could definitely be put more constructively as I think it could pass if it was worked at a little more. I haven't looked at the aesthetics in depth, but I'm sure someone who has been and played the map could definitely say "oh tweak this and it'll look much more in line with the TF2 style!".

We are also definitely not an exclusive community like you imply, pretty much anyone who hangs around and chats (whether a mapmaker or not) is considered 'in the community'. It is however more difficult to be on everyone's radar if you don't show in chat as most people just idle in their rather than browsing the forums large amounts. Pop up and chat, test your map if you like, have some fun. Or don't, someone will probably run your map at this point anyway because it looks cool.
 

Yrr

An Actual Deer
aa
Sep 20, 2015
1,308
2,743
Huh, I've never seen one of your maps submitted for testing here.

You can get people's opinions if they decided to just download and look at it alone but all you're gonna get there is the visual and clipping feedback already posted in this thread. To get proper gameplay feedback the map needs to be played on a full server, which I've seen you do on the HoNC server before but I've never seen one in the TF2Maps.net queue.

I don't know how it was a few years ago but since I've been here we get loads of maps submitted to be playtested, enough that we can't just decide to run additional maps we think look cool; if someone wants their map tested in this community they need to go through the same process as everyone else, which means actively submitting it to the tests or else its assumed you have testing covered on your end.

I certainly assumed you had testing covered on your end on account of playing it on HoNC and never doing the submission process here. It's a shame to find out you thought you were being ignored in this way.
 

JeanPaul

L6: Sharp Member
Aug 5, 2010
284
279
Im not sure about other people here but I can join the tf2maps.net steam group chat and pester users for 5-10 minutes before I get a 30 minute test of 24 players on my map. Idk what this "I approached the community" stuff is but I find it pretty damn easy to get maps tested here.

Also putting up barriers along the lines of "you must approach me with positive conversation to make me willing to continue" is only a detriment to yourself because no one wants to give feedback in that type of situation. Texturing and detailing (especially with custom content) an alpha map that hasnt been gameplay tested is viewed as a bad move because making changes to a detailed map is intensely more difficult and time consuming. I would also like to note that giving gameplay feedback to a map that has been largely untested but is currently almost finished with detailing is a moot deal. Why would I spend the time to critique the gameplay and layout if I know you arent going to do anything about it because the map currently has all its respective details in place?
 

Jethro

MUSty Complainer
Nov 2, 2009
287
281
I think there is a bit of a problem with some people just parroting advice - "don't detail in alpha, don't do gimmicks" etc - without really seeing if it applies to the situation or not. I realize some people are trying to be helpful, but that sort of advice is best given to complete newbies than someone who has a few maps under their belt.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
2,579
every time i've approached this community trying to get my maps playtested, i was always either ignored completely or told that the same 5 maps that has been tested for the last week would be tested again for the next week. "I shouldn't ever expect anything" was another awesome response i got when i tried. wonderful community service as he was telling me the truth.
Who stopped testing ze maps? I vant names!

Seriously, though, if any of our server ops or admins are being jerks, it's definitely prudent to report their behavior rather than assume they speak for the community as a whole. We're not the St. Louis police department; we won't stand up for our worst people out of some bullshit sense of solidarity. But again, that hinges on you going through the proper channels; there was a time when you could pop in on a test in progress and ask to be added, but the automated queue has made that unfeasible because there's always a backlog to get through. Even gameday threads are a lot more sporadic than they used to be. The bot is really your only option.

One of these days we really need to work up some kind of "First Time Here?" page that explains things like the Interlopers compile log checker; rules like building cubemaps, packing content (and how to verify it), and putting in lights; and how to get maps tested. The information on this site is all over the place, and frankly it's our own dang fault that people have such trouble figuring it all out and keep bugging us with the same questions. I myself ignored that thread for weeks because I assumed from the title that it was just some generic bot that you talk to and it responds with gibberish.
 

LeSwordfish

semi-trained quasi-professional
aa
Aug 8, 2010
4,102
6,597
I think there is a bit of a problem with some people just parroting advice - "don't detail in alpha, don't do gimmicks" etc - without really seeing if it applies to the situation or not. I realize some people are trying to be helpful, but that sort of advice is best given to complete newbies than someone who has a few maps under their belt.

I definitely agree with this - although I'm having trouble finding where you were given this advice. Was it on here? On the feedback page?
 

Empyre

L6: Sharp Member
Feb 8, 2011
309
187
I gave up trying to map for TF2 years ago because I didn't want to be confined to the TF2 artstyle, but by then, I had gotten into the community, so I didn't leave. I returned to mapping for Doom, and have been enjoying it.

My advice would be to leave if that is what you want to do, but don't uninstall, and don't burn your bridges behind you. Some time in the future you might change your mind, and there will be at least some people here who would welcome you back.

EDIT: I would like to add that if you don't map for TF2, you should map for some other game. What I've seen here shows that you have a great talent (far better than me), and it would be a waste to throw that away.
 

Jekyllson

L3: Member
Jun 20, 2015
115
67
I back this 100%. You've made a truly special map, r13, and even if it never is made official, there are so many people who would really, REALLY enjoy playing it. :) Myself included. ;)

This comment aged well ;)

I never thought that I would see the day, but Valve actually made it happen! Congratulations!!!
 

Boonie

L2: Junior Member
Sep 22, 2015
77
54
Hi, I run this map on a few servers! Every map I add to the server I go over beforehand and find and fix all exploits.

A few notes before everything:
  1. The skybox really should come down a bit, it is so easy for a demo on each side to just go flying past with zero repercussion. Currently its 2700+ HU tall at first.
  2. There really needs to be more areaportals in the map, there is a grand total of... 1

Now, onto the good stuff!

Out of map: -73 1685 4163
8AsgDoW.jpg

9hMZmmH.png


Can stand/build up here: -1131 -591 3345
hvipSkY.jpg



Blue hill spawnroom has no func_respawnroom: 713 -1768 1989
mY4yvJz.jpg



Red last func_respawnroom isn't covering whole area: -476 492 2967
cXgwZVI.png