Hello, I am ioNx, a developer for MoonShade, I'm a talented Source mapper. I've been mapping for 3-4 years right now and I've got a pretty good understanding of how the Source engine works with maps.
You see, lately we've tried a map change which I did NOT approve of as I knew this was going to happen.
The server has been crashing quite a lot when it was under heavy load when filled with players. Welcome to Source where the engine is very bad at being able to handle these kinds of rp maps, even though it may have been upgraded over the years in order to suit the games that were created for it, it won't be able to handle a very poorly optimized rp map.
Let me explain why optimization is important especially on rp maps. rp maps are usually very large in order to fit the players that play it, since the rp maps are usually very big, the map therefore has to be optimized in order to not to over cook your toasters that you play on. Optimization boosts performance (i,e you will have more frames per second), and also gives the engine a break, when a map is optimized it allows everything to work peacefully and in harmony as it doesn't have to render every bit of the map at the same time. When a map of this size is being rendered at the same time, it makes the server hoster want to quit his job as Source Engine can use up a lot of resources, (i,e processing power and ram usage.) Source Engine when under heavy load will crash and stop the server as it doesn't know what to do next, it uses up 100% of the resources and get's stuck so therefore when crashing it will not kill the system it's being hosted on.
The map we transferred to rp_city45, had over 32,000 numportals. Numportals is a way to tell the Source Engine what parts of the map are visible to the player when standing in a certain one, you can imagine that with over 32,000 numportals the Source Engine has to do a lot of calculating even just for 1 player, now imagine a full server of 32 players and having the host system frying up in the room as it's trying to collect and send out data at the same time x32.
In my opinion, Source Engine was never made for an intention of multi-player, even though it has been upgraded over the years, it's wasn't ever ready for rp maps that are not optimized. Perhaps Source2 will bring us what we want and I'm sure it will, this brings us a lot of hope for future rp maps as to make rp maps look good, it takes time and dedication from the mapper who is creating it, perhaps you can compare de_inferno and rp_mittelfans and talk about how they are so different from each other, how inferno is way better and looks so good, this is why mappers have to be dedicated, this is because mappers who created inferno, that was their job, when you have a normal person, having to work on such a large project, you can imagine they can go insane, this is why all the rp maps look like shit, there is no one dedicated enough to create such a large and a pretty looking map. Except me.
I joined this community in order to have fun and now it turned into my part time job you could say. I'm getting paid to make a map because I am dedicated enough to create a really good look rp map with as much optimization as possible in order to make everyone happy so that they like the look of the map and that they don't lag on it.
RP_Westfield will be coming in the near future and the deadline so far is Summer, idk specifically when but I want to get this map out as soon as possible. Trust me, it would have been easier if I didn't have to go to College.
So what's next, before the near future and now?
Well another map I guess, I begged MyBack to change back to mittel fans as it is optimized well enough to hold a full server but MyBack wants to give Abuse me city a go, This map has over 25,000 numportals were as mittelfans only has 16,000. From a mappers point of perspective, mittelfans is the best choice even though it may look like shit, but I believe its the best choice until I get my map done. From here on now, it's MyBack's choice what map we go to. I had my say but it didn't convince him, I tried and let's just hope he changes his mind because mittelfans is the best for the sake of this server.
Thank you for reading.
I sincerely apologise for any inconvenience that you may have experienced so far since the map change but we are trying to make things work.
