HL2DM debate time!

The problem with HL2DM is that it only came with two maps. Valve were
really leaning on the modding community for this. The problem is that
half (or more) of the modding community are - for lack of a better
phase - so bad they make me want to cheesegrater my eyes so I don't
have to see the damn piss-poor quality of most of them. That said, some
good ones are probably floating around. Can anyone recommend any good ones?

Just wait until the competition is over. It's basically a way for Valve
to pad their roster. All the competition maps will be available for a
final version download.

for good maps go here

http://www.snarkpit.com/forums.php?forum=2&8775

for good maps go here

http://www.snarkpit.com/forums.php?forum=2&8775

You're such a dick

I'm insulted when I see 10 servers playing maps that are
fullbright/have no cubemaps/use over scaled textures/use crappy
background models for buildings or any mixture of them all. Its
like a slap in the face.

"your map looks and plays great, but this map came out a week before your's did and its a small download."

It burns me even more when the map makers have the prickness to plaster their name all over the map.

I'm insulted when I see 10 servers playing maps that are
fullbright/have no cubemaps/use over scaled textures/use crappy
background models for buildings or any mixture of them all. Its
like a slap in the face.

"your map looks and plays great, but this map came out a week before your's did and its a small download."

It burns me even more when the map makers have the prickness to plaster their name all over the map.

I agree, some maps out there absolutely suck but are still played.

It burns me even more when the map makers have the prickness to plaster their name all over the map.

Nipper, i feel, is the only one with this right as his maps are ussually so unique and well made.

This is why I don't play CSS. When I last checked, every single server was running a freaking KILLBOX!!!

This is why I don't play CSS. When I last checked, every single server was running a freaking KILLBOX!!!

Don't exagurate. At any given time there's almost 4,000 internet servers running. It seems the map of choice is Dust ... I have no idea why, but it is.

What I meant was every server which had a ping of less than 300. I'm not going to check the other few thousand servers out there. The ones I checked were all running killboxes, that's why I joined a HL2DM server.

All the servers I see with decent pings tend to run the standard maps - perhaps the UK is blessed by server admins with sense.

I agree, some maps out there absolutely suck but are still played.

I need a little clarification here. If these maps are so bad, how did they get a server to host the deathmatch? Everyone playing need to download them first, right? Why would anyone do that? Maybe they're masochists?

How do I get my map hosted on a server? I can guarantee that it's not fullbright.

I agree, some maps out there absolutely suck but are still played.

I need a little clarification here. If these maps are so bad, how
did they get a server to host the deathmatch? Everyone playing need to
download them first, right? Why would anyone do that? Maybe they're
masochists?

How do I get my map hosted on a server? I can guarantee that it's not fullbright.

Simple - people get themselves and their friends to host the map - as
everyone connects they download the "small filesize" map with "plenty
of open space for shooting stuff"

I actually have two quality maps worth playing that I and someone else made, just cant find a server to host them right now...

Maybe the sucky-map-makers are making them s**tty on purpose just for the low ping. No... they're just dumbasses.

Don't expect good DM maps from me. They will probably look good but as
I have only recently (approx time of joining Snarkpit) got Broadband
I've never played online before. I'm all for SP maps me. They're all
I've ever done!

The problem with HL2DM is that it only came with two maps. Valve were
really leaning on the modding community for this. The problem is that
half (or more) of the modding community are - for lack of a better
phase - so bad they make me want to cheesegrater my eyes so I don't
have to see the damn piss-poor quality of most of them. That said, some
good ones are probably floating around. Can anyone recommend any good ones?

Roll on the good times whoever came up with the competition at Valve,
he will get a big pay rise from this. Winner gets money BUT ... they
get a stack of maps which could have cost them much more money to
provide.

I'm primarily a CS:S player and am happy that most servers I encounter
(with low ping) are running the standard set of maps. My buds and
I have rented a server so that we can test our own creations as well as
(hopefully) host some of the better competition maps.

Unfortunately for CS:S players, most map makers are interested in
mapping for DM games. :smile: While I'm not much of a deathmatcher (much
prefer the objective based fights of CS:S), I have to say that HL2DM is
the most entertaining DM game I've ever played.... you might chalk that
up to the gravity gun, which is just TOO entertaining for words.

I'm eager to see what the competition reveals. Sounds like a win-win for Valve. :smile:

I'm primarily a CS:S player and am happy that most servers I encounter
(with low ping) are running the standard set of maps. My buds and
I have rented a server so that we can test our own creations as well as
(hopefully) host some of the better competition maps.

Unfortunately for CS:S players, most map makers are interested in
mapping for DM games. :smile: While I'm not much of a deathmatcher (much
prefer the objective based fights of CS:S), I have to say that HL2DM is
the most entertaining DM game I've ever played.... you might chalk that
up to the gravity gun, which is just TOO entertaining for words.

I'm eager to see what the competition reveals. Sounds like a win-win for Valve. :smile:

I think that deathmatch maps are the downfall of CS. Now this
really goes beone bad maps, but I think that mappers lose focus on what
they are mapping for.

Take de_maps, most CS players will only play the CAL maps. These
maps have the least to do with CS! Hostage rescue was the base of
the game. Maps like 747 and siege are what made CS great (along
with others). Now there are so few well made CS maps out
there. People dont want to try new things, they just want to make
the next dust. While dust is a great map, it is extreamly simple.

Mappers are degenerating from making enviroments into making maps that
follow a pattern. Dust is great because it is in the shape of a
figure 8. So mappers try and make their map like a figure 8 and
dont give much care to the enviroment or story. Look at most CS
maps, they all have storys.

This leads to fy_maps, in my opinion. Mappers get lazy and the
community makes these maps big hits. There is no reson to make a
good CS map when you can slap four cubes in an empty room filled with
guns.

It boils down to a lack of craftsmenship.

I agree with most of you. The avedrage gamer is stupid and have no idea
of good mapping. When they can choose between a good looking map that
takes 10 minutes to download or a crappy killbox that takes 10 sec they
most commonly choose the killbox. I find theese map disgusting, they
make me want to puke.

The map are 1/2 of the game, the rest is the fighting and close combat.
Killboxes wastes the soul, idea and gamplay of a mod. When youv'e grown
tired of the infintitive confrontations in a killbox, youv'e grown
tired of 1/2 the game.

AND ITS A WASTE OF THE SOURCE ENGINE PLAYING THEM!!!!!!

I'm definately sticking to SP. Though I had an CS:S idea that involved
the terrorists holding a museum and threating to destroy valuable works
of art

So you were going to make de_piranesi then?

There's a few good HL2DM maps out there, you just have to look for them. I can tell you that dm_rebar and dm_island17 are awesome to play and are usually only on good servers that play other decent maps, so seek those out and you'll be pretty set.

I've never played (or heard of) de_piranesi I'm afraid! But what about
a bank - with hostages and a bomb site - to blow out the vault!

De_piranesi was official even. And then wasn't there a de_museum with giant dinosaur skeletons. Incredible visuals for the poly's, but the connectivity just wasn't there. Sm0lders (de_rotterdam) had a terrific bank map called cs_robbery that started repeatedly getting the shaft from cliffe around when CS went retail.

And don't ever call cs_siege an example of good gameplay. That thing chokes worse than Greg Norman. There's a download of it in the entry for "grandfather clause" in Encarta. It would never ever ever have stood a chance of becoming official if it were new in even the beta 5's of CS.

The 2 maps released so far haven't appealed to me, HOPEFULLY future releases will be better. HL2DM is deffinetly lacking something at the moment.

SnarkPit maps, ya know all of sexyness that comes from here.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Atrocity</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>SnarkPit maps, ya know all of sexyness that comes from here. </DIV></DIV>
Gonna try out some custom maps from here soon, see if the leetness is still here. :razz:

I found there to be a serious lack of information in the SDK docs, and
no solid answers for some of my questions. I mean there was PLENTY to
get anyone started, but not enough an intermediate-level mapper to get
their head around, y'know? I totally appreciate what WAS there though -
but some more documentation on cubemaps would have saved me from having
to pay to overnight a fixed version of my map to Valve - which they may
or may not disregard :sad:

I didnt know that if you compiled a map, with one name, and then loaded
it and built the cubemaps, changing the filename would BREAK
EVERYTHING. cubemap locations in the .BSP are referred to with a line
of text that contains the maps name at the time of compiling! so you
need to name your map the final name, before your final compile and
final cubemap build, or it just breaks. I worked my butt off to debug
my cubemaps, w/out the debugging tool Valve talks about in the SDK - eh
wheres that weapon model of the sphere they mentioned? never loaded or
worked for me... and even after days of tweaking and cubemap
re-building, I still get messages about missing cubemaps or problems!

For the most part, my map has glaring technical issues I just could not
find workarounds for, in time for the contest. that bummed me out - I
want to release a V 2.0 when some friggen clues are found as to how
things work. I got error messages up the wazzoo when my map
loads. using func_detail versus brush forms didnt seem to equal ANY
optimization of geometry - they still cut my structural brushes (Ive
read some other forum posts about this too) the docs on using sound are
a joke, the specs as to what models and entities and what kind of
entity-to-entity I/O would work when in MP, vs. SP, were nonexistent.
WTF my fire sprites work like a charm on my PC when i load my map into
HL2DM, but when hosted they are effing STATIONARY! O_o

I feel for less experienced mappers, I guess is what I mean. i have
experience, and I had LOTS of time to work on my map, and it still was"meh".

I've seen some nice maps already I can't wait until we start digging into the engine.