TOPIC: Map Change/Addition

Hi all,

As a bit of an older player on ZARP, I've observed a few different maps. I'm aware that there are about four maps now, if not more, that are no longer viable (or rather, the CM team have observed the poor results of these maps) for whatever reason.

This includes

Bloc42, a map which a number of older players requested. It was briefly reimplemented and then changed within a week or two due to certain issues surrounding the map's viability given the massively changed items and such, and probably a few other reasons. I think they mentioned there were issues with it crashing, too.

Evilmelon; viable, but not viable enough. The map was being worked on by Patrick, if I remember correctly. Though, there were later issues discovered with the actual viability of the map once again given items, plus performance issues, I think. Not 100% sure on this one.

Rockford, A.K.A. Server 2's former map, A.K.A. AFK miner's dream. The map was empty, for the most part. 70% of the map didn't see much usage, if even that. The map was mainly used for AFK miners. The Disco base was rarely used, and the mansions/rich suburbs area or whatever it was didn't see much usage either, but these were the main places players would go if they weren't there to AFK mine.

Finally, and this has been a matter of contention as of late, Evocity. This map was server 3's former map. Similar to Rockford, the map was oversized and thus saw issues with players actually using most of the space. It was used primarily for elevator basing in the nexus; a four-tiered building that allowed players to base at the very top with little chance of actually being successfully raided given a persistent enough team of players. Bases here earned at their peak, over 2 billion for a single player with enough alts and enough special printers. A day. This is an extreme amount of money for one player to pump into the economy, creating more of an issue.
The players who weren't in the nexus may have been AFK mining, and in certain extreme circumstances, again similar to Rockford, would hide things under the map due to awkward holes in the map that weren't overly difficult to find. Not gonna lie, back in like 2016, I got a punishment for this. Gold plated printers. If the rest of the space isn't used, and it's only used for ele basing or AFK mining, then I can see the dilemma.

Anyway, the point of these summaries is to point out viability, and feel free to correct me on what the problems were with any of these maps and others as I won't admit to having all the facts.

My question here is: Will we be seeing different maps in the future? I appreciate that you're trying to create a balance between the UK and US players, but honestly, and correct me if I'm wrong - I didn't see that as much of an issue either way. American players use Server 1 just as much as Server 3 (or the US server).

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This is the main part of the post if TL;DR
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I'd like to suggest that players be given the opportunity to vote for what they think should be the next map. Exclude these options, come up with others, or whatever's clever. Allow us to choose something different, whether it be another server you add on like with server 2, or if you just decide to change server 3 (A.K.A. US Server). If you'd rather the community council be given the ability to select a map, then pass it to them, but at least let players see what those choices are to give their due opinions.

It's been said you have things in the pipeline that will be revealed over the coming weeks, and I can respect that, but I'd like to make this suggestion as someone who does enjoy ZARP and enjoyed the difference between Server 1, 2 and 3. And someone who has played on most, if not all of the different maps. If there were different maps before 2013, feel free to lemme know and maybe add why they aren't viable, either.

Thanks for reading.

just put evilmelon on s3 cheers

bloc_42 is great

the community father himself spoke

Big map mean acs bubble less fun

No acs bubble me no play

A Good Pianist wrote:
Rob you're obese

Also, it doesn't necessarily need to be a bigger map. It can be one the same size as Downtown, or one that's just a bit bigger or smaller, tbh.

Father Watson wrote: Good old democracy.

spicydoggo wrote:

spicydoggo wrote: Lets make it happen lmao

Father Watson wrote:
Just because you said these bad words all my discounts are now removed from my items

I feel that the removal of S2 and the alteration of S3 have been one of the few things I found quite surprising, inadequate and unsatisfactory, especially from the Community Team. I can somewhat, though not fully understand this decision, and even though I wasn't and still am not involved in RP much, it doesn't take me much to understand that the vast majority of the community was unhappy with this... redesign of the SSRP servers. Essentially, I kept receiving a huge quantity of complaints after the meeting took place as if people thought I can have any sort of impact on the Community Teams decision.

Sure, I was expecting one of the servers to shut down, as I saw it completely unnecessary to have 3 SSRP servers out of which only 1 gets vastly used, but having two SSRP servers with the same map sure was and still is an unwise option, at least from my perspective. Basing and mining is no longer a viable option and was, to my eyes, killed off after the alteration. Also this:

Community Team Outcome wrote:
Source

I'm quite sure that NA-based players already had the same experience as EU-based players since there were well than enough American players in the community as well as on S1 before the change took place - Hence why I can't understand this at all, the maps shouldn't have been touched. And I truly do hope that in the close future, we will be getting one of the old maps back or maybe even something new that Patrick, as well as the Community Team, see fit for ZARP.

As for your question about seeing different maps in the future - I highly doubt we will be seeing any adjustments to the SSRP servers when it comes to maps any time soon, as I believe that the CM team will be occupied with expanding the community to different games, such as Team Fortress 2, and maybe even with the development of ZARP Classic - Though keep in mind that these are just assumptions, as I don't know what the Community Managers plan to do next. And I do highly agree that the community should have a chance at deciding what maps should be used, as long as they have no issues or flaws.

This was my viewpoint on the topic at hand, if anyone even cares...

To quote myself:
TheXnator wrote:
To also clear up about ZARP Classic @Richard: ZARP Classic was not, and still is not, an accepted suggestion, it was merely an idea that was discussed and eventually we decided not to work on since the community did not seem to want it unless it was a "reset" which we are not doing

Community Team meeting outcome this week will likely include a better overview of what we're working on currently.

Mr. Richard wrote: yet you never addressed those issues to any of us, at least me because this is a first and i would like to hear higher up's standpoint of things

Downtown has always been the main map on Zarp and it's very enjoyable, though. It doesn't get enjoyable overtime if you've been playing for over a year. S2 and S3 was a great addition to Zarp when they introduced them because people got a change which was needed for some people to have the same satisfaction. S2/3 ended up mainly for mining and AFK printing / OP elevator bases, but it was fun.

When they removed the other servers, they killed mining (because now you get rdmd once every 10mins) and they killed basing (mainly for new players/smaller groups). Basing on S1 is difficult unless you have a massive group with rich people. New people get instantly found and destroyed, hence why the playerbase doesn't get new players. They need to boost the normal printers or make something useful for new players to make them stay because this is not working.

Removing the servers was a mistake and I do hope they realize that. Instead, they could've re-added the elevator basing rules.

I want to add on, most ZARP updates now require the downtown map so it's just going to heavily strip down core content and not make those servers fun such as events, casino, airdrops, etc.

Ezeh wrote: This is 100% correct. The other servers were a perfect opportunity for newer players to base/mine without getting instantly destroyed and actually allowed people to work their way up.

I know i keep making more posts but fuck it, we do really want to update the downtown map but it's difficult when Patrick is currently busy with other things and I can respect that since he has done a fantastic job but the problems at the moment I can see is not a lot of viable locations for basing, terrible spot for mining (we could have a second mines if we expanded the map out more potentially), optimized FPS and so on.

Personally I really want the S2 disco ported over to the downtown map in a brand new district so it can easily have its changes with the skybox and other balance adjustments since no one likes how limited it is when it comes to using HC's, suits and hitting the skybox which is a big problem with downtown for me at least.

More basing areas is a good idea too, most of the map's buildings are just useless because they are not intended for what ZARP has to offer when it comes to special weapons.

I'd just like to point out to those mentioning basing, we did consider this and had a lot of plans with the map which were planned to be added in the Christmas update, but unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances Patrick was not able to work on the map, which obviously did cause an issue there (but he's doing work for us out of his own free time, which we appreciate massively, especially for such a good mapper).

We do still plan to make these massive improvements to basing on the Downtown map, and Patrick did make a good amount of progress on it, however given a lack of skilled mappers in the community aside from Patrick, we do need to wait for him to be available before this can be finished.

Clarky wrote:
Downtown is still a good map, don't get me wrong. But the other servers were mostly used by people with less money.
Basing died as you may see. Only people with a lot of items/money base on s1/3 because the map is small and players know exactly where people are basing.. Yes, elevator.

Rockford/Evocity was different. I remember back in the days when I searched the whole map, every building for around an hour. Even certain items are pointless now, such as the Scan Jammer. That item is horrible on Downtown because it's so small and you can hear the item as soon as you spawn in (probably a bug) but hey. On for example Rockford (excellent map btw) it would be really useful, a big advantage for new players aswell.

S2 was amazing. Good map, good tickrate, smooth gameplay. I see why you guys decided to remove both the maps, but a map change would be really nice to have.

Downtown can still have all the main content, like airdrops, casinos etc. But a new map would be for basing and mining. There is no overpowered elevator basing on that map and in my opinion, it would fit.

You can't have the other maps because the ghost of Jooj Jalabeno is haunting them, rp_downtown_zarp is currently the only safe space from his spirit.