[fr.Biddle]

[text]news 494[/text]

[Mod Iye]

meh.
i liked quite a lot of those. and besides abbeyctf, maya, prague_v2 (which for many reasons HAD to go), i actually played most of them within the last week.
And to be honest, i dont really see any reason why one would remove a map.

Even more so:
You cant really remove ANY of the assets used in the maps. Why? because 3rd party maps do exist. and I personally, do USE assets of default maps. simply because they are pretty good, AND it reduces the pk3 size.
Thus the only things you get from removing the maps could be
- a shorter map list in the "start server" option, which could easily be achieved by editing the .arena files. And to be honest, who actually uses that menu anyways.
- a very slightly smaller base pk3, as you could only delete the mapshots, .bsp, .aas and .arena file, for the above reasons.
- me being sad because i use quite a lot of the mapshots in my main menu skin. :)

[Fenix]

Iye, on 06 March 2016 - 12:54 PM, said:

I dont really see any reason why one would remove a map.

To reduce the size of the final archive maybe?

Iye, on 06 March 2016 - 12:54 PM, said:

You cant really remove ANY of the assets used in the maps. Why? because 3rd party maps do exist. and I personally, do USE assets of default maps. simply because they are pretty good, AND it reduces the pk3 size.

They CAN remove whatever they like because THEY are the developers of the game . If you made use of default maps assets in your third party maps that's most a problem of yours. FS artists always mentioned to include every asset needed by a custom map inside the pk3. Relying on assets provided by another map archive it's a really BAD design technique. Not to mention that you used assets you don't own copyrights of and I'm quite 100% sure you didn't ask permission for the usage of such assets.

This post has been edited by Fenix: 06 March 2016 - 01:09 PM

[XiN`AngeR]

noooo not ambush =(

[Mod Iye]

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To reduce the size of the final archive maybe?

#obvious. thanks.
the real question would be. is that worth it? what would you get out of it? 200MB? max?

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They CAN remove whatever they like because THEY are the developers of the game

of course they can. but "aperture logic" isnt really rational, is it.

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If you made use of default maps assets in your third party maps that's most a problem of yours. FS artists always mentioned to include every asset needed by a custom map inside the pk3.

Both true.

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Relying on assets provided by another map archive it's a really BAD design technique.

Yes. But No. I'm relying on the base game. not any random archive.

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Not to mention that you used assets you don't own copyrights of and I'm quite 100% sure you didn't ask permission for the usage of such assets.

Oh well.

Note to self: Don't use caps to emphasize words, as your post will be reduced to the expressions used rather than to its idea.


All the grumpiness (which wasn't intended, but just ended up that way.) aside:
I basically tried to make a point that the possible 200MB you get out of this, aren't worth all the troubles it may(see: i learned and used fancy BBcode underline) cause. It simply generates (unnecessary) work in my eyes.
Surely it can be done, but i personally simply would not do so for the more or less clearly stated reasons

[fr.Biddle]

We thought that the way the news was phrased was clear enough but of course, these maps are not deleted or removed from this game. They will just not be distributed through the official game package anymore. Some of the most played maps on Urban Terror are Orbital, Paris and Tohunga, all three being custom maps. The maps listed in the news will just have to live the "custom maps" life from now on.

About assets removal here are some precisions one can appreciate.

Over the years our lovely game has gained a lot of weight in the form of huge amounts of unnecessary contents. Therefore, we decided to put it through a radical new diet for the release of the upcoming version 4.3. Keeping in mind the goal of getting a fresh, optimised clean version, the best we could. In this process we benefited from the outstanding help of JrandomNoob.

4.2.023 was over 1.8 GB.

We were able to achieve it by trimming the map pack’s assets as well as changing the way in which the game handles deprecated content such as configs.

As a result of this, the following resources were removed:

• 280 MB of duplicates,
• 564 MB of map assets,
• 146 MB of unnecessary contents.

Obtaining a (current) final 4.3 version of less than 1.3 GB.

For community members that could get worried about missing textures in custom maps, I'm pretty sure that most of the assets used by them, if not all, are still provided in the game. To add an extra layer insurance for popular third-party maps, we chose to keep approximately 10 MB worth of "non-essential" assets in 4.3.

[zenny]

When you say it's the final version did that mean they will be no updates ? Or updates will go on with 4.3 ?

[Mod Iye]

Biddle, on 06 March 2016 - 03:58 PM, said:

We thought that the way the news was phrased was clear enough but of course, these maps are not deleted or removed from this game. They will just not be distributed through the official game package anymore.

I got that part. not a fan of it, but OK. i understand the intention.

Biddle, on 06 March 2016 - 03:58 PM, said:

Over the years our lovely game has gained a lot of weight in the form of huge amounts of unnecessary contents.

Like, 2 C4 icons, and 2 flashlight icons in the icons/items directory? :P

Biddle, on 06 March 2016 - 03:58 PM, said:

In this process we benefited from the outstanding help of JrandomNoob.

For community members that could get worried about missing textures in custom maps, I'm pretty sure that most of the assets used by them, if not all, are still provided in the game. To add an extra layer insurance for popular third-party maps, we chose to keep approximately 10 MB worth of "non-essential" assets in 4.3.

This part probably "calms" me down the most. We will see i guess. I also just noticed that not only storage space but hosting speed is a consideration for this, due to the updater. So i will be quiet for now and trust in FS gods to have their way. :P

Zenny, on 06 March 2016 - 04:34 PM, said:

When you say it's the final version did that mean they will be no updates ? Or updates will go on with 4.3 ?

i suppose "final" as in official (not RC) version of 4.3. Even though i would only assume very few updates to the 4.X versions

[{BsTrD}TheRealFubar]

To play some of the older 3rd party maps it has been you needed to d/l pak0.pk3 from quake3 to avoid missing textures. I even tried this with the last and latest version, kind of a little known secret as such... It would be nice if this wasnt necessary

[fr.Biddle]

That's something doable through the updater TheRealFubar, let's see :)