some answers to -> why isn't anyone playing custom maps?

[maranello]

http://www.forumplanet.com/planetbat...19&tid=1785465

Although i never liked their forum, it is very true that the users in that forum represent the "average" BF2 player. Some of them made very useful comments, some of them basically said they don't play custom maps because 1. they suck 2. there is no rank 3. They are lazy to download it.

When you first read it you will say "who cares, f*** them" well unfortunately you need those people to like your map and other maps so your 1 month of work will not be a waste and will not be forgotten.

Just feeling a little sad and wanted to share my feelings

[gx.]

Re: some answers to -> why isn't anyone playing custom maps?

if only EA would give out the info for coop..... and anyway, alot of people dont care about rank anymore now that is so easy to move up the ranks, so why, atleast make a team to test maps and see if they are ranked worthy.

[TheBladeRoden]

Re: some answers to -> why isn't anyone playing custom maps?

#5 speaks the truth

[maranello]

Re: some answers to -> why isn't anyone playing custom maps?

if only EA would give out the info for coop..... and anyway, alot of people dont care about rank anymore now that is so easy to move up the ranks, so why, atleast make a team to test maps and see if they are ranked worthy.

we already have a team for that purpose, and we already tested numerous maps and released 2 map packs. Both map packs took over 2-2.5 months to finish.

And I must disagree with you about a lot of people not caring ranks. It is so untrue. If the ranks stayed the way they were, that might have been the case because their requirements were unrealistic (1000h of total play time, 200 kills etc) but after 1.03 patch they changed them now every week if someone plays say 10 hours, he will get at least 2-3 badge/ribbon/medal etc.

I think the reason is because people don't want to download individual maps, it is hard to keep track of which server has which maps. Mods make thing easier and people find them more useful.

[maranello]

Re: some answers to -> why isn't anyone playing custom maps?

#5 speaks the truth

the reason why DICE didn't include a downloader is because the maps in BF2 are over 50 MB in size, not like 3-4 MB in CS:S. And if people simultenaously download the map from server, that would lag the game so bad.

Also in order for that to work good, servers need a very fast upload speed, so people can download fast. The thing is, game already uses all the upload speed, so it would take too long for people to download.

For instance, in counter strike:source it takes about 3-4 minutes to download a 5 MB map from a very good server. That means the download speed is 30 kbps with that speed it would take (if everything works out fine) 40-45 minutes to download the map. By the time you are done downloading, the round would be over, and the next map you need to download it again and same thing. It's just not practical.

[gx.]

Re: some answers to -> why isn't anyone playing custom maps?

maranello, lol im on the team lol. but im saying why can EA make one to test custom maps to put on rancked servers.

[CRuDE<LTG>]

Re: some answers to -&gt; why isn't anyone playing custom maps?

True, I contacted EA about getting some kind of official support for the custom vanilla maps but did not receive any reply. They have that little window which appears when you start the game it would have been awesome to get some support like that for the custom maps. Perhaps to have them link the open button to one official map pack which could be verified by an official team or some such?

I also agree that downloading a map straight from the game server would be unrealistic because of the map size BF2 has. The only semi-practical method would be to use a redirect download/install tool which is transparent to the client (gamer). Although having users alerted to new maps via the window upon start-up would be much easier and reach a lot of players.

Maybe we should put together some kind of combined E-mail from the modding community to get some kind of official support for vanilla bf2 custom maps. Even if we cannot get the in-game window exposure a notice on the main website would be cool.

[maranello]

Re: some answers to -&gt; why isn't anyone playing custom maps?

Maybe we should put together some kind of combined E-mail from the modding community to get some kind of official support for vanilla bf2 custom maps. Even if we cannot get the in-game window exposure a notice on the main website would be cool.

Our admin already talked to DICE about that. Although we did get a good feedback about the custom map pack, DICE or EA is unlikely to do something like that.

Every single minute DICE or EA spends for custom map thing (or mod) their programmers, workers, cust. reps, and etc, will be working for (and getting paid by DICE/.EA) something that people don't have to buy. This is how corporate world works.

I am past the point of getting support from EA. They don't offer aNY kind of support for the game itself let alone supporting the map packs. It's just not going to happen.

there are things we can do of course, but they depend on money, advertisement, reputation. We have some good projects for totalbf2.com which we are working on, but it will take time before everything starts working the way they should.

[maranello]

Re: some answers to -&gt; why isn't anyone playing custom maps?

maranello, lol im on the team lol. but im saying why can EA make one to test custom maps to put on rancked servers.

oh sorry,i must have misunderstood you . if you read my post just before this, you ll understand why something like that won't happen.

1. It costs money to EA
2. It costs time to EA
3. Their beta tester team sucks so bad, they couldn't even get original game done right.

[{HHx}b14ze]

Re: some answers to -&gt; why isn't anyone playing custom maps?

Maybe with the EA downloader (AKA "Steam" from valve) we will be able to find easily, custom maps that users have made. You can do it on X-box live for certain multiplayer maps like Halo and Halo 2 i believe. I don't know if that is something microsoft does, but i would like to think this Microsoft product that keeps my pc running in peak (55.5%) condition.(WinXP Home), would be far ahead of something running at 733mhz. Damn you bill gates!

[maranello]

Re: some answers to -&gt; why isn't anyone playing custom maps?

Maybe with the EA downloader (AKA "Steam" from valve) we will be able to find easily, custom maps that users have made. You can do it on X-box live for certain multiplayer maps like Halo and Halo 2 i believe. I don't know if that is something microsoft does, but i would like to think this Microsoft product that keeps my pc running in peak (55.5%) condition.(WinXP Home), would be far ahead of something running at 733mhz. Damn you bill gates!

as of right now, EA downloader is nothing compared to steam client. Steam client is small 500kb or so, its easy to download, anybody who doesn't have a steam account can download it, but ea downloader is big and you have to purchase special forces to download it. It also will not work as the steam does for the patches. Because if it did, EA wouldn't make plans for releasing a separate 280 MB patch the day special forces releases in their web site.

client idea must have been worked out months before releasing BF2. Right now it is too late to integrate it to the current BF2 client system. It is possible, however it would take quiet amount of money and time.

[<AWOL>Manoe]

Re: some answers to -&gt; why isn't anyone playing custom maps?

That is not true at all with the CS auto downloader. We used my FTP site to host the map files for a high speed map download. It would take a minute tops to DL the larger CS:S maps. Some of those were in the double digits EASY.

I think that this would be a great thing for EA to implement. I think there needs to be something that would keep the DL going even if the server changes maps. That was the only thing that use to **** me off in CS:S. 98% done and the map would change.

[-R|F-Glitch]

Re: some answers to -&gt; why isn't anyone playing custom maps?

As of the 1.03 patch I think that there is now a little news box that pops up, maybe we could submit the news of mappack 3 and see if they can put that in that little box with a download link.

[diff-edge]

Re: some answers to -&gt; why isn't anyone playing custom maps?

It might be helpful to setup a server for weekly events that utilize the map packs.

The biggest problem for me was that whenever i played the map packs there was never more than 15-20 people and that was very rare.

I would think that posting an event onthe home page will get a bunch of players on the same server.

I would def beable to get my squad to join if we knew there would be a bunch of people on.

BTW as a side note can we play karkand 2 with claws and ziplines? That would be a separate event if we could convert it over.

diff

[maranello]

Re: some answers to -&gt; why isn't anyone playing custom maps?

It might be helpful to setup a server for weekly events that utilize the map packs.

The biggest problem for me was that whenever i played the map packs there was never more than 15-20 people and that was very rare.

I would think that posting an event onthe home page will get a bunch of players on the same server.

I would def beable to get my squad to join if we knew there would be a bunch of people on.

BTW as a side note can we play karkand 2 with claws and ziplines? That would be a separate event if we could convert it over.

diff

we have had servers. people either donated them or people set up their own servers. They were usually very slow OR people who donated them changed their idea and we weren't able to use them anymore.

Server = money which we don't have right now. We need a 64 player unranked BF2 server and a really fast one, not a dedicated server. We have seen a lot of people saying "map pack is on our clan server" well that doesn't work. We must have a "totalbf2 custom map pack server" our own.