wow wow wait a minute, do you realise that most people posting here, especially in EH threads, are :
- RO and EH mods/maps fans who spend most of their gaming time on RO and its forum ?
- only a tiny percent of RO players ?
(and come on, no elitism bs "go-back-to-cod4-nubz" please)
In all deference to those players with less than ideal bandwidth, I wouldn't lose that much sleep over it, EvilHobo. You might reduce some of the textures sizes, etc. just for sake of speed, but if a person is not willing to download server content he probably doesn't have the patience to play the map anyway.
=> You can have truck load of will, but if the server :
- is not redirecting at all so downloading 6 Mo of texture took 15 min (took around 45+ min to download all the textures)
- AND it's the only playable (5+ players, not tank map only) server under 200 ms ping,
- AND (my case) the download stop at 81% all the time (tried 14 times) after a recent update
You're pretty much f*cked.
=> Btw why these textures are so heavy ? it's RO (not really very short range combat), Unreal Engine 2.5 (limited graphics) we're talking about.
If he is absolutely hamstrung with puny bandwidth and he really wants to play the map, he'll find and download the client version (but you gotta watch file mis-match problems...hopefully he'll be wise enough to handle them). If he can't be bothered, then again, he probably won't enjoy the map anyway.
=> so I tried to download all textures via websites (client version), took me more than 30 min to find most of them (no news about it, no dedicated website, well at least nothing referenced by Google), hopefuly I remembered there was a "Map Repository" on a PL website (red.orchestra.pl), and still, how can I know it's the latest version (mis-match problem) ?
There's no versions like "1.2" or "1.3" written on the file, so if a server is using an old one I'm pretty much doomed.
Trying to solve these problems took me more than a hour, and the server is still trying to upload me its textures (not the right version ?), and still blocking at 81%. I spent more time trying to get these damn files than playing with them, is it what you call playing Red Orchestra ?
I can understand the new and casual RO player being turned off by having to download a lot of stuff for a game. I tire of downloading BS content, too. However, for God's sake people, this is Red Orchestra. The quality of content found on your typical RO server (maps, textures, vehicles) is light years ahead of the a lot of the crap server admins cram on their servers for CS, TF, etc.
"quality of content" => excuse me but most that "content" (minus maps) is only kids adding SS uniforms or "historically correct" maniacs forgetting it's a game, a GAME (just look at the wound system, grenade throw or accuracy).
=> I'm playing RO for a long time, bought 3 other licences for my friends/family so we could play all together (back when there was more servers and less custom content bs), I'm a big fan of the game but I can't dedicate all my free time to Red Orchestra, first there's university and second there's other games (ex : Killing Floor, Zeno Clash, Penumbra serie, IGF games...). And I mostly stopped playing RO because everytime I tried to play on a server, always had to download loads of custom BS.
So yes, the "casual" RO player is quitting RO because some server admins think that adding more than 10 mo of custom content without calling it a mod (with a website, news, versions, installer and stuff like Mare Nostrum, Carpathian Cross, or Darkest Hour) is fully ok for a niche game.
And too, the majority of the RO servers I've played on have excellent redirect bandwidth capability. If they don't, shame on them.
=> shame on the 5 servers available for me. So what I'm gonna do ? find their website and ask them to remove their custom content or get a new server for redirections ?
I don't think its a map problem as much as it is a demographic shift of the typical RO player.
This is just leaving people with low bandwidth outside of RO, that won't guarantees at all you'll have cool player not TKing at spawn or rushing alone with the tank...
ps : sorry if I was rude in this message, but I think there's no respect without sincerity.
nb : nothing personnal Floyd, just needed to choose a post to reply to =D
Thanks for reading =)