Lately there has been quite a few people, retexturing and reworking official dod maps. And frankly I think this is bloody cheeky.

If you don't like a map the way it is, then FFS don't just decompile it and try to change it, if one of my maps were published and shipped with 1.0 I would be very pissed off if some newb mapper came along and tried to edit it in their own way, espically without my consent.

So to all the guys who are rextexturing, reworking and freely editing maps without consent or good reason, please just stop, think up some of your own ideas and make your own map.

I believe they aren't recompiling, just changing wad, dod_flash style. Maybe I'm wrong though....

They're just changing the textures in the wad man. Calm the **** down. They're allowed to do it now because it's owned by valve.

Yes, they are just changing the wad but I don't think that is monkeyboy's main problem.

What I was doing wasn't .wad editing. And I didn't decompile either. I just heavily hex-edited the .bsp. You can't possibly complain because if someone re-skins a weapon it is just as bad as re-modifying a map. Same concept. Saying that the original just wasn't good enough. Now that this is over, lets get on with our lives. :p

While I can see why monkey boy is upset, I think that they are well within their rights to change the texturing of the map on their own computers for their own enjoyment. Just as dod is a mod of half-life, their work is a mod of the respective maps.

I don't find this to be disrespectful to the mappers, except when these modifications are displayed as "improvements". With that in mind however, if the mapper requests that this not be done to their map, that request should be honored. It is their map, regardless of legal ownership. But, that has yet to happen, and until it does, there is no purpose for debate.

posted my conclusions in the other thread.

hex-editing is imho the same as decompiling - altering - recompiling.

You can do what you want as long as you don't release it or even start posting threads about it without explicit saying you won't release altered material on these forums.

If you really want to release something you modified: you should ALWAYS do it with the author's consent. End of story.

I don't believe in map skinning...if someone is using the default skins with a white snow map...they have a sight advantage to those using the normal textures on most cases.

I can see where you are coming from Monkeyboy. There are a few points this raises.

I believe its ok to play around with a map, for experimental purposes. Its always interesting to see what you can do to a map by editing its immediate entities and texturing, I know the next lan I go to it would be interesting to see what caen2 with a few additional entities spawned around the place with lighting decreased and texturing adjusted.

However, I would say that re-releasing the map is very unacceptable, especially if no credit is given. You simply cannot release someone elses work.

It's always good to play around, experiment and see what modifications you can make with DoD. I think the community is aware of the limitations and until someone releases someone elses work as their own I see no reason to kick up a fuss about it.

This is just plain crazy. Have fun finding servers that will run these revamped maps. I for one won't run, play or download any map of this nature. I encourage others to do the same.

Originally posted by El Capitan
I can see where you are coming from Monkeyboy. There are a few points this raises.

I believe its ok to play around with a map, for experimental purposes. Its always interesting to see what you can do to a map by editing its immediate entities and texturing, I know the next lan I go to it would be interesting to see what caen2 with a few additional entities spawned around the place with lighting decreased and texturing adjusted.

However, I would say that re-releasing the map is very unacceptable, especially if no credit is given. You simply cannot release someone elses work.

It's always good to play around, experiment and see what modifications you can make with DoD. I think the community is aware of the limitations and until someone releases someone elses work as their own I see no reason to kick up a fuss about it.

Hmmm..it's a thin line here.

I think in v1.1, DoD should 'lock' certain files. Already, i see certain methods of cheating (altering mdls, altering textures so u can see thru them, etc.). Of course, CAL competitions and server mods can check for file consistencies.

Better lock! I'm sure in TOD mod they also did the same. In Natural selection, they also better lock the player models which i feel they shouldn't have done. In DoD, leave player models intact. It would be even better to have a "list of certified/allowed" files that the server checks. Remember, i'm only refering to map models and map wads that should be locked!

THe reason why the wads are external is most probably to save space. Though of course since each map has 1 wad of its own, it's pretty dumb and doesn't save much disk space.

I do wish we had a locked common wads for ALL maps to use that msot maps could utilise, arranged in categories (eg. avanti/italian, windows_generic, doors_generic, buildings_generic, southen_france_generic, normandy, water_generic) ! Then, we can perhaps have more quantity of maps, but since they all use pre-defined wads already avaiable by default in the dod folder, it doesn't take any much disk space, just like how most maps in dod v1.0 use the default sounds that come with DoD. Then, if you have any unique textures/sounds pertaining to ONLY yr map, you can compile them into the .bsp or place them in a seperate folder. In this way, each map download should be no higher than 1.0 MB. It's far more convenient and can afford more DoD content on a dod package. That's why Half-life singleplayer maps can have such a BIG adventure, yet take up reasonable MB space because all those maps share the infamous halflife.wad!

I mean, editing a wad and hex editing a .bsp might be fun. Who knows what we might come up with! Maybe we can have a night caen, or a evening caen, or maps with different time and weather or a spring/snow/season theme! And maybe you can use it as part of a BFE style campaign!

But as always, i think this must be commonly accepted practise among the DoD community...which currently it isn't. To begin with, islands designed in OFP or maps designed in Tribes 1/2, always end up being modified in terms of weather, time etc., and this is a commonly accepted practise in such games. Mappers in these games that release their map usually don't mind pple changing the weather/fog values, etc., though of course i think it would be quite uneitical to press "F11" and change the the whole map to something else and say its their own work and save it.

WHen it coems to something like this, a line must be drawn for a game such as DoD.

Let's be extra-careful to avoid even the slightest appearance of a flame war here, OK?

Probably it will give them heavy advantage when playing if they use hacked map and everyone else default one. This is real danger.

One of the reasons behind DoD's popularity is that there is so much leeway given to modify sounds/models/weapons/etc. The cottage industries that have sprung up keep the game refreshing and fun. The Wad-switch-out thing has been known about for years and as far as someone re-texturing maps...let them...I imagine 1 or two servers out of several thousand might load those maps up for a day or so...then take them off...so it's really much ado about nothing and to give yourself to rage over it is really silly.

They important thing here is that someone is trying to add to the multitude of things one can do with arguably the most open-sourced game engine in the world and I'm not upset at all...if for anything else it helps those people to map better i'm all for it...we need custom mappers to grow in numbers and skill and there's nothing wrong with decompiling a map or trying new things as long as it's in good spirit.

True story...I learned how to make walls blow up by decompiling dod_hill years ago...remember those two places in the wall where you could place tnt and "blow them up"...they were actually func_doors that slid down rather fast (you could step back and watch them drop into the ground if you looked carefully)...I used that priciple in para_glider before I learned the func_wall_toggle trick.

Originally posted by Craftos
Probably it will give them heavy advantage when playing if they use hacked map and everyone else default one. This is real danger.

:confused:
FYI...you can't play a hacked map on your client that is different from the servers. (assuming I am reading you right.)

Anyway...

FuzzDad: gold star for you for using "cottage industry" in a post. I have to say, I'm with you on this one. Maybe it's cause i'm the 3rd or 4th oldest mapper :rolleyes:

The retexturing of maps could be considered an exploit. What if a person opened dod_glider's wad and changed all semi transparent textures to completely blue. Then they would have a huge advantage in areas where people hide behind the foliage, because to that person the foliage would not even be there. I like that all textures are open for people to use, but I feel that textures should still be compiled into the maps.

the blue thing doesn't work like that.
all the brushes would have to be changed into entities and have their rendermode set to solid '255'

but still, what if people go and replace all the textures with plain white ones :/

or knowing me............ goat man or pictuar, or flying_cow D:

I thought that if you change the map files, or have the wrong map file, the server wouldn't allow you to connect.

Originally posted by kleinluka
...what if people go and replace all the textures with plain white ones :/


True...but the texture replacement thing has been around since...well...forever. Any clan that does that should be drawn and quartered...but we need to balance the good with the bad...the release of the wads might lead a few monkeymen to do the dirty deed...but it will also lead to many more folks making nice-looking maps cause we have some very cool wads to work from (Jagd in particular). Kinda like balancing out realism with game play.

A majority of the negative forum posters never get it (those that flame rather than offer constructive criticism) that DoD is one of the most balanced and inclusive games in the history of PC gaming...giving out the wads will more than compensate for any other problem it might create.

I was reading the posts on core team members lying about weapon changes and I realized that no matter what good you do there will always be a small percentage of population that refuses to believe you...no matter the irrefutable grip of logic or fact involved. It's the same percent that cheats on exams, thinks there was a man on the grassy knoll, lives in a van down by the river and thinks Milli Vanilli was a great and original band.

Originally posted by FuzzDad
but we need to balance the good with the bad...the release of the wads might lead a few monkeymen to do the dirty deed...but it will also lead to many more folks making nice-looking maps cause we have some very cool wads to work from (Jagd in particular). Kinda like balancing out realism with game play.



that's why i released my wad before release :D

But it would still be good for mappers to compile their masked textures into the .bsp.

But i understand how troublesome and terrible it is!

I really understand. It would simply mean you must compile your stupid textures in some other wad and use wadinclude.

Wish there was a tool that would automatically compile certain textures used in the map with certain characters in it. Much easier job to do. Is there such a tool or parameter? "-textureinclude 'SELECT ALL with "{" ' ?? It would simply require a simple recompile, without having to manually re-texture the parts of your completed maps again!

Then again, i always like using the Texture Replace tool :D

the blue thing doesn't work like that.
all the brushes would have to be changed into entities and have their rendermode set to solid '255'

but still, what if people go and replace all the textures with plain white ones :/




No, I mean if they replaced all {textures with pure blue. Then, for instance, where most players would see a shrub, another player would see right through it.

I just think textures should be compiled into the map, and then release the textures seperately to mappers.

I think of map texture changing as the same as skins you can get over in the MSA forum.

With the right skill a map can be altered to look far better to many people, just as the skins in the MSA forums can look great to many but not others. Those that don't like them need not download them and everybody's happy.

It's only dodgy when someone starts releasing the map with higher lighting and such, so the dark spots that most people see as dark seem light. Or releasing a map full of white textures as someone said earlier. But this is no worse than releasing a model skinned with bright green textures or something - it just has to be policed. Something mods round here should watch out for.

I would just hate to see it turn out like the MSA forums. Like all the Ugly "hacks" released with no credit or recognition what-so-ever.

Just point out the hacks and they'll get dealt with.

Of course, credit and such goes without saying. It's just a shame the MSA forums don't deal with it amazingly well from what I hear.