Map initiative [Archive] - Relicnews Forums

Hanna

2nd Feb 05, 7:49 AM

Yes, let's start with the three of our maps, all of them in the pack...

We could call it the HRM Map Pack.

But then people would get jealous, see? So, they would want their maps included too. And then we change the name to Community Map Pack and make one big map pack with everyone whose maps we like. We should rename them so they follow the naming conventions. ;)

I keep thinking if I had the energy I would go through all the maps in my map folder (which is just about all of the maps that have been released, cause it is a *lot* of maps) and make custom icons for them and custom minimaps for them and get their filenames right so they get sorted the right way and release that as a big 400 megabyte map pack or whatever.

Not that anyone would download it.

But it would make playing some of the better maps that really would benefit from having a minimap that showed the actual map instead of the gray clouds with the edge pixels blurred to fill in the sides. Oh Relic, if the Mission Editor would just have created actual minimaps and map icons on its own, you would have made life so much easier for everyone. People could still have made their own custom icons and minimaps but if they didn't, like 90% of the maps out there, it wouldn't make otherwise awesome maps nearly impossible to play.

Oh well. So we have the HRM Map Pack. That's a better thing. Who wants to add their initial to our map pack? The funnest part will be making the acronym make sense. We might have to recruit some people with vowels.

Love,

Hanna

Titler

2nd Feb 05, 8:00 AM

Not that anyone would download it.

This is the real problem, sadly. I spent an entire evening (about 6 hours) sat in a room online trying to get people to play test my own map a week or so back, requesting help every 5 minutes or so, and I got THREE people to download the thing, and only ONE to actually play it. The idea of having to actually do anything themselves was what put most people off; I don't wish to put you off persuing this idea, but I suspect that a map pack is going to find it even harder to attract attention; people log on and want to play fast... they don't even like playing slower or more tactically paced games they've already download. Asking them to download an entire map pack is perhaps going to be asking far too much.

In some ways, I'm starting to really agree with Hanna's position that the map competition was a bad idea too. A monsterous patch from Relic including all the quality maps would have been better; but of course, although I am quite prepared to admit my own effort wasn't that good, how is Relic going to choose the better maps without alienating someone in the community? Coding for auto map download would have made far more sense (although you might have ended up with less maps produced overall) because whilst it still takes time, it doesn't really take any effort on the part of the downloadee... and they are already used to that concept from other games.

People are basically selfish and lazy in nature. The map making community (both here and worldwide) is creative and generous. The two don't really mix well, sad to say.

Rayden

2nd Feb 05, 9:00 AM

Yeah for sure, you are right. People are too lazy for downloading
-> FAQ No. 1 is: Is the map automatically transferred even i don't have it. Answer: No -> Player left.
Anyway i had "luck" today, could start 2 full games on my 3v3 map today, first game took 20 minutes to fill second 30. I really respect the people who waited that long.
Maybe the DoW Community will learn how to download maps in future :duck:

monoRAIL

2nd Feb 05, 5:47 PM

I've found the only way to play my maps online is to email a friend and ask them to download it in advance, then arrange to meet at a certain time. I tried the DOW IRC channel, but nobody responds there, and the ingame lobby is so full of stupidity it's impossible to convey any meaningful message there. While I approve of your idea, I have to admit that I don't think a map pack will make any difference to the amount of people playing new maps online. Hopefully Relic will have something positive to announce with their next patch regarding autodownloading. If they don't, I'm off to mod Half Life 2.

Hanna

2nd Feb 05, 7:13 PM

Good news for Half Life 2, bad news for Dawn of War.

I guess the idea was getting all the maps together and then announcing it on all the fan sites news with a link and maybe getting Tacit or someone at Relic to post a link to it in the Dawn of War: Discussion saying, "Hey, the community mappers have created a map pack and you can download it here, it's great!"

And don't anyone tell me that Tacit or someone at Relic doesn't have time to do that or I will bonk you on the head. :)

But if we can't even get that to happen we pretty much deserve to fail. I think our collective energy is going kaput. That's too bad. I really like Dawn of War. I'd like to see it become greater than the sum of it's part by having a vibrant happy community of map makers.

I still have this sinking feeling that we'll never see a single-player map. Not even one. That's really, really sad. :(

Oh well, maybe it is just my own sadness that is making me not see the forest for the trees and the wild bear that is rushing out to eat me.

Love,

Hanna

Argonaut

3rd Feb 05, 5:54 AM

It is a paradox..... People do not play custom maps online because nobody else plays custom maps online......

I also have a vast amount of maps in my mp folder, and i'm guessing that many other people have loads of maps, But still we do not see them online.Isn't that our own fault for not co-ordinating our time? or at least announcing on here somewhere when we are looking to play a game?

'I will be in segmentum solar at 1930 GMT for a game using custom maps' might help people know when to drop in and play. We are currently spread across the world in various differing timezones and we are leaving it up to Lady Luck to organise a game with a custom map. Is it any wonder it is nearly impossible to do?

When Hanna mentioned 'our collective energy going kaput' that kinda hit the nail on the head. As a mapping community we do not support each other online as much as we should. Here in the forum you guys have helped me out with your posts in no end of immeasurable ways, from little important things (Like the way maps are named) to huge important things (Like rotating decals, custom loading screens and minimaps etc). Yet when online this support seems to stop. It is a pity because I think it might be like a snowball effect.

What If 20 map makers all turned up in segmentum solar and played 10 games with custom maps, flooding the server with games, everyone else online might begin to think 'hello, what's going on here.... maybe I should download some of these maps, these guys look like they are having fun'

Hm.

My final point is people do not mind downloading maps but the people I have spoken to
(both online and friends in real life) simply do not understand the process of fiddling around with folders and files, and we as a community do not have a consistent method for zipping up our files. Everyone has a preferrred folder they unzip into (Mine is W40K folder, but some people use the Data folder, others the Dawn of War folder etc). It is just another little thing that will irritate people into leaving things alone. Other players simply do not have the computer knowhow to do these 'simple' functions. Especially if people have to enter the 'hidden' files on their computer. If you do not know what you are doing, tampering with the hidden files can prove to be a little unnerving, and ultimately a deterrent to installing maps.

In closing, a question;-

Is there a technical answer to the question 'why don't we make our maps self extracting with winRAR or something similar?' I know winRAR has the facility to make zipped files self extracting but I don't know if there are technical reasons not to make the file a .exe. All users will need to do is click to install in the right place (No more problems with folder shuffling shenanigans). It is very similar to an install wizard.

MonoRAIL, unfortunately the very fact relic has held a contest suggests 3 more maps with the next patch as opposed to an autodownloading system. Why hold a contest if these maps will be flying through the internet from peer to peer soon anyway?

I hope they sort their act out and DO give us an autodownload feature, but I won't be holding my breath. In fact I think we will all just end up hold our D*cks. (With the exception of Hanna) :P

A map pack would be good. But unless we address the fact none of US play EACH OTHERS MAPS with EACH OTHER online, it will be another wasted effort.

Hanna

3rd Feb 05, 7:39 PM

What? I have a duck. I don't see what the problem is.

:duck:

Love,

Hanna

Khornight

3rd Feb 05, 9:27 PM

Ah this is a thread I was thinking of starting... I'm not a mapper, but I'm happy to download maps and play them (I've even gone round to several freinds and installed maps on their machines so we can play), but finding other people to play against online is a nightmare (I don't play against AI, as a rule)... Today I managed a game with Meat-something and two others... but the waiting for people is horrid. It only takes about three minutes to d/l and install a map, so why does it always seem to take about two hours to get just four people for a map, let alone six or eight.

The DoWHQ map pack, sounds good, but 15 maps? how big will that be? I think maybe six would be a better idea, and if it works we release another six.

Hanna you are anti the mapping contest, so how about we subvert it, and just take the six most popular from the contest and put them out as a pack? Circumventing relics control over the situation? Sorry, its four in the morning, so I might be talking a lot of rubish at this point...

BTW, on a kinda' unrelated note, i've put up a poll in the map contest forum for people to vote on their favourite maps....

Oh, almost for got the orginal point about a self extracting utility, will it still work for people who don't have DoW in c:/Program files/etc? Would you be able to do something like the install shell where it asks you were you've installed DoW? Or could you get it to find it automatically?

Finally, Argonaught, or anyone else, How about a time that we shall call "new map time" I like the idea of 19.30gmt, everyday.

I'll be there tommorow, with a freind. Can't do saurday. But I promise to try to play everyday at 7.30pm (London time) and if someone else is hosting a "new map" game, I will join. Usernames: Khornight, [ukt]khornite or Orkight

Hanna

4th Feb 05, 3:35 AM

I think that's a great idea, Khornight.

Maybe I will put together my own list of the best of the best, but you bring up a good question, what is the best size to shoot for. Ten megs? Five megs? Twenty megs?

It should be enough so that someone on a modem won't be frustrated, but enough so that we can include a good number of maps. Maybe more of a wide range rather than the "best" maps, because that's incredibly subjective. I would rather it be a range of maps that are made by people in the mapping community. Of course, not sucky ones but sucky to one person is awesome to another person. Also there are some fabulous-looking maps that don't play well. I think it would be more in our interests to get out maps that are fun to play.

I will try... *try* to help as much as I can if we need someone to be a "project manager" to put everythiing together. What I don't understand is Windows (I have a Mac and I know that well and could make a self-extracting archive there no problem, but that wouldn't do Windows users any good). I suppose we could ask the Daemonhunters really really nicely and maybe they would make a self-extracting archive for us with a fancy picture during installation and everything.

The only downside is that they have a requirement that we all make maps with a Daemonhunters theme which is out of the question for this sort of project.

Anyway, I can do some research and see what I can find about auto-installers. The more important questions are, how big, and should it be "best" maps, or a variety of maps that represent the community but that are still fun to play (sort of a "really good maps, but not just all the maps by monoRAIL and all the maps by Star Wars Kid and all the maps by... etc.). My personal feelings are that it would be better to put out maps by as many different people in the community as possible, so that it will pique the interest of people to get interested in downloading the person's other maps.

About your question about 15 maps, depending on the maps, that could be as small as five megs or as big as thirty or more megs. It all depends on the maps we choose.

This is one of those projects that is going to hurt feelings because someone is going to be left out, and I would rather hurt as few people's feelings as possible while still putting out the best maps possible.

The other problem is people who have downloaded one of the maps previously and how does the installer handle that. My vision of the map pack would be that it includes custom mini-maps and custom map icons where necessary and possibly editing the map itself (because there are some awesome maps out there that people have said they would like to make one or two tweaks to and maybe the "committee" or individual, maybe me, maybe someone else, might have some ideas that would make the map better, such as filling in the non-playable area that a lot of maps don't bother with).

So, it could get really ugly or it could be something really good for the mapping community. I guess one person could just do it and piss off the entire mapping community but maybe make the player community happy. Or it never reaches the players and it's all work for nothing anyway.

The real problem is reaching the players and ultimately a map pack, I don't think, has any better chance of being downloaded by players as does any single map. The people who are downloading maps are doing so already and unless Relic helps us out with "marketing" them to the average players, we're pretty much stuck with the distribution methods we have (DoWFiles.com or this forum).

It's not a very optimistic view, but it's probably pretty realistic.

On the bright side, THQ has said that they are going to "expand the franchise" which means some sort of expansion or something, whatever THQ means by "expand the franchise", but heavens knows what that means.

I'm still very pessimistic about a peer-to-peer map downloading system, because -- even compressed -- maps can grow to be very large, especially if they use a lot of custom textures or a custom loading screen (which would probably just be skipped); especially if it's a 1000x1000 map of which there are a few.

Three Kings is eight megs, it's a big map 512 (or 256, I forget) x 1000 and it includes all of monoRAIL's textures from Sand Storm and all three packs of Bill's canyon-wall textures, but it doesn't use all of them, just a lot of them. It's a six player map, so if nobody else has it but the host, it means that (let's pretend it's five megs to send off to people) the host has to send thirty megabytes upstream. If anyone's on a modem, forget it. If the host is one a modem forget it. Even on DSL that's a long time to wait.

So, even if we get a peer-to-peer map sharing system, I don't think people are going to be entirely thrilled with it and online players might still avoid those games like the plague. Why wait even five minutes to download a map (that you have no idea if it's going to be good or bad and regardless of the quality it's going to be a map you don't know the layout which puts you at a disadvantage when playing) when you can be playing one you already know is good, that you already know all the tactical ins and outs.

I *want* more people playing *all* of our maps. There are so many good maps that have been made by so many of us (heck, Aralez could release all of his maps in a map pack and thrill the hell out of the players, and there's also Sps' Psy Map Pack that rocks the friggin' house, there's also a map pack that was released by a German fan site that contains many great maps; that is only marred by the lack of custom map icons and minimaps) that *deserve* more recognition because they are just as good or better than any of the Relic maps. That's why I was so upset at the contest only picking three. How do you pick three out of a hundred equally good maps? And then there are the maps that aren't quite there yet, but provide a great playing experience anyway which could be brought up to snuff with a little elbow grease and maybe some help from the community.

I'm staggered by the amount of high-quality work that's been done. By the number of maps that are so unique that they make me wonder how in the hell people did such a thing, if it was accidental or if they meticulously planned the map out to be as sneaky and tricky as it is. People tell me that I'm wrong, but I think they're blind not to see the amazingness of some of the overlooked maps that people have produced.

In the end, we're all overlooked and I'll be damned if I can think of a way to get all of us the recognition we deserve. Yes deserve. There's just too much good work that's been done by too many people that has gone almost unnoticed. People tell me that it's not Relics responsibility to release our maps, but I never said that it was. It *is* however, in Relic's best interest to help us get out maps into the hands of players because it makes the game more valuable to the players: the people who bought the game and who will be thinking about buying the expansion. Anyone who doesn't see the distinction between the two is just mindbogglingly dense. (Or doesn't read what I've written and then makes value judgments about what I've said which is even more dense. If you're not going to read what I've written, you really don't have a place in commenting on it.)

Love,

Hanna

Argonaut

4th Feb 05, 9:15 AM

I can't speak for other self installers, just winRAR, the one I use. It allows the map maker to specify a 'default' path the maps will be installed to (usually c: program files\THQ\Dawn of war) but users who have their games in another dirve can alter the path before installing. My brother has all of his games on his f: drive, so he just changed the letter to install in the correct place. Also winRAR will give you the option to overwrite any existing files of the same name, so updated maps can be called the same thing and overwrite older, obsolete versions of the same map.

Maybe demonhunters would do it for loads of free advertising? What could be better for the mod than their name appearing on EVERY self installing map?

I do not think it is downloading the maps that is the problem, just getting them into the right place. If players download maps thinking 'great! a new map. Can't wait to try it!' only for it not to appear in the map list because they haven't stuck it in the right folder they become disheartened. After this happens 2 or three times they may never try again. This is where we are at the moment. Lots of unhappy mappers and lots of fine maps being overlooked. Getting the recognition everyone deserves will have to be our responsibility, as no one else is going to promote ALL of our work.

I like the idea of 1930 GMT as a 'new map'time. I am however a head chef, so while you lot are out eating, drinking and enjoying yourselves I am working like a trojan. :P
I will try and make it on wednesday or thursday. Any particular maps? I take it we are in solar....

As a footnote, isn't Marachino's Kyser Lutien 8 player map self installing? Maybe he's the guy to help.

Kresjah

4th Feb 05, 11:36 AM

When it comes to the self installer, in order to "find" the correct directory, one would need an installer that can search through the Windows registry to locate the location of the DoW installation, or have it search the harddrive(s) for the location of the .EXE file or something like that.

With the packaging, maybe one could make two types of each map pack. Have "Map Pack 01" as a medium sized download or something for those souls with broadband, and also have it split into several smaller packs for those with modem to download.

I have a suggestion to Relic on how to solve this autodownload issue in an effective manner for the end user (although I have a feeling this will never happen...). As you said, downloading from other users may be problematic, as people have limited upload speeds and some are still stuck on modems. We can't expect Relic to have a machine in their house with all the maps in the world on it. However, one way to solve it might be if they are willing to make a modified map format (or make something you can sneak into a map without breaking backwards compatability) or make the editor compile an extra file with extra information.

This information would be some unique code for the map (maybe a combination of and MD5 hash code and some other ways of getting to a more or less completely unique code for any map), and then have this supplied with the map. Whenever someone joins a game playing a map with this information, the game connects to a "master server" with a database of the maps (and the unique code will be used here to make sure maps with similiar names are properly distinguished), which then refers to several mirrors out there which has these files available. If the mirrors work, then you will have a decent download speed for the end user, and they will not be limited by the upload speed of the host. Of course, there are bound to be a case in which the master server doesn't recognize the map (can't find the unique id in it's list), and if it doesn't, then it starts downloading from the game host.

Of course, this idea would need a lot of polishing, but it is a quick something I started thinking of right now. It's a start at least. :)

This "new map time" is a good initiative. It might be a bit simple and not a very strecthed out idea (yet), but in time, it might just work. Another idea would be to make a few teams that arrange "custom map game day"s in addition to this "new map time". What I mean is a team of say, 4-8 people who decide upon a set of maps that should be played that evening, and then announce it some time in advance, telling which maps to use and maybe some mirrors, and when this happening is, and off we go. One could even make it a tournament, not with prizes, but just for fun and a bit honour too. Of course, this would require a bit more work, but it should be possible to carry through given time and people.

You might have noticed that I said "a few teams", not "a team". The reason why is to make it so that it's not one single, small team that has to arrange everything everytime, but maybe distribute the workload. E.g., let's say these "custom map game day"s were set to friday evenings every second week, then have team 1 be responsible for the first games day, team 2 for the second, then team 1 again for the third games day and so on. This way, each of the team wouldn't feel on a constant pressure, they would have time to organize and announce ahead of the day.

Once again, it is an unpolished idea, but hey, I'm trying.

Anyways, I hope to see more community work reach and be used by the end user.

Khornight

4th Feb 05, 11:42 AM

New Map time, well, actually in the last 24hours, I've seen a "new map" game almost every time I've played. Just finished playing a 3v3 game!!! it was great, I got wooped, but its so nice to play against randoms on new maps.

Hanna, I think ten megs should be the max, preferably smaller. I've got broadband, and I still balk at downloading bigger files (just because I'm getting impatient in my old age... well late twenties)... I think most people d/l maps because they want to play a "new map" game, so more than that and people would rather d/l the maps singley.

I think if we had an 8 map pack, we could have 2 of each (1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4)... I would actually like it to be smaller (originally I though 6 would be a good number, but I'd want more 3v3 and 4v4 maps, whereas others would probably like the smaller 1v1 maps...?)?

Actually i think six maps would do 1x 1v1 1x 2v2 and 2x 3v3, 4v4. Because it's a lot easier to get other people to download and play smaller maps online, it gets more difficult when you need more players.

In terms of textures, I think we should save maps that require extra textures for the second pack (yes, I'm pretty certain if we manage one, we WILL release a 2nd), it requires so much more effort, lets stick with easy first. Also the second pack could have several maps that use the same new textures (as a theme)...

In terms of the d/ler and stuff we should worry about that latter... first job is to choose how many maps. And which ones.

I'm currently trying to play as many of them as possible online with real people... and different settings... uphill work though.

then I will suggest which one's I'd like.

We can worry about the installer stuff later.

I like the idea of map day. How about every sunday? the day when most westerners are going to be available. Again if it's regular it will get more people coming.

Finally, it is almost seven and I'm already in a game called "dowfiles.com jungle assult" come and join :-)

Is it wrong to advertise here? Anyway at least, I don't want to see anyone in this forum at seven thirty... everyone in solar...
(I'm logged on here on my laptop... so I'll be able to keep an eye out!!!)

Star Wars Kid

4th Feb 05, 1:27 PM

I think a map pack would be a good solution to the current problem.

Here is my idea of how it would work:

First, each mapper who wished to be involved would submit their best map. Then the maps would be catergorized according to the number of players. Next, maps would be placed into groups so that each group had a good mix of themes, styles, and numbers of players. Finally, every week or so we would release a map pack to the public.

Each map pack should probably be no bigger than 10 megs. A self installer would be preferable (a lot of people don't know how to fiddle with folders). I recommend avoiding .rar format becase a lot of people don't have the software to use it.

Deciding which maps go in each pack would be a difficult task.

[edit]

When we are ready to release, I think that we should probably post a custom map awareness thread in the DoW General Discussion forum because I think a large group of people don't even know this place exists.

Khornight

4th Feb 05, 5:27 PM

Mappers have already been asked to submit their best map to the compotition, why don't we cut out the faffing about and just choose a bunch of maps. ask the mappers in question if they mind their maps being included in a pack. And then do it.

I agree about the avoiding rars, but if we are going for an installer, we're talking .exe aren't we? (hanna, do you actually play on a mac... is it possible too? do we have to worry about mac or even linux users?)

I agree deciding on the maps will be the hardest, I've hardly played any of the maps, but I'm already thinking that jungle assult should be one of them, if Rayden doesn't mind...

And yes, if we manage it, I intend to advertise it everywhere I can.

Has anyone been into a games workshop recently? I wonder how useful it would be putting up ads there... I know the manager of the kensington branch... hmmm...

Star Wars Kid

4th Feb 05, 6:55 PM

Mappers have already been asked to submit their best map to the compotition, why don't we cut out the faffing about and just choose a bunch of maps. ask the mappers in question if they mind their maps being included in a pack. And then do it.

I meant a limit of one per mapper. The point of the map pack is to show off all kinds of maps styles while minimizing effort on the part of the layman. This means that diversity is ideal. Once you get people hooked on custom maps, they will be motivated to download other maps by their favorite mappers.

Hanna

5th Feb 05, 1:05 AM

There are a lot of maps that never got submitted to the competition. Mostly people who have stopped mapping or even playing Dawn of War, but still some mighty fine maps. Probably the best representation of the variety of maps there are is DoWFiles.com which lists 60 two-player maps, 10 three-player maps, 60 four-player maps, 1 five-player map, 22 six-player maps, 1 seven-player map, 41 eight-player maps, (no single-player maps. :( ) and two map-packs (the Celebrity Graveyard Map Pack and the DOW.De Map Pack) which contain many maps in themselves. Also there are a few maps that didn't get included where they were supposed to be (like Trench Toast and Bay of Figs and Iron Storm: Kerisus Corridor) and are with the map packs. That's well over two hundred maps.

Also, there are people who post maps here that don't get put on DoWFiles (Jamie's eagle-eye not withstanding) and maps that go straight to DoWFiles that never get a thread here. And then there is Aralez' site which contains heavens knows how many maps.

So, what I'm trying to say is that the Map Contest is a very small subset of the number of maps and the mappers who made them. Just fer'instance, I didn't submit a map to the contest because I didn't want to compete. Others may not have known there was a contest. Some may have left the community altogether.

And there are new mappers coming in all the time, which makes me very happy.

That's why this excites me so. Star Wars Kids' idea is almost there, but it leaves out a lot of maps because it requires people to make an active participation by submitting their map. That requires them to be currently mapping and reading this thread. Most all the maps I've downloaded have given explicit rights to be included in other map packs. Some have only asked that the author be contacted at an email address. I think it would be better if we merged Star Wars Kids' idea with a proxy-vote where someone could suggest another map that they've played and like a lot. Together, this gives us a wider range of choices which is a good thing.

One other question is custom minimaps and custom icons. I would rather we released maps that had a "finished" feel to them. There are enough of us that know how to make custom icons and minimaps that I don't think this would be an issue. We could each do one or two of the maps.

I think it would also be a good idea to fix bugs in maps that we find that need them. Adding ai_chokepoints in appropriate places if necessary, filling in the non-playable area if it isn't filled in, fixing floating objects. This gets into a stickier area. One answer is that because so many maps don't use the "official" naming scheme, we could release them using the Xp_map_name_author_name.sgb format. That way the original map would be untouched if it were already installed, but the installed map would have the kind of quality people expect out of maps. If we pack up maps that have an unfinished feel, people will be less likely to download the map packs in the future. And there are many *great* maps that don't have custom icons and minimaps and also have a few strange quirks in them or have a flat and unappealing unplayable area. Or the sky/fog has been done improperly.

One of the mods told me that if we make a website we can get it put on http://dawnofwargame.com/community_links.php which is a great place to reach people who don't read the forums. It would also be nice if Tacit would help us by making the post in the Dawn of War: Discussion forum. Or one of the Relic people. It will have a much higher readership if the announcement has a Relic name as the poster. If it gets stickied as well, we're totally set.

I think it would be best if we had out own web space that didn't require clicking through a lot of advertisements which was an early-on complaint about hosting files at DoWFiles.com. Not that it isn't totally great to have single-maps hosted there but for the map pack, we want to make it a "one-click" {(TM) (R) Amazon} download. Easy is best.

I'd hope that it would also be so popular that it will get expensive. I'll ask my service provider if I can host big files like that which will (hopefully) get downloaded by a lot of people. I'm not using up all of my bandwidth, so there's a chance that I can get away with just the initial "slashdotting" and then the trickle as people catch onto it. If not, extra gigabytes of bandwidth aren't that expensive and I can do without paying for heat. (Wait, I already do that... maybe do without phone for a month...).

Anyway, there is a real possibility that this will work out. I have the fansite kit, so I will start working on a design (if I still remember how to) and see if I can't come up with a nice and simple page that we can add map packs to. We could do it like a "blog" where people can comment on the map packs if we want as well. Each map pack would have its own page as well as all of them being listed on the front page. There would be screen shots for all of the maps in the pack with thumbnails that click open a new window with the full-sized screenshot.

Only thing is we have to use my naughty domain name. :) Unless someone wants to buy a domain name for the project.

It would also be nice to have the map packs mirrored on DoWFiles in case something should happen to me and my account gets closed.

Anyway, this is percolating nicely. Our key objectives are to:

1) Design a process by which we pick maps.
2) Pick the maps and put them into a nice installer that is easy-to-use and tells people where they can get more maps (this forum, DoWFiles.com, Aralez' site, etc.).
3) Hosting the maps on a website.
4) Getting the word out in as many different ways as possible.

Did I get it right?

Love,

Hanna

(Oh, and no, Dawn of War doesn't run on the Macintosh --insert Gretchin mumbling here--, but I don't know about Linux using WINE. I think, though, if Dawn of War can be emulated in Linux, then so can the installer.)

(Ah, here is what Maraschino used for the auto-installer for the eight-player Kasyr Nullsoft Scriptable Install System (http://nsis.sourceforge.net/). It's open source and free! We win! )

(Woo hoo! I'm sooooo smart! I made an auto-installer for River Canyon (http://www.bitcheswithglitches.com/dow/maps/River%20Canyon%20Installer.zip). It gets the DoW installation directory from the registry (that did take me a bit to figure out) and presents that as the default place to install. It won't overwrite files unless the ones in the exe are newer than the ones in your folder. I didn't make a fancy picture or anything and I used the Nullsoft license because I was too lazy to write my own (I could have just put the read-me there, or somewhere else, cause you can do so much stuff with this NSIS thingie that it's kinda crazy). Anyway, if anyone wants to *heh* test drive it for me (I already tried it on my own and it didn't break anything, but you can just install it into a "test" folder and see if it looks like it's doing the right thing. As a bonus, you get the loading screen I made -- yes, it's nicer than the loading screen for Three Kings which nobody likes. I think I can manage to put together a fancy loading screen and any other stuff we want to put in there. This is gonna be great! Also, I asked if DoWHQ wanted to team up with us, cause they're going to do a map pack too and I figured maybe they could be the sponsor and we could put the map packs together. Whatdayathink?)

Khornight

5th Feb 05, 6:54 AM

SWK, yeah I agree one map per mapper... for the reasons you said.

Hanna, you are also right, I wasn't thinking of limitting it to the comp, but it would be a good place to start... as you said there are hundreds of maps (:checks) I've got ninety and I'm pretty certain I've only scrapped the surface... I've hardly played any of them... It really makes you think about how many hours of games testing relic are going to have to do for the 54 in the contest.

And yeah I know that there is no-where that has a complete colection of maps. Which is why asking for submissions is pointless, the mappers who post here is not even the majority of mappers. Also there are plenty of mappers who don't think their own work is as good as others (and who would probably not bother submitting their map as they don't think they would win) and I think a lot of the better mappers are unsure of themselves.

I agree that they all need to have a finished feel. How difficult is it to make mini maps etc..? I can get round gimp pretty well if it's just making a picture... I also think we should do loading screens for each one, with the name of the auther and where you can get more of their maps... readme files are all well and good, but who actually reads them all?

But adding these things won't make them uncompatible with versions without... but if we start messing about with the map itself it will lose it won't it? I'm not sure I'm as excited about that idea, I think we should ask the mappers themselve if they mind their maps being tinkered with... remeber a lot of the more popular maps already have 3000 downloads, thats a lot of people who might be disapointed to find they have to install another version of a map...

Of course if there is a great idea, that is very buggy, then yeah we should ask the maker if they mind... but I think we'll probably be able to find enough good ideas that are relatively bugless that we don't have to worry about that just now.

A community link would be nice, I think if we really got together a good seleciton of maps, it would speak for us :-)

As for webspace, I have a practically infinate amount of space (well I got complaints from my admin when I reached one gig, but I'm almost at 1.5 now and they've stopped bothering me :-) but the url would be a bit long... I don't particularly want to incure expense for this project, but if you are willing to use your domain name thats cool. I'm happy to do any mirroring (particualrly as I would guess there are more players in the uk/europe so it would probably be faster for them)...

Ok, so we don't need to worry about macs or linux... I've not tryed to use wine for a few years, but if it's a complicated as it used to be, anyone running DoW on it is going to be able to get the map pack to work through Vi. :-)

Speaking of which, yay for opensource... so the installer is not a problem...

As far as I'm concerned the more the merrier. so long as it doesn't make the choosing more difficult...

and finally, your installer seems to work, I already had river canyon installed, with the loading screen I think... and it still seems to work.

Star Wars Kid

5th Feb 05, 10:05 AM

A couple of thoughts:

Fiddling with other people's maps is a bit of a gray area. While I think that uniformity is great, changing anything beyond minimaps and icons doesn't seem right to me. I think that before any changes are made (or the map is included in the pack) the mapper should be contacted and asked about any changes they will allow/like made.

Personally, I would probably make a few tweaks to my map before I submitted it. I think my minimap and icon certainly could use some work and I would also like to change fog and lighting a bit. This would be a good opportunity to make an updated version.

Free self installer! :spin:

I agree with Hanna about actively seeking to include maps in the pack. If anyone has a particular favorite map made by someone outside the Relic boards please contact them and tell them about this. However, as I stated above, I think they should have the final say on whether their map is included and what changes are made.

Hanna

5th Feb 05, 12:01 PM

All sounds good to me.

One thing, though. A lot of maps (especially those whose authors might be hard to reach) give explicit permission to edit the maps and do with them as folks feel free. Or, they might give permission to include in a compilation sometimes they ask that they be contacted, sometimes not. I think it is a case by case basis. Or we could be extra-conservative and polite and make every attempt to contact the map maker.

I guess at this point we should start naming maps.

Until we hear from DoWHQ.com, I guess we should assume that they want to do their own separate map pack. The more the better, I guess. If they do their own map pack, it should be another place to link to where people can find other maps, especially if they make their own easy peasy self-installer.

I am going to go through my maps and try to make a list of five or so maps. That's going to be really hard to do. But I guess we have to have a cutoff somewhere. I'll also start working on some graphics for the installer.

A website can be a lower priority and maybe we can do without one, but I'd rather we have one that is interesting and excites people about wanting to download the map pack. This will become more important as we release the second and third, etc. map pack.

So, let's hope we can come to some kind of consensus on which maps to include. :/

Oh. I should mention that I don't know if adding a custom minimap has any effect on online play. A custom icon shouldn't and a loading screen definitely doesn't (that, I've tested). We should perform some tests with one person not having the custom minimap and/or custom map icon to see if it causes an error during online play. Who wants to do the testing?

Love,

Hanna

Khornight

5th Feb 05, 10:01 PM

I'm up for the testing... so what we take a map with a mini-map and icon, and remove those files and see if we can still play with them? I can do this test... tommorow, if no-one does it before... I don't think it makes any differance, but I'll tell you for certain tommorow.

I'd like a 3p map to be included, Lost paradise is my favourite. (although jungle fortress looks more realistic, I think it's a bit flat... but it would be my second choice)...

I'd like Jungle assult (6p), but I think it might win the relic comp., so I'm wondering if maybe it would be a bit harsh if we included it only for it to be given to everyone anyway?

As for 2 player maps, i don't generally play them, but I've particularly like city seige, sand storm and river canyon (I wonder if we can get permission for the first and last of those three? :-)... actually I also like turtoga dam or what ever it's called, but as it's already in a pack I don't think we should include it.

I can't think of any 4P maps i've played, that I really like... apacalypse later is the only one that sticks in my mind.

Thats all I can suggest for now...

As for the prickely issue of editting other peoples maps... theoretically I'm against the idea, we should use maps that will work when playing with someone thats d/l the map individually. Also, I think that for the first couple of packs at least, there are enough good maps that we don't need to worry about it... having said all this, there is one map I really love, but I think one of the features of the map, should be (to use a word I've learned since wandering this forum) nerfed. as it would make it more playable (if you want a clue it's a 6P map)... but there are plenty of six player maps that are at least as good... so we can worry about that latter... ok, if the mapper wants to change his map... great. Not a problem...

BTW, everything IMHO and IIRC.

edit: oh, I almost forgot, this thread was originally started because no-one was playing custom maps... well today from 6pm to 2am (GMT) everytime I wasn't playing there was at least one new map game... it appears that jungle assult is very popular (there were other games being played but 70%was jungle assult)... at one point there were two jungle assults! Just thought I'd say.

Hanna

7th Feb 05, 12:03 PM

Jungle Assault is indeed an awesome map.

For those who aren't keeping an eagle eye on the two threads, Lord LegendZ of DoWHQ has decided to sponsor us by giving us webspace and backing for the project, if it's okay with everyone here. Is it? I mean, this would be a really great thing, I think. Good for DoWHQ, good for us.

http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=52556&page=2

I have sent him a message summing up what we've been talking about (as best as I can, and as I understand it) and offering several options for how to pick maps which seems to be the really difficult part here. How do the fifty of us (or however many of us there are) decide which five maps to put into the first map pack. I have no idea.

One thought was having DoWHQ pick a team of people to decide which maps using our criteria for choosing maps. The other idea was to have one individual pick their favorite maps so we would have a "Hanna's Picks Map Pack", etc. etc. until we've gone through all of us who want to pick their favorite five maps (that haven't already been picked) and then the team will pack them up and add the map pack to the page along with screen shots and profiles of the mapper.

A major portion of the website, I think, should be a sidebar with every map author and every map (and/or personal map pack) with a download link to it. Yes, that is a lot of research, but I think someone can put that together and it's okay if it's not 100% perfect the first try, we'll be adding to it as time goes on, so we can be editing as well.

So, the main content of the page will be the map packs, but from there, people will be able to see every map made, organized by map author, so if they like all of one person's maps, they can download them all by following the links. We could include simple instructions on how to install maps that aren't self installing or people can wait until the maps eventually make it into a map pack that is self-installing.

So, what does everyone think. Team up with DoWHQ.com? How can we get our act together and come to a consensus every month or however often (every two weeks is nice too, every week might be even nicer, or is that too much?) or do we need to form a smaller group who will be in charge of picking maps.

One other idea was to have a vote and release a "People's Choice Map Pack" that was based on which maps got the most votes. That might be a little hard to pull off as there are so many maps to choose from. We might just end up with the same maps we keep hearing about all the time without a lot of research being done on the lesser-known maps. But then, it's the People's Choice, and even an uninformed electorate can still hold an election.

Love,

Hanna

Star Wars Kid

7th Feb 05, 1:50 PM

As for 2 player maps, i don't generally play them, but I've particularly like city seige, sand storm and river canyon (I wonder if we can get permission for the first and last of those three? :-)... actually I also like turtoga dam or what ever it's called, but as it's already in a pack I don't think we should include it.

Please, not City Siege! That map is rather embarassingly imbalanced. Yet for some reason it remains as my most popular map :rolleyes: I think that this is a sign that people want fresh ideas more then technically "good" maps.

I would prefer for St. Mathias Bridge to be included in the map pack.

Rayden

7th Feb 05, 1:55 PM

Khornight .. i don't mind :D .

There has been written much and useful stuff in this thread .. just finished reading and i hope i have understood everything right. I like you're ideas Hanna. I think it would be the best if we have only one "official site" for our map packs (or for our project :) ). There we can link to other fan pages and provide our pack downloads. Especially the installer is very good, i don't know how customizable this installer is, but maybe we can add advertisment at the end of the istallation process, or add a "open readme" field at end of the installation process (or we just open the readme, as i always click off this field). There we could write links and so on too.

As first step we should create a page. As soon as we have something finished and maps there, maybe some major sites would link to us. (<- we need a link picture).

PS: It's great to see people online who try to force online usage of custom maps. Saw already 2 or more people who start regulary games with "3v3 mapname www.dowfiles.com" and try through several maps all the day (and are willing to wait until the game is full). That's really an important step so more people know about dowfiles. At least slowly there are fewer people who ask "Custom maps??? Cool, i didn't know that there is something like that" ;)

PPS: Thanks to anyone participating here!!!!!! :smash:

LordLegendZ

8th Feb 05, 6:06 AM

Well.. Hanna's post summed up what's hapenning around here pretty well..

Ok, i have a few things in mind (ideas) and i want your opinions about it.

Ok.. i shall start by electing a concil of project co-ordinators and a panel of judges.
Project co's (known as PCO from now on) and the judges go around searching for about 50-75 quality maps

Once thats done i'll make a list of them in this link:
http://dowhq.com/page.php?id=124

The PCOS select gets a selected group of volenteer test players, who then rates the game, play together and then each of them decide for themselves how the high maps are rated, submit the scores to me via pm.

After that, when the testing period ends, i shall update the average scores of each map,with the top 25 getting special mention and stuff, and the top 7 being put up for downlaod as a map pack.

Also,the creators of those maps which gets into the top 25 will get a chance to get all his works displayed.. etc if hanna map get's into the top 7 and after playing her map in the map pack maybe a guy may say " Oh this hanna, i like her maps, where can i get more of those?" Then we'll upload a page featuring the creator's works, and also his/her own top ten list of rated maps.. etc like the top ten he/she gave the most scores to..

Hope you guys like the idea.. will be finallizing details soon

Sps

8th Feb 05, 9:39 AM

relic says they didnt include autodownload because of map size - I say they are full of shit as it is easy to code a download on join sort of download where a person downloads the map from the moment they click on 'join game". Game will allow other people who have it to enter the game and start, only 1-2 people whatever bandwith split is required can keep downloading that map, without the game ever waiting on them, without the game ever being compromised.

bad maps will die, good maps will be played. Simple.

That said - good luck trying to get this to work. i hope it does.

Khornight

8th Feb 05, 11:03 AM

Hanna, yeah I think its a very good idea to join forces... the more the merrier. Personnally I think the peoples choise is the best idea... It wouldn't be to hard to have a poll (or a few) that is only open for a week, and those are the maps we choose. I say "or a few" because I think we should have different polls for the different types of maps. that way we could limit people to one vote each and give them an oportunity to vote on more than one type of map. I don't think we need to be on the bleeding edge interms of keeping up with maps, we need to pick maps that will get played on-line, in the hope of diseminating more of them. So we do actually need to choose maps that are already out there to some extent. IMHO.

SWK: Why do you think city seige is unbalanced? I'm sorry, but I think it's much better than a lot of other maps. It looks so much more pluasable than a lot of maps... even the ones that came with DoW... to me anyway.

Rayden, I like the idea of a community link picture... what are we calling this anyway? The Offical Relic-forum and DOWHQ Pack? ORD pack for short? :-)

LL Z, wow, you sound very organised... scares me a bit, but I'm happy and willign to help. I know a couple of people who are willing to help test maps too...

finally, yes you can play a map with a minimap and stuff, even if others don't. I deleated the two files from jungle assult and played a game on-line and it worked fine... minimap freaked me out at first... but played fine... and I won :-) against someone who kicked my arse yesterday... even better.

LordLegendZ

8th Feb 05, 7:14 PM

Hmm.. about the people choices.. how about 1 week after the pack is released, we set up a poll with the top 25 maps in it? Open it for a week, then the top 7 gets into the PCMP (people choice map pack for short")?

Hanna

9th Feb 05, 4:53 AM

Wow.

Okay, this is going rather far afield of what I was thinking. Drat. I was hoping that this would make things easier but it has just made things complicated. :(

I think you have a good plan, LegendZ, don't get me wrong. It's just not what we've been talking about and I don't think I can commit to that much work for this. What I had thought we were talking about was releasing a much smaller, more subjective map pack that would likely be followed by more map packs and that would keep people's interest because new maps are constantly being released, so we would always be re-evaluating, but doing it in a more subjective way.

Your plan is a very good way to be very objective about picking maps and that in itself is an asset. The work requirements are way more than it seems anyone is willing to do (seeing as it is hard to get people to even post what five maps they would like to include in this thread). You would very likely be able to find a group of people, but probably not from this group, other than KhornKnight (bless his heart).

So that still leaves us with two different projects. Unless this project is a dead project because of lack of interest. You should grab as many people from this project to work on your project if that's the case. :)

I know I can't do that much work. I can't be that objective and I can't handle the responsibility of evaluating 75 (!) maps. I have played well more than that, but I couldn't evaluate them. Much like Star Wars Kid mentioned, I wouldn't know how to evaluate them, other than to give three scores (one for technical, one for visual and one for playable) and that would be even way more work for me. But that's me and I'm totally not a good baseline (I'm the least likely to be able to handle that amount of work).

You'll no doubt be able to find someone to make an installer for you. It's very simple. If you can't, though, I'd still be willing to do that for you when you're done.

I still want to do the other project, the one we've been talking about here, though. I think there is place for both projects. The more the merrier. Since neither one will overwrite files (and even if they do, it'll be the latest version, hopefully ::crosses fingers:: ), it shouldn't be a problem for us to be putting out lots of different sets of map packs.

Maybe everyone will want to work on your project, I don't know. Maybe this project is dead. I would still maybe like to do it, though, even if it's just on my own.

One thing of note, because of the amazing Deus Ex Machina from W01AND we now know how to use the Mod Packer that came with the Modding Tools (http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=55941) to make an sga file out of, well, anything. That includes maps. Basically its a way to compress files while making them still playable by the game. That saves hard disk space. With so many maps already released and so many more yet to come, saving hard disk space is good. It's something to explore as a possibility.

Anyway, you plan sounds great, but way too overwhelming for me, personally. I wish you great luck with it, though. I hope I've helped in some way by getting other people excited about it. I'm excited about it. But I know I can't handle that amount of work and responsibility. I just wanted to release little map packs and get the community excited about playing mapping-community maps and packaging them up in a way that makes it easy for people to install some of the more complicated maps, making the process invisible to the user and letting the user know where to find more and if they don't want to do it the complicated way, releasing more map packs so that there will be more maps being played online.

I don't think this project is finished, so I am going to keep up hope, but if it ends up that people have sort of lost interest in this project, then at least we have your project and that will be awesome.

So, who's still interested in making a small map pack that includes subjective choices? There's a couple of different ways we could go about it that don't require a lot of work. If nobody's interested, then maybe I'll make my own map pack as a model and include the maps that I think are the funnest to play and release that as a way to get things started. Other people might have different ways of deciding which maps are best, and they can use their own criteria. We can name them by mapper (that was my idea that I sent to LegendZ and we both can use it, ideas should be shared) like, and include the mapper's own favorite self-made map with the map pack. Or something. I know this can work! Who's with me?

Love,

Hanna

Khornight

9th Feb 05, 5:46 AM

Ok, SPS, I'm sure we all want an autodowloader, but here really isn't a place to complain aobut relic, lets see if we can improve the situation instead... so what would your favourite maps be?

hanna, I'm still up for helping make a subjective map pack. Any excuse to play new maps :-) but this does't mean I don't want to take part in the dowhq map pack...

LL Z would you still be willing to host our map pack? (I'll probably call it SMP from now on... subjective map pack)...

Finally, is this the most verbose thread in relics forums?

Argonaut

9th Feb 05, 5:54 AM

Hanna, yet again, you are right.

I applaud the reasoning behind Lord Legendz map pack, but the work involved could take weeks to set up and complete. I had hoped that this thread would result in map makers zipping up their favourite maps in a self installing map pack, sticking it on a website, then flooding the ingame chatrooms with adverts for the website.

The map pack would then be something like this;-

'Hanna recommends' Map pack (7 maps)
'Argonought recommends' Map pack (5 maps)
'Star wars kid recommends' Map pack (6 maps)
Etc
Etc

Or as the files are sent in, someone (An administrator of the website?)converts them into self extracting files, gives them the 'once over', checking to see if there are any duplications before submitting.
(I know, more work.)

A stipulation of submission could be that any map pack needs to be given a thorough beta test in this forum before it appears online. That way the brilliant mappers like Aralez, MonoRAIL, Hanna, Star wars Kid etc, can check the map before it goes online to the gaming community.

IMO, the main problems mappers face are;-

I think we all agree the system of downloading at the moment is FAR TOO COMPLICATED.

And while there are thousands of maps at DOWfiles, there is no quality control, leaving it to luck to see if the first map someone downloads is any good. If it's bad, they never come back.

We can do something about this, but it seems we are getting bogged down with the PROCESS of getting maps out there, rather than the END RESULT.

I apologise if this seems really negative, it's not meant to be. I just think a voting process is a bit of a waste of time. Just check the maps haven't got any technical or obvious errors (Such as buildings floating in the air, or the sky being wrong, naming the maps wrong etc) and let the gaming community decide which is 'good' and 'bad'.

'Good' maps will appear online, 'bad' maps won't. simple.

You can count me in Hanna, although I haven't a clue about techie stuff, and I'm not a fantastic mapper, I AM frustrated that there is damn fine work gathering dust in zipped archives at DOWfiles etc, never being played.

Rayden

9th Feb 05, 6:57 AM

Hanna, i understand you're thinking it's getting more and more complicated. But sometimes there has to be some evaluation as we all want only good playable maps in our mappack.

Things that should be covered by an evaluation:
- Do all Players (Teams) have the same starting conditions
- Are there places which give one team an advantage over the other
- Are there places where vehicles should can drive but can't
- Minimap & Icon
- Is Heightmap/Fog/Sky ok (see "And if they lay us down to rest" <- no fog (but 1024*1024!!!!), bad heightmap in steps)

<- these checks can done even with a large map within 2 hours easily (and nobody says that we have to release our mappack in 1 week ;) )

I think if a map has gone through this checks it's at least a map which is perfect by layout. And if this is map is looking good lets take it.

@Argonought: I think everyone who participates here should get some maps to check them and after checking them they should go into the raw pool. Out of this pool we start the poll.

Another important point is to provide people with sufficient information about our map pack. They should be able to see whats in the map pack (screenshots + tactical descriptions). But first lets get a map pack :bandit:

LordLegendZ

9th Feb 05, 10:09 AM

Hmm.. okay.... let me explain a bit more.

Perhaps my original idea was too raw or amibitous. The hardest part is to select a pool of maps to chose from.. However i have a good idea.
let's just get started with about 25-50 maps to chose from. We get a map pack with quality maps in it, interest people, and from there we can start gathering a database of high quality maps which will then be made available with selective map packs..

Then we can have one "offical one" map packs whcih gets the best ones together released every few weeks?

The map pack would then be something like this;-

'Hanna recommends' Map pack (7 maps)
'Argonought recommends' Map pack (5 maps)
'Star wars kid recommends' Map pack (6 maps)
Etc
Etc

The problem is that if we have so many map packs, maps will be repeated over and over again, and people will have a hard time selecting what map pack they want.. cuz if they say " I like hanna's selection, but i already have the latest version of 50% of those maps.. grr.. forget it, why do they have to make my life so difficult?"

I think it's better that we have a personal list of what people who are interested to make map packs (personal) so that if people see that " Oh.. hanna likes 50% of the maps in this pack.. and star wars kid likes the others too.. hmm.. surely the maps inside these pack are great!" We can then release lite pack of about 5mb every week, with maybe 2 new quality maps and one old but good map, and such, so that people can look forward to their weekly dose of quality maps. Thats why we're making map packs for, quality ratings.

Also i might wanna set up a "map ladder" like the Dow Automatch ladder, we can comapre maps like how good their rating is, and public feelings towards that map.

My ultimate dream is that even if relic doesn't give use the autodownload map feature, i hope that someone would create a map-streaming client that runs from our ladder and such, showing ratings of maps, new releases and when people decide that they want a map, they just select the map and press the download button, with mirrors streaming the map to ur dow directory... Maybe we can get someone like Corsix to do it!
His site: http://tigerwolf.uni.cc/dow/corsix/index.php

If not we still can have our map packs.. And lets just get to that first..
I hope to start work the pack by sunday next week.
Nothing is concrete at this point of time.. so don't take this too seriously....
Im still wating for better ideas

Star Wars Kid

9th Feb 05, 2:34 PM

I agree with Hanna in that the less complicated and time consuming the better. Personally, I really don't want to be in a position where I have to choose what maps I like. I don't actually play DoW very often and wouldn't have enough time to test maps to decide on a favorite. I would prefer if we just quickly came up with a list of 20 or so maps that most people like that we could start off with. With this pool we make up maybe 4 or so packs that are a good mix of map types and then release them. If a mapper's map isn't in this pool, then they shouldn't be offended because there will be plenty of opportunities for them to get maps in subsequent releases. Right now we just need to get started.

My point is, I don't want to run another contest. Voting takes time and a map's quality is mostly subjective. As long as a map is functional, and reasonably balanced, it shouldn't be excluded. The main goal here is to get a large variety of maps out to the general public so that they will get interested in custom maps. Think of it as a marketing scheme.

Hanna

9th Feb 05, 3:19 PM

I'd like to just start out with five or six maps. :)

Where we go from there would depend on any interest we get from it.

I don't know what was wrong with your original plan, LegendZ, it sounded great. I just don't feel that I can help out in that (other than my offer to pack it up into an auto installer if you can't find someone better at doing it... which shouldn't be too hard to do, but still, the offer's open) because I'm a special case. I only have so much energy and less competence to carry out tasks now. People are tired of hearing about how I'm sick, but dammit, I'm sick and everything I commit myself to I have to think very hard about if I'm going to be able to carry out and even then a lot of stuff I just forget or can't finish or just can't plain do even though I thought I could at the time.

But your original plan rocks. Do it! Pull it off an you've got something really great. You might want to split it up into smaller chunks for people on modems, but I don't see anything wrong with your plan. Pick your people. Pull it off.

There's no reason why we shouldn't have multiple projects going on. One might attract one group of users and another might attract another group of users and maybe someone has another idea that will attract another group of users.

As long as we aren't writing over each other's maps (and even then, it's okay as we're writing over them with the same versions) there really shouldn't be a problem. People will pick the map packs they want to download and download them. This is mostly about getting as many maps into people's hot little hands as possible so they can be being played online. Anything that achieves that end is well more than we currently have going for us.

So, do you want this thread for your plan? If so, anyone who wants to work on smaller, more subjective map packs, we can move to another thread. That's fine with me. We can share ideas whatever. People can work on multiple projects, no problem.

The important thing is to stop getting bogged down in process. I mean, y'all can do the process thing, but I'm kind of done with it. I know where I want to go and what I'm able to give as far as my own personal energy level. Don't tailor your project to my abilities or you will have a group of people who can't lift things they drop on the floor and have to wait until tomorrow when their home care worker gets there to pick them up. ;)

Seriously. You have some great fukin' ideas. Do them! I want to download that pig and install it. Even though I've prolly got all the maps already. Maybe you can get some people to make special maps just for your map pack, available nowhere else. Then you *really* have incentive for everyone to download your map pack, even if they already have some of the maps installed. (Something both of our projects will suffer from, people who have already downloaded some maps and are looking for easy ways to get more, but really, the target audience I'm looking at is someone who has never downloaded a map before ever. Maybe one, got frustrated. The goal is to make it a non-frustrating task. Almost pleasant, if we can.)

So, let's hop on our jetbikes and rumble!

Love,

Hanna

Argonaut

9th Feb 05, 3:34 PM

My jetbike has been confiscated, got caught doing 50 in a 30. =( All i got left is my Eldar fleet of foot.

LordLegendZ

9th Feb 05, 10:16 PM

I would prefer if we just quickly came up with a list of 20 or so maps that most people like that we could start off with. With this pool we make up maybe 4 or so packs that are a good mix of map types and then release them. If a mapper's map isn't in this pool, then they shouldn't be offended because there will be plenty of opportunities for them to get maps in subsequent releases. Right now we just need to get started.

My point is, I don't want to run another contest. Voting takes time and a map's quality is mostly subjective. As long as a map is functional, and reasonably balanced, it shouldn't be excluded. The main goal here is to get a large variety of maps out to the general public so that they will get interested in custom maps. Think of it as a marketing scheme.

Hmm.. yea lets start with around 20 maps to choose from, get a pack of 5-7, get interest started.. after which you guys can start making smaller map packs to release on your own?

After which then i can get enough interested manpower for my ulimate supremo project haha.

Rayden

10th Feb 05, 7:03 AM

Ok ... so lets start to choose some maps we want to take in our pool. I will start with:

Frozen Plains (4)
Jungle Assault (6)

thats what i've tested good enough till now :) (more to come).
Btw. i will edit post one so we can keep an overview.

Star Wars Kid

10th Feb 05, 9:52 AM

Hmm.. yea lets start with around 20 maps to choose from, get a pack of 5-7, get interest started.. after which you guys can start making smaller map packs to release on your own?

After which then i can get enough interested manpower for my ulimate supremo project haha.

Sounds like a plan.

I nominate

St. Mathias Bridge (4) (http://dawnofwar.filefront.com/file/St_Mathias_Bridge;34980)
Arx Haustrum (8) (http://dawnofwar.filefront.com/file/Arx_Haustrum;37011)

Tave

10th Feb 05, 2:55 PM

Any map by Ryilo ( Make more maps damn you!!), Monorail ( make more map stuff!!!) and SWK ( keep up the good work :) ).

JamieDOWFiles

11th Feb 05, 3:27 PM

Hello folks!

If you need any help or anything just ask =) Any services at DOWfiles are on offer to you. BTW, clicking to download a file will be getting shorter soon.

LordLegendZ

11th Feb 05, 8:40 PM

Thx Jamie....... if you want you may wanna provide alternative mirrors if we need 'em.

LordLegendZ

11th Feb 05, 8:55 PM

Can you guys post links to the map's thread/ downlaod link as well? Also i need a new map admin (I was the old one, but the post has been left vacated since i took charge of the site).. Who's willing to take up the job?

Maximus Decimus

11th Feb 05, 9:51 PM

Hey guys,

Dawn of War Planet is willing to support this initiative in any way it can.

Bringing in all the big fansites to support this initiative would be ideal. It would reach a larger audience and increase the chances of these maps being found online :)

LordLegendZ

12th Feb 05, 3:02 AM

Hmm.. OMG DOWFILES AND DOW PLANET! WHAT AE THEY DOING HERE! j/k :D

Maybe we can have it this way,

DOWFILE: Alt Mirror
DOWPLANET: provide manpower and become the major advertiser
DOWHQ: Co-ordinator, mirror, host of the ladder i mentioned, maker
(don't mumble jamie and decimus, early bird gets the worm :D )

Also.. i need you guys to get into more details..
add me in msn:

kctan92(at)hotmail(dot)

add discuss it out..

LordLegendZ

12th Feb 05, 9:12 AM

Ok. i guess to finalise details.. those who are willing to take up leadership roles can pm me .. yeah.
It is time to establish roles for those who have already staked their interest in this project. We need to get into detail soon if we ever want a map pack, and let thye time be now.

Executive Commitee Of Map Initiative
Co-ordinator: LordLegendZ
Pack Adminstrator/Housekeeper: Rayden
Assist. Co-ordinator: Argonought
Resource Manager: monoRAIL
Head Judge: Hanna
Idea Lead/ Councilor: Star wars Kid
Test Lead: Khornight
Advertiser: JamieDOWFiles

For those people who were listed above, if you acpet your nomination, please reply back via private message (PM) by 17 of feb. Then you'll be updated on the things that you are supposed to do.
There are also posts up for grabs for those interested: etc list manager, and others.. listen up hard when they come by.

Also, we need aplications for testers . Those interested, feel free to drop me a pm.\
Thats all for now.

Star Wars Kid

12th Feb 05, 9:41 AM

In addition to that, we still need more maps to add to the pool. Any and all mappers interested should list any maps they want in. Keep in mind the limit of only one map per mapper.

Hanna

12th Feb 05, 4:13 PM

What's Head Judge supposed to do?

Hmmm, maps:

Ayrom IV Mines (2)
Bridge Too Far (2)
(I can't imagine that it's only a Beta, or did I not get the memo that it went final?)
Chaos Beach (2)
Chaos Carnage (2)
(This is one of those ones that really needs to be edited before it could be included, but I really think it's worth doing that bit of editing that would make it a great map.)
City Siege (2)
Sand Storm (2)
Trees of the Eldar (2)
Apocalypse Later (4)
Frozen Plains (4)
St. Mathias Bridge (4)
The Stand I (4)
Crossfire (6)
Ryuo Cityfight (6)
Tainted Marshes (6)
(Just played a game to make sure... Wow!)
Testing Grounds Level 2 (6)
Three Kings (6)
(This is the map I want included, if any of my maps are to be included at all.)
Silva Quadrivium (8)
Archon IV (4)
Atreides Ford (2)
The Angelis Expedition (2)
WaterStation (4) (aka Civik River)
Fort Atlantis (8)
Desiderata Highlands (6)
Tesseract Valley (4)
(I think maybe the FFA version is better for both team and FFA play, but either one is fine)
Grand Canyon (4)
The Great Divide (6)
Pleasant Little Islands (2)
Jungle Assault (6)
Mines of Ashandtarr (4)
Nova Nottana (4)
Penal Mining Colony No. 108 (4)
Rainy Valleys (2)
River Rafting (2)
The River of Doom (2)
Disadvantage (2)
St. Hanna (4)
(No, the name has nothing to do with it. I happen to think it's a very fine map! ... Do I sound like Hermione when I say that?)
St. Victoria Spaceport (2)
Sunken Land (4)
Swamp Raid (4)
The Lost City (2)
Tortuga Valley (4)
Abandoned Faith (2)

Whew!

I'm going to try to find names (or better yet, I guess, links), but it's really hard to do. Sometimes people put their real name in the notes but have a different name on the forums. It's too confusing for me. :( This is just a quick glance over the maps that I have and I've doubtless left dozens out, including authors that should really have maps included and probably duplicated several authors (which is bad cause one author can only have one map in the pack).

Anyway, that's a quick list. I'll prolly have some additions. Please don't feel bad if your map was left out. It's hard to remember some of the maps I've played, especially because the stupid Mission Editor doesn't make overhead map icons for us and a lot of the maps look exactly the same, that default gray fake clouds background. If there were one thing I wish the Mission Editor would do is just make map icons and minimaps for us that look like the actual map instead of just the underpainting layer. It's not like it's rocket science to have the program make them. That's what programs are for: automating repetitive tasks.

Okay, hope this is helpful to someone who is testing all these maps. Yikes, that's a lot of maps. And that's not anywhere near what I think should probably be the maps that everyone should have. Sigh.

Love,

Hanna

Star Wars Kid

12th Feb 05, 10:16 PM

Thanks Hanna!

You can drop City Siege off of there (you put two of my maps in).

I think we have enough maps to work with now :)

Now we need to sort them by number of players and make a note of their theme (unless it is really obvious from the map name). We also need to make sure whoever is in charge of packaging the files actually has all of these maps. Then we can start grouping them up.

LordLegendZ

12th Feb 05, 11:01 PM

Now we need to sort them by number of players and make a note of their theme (unless it is really obvious from the map name). We also need to make sure whoever is in charge of packaging the files actually has all of these maps. Then we can start grouping them up.

That would be the job of the housekeeper and Assist. Co-ordinator

Hanna

13th Feb 05, 7:23 AM

Yea, I am sure there are other maps on that list that should be decided upon because I have picked an author twice. So, I guess the House Keeper and Asst. Coordinator will have to go through this whole thread and collate everyone's suggestions.

There is the question about judging all of the maps. I am concerned that because there is so much work to be done on making minimaps and custom icons for these maps that spending a lot of time judging them is going to burn people out. I think maybe the best course of action is to prune the list by checking which authors have multiple maps chosen and then we have to get the rights to distribute the maps which is going to be a nightmare. Someone is going to have to find out what the distribution rights for each map are and then contact the author if necessary.

Also, I am sure that there are maps that I left out that other people haven't suggested (I am going to be playing some new maps this morning and I *know* I will have another addition because a new map was released straight to DoWFiles without ever being mentioned here), so I am hoping that more people will make suggestions.

What I would like to do is streamline every process as much as possible so that we have time and energy to do the very important things like minimaps and map icons. There are only a few people who can do them well and we should do them in the Relic style so they are very professional-looking. This is absolutely essential work, I believe.

Also, I would like any mapper who is making a map right now to consider releasing a map to this map pack as an "exclusive" to the map pack. Especially if that mapper is someone with a "big name" (if it could be said any of us have a big name which it probably can't). But maybe if some of the Relic or THQ people who lurk here have a map that they haven't released that they would consider donating to this cause, that would completely rock. (I know, it's a long shot, but if we don't ask we definitely won't get one.)

So, um, more suggestions, but also, let's get a collated list of all the maps in this thread (and I don't understand why the theme is important, but I do think it is important that one person should play the maps that other people have suggested so they can thumbs up or thumbs down) so we can start pruning it.

Maybe we do need judges, but I really would like to make that part as simple as possible. Especially because if the judges are going to be people who are good at making maps, I would rather they were making two or three (or more!) map icons/minimaps instead of spending time playing maps and trying to come up with numerical scores for every map.

So, in short, lets prune the process down to the absolute essentials just like we will prune the list of maps. I think just the process of eliminating to one map per author and that some maps we will be unable to contact author to secure rights to distribute (or should we distribute anyway unless explicitly denied in readme?) because I know a lot of maps say "you can redistribute this, but you have to send me an email".

That wasn't short.

Oy, so much work! Let's not make more work for us when we already have so much to do just to make this work.

Love,

Hanna

Star Wars Kid

13th Feb 05, 8:54 AM

The reason I wanted them to be sorted by theme was so that a map pack didn't include 3 snow maps and 2 city maps. As long as each pack has a nice variety, we really don't need to do that.

I agree that we need to streamline the process. The maps that will be included in the first pack or so should probably be the ones that require the least work.

Maximus Decimus

13th Feb 05, 3:38 PM

LordLegendZ: I'm up for advertisement beside jamie. DoWP can also mirror the map pack.

DOUBLE POST

DOWPLANET: provide manpower and become the major advertiser

This idea sounds good and I'm willing to accept.

Argonaut

13th Feb 05, 6:19 PM

Hi,

Whilst I would love to be involved I am moving home, and cannot guarantee that I will be online for much longer as I will have to unplug and pack up my computer while the move goes through etc. I would hate to commit to something and then fail to fulfill it by only putting in sporadic appearances from various friends and families computers.

It is fantastic that this thread has galvanised so many influencial people into getting something together, I look forward to seeing many custom maps appearing online.

Good Luck and Have fun.
(God I hate it when people type something like that......especially just before they rush you with posessed. ' I have been playing for 3 minutes and you storm my base with 6 units of posessed, Have fun!?! My arse.)

LordLegendZ

14th Feb 05, 12:50 AM

I agree that we need to streamline the process. The maps that will be included in the first pack or so should probably be the ones that require the least work

The way i think about it, is that we neeed to start off with a good and well hyped map packs as we need to attract the most number of people with a good map pack so that they'll come back to get more in the future.. from there it grows.
Also, do not worry about too much work, i have a plan in mind. Wait for me to get home from the library and i'll post it in the dowhq map pack EXCO forums

Rayden

15th Feb 05, 4:49 AM

So who will test which maps? According to post #34 (<- i think this is important to provide good maps in first map pack)

LordLegendZ

15th Feb 05, 8:06 AM

Let's arrange that in the dowhq forums.. one thread is too small for everything

Hanna

15th Feb 05, 8:15 AM

I was thinking something more along the lines of not testing and just sort of picking five or six maps that we can all agree on.

1 x 2-player map
2 x 4-player map
2 x 6-player map
1 x 8 player map

Or some combination thereof, but I think that is a good combination.

So, we want to include a few (maybe half) really popular maps. Maraschino's Kasyr Lutien should be the 8-player map, so that people who don't have it will then have it. Maybe we make it a seven-map project and add another, less-well-known 8-player (like maybe Silva Quadrivium) map because 8-player maps are popular (saving Arx Haustrum for the next map pack so we have a popular 8-player map in that one).

For six-player maps, I would suggest your Jungle Assault SE when you've finished, and we time this so it gets released the same time you release Jungle Assault SE as a standalone map. That way, people can get Jungle Assault SE by itself, or get it in the Map Pack along with a bunch of other maps and an auto-installer. The auto-installer is key here along with getting people excited about the map pack. The timing on this might be entirely perfect if we can hurry up and do this thing by the time you've finished testing Jungle Assault SE.

Other six-player map... either The Great Divide (I've heard rumors, though, that it's unbalanced) or Testing Grounds Level 2 (which rawks \m/).

Four-player maps, I am thinking Apocalypse Later and Penal Mining Colony No. 108. (Both exceptional maps.)

Two-player map, I am thinking Bridge Too Far and maybe we can get a final version of it from the developer (at least the developer would want to take out the BETA from the name). If the developer can't be contacted or doesn't want to include the map, then I suggest Rainy Valleys.

(If we go with Rainy Valleys for two-player, then I suggest St. Mathias Bridge as one of the four-player maps, so we have a bridge map in this pack.)

There is a likelihood that one of these maps may win the contest. That's something we're going to have to deal with. We don't know when Relic is going to announce the winner so I don't think we should even worry about it. If we happen to release the winner before Relic does it isn't going to hurt Relic and it won't hurt anyone, it will just have more people already playing the map when it does get announced the winner and it will get get over-ridden by however Relic chooses to release the map.

So, that's a good map pack, no? Right there? Boom. It's done. Unless someone wants to tell me that I'm full of shit (yea, I know there are tons of people who want to say that) or maybe we make some tweaks if we can't get rights from the developer of a map or someone really feels that one or two or all of my choices are completely wrong, but that is a list to start from. If it turns out to be too small, we can add another two-player map. If it's really really small, then we can add monoRAIL's Sand Storm and Three Kings or Grand Canyon which use a lot of textures (or maybe all three, because they all use the same textures, but I would like the second map pack to be the ones that use textures so we can release the textures with the maps and not have to do a lot of duplication of map packs that are trying to install the same textures).

So, what do people think of that list? Rayden, how long do you think it will be until you have Jungle Assault SE done? If we can finalize this list in the next day or two (preferably day), then we can get to work on making minimaps and map icons for the maps that need them. Then I will pack it all up into an auto-installer (still haven't gotten Maraschino's code for the auto-installer, but that's okay, I have code for an autoinstaller and all I need to do is add a custom picture to the installer) and then I make a quickie web page for the project. We give the web page and the installer to Dawn of War HQ, Dawn of War Planet and Dawn of War Files and hopefully they are nice enough to give us our own page without a bunch of ads on it. We put a link to each of the sites on the page as sponsors.

There, that's a plan to get this done fast and it's a plan to do it in the future. I know that I am sort of trying to railroad this, but I am soooooo very tired of talking about it and I just want the fuckin' thing done with and move on to the next one.

So, if people want to test, I suggest testing the maps I've suggested here. Make sure you are comfortable with the choices. If you aren't, suggest alternatives.

How does that sound?

Love,

Hanna

Drachenfels

15th Feb 05, 8:51 AM

Gimme map pack already :beer:

Hanna

15th Feb 05, 8:57 AM

I second that emotion. :)

Love,

Hanna

Star Wars Kid

15th Feb 05, 1:25 PM

Sounds like a plan, lets get kickin'!

So basically the checklist so far is:

1) Contact all mappers whose maps you plan on putting in the pack to ensure they are ok with it/decide on how minimaps/icons/renaming etc will be handled.

2) Package up the maps and make a decision about how many maps can feasibly be included. We should probably shoot for ~10 megs or 8 maps, whichever comes first. (note: not including custom loading screens will save on space if people are willing to do without them)

3) Put together icons, minimaps, and a picture for the installer

4) Decide who will be responsible for doing the above tasks.

As far as my part goes, I would be willing to help on the installer graphic and maybe a few icons and minimaps. I could also send out pms/emails to mappers if you want me to.

TheStressPuppy

15th Feb 05, 2:04 PM

You can use any of my maps, River of Doom, "Uber Mars", and Armageddon when im done with it.

Unfortunetly i cannot test them online myself, I have a very weak system. While they play well, and i get no lag vs the AI, online DoW games just lag way too much for me. Plus i got insulted online 1 too many times for using an athlon xp 1900+ to play.

Feel free to fix whatever needs fixing on those maps just let me know what you did and how you did it :)

Hanna

15th Feb 05, 9:10 PM

Okay, first someone needs to go to DoWFiles and get the author's emails. Some of them are in the readme, but some of them are right on the download page (cause Jamie just pastes the readme into the description sometimes and the email is right there.

Rayden and Maraschino are the Big Dawgs we need to contact and that can be just by PM, I'd assume. Also, whoever the author of Bridge Too Far is. Heck, most of these maps I listed are just a PM away from getting an okay.

The only questions are Rainy Valleys and Silva Quadrinium because I don't remember where I got them or who made them. Their authors might have disappeared. Check the readme, they might have given authorization in there. Some mappers do.

Thanks, Stress Puppy. I definitely hope we include one of your maps. :) Probably not this map pack, though. We plan on releasing more, though.

I'm willing to make as many minimaps/map icons as I can. Also, doing graphics for the installer and web page and the coding for the web page itself (just loose XHTML, nothing fancy).

The nice thing about the auto-installer is that it compresses .tga files real nice. So, including loading screens shouldn't be a problem. Plus, loading screens are such a nice feature, especially when someone has gone to the trouble to make one. And they are one of the special touches that makes custom maps... special. I have no doubt we can get under ten megs for eight maps. No problem. Well under ten megs.

But the only way to find out is to actually compress them.

Is the list I made (http://forums.relicnews.com/showpost.php?p=822600&postcount=60) okay? Anybody have alternates?

Cause I can start work on the auto-installer as soon as I know what maps are in it.

We could have this whole thing wrapped up and done by the end of the week. Let's do this!

Love,

Hanna

Rayden

16th Feb 05, 3:45 AM

Ok lets do this as fast as possible. Good idea! I will download all the maps you proposed and will check them, before i say anything about your map selection. Just one thing, don't take Great Divide cause

1) It's unbalanced
2) It was my first experimental mapping try
3) It was intended to be just a fun map
4) It looks somehow strange :)

PS: You post pretty early :)

LordLegendZ

16th Feb 05, 4:41 AM

Alright.. it's gonna be rayden's duty to get the permission and stuff. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzalso.. this will be called the Prelimery DowHq Map Pack. However after this map pack, we'll have to get work done on The amin pack map. The prelim map pack will get more people interested, increase manpower, and most of all get the forum people buzzing.
IF the judges here are afraid of have to commit too much time judginh the map, here, i got a plan. Every map will have to be judged by at least one judges. That dont reduce workload.
Why are judges nesscary? Majority of the testers are going to be serious players, with no knowlegde of custom maps or whatever. Judges are need as we need people to view maps from a mapper's point of view.
Any i got backing from the clans SOLID and UKC. They'll commit manpower to this motion.

Why am i soooooo insistent on a major and grand map pack? Simple, dowhq is planning a caimpaign to be played with custom map.... it's gonna be big, and attract at least 100~~~ .. i'll have it planed out.. and after it gathers alot of interest the mapping comunity is going to be buzzing.. that said.. I HATE EL NINO EFFECT HEATING UP MY COMPT LIKE MAD!

Rayden

17th Feb 05, 7:47 AM

So far i have tested 2 maps which are pretty good:

Bridge too far -> Very balanced, nice layout (whats Beta on this map??)
Apocolypse Later -> Balanced, could need some rework of layout, especially jungle parts are a little bit to high and look strange

2 Maps i couldn't find:
Penal Mining Colony No. 108.
Testing Grounds Level 2

where did you find this maps Hanna? Can you send me a download link?

Hanna

17th Feb 05, 10:56 AM

here's Testing Grounds Level 2 (http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=55515)

Penal mining colony (http://koti.mbnet.fi/crow1/Mapsfordow.htm) is on this page fifth from the top.

Sickly,

Hanna

Hanna

18th Feb 05, 4:38 PM

Sorry to double-post.

So, um, how we doin'? Anyone else testing these maps?

As for Apocalypse Later, I played it and see what you're referring to, Rayden. I'm not sure it's a huge deal. I definitely would like to have it edited rather than not edited, but one thing that seems to be a common theme is that we shouldn't touch other people's maps (which I disagree with, because there are maps that have been sort of abandoned that could be amazingly great maps and many, if not all maps give people permission to go in and muck about with them as long as they give credit and we would definitely be giving credit to the original author). But mostly, in the interest of time, we don't want to do it for the first map pack because we want to get it out the door sooner rather than later.

So, let's put off Apocalypse Later for ... um .. later and instead put in Archon IV (http://dawnofwar.filefront.com/file/Archon_IV;36168) which is a solid map both technically and on the playability scale. It's off the scale on beautifulness.

How goes work on Jungle Assault SE?

I think this is going to be a fan-fuckin-tastic map pack. These are all exceptional maps and should be well-received by people. The next pack, I think, should be one that installs a bunch of textures and the maps that use them. It'll be a bigger map pack. I think this one might be smallish (less than ten megs for sure).

If we can have the release of Jungle Assault SE a smidgen before you release it to the general public, that'll give me time to make the map pack and I can also make an auto-installer for Jungle Assault SE for you. Fair trade?

So, um, unless I hear back any dissenting words from anyone, I'm just going to go ahead and make the damn thing when I hear from Rayden about Jungle Assault SE.

Star Wars Kid? If you would like to help with making minimaps and map icons, that would be great. I think most of these maps already have them. Thanks to Dyselon, though, I think I can kick out minimaps and map icons really fast now. But if you want to start downloading some of these and check them for map icons and minimaps, then that would be great (actually, I'll do a quick check and see which ones need them and see how many we have to do). I know Arcon IV just needs numbers on its map icon so that'll be a cinch.

So, um, if anyone has anything to say, speak now or forever hold your peace.

Love, Hanna

----

Okay, I just want to add that I want to do more map packs after this, but I don't want to be involved in judging, scoring or anything like that. If people want to do that, great. I'll still help with the project. I just don't want to score or judge maps. I think it's a bad idea to do that and I hope that if you *do* decide to have scores and judging, you'll keep the numbers internal because I think it's just too subjective a thing to be rating. (Which is why I don't like DoWFiles rating system, especially because it's so easily and obviously being played by some people who have a clanmate or something who comes out with a map.) Anyway, I don't care about rating maps or scoring them or judging them. I just want people to be playing everyone's maps online. Or at least have an easier opportunity to be doing so without all the barriers of having to muck about with zips and rars and creating directories and figuring out what goes where.

Anyway, that's what I wanted to say about that.

So, full-on with this map pack, we'll see if people actually have the energy to make a second one.

Love, etc. etc.

Star Wars Kid

18th Feb 05, 5:06 PM

Star Wars Kid? If you would like to help with making minimaps and map icons, that would be great. I think most of these maps already have them. Thanks to Dyselon, though, I think I can kick out minimaps and map icons really fast now. But if you want to start downloading some of these and check them for map icons and minimaps, then that would be great (actually, I'll do a quick check and see which ones need them and see how many we have to do). I know Arcon IV just needs numbers on its map icon so that'll be a cinch.

If you feed me a list of the maps that you want me to do a mm/icon for I will get started.

I agree with you on the judging bit -- I don't particularly like it either and I would prefer to avoid a postion where I have to decide which maps are "good" and which aren't I think we can pull off a map pack without that.

[edit]

Just to make sure everything is clear, what maps exactly do we have in?

Here is the list as I interpreted it:

8P: Maraschino's Kasyr Lutien
6P: Jungle Assault SE
6P: ??Great Divide/Testing Grounds Level 2??
4P: Achron IV
4P: Penal Mining Colony No 108.
2P: Bridge Too Far

It seems we might be able to fit one or two more in there (maybe another 8p and 2p?) Could someone test the compression on the installer to see what size we are working with?

Aralez

18th Feb 05, 5:56 PM

Ahem, ok, my post comes a TAD late :bandit: but could Abyss' Icefields map be added? It is still my favourite custom map....

Hanna

18th Feb 05, 7:08 PM

Oh, this is just the first map pack. Hopefully there will be many many more.

We're only putting in like seven maps so it is a small download. This will make it easy for people to download without having to wait for so long, especially people using modems. This is just something to entice people to get interested in custom maps. Once we get them hooked, then we start charging money. ;)

But of course, people should still be adding to the list of maps for consideration and new maps will be being made all of the time. If this takes off, we'll have Map Pack I, Map Pack II, Map Pack III, etc. and one big map pack that has all the other map packs combined.

Assuming it takes off, that is. I wonder very much if we will even get the first one out. :(

Love,

Hanna

Rayden

19th Feb 05, 5:12 AM

Testing continues ... would be glad if someone could help me or give at least a reason why he proposes his map. This is our first map pack and a reference for any further map packs.

Testing Grounds Level 2 (6p) -> This map kicks ass, i just have to try a online game because of performance. Very nice layout and perfect hightmap on steps. Minimap sucks but this is for sure the smallest problem. <-- This map has to be taken

Penal Colony No. 108 (4p) -> ... nice idea but i think its too simple, also i am not sure if this player positions are meant to be as they are now (diagonal placing of teams). Moreover sun angle is set wrong

Just my subjective opinion ...

Hanna

19th Feb 05, 2:06 PM

8P: Maraschino's Kasyr Lutien
6P: Jungle Assault SE
6P: Testing Grounds Level 2
4P: Archon IV
4P: Penal Mining Colony No 108. (Maybe not due to Rayden's comments)
2P: Bridge Too Far

How about Fort Atlantis (http://dawnofwar.filefront.com/file/Fort_Atlantis;36916) (8) for a second eight-player map? And since we're going with a second eight-player map, let's try for another two-player map. I suggest Rainy Valleys (http://dawnofwar.filefront.com/file/Rainy_Valleys;34577). We can always toss one or the other out if the map pack turns out to be too large.

To replace Penal Mining Colony No. 108, how about Icefields (http://dawnofwar.filefront.com/file/Ice_Fields;34687) then? We don't have any icy maps in this pack, so an icy map would be a good thing to include. I don't think I've ever played Icefields, so I can't say how good it is.

So, that would make it:

8P: Maraschino's Kasyr Lutien
8P: Fort Atlantis
6P: Jungle Assault SE
6P: Testing Grounds Level 2
4P: Archon IV
4P: Icefields
2P: Bridge Too Far
2P: Rainy Valleys

How many other people are testing maps?

I would compress these, but things keep changing and it's a pain to keep editing the script file that puts together the auto-installer. It would be close to just adding up the sizes of the zip files would be about the size of the auto-installer, though the auto-installer is supposed to use a compression that is a little bit better than zip.

As soon as we're close to reaching a decision on which maps should be included, then I'll make a first-pass at the auto-installer and then we'll know what size it is. Unless someone else wants to do this (and I'm all for other people doing work). Then either I or someone else will have to make a graphic for the auto-installer (which should be super-easy) which will add a very small amount to the size. And, um, that's about it.

Except for the web page. But getting the installer comes first. We can build a fancier web page around just a blank page with a download link in the middle.

I'm guessing this will be a perfectly-sized Map Pack, somewhere between five and ten megabytes. All we gotta do is all agree that the maps are the right ones.

Remember, we don't want them to all be the Very Best Maps Ever Made, just be well-made, fun-to-play, pleasing-to-the-eye and balanced. As long as we have a few of the Very Best Maps Ever Made in the pack and fill it in with other maps that are maybe not perfect (is any map perfect?) but meet a basic high-quality standard. Remember, even Relic released a map with MISSING_SKY as the skybox (and it's a shame because otherwise the map is a real winner).

Off to take a nap.

Love,

Hanna

Hanna

21st Feb 05, 12:19 PM

Okay, so I have made a custom graphic for the installer (it has to be this size).

http://www.bitcheswithglitches.com/dow/mappacks/welcomefinish.jpg

I've started on the installer and have a couple of maps already in with brand spankin' new minimaps and map icons (they are *so* easy to do now!).

Right now, I've included River Canyon (2) instead of Rainy Valleys (2) because Rainy Valleys has a weird problem with vehicles not being able to move in the water only on player two's side. No such problem on player one's side. I opened it up in the mission editor and could find no reason for such. I know it's sketchy including my own map, but it was already in the script that I had made. I can easily change it to something else. Nominations, please.

Unfortunately Jungle Assault SE got released already. I was really hoping that Rayden would contact me first about it so we could release the two at the same time. Nothing can be done about it now, but I'm a little bit bothered that there doesn't seem to be any teamwork going on here. If you didn't want to wait, you could at least have told me no.

Moving forward, I will continue to work on the script. Putting in the maps in the list above. Using the graphic in this post. Unless I hear differently from anyone else.

I continue to worry that this be our first and only map pack to be released. That's a horrible shame. I don't think anyone has made any attempt to contact the authors of any of the maps (these jobs are all open for the taking, to apply, just do them) so I think our motto is going to have to be "it's better to ask forgiveness than permission". I can't do everything.

I appreciate all the more the work that people have done. I know you asked me for a list of maps that need minimaps and icons, Star Wars Kid, but they are all publicly available and I hate to be a bitch about this but it's just as easy for anyone else to download them and make a list (doesn't even have to be you, but nobody else did it and it's easier now for me to just make them if they aren't there than to come here and write up a list). I don't think I should have to be doing everything. I didn't ask to be project manager. I just wanted to help out.

So, this will probably be the last map pack. Oh well. It was a nice idea. Maybe someone else will decide this was a good idea after all and take up the project, but I've already put a lot of work into this and have tons more to do if this is going to happen at all.

I'm feeling a little bit bitter after Jungle Assault SE being released, the lack of help, the people who do want to help but don't have a person to direct the project. I guess it's best to have LegendZ just take over after this, but I don't want to be a part of that because it's way more work than I can do and it's not the kind of project I want to be a part of. I thought we were doing our best to make a map pack that would be a result of the mapping community, but I guess the mapping community doesn't want to do the work required to make that happen. Not really a surprise because the mapping community is doing other things with their spare time which would be making maps.

Oh well. It was a nice idea. Maybe people will like the results of this enough to want to be involved in the next one. Maybe I'll just make map packs on my own with whatever input people want to give and release them as I have time and energy to do so.

Okay, really bitter. Sorry about that.

Love,

Hanna

Star Wars Kid

21st Feb 05, 1:15 PM

I appreciate all the more the work that people have done. I know you asked me for a list of maps that need minimaps and icons, Star Wars Kid, but they are all publicly available and I hate to be a bitch about this but it's just as easy for anyone else to download them and make a list (doesn't even have to be you, but nobody else did it and it's easier now for me to just make them if they aren't there than to come here and write up a list). I don't think I should have to be doing everything. I didn't ask to be project manager. I just wanted to help out.

Sorry to be lazy. I was just trying to make sure I didn't make a mm/icon that you had already done. If you let me know which maps you have already completed, I will pick one or two of the other maps and make mms/icons for those.

It seems you got promoted to project manager by the simple fact that you care a lot about this. The problem with this sort of deal is that 1) most people (myself included) don't really want to put that much effort into this and 2) we really need at least one person who is willing to coordinate/contribute a lot of time. Most of these tasks would be much more efficient if they were done by one person but that isn't very fair to that person. If this sort of project is to continue, we the community will have to put more time and effort into it instead of delegating tasks to others.

By the way, nice installer picture.

acturas

21st Feb 05, 2:23 PM

Hi guys

Really cool that you've nominated my map for the pack. If you need anything from me please post here or pm me.

Hanna don't give it up as your doin a grand job (the install logo looks fan-bleedin-tastic!).

Hanna

21st Feb 05, 3:39 PM

Thanks, Star Wars Kid. Thanks, Acturas. :)

Okay, if I'm going to be project manager then people have to listen to me! Heh.

(Like that'll happen.)

I made one for Icefields (even though there was a map icons already made, but it was hard to read and didn't really reflect what the map looked like) and added numbers to the map icon for Bridge Too Far.

I'm concerned about Bridge Too Far. Should we just take off the beta? I'll send Randy a private message and see if he has a newer version or if he doesn't mind us taking off the beta from the name. If I don't hear from him, then I guess we can only assume it's the last version we'll be seeing, but I don't know if that means if we should change the name or not. I think the goal so far has been to not change the name unless the actual map itself has changed. So, that would mean not changing the map name. We can always include the final version in another installer (if we ever do another one) if a final version pops up.

I know Archon IV just needs numbers, so I can do that.

How about you do the top two from the list, cause I'm working from smallest to largest. I'm actually going to be working on it now because I can't bleepin' sleep. With any luck, I'll just finish it this afternoon and then edit this message to say everything's okay, don't worry. Map icons are *so* much easier to make now thanks to Dyselon's help with getting the camera to be at 90 degrees.

More later.

Later...

Okay, I'm done. I am going to compile the auto-updater, see how big it is, upload it to my website and let people download it to test it or just use it unless anyone finds any problems.

I re-did some minimaps and map icons because of different reasons. Some the start positions were there but in the wrong order, some I just did some fiddling with, some I just added numbers to, some I left alone.

There are only two maps that have loading screens.

More in a bit.

Love,

Hanna

Argonaut

21st Feb 05, 6:04 PM

Errr, this might be off topic, but a couple of questions;-

1.What size is the installer icon?
2.Are you using the Nullsoft Scriptable install system?
3.How are you going to get it onto the installer?

(I have no clue about writing a script......and wouldn't know where to start learning, but i can use the basic installer, and would like to stick my own icon in. Can you help an idiot?!?.)
Sorry if this is a bit of a random tangent.

Back to topic...
Hanna I think you are the perfect person to be project manager, and it looks like you got the job Like it or not!! It appears you have the drive and enthusiasm that many lack(Including myself, but I have made my life particularly hectic by impregnating my wife with offspring, and deciding/needing to move house)

I would help with minimaps.... If i knew how
I would help with the installer stuff. but i don't know how...
I tried contacting some of the authors of maps, but I think my e-mail gets automatically stuck in the junkmail folder and ignored .... No responses.
And I cannot commit to being online for long.

Excuses I know, but please keep up the great work you have completed. It will be worth it. (I hope <sigh>)

Hanna

21st Feb 05, 6:35 PM

It is done!

You can download it at the special page I made for it which looks very bare, but in my spare time, I will make it purty, I will.

Community Map Packs Page (http://www.bitcheswithglitches.com/dow/mappacks/)

The installer is 10.4 MB (10,966,823 bytes). Not bad, huh? What'd I tell ya, huh? ;)

The page should go live in a few minutes. I have to stumble across the room to the Mac where I have all my design and FTP stuff so I can upload it and make a sparse page, so if you get a blank directory or a forbidden message, just wait a few minutes and it'll be there.

Yes, using the Nullsoft Scriptable Installer System. The icon and the extra graphics compress pretty small, a very small part of the package overall. It's done. Me smart. If anyone wants to see the script, I can upload that to the website too.

Oh, you actually tried contacting the authors!?!? That's awesome! I assume no response means "Yes, please do include my map, I'd be delighted." We're on a "better to ask forgiveness than permission" mission.

One thing I didn't include is readme which is a bit of a problem. But they might be confusing if we included them because most readmes include just installation instructions which are unnecessary. But some include important background information. I can edit the "license" (which is where I describe what's in the map pack -- you'll see) to include important information about maps if people think I should. We can put as much text as we want in there and it won't make the file that much bigger. So, let me know if I should troll through the readmes (a lot of work, because I never save those darned things so I'll have to download all the maps again, but if someone else did it....) and include that sort of information. Otherwise it's... well download it and find out. :)

I expect complete pimpage of this. I want my ISP to call me up and yell and scream that I'm using so much bandwith it's causing the servers to overheat (um, but not from like one person downloading it fifty thousand times, I do know how to block IP addresses and blocks of IP addresses and I'll do it if someone fucks with the server).

Er, anyway. I have to go upload an installer and make a web page. :)

Love,

Hanna

Argonaut

21st Feb 05, 6:39 PM

I would like to look at the script if possible.... Thanks and well done you!!!

Hanna

21st Feb 05, 7:15 PM

Web page done!

Link to the NSIS script on the web page.

Testers? Ready Steady Go!

Or just start telling everyone in the world that it's released.

Whatever you do! Don't just put this in with the regular maps and map packs. This is special. If you're going to mirror it, put it on its own page! Right now the design is just there to have the map pack available. There will be a *much* nicer design coming when I have time to make one.

If you can't give it a page of its own, then just link to this page.

http://www.bitcheswithglitches.com/dow/mappacks/

I'd rather we share the bandwidth and I want to work with all the DoW Filesites and Fansites but this is special. It needs to be treated as a special deal. Otherwise it's just not going to get downloaded like all the other maps aren't getting downloaded.

I hope people can recognize the difference.

Love,

Hanna

(P.S. Around 7:00pm PST, I updated the Map Pack to fix a problem with the custom map icon for Bridge Too Far which was the wrong size. (oops) I've been checking the maps, map icons, and minimaps and everything looks good so far (except for the thing that wasn't right that I fixed).)

Any ideas how we are going to get the word out? That's the most important part, informing people that it's there. Add it to your signature, tell your friends to tell your friends, bug the mods ;), whatever gets the word out. I think someone should post in the Dawn of War Discussion forum about it. Someone who people will listen to, like a Mod or a Relic employee.

Come on, allies. We need you to pull through for us.

dr2sheds

21st Feb 05, 9:18 PM

Dang - fantastic effort!
Seemed to work fine for me too.

cheers
sheds

monoRAIL

21st Feb 05, 9:28 PM

Great job everyone!

Star Wars Kid

21st Feb 05, 10:42 PM

Wow. Nice work. I will test it out tomorrow 'cause its getting pretty late here.

I think we should also set up an aggressive ad campaign for this with a custom map awareness/map pack pimpage thread in the General DoW forums. That should help increase exposure and maybe finally get people to play some custom maps.

Aralez

22nd Feb 05, 1:38 AM

Awesome! Hanna, i love you :D :beer:

Rayden

22nd Feb 05, 2:44 AM

I will test today ... looks great. ;)

*** Fussy Mode ON ***
About Map Names:

Icefields -> Icefields (4)
Kasyr Luiten(8) -> Kasyr Lutien (8)

And as you already mentionned Hanna -> Beta dissapear :)
Lets hope we get an answer from Randy, but he has done only 4 posts since registration to forum. So i expect he doesn't check back often.

Just for an unified layout
*** Fussy Mode OFF ***

LordLegendZ

22nd Feb 05, 4:38 AM

I think we should also set up an aggressive ad campaign for this with a custom map awareness/map pack pimpage thread in the General DoW forums. That should help increase exposure and maybe finally get people to play some custom maps.

Don't worry.. i got it covered. Expect an offical statement within hours of my post, should the following issue below be resolved.

Okay, i must say great job hanna. You did the map pack at last. What i cannot understand is something of paramount importance that i shall not discuss here. I, defending dowhq's interest in this map pack, has certain issues that caused unhappiness within our ranks. I willl sort this out with the person whop have seized the lead of this map pack, but should the discussion be futile, you can expect something to happen.

Rayden

22nd Feb 05, 4:41 AM

LordLegendz .. as far is i understood Hannas post we should test it first before publishing everywhere. Did i understand this right??

EDIT: Damn this map pack is definitely too good. :smash:

Hanna

22nd Feb 05, 5:45 AM

Testing is fine. If anyone finds anything wrong, let me know.

At the same time, it's fairly well tested and there's little that can go wrong. (I say that now, watch something horrible happen in the next twenty-four hours.)

I would have *loved* to have changed the names and some other things about the maps (like the filenames, some of which have absolutely nothing to do with the maps themselves) but doing that would cause the maps to be incompatible with those people have already downloaded. Changing the minimaps and map icons isn't an issue, doesn't cause problems in online play. What does cause problems is editing the .sgb file where the name of the map is stored. I really wanted to add fog to the edges of Fort Atlantis, just so the edges looked nice, even though the skybox was made to be as big as possible so it causes huge lag if you tip the camera down for a longer view on things. But to do so would have caused problems with anyone who has the original map which was one of our goals, not to cause problems with anyone who has the original map.

Maybe we can someday release a map pack of maps that have been "fixed" by us and make Special Editions of various maps that we have made changes to, but for the first map pack we went with the very best maps we could get that would cause the minimum of fuss to us to put together into a map pack.

So, if anyone has problems, let me know. Nobody has had any problems yet, so I see that as a growing sign that it's worthwhile to go ahead and start with some limited marketing.

At any time if a problem is found, I can fix it and upload a new map pack that will overwrite whatever files might be broken (like the bad map icon for Bridge Too Far). It will still work with the map packs that people have downloaded before because the map icons don't cause problems if people have two different versions.

The bigger marketing push is to get the site listed on the fansites and filesites (especially including the official Dawn of War Game.com site) and to get a sticky on the Dawn of War Discussion forum with the post made by someone who people will listen to like a Moderator or a Relic employee.

I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to, LegendZ, but I hope that gets worked out. Good luck. If there's anything I can do to help, let me know.

Eventually, I will get around to making a web site (unless someone else wants to make one first. :) ). I'll probably use Movable Type which I'm already using for my blog, but set up another blog with another template so that each "post" is a map pack and it just generates one page. That's the nice thing about Movable Type is that you can basically build anything, it doesn't have to be a blog. Once that page is generated, we can just send the index.html and styles.css and graphics files that are necessary (and of course the map pack) to anyone who wants to mirror the site. But I don't think we should wait for that. I would have liked to have waited until a website is done, but it takes a long time to make a nice website. Using Movable Type will make it only a smidge harder in the short run, but way easier for future map packs.

We can even make the files for the website as their own download (not as an auto-installer! ;) ) to make it easier for people to download them to mirror the site.

The two most important, I think, will be to get the people who read the Dawn of War Discussion forum and to get people who go to the official Dawn of War Game site (who may never join a forum but only play the home version of the game). The Fansites and Filesites will be great but in a way they overlap the official forums. One problem is that we could provide support for multiple languages and get the map pack sent to people in non-English-speaking countries, but we would need someone else to handle all that because I don't speak any other languages than English and I don't know how to localize the installer. The maps would be in English and to change them would make the maps incompatible, so *shrug* it might be a moot point anyway.

I don't see any problem with starting to market it now. It will probably start slow and we will be able to catch any errors before it ramps up to full speed. I'd like to get the people we mention in the "license" to help out before everyone has downloaded it from my site, though. I don't think I have enough bandwidth to serve the file to everyone who has bought Dawn of War. :) Not without getting a nasty call from my webspace provider.

So, the sooner it is spread out, the better. But the sooner people are downloading it the better. If it turns out everyone who downloads it is going to get it from my site well, them's the breaks. We'll have more map packs and when we start combining them into one Map Pack to Rule Them All, then I *definitely* won't be able to be the primary download point. By then we'll have a website, though that can be hosted on other sites. Hopefully I will hear from the fansites and filesites as to what they need from a website, otherwise I'll have to make a website that doesn't account for whatever they need to add as far as advertising or whatever and hopefully they don't put any advertising in it, but I can understand that they might have to. So, if you have needs DoWHQ, DoW Planet, DoWFiles, contact me sooner rather than later. :)

I pretty much have been sleeping since I finished up and I have just woken up but am going to go back to sleep. I'm completely drained and probably won't be able to do any work for a while. I will fix any problems with the installer, but I don't think anybody will find any from what I've heard from people. It's either going to work or it isn't. The only files we're changing are map icons and minimaps, otherwise we're just adding files.

The only time a problem would crop up would be if someone's registry key was corrupted and even then, the installer asks if that is the right place to install. More often than not, that will be the right place to install. There may be some tech support we need to give, but we're sending people here to get it.

As far as I can tell only twelve people have downloaded the map pack so far. That's a fair number for testing purposes. My bandwidth use has doubled just with that, though, so I might be in huge trouble once this gets announced to more than just twelve people. :)

Oh well. I don't need to eat this month.

Seriously, though. I really need this to be mirrored.

Love,

Hanna

LordLegendZ

22nd Feb 05, 6:05 AM

=====================THREAD BREAK===================

We need to move in a constant direction
I suggest that we write a post on our intentions on what yuo want the map apck to be and pm it to me. I'm simply too frustrated by the non-existence of co-ordination here

Rayden

22nd Feb 05, 6:21 AM

Maybe we can someday release a map pack of maps that have been "fixed" by us and make Special Editions of various maps that we have made changes to, but for the first map pack we went with the very best maps we could get that would cause the minimum of fuss to us to put together into a map pack.

So, if anyone has problems, let me know. Nobody has had any problems yet, so I see that as a growing sign that it's worthwhile to go ahead and start with some limited marketing.

At any time if a problem is found, I can fix it and upload a new map pack that will overwrite whatever files might be broken (like the bad map icon for Bridge Too Far). It will still work with the map packs that people have downloaded before because the map icons don't cause problems if people have two different versions.
I understand you're point of view Hanna, but don't you think it's better to fix this now than later? There are things that should be fixed and imho it's better if we do it now! I will remake the icons/minimaps of the maps which aren't perfect now and send host it on my webspace (have some problems with my email account currently). Moreover i think we don't have such a narrow time window to release this map pack. IF we do it this week it's ok anyway.

About map version incompatibilities, we should update version on dowfiles too, so no matter what people download, they have always the same version. For sure we need the agreement of the map creators for this. I will contact the creators by PM now and wait for their opinions to this topic.

@LordLegendZ:
We have an open discussion culture here and till now it seems to work quite well, i think.

LordLegendZ

22nd Feb 05, 6:59 AM

Until we get something done, this isn't the time to go publicise this thread/map pack. If you guys just need to get this pack to evauate, i have it hosted:
http://dowhq.polyscopedesign.com/DoW_Map_Pack_I.exe
But just to let you guys know the map pack released by hanna was a preview, teaser pack, unfortunatly even the teaser isn't even finalised.

I repeat: DO NOT SPREAD WORD OF THIS PACK OUT YET!

Rayden

22nd Feb 05, 8:27 AM

Ok, i guess i won't get a majority for changing files names. So lets forget this and only fixing the icons minimaps that are missing.

Star Wars Kid

22nd Feb 05, 9:39 AM

I'm confused. LordLegendZ, what specifically do you want?

I realize that there is a real question on changing map names. I have agonized over it too because I want to make an updated version of St. Mathias Bridge with better lighting, fog, and skybox settings. On one hand, you want people to have the best map possible but you also don't want people to get frustrated because they get errors when they try to play online against people with a different version.

In the end, I think it has to come down to the individual mapper. They have to weigh the consequences and decide for themselves.

Hanna

22nd Feb 05, 9:46 AM

Wait, what?

All the minimaps and map icons are there. They're all new. I made them myself.

The ones that I didn't make already had ones that were just fine.

Everything's fine.

What is wrong with everyone?

What's going on?

This is a great map pack. It gives people eight maps that are well made, won't conflict with maps that people have already downloaded but adds map icons and minimaps to them so they are more playable. It's a small download so people with modems can download it.

It's not all of the maps that could be because we're going to do more than one map pack. There are at this time almost or more than three hundred custom made maps. Only a handful of them are obvious dreck and there are dozens and dozens of them that are as good as or better than the included Relic maps.

I had to do this all by my fucking self. I was getting very little help. The help I did get was great. I appreciate it to no end. But it wasn't enough to get a Map Pack made. There wouldn't have been a map pack if I hadn't said "screw it" and just made one. This thread would have withered and died.

Nobody has a right of demand on my time. Nobody has a right to tell me what to do. We could have done things by consensus. I wanted that. I begged for that. But nobody was chipping in.

I know I asked you at least three times if you would either hold off on releasing Jungle Assault SE for a simultaneous release of the map pack or at least let me know a day or two before you released it and sent me a copy when it was done so I could include it in the map pack so I could get the map pack done in time for a semi-simultaneous release. You never responded. Not a yes or a no. You never acknowledged I asked the question.

I feel like I'm crazy pills.

This finally gets done and now everyone wants to hold off and do it over again?

I just don't understand. I really don't.

If you want to do that. Good luck. I've said before and I'll say again, I don't want any part in a giant process that is going to take months to evaluate maps with judging and scoring (especially because I'm supposed to be the one in charge of all of that). If people want me to be a part of something, it has to be something that I can manage and I can't manage much. I *hurt* myself doing what I did yesterday. But I did it because that is what was needed to make the map pack something that was exciting, because people want Jungle Assault SE and a lot of people have problems installing maps and this is a way that they can install it easily. So, if people want Jungle Assault SE and they can't install it on their own, we can say, here, here's this map pack. It has Jungle Assault SE and seven other great maps and it will install everything for you. It's ten megs. Short download. Not even so bad on a modem. It'll solve all your problems.

The very first post suggested 10-20 maps. We did eight. That's pretty good. It made for a smaller download. We can always make more map packs. We can combine map packs into One Map Pack To Rule Them All. This is a good flexibility. Map Packs with textures are going to have fewer maps in them, but if we include the maps that all use the same textures in one pack, then we can get more maps into that map pack.

There is no reason to be re-making the map icons and minimaps. They've already been remade except for the ones that already were fine. I remade the ones that I remade using Relic's typeface and drop shadow. I checked where the start locations were. They are indistinguishable from a Relic map icon.

Sorry if I seem a little upset, but I am.

Rayden

22nd Feb 05, 10:34 AM

Ok, i got 2 positive responses, we should include this in the map pack.

Abyss aka. AngelSaphire (Icefields) said changing name is ok. (and will also change version on DoWFiles)
Also Rendy (Bridge too far) thinks it's no problem to fix the name and get rid of this Beta.

Could you please do this Hanna?
Thanks.

PS: I thought you said that the Minimap for Bridge to Far is not ok. But in this case we can leave if you say all icons and minimaps are well done now.

Hanna

22nd Feb 05, 10:55 AM

Will do at my first opportunity which should be in about an hour or two. :)

I'll change the map name to conform with the Xp_mapname_author.xxx

And the ingame name to be Mapname (X)

Since it alters the .sgb file so everyone is going to have to re-download the map pack, might as well bump the Icefields up into the sorted part of the map list. I think Bridge Too Far already has the right filename, but might be missing the authorname.

Do you know if Abyss prefers to be Abyss or AngelSaphire? I guess I'll use AngelSaphire cause that's what's on DoWFiles, so people can more easily find any other maps by looking up maps by AngelSaphire.

Oh. Right. Yea, the map icon for Bridge Too Far was the wrong size (I just added numbers and didn't even think about the size; turns out that if a map icon is bigger than 128x128 Dawn of War will just size it down to the correct size but that caused a problem with the numbers, making them unreadable -- resizing the map icon and adding new numbers made everything all better) and I fixed it about ten minutes after I uploaded the first file. I don't think anyone had downloaded it in the time it took me to fix it. The version that is currently up has a fixed Bridge Too Far map icon. Sorry for the confusion.

Love,

Hanna

---

In other news, there seems to be some confusion as to what map pack project we're working on. DoW HQ has a map pack project of their own (which I don't think I'm at liberty to discuss) and then there is this map pack. Theirs is significantly different than this one and they are under the impression that I'm working on theirs. I'm not. I'm working on this set of small, easy-to-make, small-to-distribute, simple project. It's all I can handle. This is difficult enough.

Apparently we are going to lose our sponsorship by Dawn of War HQ because we are not working on that project, because this project isn't that project. That makes me sad. I wish Dawn of War HQ good luck on their map project. I don't think we have any choice but to remove Dawn of War HQ from the list of sponsors since LegendZ has made it clear that he is removing support from this project unless we join the Dawn of War HQ project. I would encourage people to join their project if they have the time and energy because it sounds like a great thing. It's just not this project. I hope that Dawn of War HQ will see that there is room for more than one Map Pack project and continue to support this one by offering webspace/mirroring as they work on their other project, but unless I hear otherwise I can only assume that they aren't a sponsor because they've said as much. If things change, I'll add them back.

So, when LegendZ says don't tell people about his map project, that is because of a misunderstanding. Please do tell your friends and everyone else about this map project. Spread the word. Shout it from the highest mountain tops. I'll gladly go into the poor house (well, I'm already in the poor house, technically) if it means that this map pack is downloaded by everyone who is playing Dawn of War at home or online.

More Love,

Hanna

Rayden

22nd Feb 05, 12:24 PM

Since it alters the .sgb file so everyone is going to have to re-download the map pack, might as well bump the Icefields up into the sorted part of the map list. I think Bridge Too Far already has the right filename, but might be missing the authorname.
Thanks for pointing that out Hanna, that's why we shouldn't shout it from the highest mountain tops right now (also it's very cold currently). After we have all chances you can start shouting ;)

Hanna

22nd Feb 05, 1:16 PM

Well, the original plan was not to alter .sgb files. I was just following that plan.

Much as I would *love* to alter .sgb files.

Okay, they're done. The Map Pack is recomplied and uploaded to the site.

I really hope it's not just me shouting. If it's just me shouting, there won't be many people downloading it. On the other hand, I won't have to pay for any extra bandwidth.

This whole plan (I really believe) revolves around getting Important People to plug the Map Pack and to reach people who are normally unreachable. It would be great if people came up with other ways of reaching people, most importantly people who play online and don't read the forums but also people who play only Skirmish or LAN games and don't read the forums.

I really do appreciate the help, Rayden. Contacting people isn't my strong suit. Believe it or not, I'm really phobic. I can make forum posts probably for the same reasons that trolls can run wild: I have this feeling of anonymity, that what I say doesn't really matter, that I'm not really saying it. Contacting a stranger is really hard for me, though. Especially asking if I can mess with their map. Thank you.

---

OMGZ! I used a different compressor and now it is 6.84 MB (7,173,725 bytes)! Why didn't I thnk of doing that before!?!? Augh! Anyway, great news! Thirty-five some odd megs of maps compressed into a little less than seven. Not bad, not bad! (It's all the graphics that got smushed down so much more with a different compressor.)

I was worried we wouldn't be able to do a Map Pack with as many maps if they had a lot of custom textures and decals (which I think the next Map Pack should be, including Sand Storm and so many of the great maps that also use monoRAIL's sand textures and decals and also Bill's fantastic rock decals). Map Pack II is going to fuckin' blow off people's heads! You just wait 'n' see!

Love,

Hanna

Rayden

22nd Feb 05, 1:55 PM

Great News!!! Good that i urged you to compile a second time ;). I will do a last installation, prepare some pictures for DoWFiles and then PM Jamie, LordLegendZ and the one from DoWPlanet. That should be enough to get it widely spread.

About your current mappack homepage, maybe we can get it hosted at DoWPlanet, what do you think about that? :)

Thanks to all for finishing this project and making not just another "Dead" project. Hanna i really appreciate your work on installer and making this cool installation picture :D. To all others thanks for your map proposals.

Let's hope our next map pack get such high quality maps again! :smash:

EDIT: Here are the pictures for the map pack, i've made >> Pictures (http://stud4.tuwien.ac.at/~e0426579/DowMapPackPics.zip) <<

phrackwulf

22nd Feb 05, 1:56 PM

Not that the code is open source or anything, but I make no claim to originality since anyone with similar training could have made the same map.

I really don't care if anyone plays my maps. I like them a lot and I mainly like designing them just to prove I can. It doesn't really bother me if people ignore "Iron Storm: Kerisus Corridor" for example.

This also constitutes permission to alter my maps in any way you like, just don't attach my name to the altered versions. If Hanna edits it, I no longer consider it to be "mine" per se. Go wild or ignore my stuff completely. I don't care one way or the other.

[-)

Hanna

22nd Feb 05, 3:00 PM

http://www.bitcheswithglitches.com/dow/mappacks/

Gah! Stoopid stoopid me! I messed up the Bridge Too Far map icon *again*! (Forgot the numbers, somehow, or mixed up the one with numbers with the one without or something) I just fixed it. Just re-compiled the installer. Uploading it now. It'll be finished by the time I post this.

Yea, I don't know what I was thinking by not having tried the other compressors (there are like three or four different ones you can use and each is good for different things). There is a setting for "Best Compressor" where it compresses the installer with each one and sees which one is smaller. It decided that "LZMA" is the best for what we're doing. Took a long time for it to figure that out, though and it takes a long time to compress with LZMA (only a minute or so, but the other compressor that made a ten meg installer would do it instantly).

Phrackwulf, thank you. :) The whole idea is to *not* ignore people, to make map packs so that hopefully everyone gets at least one map in so players can see the wide diversity of mappers and different styles of maps. Keep making maps if it is fun for you (I hope it is!) and we will have lots to choose from so we can pick the very best one (hopefully... it's all subjective) and include it in a future map pack.

I really wish I hadn't included River Canyon in this map pack because while I like it, it's not my favorite map of mine and I *really* want people to be playing Three Kings which I think is my most fun map. It's going to be hard to include it because I have already included one of mine. I can maybe sneak it in with the map pack of maps that use monoRAIL's Sand Storm textures and pretend the whole River Canyon thing never happened.

I would totally love for this web page to be on every fansite and filesite. Maybe not this *particular* web page because it's amazingly fugly and really needs to be re-done. But as a placeholder I'm okay with it. I want to make something better. It would be nice to hear from the fansites/filesites if they need to have room for ads and where so I can make a design that leaves room for them. Hopefully not too many. I'm okay with a few. And they would all be cross-linked so it's more of a cross-marketing thing. On FilePlanet and never heard of Dawn of War Planet? There'll be a link. On Dawn of War HQ and never heard of FilePlanet (okay, very unlikely), there'll be a link there.

Mostly what I want is for the webpage to include screenshots and the bits from the readmes of the maps that set up the story for each map, talk about tactics, etc. Also, a sidebar with the map authors and links to their other maps, the maps that aren't in the map pack. So, if you like such-and-such's map, you can easily see which other maps there are and go download them. (This would be the best place for ads and buttons for the sponsors.)

So, hopefully that'll work out. I want there to be a link on dawnofwargame.com which shouldn't be a problem because one of the mods (I forget) said that all I had to do was email the link and they would add it to their list of community links. Maybe they can make a special category for us. It is a special thing.

I hope that we can have a good relationship with DoWHQ. I know that LegendZ is not happy that this didn't turn out to be the plan he wanted. He sent me a very upset private message, well, because he's upset and apparently other people are upset with him. I don't know what to do about that. I never intended for anyone to get upset about this. I think there was some misunderstanding because I maybe didn't make it clear enough that this wasn't the Map Pack project that they wanted us to make. I don't want to make that Map Pack project. I wish them luck, I truly do. But it's way too much work for me and it's not the way I like to work. I don't like judging and scoring because I don't think it's possible to be truly objective about maps. This is a purely subjective map pack because I think the only way I can ever think of maps is in a purely subjective way.

These are great maps. No doubt about it. But there are *so* many more of them out there.

I have the second map pack already half-way made in my mind. I just have to write it down. But I know that Sand Storm and St. Mathias bridge and Crossfire is going to be in it. (Crossfire is another problem, because Sps already has a map in this map pack and he also made Crossfire but it is *such* a good map and it uses Sand Storm textures so it's a natural to be in the Sand Storm pack just like I want to include Three Kings in the Sand Storm pack which also includes many of Bill's textures which makes Grand Canyon a good map to put in the second map pack. See how this all ties together?)

But I guess we'll deal with that when this is all done.

I'd love for you to contact the people you talked about. I can also talk with Jamie cause I sometimes bump into him on the #DoWMod channel. So, maybe we can both talk with him because I don't know how FilePlanet will take to us having our own page there (But maybe the page is fine, just the link goes to the three pages (or whatever) of advertisements, so they still get the ad revenue). We will all work something out, I'm sure.

I'm really tired. Let me know if there are any problems that anyone finds. I'm really glad that the installer is three megs smaller. I worry a little less about having to use my credit card to buy fifty gigs of bandwidth.

Maybe, just maybe this is the final version of the installer. That would be nice. I'd like to get to work on the web page. But I might take a day or two to just veg out. I did make some changes to the page to make it more informative (but not better looking) about exactly what is in the map pack. I removed the DoWHQ mirror because that's the old map pack and shouldn't be downloaded.

I'm really worried that LegendZ is going to hate me forever. :(

Love,

Hanna

http://www.bitcheswithglitches.com/dow/mappacks/

Star Wars Kid

22nd Feb 05, 3:28 PM

Great news on the improved compression! :spin:

Are we ready to start advertising or what?

Rayden

22nd Feb 05, 3:42 PM

Yes we are :D

i've informed DowHQ / DowFiles and DowPlanet. Lets see what comes out :)

Hanna

22nd Feb 05, 3:50 PM

http://www.bitcheswithglitches.com/dow/mappacks/

I say advertise away.

What could go wrong?

At the very least, I think putting it in our signatures, telling friends, posting in appropriate places, etc. is a good thing. We might find an extra bug or two that way. I really don't think there are any, though. Only silly mistakes that I make that I've managed to fix pretty quickly.

The one nagging question I have is: none of these maps use custom textures or decals, do they? I don't think they do. I hope they don't, because I'm not installing any. That would be the worst case. But so far nobody's complained about that.

The first, best place to advertise is in the Jungle Assault SE thread. Get them downloading this instead of Jungle Assault SE all by its lonesome. :) It'll help people who have problems downloading. Another good place to advertise is in the comments of the Jungle Assault SE page on DoWFiles.com for people who might have problems installing it themselves. If I remember correctly, there are like six messages in the old Jungle Assault thread from people asking for help installing it. Maybe advertising on the old Jungle Assault page would be a good idea too.

I'd like to get a mod or Relic employee to post a message in the Dawn of War Discussion forum and sticky the thing. Most importantly because people will listen to a mod and even more likely a Relic employee. If anyone has contacts, use them now.

I wonder if Relic News would help host/mirror?

Sending a story submission to Relic Universe would be a good idea.

Let us not forget http://dawn-of-war.co.uk/.

Lastly, I think it was UberJumper who said he would add a map pack page to the "community links" page on http://dawnofwargame.com/ . Even better if we get our own "category" because it's not a fansite and there will (hopefully, oh please Goddess) be mirrors. And more Map Packs.

Leave no stone unturned, but the smaller stones are best to start out with, I guess. In case there is a bug that needs to be fixed. I would hate to have to ask everyone to download the thing twice. Once is bad enough.

But yea, advertising is okay by me. :)

I just wish I had a beautiful web page for people to go visit.

Soon enough. Soon enough.

Love,

Hanna

http://www.bitcheswithglitches.com/dow/mappacks/

Dorkdav

22nd Feb 05, 4:01 PM

I downloaded this map pack and everything worked great for me. Thanks for the sweet map pack!

One question, if you don't have the scenarios and mp folders made already will the installer create them for you?

Hanna

22nd Feb 05, 6:40 PM

One question, if you don't have the scenarios and mp folders made already will the installer create them for you?

It will. :)

It'll even create a "loading" folder for your loading screens, if there any for the maps (there are two installed with this map pack).

Love,

Hanna

Star Wars Kid

22nd Feb 05, 7:42 PM

If you want me to send anyone emails or whatever, just let me know

moenrg

22nd Feb 05, 9:10 PM

Two comments:

1) The map pack installed fine, ran without a hitch.

2) Hats off to the community to get this done so fast.

While I had most of them, I still wanted to see the custom installer (very good) and the revised "bridge" and "jungle". I too offer what support I can to send emails or whatever to help.

:up:

Rayden

23rd Feb 05, 1:00 AM

Hanna could you make a 300*100 picture for Map Pack which i can include in my signature? :)

Hanna

23rd Feb 05, 1:23 AM

I will put that on my "to do" list, but near the top. That is a really nice idea. :)

Maybe I'll make a smaller one, so people who have the stats bars can "double-up" and add a banner for the map pack.

Oh and great news! I talked with my webspace provider and he said not to worry about bandwidth, he's more concerned about processor use and downloads don't muss with that at all. So, the rush to get mirrors isn't as frantic as it was before (at least, not in my mind). I still want to partner up with the people who said they would support us (we have evidence by your posts in this thread!) because we mention them in the readme, so hopefully they will come through with some love for us. And we can always change the readme and recompile the map pack without it causing any problems, because the maps won't change.

So, while I am working on the web page, I will also make some banners for people to advertise the Map Pack site. I added just a text line to my siganature cause the graphic was made for me by a friend and I want to keep it. But the blog links to the map pack, so it's just two clicks away. :)

Love,

Hanna

http://www.bitcheswithglitches.com/dow/mappacks/

LordLegendZ

23rd Feb 05, 1:46 AM

Hanna.. now do i understand. Sorry for any inconviniece caused or whatsoever.. but yeah.. i get a sense of deja vu readin through all these extra vocal posts.
please do not misunderstand, DowHq is willing these initatives in anyway. But the cause for confusion was a pm i sent to hanna that caused this confusion. To sum up what the pm meant was: I ask hanna to make a list of seven maps that we could start from and get a prelim pack as to gather interest for a even bigger map apck that would need more testing. I believe that the current pack we have here is non-official and thus no need for testing, as it is a finished article.
i have the pack hosted.. and hanna if you want i can provide the space and page for you to get a website.
I believed from day one you guys wanted dowhq to provide the main server and advertising, so this was quite a shock for me. I have in earlier posts expressed that.
Anyway hanna, do you still want this pack to be the prelim pack? We could work the details out.
It was not my desire to have to seperate projects going together. it would be a waste of manpower, plus it would be better as we could make an intergrated line of packs which would be much more efficent.
Hanna, if you are reading this, give me a pm on what your plans are
anyway the link to the map pack:
http://dowhq.polyscopedesign.com/DoW_Map_Pack_I.exe

jesukrixto

23rd Feb 05, 7:24 AM

I read in the first page something about a 19:30 GMT meeting every day to test new maps. Read a couple comments about it as well. It looks like a good idea, and I'd like to be there one of these days (don't know when, tight schedule, but I'd try to be there). I just don't know if this testing meeting is actually going on. And in case it is, where do you meet...a particular room in the on-line lobby, irc?

Anyway, congrats for your efforts on making your maps more available to DoW fans. Still, with no auto-download, it'll be impossible to get widely spread user-made maps, but the way you guys keep struggling for that to happen is admirable:)

Gonna try in skirmish mode the community map pack tonite, but I'd like to play the maps with people as well, AIs suck balls:)

LordLengendZ...what happened with that campaign you guys were working on at DowHQ?...it was the coolest idea ever...

Titler

23rd Feb 05, 7:24 AM

Installed the map pack... but small problem; Using the download hosted at Hanna's webpage, the installer spots where DoW was installed (C:\Games\Dawn Of War) but instead of installing to the correct directory when left with default path, it creates a folder at C:\Games\Dawn Of War\MP, under which it then recreates the WH40k\Data... etc file path. I had to manually move the maps to the correct folder to get them to work. Just thought you guys should know...

Rayden

23rd Feb 05, 7:51 AM

Must be a problem in your registry Titler. Please check.

Anyway: GREAT NEWS!!!! Moe has made our Thread in General Discussion Forum STICKY!! At least for some days.

Titler

23rd Feb 05, 9:30 AM

Pulled up Regedit, but not sure what I should be looking at; what's the correct Registry entry which the map pack is calling upon?

Rayden

23rd Feb 05, 9:37 AM

I guess it should be this one:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/THQ/Dawn of War -> InstallLocation

but only Hanna knows :P

Titler

23rd Feb 05, 10:56 AM

I guess it should be this one:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/THQ/Dawn of War -> InstallLocation

This is set correctly; but as I said, the installer is putting the maps in the wrong place... It's installing to "Install location\MP\WH40K\Data\etc" rather than "Install location\WH40k\Data\etc"

Hanna

23rd Feb 05, 11:24 AM

Dang. I'm sorry, Titler. :(

I don't know why it would do that. The script first assumes that you have installed Dawn of War in
$PROGRAMFILES\THQ\Dawn of War\ (the default location for the Relic installer) then it checks
HKLM "SOFTWARE\THQ\Dawn of War" "InstallLocation" like Rayden said (HKLM stands for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE) to see if your version of Dawn of War was installed in a different place. This should work in almost all instances, but the installer also should ask if that's the right place and give you the opportunity to change it if it isn't. (This is weird, because if someone don't know much about where their Dawn of War is installed most people will just accept what comes up, trusting the installer which will be right most of the time, but if it's wrong, it'll be very very wrong.)

Once the user says "okay" to the install location, it uses that in this line
SetOutPath "$INSTDIR\W40K\Data\Scenarios\MP" to write all the files to the $INSTDIR which I'm thinking is where the problem is. If the $INSTDIR is (for instance) "C:/Program Files/THQ/Dawn of War/MP", then it'll do exactly what it's doing for Titler. But it shouldn't ever be that. There's no code that adds MP to the $INSTDIR, so it has to be coming from somewhere else.

Where that would be, I have no idea. :(

I'm curious, if you saved the installer, what does yours say is the directory it is going to install it in? Is it the right one? Does anything look fishy there?

I really hope this is an isolated occurrence cause I have no idea what to do if this is something that happens frequently. :(

I am glad that you sorted it out yourself, Titler and hopefully we can sneak Brainboyz Hill into one of the future map packs. ;) For those who haven't played it, Titler stole my idea of making a "King of the Hill" map. So, really, this is special secret code I've put into the installer to get back at Titler for stealing my totally awesome idea. ;)

---

I have to say that I'm kinda disappointed with DoWFiles. :( It was nice of them to do a story, but the fuckin' put the file in their generic map pack section (and didn't even use Rayden's pictures, just a weirdly stretched version of the welcome/finish.jpg) when I asked that they wouldn't do that.

So, if someone who wants to write letters if they would write Dawn of War files and at least ask them to use the pictures that Rayden posted in the now stickied thread in W40K: Dawn of War Discussion.

I suppose no matter how much they want to help, their hands are tied by UGO/FilePlanet. On my to-do list will be a button to put in their sidebar where they have a link to DoWHQ. They can at least do that for us.

The reason I'm upset is because it should be easier for people to download maps than to have to go through all the advertising of UGO/FilePlanet. A lot of people are turned off by that and won't download files from there. The whole point of this isn't just to make a map pack, but to make it super-easy for people to download. At least they linked to our page and we are getting a fair amount of traffic from the news posting. I would also like if they would put a link to our page in the download page for the map in their archives so people have an option of going directly to our page and just downloading it without having to navigate through all the advertisements.

For people who don't mind, they can download it the normal way. They have served up over two hundred downloads which is great, but it locks us in, we can't change the file now if we should find a problem.

The first problem is whether to re-add DoWHQ which I want to do, but I'm still not sure if we're all on the same page with this. This isn't DoWHQ's map pack. I know there have been a lot of misunderstandings and I'm part of that because I had to agree to sign on in order to find out what their plan was, but once I found out, I realized that it wasn't something I wanted to be involved in. But I never explicitly stated that which I should have. So, let me say that now. I'm not involved with DoWHQ's Map Pack. The work I'm doing is for the Maproom Community Map Packs.

Yes, we will be doing two different projects. I don't see that as a problem because the projects are *very* different. They have two distinctly different goals. I'll leave it to LegendZ to say what their goal is, but our goal is to make small, subjective map packs and release them when we have time.

I think we can work with DoWHQ and I *really* appreciate the mirror. I'll gladly add you to our list of sponsors, but then (and this is the problem with DoWFiles mirroring the file without asking) everyone else will have to update their download.

I don't know what to do about this in the future. Maybe taking out all references to sponsors from the readme file would be best and just putting them in the mirrors/sponsors listing on the web page and linking to them using their buttons. That way we will be able to be flexible about it in the face of people just mirroring it wherever they want to.

It's not just DoWFiles, but anyone who puts the file behind a blockage. Like requiring someone to login to their site to download the file. That's just bad karma. I don't know if anyone has done this yet, and I really hope nobody ever does.

Anyway, this is all pretty much out of my hands now. I have other work to do -- website, banners, buttons, editing the page to add mirrors) and I'm still completely drained from having made the installer and all the stress of the last day or two (has it only been a day or two? It feels like weeks).

Has anyone emailed dawn-of-war.co.uk?

Does anyone want to email UberJumper with the sitename and ask that we be put in a category (hopefully near the top) of Custom Map Sites or something like that and then the link should be "Community Map Packs" and link to http://www.bitcheswithglitches.com/dow/mappacks/ and if he's feeling extra-helpful maybe adding a line underneath saying "Self-installing maps selected by the custom mapping community to enhance Dawn of War's skirmish and multiplayer experience"

Love,

Hanna

Star Wars Kid

23rd Feb 05, 11:59 AM

I compiled the list of suggested maps and sorted it out a bit. Just by looking at the list, it is obvious that we can’t continue to release map packs that have two of each map size. There simply aren’t enough large maps. Also, someone in the General DoW discussion forum suggested adding 3, 5, and 7 player maps. If anyone knows of any good maps that are those sizes let me know and I will add them to the list.

2 Player Maps

Disadvantage (2)
Abandoned Faith (2)
St. Victoria Spaceport (2)
Atreides Ford (2)
The Angelis Expedition (2)
Ayrom IV Mines (2
Bridge Too Far (2)
Chaos Beach (2)
Chaos Carnage (2)
Sand Storm (2)
Trees of the Eldar (2)
Pleasant Little Islands (2)
The Lost City (2)
Rainy Valleys (2)
River Rafting (2)
The River of Doom (2)
River Canyon (2)

4 Player Maps

Apocalypse Later (4)
Frozen Plains (4)
St. Mathias Bridge (4)
The Stand I (4)
Archon IV (4)
WaterStation (4) (aka Civik River)
Tesseract Valley (4)
Grand Canyon (4)
Mines of Ashandtarr (4)
Nova Nottana (4)
Penal Mining Colony No. 108 (4)
St. Hanna (4)
Sunken Land (4)
Swamp Raid (4)
Tortuga Valley (4)
Icefields (4)

6 Player Maps

Crossfire (6)
Ryuo Cityfight (6)
Tainted Marshes (6)
Desiderata Highlands (6)
The Great Divide (6)
Jungle Assault SE (6)
Testing Grounds Level 2 (6)
Three Kings (6)

8 Player Maps

Silva Quadrivium (8)
Fort Atlantis (8)
Arx Haustrum (8)
Kasyr Lutien (8)

[edit]

Hanna, I just sent UberJumper an e-mail.

Rayden

23rd Feb 05, 12:04 PM

Hi Hanna,

1) Today i played "Bridge too Far" -> Icon has no numbers -> Minimap has strange lines on side (i know this is because of the map size), could you fix this and update download file (as this doesn't make problems with versions)

2) I will contact Jamie about the pictures. (or have you already done that, that you say Jamie can't change it????) // Btw. what is not ok with DowFiles? I see no major problems. Jamie even did write news for it.

3) I think our map pack has a good response till now. So i guess there are no major bugs. In Phase 2 we can do everything better :P

Aralez

23rd Feb 05, 12:50 PM

Hanna, if you want you can take some 8 player maps from my site, i made a few. :D Take whatever you want, i give you full permission. :beer:

acturas

23rd Feb 05, 12:57 PM

Great work folks looks like a lotta people are downloading the pack (DOWfiles is at 323 downloads already on its own!). Give yourself a pat on the back Hanna for pullin it all together:) :) :)

Hanna

23rd Feb 05, 1:09 PM

I think you may have an older version of the Map Pack, Rayden. I know there was a problem after you asked me to fix Bridge Too Far with there being no numbers, but then I fixed it. You might have gotten the wrong version. The minimap should work as well. I never made any changes to it. I'll double-check to see, though.

I haven't contacted Jamie. It would be great if you would contact him. The problem is that I asked specifically upthread that Jamie not host the file in the usual DoWFiles way. The reason is that if we need to change the archive, they have to make an entirely new page for it, leaving the old archive at its old page. Or at least, that's how they have always dealt with maps before. You could never update your map, you could only re-submit it with a new version number. Maybe they can make an exception for us, I don't know. The other problem is that it is behind a wall of advertisements. It's supposed to be easy to download. A lot of people are turned off by DoWFiles and don't download maps from there because of all of the ads. I download a lot from there and it is very tiring to have to go through all those pages. Once isn't a bother. Two-hundred times it gets very, very old. I had hoped they would give us our own page, I even talked about the possibility of leaving some room for advertisements if they needed to put some there, but not so many. I have been talking about this for the last two pages.

I really get the feeling that people don't read what I write.

I would rather they just linked to us and let us handle the downloads if they are going to make people run the gauntlet of their download process. I'm glad they linked to us in the story and we are getting a lot of traffic from that. The thing is, that story is going to go away, leaving just the map pack page which does *not* contain a link to our site. I would like them to add a link to our site on that page so people can just download the file and not have to look at a lot of advertisements.

I know I was worried about bandwidth earlier, but after talking with my webhost, I'm not anymore.

LegendZ, I don't know if it is something wrong with my computer or not, but your mirror link doesn't work for me. I am only able to download a 192KB file. Has anyone else been able to download the map pack from that mirror link successfully? The 7MB version, not the 10MB version.

Yea, the second Map Pack will be better. We will have a better website by then, no doubt and I really hope we can score some pre-releases from people again going with the "a couple of popular maps that people really want to download and the rest maps that we think are good but that people just aren't downloading for some reason". Maybe some more edits to maps that just need a little tweaking (with the author's permission, or maybe the original author doing the tweaking), more Special Edition maps, that sort of thing. I think those really make the Map Pack something special that people are going to want to download.

As well as everything having minimaps/map icons, it's those little things that are going to make this whole project extremely successful.

I mentioned this in the sticky thread in W40K:Dawn of War Discussion but I do *not* want us to have a vote (People's Choice Map Pack) yet, not for a while. I agree that it's a good idea for one of the map packs, but there are too many other considerations other than just "Which Maps Are Popular". Plus, we pretty much already know which maps are popular, because they are the ones we see people playing online already without our help. They are the ones with the most downloads on DoWFiles. But the whole idea was not just to package up the already popular maps, but to include maps that aren't popular but that should be.

Thank you a thousand times for collating that list, Star Wars Kid! I had been dreading doing that forever now. :) I have no idea what to do about three-player maps as I don't play them. There are also maps that are like campaigns, but aren't. Where they have to be set up exactly right or the map just doesn't work. Not your typical map. They come in all sizes but usually are made for one or two human players and the rest being AIs and usually have to be set up with fixed teams and fixed positions. I'm a little bit wary of including these because they can so easily be misconfigured so that it is confusing and un-fun.

I know Rayden has a three-player map, but we are growing seriously close to just including the same authors in the second map pack as the first map pack. I really want the second map pack to be the "custom texture/decal" map pack based around Sand Storm and maps that use Bill's Textures. There are a lot of them (one is mine, unfortunately, the only one I wanted to include in these map packs -- oh, how I wish I hadn't included River Canyon in the first map pack. :( )

This is the category from DoWFiles for three-player maps (http://dawnofwar.filefront.com/files/Dawn_of_War/Maps/3_Player;4834). There are only twelve of them. There is only one five-player map and it is an edit of the 11th single-player campaign mission so I don't think it is a good choice (especially because the fifth-player has to be the AI, so it's really a four-player map with a forced AI fifth-player). There is only one seven-player map. I haven't looked at it, so I can't say if it's usable or not.

Maybe we should have a map pack for "Pseudo-Campaigns" that require special setups. There are some good ones, but if you don't set them up right, they are confusing and really un-fun.

Okay, I am going to go look at the Bridge Too Far icons again. That map is going to be the death of me.

(I am still really tired and burned out from all this so please forgive me if I am crabby and not getting any work done.)

Love,

Hanna

Titler

23rd Feb 05, 1:18 PM

I'm curious, if you saved the installer, what does yours say is the directory it is going to install it in? Is it the right one? Does anything look fishy there?

I really hope this is an isolated occurrence cause I have no idea what to do if this is something that happens frequently.

I've done some fiddling, and I can replicate what causes it to place it in an "MP" folder. The installer reads the HKEY correctly, and will install the maps in the correct folder too... But only if you click OK without browsing. If you browse for a new directory, it adds "MP" to the end of the file path.
So if the directory was "C:\Games\DoW" and you select "Browse", then click "Ok" without pointing to a new directory, the install now goes to "C:\Games\DoW\MP".
If you click Browse and point it at "C:\Games\X" it becomes "C:\Games\X\MP"... and so on.

I am glad that you sorted it out yourself, Titler and hopefully we can sneak Brainboyz Hill into one of the future map packs. For those who haven't played it, Titler stole my idea of making a "King of the Hill" map. So, really, this is special secret code I've put into the installer to get back at Titler for stealing my totally awesome idea.

Such outrageous fibbery! We simply had convergent ideas, that is all!

I have no idea if the map plays well enough to be distributed by you guy's and gal's excellent idea... And it certainly doesn't look very pretty... But we'll see.

Rayden

23rd Feb 05, 1:27 PM

You could never update your map, you could only re-submit it with a new version number.
Not correct that way, for "Great Divide" i asked Jamie to replace the file and he did it. Or at least i asked him to remove the old version.

As well as everything having minimaps/map icons, it's those little things that are going to make this whole project extremely successful.
Yes, in future i want as name MAPNAME (X) and correct minimaps and icons (we have this i just mention to be compelete).
Maybe we all should test new maps more intensively (before published on dowfiles) if they are maybe one time included in one of our mappacks.

I mentioned this in the sticky thread in W40Kawn of War Discussion but I do *not* want us to have a vote (People's Choice Map Pack) yet, not for a while. I agree that it's a good idea for one of the map packs, but there are too many other considerations other than just "Which Maps Are Popular". Plus, we pretty much already know which maps are popular, because they are the ones we see people playing online already without our help. They are the ones with the most downloads on DoWFiles. But the whole idea was not just to package up the already popular maps, but to include maps that aren't popular but that should be.
I agree, but a poll can lead us to a direction like in this map pack. For sure there are maps which are not popular and are indeed very good maps. Forget about most downloads on DowFiles as this are sometimes cheap maps from november. We all know that we will make the right decisions what's in and what not.

but we are growing seriously close to just including the same authors in the second map pack as the first map pack.
We should not restrict ourselves. We take the best, no matter from who. The only limitation i accept is only 1 map from 1 mapper per mappack.

Maybe we should have a map pack for "Pseudo-Campaigns" that require special setups. There are some good ones, but if you don't set them up right, they are confusing and really un-fun.
Maybe we can do special packs like "Desert Map Pack" or something like this in future. (if there are maps which are already covered by our normal mappack, they should have the same version!!)

I really get the feeling that people don't read what I write.
Sometimes you write too much ;). But at least i read your last post completely :D

EDIT: Hanna, plz take a look at DowFiles, Pictures are updated. Unfortunally i have messed up one, so enjoy my taskbar :P

Crow

23rd Feb 05, 2:00 PM

i got some 3 and 5 player maps, starwars kid.

http://koti.mbnet.fi/crow1/Mapsfordow.htm

theres everyting else also..

Hanna

23rd Feb 05, 2:13 PM

Okay.

* Fixed minimap for Bridge Too Far (forgot the stoopid black line at the edge. Grr)
(The map icon was fixed before... I swear. It's fine on my compuer...)
* Fixed problem with browsing to find new directory adding \MP at the end for no good reason. (Thanks a *ton* to Titler for debugging this for me!)

* Uploaded re-compiled file to site
* Uploaded fixed NSIS scrip to site

We need to have DoWFiles and anyone else who has mirrored it to update their mirrors. :/ (Thanks for adding the pics! Maybe we can get him to crop that?)

http://www.dawnofwar.pexgames.com/index.html also has a mirror.

Should I make a patch for the Bridge Too Far minimap?

The only problem with a poll is that it sets up unrealistic expectations. Maybe if we add "For Entertainment Only" or something like that. I just don't want to get locked in. But if someone wants to put together a poll, I don't have a problem with them per se, I just don't want to get locked into publishing maps that we might not want to publish otherwise, just because of the results of a poll.

I think Community Map Pack II will probably have to be subtitled "Desert Fox Map Pack" considering the maps that I already have in mind to include in it. ;)

Hey! River Canyon is one of those cheap maps from November. ;) The reason I dislike it so much is because I made it while following the instructions in the Wiki which is why it was like the second or third map ever. Would that I had known!

Yes, we should be doing *much* more testing than we are. It's just that we have had a problem with eagerness for testing. If you read back through the thread there were ample opportunities for testing, just very very little testing was actually done. I think you did most of it.

But maybe now that we have proven we can actually make a map pack, people will be more eager to test. It's hard for me to test every map while also doing everything else that I need to do. I'm not complaining, just saying that having an extra pair of eyes to watch my work is not only a good thing, but probably necessary.

I really wish there weren't so many copies of Bridge Too Far minimaps and map icons out there. :( That's been the one thorn in my side with this particular map pack. The good thing is that it won't effect online play. The bad thing is that previous versions are going to reflect poorly on us. So, I think I will make a patch. That will help a bit. At least people won't have to re-download the whole thing.

Love,

Hanna

I just got a private message from someone saying that DoWFiles provides hosting for mod projects that doesn't include any advertisements. Why didn't they offer us the same thing? (Again, probably because nobody read any of my messages where I am asking for basically that, I just didn't know that existed. I thought they would have to make a special case, but they've already *got* exactly what we need.)

Oh crap. They *require* you to host the files on their server. :(

Bah.

Screwit.

I'm taking all the website sponsors out of the installer because none of them are panning out. I'll add sponsor links to the website when we actually get some. Maybe we can "link trade" with DoWFiles but their posting news isn't exactly a huge deal. I appreciate it, but that's what they *do*. If they are doing us a favor by posting news (and stretching out the graphic so it looks incredibly fugly isn't doing *anyone* any good), we are doing them a favor by giving them news to post.

Their mirroring of the file is good for them because it's how they make their money.

Marc never asked me to put an advertisement for Evolve Networks on the page. I did it because I was afraid of having to pay for hundreds of dollars of bandwidth. (We could take it down and he wouldn't bat an eyelid.) After talking with him, that isn't an issue. So, if someone does something nice for us, we can do something nice back, but being forced to do something nice back isn't being nice at all.

(I think I'm working too hard.)

---

* Uploaded patch.

* Announced patch in stinky on W40K: Dawn of War Discussion forum.

* Can I go to sleep now?

Love,

Hanna

jesukrixto

23rd Feb 05, 4:59 PM

I really get the feeling that people don't read what I write.

I know I don't. As somebody mentioned before, you write a lot:P (I usually read the first paragraph, unless it's a short post, then move on to the next post)...funny that you should mention that:)

Anyway, been playing a couple of the maps...I like the 2p ones, I liked the looks of icefields, but there's kind of a funny effect when the camera gets close to the border. Also, the fact that some of the mountains are so high means that you don't really see what's going on. It'd be cool if the minimap showed the paths between the impassable mountains, as right now all that black looks like impassable, then suddenly you see red dots coming from the impassable terrain, and it's not jumpackers...

Btw, I get the impression people don't read me either...I asked about meetings for testing the maps. Is that going on?...I only tested 3 because AI skirmishes bore me. I like big multiplayer battles. And I hate Kasyr Lutien.

But I guess you guys have played your maps way too many times as well:)

Oh, and thx for the early patch, brilliant support:)

Star Wars Kid

23rd Feb 05, 5:15 PM

Hanna, take a break you deserve it.

A couple of thoughts on the next pack:

Packaging all of the maps that use monoRAIL's desert textures together is handy and saves space in future packs but we also need to make sure that there is still a nice variety. We should probably limit it to 2 or 3 desert maps.

As I mentioned earlier, we will need a different balance of map sizes from what we used last time. Something more along the lines of 3-4 2 player maps, 3-4 4 player maps, 1-2 6 player maps and 1-2 8 player maps.

I would be willing to do a special edition of St. Mathias Bridge for this next pack. A couple of little things need tweaking and I need to redo mm/icons anyway.

We should probably wait for a later pack to do 3/5/7 player maps because they generally are pitched. Maybe do a novelty pack eventually.

Argonaut

23rd Feb 05, 7:44 PM

Hello all, and congratulations Hanna. YOU have produced a fine piece of work and deserve all the praise you receive.

I noticed earlier you mentioned www.dawn-of-war.co.uk (http://www.dawn-of-war.co.uk/).

Unfortunately, due to the server dying (!) the site is currently undergoing a bit of an overhaul, and isn't really ready for lots of people downloading stuff. We have used the downtime to go through the process of changing the downloads section and trying to recover files and missing posts etc :argh: . Once this is done I'll mirror the community map packs there. However, people DO have to register to access the downloads section, and I know this is something you wanted to avoid..... The adverts aren't massive tho, and I do not think they are too intrusive (Something I hate, and makes me shy away from DOWfiles somewhat)
I am the admin for the maps section, and I'm trying to get good quality maps on there but with the current setback i'll ask to host the community map pack I, and all subsequent map packs, when i'm sure all problems are fixed.

This would not have happened without you Hanna.

Argonaut

23rd Feb 05, 7:53 PM

Hello all, and congratulations Hanna. YOU have produced a fine piece of work and deserve all the praise you receive.

I noticed earlier you mentioned www.dawn-of-war.co.uk (http://www.dawn-of-war.co.uk/).

I am Admin for the Maps section of the site, and am sad to let you know that recently, our server died (!) and we are trying to rescue missing files\posts\ etc at the moment.:rip:

This means that while I'd love to mirror the Community map pack on the site, the main effort is being put into rescuing files and sorting out little bugs. However, we have used the 'downtime' to improve the downloads section and eventually I hope to have all of the community map packs on there, If you agree.

For now i'll have to wait and make sure the site is 100% stable before I go ahead.

Hanna, this map pack would not have happened without your effort. Well done.:bow2:

monoRAIL

23rd Feb 05, 9:26 PM

A desert map pack! Bloody great idea Rayden! That way you get all the maps using shared textures in one download.

Then you could do an ice worlds theme pack, and maybe a pack with maps that are specially designed for big team games.

By the way, I can host an ad-free mirror if it's needed.

LordLegendZ

24th Feb 05, 2:42 AM

About the caimpaign.. a revival is under way.
Hanna, i think dowhq will'll not contiune will our old map pack anymore. it is so much better for us to support you guys for the current one, and focus our energy onto this map packs and caimpaign. It is not a project, but just a plan. Something thats runs sideline this series of packs...

LordLegendZ

24th Feb 05, 2:46 AM

New mirror:
http://dowhq.polyscopedesign.com/DoW_Map_Pack_I.exe

Rendy.[CZech]

24th Feb 05, 11:29 AM

Great job. What a pitty that my PC is broken. Thanx that you updated Bridge Too far and fixed minimap, when I got my PC back I want to parcipitate on this mappack series as betatester. And I have an idea for 3 players map.

PS: I realy adore Hanna and her effort :) From her posts could be made a book :))

PSS: Sorry my crappy english

Hanna

24th Feb 05, 3:52 PM

Rendy, you are very very welcome and thank *you* for allowing us to go in and muck up your awesome map and then include it in the Map Pack. I hope when you get your PC back you will not be too disappointed with what I have done to it. I hope you get it back soon so we can have that three-player map. :)

Thank you so much, LegendZ. I'm really really sorry about the misunderstanding and I'm sorry that other people got mad at you for my decisions. :( I appreciate you updating the mirror. I will add it right away (along with a button for DoWHQ) to the site. I wish you great luck with your campaign. And thank you again. Despite my crabbiness, you have always been our best supporter. :)

---

Oops.

I just tried to download the file that you are mirroring, LegendZ and it is the very old version of the Map Pack. It has been updated several times since then and is much smaller (a little less than 7 MB). Could you pretty please replace that one with the one from the http://www.bitcheswithglitches.com/dow/mappacks/ website? Then I can mirror it, but I can't mirror the old file because there are errors in it. I'm sorry. :(

---

I have made the first pass at designing the site for the map packs and hope that people find it okay (at least better than what we had before). If you haven't seen it, check it out. I still have to format the text more nicely in the Map Pack content area and add Rayden's screen shots (and maybe one or two of my own) and some flavor text from each map, so the actual map pack portion will look much nicer, but you can sort of see where I am going with it. It is all based on Movable Type so it is *super* simple to update. We could add comments if we wanted to, but I don't think there is much reason as people can comment on the forums here and that's better, maybe, though it won't get us comments from people who don't visit Relic News forums.

I have been sleeping a lot the last couple of days and feel a lot better. Still very burned out and a little stressed, but better than I did at the height of this.

I am going to check and see if DoWFiles has updated the auto-installer and if not, I'll send Jamie an email asking him to. They might have, because I posted on the little forum at the bottom of the page that it was updated and that there was a patch and then the next day it was edited, so *someone* knows. Whether they did anything about it, I'll have to check. Hopefully so.

I talked with Relic Universe and they will run a story if I send them a "press release", so I will do that. I should have written something when this all started to make it easier for people to just cut and paste and send it to other people. Oh well, next time.

We served 1.4 GigaBytes yesterday or about two hundred people. We are on track to serve as much today. Since we put it up there, we've served 1.9 GigaBytes. Dawn of War Files sent out well more than that, at least double. After only a day or so it's already a "Hot" file with 1066 downloads. Unfortunately, a lot of those will need to be patched. :( Gosh, a lot of people must like DoWFiles, huh?

Oh, so much catching up to do. A St. Mathias Bridge Special Edition would be totally awesome Star Wars Kid! If you get it to me before you release it, I can make it it's own individual auto-installer, so it'll be double-easy to install.

Maybe we can get one of dr2sheds' maps to include in the next Map Pack as well, if the timing is right. Speaking of timing...

How often should we release one of these? Every month? Bi-weekly? Bi-weekly might be too little time but sometimes I think it is just the right amount of time. It doesn't take that much time to put these together, really. The hard part being the deciding of what to put in them. Now that we have a lot of the infrastructure built up, putting out new Map Packs is a pretty simple process. I'm interested to see what the attention span is of people who are downloading them. So, for now, I'm sort of waiting to see when there is a drop off in the number of downloads. I think that will be the best indicator. If we are still getting this many downloads a day in two weeks, then monthly is probably the better course, but if after a week we start to see a drop-off in the number of downloads, I think that is a good indicator that everyone who is actively playing has gotten theirs and while we still have their attention we should come out with another Map Pack.

Definitely not on a calendar with a release date or anything, just around two weeks, plus a day or a week or however long. Especially if we are in the testing phase. People who are especially eager can come here and download it and accept the bugs, but everyone else can wait until we've squashed all the bugs. I expect much fewer of them with more eyes to watch what I'm doing.

I think the more important thing is to be getting "special" things in each map pack, such as the Special Edition maps, new maps, loading screens and of course, the new map icons and minimaps where they are needed. So, I think we should factor that into our schedule.

Argonaut, I'm really sorry to hear about the tragedy at Dawn-of-War.co.uk. :( I hope you're able to recover what's important and get back in business without too much work. Since DoWFiles is hosting the Map Pack behind a wall of advertisements, feel free to host the Map Pack for your own members. I think I lost that fight. Whatever makes it easier for people to get the Map Pack is whatever's best. I thought that not having things be behind login schemes and advertisements would be a barrier, but I am totally wrong about that. As long as we have the main site where people can get it without advertisements and without logins, there will always be a way for people to get the Map Pack and that's what's important.

monoRAIL! I haven't seen you in ages! Welcome back. :) (Okay, I'm sure it was like three days ago, but these last three days have been hectic.) So, um, what do you think about making a Very Special map for the Map Pack sometime I want to put Sand Storm in this next Map Pack along with a few other sandy-type maps, do you want to do a Special Edition or a whole new map with a different theme altogether and we can make that a centerpiece for another map pack? People would *flock* to a Map Pack with a new monoRAIL map in it. If only we could get Slaneshii Temple to be not-a-mod. Is it still considered a mod if you use the modpacker? I suppose that would make life too easy, huh? And I'd *love* to have an extra mirror. Just download the file from http://www.bitcheswithglitches.com/dow/mappacks/ and put it wherever and send me the URL (or post it here or whatever) and I'll put another mirror link on the page. The more mirrors the better, I figure.

Oh, Star Wars Kid. I agree with all the ideas you mentioned about the next Map Pack. Which brings me to my last point. Should we start a whole new thread for the second Map Pack? This one's gettin' kinda long. Maybe we should start a new thread with the collated list of suggested maps that Star Wars Kid made and the other suggestions he made and any others that I am forgetting now.

Okay, another long message from me. Har dee har.

I'm going to go test out dr2sheds maps. :)

Love,

Hanna

Star Wars Kid

24th Feb 05, 5:31 PM

A St. Mathias Bridge Special Edition would be totally awesome Star Wars Kid! If you get it to me before you release it, I can make it it's own individual auto-installer, so it'll be double-easy to install.

Thanks. :)

I get it to you before you release the map pack so it will be a map pack exclusive for a about a week and then I will release it as a stand-alone map.

[edit]

The new site looks great!

Argonaut

24th Feb 05, 6:09 PM

On the subject of map/mods, how about making a 'mod map pack'. It will probably be a bit fiddlier (I'm pretty sure with the nullsoft install system a shortcut can be added to desktop) but if we could get the ones with new objects and new skies in one pack and when you run the mod they all appear on the list, would that be better? is it possible? I think so, as it may just be a case of tracking down each file, .lua, and object and adding them using the File command in the installer.

Sounds easy doesn't it!:juggle: Heh.

I think we need a new thread. Community map pack II

Rayden

25th Feb 05, 2:32 AM

I have made the first pass at designing the site for the map packs and hope that people find it okay (at least better than what we had before).
Nice layout ;), i like it.

How often should we release one of these? Every month? Bi-weekly? Bi-weekly might be too little time but sometimes I think it is just the right amount of time. It doesn't take that much time to put these together, really. The hard part being the deciding of what to put in them. Now that we have a lot of the infrastructure built up, putting out new Map Packs is a pretty simple process.
I beg you please don't start spamming Map Packs! I just want always to keep in mind that we wanna include balanced and bugfree maps in our map packs. It will be an advantage for future! Therefore we should have a selection phase where we look for possible maps we may use and out of this maps we test the maps we want to use intensively. IF necessary this maps have to be changed for our map pack. I think if we have enough downloads (as we have now ;) ), we can do this. You know i can be fussy with some details, but if we can do all this points we have reached our goal and have a perfect map pack. Even more i think successive updating of mirrors for such improved map is in long term an advantage.

Anyway i think 1 Map Pack per month is enough.

Maybe we should start a new thread with the collated list of suggested maps that Star Wars Kid made and the other suggestions he made and any others that I am forgetting now.
Ok, i will do this.

Hanna

25th Feb 05, 5:16 AM

Played some games tonight online. Several of them from the Community Map Pack.

The first thing is that it seems people only want to play six- and eight-player maps online. They play the two-player maps skirmish. Nobody even mentioned four-player maps. The online community is really odd. They like big battles, but not *too* big. Jungle Assault SE (I totally want to know how you added text *underneath* the picture, Rayden!) went over well, but the plateau ramps caused problems because one squad left standing there would completely block the ramp for everyone. It wasn't pretty.

We never were able to gather enough players to play 8-player Kasyr Lutein, so we went to play Testing Grounds Level 2. Everyone liked it, much like Jungle Assault, but complained there were too many points to capture. Not suprising because the map was originally intended to be an eight-player map.

Everyone plays with either quickstart or fast resources or both. It makes the games entirely different. With fast resources and resource sharing, once one side gains an advantage the game is essentially over.

I would suggest we do more testing on those settings, if we aren't already.

These were just my experiences tonight, but they mirror other experiences I've had when playing online. It's an entirely different crowd.

Getting them to download a map pack is like pulling teeth.

So, maybe we're just serving a small group of people who play online and a larger group of people who play skirmish games. It's impossible to tell, really. If we do a poll, that is the poll I would like to see. Who is downloading maps and how do they play them.

I don't think this project is bad either way. As long as we're getting maps to people who would normally have a problem installing maps, it's a good thing. I definitely don't want to spam map packs. As long as I'm staying at the current levels of bandwidth use, everything is fine.

DoWFiles still has the old version of the Installer, so everyone who has downloaded from DoWFiles (and most every other mirror) needs to install the patch. That is, I think, the greatest failing of this Map Pack. I don't want to point fingers (because if we were to investigate we'd find out it's all my fault) but I definitely want to do more thorough testing before we pronounce it finished and release a map pack to mirrors.

I can't tell for sure, but just looking at the numbers it seems like downloads from DoWFiles have slowed to a crawl. Downloads from the main site are climbing slowly. That's mostly because UberJumper (Yay! Thanks!) posted a news item on the front page of RelicNews.com and we got a lot of visits that way.

Anyway, I think we need to strike a balance between when the downloads start to fall off to next-to-nothing and that will be a good time to release the next map pack. Definitely not less than two weeks, though. Maybe make a goal to have the map pack made at two weeks and spend one or two weeks testing. So much of this is about timing because of including special maps and newly released maps. It's unfair to ask people to hold off on releasing their maps too long, so if we have an opportunity to get a super-great map that is exclusive or simultaneously-released with the Map Pack, then I think we should be flexible. I guess I'm just saying we should be flexible. I agree no spamming, but I don't want people to forget about us either. I'm hoping word of mouth will generate some more interest, and I'm wondering if there is a way we can reach clans to get them interested in their members having the map pack, but they can be very picky and usually want the six- and eight-player maps, forgoing entirely the smaller maps. Smaller maps are good for Ladder games and these, unfortunately can't be played on the Ladder. :(

I was watching the logs tonight and noticed two Relic employees reading the site and most likely downloading the map. They visited for about ten minutes and viewed more than one page. That was exciting!!!

Oh, and I lost *every* game I played tonight, except for one that some nice people who are so good they didn't even bother to build, they just gave me their money and said good luck, but they slowly built and went to the pub to have a drink while I slowly built up my army. I must have seemed like I play in slow motion compared to them.

Well, in all honesty, I *do* play in slow motion compared to most of the people who play online. It's very intimidating. But I don't mind losing so I had a really fun time. It's just nice to banter as my base is being mercilessly hit by two orbital strikes at once and a Squiggoth is eating all my Space Marines and using the Predators to pick its teeth.

We definitely have a long road ahead of us if we want to reach any kind of saturation. But I am not going to let that intimidate me. These are fun to make and I think they are a good service.

(I've totally not done one tenth of the stuff I still need to do, like making banners for signatures and buttons for websites and contacting people about getting on their news page. Sigh.)

Love,

Hanna

Rayden

25th Feb 05, 6:02 AM

I was watching the logs tonight and noticed two Relic employees reading the site and most likely downloading the map. They visited for about ten minutes and viewed more than one page. That was exciting!!!
huh?? how do you know they were from relic?

(I've totally not done one tenth of the stuff I still need to do, like making banners for signatures and buttons for websites and contacting people about getting on their news page. Sigh.)
I will try to help you with that

Hanna

25th Feb 05, 11:54 AM

We need to get DoWFiles (and anyone else who is mirroring the wrong file) to update the file. Everyone has the old version that needs the patch or the ten meg version that has different versions of Icelands and Bridge Too Far (the beta one)).

there is a page on the tracker that shows "Who's On? (http://www.sitemeter.com/default.asp?action=stats&site=s18AnannaBananna&report=15)" that makes a guess on how long they've been online based on how often they ask for a page, etc. The Relic people had "Relic.com" as their isp. That was the tipoff. ;)

Love,

Hanna

Star Wars Kid

26th Feb 05, 7:40 AM

A guy in the DoW general discussion thread gave us another mirror: http://www.ngi.it/download-3443-dawn-of-war-community-map-pack-i.html

Sps

26th Feb 05, 7:59 PM

Just saw my map on a few days ago and wanted to thank you guys for finding it worthy of inclusion and this effort.

keep up the good work - since this has been released I am seeing more custom maps online.

God willing and things change soon so I have more time - i'll put out some more/fix up the old ones (minimaps etc).

Cheers

Hanna

26th Feb 05, 9:48 PM

You're welcome Sps. :)

I hope to have more of your maps in future map packs, but not so many that people don't need to download *your* map pack. :) I am planning on (one day) making a tutorial for how to install custom maps. That'll be a lot of work, but hopefully worth it.

Because even if Relic puts map sharing in the next patch, someone has to download it the first time and the more people who download it the first time, the more quickly the virus will spread. ;)

I've added the Italian mirror and also Dawn of War HQ has the correct version up now and it's a direct download (no ads, just click and it starts downloading) so I added a DoWHQ button in the sidebar.

I played a buncha maps the other night online. Tonight I had really bad luck and was crashing a lot (that's the problem with having a Garbage Can PC) so I couldn't even play the built-in maps. :/

They really need to add a :/ smiley. :\

Sooo much work left to do. Last night we had a drop in the number of downloads, but probably because of the extra mirror and I have been noticing that clans have been mirroring the file for their members! This is a *huge* score for us!

Problem is, they aren't happy with some of the maps. That's to be expected, though. Like the conversation going on in Dawn of War Discussion about the criticism of maps, everyone is going to have a different opinion and we need to take every single person's (or clan's) opinion with a grain of salt. A whole bag of salt. These map packs are for a wide audience and not a single map wasn't beloved by many.

For instance, people complaining about including the eight-player Kasyr. It's immensely popular. Same with Jungle Assault SE. Same with River Canyon for goodness sake! (An okay map if you are just playing around, but not by any means meant to be a high-level competitive map.) And some of the comments are just way off, like the comment about Bridge Too Far being too flat. I could only boggle at that statement. It's just personal preference.

We can't make everyone happy. We can only try our best to include a wide range of maps that, over time, will fulfill everyone's desires.

Oh, yesterday we had a dip in the number of downloads, but today it looks like we are going to have the best day ever. And since we have so many mirrors now, that means even more downloads. Things are going great.

Love,

Hanna

Argonaut

27th Feb 05, 7:03 AM

As far as people complaining about the maps is concerned, I have one thing to say.

Stick it up your trumpet you ungrateful bunch of idiots.

If you transferred $10 to everyone who downloaded the map, some people would still whine on about stuff. Well they can poke it.

On a different note here's a suggestion. Why not make 50% of the maps in the map packs 'exclusive'

All you guys with a great track record with maps make one map each that only appears on the map pack, and is only available as part of the map pack. The demand will go mental.
Great effort and you are reaping the rewards of the work you have put in, plus I like Hanna being the boss lady.

=)

Hanna

27th Feb 05, 7:24 AM

Thanks to Hanger-8 (http://www.h-eight.com/wh40k/) for linking to us we had our best day of downloads ever. And it's mirrored all over the place. This thing is *hot* :)

And still DoWFiles has the wrong version last I checked. :( Nothing we can do about it until Monday. I tried to find Jamie on IRC on Friday but he wasn't around.

Oh well, nothing to do about it. At least the maps are playable. Just some people will have bad a bad minimap for Bridge Too Far. They'll still be able to play against one another.

Thanks, Argonought. Now, if everyone would just do as I say... ;)

Oh, and it would be *wonderful* if people would consider doing as Star Wars Kid is going to be doing for the next Map Pack. Making a "Special Edition" or making a whole new map (though the amount of testing that goes into a whole new map might preclude us from doing this, but then there are some mappers who could release a flat 128x128 with eight randomly-placed start locations and people would swear it was the best map in the world and I don't mean that disparagingly) for the Map Pack, to be released later as a single-download (and I'll even make an auto-installer for that!). It's that kind of stuff that is going to make these "fly off the shelf" even after Relic (hopefully) adds map sharing online. People still have to get the maps in the first place if they're going to be shared and the easier they are to get, the more they will get shared online.

Love,

Hanna

monoRAIL

28th Feb 05, 12:47 AM

New mirror:

http://www.cokane.com/warhammer/map_packs/DoW_Map_Pack_I.exe

dr2sheds

28th Feb 05, 1:32 AM

Did some lan gaming on the weekend and put a few maps through their paces - great fun.
Jungle Assault SE was utter chaos!

Nice work on your page Hanna! - BTW i'll be asking you later for advice on making an installer for the Mehnra Saga.

Well done all.

regards,
sheds

Hanna

28th Feb 05, 3:46 AM

Thanks, monoRAIL! Added the mirror and a link to your site (let me know if that's okay).

Downloads were down today from yesterday (maybe because of more mirrors?). They are at about the level of Friday. These aren't significant swings. The difference between 1.6 Gigs a day and 1.4 Gigs a day. Jeepers, that's a lot, now that I think about it.

As far as I know DoWFiles is *still* hosting the wrong file. At least I haven't heard anything to the contrary. I'll try to get ahold of Jamie on Monday (during hours when he's likely to be awake), but if anyone else can get ahold of him, that wouldn't hurt. It's pretty important since the bulk of people downloading are getting it from DoWFiles and they're getting bad minimaps for Bridge Too Far.

We did make File of The Week for getting 2500 or so downloads (from DoWFiles alone) in six days. That's pretty remarkable.

I got a proposal from LegendZ of DoWHQ that I don't know how to respond to except in the firm negative. Basically they want to tell us what to put in the Map Packs. That's oversimplified because I'm sure there is a process they are using. What I'm going to suggest is that they post their list in the Community Map Pack II thread (when it's time, or here when it's convenient -- assuming they've made their list already) and we will consider putting any maps in that they suggest, but to have them pick the whole Map Pack makes it not a Maproom Community Map Pack anymore, but a DoWHQ Map Pack. Maybe one of our Map Packs can consist of the maps that DoWHQ picks as a special "theme pack" but not for Community Pack II or even III or IV. I do want them to send us a list because from what I gather there are clans behind this and they want particular maps to be in the Map Packs and I want to get as many clans as possible involved in this because they are really picky about the maps they play. It's one of the most difficult groups of people for me to understand, let alone get into contact with and pick their brains for ideas. But they're just one group and I don't think we want any clan or even some alliance of clans to be picking the maps for us. We also want people who just play skirmish games or casual players or even talented individuals to have input.

But as with the poll, it's just input. We should be making the final decisions. Mixing and matching to make a "balanced" Map Pack. A little something for everyone. We definitely didn't include maps for all possible playing styles with the first Map Pack, but that's because there are so many different playing styles to be covered.

The more Map Packs we release, the more people will be happy. Which is why I'm eager to release them more often rather than less often. Once we see a drop in the numbers of downloads for the first Map Pack, of course.

I still want to do more work on the website and get a format for how maps are represented. Most likely by a picture of the map icon that when clicked will show a screen shot (in the style of the screen shots Rayden made) so people can see beforehand what they're downloading. Maybe it's better to *not* show people, because some idiot might say "Oh, I hate that map, I'm not going to download this" when the other seven maps might be entirely to their liking.

I'd like to do more thinking about Star Wars Kids idea for map distribution within the Map Pack
As I mentioned earlier, we will need a different balance of map sizes from what we used last time. Something more along the lines of 3-4 2 player maps, 3-4 4 player maps, 1-2 6 player maps and 1-2 8 player maps.

Many players like the big maps with six or eight players. Yet there are also online players who want small two-player maps (though they want these to be ladder maps and that is, unfortunately, not possible for us to do). I have no idea what people who play skirmish games want other than my guessing that people with slower systems want smaller, fewer player maps while people with faster systems want larger maps with more players. Clans who play online or direct-connect/LAN seem to want a mixture of all of the above but are very picky about *which* maps they play. They have to be completely balanced and allow for multitudes of tactics.

I would like to follow what Star Wars Kid suggests, except that I think that is going to make the map pack larger (though we can always cull maps to make the file smaller, but which maps do we cull?). But I think you are right in that seems to be very close to the distribution of maps we have to choose from. So, that may be what we end up doing even if we wanted to do it another way, simply because that's what the distribution of our choices is. We can't just release tons of six and eight player maps, because frankly, there just aren't that many from which to choose.

I'd like for us to start soon on picking the next maps for the next Map Pack so that we can get people testing them and then editing them if they need to be edited. And then more testing. If we are going to be editing maps, we are going to be taking a lot of time testing. A lot of time testing even if we don't edit the maps. Easily enough to fill up the next three weeks with work. If we finish early, great. We can just hold off on releasing the Map Pack until the time is right, knowing that it is well-tested, has the maps we want included and is ready to go when the time is right to release it.

Let's get that new thread started and roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Love,

Hanna

(Email me when you're ready, Dr. 2 Sheds. I'll help as much as I can. Oh and I found a funny bug in the Spaceport map on a bridge. I made a picture, but I don't have the PC turned on right now to get it. I'll post it eventually when I get some time.)

ImagoX

17th Mar 05, 11:32 AM

Oh, and I lost *every* game I played tonight, except for one that some nice people who are so good they didn't even bother to build, they just gave me their money and said good luck, but they slowly built and went to the pub to have a drink while I slowly built up my army. I must have seemed like I play in slow motion compared to them.

Hanna, don't feel bad. I am SO slow in MP games like this (any RTS really) that I have NEVER even bothered playing DOW online... I remember all too well the utter humiliation I experienced in Starcraft. ;) I'm a base builder and a very slow attacker, and while I UNDERSTAND the concept of the rush I can never seem to pull it off. So, if you ever want to play with another "turtle" then let me know and maybe I'll get online. =)

Hanna

17th Mar 05, 11:50 AM

Come play online! :)

I have taken to just hanging out in the gamespy lobby talking with people lately. It's nice to see mappers hanging out there and I also have made some friends to play games with.

I'm usually there in the early evening through late evening pacific time. Sometimes I'm in a game, though and don't show up in the lobby so it looks like I'm not there when I really am.

If someone sees me online and says hi and I don't reply right away, it is usually because I either didn't see it (the font size in the gamespy lobby is soooo small and impossible to read, it hurts my eyes) or I am fumbling with the "send to group", "send to individual", or "send to all" and I always end up clicking on the wrong thing and messing up. So, sometimes I don't reply right away, but I am trying to reply. :)

Ask AngelSaphire. :)

But yea, I love to play comp stomps. They are more my speed. Or sometimes I play with this gaming group that I've been hanging out with and they are good enough that they can beat most people 2 vs 3 so I just fill in the extra spot and they don't even need me, I usually am just getting to tier two by the time they have finished destroying everyone else's bases. :)

There is also Hangar-8's Friendly Player initiative (http://www.h-eight.com/wh40k/players.htm) which has a irc channel on irc.hwcommunity.com. I have been bad about actually going onto the irc channel and instead just hang out in the gamespy lobby. But that is a good place to meet other people for help with testing out maps.

Hope to see people online. :)

Love,

Hanna