OjitroC wrote: ↑Sat Feb 13, 2021 2:36 pmComing back to incomplete archives with missing dependencies, I'm interested in what Shrimp thinks about blocking their upload?
At worst, It might be interesting to show a warning for the uploader and allow them to continue or not, but not outright blocking uploads which have missing dependencies.
For example there are maps for gametypes which don't yet have representation in the system, so you'd never be able to upload those.
OjitroC wrote: ↑Sat Feb 13, 2021 2:36 pm
A further enhancement of the utility of site would be, as I've suggested before, to provide a link to a missing dependency - this would make more maps playable and would be easier for users as the site's current search function doesn't seem to search for .utx, .umx or .uax files - this kind of search has to be done using an external search engine which just adds a further layer to the process.
I'd like to add something like this, it's just a question of getting the time to sit down and do it. I've had several ideas for automatically resolving dependencies and even repackaging files with all their dependencies included based on what can be found elsewhere in the archive, it's just a bunch of work that needs to be planned and done.
Each dependency on a file already has a "providedBy" attribute, since dependencies were first introduced, which is intended to link to other content which contains dependencies if they're missing. I recently spent several days refactoring a lot of code to start moving things toward being able to make proper use of this.
OjitroC wrote: ↑Sat Feb 13, 2021 2:36 pm
A pedantic note : the help text for the dependencies icon shows 'no dependencies' when the map has dependencies but these are provided in the map archive so it is somewhat inaccurate and potentially misleading. Presumably it should actually state 'no missing dependencies' (this would also be true when a map uses only stock assets which obviously do not need to be provided in the archive)?
Seems like a bug, that current help text doesn't make a lot of sense, will fix.
OjitroC wrote: ↑Sat Feb 13, 2021 2:36 pm
Whilst it might be 'nice' to indicate which maps have duplicated actors, I doubt if the majority of the site's users would know what this means in the sense of understanding the implictations of this - so what are the practical implications? Does it render a map unplayable? What actors are duplicated as presumably this is germane to an understanding of the implications and consequences? The cognoscenti would get it but all this would need to be explained to the ordinary map user/player individually for each map with duplicate actors. This might be rather too complex a task for a website whose prrimary purpose is the archiving of content. There are other mapping errors that can have a significant impact on the playability of maps - fatal BSP holes are an example - should maps be checked for this and the results noted?
I actually have no idea what a duplicated actor is, what the effect of such may be, how it manifests and how it may be detected by reading package contents.
Similarly for a lot of the other issues mentioned.
I'm interested in trying to provide useful and interesting metadata gleaned from map data available, as it enhances the vale of the archive somewhat, especially in years time when someone's looking through the data, hopefully it grants some useful insight into the contents, or perhaps helps filtering things based on someone else's projects, etc. A lot of this information may just end up being represented by an icon or something indicating "There may be problems with this content" or something, since to a lot of people a lot of the things discussed here so far are rather low level, as has been mentioned.
Again however, this just comes down to finding the time to build it, and looking at what may be interesting aspects to indes. Unfortunately I don't hold 21 years of known mapping problems and permutation in my head so I don't know any of this stuff until it's actually suggested or brought up - and importantly has some description of specifically what it means and what I'd have to look for within package files to realise.
OjitroC wrote: ↑Sat Feb 13, 2021 2:36 pm
To me, however, it seems much more important that archives on the site are oganised and categorised correctly, if only for the sake of accuracy and the ease of finding files. To take but one example (which I've noted before) - if one looks at Voice Packs, there is one Unreal Voice Pack - in passing, this in itself should be enough to 'set off alarm bells', why only one when UT99 and UT2k4 have hundreds - but it might seduce the unwary into thinking "someone's found a way of using VPs in Unreal", download it and then find that it is, of course, for UT99. Conversely others may be deterred from looking at it at all as it is listed under Unreal. The same goes for Maps - so, for example, someone looking for Monster Match maps won't find any if they look for a Monster Match category as there isn't one though there is on other major file sites.
I agree that categorisation and organisation is a primary concern. Everything currently on the website that's not simply a collection of plain text links to mirrored content are features above and beyond the original scope of the system. The idea is and always will be, primarily, to try to find and index as much user made content as possible and make sure it's reachable in some form or another, for the next 20 years. Everything beyond that is a "nice-to-have".
This is not to say I'm not interested in building additional features and functionality, as I do think enriching the content with additional metadata where it makes sense adds to the long term value of the content database. Things like dependency tracking is obviously of significant value for archival purposes.
The main issue, as pointed out above, is simply my time to get everything done.
I do not want to really be the quality police, and do things like throw away content with missing dependencies for example, because it's not unreasonable to consider that in time, someone may well introduce tooling to at least work around things like broken/missing references (I can see this happening easily enough with direct package editing - to recover this sort of content). It may not be of much playable value to us right now, but it may well be recoverable by determined individuals.
sektor2111 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 13, 2021 5:11 pm
Duplicated Actors = might be a
Low level Mapping auto-completed CheckBox.
Perhaps Low Level Mapping for some admins might need an English to English translation - and a stupid UT networking manual...
The rest should be some words/symbols/colors explained in a Legend Section of the main Web-page linked from every single Map description and then interested users will have a clue what is about.
- Contains No Net actors;
- Contains screwed actors - Not seen in Networking or spam actors;
- Contains PlayerStarts into void - rejects Player - some servers are having this auto-fixed;
- DM with CTFflags spamming errors;
- Empty map - no weapons;
- No brushes in map;
- Has MyLevel Assets; - I'm 200 × times interested about creative stuff;
- etc.
These are some interesting additional things to look into flagging, thanks.