In regard to controlled rotation of textures, i'll relay to you what eihrul said to me:

Sauerbraten shifts pixel positions, it does not make new ones.

That being said, it's unlikely to see new code in the game to allow for the rotation and tiling of textures as you imagine it.

So sauerbraten could turn images 45 degrees, by shifting the pixels?
Like when the 1st pixel on the 255st line (of a 512x512 texture) could be shifted to the position of the 75th pixel on the 75th line of the texture.

Here is an example of that.
You have to zoom in to see the red pixel!

Correct image rotation requires doing a lot more than shifting pixels.
To make things simpler for you, eihrul said no to me, and i doubt he'll say otherwise this time. If you can't help but wonder why, ask him yourself to learn details.

I think this goes against the whole octree system and thus can't be done.

Maybe, but your ideas seems to include an artist wich delivers such stuff...

Probably this isn't added because people would host modified versions of maps, wich shouldn't be done. Maps should kept original, with no modifications exept when the creator gave permission to do so...

Which is why I suggested that only starred content maps from quadropolis are downloaded automatically. To play other maps, one would have to write the command, so it would be only for those who know what they are doing. I probably should have called this "maps downloader" or "quadro downloader" instead of "updater". (Maps shouldn't be modified without permission in any case. Independent from an automated download.)

I'm not sure about the reason why this isn't included. My guesses would be (decreasing likelihood):
1. eihrul doesn't want it ;)
2. in order to make this run safely, we need some site like quadropolis, so such a service would have to be created or this site would have to become an official part of sauerbraten
3. it is a lot of work to implement
4. it might promote cheating or other malicious use (I think there are ways to prevent this!)
5. depending on the OS (thinking Linux here), there may be technical problems
6. other (like download time etc.)

So if (1) is the reason, let's have a riot ;) Numbers (3-6) can be dealt with, at least in principle. (2) would be more difficult indeed. Expert question: Which of those is it?

Hmm... Currently the map file header contains "version". This is currently used in the context of game version. Maybe if they add another version variable in the header called mapVersion or something which is auto incremented every time the "/savemap" command is executed the code could update that variable. Then the logic would be something along the lines of:

1 - If client map version does not match then the client cannot play unless they replace their version with the server's version.
2 - Take it a step further and make it so that the master server has a copy (or a simple key value pair with map-name, map-version) of the official version of the map and compare server maps against that periodically... like when the map is loaded on the server then the server would call the master server and lookup the version for the given map name... (again think simple key value pair). If the map was not their (because it is not an official map or it is a modded version) then the master server would simply return a true or false specifying if it is ok to run the map or not and the other server goes ahead and loads it...

This is not full-proof of course but for most it would make it more difficult to cheat.

The game already has a feature to indicate maps that have been modified, but does not generally prevent a player from playing. *SOME* servers will not allow a player to play with a modified map, though, iirc.

the biggest problem with client server verification is that the client can lie (i.e. they can say this is the map i have which is the correct map, but they are giving position and obeying geometry from another map entirely). The way server client relationship should work (in any good game that wishes not to promote cheating... and most especially in an os game that any one can change the code with the right program) is that the client should only be used for gfx and recieving updates from the user (ie mouse movements,keyboard taps, etc). ALL OTHER CALCULATIONS (e.i. like running into a wall) should be calced by the server. Now to relieve server resources the server can allow the client to make calculation ever frame and the server can varify these check these periodically (at a varible rate- like once every 2-5 seconds). Then when a calculation is off, (such as a player is inside a wall) a flag should be raised (based on the severity of the case). The reason for not directly banding the player is because of floating point error and slight miss calculations. If one gets too many flags then he is kicked and band. Flags disappear over time, based on how many "errors" (people that are not cheating) on average are being created. Also the master/admin should be able to see how many flags the player has.

Another thing that would be great would be to have a SAC (sauer anti-cheat.. something like Vac [Valve Anti-Cheat] basically a black list of ips that are band from joining any server that wishes to check the list. Of course bands would not be permament but it would make people cheat less, of course only particular people could only add to this list ... so people cant be dicks :P

Of course im all for some centered hub for usernames pc updates, etc. but i doubt any one would program this ... or give up the server reasources to keep all this information.

Humble Master
chasester

Oh but the latency!
The reason Sauerbraten is so great to play on slow connection is because it's mostly client sided. You don't have to wait for your own positional data to hit the server and then come back. Sure, everything could become server sided to prevent cheating, but then servers start taking more processing power and upstream bandwidth, and your game-play experience suffers. You could likely say good-bye to playing over a 56k modem, or playing a *perfectly smooth* game with a ping of 200. ( my ping seems to be 200 over most of the planet... @_@ )

The client sided calculations make the game what it is. The server still likely could be used to kick those who are running around in walls though, keep in mind, but it doesn't need to do the calculations itself. What one could do is use that positional data that is already being passed along, and simply have the server analyze that, which I think is the jist of what you were saying. Server would likely require a map though, in that case, to say 'Oh no, he's inside the wall!'

So far though, cheating really isn't much of a problem, and as long as the master isn't an idiot, or there's a guy with admin or auth around, the guy cheating can be removed. Unless of course it IS the master who's cheating.

First:
I dont think (in this game) that server should force the player position .. but it would be nice if the server could move the player ... for special cases.
I dont think that a default mod should be something with intense processing because most people use subpar computers to run servers ... but for the few that are actually real severs then there should be a more powerful cheat-prevention option.

Also the other point ... that i dont remember if i highlighted is a black list that people can read-only to prevent those that have been kick for good reasons then other severs should stop this user too (as an option). That way people that cheat will feel there's a steeper penalty.

regards
chasester

you'd do me a huge favor if you removed the entries which i already have in the list. also, take an extra second to consider if one of your ideas has any chance at all at happening :P

I bet you do everyone a favor if you would tell why several points should be included (like in the cubescript-, the graphical- or the editing-points).

Remember, we aren't some supervisors to the project what should be done. It's up to them to decide and they probably have their very own vision what will be in the game and what not.

If you have so many points to improve, what about starting your own mode on cube engine 2?

RaZgRiZ, i will do you the huge favor of remove the duplicates whish, but consider for a second, the utility of having them. If ten people post, and ten people, report that there is a big issue related to souds; developers should consider this issue more seriusly than some others cause all people have reported it. So is also important to write this high priority sentences with the same words so developers, at a fast reading, can esay individuate them.

I was thinking this is a post for general talks about improvments that can be done to sauerbraten in the next version of the game. If this is a post to esplain RaZgRiZ's ideas, i'm, of couse, OT. Sorry. But if this is a post to test what the community wants, to have a base to report it to developers, having duplicate sentences, is the best way to understood what the comunity really need from what is an individual fireworks.

Suicizer is asking to esplain some points of my post, while RaZgRiZ is asking if something of what i have write can really happen into sauerbraten. I will try to explain.

First of all, I have thinks a lot about what I have write in this year of gaming. And what I have write in italic is a pure fantasy, too far from what sauerbraten is. So if adding a new weapos is in the area of pure modding, the other gameplay options are not.

Making missiles and granates to explode if shooted can be a great revolution in the gameplay, i don't know if it would be hard to code or not, but it would be epic to stop a roket with a rifle shot, or making explode a grenade with the shotgun.

Lots of game have a warmup or a pause at the end for voting, sauerbraten start instantly, some people disconnect and this ensure that teams on online serevers will alwas unbalanced. Also when come some i can't really understood how people can play them, lots of them disconnect. Voting plus a small pause is simply a nice thing to give to players, i don't know if it is insane hard to code or not.

Now about the maps: is one of the key points of a game, the maps in the last singh are the game. Especially in CTF mode, capture is increbly map friendly. Sauerbraten have some nice map like Reissen or Forge, some maps are ok, like recovery or tejen, some are ok for online server, like the bigger ones justice have give to us. But some other simply does not work, they can be fixed, while some old FFA maps can be removed, or at least adapted for capture or hold. There are some interesting maps on quadroplis that can be fixed/finished by the community. AnotherFace is better than capture_night or wdcd. And why access isn't in the capture list? I think Eihrul can push some map makers in this way, i can make a list od maps on quadropolis, if the license permit it they can be fixed by a squad. Eihrul, or he can derogate some onelse, like Nieb, can push map makers in some direction, he can make something official (from a forum post to a “contest”) to push the mappers who wants to do some works, works with some criterials. Or simply we can merge our effort and do some community maps – with relase standards and fun gameplay. The facts remain the same we need a big map update...

Also the game mode can be spicy, i dont' wants to talk about adding greed, arena modes, ball games, or something like the UT domination; nor talking about adding some esoteric mode, or mode that need special maps. Efficctf was a great addon to the game, while CTF still very hard to play, i think that a mode like CTF but with two random weapons at the spawn can be a nice mix bettween CTF and EfficCTF. You can consider if adding something more, like: teammates on the radar, or you can choose with what weapons spawn or were, is a cost-worth works. I think tacCTF it self is a mode that can works al lot more than protect.

Hold is a great mode, maybe we need some especially hold maps, like only one base with the flag on the centre and the spawn at the borders. Another fail of hold is that it can't support more than two teams in a game, i think is important to fix this issue, to bring hold to a next level.

Would be nice to have a way to recognise players from different teams also in capture but is not really necessary, as having a way to change the color of the skin ingame.

I don't belive all this can be done – at least easy and without effort from all the community.

But i belive a server option to prevents teamkiller from picking the flag can be done. So it can be on in the PSL1 server while off in the private clan servers.

Game clip is an interesting material wich wast'n use in lots of maps, especially for capture ones (they need an update), cause it prevent to pick bases from a some location (like from behind the walls). Adding the options to return a flag which enters in it can add some possibilites for some new layout in CTF. Is not a must have of couse.

Last thing for the graphics is the clock. Why sauerbraten does not have one? You can do it using scripts, but can't be easy to see like a big one in the hud. In all other FPS i play or have played i like FFA, and play it. I have noticed in sauerbraten is really hard to time items with the game hud clocks. Timing items, of course is the base of FFA, so a cloks in the hud should be a great addon. You can put options to remove it, and change the size to fit different resolution.

For the editor, i think there is nothing to esplain, and almost all things i'm proposing are small fix, not destructive, that can add a big value to the engine. More possible to make, and valuable, than change is core with blending materials or two layers of cubes...

First of all, if we don't wants to do some online way to sends the maps, at least a command like sendcfg, to send the config could be a nice addon.

Second, shaders. I'm not an expert but i think like the bumpspecmapglowenvworld, we can do/have some shaders to blend two texures (and normals maybe?). This, with the great mad command, will esponentially increase the choose for a texure. For starting a simple muliply blend mode will be great.

Also particles can be update, some people are demanding for snow and rain, i personally would like to have a particles like the number 4 (the line) that can be oriented to any direciton, like the jummpad are, and that i can choose the radius of it. The radius, can be different, at the start and at the end, to simulate lighs. Cause all 3 values have 3 component we can store them in an hex format like we do with color. I don't know if some thing like it will use too much resource to be usefull.

We are all agree that the sauerbraten sound are far from awesome, the possibility to specify the teleport and jumppad sound in the config can bring some variety to the games.

The vcommands are great, but i have got some troubles using vcolor compared to mad, cause it does not allow to exed the value of 1 and brigher a skin. If this can be fixed is ok, otherwise, i will come back to use mad if i have to brigher a texure.

For the alpha material some wants that it prevent you from shotting and some wants to shot behind it. I think that how it works now is great, and the new possibilites like the Meister's door in asgard are ubeivables. The last step should be having a parameter to set if it stop or not projectiles. As it is now it can't stop grenades, this is maybe nice, cause it give to a weak weapons an advantage, but is a bit unminded.

The game have some postprocess nobody have never seen is possible to trigger one of them inside a material? I don't know this, but it will greatly increase the graphics of the game, and the tactics of the maps. Example of use: thinks about the doors in asgard, passing trough them looks poor, but what if the screen became desaturated inside them? :P

Why talk about damage volume, i think them can be usefull.

Eight Fog can help both on the graphics that on the gameplay stile, as for a fog material, so that you can put some fog on some specific points of the map. The material should be not so easy to to, but a simple Eight Fog should be as hard as the fogdome was.

Last things a value to link a playerstart to a base, or to prevent it from begin used for a capture or regen start. It can be a value with the number of the base, to force the engine to use it, if the value is -1 instead that playerstart will be ignored. This way some playerstart in capture maps can be fixed, or if we wants to update some FFA maps to capture/hold we can select the startlocation.

A big changes to the game can be the online updater, this can broke frequently cheater binary, and making the updates easy and also small. There is a new map in the SVN (like garden) it can be immediatly awaible for online servers. There is a new features, thats way it can be immediatly applyed, same for map/gamemode bug, that can be fixed witout have to wait for the next relase.

Like for forge that became unplayable at the end of trooper.

Ok, i suppose i have broter you enoght, there are lots of question to debate, like cheating protection and modding propouse... thanks for reading.

Well, this made me dizzy. Your english didn't exactly help the situation, but whatever.

If everyone in their reply was to write which points they agree with and which they don't, this node would be too big for anyone to read by now. So i'll skip explaining things in great detail, the point is thinking for yourself, not having others do it.

- Explosing projectiles? Nu-uh. Rockets are too fast to do that in short ranges, and grenades are far too slow in whatever range. Thinking of them blowing in your face is fun, but the cons outweigh the added fun.

- Maps. Yes, we have a lot of maps. Lots are old, others are outdated, others are outright crap. We cannot do much and in some cases, there are even licence restrictions. There are a lot of great maps that aren't included, yet eihrul is the one judging the quality that makes it into the game. You'd say he's afraid to try more maps because of the bad critique, i'll say he doesn't give a hick because he can just ignore us. Back to square one.

- Game clip is an old material. Most mappers don't have any idea what it does. Don't be surprised people don't use it.

- You want a clock? Lots of clocks. Making a cubescript clock that measures the time left in the game and changes colors is not all that hard. For the most part, colors are a pain to implement really. In any case, supposing you know some math and basic cubescript, you can do it yourself. All you need is a concat, or perhaps a format, some math mambo jumbo to tranform 'timeleft' to seconds and minutes that you'll stitch together and you're all set. Sure, not everyone is cubescript savvy, but it's always a good time to learn. Or bitch about it to scripters and hope they fulfill your wishes. An integrated clock is far easier, agreed. Pester eihrul. :P

- Shaders. 70% of the people attempting a map barely use them or don't use them at all. Of that 30%, 25% has not fiddled with advanced techniques, like shader parameters and blendmaps. Of the remaining 5%, you can assume that half or more won't know how to work with the new texture blending or just won't have a use for it. Or perhaps you refer to something we already have called BLENDMAPPING which blends 2 textures together and allows you to freely spray the second texture over the first using various presets. But it can't spray on vertical surfaces. Oh well. I don't care much anyway, if we have enough textures, we won't have much of a need to blend 2 or more textures together to increase variety.

- Alpha material. Do you think meister's use in Asgard is the first of it's kind? Unbelievably.. not! Ever since the feature was added in the svn, everyone with access to it went crazy trying all sorts of things. Meister simply recycled something previously done, even unaware of it. And he could have done it better as well. Nevermind that now. :P

- Postprocess effects for water, and lava and shit? I think it's a great idea. Highly unlikely to happen unless eihrul suddenly wins the Lotto or something. In which case he'll either abandon us or add everything we ever wished for, hiring more devs in the process.

- Damage material and fog related entries have been.. entered.

- The updater is also mentioned. One more reason i told you to remove stuff from your reply. >_>

That's all for now.

@RaZgRiZ
OK, you won, but were is the edit button on quadropolis? :D

WARNING: Sorry for my english i haven't the spell check on, nor the basic knowlege of the languages. You can be mad reading me on my own laguages i can image on the foregin one...

-Explosing projectiles, is only an idea, not a must have. It should be very hard to hit rokets and normaly could be more usefull to shot your enmy than a grenades. Is simply something that add dimension to a dying game...

-Maps, i know how it works... i'm trying to propose something to find a solution. The maps are the game.

-Gameclip... a bigger reason to update some maps.

-Shaders ok i can live without it, but if people have some nice one (and easy to use), they will end to use them.

-the clock, i have it in cubescript, it change colour of course. But i'm talking about something bigger in the hud, like any others game have. It should be an option.

-Alpha i have used in dcw3 before meister, but asgard is the first maps on quadropolis to use the alpha+noclip to make a "door" wich stop projectiles but not the playes. Is a change in sauebraten history :P

-I really don't know how hard is the postprocess material - the game have some - so the trick is triggering them if the players is inside a specific material.

-Thanks for adding damage and fog material.

-ok i cannot really found the edit button... (and i havent understood why i have to edit the post...)

@Jorge
The best should be the possibility to use custom colors so every one can use what prefer... some one can put simply some different reds or greens, or the same color for all the skins; some other chan use red, green, yellow, fuxia...

EDIT and OT:
I can edit this post but not the others? How the hell it works?!?

You can edit your replies in the same day. After 24 hours, they "close".

+1 on more team colors for hold and capture. Red, blue, pink, green.

If you would reduce the points wich you recieve for scoring, that wouldn't match the fact it's "capture the flag", not deathmatch.
If it are such good players where your talking about, they should score as well, instead of fragging only (wich tackles your problem).

To me, there should be a score system wich isn't directly connected to frags, but just on score.

I know that will never happen tough...

In larger teams it's kind of rare to see everyone playing as attackers. Some people stay behind at choke points or the flag base and try to defend it against incoming attackers. Personally, i play defense best because i don't have to worry about shooting people AND moving back to my base while jumping and looking around erratically to make sure i survive.

RaZgRiZ: "Personally, i play defense best because i don't have to worry about shooting people AND moving back to my base while jumping and looking around erratically to make sure i survive."
Exactly. And because this is so difficult, it makes sense to reward the player if he manages to score. As a player, I want to (a) win the game, (b) frag as many as possible and (c) be on top of the scoreboard. No (or less) points for a score means that (b) and (c) can be easily achieved by camping/spawnkilling (just think of capture_night), so people will kill rather than play.

Personally, I prefer being teamkilled 1/10 second before scoring myself over having teammates who don't go after the flag and instead camp.

Synopsis: Leave it as it is, it works. If you want to change anything: Display some values on the scoreboard which some servers already display on their own, like "flags stolen", "flags returned", "fastest flagrun", ...

You mentioned scores, and this reminded me of something that should be added to the list regarding efficiency gamemodes.

In efficiency, it's all about dealing damage. Calling the best player the one with the most frags is unfair because in efficiency, the easiest thing to do is "steal" someone's kill which has been withered down to low health by someone else.

So.. check the new entry in the gameplay adjustments!

While that might be great for my nade-spams, I think kill-"stealing" is just part of the mode. This would be a bit like saying if one player gets YA in FFA the other should get it automatically, because its unfair that you win if you get better armor. I know its different, but I want to point out: Efficiency is like that. And it is fun like it is, people like it. So keep it.

Heheh, forgive me, but you say for him to check his grammar and spelling, and yet you have things like "that player are able" and "costumize"

:P

Not all of us speak English as our fist language, so we must allow for some variance in the way people talk.
Anywho... Take no offense, as none was intended.

I won't since I'm also a disaster at languages :P.

Seems like I forgot to put the spell checker on when I said "costumize", sorry!

"That playerS are able" should be fine?

"I won't since I'm also a disaster at languages"
Nevertheless you invite others to check their grammar and keep spamming happily.

Meister you are trolling! Read this thread please!

In this case, you are trolling, since you provoked him and then showed him the "anger effect" thread. :P

Of course I make grammar and spelling mistakes. I don't care if you tell me I do so. Honestly, when I spelled something wrong or used a very odd grammar, just tell me. I don't mind that.

In the case what Meister said, it looked (to me) that he wanted to offense, instead of helping, like I tried to Drekow.

I don't care who's the troll (or who just is trolling) or who's not...

Unfortunately the spell checker will never catch the words that are spelled correctly but are just wrong. Thats all I'm going to say about it "tough". :)

Can you give a list of command (or at least a couple) and I may be able to get something done. Or Razgriz will. :)

srbs

Here you were!

All commands inside the "md2_prefab.cfg" can also be used in any other "_prefab.cfg". They just aren't included in those others, because they have their own specific command.

So, I would advice you to start up with the "md2_prefab.cfg" and use all those commands for the others and included commands which aren't in "md2_prefab.cfg" and aren't sharing the same purpose as the commands in that file (like "md3pitch" can be replaced for "mdlpitch").

If you want that I'll make a more clear configs with all "universal" commands inside them, that's ok but will take some more time.

1st edit:
Here you were for an improved and more universal version!

I've deleted the licensing nonsense about to give me a credit (what was I thinking back in those days :S?) and replaced all commands which would also work with "mdl...".

Thanks a lot if you would create such gui.

2nd edit:
Here you were for (probably) a final version of the prefabs! It has major fixes, like I forgot to also modify the extension after the command "md3load". Also added support for the "md3scroll" command (it "should" work now).
Also deleted more licensing nonsense.

I'm sure many more modelers would be pleased if someone makes such ingame gui for sauerbraten.

Thanks already if you do so.

3th edit:
Be sure to fetch the 3th (and probably last) version here.
Some commands like "md3ambient" has been placed back again, since it could be useful when a model has more skins.
There are also some major fixed done, like wrong default values and after I read the "stdshader.cfg" inside the "data"-folder, I found out models use a different kind of names for shadersettings than textures do (great job that such thing isn't getting told anywhere -.-). I noted all available shaders right after the command.
Added a license (I'm actually wondering why. Ah well, putted pretty much time in it already for "just some commands") seperate of the config prefabs.

srbs Edit: fixed link lol

Interesting wishlist,

About singleplayer in multiplayer;
I guess you mean doors, monsters, elevators, etc, I'm pretty sure that won't be added at all, if so, then it would have been added already a long time ago.
Why? Because sauerbraten's multiplayer system is based on peer-to-peer, which means your version sends information to a server, which receives it and send it to other players on that server (and visa-versa).
This is a great system as long as the connections are fine and versions unmodified. When connections are bad and are lagging (assume you are the person that has a bad connection), other players would walk right trough doors, which are presenting as closed to you (because of the connection delay).

About mod support;
I'm not sure, but I don't bet eihrul will add this, just because sauerbraten isn't a sandbox game. It's not created to be a game where it should be easy to modify things like gameplay or the geometry-system.

About stepsounds;
I'm very sure that also won't be added, because it would affect the gameplay, which should present a fast but simple gameplay. I wouldn't mind if it would be included (would love it actually), but too bad...

About high quality explosions;
Where are you talking about? Sauerbraten has fine explosions. True, they aren't the most realistic explosions ever seen, but who cares on such unrealistic first person shooter?

About thirdperson view;
Why should it be improved? You actually shouldn't be in thirdperson view at all when playing. As far as I know, it only still exists because of the RPG-mod Eistenstern wich died long time ago.
To me, especially the "thirdpersondistance" command should be less "free to use", because players can easily abuse it to watch over structures like walls, buildings, etc.
There is a mod which has what your subscribing, a thirdperson view which isn't pointing on the crosshair. It should be on "sauerbraten.org".

About fall-damage;
No way that would be added because of several reasons:
- Will affect the gameplay which won't be simple anymore (#, I also would see it to be included but too bad...)
- Will fail because of connection problems (see for explanation the case about "singleplayer in multiplayer").
- Can't be added into cube engine 2 that easily.
Why it can't be added easily? Because sauerbraten (which represents cube engine 2) doesn't actually have gravity. It only has a value which pulls players down after a certain time.
Fall-damage needs an indicator wich measures the top-height of the player to the bottom on a surface or measures the speed of the certain model. After that, it should calculate which damage the player should take. Because that can't be implemented easily, it won't happen.
There is somewhere on this website a script wich allows players to die after they reached a certain speed, but only after that certain speed, not the difference between speeds (like as example from 100 to 0 units).

About damage/second;
It already has been discussed on another forum and the conclusion of that was:
- Will affect the gameplay which won't be simple any more (# again, I also would see this one to be included but that's pretty unlikely to happen...)
- Will fail because of connection problems (see for explanation the case about "singleplayer in multiplayer").
There has been discussed about solutions, like adding an "unhealthy" entity, which would give the players -25 health, instead of +25 health, which a respawn time of 1 second (so -25health/second). But it's main problem is still those connection problems.
Another solution is adding "damage-material", but this also won't fix the connection problem.
Just travel around on quadropolis and I'm sure you'll find that discussion back again.

About a new gamemode;
Have you ever heard of (regen)capture? It sound pretty similar to those modes.
If you were meaning players have to "build" their own base by using editor, this also has been discussed (somewhere on sauerbraten.org) before and won't happened, because the editing-system isn't build like that. You would have to modify the complete lighting-system, but also the geometry-system, which is a pain in the ass.

I'm sorry, but it seems like none of your wishes would make it.
Be sure to add constructive notes around your wishes, instead of just throwing it on a forum.

Oh my...
"I'm sorry, but it seems like none of your wishes would make it. Be sure to add constructive notes around your wishes, instead of just throwing it on a forum."
...and who are you to say that? Boy, it's just a wishlist, so let people throw in what they wish, it's not your duty to check what can be done and what can't: if the world it's not overturned yet, afaik all the decisions are thankfully still up to eirhul and not on you.
And why you have always to reply to everyone, everytime, everywhere, regardless? "What about" (again to paraphrase one of your favorite sentences) learning to keep your mouth shut sometimes?
Sorry for the o/t.
Greetings.

Actually, fall damage is feasible and HAS been already made. You can ask about it 'ac' from the cm clan for details. Pretty well made and adjustable settings. Kinda gory.

Damage per second for materials can be done. It probably isn't all that hard to implement, judging by how small the change is. Though i'm seriously concerned when you say that the gameplay won't be simple anymore with it. So the game is all about jumping around safely and shooting things? A map is no fun if it has nothing to keep you busy avoiding. Yet again, if damage per second for lava is so unfair to the simplicity of this game, then why haven't i seen you nag about how lava kills you instantly? Oops, made a hole there.

Regarding the connection.. who cares! Peer-to-peer or not, laggy clients WILL lag, you can't do much to avoid that unless you feel the urge to travel the world, dig holes and lay cables so everyone can play LAN on a global scale. Seriously, if you think sync issues are so severe, i don't see why they're only a problem when a new feature is suggested. Perhaps you've grown accustomed to whatever problems exist now and just don't want to see new ones which are practically the same as before. I do not understand your problem.

I'm very sorry to say, but that's what I took as conclusion on both discussion (of the fall-damage and damage/second) some while ago...

I based most of the comment on replies of the programmers to such ideas (wich are scattered around on community websites), correct me if I'm wrong.

Meister, your talking about that I always have to reply on everyone, but it seems like you frequently reply on me again.

Maybe I shouldn't say It's a no go and true I don't have the right to say so, but I do have the right to think from a more realistic sight.
Like I told so, a lot of those wishes would already be implemented if the programmers wanted it.
I'm pretty sure eihrul and aardappel know how to add such updates, so that's not the problem. The only option stays which is they just don't want to add it. That's why I was advising to look from mods (like you mentioned, Assault Cube has some of those features but also Red Eclipse has some) or make one yourself.

I have a lot more ideas to improve this game, but I know they wouldn't make it to any release at all. That's why I won't share them with anyone.

You know bud, you don't need to disprove every last suggestion. Let a man dream.

yes /chainsawhudgun 0 is without sound..but only for me....and i want to to creep up on campers from behind...like its possible in cod4 :p

btw: i remember LMS in ctf edition...but not CA?!?! my whish is it to have an eiffic mode where i can do rockets-and nade-trickjumps without loosing health :D

cheers!

The send/get config would likely be fairly simple to implement, but I beleive it is not implemented there because people might write scripts that could break other clients. ( Change a ton of settings when executed, simply kill the client, or crash it using one of the many method, as a few examples. )

It would still be nice to have.

As a side note, it would be easy to quickly skim through the average config before executing, but some may very well exceed 500 lines. I have an SP map and my config is over 1200 lines. In the case of a huge one though, odds are the maker would not add anything malicious to it as the config likely serves a real purpose.. but who knows.

I second every one of these suggestions.

I could live with 4. and 5., but for the others: My wishlist is: Do not include any of them.

Things like animations or models could simply be ignored when playing a demo. More difficult are other things like maps which are not included anymore or things like gameclip. That's why I only suggested (in my comment at 2011-06-21 09:32) an ability to download maps. And I'm still waiting for an expert opinion on the reason preventing this from being included.

It would be nice to be able to just download maps, but it would require a place to host them ( quad hosts maps ) but additionally it would have to be able to sustain a fairly high load. If the option is right there and so easily used, some people would be downloading maps and content like mad, potentially putting a lot of strain on the server. ( Still, that can all be fixed by a good server with a good internet connection )

Alternatively... Once could share maps in a P2P sort of way, but that would likely be more complex.
Clients could be set up to have an option to share specific content, with a user specified set upload and download rate, and then the clients requesting a map could download maps bit by bit from multiple people.

Maybe implementing some kind of quad browser inside the game. Kind of like a file browser where you can download and install. Or possibly hosting on the server-side too.

Then it would be the same result as with a map downloader/updater: Sauer would depend on quadropolis. I can understand that this would be a crucial problem. Anyways, I still want it!

The site likely couldn't handle the higher amounts of traffic. Downloading maps would be slowed right down for pretty well everybody. You'd also likely need a form of HTTP support ingame, which I doubt anybody wants to implement.

I agree that achieving a map-download feature through a website is not a practical way.

But how about doing this on the server? I think that could be implemented with moderate effort. Something like an autogetmap command together with a little gui user prompt. Of course that would also face some difficulties:
- The server owner would regularly have to put the starred-content maps onto the server. But considering how well-maintained many servers are, I don't think this will be a problem. After all, that will also attract players.
- There would have to be (or wouldn't it?) some way to control what maps the servers are sending, e.g. only starred-content. Would the masterserver be able to do this? What comes to my mind is this: Masterserver downloads random maps from random servers, calculates hashes and checks if they are valid. If not, server gets suspended.

Yes, I won't stop demanding this feature until I'm convinced that it is close to impossible ;)

Importing .map would be hell and a half, as your going from BSP to the octree. In theory, it could be done with basic shapes, but you get some issues with things such as:

Very gentle slopes. The engine can only slop at a minimum of one unit over every eight, regardless of grid size.

Curves. We all know that you can make almost any curve using the octree, but automatic manipulation of the octree to that extent would be painful.

Small intricacies with concave surfaces: To make a concave surface in the engine you must subdivide it several times and use several deformed cubes. If you get to a small enough scale, everything flies out the window.

And here is a big one: Alignment. The engine would need to ( if you wanted clean geometry ) bring ceilings or floors up or down slightly to match the grid, so as to avoid messy edges with walls and destruction of complex shapes. And along with this, think of a concave shape; If you want to make it accurately, you need to shift it's own divisions are inline with the grid.

I realize you said there would be some level of error to contend with, but I feel that the level of error would be far too great for the amount of effort required to impliment such a feature. Though it would be nice.

On the brighter side of things:
I think the easiest way to go about doing this would be to export the .map file as a mesh, clean it up externally, then import it into the cube engine and use it as a template. ( apply a transparent texture to the model, it helps a lot ) I've done this a few times with maps I've made in the unreal engine.

All very true... but I thought I would mention it.

Ever heard of the shader "decalworld"? This shaderoption blends 1 texture to another texture. I think it's just what you need ;).

P.S.
Seperate texture scrolling isn't supported, just like on all other (common) shaders. If you do want a texture scroll over another texture, be sure to check this.

I believe this idea could be expanded.

/newent glass X-SIZE Y-SIZE DEPTH BREAKABLE

if breakable, would it dissappear or shatter and allow people through??

That could better be a model with animations, because that's just what it seems to be. Too bad it probably wouldn't be for multiplayer.

If that would have to get implemented into Sauerbraten, I think you have to change the hole octree to implement, because that would mean your popping an entity that contains geometry (which none of the entities have yet. They only have a static boundingbox itself), have an alpha-channel and animation (which only pickups have, even that's actually just "mdlspin", so that would mean there have to be written into the sourcecode some kind of break animation, for all sizes of geometry).

I'm sorry, but seems like this is never going to happen, except if someone really has priority for this.

It's actually quite simple, though not in the way penguins suggested. Simply make a model, subdivide it and animate it to shatter externally. Then import it, align it, and trigger the animation when desired. There are two options for collision. Either have the bounding box move out of the way on the model itself, or have a separate model that is not visible, for collision, that moves out of the way when triggered.

The only change to the engine required is to allow triggering in multiplayer; in singleplayer it's just fine. The rest is simply up to the artist to know what they are doing - For example: Physics don't apply to the model, so the animation would need to be done convincingly, and the shards would need to land at the proper height to suit the application in the map.

This is the exact same thing you do for doors with more than one moving piece, except this time it's merely with a transparent plane.

There is nothing stopping anybody from doing it in a single player map.

That's very true and the reason why I suggested using a model. The only problem with using a model is that you could only scale the model, not create/modify it's geometry.

Concerning your map-propagation proposal: If it was done like that, wouldn't that open the doors for "map-spamming" to the server and - to a lesser degree - to players? Imho, at least some control-mechanism needs to be implemented.

You could do a variety of things:

Have users tell the server to save the map, or vote for it to save the map.

Have the server send a map, but only save it if X number of players have gotten the map, and have been playing on the map for X number of minutes. ( dependent on game mode )

Or have it only save on map every ten minutes or so, or additionally, cull maps that have not been played for a period of time or when the amount of stored maps exceeds a certain file size. ( If a map is played, it goes to the top of the list, while others on the bottom get deleted as new maps are saved )

I think the simplest methods would be to vote a map in, or to have various users with the ability to tell the server to save it, along with the culling of old maps unless specifically told to keep a said map.

Either way, with the size of maps, one could easily dedicate two or three gigs to hold the maps, and never have to worry about it again.

i like your ideas! and maybe have auth users that ability.

Red Eclipse does this, but doesn't store the map permanently on servers.

We all know Red Eclipse is a great and wonderful game, with many more features than Sauerbraten or even any other game based on Cube Engine 2. But somehow, it doesn't gives the same feeling as Sauerbraten does. It doesn't give that "simple" touch.

I still have a lot of respect for creating Red Eclipse, great work!

In other words: We want auto-map-downloader for Sauerbraten, too ;)

Please don't sugar coat your dislike for his game. i personally like RE's twist on cube 2. end.

I wasn't even trying to do such thing.

I'm just used to the sense and simplicity of Sauerbraten, instead of that of Red Eclipse.
Last time I played Red Eclipse, I noticed it doesn't got that good documentation yet as well, like when I tried to create a map on it (which I failed, since I couldn't find any editing commands anywhere, not even on the Wiki. After some research again, I noticed they do appear on the Wiki now, so I'll give it another try).

Just like I was trying to let you notice before, it's a matter of taste.

I was just pointing out that its possible by demonstrating that it has been done, I didn't want to start a debate on which game is better for what purposes. The two games have always been mutually exclusive because they cater to different audiences.

and a trigger switchable by pushing a box on it :D

We just use CSL for player search, though it would be a nice feature.

seconded. explosions in sauerbraten are ugly

just make new texture..?

I'd personally like to see a blend between the current method, and animated sprites. Done properly, it can work quite nicely.

That's problematic, as the fog also works vertically. Currently, you can simply set up the fog dome to form a shallow ring around the sky that matches the fog color. Works well, though I'm sure you already know.

That can only be achieved by bump mapping the explosion scorch, since real time deformation is not possible for the game.

Also.. 101st comment! This thread is likely the single most discussed on node EVAR! Except for hirato's configuration extensions, with 104 comments. Keep the ideas comming people, i'll be updating the list with new entries and tags!

I'm actually not daring it, but may I ask the reason why you would like such thing?

ummmmm, did this person just say "spectator spawnpoint"? or am i in a hellish nightmare where people who don't know anything about the game are making suggestions about useless additions?

anyways, a GOOD idea, lets change a bit of the gameplay, add perhaps a new game mode or two.

Is it my idea or your vacations ended? =P

ANOTHER game mode?
Are you sure of that? The past editions they did nothing else than adding game-modes into Sauerbraten (assassin in assassin-edition, capture the flag in ctf-edition, protect the flag in trooper edition (assassin and many other beautiful modes has been removed or "destroyed" in this edition), hold and efficiency team-modes in justice edition.

But thanks for the idea, because now I found out why Sauerbraten started becoming some kind of cheap simplified Team Fortress 2, because only team-modes has been added over the past years, while deathmatch modes like assassin and tactics arena has left the scene.
No-one plays tactics anymore after it has been modified. It's like ages ago I saw a match in the webbrowser showing "tactics" as mode. Why should someone anways? It's just random-weapon-efficiency and every match is just a gamble where luck depends if you win or not, because the weapon matters a lot in sauerbraten. Like on justice, riflerounds are way more useful than some shells. So you would be screwed if your opponent gets riflerounds and rockets, while you spawn with grenades and shells.

To me, they should get back to those days only capture the flag existed from all those new team-modes and all other modes that where back in those days (like assassin and tactics arena or even insta capture).

That's like saying 'Everybody plays on Venice, so why have all the other maps?' as well as, 'Insta is the most played game mode, so why not just remove the rest?'

Personally, I loved tactics because of the exact reason you said. It's random weapon efficiency. It requires you to have a feel for each weapon and the situations it's good in, and to use what you have.

Rather than removing those modes, I'd remove insta because it takes away from the rest of the game.
Tactics is great. Hold is great. FFA is great. But they are simply never played because new players don't try them and regulars don't change their routine.

If I go to the server browser and see an FFA game playing, you can count on me to join it, but nobody ever hosts one, and when I do it takes so long to get any traffic. The reason Venice is so popular is because the server is dedicated to that mode and map. You can always find it and count on it to be there.

( I personally hate insta because it only focuses on just aim and movement, rather than proficiency with a variety of weapons in a variety of situations. )

an insta cap mode would be interesting ... also a mode that is a progressive cap, and im not positive but speeding up the cap time based on more people (i think this might be in the code??)

chaseter

Also Insta capture has been removed when the trooper edition came out. It was a very stable mode compared to tactics arena or assassin (because most newcomers weren't understanding not to hit teammates if assassin was on a server). It just wasn't getting played that often as the other modes (while it actually should).

Actually, now friendly-fire can be disabled, assassin could return again?

the insta 'problem' is also in halo reach. i'm in a clan on there and they seem to like swat because it's one headshot to kill. that takes almost no skill. people are rather bad at playing objective-based (as opposed to kills-based) games on halo as well because of such intensive use of non-objective modes.

I would LOVE assassin coming back, but i was one of the only people who would play it :\

As far as i'm aware, that happens only when the spotlights are too far away from the lights or not close enough when another spotlight is nearby.

For example, two attached spotlights being too near another light will attach to that one instead when the map is reloaded. You need to be careful with their placement.

shouldnt (if the code was written correctly) the light node be attached to the spotlight node in the map file that way this is not a problem?

I've no idea what the code does in these cases.

:S Maps? Maps are already supported. Try ingame "/newmap 10" and press "/savemap name_of_map" afterwards.

There are many beautiful maps. It would be great to see any improvement in making it easy to add new models, (weapon & player "skins").

You are a few months late.

better late than never ;p

Would be interesting.

Until then, we use /invalidcubeguard #
:)

+1 Well put! It looks like it was accepted. Congrats and TY!

In some map if i'm winning and both flag are captured, when time go to a number less than 10, I always put the flag where it could not be returned.
Doing something different is an error.

But problably RaZgRiZ, wants it to speed up the game.

I personally don't like it, is a very tactical issue the 10 second wait.

You can already color your cross-hair. Just use your own image.

or god forbid ... u go to the rendergl.cpp and look up crosshair and change the values your self -.-

Are you people making it really that hard?
Just put right before the path of the speficied crosshair:

<mad:1/1/1>

It's just Red/Green/Blue. Scale 0 to 1.

Good luck...

Are you MAD!?

Well, thanks for fixing (I forgot it didn't work like I wanted on here -.-) but the "mad" can also be replaced for "color", as that is easier to understand for newcomers also...

Sorry Zaaikort, but that's just ridiculous.
A far better solution would be to implement a surface-sound list to accompany the texture list in maps.

So just as autograss does...

Sure! No question! That's what we would like the source programmer(s) to implement for us.

But my approach is to ask very little: just a few simple universal additions to the source that will enable us to make all sorts of things ourselves.
Trigger material is one such powerful addition.
'Material' and 'trigger' already exist, so how hard can it be?

With cubical trigger material we could arrange our own texture 'induced' sound selection. Also underwater sounds would be a piece o'cake. (If trigger material can coincide with water.) And sounds is only an example. Etcetera etcetera, without any more special changes to the source.

The existing spherical triggers are just too impractical for this kind of purpose.

Autograss also already exists, so that's just a matter of modifying so it works with a command like mapsound ambience/cavedrip 100 -1.

It often isn't a matter of being easy to implement or not. It's a matter of matching the target of the developers...

What's the benefit of that? You can only react slower when your used to like 200fps.
Since when do we care about power consuming =P?

Does that mean the programmer won't read it?

Did he ever.

that would be impossible. all the game does currently with rotation functions is swap pixel positions. using custom angles would mean creating a new texture, given how sauer works.

unless it wasn't based on an octree. that would allow you to freely format textures around in whatever angle you want and chop them wherever you want.

Fair enough. I had assumed it was 4 directions for a reason. I had imagined it would be possible to rotate the texture by simply tiling the texture as a diagonal surface; Really bad example (red = texture, black = surface). I have no idea which method sauer uses to texture surfaces however ;p

-----

By the way under graphical adjustments in the opening post:
The fog should hide the geometry backed on the skybox in the distance instead of just fade it with the fog color.

I was thinking, can that not already done by adjusting fogdomemax / fogdomemin?

no, all that does is create a fog dome on the skybox, as the name implies. it's just there to help blend the normal fog better.

Here's a version of ik_wood_planks128d
rotated by the simplest angle: 1 to 1 (aka 45 degrees)

The transform involves scaling with an irrational number,
and some manicuring to remome visible seams caused by that.
A lot more than swapping pixel positions!

The one I did yesterday is actually usable:

I didn't say otherwise, mine is usable too. Just showing that all angles are possible, and rotating a texture is also pretty fast for any angle. However, using that method isn't exactly the easiest and fastest process to undergo. Unlike other games :(

Hmmmm... other games sometimes look cheap because of misaligned textures. Never mind, the point is we agree that anything is possible with a bit of manual labour.

You can't really blame the game for the mapper being lazy aligning textures properly. Have you seen some of soc's maps for quake? They're a pretty good example of simply awesome :)

I already suggested the diagonal texturing before and received the same answer.
Despite that, maybe a shader which shifts the pixels would do...

indeed. the second comment to be added on this very node was about that :P

Hah, didn't notice that... can't blame me for skimming the comments (There's alot).

how about you do a fail sliding door by having a TGA texture with alpha scroll instead? :P

What about that such door wouldn't fail actually?

well.. the way i understand it is that with this method one could walk through closed doors.

It shouldn't be a big deal to have a door which is closing and going open in multiplayer as well, but just not triggered.
This means it should be a mapmodel and contain something similar to md3anim mapmodel 0 12 3 in it's config file.
Of course it wouldn't allow any bullets neither players going through, that why I suggest to put also mdlcollide 0 in the md3.cfg.
Of course, that would mean you can pass through also when the door is closed, but that can be "fixed" by adjusting the flow and gameplay to that.
An addition to that is to put some skytextured cubes inside to the sides of the door, so it would be a little more realistic.
It actually amazes me no-one ever seems to have used it 0.0!

Sidenote:
Wouldn't be a bad idea for windows as well...

Just for you, to make it more fitting my reply on your reply; if md3scroll * 1 0mdlalphablend 1mdlcollide 0 would be added into the md3.cfg and a .tga skin which contains alpha-channel would be used, you got yourself a scrolling door also =P.

Any other suggestions to solve this problem without modifying the source-code?

Actually, this is a thread for Updates, I guess it would be okay if they modify the source code for that.
And no, I have no more constructive ideas for faking doors, as that is a hard thing to realise with just scrolling textures and not scrolling geometry.

The problem with ideas which are based on modifying the source-code is, that those aren't having much chance to be included into an official release of Sauerbraten (unless it's matching Eihrul's and other developers vision).
As for example "the door problem", don't bet on it that it would be added into multiplayer, so that's why you could better search for alternatives.

Except there are no alternatives to it, other than solid, noclipped doors or no doors at all. Texture scroll slide doors is a faux way of making something cool, but that's as far as it goes. Mapmodels wouldn't work either, since SP code for platforms would have to be updated for MP, and since vslots do not sync in multiplayer i doubt those will. Also, no proper lighting/shadowing support for models. Bawww.

It doesn't seem you're getting my firs idea with the mapmodel (neither my second).
By adding md3anim mapmodel 0 12 3 into a model's md3.cfg, you would get the certain mapmodel will start it's animation even in being a mapmodel, at frame 0, having 12 frames and render 3 frames each second. So even if you're in multiplayer, edit-mode, singleplayer, what ever, it just doesn't matter, the model will continue (and loop) it's animation.
After reading this, head back to my first idea and find out what I really mean. Then come back for my second idea =P.

If you still not getting it, here is an actual example of it. Just put unzip it and put it into your base Sauerbraten folder, then execute /mmodel doors/door_01_animated ingame.

My second idea is just the same as some door-textured cubes which have texscroll and stuff added, but just a bit more advanced. Unlike raw geometry, the alpha-channel is getting rendered way more transparent on a mapmodel (while the rest of the skin stays solid), which would make it look the door really is continues sliding.
Despite that, I think my first idea looks to most fancy.

And what you don't understand is that they all fail because of their static bump boxes.

Seriously? I already said so, mdlcollide 0 would fix that problem, as you can walk right through the door (even when closed though, but that isn't taking the tactical advantages away).
There is no fail, only that you wouldn't be able to trigger it (as I already stated in my 1st post about it). Please read my comments more careful next time.

If you still aren't getting it, just take this damn link and load the model on a map.

Gentlemen! Don't slam the doors, please!

Don't worry, we resolved this over IRC, he is now banned.

jk.

Censored because of containing personal insults

Suicizer

Trololol!

I'm not sure, but doesn't IQM have an option to generate per-animation-frame collision boxes? Dunno if those actually work in-game, though.

I doubt this would be added, your description very closely matches the melee weapon in "Red Eclipse", another game based on the Cube engine.

See here.

personally i'd prefer to see the old chainsaw updated and readded to the game with new animations.

I'm kinda busy with that you know (not the old gauntlet, but something similar...

Any chance of a screenshot if you have one lying around? I only seem to remember the fist before the orange chainsaw appeared in the game.

I've never played RedEclipse actually -.-

new playermodels
WUT?

lolz agrees .. the pmodels .. are interesting ;p and some out of date *cough*(orgo)

If you check the svn version, it was updated not too long ago :P

"Ability to specify jumppad/teleport etc sounds in map configs for added variety."

That one (if that's what you are reffering to) is on the suggestions list already... which would be very nice to have.

You can configure ambient sounds via map configs already (birds, water, etc).

You can configure ambient sounds via map configs already (birds, water, etc).

Very true, but those ambient sounds are very radius dependent, unless you configure the same sound with several strenght and have the weakest type of sound a larger radius while the sound-entity which is the loudest to hear a small radius (which sounds pretty pricy to get a proper effect because of the amount of sound entities you´ll need).

Just some thoughts on what you can already do.

I remember a few servers which send the map automatically to any players connecting as long as a master/coop mode is present. I'm not sure which server mod they were using (i think it might be one that was written in python, no idea on the name of it though).

As far as i know, it should be okay to run this kind of mod on a server which is being listed on the official masterserver. I assume this, as these coop servers seem to be online quite often. I think the rule on public/sauerbraten servers is that they cannot change the gameplay (ctf, ffa, effic, etc)if they wish to be listed on the masterserver. So that might be an idea you could work on using. I could be wrong though.

There are also some server mods (such as vampi's frogmod) that have built in commands to send the map to a player, for example, when you are admin/master you can type "@sendmap " to send your version of the map as if that player had typed getmap. you could always find one of these servers or even run one yourself, and write a small cubescript function to input "@sendmap " everytime a player connects. In fact, that might be the best way to do what you are trying to achieve with the current sauerbraten release.

hey unix! thanks a lot for your info!
Well, i do love the #sendto command. A script would be nice but I hope they would implement it into sauerbraten official source code.

I'd be just more happy if there would be an official sauerbraten update where the player doesn't have to care about mapsplits / lagging out and all these last-century things anymore. hehe.

I doubt some auto-sendmap/getmap would be inplemented, because then eihrul would have done that ages ago already. Personally, I really hate it to get the map automaticly downloaded when you connect to a server, because I always type /getmap after joining a server and seeing some names anyway. That means you´ll be trying to get the map twice, which also doubles the time of waiting before you can actually observate the map properly.
This could be tackled when servers would show off that they have an auto-sendmap/getmap, but as that actually is also against the principes of the servers (as eihrul announced so on the official Sauerbraten website), it shouldn´t be done.

As far as I know, the servers of the clan cm had some independent editing system where people would be more real-time editing than usual (like for vcommands, remipping and such I thought).

Here's what i think. while /sendto CN could be useful, i should probably be a master-only command since it would suck having people forcing you into getting something you don't want and causing chaos.

I agree, as with many people I may just pop into a server to see who is there, with no real intent on staying, or even caring of what map is there. I really hate to be forced to get the map, then have to wait until it loads, and you can tell its not going to be great just by watching it load textures from every texture set, only to then finally be able to see who is there and leave again. It's just a way of holding someone hostage it seems.