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Hope you remember what this topic was about!

I feel guilty of having these obvious ripoffs of Quake3 levels with id software coming with QuakeLive to be their free Q3 solution for everyone that liked Q3s designs.
I'm thinking of 'seperating' such maps (like some ctf void maps, q3dm6ish, and wrackdm17) out of the 0.9.0 release.

Anyone else think abandoning too similar q3 maps in favor for original maps like slimefac, suspended, pvomit, shouse and shine good?

Taking out the Quake3 maps will make OA less attractive. Anyway, feeling guilty about Q3 map ripoffs is a bit too late and pointless. You can't push the demon back to the flask so easily. Will you ask everyone having earlier versions to delete them from their HD? Otherwise it's a trivial matter to transfer the maps to the new version. Players will want to keep these maps, so there will be a pressure on server admins to provide them.

As for QuakeLive, I don't think that it is such a great idea. My guess is that because the last two games of ID (Doom3 and Quake4) were not as successful as they wished, they want to get back some of the glory by exploiting an old one in yet another way. Why do we need QuakeLive when there are several excellent free clones already? These could be quite successful if their teams were able to spend as much money on promotion and development as ID seems to spend on QuakeLive. Or if they pooled resources instead of every team developing a niche version for a limited audience. Dreams, sweet dreams ...

quake live ... sad story. id gained little from d3 and the engine and rage will take some time.

for the maps, There can be 2 files; one openarena distribution with some standard maps, and the other is some extra maps.

How about providing a link to 3wave and ra3 maps (just a suggestion of high quality, popular maps) next to oa download link? You could ditch any maps you're not comftable with then while ensuring oa players still have a great selection of maps.

yeah, to 'play-to-win' people like you that can't breathe without a dm17.
oh yeah, directly suggesting non-free content right on the files page, splendid idea. While you're at it, you might as well say 'download Windows 7 beta' on the front page of Ubuntu too.

3wave and ra3 maps ARE free.

You shouldn't worry too much about violating ID's intellectual property, nor should you worry about not having your own specific material in OA.
It is better to be inspired by well made things, than voluntary taking distances from it for the sake of being different.
The positive idea behind making free content is not only creating stuff from scratch, but also to favorize (better english word for it ?) a world where guys are allowed to make modification of works.
Artistic creation isn't that much giving birth to something from the void, but is inheriting of what exists and pushing it further. ;)

I've proposed the idea, before the moving, to make the game on one side and a "Q3 tribute mappack" on the other side, with those maps which we know and love, for example:

- delta => mpteam6
- wrackdm17 => q3dm17
- q3dm6ish => q3dm6 (¿q3dm6ish-ctf too?)
- oa_ctf4ish => q3ctf4 (¿cbctf1 too? I don't think so :P)
- The Walrus' q3tourney6ish => q3tourney6
- The Walrus' tourney6ish_ctf => q3tourney6_ctf/mpq3tourney6

The good thing about those maps is that the mappack can only contains the levelshots, bsps and aases (lol, sounds like AAAsses!!! :P) being textures, sounds, models and shaders on the main pk3 (which can serve to replace Q3/TA textures, to be used to make more maps or both things) so this mappack can have less than 10MB of size I guess, which makes it good for autodownloading.

Separating stuff out just makes OA harder to use.

The more gpl'd maps the better imo.

I think the thing that sets OA apart is the large variety of models.  Plus it is free (as in GPL), and is free of in-game advertising, and supports mods.

maybe: "encourage" or "foster" or just plain "favor"

To fromhell's question.  Perhaps the time has come.  Don't think OA would
suffer much from the absence of wrackdm17.  q3dm6ish?  More below.

When I thought about it, it was more of a question of weak maps vs strong.

...

KInda depends on the map.  If you were to make me choose between q3dm6ish
and wrackdm17, there's no contest.  I'd chose to keep q3dm6ish.

wrackdm17 - enlarge the central area for some reason, and lower the RG
platform to eliminate camping out there (I guess). 

q3dm6ish - change the scale, look  and the meaning of weapons (LG takes
the place of RG, in more ways than one) from the original. 

On a 'rip-off' scale wrackdm17 is clearly in the 'yet another yard' class, whereas
q3dm6ish, while definitely recognizable as like q3dm6, isn't ripping off q3dm6,
but using it as a reference for something different.  Whether q3dm6ish is *better*
than the original (or even good) is a different discussion.

The 'rip-off's have their place.  Before you have your own maps, you need something.
The Q1 converted maps come to mind.  I want to be careful here, because I
don't mean to be dismissive of the efforts of those who work or worked on OA,
but for me, some of the conversions/translations didn't really make it to the Q3 world successfully.
"House of Cheethon", mindless fun that it is, surprisingly did ok, oa_dm2, oa_dm4,
(q1)dm6ish and offshoots, not so well.  Maybe it's the narrow passageways and/or too
much lava, which were 'in' in the days of Q1.


If you're culling rip-off maps, can you look at the Q3 rip-offs without looking at the
Q1 'rip-offs'? 


Nowdays, OA has some original maps that are as good as anybody's.  Enough of them?
Not really, which is why the recent increase in new mapping activity is exciting.  Perhaps
there will be enough new ones that some of the weak Q1 maps can go.  I can remember
feeling let down after the strong "Trial by Error" by the maps that followed right after it.

And maybe that's how the subject of rip-off maps should be looked at.  Rip-offs can be weak.
There's some optimal number of maps that should be in the distribution (5 to 6 tiers of 4?  Why?
Because that's what Q3 has?  Hmm.).  What ever that number is, as stronger maps appear,
the weaker ones should be removed to maintain that number.


I'll stop now, as this post is getting long, and there are some other subjects that come to mind,
like the -ish concept, which I favor, and  texture replacement and the related
subject of official and add-on Q3 map support, which are worthy of their own threads.

oa_rpg3dm2 is, IMHO, by far, the best DM map OA has, along with kaos2. We've used it on the first 1on1 tournament a week ago. I have to upload the screens and demos to this forum. :)

PS: Hey, this is a forum, you shouldn't stop writing, there are long texts which says a lot of nice, good, interesting things tho. :D (Just make sure you don't write as you were writing a poem... :P)

It's an interesting question. I'm kind of ambivalent.

I really like those maps, but I can see where moving them out of main line OA might be in good taste. Noone knows if QuakeLive will be a success. Should it fail, I wouldn't want id to feel bitter about giving away one of their better games (gpl idtech 3).

This is not to say they should be abandoned, but possibly moved out of the base distribution. Break things up a bit. We could have a Q3a homage pak, an adult pak, brightcolors/ pro gamer pak, FOSS mascot pak, etc.

I like bill-----'s idea of a smaller core with only strong maps.

There are probably many OA players who have never played Q3 and wouldn't know which maps are copied or original. To them, you would be removing really great maps they've just become acquainted with.

On the other hand, I appreciate the idea of making OA completely original. We could survive without the Q3 maps, but they are very good.  Perhaps some new maps with similar themes can be made to replace them, but will they be as enjoyable? I don't mind the "Q3 tribute mappack" idea, but I'm sure many servers will still run these maps anyway and it will be easier to just keep them in the game. (I know I'd download the mappack straight away).

Variety is good, and keeping the unoriginal maps can't really hurt. OpenArena has so many benefits over QuakeLive that vastly outweigh the inclusion of a few "classic" maps.

Better oa ctf maps would be nice. i dont play much else then ctf so wouldnt know about other maps,...
Played agressor a few times in 1vs1 its a nice map ,..but claustrofic (have that feeling with more -ish maps)
Does that mean that agressor is a quake tourney map?

My vote goes to pul1ctf when its retextured  (or it this a ripoff aswell?)

Sooo in my case I like to see better ctf maps
oasago will do, and,.... ehm,....oh wait oa_ctf4ish is a ripoff. come to think of it what maps are realy original oa_ctf maps ???
Yes so its oasago for me keep it,..improve performance without sacrificing the looks and yer done.

Id like to help out with map-ideas.
So if anyone is interested id like to hear.
 

Then you'll like to see this post and edit it to put your own ideas. :D

(DO NOT LINK) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Map_Ideas

PS: Should I remove Q3 remake ideas from there too?

I love q3 maps as they are.

Maybe call it  "Inspired by map(s),....." it sounds more respectfull to the original mapper of the map.
Remaking doesnt  mean its gonna be a better map then the original so therefor its a bad choise of words imo.

Thanks for the link im gonna take a look @ it [EDIT]looked @ link. I dont mean ideas like that.

I mean,..if i could make maps i would just do it, but its not my cup o tea.

what i mean is like for example, in construction u have an architect and a contractor to make a building, im more like the architect and the contractor is the mapper.

Well, like the character ideas, when a mapper want to do a map, and hasn't any ideas, he/she can take a look at that page and have some inspiration.

ah, ok i understand