Need guidance for map collection thread

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Acoma
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Need guidance for map collection thread

Post by Acoma »

Hello UT community.
I have spent the last year downloading every dm, ctf, dom, as map off the UnrealArchive.org (sorry server guys!) in order to make a collection of all the highest decent quality maps made for the game. the baseline criteria for map quality was "this could be a retail map". this way i could atleast ensure some standard of quality for the maps that were selected, as well as the obvious flags of if it runs without errors or not and if they support bots.
This idea was originally started just for myself since I have enjoyed this game for 20 years just like the rest of you have but I figure I might as well save someone the trouble of doing it themselves and list the maps in some form.

And so I would like to ask the moderators, users, mappers, and everyone exactly how I should go about doing this (or do it at all)
my basic idea is to either use cmdprompt to just list the folder or map names and list them in the post itself, or make a text file attachment that has the maps

I theoretically could make a torrent of what i downloaded which would be about 5gb but there would very clearly be something wrong with this because it would most likely go against a ton of mappers' wishes

so yeah i guess this is just a general discussion on the topic for my idea or even future use for others
Last edited by Acoma on Fri Dec 17, 2021 11:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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EvilGrins
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Re: Need guidance for map collection thread

Post by EvilGrins »

I don't know how it would go against mapper's wishes, they made the maps to be used by others and lots of mapping sites have done, essentially, the same thing you're proposing to do.

JackGriffin a stretch back did something similar with the entire database of skins that Skin City held, but as the original download for that went defunct I took my copy of what he did and placed it in my little UT-download space.

Like so · https://unreal-games.livejournal.com/126634.html

Anywho, I can't imagine anyone would object to what you're doing.
http://unreal-games.livejournal.com/
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Re: Need guidance for map collection thread

Post by Swanky »

The official stance for FoT maps on the matter is that you can host the maps as long as the ARCHIVES themselves are not changed. The same goes for my maps, although I have them all saved on moddb which means they're all available and relatively futureproof.
You'd be well off checking the readme files of the maps you want to include what the authors themselves have stated in there, otherwise they could ask you to change / take down the files.

To expand the topic for a bit. The same goes for MH conversions actually. A lot of them have been done here recently and I'm pretty sure not all authors were asked if that was okay. While my personal guess is that many would be nowadays, changes to those have been forbidden to their maps in the readme files. Those included Revelation's [solved] MH case, but also Derdak2Rot's FoT- conversion into an MH map. I myself was unable to reach out to him and his last appearance on the forum was ~10 years ago (?) and he didn't answer the mail sent to the account in the readme itself, but if you have his okay, please let me know via PM how you did it because I would like to ask him how he's been those years.
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Acoma
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Re: Need guidance for map collection thread

Post by Acoma »

EvilGrins wrote: Fri Dec 17, 2021 6:54 pm JackGriffin a stretch back did something similar with the entire database of skins that Skin City held, but as the original download for that went defunct I took my copy of what he did and placed it in my little UT-download space.
yeah the UT_Skins.7z archive is kind of what i had in mind but i feel like 5gb is a little too hefty and would end up getting corrupted one way or another, the skin archive itself is already unstable as it is. keep in mind that i would prefer to just make a list so people could just go to unrealarchive.org and download the files themselves. i feel like it would be a waste to not make use of the website.
i want it to be like more of a guide rather than an archive so you could search the map names and see all of the good maps without any of the bad. it was a real trip to see some of the cool things people have made in the past, but it also took forever since there were like 15000 maps to look through
EvilGrins wrote: Fri Dec 17, 2021 6:54 pm I don't know how it would go against mapper's wishes, they made the maps to be used by others and lots of mapping sites have done, essentially, the same thing you're proposing to do.

Anywho, I can't imagine anyone would object to what you're doing.
the problem would be if i was rehosting the maps. mappers on the forum have already expressed their feelings on having their work rehosted anywhere that they dont approve of. rehosting would also mean that people would take files out and maybe even rehost them again without the readmes, which in the history of the internet has almost always been the case. another reason why i dont want to rehost files is because links get destroyed over time especially if you are viewing them on an archive or saved version of a website. if it was just a plain text list then maybe even in 20 years someone could view the page on waybackmachine and find all the good maps from random sources, kind of dumb train of thought but thats just what i feel
Swanky wrote: Fri Dec 17, 2021 7:13 pm The official stance for FoT maps on the matter is that you can host the maps as long as the ARCHIVES themselves are not changed. The same goes for my maps, although I have them all saved on moddb which means they're all available and relatively futureproof.
You'd be well off checking the readme files of the maps you want to include what the authors themselves have stated in there, otherwise they could ask you to change / take down the files.
yep out of the fot packs there are 8 of them that were chosen. at first i didnt want to include any tagged map packs like fot or any of the ut99.org contest maps but some of the maps were so good that it became apparent it was necessary to include them. just without the not-so-good ones. in fact three of your maps, abandoned, dipolarity, and selket were the maps that changed my mind. seriously good stuff.

if the files were rehosted it would be in an unaltered form, the same packaging that they were in when i downloaded them off the unrealarchive. i believe every mapper of note (you know who you are) has a readme in every file with the exceptions of some weird offshoot maps. the way i structured it was that when i encountered a well made map i would then go and check that author's other works and download them all together, then if they had made more than one good map i put their work into a folder with the author's name on it. this resulted in 344 author folders with most them being well known and including proper readmes and files in their map files. if the author only ever made one good map i put their single map into a one-and-done type folder which containts 334 random assorted maps. the one-and-done folder is where the cool stuff is because it contains all the maps that would normally fly under peoples radar- which was also the whole point of doing this. however since the one-and-done maps were made by lesser known authors there are some files where there is no documentation at all and just a map file that contains no description or author name.
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Re: Need guidance for map collection thread

Post by Swanky »

The thing is that with "high quality" map packs, everyone's opinion on it will differ.
Take the aforementioned Dipolarity for example, it's a map that I personally no longer believe to be "very good". Because of it, I would refrain from ripping apart mappacks (which would be a violation of us asking you to include the archive in an unaltered form) and link to them if you do not want to include the archives in full.

PS: I don't remember creating a map named "Abandoned".
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Re: Need guidance for map collection thread

Post by OjitroC »

Obviously if all the maps on your list are widely available then there is little point in producing an archive with the maps in - it's likely that many people will have some, perhaps a lot, of them anyway.

If you produce a list of what you consider to be 'high quality' maps, you would need to indicate in detail what that term means (is it diferent to well-made or good?) and then go on to set out what, in your opinion, makes each entry in the list 'high quality'. Such a list could be useful though one would expect it to be subject to some discussion and possible dissension (see the numerous threads on here which deal directly with, or touch upon, this topic).
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Re: Need guidance for map collection thread

Post by Acoma »

Swanky wrote: Fri Dec 17, 2021 8:26 pm PS: I don't remember creating a map named "Abandoned".
hmm indeed what you were talking about is already true since the unrealarchive has you credited and the file has no readme. file was taken from here
king mango only has one other dom map listed that has simple geometry and so i didnt save it. i guess i didnt want abandoned to go into the one off folder so i put it into your folder instead. are you sure you didnt help him with it at all? there are other maps like this one where one author came up with the layout but half of the map was made by another - in which case i credited one author over the other.

splitting mappacks clearly has issues. would you be okay with linking abandoned in a list as it is on the unrealarchive, or would you prefer that people just download the actual mappack? this could be a problem because there are probably a dozen or so maps that have been split from their original mappack source and hosted on the archive as a single map. this is precisely the reason i made this thread instead of just puting a list up

and to sum up one more time i would be linking to the files that are already hosted on unrealarchive instead of hosting them (hoping this would make it okay to save the hassel of finding culprits in the list)
Swanky wrote: Fri Dec 17, 2021 8:26 pm The thing is that with "high quality" map packs, everyone's opinion on it will differ.
OjitroC wrote: Fri Dec 17, 2021 8:32 pm If you produce a list of what you consider to be 'high quality' maps, you would need to indicate in detail what that term means (is it diferent to well-made or good?) and then go on to set out what, in your opinion, makes each entry in the list 'high quality'. Such a list could be useful though one would expect it to be subject to some discussion and possible dissension (see the numerous threads on here which deal directly with, or touch upon, this topic).
yes it definitely would come down to preferences and opinion. absolutely it would. i dont want to promote this as "the perfect map collection" as some russian sites have done in the past, i merely want to present a list of maps that i consider to be of considerable quality as the opinion of someone who has played the game since it was made (not much of an accomplishment here i know)
Swanky wrote: Fri Dec 17, 2021 8:26 pm Take the aforementioned Dipolarity for example, it's a map that I personally no longer believe to be "very good".
you say that but i believe dipolarity to be an exceptional map. in objectively speaking terms you could say that the geometry, layout, and theme of the map are very simple- but i feel that simplicity is exactly what makes it a perfect tournament map. the gameplay is very good with many paths to take and open spaces to have proper battles in and no obstacles to hang up on. not only that but the lighting is very well done and makes the simple geometry POP. jesus what a great map its fucking beautiful. so already i feel that the map is better than the other 4000 ctf maps on the archive. and even without the opinionated part if you observe this map in contrast to the retail maps that come with the game it stands out even more. thats why i used "could this be a retail map" as a baseline for judgement. if the map didnt meet that criteria it would be disqualified essentially. yes its not a respresentation of the newest maps but that was not what i was aiming for anyways. i wanted to make a collection of maps that represent the gameplay and spirit of the game itself without having any of the "giant square with instagibs" type of maps. not the best of the best, but a collection of everything that was good from 1999 to now.

so if a map has bad geometry maybe it has exceptional iighting. if a map has a bad layout, maybe it has beautiful visuals. if a map is small maybe it has good gameplay. some maps were added due to their historical value. one example being kid ying's famous bedrooms map.

so you see i tried to make the list as objective as possible without the influence of opinion. tried to.
hopefully if the list ever gets posted you will see what i meant but for now just know that im not trying to be the absolute judge or anything, i just want people to see all the cool maps that have been made over 20 years
OjitroC wrote: Fri Dec 17, 2021 8:32 pm If you produce a list of what you consider to be 'high quality' maps, you would need to indicate in detail what that term means (is it diferent to well-made or good?) and then go on to set out what, in your opinion, makes each entry in the list 'high quality'. Such a list could be useful though one would expect it to be subject to some discussion and possible dissension (see the numerous threads on here which deal directly with, or touch upon, this topic).
so this was the thing, on the list should there be a map key, which designates the quality or criteria of the map, and should this be used to group certain maps together, and should the thread constantly change to reflect people's ratings, and should these ratings be transferred to the archive in some way? the problem is that i would have to go through 2000+ maps and observe all of this criteria, but maybe thats a good thing because i also want to make a screenshot background collection of all the maps. maybe i could leave this to moderators or anyone interested? lots of ideas. in hindsight though i should have done all of that as i was downloading the maps but i wanted to focus on getting the project done instead of procrastinating and making too much work
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Re: Need guidance for map collection thread

Post by Swanky »

As far as King Mango's Abandoned map goes, I've never been a part of that map as in a creator sense. The map was part of the very first release of the Flags of Time mappack, the first FoT mappack, but was pulled by Mango because he believed it was too buggy and didn't meet standards. Even though I didn't want to at the time (and I made a fuss over it), Mango was absolutely within his rights to pull the map off the pack and ultimately it was the right decision. However, while the map still bears the FoT prefix, I personally don't see this map as part of the FoT mappacks anymore. In fact, no version beyond the first release has this map and I'm not even sure it was re-released afterwards. As such, I cannot say anything about its current quality, rights of inclusion or anything else about it.

Thus the point of not splitting FoT mappacks still stands.

I think there used to be a thread on this forum as what maps people deemed high quality... several, in fact. End of the day, might be better to hone those and link to the maps in question to the places where they're hosted. Given people have different opinions on what makes a good map and it will always be a subjective point anyway, the selection will give people enough room to decide for themselves, and it will avoid issues with collecting and re-releasing maps.


Ah yes,
here and
here (this one should really be filled to brim but sadly isn't)
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Re: Need guidance for map collection thread

Post by Acoma »

im sorry i wrote the highest quality maps but thats not really what i meant. this collection of maps is meant to essentially be a compressed version of the unrealarchive but with all of the not-so-good maps trimmed off. it was never supposed to be the highest quality but good quality. my apologies for the confusion. ive edited the OP.

perhaps im overthinking all of this and should just make a basic thread with the list but now im starting to think that its pointless to list them unless there are some tags for each map
its true that most people have probably seen all of the well known maps so maybe the list should instead focus on lesser known maps? seems more useful but then again there are people that barely know any mappers
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Re: Need guidance for map collection thread

Post by NemesisNeS »

Found this by accident looking for a few long lost maps... didn't find what I was looking for but I figured I'd share this with you here. It's a simple format if you're still looking to bring about a map collection site/page.... well site mostly. Unless you're going with a list then that's a totally different topic all together. Anyway, here it is your moment of zen.

https://utfiles.lagout.org/Maps
Feeling the urge to kill people who put up links with advertisements....
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