The Future of Compensation for TF2 Mappers: A Community / Valve Discussion

[Crash]

I don't think download size should really matter much these days. I know there are a few places left where it becomes an issue (sorry, Aussies) but I'm willing to bet a very very large percentage of the playerbase has high speed uncapped internet. Toning down for those with less than that is just taking a step backwards.

 

[henke37]

Is it?

This allows clients to download data incrementally. The client can stop at a lower resolution if it wants to, but the key here is that it can start playing sooner and get better quality after a little while.

 

[InstantMuffin]

It would indeed be a great idea to let the client preload data for the next map while playing the current one.

Too bad that there is no standardized way to manage a "next map" on source.

Bad idea, Steam disables downloads by default for a reason.

If you want to improve the content-downloading during connect phases and mapchanges, allow for parallel downloads. Also issues with pseudo-duplicate files should be resolved (erroring out when you already have a file matching that filepath). There's a more detailed appeal in one of the source-related mailing lists, it was posted by voided a few weeks ago.

 

[UKCS-Alias]

Players themselve should still have the option to turn that back on. Its not a must to do. You could play the game with the poor textures fine. And initialy it could at least have the map files with just low res textures and lightmaps.

It just prevents player from having to download all the 15GB in 1 go, instead it would be more like 5gb worth of data (remember, hats and such are optional content and can still give the full gameplay so they dont have to be preloaded).

The minimum for a playable game would be:
The engine
Player models
weapon models
hud/interfaces
maps (optionaly not even all of them, it could for example load the map when it detects/loads the next map)
props
low res textures for props and weapons
exceptions for gameplay affecting cosmetics (harpoon, gatebot hats)

Everything else can simply be downloaded while in the main menu, loading the next map. During setup in mvm/comp. And if it becomes a problem you can even turn that off, or when you have a fast enough pc, you keep it on.

And this content could all simply be set active on the loading of the game. This means that whatever was loaded while playing wont show until the next restart.

And i am aware some might be able to use that to get rid of the hats on players.. but i personaly dont realy care, most players wouldnt even bother of trying to get rid of them using such method.

And im also aware it currently would give issues in the engine, but that is again the reason why tf2 isnt going to get it unless a new game has something that can be ported to also work in tf2.

 

[InstantMuffin]

Oh, I thought you were talking to custom content downloads in game. I'm sorry I completely misunderstood apparently. (EDIT: Just realized you're someone else)
I should note however that l4d2 has kind of what you describe with workshop items. The idea is nice, but it was insanely bugged.

 

[YM]

Wow the topic wandered somewhat.

I don't see -game- downloads ever being a problem when stuff like titanfall is 50+gb. The problem I do see is -map- downloads. That delay between one map and the next. People don't want to wait for that. We do, but we're the 1%

 

[InstantMuffin]

one should really start recording statistics for the custom content download cvar.

 

[Pocket]

It would indeed be a great idea to let the client preload data for the next map while playing the current one.

Too bad that there is no standardized way to manage a "next map" on source.

Provided they prioritize the packets so that when there's a packet related to the gameplay queued, on either end, it gets sent immediately and makes the download-related ones wait. Right now, if the way it handles bandwidth-heavy MOTDs is any indication, Steam doesn't do that — it takes me about eight seconds from the moment our site's current MOTD starts loading and the moment my ping starts dropping and there's no lag. Even with higher speed connections, the download is going to monopolize your connection until it's done, and (based on my attempts to throttle Steam downloads while I'm in-game) even capping the download speed will cause microstutter as gameplay packets still have to wait their turn. And remember, people with slower connections are the ones who need pre-downloading the most.

 

[CommodoreKong]

I just wanted to pop in and say that after reading this topic I was pretty disappointed that Valve didn't ship a single community map this year. I was hoping they would actually start shipping more community maps and we would get one or two in the Christmas update, but we got even more beta content and old maps repurposed for the new gamemode.


I still think the best thing Valve can do to get extra money for map makers (besides buying more maps of course) is getting rid of the strange filters, and selling strange parts for community maps directly through the store. Just make them a special 4th strange part so people who already have 3 parts can buy them, and just count kills on that map. Maybe give the weapon a special sheen or particle effect when playing on the map they have the part for as well. I would even sell them for Valve created maps and take the money from those sales and divide it out the same way they would sales from map stamp packs.

I can't imagine strange filters sell at all (who wants to restrict their strange weapon to a single map). I imagine strange parts would sell far better (I know I would buy a few).

I'm not sure 3-4 moonbase maps is viable. It's a grey landscape with sterile white interiors, that's going to get boring pretty quick.

If you wanted to do 2-4 moonbase themed maps for a community update I agree just making them all moonbase themed would be a bad idea. You could make one of them themed around a factory building a rocket, one of them based in the area near the launch site (perhaps with the rocket launching or not launching based on the results of the map) and a moonbase themed map or two. You could almost tell a story that way, from building the rocket to launching it to fighting on the moon/in space.


Of course if TF2maps.net does work on a community map pack I don't have any skills making maps, but I would be more then happy to help playtest when I can.

 

[UKCS-Alias]

The moonbase interior is currently very empty hence its mostly white. on the red base you can see a little of how its more likely going to be and it provides alot more color.

If you wanted to do 2-4 moonbase themed maps for a community update I agree just making them all moonbase themed would be a bad idea. You could make one of them themed around a factory building a rocket, one of them based in the area near the launch site (perhaps with the rocket launching or not launching based on the results of the map) and a moonbase themed map or two. You could almost tell a story that way, from building the rocket to launching it to fighting on the moon/in space.

Well, i already am working on such map (except it goes slow due to lack of moonbase content to begin with and lack of modeling skills to at least make the outside area decent).

Also, even within the moonbase style there is some more room for diffirent styles. Valve mainly has an inside area and just a little outside area. Who says you cant mostly focus on the outside? It might be a dull skybox as only reason. But even that isnt a requirement.

If you look at red faction 3 you also have a moonbase. A huge one, with complete roads. And there it still doesnt feel weird at all. It works as long as the mapper has an idea to make it work.

 

[henke37]

Downloads vs gameplay traffic is a network problem, not something the game can control. You need QOS to prioritize the game traffic, letting the downloads take anything that's left.

At the simplest, the uplink router can just detect game clients by ports used and reserve bandwidth for them.

Can the game help? Yes. It can mark the traffic with the correct QOS level. But that's it, the rest is a problem for the network.

 

[UKCS-Alias]

Even if the QOS is poorly managed the game can use other tricks:
If the network knows the max speed it could at least try to check the remaining safe bandwidth.
So if you have 10mbit/s and the game uses 2mbit/s then thats a remainder of 8. obviously using all will cause lag, but what if you only take 1mbit/s. It should still not harm the game latency.
Yet at 1mbit/s you can still download a 50mb map in 400 seconds. which is far less than the average duration a map will run at. If you take the map timer into acount you could even reduce the badwidth it uses based on that. 30min for a map? 200kb/s! And you still have lots of remaining time.

Does it notice the game starts to get delayed package info too much, then just stop/slow down the downloading. This would mean at the end you will have to download a little bit, but 10mb is still less than 50mb.

Its not the game controlling the traffic management. But it still can use some tricks for optimizing so it doesnt overload the network with download traffic.

And if ping realy matters to you, you can just set it the way it is now to only download a map during map transitions.

 

[YM]

If you wanted to do 2-4 moonbase themed maps for a community update I agree just making them all moonbase themed would be a bad idea. You could make one of them themed around a factory building a rocket, one of them based in the area near the launch site (perhaps with the rocket launching or not launching based on the results of the map) and a moonbase themed map or two. You could almost tell a story that way, from building the rocket to launching it to fighting on the moon/in space.

That is more or less what I meant. I didn't mean 3-4 generic moonbase maps, but themed around something. So maybe a luanch, a landing and a full base. Like two cities has rottenburg and manhattan (they made two maps and then said "oh, uh, TWO CITIES! yes! aren't we geniuses!" ).

 

[takabuschik]

Does Valve even read this thread? Or are we just writing and moaning for ourselves about how Valve could make their game/map management/map compensation systems better?

I wonder the same thing about the beta maps (asteroid and cactus canyon) threads.

 

[Fruity Snacks]

Does Valve even read this thread? Or are we just writing and moaning for ourselves about how Valve could make their game/map management/map compensation systems better?

I wonder the same thing about the beta maps (asteroid and cactus canyon) threads.

They have, early on. I don't know about recently.

 

[henke37]

If the network knows the max speed

It doesn't. Not unless you are on a LAN that you manage yourself. The Internet does not qualify at all. There are many interconnected nodes, with varying connection qualities.

An example: I am on a fast 100/100 fiber connection in Sweden. The game server is a rented dedicated box in some server room in Australia. The game asset download server is a random CDN box. My sister is downloading some TV show from some dodgy rate limited download site. And my mom is on Facebook watching some dancing bunnies.

Which speed are we talking about there?

No, this mess can't be solved with mere adaptive bandwidth limits on the downloads by the client. This is a network problem and must be addressed in the network. The correct solution in this example is to prioritize my game traffic and let the downloads fight over the remaining bandwidth.

 

[Pocket]

Downloads vs gameplay traffic is a network problem, not something the game can control.

Shouldn't it be? The same server is responsible for sending both. It's not the same thing as trying to control downloads for two completely unrelated apps.

 

[henke37]

Is that so? It isn't in this scenario. The game server is on one box and the download server is on another box, probably in a different location.

The game server could be one of valve's tf2 servers, but the download is a steam cdn server.

And the same thing applies for 3rd party game servers with custom content. I assume fastdownload being used here. Nobody in their right mind uses the legacy download system. The game server isn't the same as the download server. It may or may not run on the same box, but as far as the game server knows, it's nothing that it can control.

 

[fauks]

This thread has derailed somewhat.

How about I ask a question:

Who wants new maps?

I feel like the majority of players are quite happy with the large amount of current official maps.

So who does that leave? Ourselves, maybe competitive leagues, maybe a few player groups with adventurous server admins. That's probably a very small percentage of the player base.

I guess my train of thought is, why seek compensation from Valve? Perhaps it would be better to reach out to the people who actually want the maps.

EDIT: I should use the term "acceptance" rather than "compensation" since TF2 communities are on a tight/net-loss budget to begin with (I think).

 

[Zed]

I feel like the majority of players are quite happy with the large amount of current official maps.

Really? People are constantly pointing out how few Payload Race and King of the Hill maps there are in the official rotation. I think people would be quite happy with some new maps.