Newbiesplayground

 
As many of you may already know, Newbies is currently implementing a new map rotation and spawner system. Previously, maps could only be added to the end of the rotation and could therefore not be inserted exactly where we wanted to place them (without a major headache). For example previously, when MrC-(DOG)- or Nikola-(DOG)- created a new map, their latest map could only be added to the end of rotation; when ideally we wanted to place this latest map directly after their last creation. This method will shortly change, thanks to Masterkent's add-on called "NPMapController", where the map rotation is now dynamic.

The main aim of this new map rotation is to group all maps together by author. The exception to this is the campaigns with more than one author and the Ron maps. Due to the large amount of Ron maps, these have now been distributed more evenly throughout the map rotation.

Note that the full map titles and authors are listed exactly as they appear after pressing F1 and have not been corrected if there was a spelling mistake or a space had been omitted. For example in David Münnich's "StrangeWorld maps", sometimes he spelled it "StrangeWorld" and sometimes he spelled it "Strange World" in the Map Title.

The only exception to this is where I felt it necessary to add an editor's note in square brackets. So for example all the "One Day In The Life Of" maps have the Author as "Anonymous", but I know the Author was Chris Burgess, so I have used an editor's note in the following way...

["Chris Burgess" - Ed.]

...to make it obvious that this is an editor's note. This editor's note also appears in a different colour for clarity.

What follows is a short summary of the major changes in the map rotation. I cannot possibly list every change because the process of re-positioning maps, adding some new/omitted maps whilst simultaneously keeping track of all the teleporter changes has been quite convoluted (understatement).


--------------------
CHANGELOG
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Kew's maps are now altogether, ie. The Illhaven Saga maps, the usable maps from the Illhaven Anthology, alingar2 and nalipent.

David Münnich's campaign "StrangeWorld" is now followed by all his other maps, namely the 13Mutants series, Mercship, skaarjcity, Skaarjmine, TheCrash1, trap2_NPF, Traptemple2, Researchlab, The3Crystals and Trapship.

Steve Long maps, "HotfootV1" and "sky_NPF" now precede archwork.unr and Dynamo2 now follows Dynamo, to ensure that the "ArchSub" series is now altogether and his "Duke" maps follow the ArchSub series.

Chicoverde's 6 maps are now altogether, ie. Shamu Quest (3 maps) and Shamu Quest II (3 maps) are now consecutive.

Tentacle-HunteR's map Seaside now follows Sunken.

The Grayson Edge map Star861 now follows his "Hexephet" series.

The Nicklas Teisner (AKA DeluxeScan) maps are now altogether, namely the NaliCanyon series and the Na Pali Odyssey (SkyLvl) maps.

David Pittman's map "The LivingPlanet" now follows the CMS maps because he also worked on the CMS maps.

Paul C Roberts's "Hollow5" map (end/boss map) has been added to complete this set of maps.

The }TCP{^AngLoiD maps are now grouped together, so Lapetus and Outpost5 are now together with his "The Keep" campaign.

The Chris Burgess maps are now altogether, namely the "One Day In The Life Of" series, Gramercy and zmDS666_NPF.

Nick Clark's maps are now altogether, namely FALaunch, Skaarjhw and Skaarjhw2.

Jaspos' map "Ritual" and his "TheElder" series is now grouped together.

EddX's maps are now together, namely Rajalcast_NPF and tenrak.

Mattias Ekh's maps are now together; Jiganara, Jiganara_new and usp1.

EZkeel's (Simon West-Bulford) maps are now consecutive; Arachnopolis, WhitePalace2, Xerania, the "Invasion" campaign and DawnoftheDead.

BBG's maps are now all together, this includes the ones modded/adapted for Coop, unless the original author already appears elsewhere in the rotation.

Rubie's maps are now all together, this includes the ones modded/adapted for Coop, unless the original author already appears elsewhere in the rotation.

Hybrid's 2 map series are now consecutive.

The 3 'Unpunished' (Serge Jaeken) campaigns now appear consecutively, namely Wanderer of Na Pali, Phoenix Mission Pack 1 and Phoenix Mission Pack 2: The Blue Mountains.

Sarevok's "The Odyssey" maps have been put after Jailbreak and templeof nod because the author of those 2 maps is "The Chief7" which was a former alias of Sarevok.

Rob 'Doublez-Down' Collins's individual maps Denash1, GothicResurrection, DivineAnnex, Pitchiz and Karkuth now follow the The Fifth Vortex series, because he was the main author listed for 4 out of The Fifth Vortex maps.

REPB's map (Redelectroplasmaball) "Aquaducts-V1" and his conversion of the map unrthormap5b are now together.

MrC's map now appear consecutively.

Nikola's map now appear consecutively.

Leo(T.C.K.)'s map "ScorchC" is now added to be alongside his IOSdemo map.

The map "ForestRunSP" has been added.

The map "SP-Inside" has been added.
 

---------- end of changelog -------------
 
 

One nice advantage of having maps grouped by author is that people can now make comparisons between that author's early work and their later work for example, thus it is now easier to see how certain authors have developed over the years. Another bonus is that there will undoubtedly be some players who experience the "Oh! I didn't know that person made that map as well!" moment. I think it just makes the experience more cohesive.

Note that this list of the map rotation for Jackal's server will be used as the base for the XPerience and Advanced server.

A draft version of the new rotation can be found below. Note that the changelog above also appears at the foot of this zipped HTML file. As an added little bonus, it even validates under the W3C's HTML5 validator.
 

 

Please contribute any ideas or suggestions where appropiate!

WooF!
 

Thank you very much VooDoo and Masterkent.This is really helpful and also nice to have the maps going chronologically ).

You say that the map rotation is now "dynamic", what does this mean exactly?
Does this mean that we don't always have the same maps following the same maps, but instead it varies randomly? Like after one of these "map sets" is beaten, it picks another one at random?

a huge THANK YOU goes out to VooDoo-(DOG)- for spending a lot of time in reworking the maprotation and giving respect to the authors' work in resorting the maplist! and of course we'd like to thank Masterkent for writing this new mutator that will give us many improvements!

WOOF!

AndréRhineDavis-(DOG)- wrote: ↑Mon Apr 08, 2019 9:21 am You say that the map rotation is now "dynamic", what does this mean exactly?
Does this mean that we don't always have the same maps following the same maps, but instead it varies randomly? Like after one of these "map sets" is beaten, it picks another one at random?

all coop-servers (jackals coop excluded) already feature a voting-system, that enables players without admin-privilegies to choose maps on their own. the new mutator will combine maprotation, monsterspawner and votingsystem that will be perfectly adapted to prototypecoop. the current mutator - a big thank you from my side to TomKatRebel, who wrote it - will be replaced, as we are about to reach the limitis of the TKR_MonsterSpawner the sooner or later, as the mutator is capable of a set of 1000 maps. the new mutator won't have this limit and the aspect "dynamic" refers to the fact that we will be able to place new maps at any location of the maplist very easily. currently it is a huge effort of work to place a new map on a certain spot within the maplist, as the entries of all following maps have to be moved manually. that's why all newly added maps have been placed at the end of the rotation, no matter if they are sequels to existing mapsets.

a randomness of the maprotation is not intended.

more details regarding the new mutator and its features will be announced at a later time.

The Star861 map actually takes place before Hexephet begins, you take the same ship in the end that you then see crashed at the beginning of Hexephet.
EDIT: Sorry, didn't see stretegy's post yet, he just explained why some maps are added at the end instead.

Maybe note I did worked two months to tweak the spawner for each map so the balance went good for all players in the time , played every single map , I will never forget this huge experience , did also calc by gridsize and depth ..... pathed a lot maps.... etc....

Greets,

Rubie

strategy-(DOG)- wrote: ↑Mon Apr 08, 2019 11:15 am

AndréRhineDavis-(DOG)- wrote: ↑Mon Apr 08, 2019 9:21 am You say that the map rotation is now "dynamic", what does this mean exactly?
Does this mean that we don't always have the same maps following the same maps, but instead it varies randomly? Like after one of these "map sets" is beaten, it picks another one at random?

all coop-servers (jackals coop excluded) already feature a voting-system, that enables players without admin-privilegies to choose maps on their own. the new mutator will combine maprotation, monsterspawner and votingsystem that will be perfectly adapted to prototypecoop. the current mutator - a big thank you from my side to TomKatRebel, who wrote it - will be replaced, as we are about to reach the limitis of the TKR_MonsterSpawner the sooner or later, as the mutator is capable of a set of 1000 maps. the new mutator won't have this limit and the aspect "dynamic" refers to the fact that we will be able to place new maps at any location of the maplist very easily. currently it is a huge effort of work to place a new map on a certain spot within the maplist, as the entries of all following maps have to be moved manually. that's why all newly added maps have been placed at the end of the rotation, no matter if they are sequels to existing mapsets.

a randomness of the maprotation is not intended.

more details regarding the new mutator and its features will be announced at a later time.

ahh I understand now
Just wasn't sure what was meant by "dynamic", I get it now

 

Leo(T.C.K.) wrote: ↑Mon Apr 08, 2019 11:16 am The Star861 map actually takes place before Hexephet begins, you take the same ship in the end that you then see crashed at the beginning of Hexephet......

Thanks Leo, I will place Star861 before Hexephet as mentioned.

Rubie wrote: ↑Mon Apr 08, 2019 11:57 am Maybe note I did worked two months to tweak the spawner for each map so the balance went good for all players in the time , played every single map..........

Thanks Rubie! The work you did will now provide a good base-line to work from for the new spawner system which will soon be implemented.