The Gun Mettle Update is (Actually) Here!
- Thread starter tf2.com
- Start date
Lampenpam
aa
- Mar 23, 2013
- 1,013
- 347
I know about that, and carrier of the own team are visible
...uhhh, That changed six years ago. Everyone thought jarate was an april fools joke (revealed on that day) and valve would never actually do such a thing. Couple months later...
takabuschik
aa
- Apr 14, 2013
- 663
- 343
Yaaaaay! update! Maps! 4 maps! community maps! Snowplow!! Borneo!
That said...
For some reason I got that feeling that the maps will be removed after the 3 months. IDK for sure, obviously, but the fact that Valve clearly stated that they don't want Snowplow in game (eotl), the Packed content Crash talked about in his video, the huge amounts of new maps, the hints for another campain to be featured after this campain-- it all feels strange, as if it's too good to be true, and in 3 months we'll wake up to find it all gone, or more likely, replaced by 4 other maps.
I really hope that's wrong, because each and every one of these maps deserves being official.
That said...
For some reason I got that feeling that the maps will be removed after the 3 months. IDK for sure, obviously, but the fact that Valve clearly stated that they don't want Snowplow in game (eotl), the Packed content Crash talked about in his video, the huge amounts of new maps, the hints for another campain to be featured after this campain-- it all feels strange, as if it's too good to be true, and in 3 months we'll wake up to find it all gone, or more likely, replaced by 4 other maps.
I really hope that's wrong, because each and every one of these maps deserves being official.
takabuschik
aa
- Apr 14, 2013
- 663
- 343
Oh-- are they only going to be taken out of rotations?
No one knows. Frozen has emailed Valve asking them but they haven't emailed him back yet.
Personally I doubt they will remove them from the game, the maps are on community servers too not just Valve servers (which is different from the CSGO operations, those were for playing the maps on Valve servers) and I can't imagine the negative outcry from the community if they remove 3 maps.
I think they are just called featured community maps because Valve is running special gun mettle servers with these maps and they will be added into normal Valve servers when the campaign is over.
So my wishlist of things I hope to happen after this update...
The big one: Custom assets from the maps included in the game (ESPECIALLY the theme packs! This is like creativity fuel to the max for us!) But really, everything would be great. I assume that raises some new issues, but that's the one of the best parts of getting new maps in the game. Losing that for the future would be bad.
Maps possibly get some stamp/filter support? Guess it depends on if they are "official official" or not, but it'd be nice if there was some income for the mappers after the fact.
Some more transparency on the process, perhaps? Seems like everyone is in the dark here. Being a new thing, it makes sense, but even letting us know what the plan is/ could be would be helpful. Is this going to be a regularly scheduled thing?
And aside from the current maps in, server operators and players could use some more support with using the workshop. I get a ton of people asking how to play maps they subscribe to.
The big one: Custom assets from the maps included in the game (ESPECIALLY the theme packs! This is like creativity fuel to the max for us!) But really, everything would be great. I assume that raises some new issues, but that's the one of the best parts of getting new maps in the game. Losing that for the future would be bad.
Maps possibly get some stamp/filter support? Guess it depends on if they are "official official" or not, but it'd be nice if there was some income for the mappers after the fact.
Some more transparency on the process, perhaps? Seems like everyone is in the dark here. Being a new thing, it makes sense, but even letting us know what the plan is/ could be would be helpful. Is this going to be a regularly scheduled thing?
And aside from the current maps in, server operators and players could use some more support with using the workshop. I get a ton of people asking how to play maps they subscribe to.
Yeah it is fairly worrisome that Valve still hasn't told anyone what is going to happen to these maps when the campaign is done. I still personally can't believe they will take away content from players, and we know from the map maker compensation thread that they wanted players to pay map makers so I think this is just their new method of adding maps and these maps are just going in the normal map rotation when the campaign is done, but you can never predict what Valve is going to do.
This is probably going to be a regularly scheduled thing, we do know from the Gun Mettle FAQ that they plan on doing more campaigns featuring more community maps. I imagine Valve doesn't have an exact schedule planned out for these campaigns yet since I doubt one will immediately follow the other, they'll probably be at least a few week to 1-2 gap between campaigns so I doubt they want to give out any info on future campaigns at this point.
Something to note, I did get a response from Valve.
They (that is, the people I have talked to) don't have answers to the questions regarding what will happen to the maps at the end of event. They are still monitoring community feedback to make the best decision.
So, I ask ya'll, what are you thinking so far about the update, what feedback do you have from a map maker standpoint? What abuot from a non-map maker standpoint?
(This is in regards to Snowplow, Borneo and Suijin)
They (that is, the people I have talked to) don't have answers to the questions regarding what will happen to the maps at the end of event. They are still monitoring community feedback to make the best decision.
So, I ask ya'll, what are you thinking so far about the update, what feedback do you have from a map maker standpoint? What abuot from a non-map maker standpoint?
(This is in regards to Snowplow, Borneo and Suijin)
Last edited:
From a map-maker's standpoint, I really liked seeing maps in this update that were widely praised in the community, and that had very varying gameplay spaces. I really do see Suijin as a gamble in its methodology and layout (aka don't clip if you don't have to, large height differences and a full secondary area in a KotH map), and I'm happy to see it and the other implemented maps play well on Valve servers. Quite obviously, the packed content was a big letdown, but I could understand it if it was pronounced as a decision to save space.
From a non-map-maker's standpoint, I really enjoy the variety that this update offered, as well as the sheer bulk of it. PL, KotH, A/D CP, 3CP! I see the addition of more tours as an exciting new way to add variety to the game to players that aren't as inclined to play unofficial maps. I'm also excited to see the implementation of changes both to weapons and to the graphic elements of the game to cater towards competitive.
Personally, I see weapon skins partially as an effort to revitalize TF2's marketplace. CS:GO certainly showed that a thriving market meta can make a thriving game.
Remember how the TF2 and CS:GO teams share the same office space? It's funny how things work out.
Frozen, by this...
...do you mean that there is possibly an answer to those questions, and that some members of Valve don't know? Or do you mean that the answers remain undecided by Valve as a whole?
Last edited:
ReachForASkybox
L1: Registered
- Jun 3, 2015
- 13
- 2
I do not mind the Skins or the campaigns, and my experience with the update was overall really good.
Borneo is aesthetically good, and plays well too.
Snowplow is not confusing. It is also a good map.
Suijin is a Arena map, and I personally do not think it is as good as a KOTH map as it is an Arena map. It is however, quite fun.
Powerhouse is fun enough, and it looks good. I haven't really played it much though.
Borneo is aesthetically good, and plays well too.
Snowplow is not confusing. It is also a good map.
Suijin is a Arena map, and I personally do not think it is as good as a KOTH map as it is an Arena map. It is however, quite fun.
Powerhouse is fun enough, and it looks good. I haven't really played it much though.
The thing to keep in mind is that if they're really planning to make this a four-times-a-year thing, then three maps every event is going to add up damn quick. And while it's one thing to let the maps stay in people's folders, making them all part of the initial download probably isn't a good idea. We've already been saying that they should remove some maps that people generally don't like for that very reason.
I'm not going to lie, Valve not knowing what's going to happen to these 3 maps after the event is over is not a response I was expecting at all. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the TF2 community will be pissed if Valve gives them some new maps only to take them away 3 months from now, I'm not sure why Valve is being so indecisive about these maps. Even if they want to buy the maps themselves $21,000 to buy the 3 maps (plus whatever extra it costs to buy the assets) will be a tiny drop in the bucket compared to what they make in campaign pass, key sales and their cut of the community market sales from this update.
Personally I like all 3 maps in the update. Boreno is my favorite, I've liked it for a long time and payload is my favorite game mode. It plays well and looks really nice.
I like Snowplow a lot too. The only major issue I have with it is that it seems like one team will roll the other more often then on other maps. I have no idea why this is, it seems like it happened on the late alphas and the betas I played too.
Suijin is a decent map. Much like Nucleus you can feel it's arena origins and it doesn't play perfectly in Koth (the huge sniper sightline between spawns and how boxed in the control point is being the 2 big issues) but it's fun enough to play on. It is easily one of the most beautiful maps in TF2 but seems poorly optimized, I seem to get bigger FPS drops on it then any other TF2 map.
I doubt the campaigns will happen 4 times a year, 3 times a year is much more likely, I imagine they'll be a several week to 1-2 month gap between campaigns. When has the TF2 team been able to finish anytime on time?
Good points. Though three maps per event (12 a year!) will quickly deplete the quality maps available in the workshop IMO. I doubt that Valve will start doing these events that frequently. I could see three maps per event twice a year, or two maps per event three times a year, or some less structured schedule.
Then again when CSGO did the map missions thing, some of the maps returned in a later mission, didn't they? So maybe a mix of new maps plus old ones would be plenty to do these events regularly.
One thing I really wanted out of this was to have the map assets officially available for mappers. I even asked Aly to add a couple more of the unused Japan pack props to Suijin so that mappers could get access to them. Unfortunately that didn't work out as I'd hoped.
Having more new assets available in turn increases the variety of potential maps going into the workshop. Of course those assets also eat up a lot of disk space. Maps with no custom assets are fairly small downloads... I think, what, cubemaps are the largest thing in a bsp with no custom stuff?
Just saw this.
As far as I know, this is how Valve work with their mysterious ways of darkness and gloom (the happy darkness and gloom). They'll collect all the data they need, then make a decision. It's a bit of a weird way to do things because the industry, as a whole (I feel) is moving more towards transparency... so it's becoming a little bit of a weird policy. Based on my previous emails with 'em, I figured that this was the case, but was trying to see if there was more.
It's how they want to do things, so they do it. Can disagree if you want, but it is currently their policy.
(Hi Valve).
What if the community were to vote one map out of the three added each event to stay official? To make it a little fairer, they all get map stamps/filters as well.