After a lot of thinking, I've decided to reply to this post.
Before I go on, I want to stress that this is -NOT- a complaint thread, and I want to discourage anyone from letting the discussion degrade into such talk because it accomplishes nothing. The way I see it, when it comes to free software we haven't paid for the right to complain. Whining and moaning will only discourage future development, and that helps no one. What I aim to accomplish here is a productive dialogue on the direction of OA. If you aren't capable of that, there's a little X at the corner of this window. I suggest you use it.
Past threads with the same thematic ended in flamewars because they refused to understand what OA is about, and instead wanted us to cater to their wishes using the overused fallacy "listen to your community". This kind of threads attract drama, and frankly, we're tired of catering to people who want us to elitize the game so only can be enjoyable by they and those who are like them. There was such a fork, it was called q3min, it was promoted as "what OA should have been2 and had a pretty anti-OA promotion. Nowadays, it's way deader than dead. OpenArena has been around for 8 years, and at least in the last 5 of them people were
wishing announcing the death of OA because it isn't a game designed only for X people. So far, what died instead were the self proclaimed "what OA should have been" forks for their extremely narrowed scope.
Also, other people want us to turn OA into another "serious/grimdark/brown/gritty/demonic/cyberpunk" FPS (or, directly,
imitate Q3 in any way as possible) and dislike the style of the game precisely because it isn't. I take it that visibility of models/skins in maps IS a problem, and we're going to hit this one as hard as possible in
DO NOT LINK[/b]) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/OA3]OA3. But OA didn't lasted this much time for just being one more FPS of the bunch which used those overused and extremely overdone thematics. In fact, we want to steer away from them to further distinguish OA from the rest of the FPS.
I began playing OA when 0.8.1 was the current version, and having never played Q2 or Q3 as a basis for comparison I decided that OpenArena was a fantastic game in its own right. It wasn't until I met and talked with Q3 veterans that I learned how good of a Q3 remake it actually was. I'm not against changes, updates or adding of new features, but when something is taken away.. the community response is people stop playing. I've seen the vast ocean of North American players dry up to a puddle of devout holdouts in ciggaweed, but the european side is faring better. Yes, Quake Live is to blame and the timing shows it, but is it possible it now offers a more Q3-like experience?
So far, if you've been following development or have read the Wiki, forum aside, you should have noticed that
not a single option was taken away. Some options may have been clamped for security issues. Instead,
server admins have now WAY MORE POWER than before, since aside of the default options they have a lot more to choose. In fact, it's possible to play 0.8.1 style OA with the current maps with the adequate settings set, such as physics and the like. But... serveradmins have to configure their servers for that.
About older versions of maps, we want to get rid of everything which makes OA ugly (that's the point behind OA3: better performance, better visibility, better look, all with the classic Q3 gameplay) and, in consecquence, gaming's favourite punching bag. So if players love the ugly versions, we're sorry, but we have been the laughing stock for a long time. It's time to stop being that, and in this case we won't accept a NO for an answer. And, like Gig has posted before, they have the older versions in that thread.
My decision to keep 0.8.1 instead of upgrading to 0.8.5 initially came from the removal of the black color. I know 0.8.8 restored it but at the time our entire clan used a green-yellow-black naming style and the reason for its removal was vague and had something to do with a potential cheat. At the time I'd never even seen an aimbotter in the servers, and had never used the evil r_intensity "hack". All I knew was that a part of the game I liked had been excised. Also, and maybe it was just psychological, but I felt as if the 0.8.5 engine performed more poorly than the lightweight-feeling of 0.8.1. I'm no programmer so I can't say for sure. I don't mean a FPS issue, more in the area of input response.
I began to use r_intensity 1.3 because of an issue my previous (ATI) video card had with transparency. I saw no chameleon effect from stealthed players, they were completely invisible and I was unaware that this was abnormal for months until a friend told me about the intensity variable. I was also told to try vertex lighting but I didn't like the flat generic look it produced so I never explored the question of why it was removed. Yes, I rail and gauntlet the stealthed players blatantly because I'm willing to share the cvar since my belief is that any cvar carried over from vanilla Q3 cannot be a cheat. I feel that it's only unfair if it's not shared freely, and that server admins should decide to block it or not. And the same goes for vertex lighting. It's a mistake to remove Q3 features because they are not needed, because some players want it regardless.
Forum aside, r_intensity has been kept in all versions. Perhaps the server you might frecquent had the "
videoflags" cvar set to 7 instead of, say, 0? That's a tool that was left to serveradmins to decide. Hell, even the players got something with "cg_autovertex" 0/1.
FTR, initially it was called fairflags, but turned out into videoflags later. The functionality still remains the same.
Oh, and 0.8.8 introduced a dmflag which will make those players which picked up the Invisibility item completely invisible, and
DO NOT LINK[/b]) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Special_game_options]it can be disabled as well.
I love to see new map design, when it doesn't override the maps we've all come to love and hate for varying reasons. And revamping the textures of existing maps can be a great thing too. But altering the bsp, perhaps in the interest of discouraging campers (and I hate campers) or changing the weapon locations to discourage clustering of players changes a fundamental aspect that good and bad players alike have come to enjoy. Campers love to camp, people like me enjoy blasting them out of their obvious hidey-holes. Choke points make good places to litter with grenades, etc. I feel that new maps should be the responsibility of the community, and shouldn't be cheap alterations of existing maps, much less replacing the originals.
Same as above, we're tired of being FOSS gaming's punchbag. If you don't like the better graphics/better gameplay options, you have the
older versions for download and play. We're not going backwards.
I think fromhell has done an amazing job with the ioq3 engine, evidenced by the fact that players still enjoy this game many years after the initial releases, but I fear the community is failing the game by selfishly requesting changes that are bad for the OA community as a whole. Requesting things in the name of fairness and balance to favor a type of gameplay they like. The problem is that a good part of the community are casual players looking for some bloody unrealistic fun. And I fear that as this game continues to mature, more and more fun will be sucked out until we're left with a grey, sterile game completely unlike the game I fell in love with and still love to this day.
Yes, I admit I was one of those who commited THAT mistake as a mapper back in the day, when I was more worried about pleasing the people.
First, trust in the server admins to police their own servers. Remove no functionality that existed in quake3, and focus on an enjoyable game that people can be naughty or nice with (even campers are essential), and leave any limitations in the hands of server admins. Then you will see the player base start to migrate back from QL and we the people of OA can once again commence with our mission to take over the world, legion of doom style. Who's with me?
Server admins not only are trusted, but have now way MORE power than before for their servers. It's not our fault that they don't read the
DO NOT LINK[/b]) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/]Wiki, where Gig has done an excellent job, he has almost three years on this 8-year old forum and has done already way more for OA from his place than a lot of the self-proclaimed "OA saviours/templars".
Anyway, I don't think people will migrate from Quake Live unless something serious happen, and we are already focusing resources on OA3.
I've read that before and I liked how clear the things not to ask for were outlined. Unfair advantages are wrong, and I can live without r_intensity. But what makes an advantage unfair? The pro-level (and im no pro by far) OA players rarely share their configs with newbies who have no idea that other beneficial cvars (rate,snaps for ping tweaking for example) exist. Some players can't jump to higher platforms because their hardware prevents them from getting 76 or 125 fps. Aimbots and Wallhacks are cheats, and I feel that advantageous cvar values shouldn't be in the same category. But as I said before the choice of restriction should be in the hands of admins, and default values set by the devs' perception of what is fair and what isn't so that newbie admins don't have problems out of the box, so to speak.
DO NOT LINK[/b]) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Special_game_options]There are server-side physics options to emulate 125hz physics and 76hz physics. They were introduced in OA 0.8.5 and an extra option for more accuracy in this emulation was introduced in OA 0.8.8.
