One View of the History of CAx

[Baker]

April 2006 - Phenom and Mindzy decide to start a server that runs the map Sanity -- which plays very cool. Bam begins debugging a code base supplied by Rook.

May 2006 - Bomber gets more and more play. The fact that the server runs custom maps tends to attract the fun players and alienate a lot of boring lamers, providing a fun environment. CAx crashes hold back the mod.

June 2006 - Bomber switches from IronRocket to a HDZ box, eliminating an annoying server firewall issue. Rook basically becomes the full-time developer of the mod at this point and begin tracking down the remaining bugs.

July 2006 - Bomber begins constantly hitting 16/16 players and maps like Q1EDGE and Q3DM6 are extremely popular. Players that don't like custom maps play at CHI, which frequently has 8 or more players even when Bomber has 16; no one is being deprived of play.

October 2006 - CHI CA+ starts winding down and some of the hardcore DM'ers effectively compete with CHI for players. The non-DMish part of the CHI player base begins playing more at Bomber.

December 2006 - CHI is largely abandoned. The hardcore players play a lot more at CRMOD. Meanwhile, a lot of the custom map hating players play at Rage (formerly Bomber) and want to play DM3.

January 2006 - Rage is basically CHI, except that the CAx's standard splash damage -- which rocks on wide open custom maps -- plays like spam on DM3 (CA+ it can be a cat and mouse game focusing on nails and the boomstick).

Personally, the way things have worked out I find very annoying. CAx can do a ton of things (airshot mode, for instance) and the server supports 31 custom maps that everyone has, yet it is constantly running DM3 -- which I feel does not play well with standard splash damage -- largely because the server was so successful that it dried out the DM3-only server and attracted that player base.

Ironic!

Why do not the players that want to play DM3 play at ca.clanhdz.com? It is on the very same server and also doesn't have the default Quake splash damage (which those players complain about, and I agree makes CA rather spammy), being CA+.

[Solecord]

Vote on the custom maps and you'll see the player base leave. I keep saying it - if these custom maps are so popular then why does no one vote them on? There's lke 5 people who like all those custom maps. A couple times at night when we had a full server we would vote on the q3 map or Yellow would just change to it and half the server left. In general it's fun to try a new map but once the "excitement" goes away it's back to the standard maps that are known.

The same thing happens in 3wav CTF. With Frenzy putting up the new yayowave server, the same thing is occuring. And just like it did 8 years ago on 3wav servers. Everyone tosses out map suggestions but in the end games are always played on e4m3, Warzone, ctf1, Capture, cheat2, or Red Alert. Hardly no other maps ever get played on a regular basis. Prime example last night. We had a 5v5 which is pretty large for a 3wav game as we usually only get a 3v3 or 4v4 at best. People end up throwing out suggestions and what map do we end up playing? Warzone.

[InvincibleDrone]

Are the admins the only ones who are allowed to nominate a map? Is there a command to initiate a vote for all players so we can vote.

Furthermore is there a list of options players can vote on or is everything at cax servers determined by administrators?

[Baker]

I keep saying it - if these custom maps are so popular then why does no one vote them on?

Because an ever-present number of players that really do not actually even like playing at Rage want to play DM3 and consistently vote DM3 whenever the map is not DM3.

The same (usually but not always) lamers that whine when Q3DM6 is played or even Q1EDGE. And then when DM3 is played whine about "spam".

Vote on the custom maps and you'll see the player base leave.

How exactly did Bomber become an incredibly popular server? DM3 was always playing at CHI, so why did anyone play at Bomber?

Yellow would just change to it and half the server left.

Yes, and as times goes on it will eventually be effectively be a DM3 only server. Not because no one likes playing the custom maps, but because players that hang out at Rage because what they really want to be playing isn't available (DM, CA+, etc.)

If these players are SO into DM3, why do half of them leave in the middle of games? That b.s. is also ruining Rage. Also how and why did CHI dry up?

Many of them aren't interested in being there and end up leaving to DM or sometimes Threewave in the middle of a game because they really don't want to be playing CA.

[Baker]

Are the admins the only ones who are allowed to nominate a map? Is there a command to initiate a vote for all players so we can vote.

Furthermore is there a list of options players can vote on or is everything at cax servers determined by administrators?

Type "commands" in the console on a CAx and it shows all of the commands.

Players can vote just about everything, just not in the middle of a match.

[Bam]

I'll tell you why dm3 is the only map played most of the time.

The crowd that played at max all the time have moved to bomber. Everyone that played at max didn't play any other map and they're used to it. I like it in my opinion, and don't mind playing it a lot. I do like custom maps.

[R00k]

More so.

I created CAx in the beginning around 2004 for the CQL tourney. They wanted the ability to disable chasecamming of OPPONENTS. West (CQL host) felt it was too easy to use TeamSpeak etc to tell your teammates what to do whilst one cammed. CA+ = closed source. Which I undertand giving he fact it was used in a tourney. I worked on CAx for about 2 months, then the cql tourney fizzled out. Never really got a much needed testing phase.

CAx was put on the shelf.

Then came interest from BAM and Yellow, and I cracked the can open again.

Just to set the record straight...

Bam is the reason CAx is alive. He faithfully fixed a major bug in the linklists that caused the deadly bug on games greater than 2 on 2 on 2. He also added the green team, cc queing etc. Sure, I had a full featured mod but it was crap without support. Yellow and everyone else poured alot of time in to testing and debugging and now this is what we have.

So.. with that aside.

Dm3 , ok, most people dont play EVERYday (the old skool leets). In their head they think Quake1? Hmm ok... DM3... lets rock.

It was the standard teamgame map before, so it remains today. Sure there are 100 maps worthy of play, but to the old schoolers, they just want to pop in play a few games (on a map they know very well), own, then leave. DM3 is like that old girlfriend when u come back home from college. Just a quickie

As for the dynamics of the gameplay on DM3 in the Cax universe, why not auto-toggle splash damage on DM3 (easy enough)?

Just a suggestion. BTW, I never heard anyone complain about splash damage on a ROCKET ARENA server.




Baker You need to change your avatar's color... dont you know you dont wear green&orange After halloween?

[Mindf!3ldzX]

haha
your forgetting that CAx was first worked on and ran from Phenom's home-based connection. Not only that,Phenom and I first found regular CA mod,then I bugged Vis until he sent me the CA+ mod. The only way we could play Sanity on CA+ was using the server-console, : map sanity . This is what sparked the "want" for CA gaming with newer maps.

Sanity should be given mad-credit as being the driving force in the begining.

[Baker]

I'll tell you why dm3 is the only map played most of the time.

The crowd that played at max all the time have moved to bomber.

Exactly! At the expense of the preferences of the Bomber player base.

And like you, I don't mind playing it a lot. I just mind playing it all the time and whiners WHO MIGRATED to RAGE bitching when something that isn't DM3 is running.

As for the dynamics of the gameplay on DM3 in the Cax universe, why not auto-toggle splash damage on DM3 (easy enough)?

But that would complete the ruination of the server. ca.clanhdz.com is on the same box, those players should play there.

Several players like the Necro guy noted how their was an air of lameness/rudeness/abuse at CHI and how much more fun it was to play at Bomber because the players weren't lamers.

That fun environment has been subverted by a few "***s" that previously played exclusively at CHI and a pool respectable players that always hated Bomber (that's their right) that now effectively play there.

I think the worst thing is that CHI dryed up and Rage is turning into CHI (but in many ways, worse with the game leave/bad CC'ing). The server has become a decreasingly fun place to play over the last couple of months.

I would like to find a way to get the dead enders to not want to play there. Dead enders erode a player base.

Frenzy was a kick ass admin to have at Bomber because he constantly would warp to a miscellaneous custom map and the "lamers" would scream and leave in hordes and the other 10 players would play it.

[Baker]

Just a suggestion. BTW, I never heard anyone complain about splash damage on a ROCKET ARENA server.

You should have seen Vibe whine playing Rocket Arena 3 or 4 months ago. He whined like a 5 year old girl at the splash damage.

[Solecord]

That fun environment has been subverted by a few "***s" that previously played exclusively at CHI and a pool respectable players that always hated Bomber (that's their right) that now effectively play there.

What I don't get is why admins at the server have to say "We won't ban anyone - we'll do a temp ban instead" - Why not just ban the "***s" that ruin the game so everyone else can enjoy?? Everyone here who plays on bomber/rage know who the "***s" are so why not just solve the problem and add the permanant ban to the server?

[Baker]

Why not just ban the "***s" that ruin the game so everyone else can enjoy?? Everyone here who plays on bomber/rage know who the "***s" are so why not just solve the problem and add the permanant ban to the server?

I think that solving the problem thru bans would require the banning of a few players that really don't do anything particularly provocative, but ruin the atmosphere of the game.

I can think even think of a few players that I respect but still feel ruin the game even though they never inherently do anything particularly wrong.

The way Bomber was initially run served as a repellent to those type of players; they hated Bomber and didn't like playing there "WTF map is this? OMG!" Haha . In fact, some of them made it a point to never connect and swore they never would. Of course, when CHI went dry that changed everything.

But there are other problems too.

I am so sick of games being broken by people coming and going mid-match (and playing the same map 24/7) that it doesn't really feel worth connecting.

The broken games issue is just annoying as anything else.

[Phenom]

MindzX is right, when I was the H.M.F.I.C of Bomber I put Sanity on the top shelf and let DM3 have as rest from it's 10 year wraith.

I am an oldschool player and DM3 is fun but when you first started playing Quake you played the level and learned the level as you went. Now its 98% of the players know DM3 inch for inch and it really does turn into a "Who can get to the other corner first" kind of cat and mouse game. I honestly 100% enjoy DM3 but I have also come to love Edge, Q1dm6, Sanity and many other maps which I don't know the name but still enjoy as much. I don't leave a server because I don't like the map, I leave a server when I'm done having fun or someone ruins it for me.

Bomber/Rage over its life span has almost grown to perfection in the aspect of turning its enemies into its friends or just leaving the haters in the dust.

There has to be something to keep Rage from turning into a DM3 baby!

Maybe try changing the map? We have access to the MAP source and practically everything we need to enhance the game play to a new level where DM3 isn't needed for the rest of the oldschoolers to feel gratified.

I'm just making a comment on my views of Rage. Feel free to respond.

[Canadian*Sniper]

Every few matches have the mod automatically change to a map depending on the player count? (similar to what slot-zero does for shmack)

[Phenom]

Yes.
10 Players or more + DM3 = Spamfest

I really enjoy Edge for large matches, 8 or more.