Two Small OLDC Notices

[MascaraSnake]

Originally Posted by Fawfulfan

If I may give my two cents here, I grudgingly understand why Circuit should go (even though it means one less division to have fun with), but at the same time I think it should come back once the gametype itself has been cleaned up.

If you think that it can be "cleaned up", then maybe you don't understand why Mystic wants it to go. The problem isn't just with practical issues like lives or no spectators. If that was the case, the devs could just fix these issues and everybody would be happy. No, the problem is that Race is a flawed gametype in itself. I'm not gonna repeat why; it's been said numerous times in this topic.

Originally Posted by Fawfulfan

bunch of example

White Mountain (no exit) and Misty Mire (broken flag behavior) are odd examples, because they're the equivalent of a Circuit map without a finish line. We'Re not talking about technically unplayable maps, but practically unplayable maps. Regarding your examples of "badass Circuit levels", both of these have had their fair share controversy: In Thunder Factory, a lot of people complained about the fans, which were the main attraction of the map. Lost Feelings Islands was called an uninteresting thokfest by many. There hasn't been a single Circuit maps for 2.0 that I would say has received universal acclaim, while there have been at least two (if not three) for Match. (To be fair, I think we have a similar problem with CTF, but at least CTF maps get more diverse feedback.)

Originally Posted by Fawfulfan

My biggest fear is that by dropping Circuit entirely from the OLDC, we'll discourage people with actual talent from working on such maps.

Au contraire, I think that is one of the things that Mystic (and everybody who supports this decision) hopes for. That talented people are discouraged to waste their time with a gametype that is so flawed that every effort to make a "perfect" map will ultimately fail. In the end, wouldn't it be better if we just ditched the concept of Circuit maps and went back to playing Race on Single Player maps?

[Mystic]

Originally Posted by SpiritCrusher

I think that is one of the things that Mystic (and everybody who supports this decision) hopes for. That talented people are discouraged to waste their time with a gametype that is so flawed that every effort to make a "perfect" map will ultimately fail. In the end, wouldn't it be better if we just ditched the concept of Circuit maps and went back to playing Race on Single Player maps?

This is exactly my intent with this change with one exception: I don't just want to discourage talented people from making circuit maps; I want to discourage everyone from making them. If a beginning mapper selects the circuit gametype, they're doomed from the start, which just isn't something we want to happen to people who might turn out to be those talented mappers later on.

[Simsmagic]

Just get rid of it completely if you're really so hell-bent on making sure that nobody plays it at all. Obviously every circuit map ever sucks SO much that by not getting rid of it, you're deliberately making the game worse. You don't seem to care about the outburst that will result, anyways.

[K.S.]

Originally Posted by Mystic

This is exactly my intent with this change with one exception: I don't just want to discourage talented people from making circuit maps; I want to discourage everyone from making them. If a beginning mapper selects the circuit gametype, they're doomed from the start, which just isn't something we want to happen to people who might turn out to be those talented mappers later on.

In other words, you hate the gametype enough that you want to damper any potential fun anyone else can get out of it by trying to make sure it receives no new content whatsoever? Are we going to automatically reject any submissions which contain Circuit maps to discourage people from making more, too?

Just because you don't like the gametype and you theorize it can't work doesn't mean you should try to knock the damn thing down and murder anyone else's attempts to have fun with it. In practice, it can actually be a decently fun gametype, no matter how "broken" it is.

Additionally, the fact that your suggestion has any chance in hell of actually working should give you a great idea of exactly how dead the creative side of this community really is.

[Mystic]

Originally Posted by Simsmagic

Just get rid of it completely if you're really so hell-bent on making sure that nobody plays it at all. Obviously every circuit map ever sucks SO much that by not getting rid of it, you're deliberately making the game worse. You don't seem to care about the outburst that will result, anyways.

Clearly I do care about the outburst or I would have done so. Instead I'm going with the approach we currently take with tag: if you like it, feel free to play it and have fun, but understand that it isn't balanced and you're likely to end up in situations that are unfair, such as the classic example of someone getting Elemental in Infernal Cavern in tag, switching to Knuckles, and climbing one of the lava falls. There are a lot of things in circuit that are similarly unbalanced, and we're not going to spend developer time and energy fixing it, but if you still like it, don't let me discourage you from having your fun.

Originally Posted by 犬夜叉

In other words, you hate the gametype enough that you want to damper any potential fun anyone else can get out of it by trying to make sure it receives no new content whatsoever? Are we going to automatically reject any submissions which contain Circuit maps to discourage people from making more, too?

犬夜叉, you really need to tone your dramatic flair down a bit. Clearly this isn't my intent; I just stated my full and direct intent above. If you have fun with the mode, feel free to keep creating content. In fact I quite assume Blade and several others are going to continue to do so. Of course they will be accepted as submissions to releases if they follow all the other requirements. They will also likely get proper and real feedback in the releases section just like all the other releases. I just don't want to encourage mappers to waste their time on a gametype that isn't balanced and never will be. We don't have a tag division of the OLDC either.

Originally Posted by 犬夜叉

Just because you don't like the gametype and you theorize it can't work doesn't mean you should try to knock the damn thing down and murder anyone else's attempts to have fun with it. In practice, it can actually be a decently fun gametype, no matter how "broken" it is.

Again, clearly I'm not doing that. If you have fun with it, feel free to continue to have fun with it. Circuit is not as broken as Chaos by any stretch of the imagination, and since a significant number of people actually still play it and enjoy it (something that was not true of Chaos), I'm not planning to axe it.

Originally Posted by 犬夜叉

Additionally, the fact that your suggestion has any chance in hell of actually working should give you a great idea of exactly how dead the creative side of this community really is.

Explain this for me, 犬夜叉. I don't see how my executing a plan to lower the amount of time spent on a gametype that doesn't have a very good track record has anything to do with diminishing the creativity of our community. While I agree that the quantity of released content has gone down dramatically, I'd say that the quality and creativity has gone UP in general. Just play through the single player division of the OLDC now and compare it to the single player divisions from 1.09.4. I just immediately think of Thompson and his excellent and completely different single player design. All I see here is an overly dramatic message with no basis in anything.

[K.S.]

Originally Posted by Mystic

Explain this for me, 犬夜叉. I don't see how my executing a plan to lower the amount of time spent on a gametype that doesn't have a very good track record has anything to do with diminishing the creativity of our community. While I agree that the quantity of released content has gone down dramatically, I'd say that the quality and creativity has gone UP in general. Just play through the single player division of the OLDC now and compare it to the single player divisions from 1.09.4. I just immediately think of Thompson and his excellent and completely different single player design. All I see here is an overly dramatic message with no basis in anything.

I believe you missed my point entirely... how many submissions have you actually seen in Releases - Submissions recently?

The OLDC is practically the only thing bringing in new maps at this point... which shouldn't be surprising, given how rarely anything from Releases gets played on the Master Server, or anywhere else for that matter. The OLDC is basically the only place where you get some sort of a guarantee that your map WILL be played by someone in a moderately-large netgame. As such, removing Circuit from the OLDC is practically a death knell for the gametype... which is why I rant.

This sort of "nobody knows exactly what makes a map good, everyone has their own ideas" thing happens in Trackmania too. You've got many groups of people that think if the brake button is ever used the track is awful, while others think the brake is god and MUST be used somewhere for a track to be good. And these preferences most certainly come into play during the monthly contests they run, but... you don't see anyone clamoring that the contests should be stopped because there's no definitive "right" way to make tracks.

I see Circuit in a similar manner. People disagree on what exactly makes a good Circuit map, and yet this is suddenly a massive strike against it.

[Mystic]

This is what I mean by your dramatic flair being useless. There is absolutely no way to figure out your point by what you originally wrote.

I agree that submissions has been dead, but I really don't think that has anything to do with the lack of people playing the files as much as it does with a lack of people making the files to begin with. Look at the popularity of D00D Kart, a file that is a simple compilation of a bunch of stages for a unique multiplayer gametype. The players are there; the creators are not. Our community standards for what is worth playing have gone dramatically up, but the average skill of people trying to create files hasn't changed at all, meaning that many people give up when they realize the effort that would be required to succeed, kinda like the old running joke about people starting character WADs and then immediately giving up when they realize actual work is involved.

As sort of a case and point, the OLDC itself has had a drop in entries recently, ESPECIALLY the circuit division. So far this year we've had 22 sp, 21 match, 18 ctf, and 10 circuit levels, whereas at this time last year we had 27 sp, 25 match, 21 ctf, and 20 circuit levels. This includes the extremely weak showing that we had for the Sept/Oct 10 contest, I'll note. If you want, you can consider the dropping of the circuit division being due to a pure lack of interest from participants. Obviously because I said I was removing it, the next contest is going to likely have a very large number of circuit entries, but if I hadn't said anything I suspect that it would have just followed the same pattern of having very few entries compared to the rest of the divisions.

[MascaraSnake]

The maps submitted to the Releases section are typically one of the following:

• multiplayer maps with custom resources
• improved versions of maps previously released in the OLDC
• maps for EXE modifications (e.g. Kart maps)

It is no coincidence that these are exactly those maps that cannot be released in the contest. You know why Releases is dead? Because everyone submits their maps to the OLDC if possible. And why not? If your map is eligible for the contest, there is no reason to put it in Releases instead. If Kart maps were allowed in the OLDC, for example, there wouldn't be many of them in Releases.

Now what do you think will happen when the Circuit division is discontinued? Will the number of Circuit maps made in this community go down? Absolutely. But I think that it's the number of bad and half-assed maps that will go down, not the number of good maps. For example, there will be no need to make something like Stupid Circuit once the Circuit division is gone. Maps like "obnoioxies mym litltle pnony refenrence znone" wouldn't even make it through Submissions. Maps like Burned Mystic Desert Zone (sorry, had to pick somebody for an example) would likely be ignored, but is that a terrible loss? I don't think so.

What I hope for is that the good Circuit maps will still get their attention. I can only hope that people like Blade who are capable of making high-quality Circuit maps will continue to do so. If you bundle them in a pack like D00D Kart, I assure you people will play it. And Fawfulfan, I honestly have to call you a hypocrite if you say on one hand that without the OLDC as a platform, you would have never made your own Circuit maps, and then on the other hand fear for the fate of the gametype if Mystic kills the Circuit division off. If you do care for Circuit, then why don't you continue to make maps and put them into Releases? If you don't care for Circuit, then why are you complaining? The fate of Circuit maps depends entirely on this community's willingness to a. make content for it and b. play that content. If that doesn't happen, then it's obvious that this community has no serious interest in the gametype.

In other words, if Circuit dies as a gametype after Mystic removes it from the OLDC, don't blame him. Blame yourself for not showing interest.

[koopa badnik]

Originally Posted by Mystic

Because it sucks. I'm not going to remove it at this point, but there are plenty of good reasons to remove it with no replacement. The first and most obvious one is that we don't want people to load up SRB2 multiplayer for the first time, select a mode at random and land on circuit, and discover it royally sucks. Many players wouldn't even TRY the other gametypes because that first one was so bad, and never try netplay again.

If we're going that route, anybody who plays multiplayer in this day in age is going to notice this game has no lag compensation and very few non-home connection hosted servers and then never try netplay again. I am not arguing that circuit isn't a shallow gamemode, because it is. It just seems to me that removing circuit really isn't going to change anything significantly one way or the other in what the primary thing is that drives people away from multiplayer, and by extension, the creation of new custom content.

Originally Posted by SpiritCrusher

Now what do you think will happen when the Circuit division is discontinued? Will the number of Circuit maps made in this community go down? Absolutely. But I think that it's the number of bad and half-assed maps that will go down, not the number of good maps. For example, there will be no need to make something like Stupid Circuit once the Circuit division is gone. Maps like "obnoioxies mym litltle pnony refenrence znone" wouldn't even make it through Submissions. Maps like Burned Mystic Desert Zone (sorry, had to pick somebody for an example) would likely be ignored, but is that a terrible loss? I don't think so.

This may not have been the point you meant to bring up, but here goes: If you apply that logic to all gametypes, by eliminating the OLDC entirely, you will get rid of all half-assed maps. Also, you ensure that people are creating maps for the sake of creating maps, not creating maps for the sake of them being assigned an arbitrary number. People really should be creating content solely for their and other's enjoyment.

(Not necessarily suggesting that you remove the OLDC, I understand that it is a long running tradition. This post meant for philosophical use only. That being said, your mileage may vary.)

[MascaraSnake]

Originally Posted by koopa badnik

This may not have been the point you meant to bring up, but here goes: If you apply that logic to all gametypes, by eliminating the OLDC entirely, you will get rid of all half-assed maps.

You are forgetting that the OLDC is mainly there as a feedback mechanism. For reasons outlined in other posts before me, it isn't working well as a feedback mechanism for Circuit because the feedback people are giving on Circuit is of little use. In the other gametypes, I'd rather endure half-assed maps than give up that feedback mechanism. In Circuit, the feedback isn't working, so the division should be removed. That this will probably also cut down the number of half-assed maps is just a pleasant side-effect.

[Mystic]

Originally Posted by koopa badnik

If we're going that route, anybody who plays multiplayer in this day in age is going to notice this game has no lag compensation and very few non-home connection hosted servers and then never try netplay again. I am not arguing that circuit isn't a shallow gamemode, because it is. It just seems to me that removing circuit really isn't going to change anything significantly one way or the other in what the primary thing is that drives people away from multiplayer, and by extension, the creation of new custom content.

Yes, the netcode definitely sucks, but when the rest of the game is actually fun enough, people are willing to overlook a few quirks if they're still having fun. There's no way that they're going to put up with bad netcode AND bad gameplay.

[darkbob1713]

I don't see a point in worrying so much about multiplayer when there isn't a tolerable netcode in the first place.

[Spherallic]

Originally Posted by koopa badnik

Also, you ensure that people are creating maps for the sake of creating maps, not creating maps for the sake of them being assigned an arbitrary number. People really should be creating content solely for their and other's enjoyment.

Well, I already do exactly that. I enter maps into the OLDC to hopefully entertain people, but also because it is by far the best way to ensure that my multiplayer maps will actually get played.

In regards to the rest of your reply, removing the OLDC entirely would really grind the creation of custom multiplayer content to a halt. Sure, we would get rid of most half-assed maps... together with the actually enjoyable content.

[Fawfulfan]

Originally Posted by SpiritCrusher

And Fawfulfan, I honestly have to call you a hypocrite if you say on one hand that without the OLDC as a platform, you would have never made your own Circuit maps, and then on the other hand fear for the fate of the gametype if Mystic kills the Circuit division off. If you do care for Circuit, then why don't you continue to make maps and put them into Releases? If you don't care for Circuit, then why are you complaining?

How am I being a hypocrite for pointing this out? I was using my own behavior as an example. I vastly prefer the OLDC as a showcase for my work because it is far more visible and guarantees a healthy dose of the feedback that helps me improve my level design technique. Therefore, if Circuit is removed from the OLDC, I will have a substantially diminished incentive to even try designing anything for it.

I don't see how that automatically means I don't care about the gametype; I'm not rabidly passionate about it, sure, but I like to have the option of playing it, and I like to have a steady stream of new content courtesy of the OLDC. Even really awful levels are at least entertaining in the sense that I can get a good laugh out of them and then pen a lengthy and withering review.

I'm just curious: are you basing your argument off the old saying that people who don't participate in the political process don't have the right to criticize their public officials? Because this isn't a very good extension of that argument; voting for a public official doesn't require the creative resources of designing a level. I wouldn't have the energy (or the time), to singlehandedly attempt to keep Circuit alive by churning out maps for Releases on a regular basis; I fail to understand how this means I must not care enough about the gametype to be sorry it's fallen from favor.

I actually agree with a lot of the rest of your argument. I just don't think that your accusation was very fair.

[MascaraSnake]

First off, I don't think the OLDC has any advantage of the Releases section when it comes to Circuit maps. For Match and CTF, the obvious disadvantage of Releases is that it's hard to get a netgame together for a single obscure map. The OLDC circumvents this by bundling many maps together into one file. For these reasons, it would be a death knell to Match and CTF if their respective divisions were removed because nobody would be able to critique the maps anymore. Now you might say: "Isn't the same true for Circuit? It's also a multiplayer gametype." Well, it is, but there is no interaction. There is no significant additional insight on a Circuit map you could gain from playing it in a netgame rather than privately. While Match and CTF rely heavily on interaction and the level design must accommodate this, Circuit levels might just as well be played in Single Player. Therefore, you can review Circuit levels without playing netgames.

In other words, I don't think your justification for not wanting to make Circuit maps outside of the OLDC is a good one. With that in mind, let me come back to why I called you hypocritical:

I'm not saying that you're supposed to keep Circuit alive singlehandedly. But if you stop making Circuit maps just because the OLDC is gone, then you have no right to complain if the gametype dies as a result. If you do continue to make Circuit maps and nobody plays them, then you have a right to complain. If you do continue to make Circuit maps but nobody else does, you also have a right to complain. Even if you stop making Circuit maps for reasons entirely unrelated to the removal of the Circuit, you can complain. But if you and other people say "I wouldn't make Circuit maps if there was no OLDC division for them", it's not Mystic's fault if the gametype dies. Maybe "hypocrite" is too harsh a word for what I meant to say; sorry for that. But I think nonetheless that there is a disconnect between lamenting the demise of a gametype yet not doing anything against it despite being able to do so.

Oh, and to play devil's advocate here, did you ever get any useful feedback on Girder Detour Zone in the OLDC?

[Fawfulfan]

Originally Posted by SpiritCrusher

First off, I don't think the OLDC has any advantage of the Releases section when it comes to Circuit maps. For Match and CTF, the obvious disadvantage of Releases is that it's hard to get a netgame together for a single obscure map. The OLDC circumvents this by bundling many maps together into one file. For these reasons, it would be a death knell to Match and CTF if their respective divisions were removed because nobody would be able to critique the maps anymore. Now you might say: "Isn't the same true for Circuit? It's also a multiplayer gametype." Well, it is, but there is no interaction. There is no significant additional insight on a Circuit map you could gain from playing it in a netgame rather than privately. While Match and CTF rely heavily on interaction and the level design must accommodate this, Circuit levels might just as well be played in Single Player. Therefore, you can review Circuit levels without playing netgames.

On that particular point, I agree with you, but that's really a failing of the gametype, not of its inclusion in the OLDC. People who are designing Circuit levels always have to work within that limitation. That's why I like Mario Kart mode so much. I'd be all for reworking the gametype so that there is some level of player interaction...though I admit that it's not a very simple proposition.

Originally Posted by SpiritCrusher

I'm not saying that you're supposed to keep Circuit alive singlehandedly. But if you stop making Circuit maps just because the OLDC is gone, then you have no right to complain if the gametype dies as a result. If you do continue to make Circuit maps and nobody plays them, then you have a right to complain. If you do continue to make Circuit maps but nobody else does, you also have a right to complain. Even if you stop making Circuit maps for reasons entirely unrelated to the removal of the Circuit, you can complain. But if you and other people say "I wouldn't make Circuit maps if there was no OLDC division for them", it's not Mystic's fault if the gametype dies. Maybe "hypocrite" is too harsh a word for what I meant to say; sorry for that. But I think nonetheless that there is a disconnect between lamenting the demise of a gametype yet not doing anything against it despite being able to do so.

Maybe there's some truth to that, but I didn't mean to suggest I'd stop making Circuit levels solely because of their removal from the OLDC. Truth be told, I'm not really that involved with SRB2 in general right now (busy with other projects), and I don't make Circuit levels too frequently in any case. I mostly meant that this could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Originally Posted by SpiritCrusher

Oh, and to play devil's advocate here, did you ever get any useful feedback on Girder Detour Zone in the OLDC?

Not really. Mostly, I think, because it was running unopposed, and people weren't interested in seriously analyzing a level that would win no matter what. But I did get some very useful feedback on Wacky Tesseract Zone when it debuted in the OLDC.

[Mystic]

Originally Posted by darkbob1713

I don't see a point in worrying so much about multiplayer when there isn't a tolerable netcode in the first place.

By this logic, we should just kill internet multiplayer entirely, and leave only LAN and splitscreen multiplayer in the game. Obviously we're not going to do that. Just because there are problems in the netcode doesn't mean the game is completely unfun because of that and we should give up on it. I've played tons of games of match and capture the flag, both laggy and not laggy, that were lots of fun! There are things that we can fix and things that we can't, and just because we can't fix one thing doesn't mean that the whole game is tainted and we shouldn't bother with anything else because it's all broken anyways.

Originally Posted by Fawfulfan

Maybe there's some truth to that, but I didn't mean to suggest I'd stop making Circuit levels solely because of their removal from the OLDC. Truth be told, I'm not really that involved with SRB2 in general right now (busy with other projects), and I don't make Circuit levels too frequently in any case. I mostly meant that this could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Again, this is one of my goals in doing this. I'm TRYING to cause this reaction in people who have played circuit, but at the end of the day don't really care about it. While a lot of people object to the idea of what I'm trying to do, if they sat down and thought about it without their internal bias, they'd find they really don't enjoy circuit all that much. A lot of people, myself included, like the CONCEPT of circuit mode, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

My goal here is to encourage people to make maps for gametypes that have a future. Honestly, I noticed the problem here several years ago, but neglected to do anything about it, so here we are today after WAY too many people have gotten attached to the existence of a gametype they really don't honestly like all that much.

[MascaraSnake]

Originally Posted by Fawfulfan

On that particular point, I agree with you, but that's really a failing of the gametype, not of its inclusion in the OLDC.

Exactly my point. It's not the OLDC that isn't good enough for the gametype, it's the gametype that isn't good enough for the OLDC.

Originally Posted by Fawfulfan

I'd be all for reworking the gametype so that there is some level of player interaction...though I admit that it's not a very simple proposition.

Coincidentally, we had an interesting discussion about this just now in IRC. Mystic outlined a few reasons why introduction Mario Kart-like interaction isn't so easy. Here's a small excerpt about why green shells don't work in SRB2:

Originally Posted by Mystic on IRC

[22:47] <Mystic> When you fire a green shell at someone in Mario Kart, you lead your shot with the assumption that your target is driving in a moderately straight line, right?
[22:48] <Mystic> Or for instance, you place banana peels on the ground in spots where you expect your opponent won't expect them or be able to dodge
[22:48] <Mystic> These are good tactics in Mario Kart because your opponent's mobility is actually quite limited
[22:49] <Mystic> They stay on the ground most of the time, and drive in straight lines or predictable curves
[22:51] <Mystic> You could not create a green shell in circuit
[22:51] <Mystic> It simply would not work
[22:52] <Mystic> The player does not move in a predictable manner
[22:52] <Mystic> If you don't believe me, turn on ring slinger and go to town

That doesn't mean it's impossible to think of interactive items that would work in Race. But there's no easy solution, and the effort it would take to make Race interactive is better spent on the already existing and incomplete gametypes (first and foremost Single Player).

Originally Posted by Fawfulfan

Maybe there's some truth to that, but I didn't mean to suggest I'd stop making Circuit levels solely because of their removal from the OLDC. Truth be told, I'm not really that involved with SRB2 in general right now (busy with other projects), and I don't make Circuit levels too frequently in any case. I mostly meant that this could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

But why should it? Why should anybody who is seriously interested in making Circuit maps stop doing so just because the OLDC is gone as a platform? And why should anybody who is seriously interested in playing critiquing these maps stop doing so just because the OLDC is gone as a platform? It doesn't really change anyway, except that we're finally getting rid of a notoriously underperforming and low-quality division of an otherwise enjoyable contest.

Originally Posted by Fawfulfan

Not really. Mostly, I think, because it was running unopposed, and people weren't interested in seriously analyzing a level that would win no matter what. But I did get some very useful feedback on Wacky Tesseract Zone when it debuted in the OLDC.

I don't think it has anything to do with the lack of contestants. I think it's because there is no serious criticism you can give Girder Detour Zone. It's just a straightforward track with a few death pits and some springs. There's nothing at all remarkable about it that isn't related to visuals. It's really really boring to play. Wacky Tesseract on the other hand was a rare example of a Circuit map with interesting obstacles that could still be handled under lag.

In other words, Girder Detour doesn't have any glaring flaws but demonstrates why Circuit sucks. Wacky Tesseract is good despite itself, so to speak.

[Fred]

I really haven't been able to sit down and write down a thought out follow-up to my original post in this topic, due to being ridiculously busy with Real Life. In retrospect, it was probably for the best, since a lot of people ended up echoing my feelings and doing my work for me. There's one more thing I'd like to add and make perfectly clear, which most of you should know by now but so far I haven't seen anyone flat out state it.

Nobody plays standalone map WADs. The hassle of needing everyone to have the same version of a file in order to join the netgame is simply not worth just to play a single map. This is why Mystic Realm became so popular when it first launched, because the overwhelmingly large amount of content far outweighed the minor hassle of the more complicated netgame setup. Due to this, it (and subsequent similarly-spirited level packs) became quite popular, which meant more people had the file, further tipping the scale and essentially making having the wad on your hard drive a requirement.

This is the only reason I occasionally submit a Match, CTF or Circuit map to the OLDC. It's the only reason 90% of the OLDC's participants even exist. They, as well as I, know that the stages will be bundled into a larger pack, and that the levels will be played. Unless you have the willpower to spend several months working on a collection of maps entirely of your own authorship, or are willing to collaborate with a moderately large group of people, it is the only way to include your work in a map pack, and thus the only way you can assure it will gather a decent amount of play time.

This is why axing the Circuit division in the OLDC is such a step in the wrong direction. Doing so is effectively nipping any penchant of creating more maps for the gametype right in the bud. It's almost as bad as axing the gametype itself, because without incentive to produce maps for the gametype, it will stagnate and fade from the players' interest. Case in point: Tag/Hide and Seek, which never really had a chance to prove themselves.

But the truth is, Mystic, as you've stated so openly, that's exactly what you want to do! You want people to stop making maps for it, you want them to stop playing it, you want everybody to forget about it so you can sweep it under the rug without anyone who used to care about the gametype even batting an eyelid. Unfortunately for us mooks, you're entitled to make that call, because at the end of the day, you're designing the game and we're playing it.

But then what in hell is this?

Originally Posted by Mystic

Again, this is one of my goals in doing this. I'm TRYING to cause this reaction in people who have played circuit, but at the end of the day don't really care about it. While a lot of people object to the idea of what I'm trying to do, if they sat down and thought about it without their internal bias, they'd find they really don't enjoy circuit all that much. A lot of people, myself included, like the CONCEPT of circuit mode, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

My goal here is to encourage people to make maps for gametypes that have a future. Honestly, I noticed the problem here several years ago, but neglected to do anything about it, so here we are today after WAY too many people have gotten attached to the existence of a gametype they really don't honestly like all that much.

How the hell can you so very blatantly say you know what people like or not better than they do? The only possible conclusion I can derive from this is that you're simply trolling every single person in this topic. Knowing that, I should have no qualms about posting this rather ironic redaction of a part of your post:

Originally Posted by Mystic

By this logic, we should just kill internet multiplayer Circuit entirely, and leave only LAN Match and splitscreen multiplayer CTF in the game. Obviously we're not going to do that. Just because there are problems in the netcode balance doesn't mean the game gametype is completely unfun because of that and we should give up on it.

Zing!

[Mystic]

Originally Posted by Neo Chaotikal

How the hell can you so very blatantly say you know what people like or not better than they do? The only possible conclusion I can derive from this is that you're simply trolling every single person in this topic.

Because I've seen that exact pattern many times. People go "let's play circuit!" and then when they actually get to doing it they quit quickly without knowing entirely why. I'm not doing a Big Brother "I know what's best for you so sit down and shut up". I am making these generalized statements based on previous experience, not just my personal opinion like so many people here seem to think. I have noticed a long and continuous pattern that people like the concept of circuit and the existence of circuit a lot more than actually playing circuit. This is not trolling and while I definitely understand that my statement may be offensive to those of you who genuinely DO like playing circuit, I'm not saying it with the intent to piss you off; I'm saying it with the intent to do what's best in the long term for the OLDC as a whole.

If you actually really like circuit, great! Feel free to keep playing it, and keep making maps for it. As proven by D00D Kart and reiterated in your own point about level packs, individual stages don't tend to get a lot of play, but compilation packs do, so the clear solution if you want to prove me wrong is to make a compilation pack of stages like D00D has for Kart mode. Get a bunch of you together and build something fun with the audience that actually enjoys the gametype. Before you say "that's a lot of effort" or "I don't want to get together with a group of other people to do this", I'd like to note that I made all of the original circuit rotation in a few days. Circuit mode is by far the easiest gametype to make stages for, as the massive size of D00D's pack shows, so it wouldn't be all that much effort to make a pack at least big enough to generate community interest if the players who actually want to play circuit are there.