Suggestion: Location names instead of grid location.

PingSpike · Post by **PingSpike** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 7:24 am

I'm not sure if this has been suggested/asked before but...

I find the grid location system in ET to be borderline useless. I have no idea where b,5 is...nor do I particularly care to learn. I'm sure others have it figured out, but I just think the system in RtCW whereby location names where used was far more intuitive. Even relative newbies know where 'north antitank gun' is...as apposed to c,4 (or whatever it really is.

) When some one says 'I need backup' I want to go help them...but its hard having to pull up the command map to look around for where it came from and try to figure out where exactly they are. I usually just don't bother.

I would like to see it in ETPro, but of course not everyone would agree with me. Also, I have no idea if it is even possible within ETPro's scope as a server mod without doing map changes. If it were possible, I would think making it selectable by the player would be a good idea...in case they wanted to use the original grid system.

Just an idea, I'm curious to hear people's thoughts on the issue.

IdNotFound · Post by **IdNotFound** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 8:31 am

Yes, already requested, but requesting again just shows it's something we all would like to see

http://bani.anime.net/banimod/forums/vi ... php?t=3436

The suggestions on the above post could/would help A LOT. Nobody likes the coordinates

PingSpike · Post by **PingSpike** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 11:19 am

Cool, it sounds like its possible at least, without modification of the existing maps.

This would be awesome. Make it so much easier to coordinate attacks and respond to requests/commands.

gotenks · Post by **gotenks** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 11:43 am

could it be possible with a mapscript alteration? if not this wouldn't be too bad, i get turned arround a bit with people not near me. Seeing an actual location of someone would be a bit better, of course this could lead to some issues since you can have a roof route right above a land route.

PingSpike · Post by **PingSpike** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 12:14 pm

off topic: gotenks...that bouncing boob avatar mesmerizes me every time I see one of your posts. I waste at least 30 seconds watching it repeat every time I notice it.

As far as overlapping areas go...I think this can be gotten around with the z coordinates based on what was said in the other thread right? Either way b,5 doesn't indicate what 'level' a player is on any better in this case.

gotenks · Post by **gotenks** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 12:17 pm

yes i know, but i don't use the coordinates right now, but it would drive me nuts not being able to find a person to revive if they're in old city spawn, when they're really ontop of it

Ragnar_40k · Post by **Ragnar_40k** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 12:25 pm

There are already target names inside the maps: Every time when you near an objective it displays "You are near XYZ". Maybe the text for the nearest objective could be added to certain voice chats, e.g. v21 -> "Need a Medic! (Old City Wall)".
And you should keep in mind, that ET maps a lot larger the RtCW maps. So it is maybe impossible to name all areas.

ReyalP · Post by **ReyalP** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 1:06 pm

Ragnar_40k wrote:There are already target names inside the maps: Every time when you near an objective it displays "You are near XYZ". Maybe the text for the nearest objective could be added to certain voice chats, e.g. v21 -> "Need a Medic! (Old City Wall)".
And you should keep in mind, that ET maps a lot larger the RtCW maps. So it is maybe impossible to name all areas.

Those are trigger_objective_info not target_location. RTCW had both, ET only uses TOI. The difference is that for a TOI you get the message when you are in the trigger area, where a with a target_location the nearest visible one is used.

target_location support could potentially add a lot of entities to ET maps. ISTR reading that they had a non-trivial performance cost too.

That said, I would love to have named locations instead of the stupid coords.

O2.iceman · Post by **O2.iceman** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 2:11 pm

The coordinates ARE useless, not just borderline useless.

The RtCW system shat all over ET's. If it could be changed, there would be much rejoicing.

PingSpike · Post by **PingSpike** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 4:26 pm

Well the RtCW wasn't perfect. It did sometimes give the oh so useful location of (unknown) but for the most part it gave me a good idea where to go, and is much better than the coords system.

ET maps are larger and would require more entries of course.

SoL · Post by **SoL** » Thu Apr 29, 2004 5:05 am

Yes yes yes, please, place names over co-ordinates

Mano de Dios · Post by **Mano de Dios** » Thu Apr 29, 2004 7:39 am

they had a non-trivial performance cost

I liked this idea, till I read this.

I don't want ET to be bogged down with overhead calculations. And ET maps are large and it may be hard to name every location with a name that is both descriptive and unique.

If it can be done without affecting performance, then I'm all for it. Otherwise, I'll stick to my current plan of telling everyone through team-chat.

v21
y
"at north gun"

and then I can use words like "under", "above", "around corner" or whatever.

And those coordinates are not useless, just not intuitive to use. It's much easier IMO to tell a mortar or field ops to "hit G4" instead of "spam this area over here that isn't quite by an objective but they have to walk by in 2 seconds"

gotenks · Post by **gotenks** » Thu Apr 29, 2004 7:42 am

yes the grid system is usefull to good mortars, which i know only a few of...
i have noticed one thing, although et has bigger maps, most of the map is tunnels or passages, i don't think it'd be too hard to name most of it

coda'uk · Post by **coda'uk** » Thu Apr 29, 2004 7:51 am

thats the beauty of the OSP style q3 solution with /addloc -> people can name whatever they like at no extra work for the mappers/mod developpers, and it is all clientside, so no server load.

ReyalP · Post by **ReyalP** » Thu Apr 29, 2004 11:46 am

Mano de Dios wrote:
they had a non-trivial performance cost
I liked this idea, till I read this.

Well, that doesn't mean that they couldn't be implemented cheaply. (and BTW, that's just something I read somewhere, so I'm not completely sure how significant it really is.) RTCW had lots of target_locations, and rather shitty network peformance...

Ahh, heres one place that describes it:
http://www.planetquake.com/qworkshop3/t ... index.html

Further Design Tips from the Radiant Manual: The target locations are "line-of-sight." If a player can "see" it, and that target is the closest to the player, then that location message is displayed. Be conservative in placing location markers. Because of the way the location code is implemented, it causes a large amount of data to be transmitted regularly. It has been explained that the game serrver has to constantly keep track of, and update to the clients, a data table equal to all the location markers multiplied by all the players. Not only that, but it must calculate line of sight from players to location markers and calculate the distance from the location marker. Place the target locations in such a way that the entity can be "seen" from most, if not all, the positions that a player can stand in when it is inside that area. Fewer are better, even if it means that occasionally, a team mate is in an unknown location.

I think it would be better to have standard names for the locations, rather than being user defined. ETPRo already has the capability to add entities via the map script, so retrofitting them to the original maps shouldn't be too hard. New mappers should be able to add them when they make the level (assuming they can just be ignored by mods which don't understand them). Compared to the work required to make a map, this is a rather small task.