It's a bit late since Christmas is already in 6 days, but nonetheless is here the thing I've been working on the last days:




Probably I could have been done with this within a day, but this inherited the problems from the original in that it loves to crash the editor when I hit the save button, or when it autosaves or when I rebuild the paths. Anyway, somehow I managed to get this done.

Same as the Spiff currently on the server, just with the changed atmosphere and performance and network improvements (and slightly increased view distance).

The map makes use of the Christmas Painter, though not in mutator form but placed directly in the map, so it shouldn't unwhitelist the server.


http://www.mediafire.com/?u3v97ix4v9talcc

Uploaded, thank you, the standard one temporarily disabled.

I've also loaded DjAy-T's HomeSweetHome http://forum.omnipotents.com/showthread.php?t=13372 & http://forum.omnipotents.com/showthread.php?t=13380 (and temporarily removed the original too), but there's some lag caused probably by the included ONS Christmas mutator http://www.catchersctf.com/ONSChristmas/.

Haha, nice job Crusha!
I love Christmas maps

Got a chance to play this online over at the omnis last night and there are a couple of issues that stood out.

First, playing as red I noticed that the dark blue sky and fog combo makes the blue team's players very hard to tell apart from the scenery. Therefore, unless a server's employing the UTcomp mutator so that ppl can turn brightskins on, reds will always have a disadvantage here just like how it is with blues on RedPlanet.
Second, since the omnis have their score limit set to 3pts, rematches are inevitable. However, after one team's core blows up, Crusha has scripted some sappy christmas songs to start playing and forgot to add an end trigger when the next round begins which results in them continuing to play well into the next round. It's not just one song either; he's probably mylevel'd half a freaking christmas album or something and that also explains why the map's 17megs in size (even at a low bitrate and sampling rate, waveform music that lasts for 5-10minutes can take up space).

The second issue is probably easy to address (assuming these things are worth bothering to make a fix version for instead of just waiting for the holiday season to pass and just remove the map), but the first probably isn't since this dark blue look is probably the intended "mood" Crusha was going for so good luck getting a mapper to reconsider their aesthetic approach. Other than that, this is standard Spiff (santa bomber makes no difference to gameplay).

Anyway... halfway through the holiday season now, patience.

I am probably not going to fix that (I am not even at my PC until next year). I got the music from a map edited by the (more active in UT2k3) clan of the Dead Cats, where it played as real AmbientSound in the whole map, thus giving it a worse quality there.
On the other hand didn't I want people to download it as OGG during the Christmas time and it would also be problematic to start it off for every player at the beginning because some could join later. So I chose it only as ending sound (but with the possibility in mind to play it in a rematch, though I had no idea how long it lasted).
WMD didn't consider it a problem when testing it, just gave me a note that "Bing Crosby keeps playing into the next round ".


I was also worried about the blue (it's the original sky, just put through a ColorModifier before applying it to skybox), but it's a Christmas thing after all, so it's probably a reasonable thing and (as long as you don't have a CRT) still good enough to distinguish against the snow. Let's call it a shift since the map usually favours the red players a bit with all it's brown.


But since you played it on )o( (and I can't due to my horrible ping there), how's the reaction towards this more "classic" styled map?

Well, aside from a few comments on how the constant songs were getting annoying (and fewer stating they were enjoying it), not much else relevant to the map was said. We lost 0-3 due to a half-clueless team and the fact that once both non-mirrored primaries get lost, it's very hard to bring 'em back up against a constant torrent of spawners from center plus coordinated tank/pally support; all that, however, is nothing new to this version but more of a Spiffingrad staple so this thread's not really the place to discuss 'em. Btw, I don't t really think normal Spiff is partial to reds because of its st.meshes colors. RedPlanet is a much more fitting example, as I mentioned.

Still, I did get to shout "yippie kaiey, motherfucker!" and "die festively you bastards!" while Let it Snow was playing and Santa was helping me maintain top score by bombing my enemies, so at least I had some fun. Nobody seemed to catch my Die Hard reference though (Die Hard's end credits song was Let in Snow). Philistines...

Coincidentally Die Hard 1-3 was just over Christmas on TV here. I didn't really get the connection to the holiday (if there is any intended except for some decoration in a scene), but it was nice anyway. Popcorn cinema. Unrelated post.

crusha_k_rool wrote:
Coincidentally Die Hard 1-3 was just over Christmas on TV here.[...]Heh, they showed DH1 just last week here as well (I think they're showing the other 2 soon too). It fits the holiday atmosphere plus easily accessible action flick combo that the channels are aiming for these days.

As for why McClane would always get into trouble on Christmas, well, that's easily understood if you've learned to identify the usual Hollywood tropes that are the cornerstones behind most such movies. In this case we have, 1) unlikely action hero constantly finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time (McClane pretty much keeps stating that in every DH [or others do it for him]), 2) high stakes/risk situation with mortal danger both for him as well as others (terrorists holding hostages), 3) strong antithesis of luck with the hero fighting unlikely odds while other (normal) ppl are off enjoying themselves during this time of year and/or 4) hero fights to save the day (Christmas) for those in danger (hostages, bit city civilians, US president, entire human species, etc.). Long story short, it makes for "better" drama if it all happens on Xmas than any other random day, nothing too deep there.