Declined [JB] Add jb_aztec (1 Viewer)

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Denzel Crocker

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This is a very fun looking map with a unique atmosphere and tons of minigames. This map also has feature found only on one other map (Bricker): a roulette wheel near cells and armory you can spin to choose a minigame if you can't choose one yourself.

MINIGAMES:
- Jump Rope
- Arena
- Sweeper
- Surf
- Deathcrate
- Box Game
- Fall Game
- Crush Game
- Steady Pace
- The Horde: Appears to be a minigame where you run around a maze dodging a horde of some sort of enemy, not unlike Ghost Hunt on Oranger.
- Soccer
- Dodgeball
- Danger Below
- Karts: What's cool about this one is that the course is none other than Super Mario Kart's Mario Circuit 4, graphics and everything!
- Minefield
- Bumble Beam
- Strafe Race
- Diner
- Disco
- Theater
- Pool
- Bunny Hop
- Stairway to Heaven
- Obby
- Connect 4
- Climb
- Deathrun
- Speedrun
- Necro Smash: Basically like Ban or No Ban from Opst.
- Memory Ladders: The most unique minigame on this map. In this one, you ascend a hill filled with abysses covered by three bridges, but only one is safe. When the minigame starts, you have to memorize the pattern shown to the best of your ability, then ascend the hill.

P.S. Yes I looked over this map.
 
The map is a pretty low quality famous clone, all of its “unique” games are actually just stolen from opst.
 
The map is a pretty low quality famous clone, all of its “unique” games are actually just stolen from opst.
- I don't see how this is a Famous clone. Both are atmospherically and structurally different in many ways. Maybe they share some things, but calling it an outright clone is kind of stretching it.
- Necro Smash is like Ban or Not Ban but is only three hammers instead of four and has no warning arrow, although the hammers move slow enough at first to give a fair warning. Memory Ladders is like Furry Finder but more complex and better. The description on GameBanana says it originates from opst but I don't ever recall seeing a "Memory Ladders" on opst so either it was just inspired by Furry Finder or was from an older version of opst.
 
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First off apologies for not clarifying more, I was at work at the time and didn't put enough thought into my response.

- I don't see how this is a Famous clone. Both are atmospherically and structurally different in many ways. Maybe they share some things, but calling it an outright clone is kind of stretching it.
Its a clone in terms of it being a bunch of giant hallways with minigames on the sides with few distinct landmarks. This is very problematic as on more complex maps such as this or site epsilon players will tend to get very lost.

Necro Smash is like Ban or Not Ban but is only three hammers instead of four and has no warning arrow, although the hammers move slow enough at first to give a fair warning. Memory Ladders is like Furry Finder but more complex and better. The description on GameBanana says it originates from opst but I don't ever recall seeing a "Memory Ladders" on opst so either it was just inspired by Furry Finder or was from an older version of opst.
Most games use slightly modified logic from their opst (or jb colors) counterparts, calling these minigames unique is comparable to calling crush game with solid colors and a crush game with patterns as separate unique games. Also being a better version of furry finder isn't saying much.
EDIT: I'm pretty sure the game you're talking about is also on opst, I believe it's called memory mash.

I also neglected to mention the maps lack of optimization. Currently the map is very similar to older versions of carnival as it renders a lot of stuff you shouldn't be rendering.

Here is the main cell area for example (note: for non source-engine nerds, less blue is better)
1664844386699.png


And in disco behind a closed door
1664844399312.png



I don't think the map should be added in its current state for these reasons, I have spoken to the map creator and he does plan on fixing some of these things later but for now I don't think the map is ready.
 
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Its a clone in terms of it being a bunch of giant hallways with minigames on the sides with few distinct landmarks. This is very problematic as on more complex maps such as this or site epsilon players will tend to get very lost.
So...like Bootcamp then? :scout1:
 
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I don't see why we shouldn't at least try this map out in its current state. By the time this map even gets added, some of those issues would have been fixed.
New maps are almost never a bad thing and it's sad seeing other servers run these maps before us and we miss out on all the fun.
The flaws are perfectly valid criticisms (that I agree with), but many of the maps we currently run have blatant objective flaws and are still in the rotation despite it.
It just feels like a lot of the community is following Semi on this because it’s a map we’ve never really played.
 
New maps are almost never a bad thing
Carnival and district remake had big issues when they were added. We cannot rely on Kevin either to keep maps up-to-date.

but many of the maps we currently run have blatant objective flaws and are still in the rotation despite it.
Aren't you contradicting yourself here? Or are you talking about different things between currently added maps and new ones?

It just feels like a lot of the community is following Semi on this because it’s a map we’ve never really played.
He is giving very good reasons on why the map should not be added, rather than just giving an opinion on it.

I had I playtest session with honey (the map creator) and a few of his friends. It didn't take long to encounter an issue similar to amazon that made most of the players crash from the game by playing a certain minigame. Not sure if it is already fixed, but I don't think that means that it is safe to add the map yet either.
Carnival had a minigame that made the server crash, it was fixed very quickly, but took a long time to be added. Same could happen with aztec here aswell.
 
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I had I playtest session with honey (the map creator) and a few of his friends. It didn't take long to encounter an issue similar to amazon that made most of the players crash from the game by playing a certain minigame. Not sure if it is already fixed, but I don't think that means that it is safe to add the map yet either.
Carnival had a minigame that made the server crash, it was fixed very quickly, but took a long time to be added. Same could happen with aztec here aswell.
If it's about server crashing stuff, then I completely agree with you, I was just referring to issues that weren't game-breaking.
I agree with Semis reasoning, I just feel that it's kinda silly to vote against it for those reasons, when there are maps with aztecs problems, in our rotation.
He didnt bring up the crashing, so I wasn't really aware of the crashing issue, so yeah my bad!
 
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jb_aztec has been running on another server for a week now with fairly positive reception.

It didn't take long to encounter an issue similar to amazon that made most of the players crash
Fixed 2 hours after that particular playtest.
Crash was caused by dynamic shadows exceeding the limit of 512.
The fix was to set disablereceiveshadows to 1 on all brush entities in the map.
In aztec, this removed 462 dynamic shadows from brush entities, and in amazonjungle (dev branch), this amount was 441.
Each player and their weapon creates a dynamic shadow, so a full 32 player server creates 64 extra shadows on top of the amount from brush entities.
After the fix was applied, no one has since crashed from CUtlLinkedList overflow.

I also neglected to mention the maps lack of optimization.
cells.png
disco.png
below.png
cells2.png

- Comparison screenshots of cell area, disco, and two extra pictures of the floor below cells and the door of cell area.
Due to a lack of time, I only added about 6 areaportals for CupOfHoney since the areaportals were spewing leak errors during compile with no clear fix (no .lin file created).
Fortunately since it's an indoor map, aztec gains the full benefits of Source's visleaf rendering system, so even without spamming areaportals everywhere, the map should still be sufficiently optimized for now.


Since I mainly helped CupOfHoney only with learning Hammer and making some fixes to his map, I can not say much about copy pasted minigames other than that this was his first map with progress starting 35 days before he released jb_wip_remake.
As for layout, this too was also a consequence of it being a first map, and since props have already been placed everywhere, any major changes will be very time consuming to complete.


Future of the map:
CupOfHoney agreed to do one last _final update, and he will be checking either this thread or a separate thread for input.
Currently, he already plans to further improve optimization and replace the two minigames closest to cells with different ones.

Any other suggestions that will make the map ready for Panda will help.
 
I wouldnt mind giving this Map a try since the crashing and rendering issues have been fixed which seemed to be the biggest problems.
 
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