Level Design Thank you whitelisting team

[Zetsumei]

Seriously are we all in kindergarten here? Are we all seriously not more mature than flaming each other and stroking our individual egos?

If kept didn't pm and contact the mapper beforehand contacting twi then that was a mistake of kept plain and simple and we should offer our apology for it. As the goal is to get exploits removed and not get 90% of the maps removed. Kept in its primary form should be a group to help and aid mappers in releasing maps that are mostly exploit free.

The idea is not to make exploits noted and made public to the entire community, for that reason kept switched to a separate forums than a twi forum community group.

 

[ro_sauce]

i kind of see it as free beta testing

 

[omarfw]

i kind of see it as free beta testing

lol exactly. it's free. so nobody can really argue with how we do things, it's not like we're getting paid to do it.

 

[ro_sauce]

hey does anyone know why doom2 was dewhitelisted the last time? i had fixed it before so there were no elevator exploits. so what was the problem this time?

 

[Olivier]

The L.A.W?

 

[ro_sauce]

having the law in your map wont let it be on the whitelist?

 

[Olivier]

Well the LAW can be sold for a decent amount of money and if it spawns at each wave, i guess it is becoming a factor to get de-whitelisted. But i'm not sure if this was the reason why.

 

[-[SiN]-bswearer]

If kept didn't pm and contact the mapper beforehand contacting twi then that was a mistake of kept plain and simple and we should offer our apology for it.

sorry, but that's not correct. what would that have accomplished? absolutely nothing. say omar pms johnsmith mapper saying "sir, your map KF-yaddayadda is currently on the whitelist but has these exploitable bugs, please fix them". for one thing, even if the mapper fixes those exploits, the old map would still be on the whitelist and the mapper would have to submit the fixed version to TW and then TW would have to update the list making the replacement. secondly, if the map was already whitelisted, the mapper would not be forced to fix his map even if contacted. finally, since KEPT has no official authority whatsoever, it's not their responsibility to contact mappers if a map de-whitelisted. the process has been, KEPT tests the maps currently on the whitelist to see if any have gamebreaking exploits, pms their findings to TW, and TW decides whether or not to keep the map whitelisted or remove it until it's fixed. therefore because only TW has the ability to actually remove a map, they should be the ones to contact the mapper explaining why they had to remove the map from the whitelist. so no, in this situation, there is no reason for KEPT to appologize for anything as they are not in the wrong.

now where you are correct is when we are discussing non-whitelisted maps in the process of being tested to see if it was suitable for becoming whitelisted. then yes, a KEPT representative should send their findings to the mapper so that they can fix them before submitting their work to TW to have it whitelisted. from my understanding, a summary of the testing results are also sent to TW upon completion. although we've done more testing on maps that were already whitelisted, i was under the impression that this process was already being used for the maps being tested for acceptance onto the whitelist.

Omar, am i correct that these are the current processes being used for the two different situations?

 

[ro_sauce]

now where you are correct is when we are discussing non-whitelisted maps in the process of being tested to see if it was suitable for becoming whitelisted. then yes, a KEPT representative should send their findings to the mapper so that they can fix them before submitting their work to TW to have it whitelisted. from my understanding, a summary of the testing results are also sent to TW upon completion. although we've done more testing on maps that were already whitelisted, i was under the impression that this process was already being used for the maps being tested for acceptance onto the whitelist.

they contacted me about my map (well, xienen did, but he sent me a link to the thread where they discussed my map, parts of which were hilarious) but i'll fix all the stuff in that map after i'm done with the next duke nukem levels.
or i just wont submit them for whitelisting, people still play on that map just to figure out how to get all the secrets, even if its not whitelisted.

 

[omarfw]

for whitelisted maps:
we test them
we write reviews of them
once complete we submit our reviews to twi
twi de-whitelists the map and our review for the map is moved into a public section so the mapper can have easy access to it and make a fixed version
twi that notifies the mappers of where to go to see why their map was de-whitelisted. (we do also, but so far we haven't had to.)

for maps awaiting whitelisting:
we test the maps
we write reviews of them
we send our results to twi, if they reject it then I move the threads to a public section so mappers can have easy access to them
twi notifies the mappers of why or where to go to see why their maps were de-whitelisted. (we do also, but so far we haven't had to.)

aka there's really no difference. if possible i would like to submit our results to mappers so they can get new versions in before every their old version is rejected, but that isn't always possible. we just recently started testing maps awaiting whitelisting, so this is all up in the air. i know that we have done so on some occasions and gotten fixed maps whitelisted sooner in the process, but there's no way to have this happen everytime if i don't know when xienen is going to update the whitelist.

xienen has done a great job of notifying the mappers of why their maps have been de-whitelisted or rejected either in the official threads or via pm's and i commend him for that. it saves me a lot of work.

for the record, if anybody ever wants to read the reviews of maps that have been rejected (by twi, not just us) or de-whitelisted, they are located here:

http://z10.invisionfree.com/KEPT/index.php?showforum=1

 

[-[SiN]-bswearer]

thanks omar! that's a great explaination of the process so hopefully the matter is cleared up

 

[Xienen]

If kept didn't pm and contact the mapper beforehand contacting twi then that was a mistake of kept plain and simple and we should offer our apology for it. As the goal is to get exploits removed and not get 90% of the maps removed. Kept in its primary form should be a group to help and aid mappers in releasing maps that are mostly exploit free.

One key note in here, KEPT had nothing to do with Slyk's map KF-TheRock(all versions) getting removed from the Whitelist. These were exploits submitted by the community. I then had the Tripwire test team confirm that exploits existed on the map, as well as a few others, and removed the maps from the Whitelist. I stated it in another thread, but I will state it here as well, I simply don't have the spare time to hunt down the developers of every map when I remove it. I post the information in the Currently Whitelisted Maps thread after removing the map. With KEPT around, this process has become better all-around and certainly minimizes how much my time constraints effect the community. In fact, Olivier has gone one step further and is building me a list of Authors for all the maps currently on the Whitelist. At that point, it will only take me a few minutes to contact the developers of each map. KEPT is doing an immense service to the community and deserves respect for it; and as they noted, they are not the final authority on removal/acceptance of a map, so don't blame them for any of it.

If anyone out there wants to harass someone for their hard work, please aim it in my direction, as KEPT deserves none of it.

 

[Olivier]

Thanks!! I can appreciate the time it takes to accurately test a map out to determine its whitelisting status!!! You guys kick @ss.

Awesome map Chris

 

[ro_sauce]

KEPT:
an easy way to contact the mapper is to just go to the whitelist submission thread, and send them a pm, easier than hunting down the beta/final thread of their map.
but i think the other mappers who's maps got de-whitelisted have been contacted, either by twi or kept. both is always good, the sooner the better, considering how random the whitelist update is.

 

[HaTeMe]

Thanks for nothing guys. Seriously. I've seen several good maps get de-whitelisted recently simply because somebody found some very obscure bugs and then advertised them to the entire KF community. Seriously there are much better ways to go about this.

Thanks for the list of names. You are no longer welcome on my servers.

Advertised them to the community?? We have NOT advertised ANY exploits, anywhere. When the community was created, we made a mistake of posting our reviews on the group forum which we thought was private, but thats solved long ago and we now have our own forum.

If we were posting these exploits to the public, we would have been banned already. You are just one of those map exploiters, and I have no respect towards you.

Oh and Ive never even visited your servers before, AND I have my own server so you think you can hurt my gameplay by banning me from your servers? I doubt. Not to mention that I would never want to play with a person like you.

and that list is only going to grow from here. most people here like what we are doing and more importantly, TWI appreciates what we are doing.
if you know of a "better way" to go about this, please say what that is.

Yea no doubt we will get more enemies but Im sorta used on that, I think it got something to do with my nick.

I think you guys missed the boat completely on what the whitelist is intended for. It was designed to prevent perk leveling maps ie. maps whose only purpose is to help you level up faster. It was not intended to punish the map maker for inadvertently leaving an exploit in his map. Instead of running around testing every author's final works and then throwing your findings in their face, why don't you offer your testing services to the mappers currently developing maps. Most mappers don't mind having a second pair of eyes on their work before they release it. But coming around after the fact is just ignorant.

Sigh, in case you havent noticed WE ARE testing maps currently being built, and reporting any glitches on them before they are put up on the whitelist.

I cant remember any mapper complaining how we somehow ruined his hard work by reporting the exploits in his map, quite the contrary. And atm, maps will remain on the whitelist UNTIL the exploits have been fixed, so there wont be any unnecessary dewhitelisting. That will only happen in the most serious cases.

 

[Zetsumei]

If anyone out there wants to harass someone for their hard work, please aim it in my direction, as KEPT deserves none of it.

I'm not harassing KEPT otherwise I wouldn't have become a part of it. However I think that we as a group should still be hold to high moral values and standards even if its a community based initiative. Including the way how we represent ourselves and the team.

And where possible I feel we should aim to improve upon the services we deliver, taking any complaints no matter how angry or insulting to hearth and see how a repetition of any problem can be stopped from reoccurring.

 

[mamoo]

I'm not harassing KEPT otherwise I wouldn't have become a part of it.

Wait...I've never seen you in the testing sessions :S

 

[-[SiN]-bswearer]

zets i don't think the "harrassment" statement was directed towards you but some other people blaming KEPT for "ruining their fun" by getting maps off the whitelist....most of it was pages back in the thread.

it was what you said that KEPT should appologize for something they shouldnt have been responsible for. as i explained in an ealier post and what Xienen just recently confirmed was that KEPT was not in the wrong regarding mappers being contacted to notify them that their work was being de-whitelisted and explaining why.

regarding what we are doing and our testing, we'll gladly take complaints and insults and kindly explain to those people our stances and why we have to disagree with them. you shouldn't appologize for something if you never did anything wrong or else you'd just be contradicting the very standards you are trying to uphold.

 

[Zetsumei]

Thing is it doesn't matter by whom the bug was found and reported, its a Principe question. I think that anyone that finds a bug in a map. Should as first priority report towards the mappers, and then after that report to get it removed from the white list. Rather than the mapper having to be contacted basically at the same time the map is being removed.

Most of the bugs can be solved by a single blocking volume. The white list isn't updated daily either. If a mapper got a week or even a few days before the white list update to fix some bugs. Chances are most mappers will be able to do so before their map is removed. A more ideal situation than for a 5 minute fix, having to wait another month to get your map white listed.

Because although its truth that a good map should still be enjoyable without perks, in a lot of cases people do not want to play on servers without perks. And mappers often as we all know put a lot of hours into their maps, and generally want to see it played. So if 2 minutes of our time can make it possible for a mapper to fix some issues and to not have to wait for another full month, then I think its a moral obligation to tell the mapper.

@mamoo. I rather try things out with a custom zed set-up together with the availability of cheats, so I can purely focus on the map. Next to that a lot of things require good timing to get done well, which gets pretty hard to do for me with 160ping. As long as code bugs and replication bugs are a non issue and its all about exploit finding, single play testing is the most hassle free solution in my opinion.

 

[omarfw]

Wait...I've never seen you in the testing sessions :S

he is a member and has contributed. he made it clear from the start that he would probably only be doing solo testing.

as much as i'd love to report content to the mappers before i send content to twi, this would also slow down the process of getting maps de-whitelisted or whitelisted tremendously.

here's the way I see it:
1: I am volunteering what free time i have already to do the rather basic testing and organization that i do
2: I have people who i can rely on to notify mappers of the exploits we find (TWI)
3: The only difference it would make to have new versions of maps released before the old versions are de-whitelisted is a couple weeks.

so do i want to put in extra effort and time i don't really have just so players don't have to wait for their favorite map to come back on the whitelist? no not really. it doesn't seem so important that people can't just be patient. either way a new version of every map (ideally) WILL be made and hopefully whitelisted, it's just a matter of waiting or not.

i'm not sacrificing my time for peoples patience levels. that's not to say other members can't notify mappers of our findings before i submit results to twi, but i think if there was someone more able to do that then me, they would have been doing that already.