Tripwire is runing our maps

[smk420]

Please whitelist more final maps as the oringinal maps tend to get trashed and become very boring. Alot more people would purchase the game if there were better maps out there( i.e people telling there friends how good it is. I found the oringinal maps to be quite plain and boring after a few times besides Foundary and Biotechs, they were both fantastic maps.

 

[Fel]

It's really more fun to speculate wildly, and forward your own pet theories that, while making little actual sense, are wonderfully negative, than it is to just sit quietly and wait.

yea sit there and quietly wait while no one enters your servers......then all of a sudden they decide to del the game, then what... sit and quietly wait for more people to buy the game, and the whole process repeats and repeats? then once everyone in the whole world has bought the game and the Del it...who do we wait for then?

Thank god they updated, but when is the next 1 gonna be? hopefully not next year

although i must say it was worth the wait this time, only becasue of the badas* new map

 

[rallfo]

yea sit there and quietly wait while no one enters your servers......then all of a sudden they decide to del the game, then what... sit and quietly wait for more people to buy the game, and the whole process repeats and repeats? then once everyone in the whole world has bought the game and the Del it...who do we wait for then?

Exactly. Or in my words:

Since Tripwire have put an artificial bottleneck on the release of custom content through the whitelisting, they have a duty to update this whitelist as regularly as humanly possible.

If they can't do this then the whitelisting should be removed. It is suffocating the modding community and the whole player base.

As Fel said if the situation does not improve modders, players and admins will stop playing KF through frustration or boredom.

 

[Mean_Machin3]

some of us who have perks that are already lvl 5 dont have to worry about lvling perks. If ppl arn't playing ur maps so they can lvl the perks, they will do it in maps that are already whitelisted and will come back to play on ur maps. I think people quitting the game because map is not whitelisted is just a little over exaggerating.

TWI has already said that they were behind on whitelisting since they were doing a lot of things at once.

Now what u should be asking for is to not have any maps whitelisted that are still in their BETA stages and only whitelist the Final maps. That will reduce TWI's time trying to whitelist every version of the map u ever put out and maybe it will make the white listting faster.

And Rallfo, i regularly play on ur server and i think its great.

 

[Nenjin]

Since Tripwire have put an artificial bottleneck on the release of custom content through the whitelisting, they have a duty to update this whitelist as regularly as humanly possible.

And they've done it as much as humanly possible.

If they can't do this then the whitelisting should be removed. It is suffocating the modding community and the whole player base.

I think you're over dramatizing some people's complaints. I've been on plenty of 30 man servers, that by definition can never be whitelisted, and they are packed. I've never gone more than 4 rounds playing KF, ever, before the server starts to fill. I thought the white list was a poor idea from the start...simply because why regulate something like perks in a non-competitive environment? But TWI said they wanted players to take pride in their accomplishments and so we have the whitelist. That isn't going to change unless TWI does a 180 in their attitude about the sanctity of perks. Since I doubt that will ever happen....the whitelist isn't going anywhere until they can find a way to approve maps w/o Steam updates. It's sort of a "you can live with it or whine about the fact you have to live with it" situation.

As Fel said if the situation does not improve modders, players and admins will stop playing KF through frustration or boredom.

Some will, probably. But you're inflating your own reaction to seem like everyone's...and that's obviously not true. Perks are ephemeral things, they eventually cap. This isn't Battlefield 2 and people knew that going in. 100 hours is what they estimated it would take to rank all the perks up to 5.Anyone who plays KF and doesn't realize this are deluding themselves.

If you couldn't even play your map until it got whitelisted, that I would understand. That would be stifling. That would seem tyrannical. That would lead people to boredom, having no option but to play only approved maps.

But the crux of your complaint is that you're deprived of one element of the game, for at worst a month or two that, eventually, doesn't matter anymore. What happens when you cap out? Are you just going to quit playing KF?

And again...TWI said they're doing the best that their circumstances allow, and that part of this is entirely out of their hands. What more do you want out of them that's realistic?

 

[rallfo]

I am far less opinionated over this issue than you're trying to make me out as since I run and play exclusively on servers where perks are disabled anyway.*

But I do object to this whole notion of Tripwire whitelisting things, even if it doesn't have any practical effect on me because it is the complete antithesis of the modding spirit:

"Your work won't be playable on the majority of servers until we give the official say so."

But it IS having detrimental effects practically and culturally on the hard working modders and mappers who I know. These views are far from being just my own and frankly I cannot think why any modder would NOT find the whitelisting an insult to the tireless effort he's giving away to the community.

You said yourself this whole issue arises out of Tripwire's protectionism over the sanctity of perks.

The whitelisting system is:
- a disproportionate response to the levelling cheaters (who tbh were only ever cheating themselves)
- short-sighted (cheaters always find ways around such systems)
- generally a poor idea (as you said)
- was introduced unilaterally with no consultation with the community
- and I further argue is having far reaching negative effects more damaging than the levelling cheats ever were

It needs to be removed.

* I would actually go further and say that perk levelling should get out of my FPS and go back to WoW where it came from and I'd attribute a lot of the success of large servers including ours to the fact that this requirement is disabled.

 

[Nenjin]

These views are far from being just my own and frankly I cannot think why any modder would NOT find the whitelisting an insult to the tireless effort he's giving away to the community.

Because most of them are reasonable and aren't given to getting on a soap box over minor inconveniences?

I am far less opinionated over this issue than you're trying to make me out

Totally, saying TWI has insulted the honor of the modding community with the whitelist is a totally rational, non-opinionated response.

 

[rallfo]

minor inconveniences?

So "minor" that Tripwire felt it necessary to apologise over them?

The prolific Modders and Mappers that I've spoken to express these views in much harsher R-rated language or stooped in irony like Fel's.

Clearly there are internal discussions going on at Tripwire about this controversial issue and the more community input the better their eventual decision. My "soapbox" as you so disparagingly put it is justified since I could realistically say I represent the interests of a KF community of players and modders with a membership in the thousands (btw thanks for the shout out Mean_Machin3!) ... where is yours?

But rather than attempting to rubbish other people's opinions (and by definition an opinion cannot be "wrong" and everyone here is entitled to air theirs) for the sake of some forum astroturfing perhaps you would care to post your own views on the matter directly which would be far more constructive than trying to argue down mine and which I note you have not yet done.

 

[Nenjin]

Tripwire apologized because they're decent guys who acknowledge when something they've done upsets people, and when things didn't go as they planned like the whitelist update being delayed. It's like you're taking a courteous apology as a sign of guilt. Sheesh.

As a player, I haven't minded the whitelist issues because I don't obsess about the perk gains. I still get to play custom maps and content, they all become white listed and I get to enjoy the hard work people have put into them regardless of the whitelist update. And so far, the authors of the best maps I've played haven't been up in arms over this. It's less-than-convenient but they're still happily making content, and we're all still happily receiving content and playing it.

My "soapbox" as you so disparagingly put it is justified since I could realistically say I represent the interests of a KF community of players and modders with a membership in the thousands (btw thanks for the shout out Mean_Machin3!) ... where is yours?

I'm equally justified in thinking you're overreacting, just as a simple fan of the game. No website/self-promotion required. Of course I am volunteer staff on a website with over 100,000 registered, fanatical gamers...but then again I don't claim to speak for them or to add their weight to me being right. That would be egoistic.

But rather than attempting to rubbish other people's opinions (and by definition an opinion cannot be "wrong" and everyone here is entitled to air theirs) for the sake of some forum astroturfing perhaps you would care to post your own views on the matter directly which would be far more constructive than trying to argue down mine and which I note you have not yet done

I've done so already. The status quo works quite well for allowing modders and map makers to get their content into poeple's hands. That's the bottomline. There's room for steamlining the process of making them all perk-enabled quickly by working around the required Steam update, and since TWI has said they're looking at the issue there's not much left to do but wait. One would hope the waiting could be done without all the unnecessary bombast.

 

[rallfo]

Of course I am volunteer staff on a website with over 100,000 registered, fanatical gamers

Link?

 

[Deniz]

I know I stated it before, but I'll say it again: The white list should be removed.

Lots of users on this forum claim "What's preventing you from playing custom maps that are not white listed? You can play them."

The problem is that I'll have to play them on my own, all alone because no one will join a standard 6 players server with non white listed custom maps.

I don't enjoy playing KF offline or alone, it's a multiplayer game and I'm a gamer who likes variety. I can't play the same maps over and over again. I always want to install new maps on my server but I can't, I did that before and it ruined my server.

The process of accepting submissions for the white list will always take a long time as long as there are humans on the other side. An automated (web based or whatever) system wouldn't work because that system wouldn't be able to check for exploits on a map.

The best solution is to completely remove the white list. And if players decide to play exclusively on leveling maps and quit the game when they hit level 5 then so be it. Let them ruin the game for themselves and let us, players who actually like playing KF for what it it, enjoy it. We are currently being punished.

 

[Slyk]

I am generally anit-perk. I think it is a gimmick for the ADHD society we live in and plays on the inevitable mental game of pushing players along to compete with the next guy for better weapons/damage factors/etc. It's cheap and hokey and has no place outside of MMP games and a good portion of console crap.

The whitelist, while necessary in a perk-infested game, needs to be updated as often as possible, every two weeks if you ask me. It is a HUGE detriment to modders because a large number of players will not play their content once they figure out it is not perk friendly. That is a fact. Hence, an already dry community as far as feedback goes compared to many other games, suffers more so. Many servers suffer from the same effect if they run too many non-whitelist maps...their traffic dries up.

The whitelist is a general dis-incentive to mappers/modders unless uniformly and frequently managed.

 

[Benjamin]

I think it is a gimmick for the ADHD society we live in and plays on the inevitable mental game of pushing players along to compete with the next guy for better weapons/damage factors/etc. It's cheap and hokey and has no place outside of MMP games and a good portion of console crap.

This has been my view too for a long time. Though, I don't think you mean you're against the perk system, simply the levelling aspect of it?

 

[rallfo]

Couldn't agree more.

If it's a choice between the sanctity of Perk Levelling and freedom of custom content the latter wins every time.

Those hit most hard by the whitelisting system are Modders and Admins, not cheaters; we all know they always find ways around such systems anyway.

The whitelisting system is causing more damage than the levelling cheating it's supposed to prevent ever would.

Come play on our 100% WoW-free servers in the meantime!

 

[Murphy]

Now come on, it's not that bad. It's not like custom content is completely gone. Even if you assume that it doesn't exist as long as it isn't whitelisted (and there are players that don't even care about that, me included) it basically comes out a week or two later! Ok, granted, the last whitelist update took longer but a) they had all the contest maps to go through and b) they already said they would have updated sooner but they couldn't due to outside factors.
In no way is this the death of custom-content like some people make it out to be. It's just a delay and a bit of an additional hassle.

 

[rallfo]

But if it's like this in the midst of a highly publicised mapping competition, when the pressure is on to make the whitelisting process as smooth as possible, how infrequent will the updates become when Tripwire have moved their main focus onto other things?

If the current system remains unchanged the delays will only get worse...

And there's even the possibility of getting into a downward spiral after that point: Players leave over stagnation of custom content due to slow whitelisting, Tripwire have less motivation to frequently update the whitelist because of dwindling player numbers, so the process gets even slower, more players leave and so on.

 

[Nenjin]

You're still disregarding the fact that there are other barriers to TWI updating the whitelist more frequently that are out of their control. The current delays we're experiencing may not be the norm for in the future.

I'm guessing that Steam has an issue with a game doing frequent bi-weekly updates even if it's a piddly whitelist update. I'm guessing their service model wasn't set up for the that, and TWI is having to negotiate their TOS with Steam.

As for linking my website, why bother? I don't have anything to prove to myself, let alone you. I didn't come in here to swing my e-peen around.

 

[rallfo]

As for linking my website, why bother? I don't have anything to prove to myself, let alone you. I didn't come in here to swing my e-peen around.

You most certainly did and if you had any such link you would have supplied it in your original post! Anything to give you the edge in the point scoring game you seem to think this thread has become...
(the vitriol laden " let alone... YOU!! *scream* " is proof enough - I'm touched )

Making claims you can't back up to try and add to your credibility has the reverse effect and shows you up as a liar too.

You're still disregarding the fact that there are other barriers to TWI updating the whitelist more frequently that are out of their control. The current delays we're experiencing may not be the norm for in the future.

How do you know? What you wrote is not a "fact" and so nobody here is "disregarding" it. You do not work for Tripwire and you are purely speculating.

And starting a sentence with "I'm guessing" is tantamount to admitting it's a waste of this thread's space and actually just a feeble pretence to launch into another furious attack on other people's views. Here's one - "I'm guessing you don't get invited to many parties with those social skills"

 

[Nenjin]

On second thought, I'm just going to self edit and save TWI the effort of pruning us out of this thread when it really gets out of hand.

 

[dextronaut]

rallfo, take a chill pill.