Let's use this forum again, to keep everyone on the same page.
Tomy set me up with the Git so now I can push builds to steam again. I have a bunch of map updates incoming to that branch. In order to use it and check the latest map updates, right click on DA in your steam directory and go:
properties>betas>select the beta you would like to opt into:
and select 'stormy-maps'.
So I am going to fix all of Tomy's map issues on the Git. Most of my VMF's have been worked on a little bit (and there are a few things I want to do) so there will be other minor changes to most of the maps once I have gone through.
I also have a couple of new maps and we still have old classics like doubletrouble and makeouttactics, I was halfway through re-doing Jinkies into a brewery and I can polish that off a bit. Here's my list of maps by time needed:
* da_crosstalk - a week or two worth of polishing and building a token skybox
* da_jinkies - maybe a month or so to get it releasable
* da_makeouttactics - a month or so
* da_highwire - halfway through a major rework. Likely more than a month to get it good
* da_deepfreeze - a bare VMF I inherited with a nice layout that could benefit from a thorough scrubbing. 1 -2 months
Hellu has also been working on a remake of da_megachat which could very well be its own map.
Considering that I'll probably only be around for a month or two for a little sprint of DA development, I want to get two maps out. On the venn diagram of things that DA needs vs things that we can create, maps is a solid overlap. Crosstalk is a given, shouldn't take long, and I have put so so much work into highwire that I really want to get it released already so I can sleep at night. So my plan is to work on those two maps. Mainly skyboxes. My worry is that I'll get halfway through that work and be pulled away by life or w/e and abandon the whole update.
So here's what I'm thinking. Tomy's update is ready to go, I'm just adding maps. I'll get the bugs fixed on all the maps and do some minor work to crosstalk and we'll roll the update with:
1x new map
6x updated maps
bugfixes/balances
It's a chunky enough update that we can do really soon and will leave enough chunk for another update in the indiscernible future. I think given the choice, most of our playerbase would prefer a smaller, sooner, surer update as opposed to a bigger, nicer, mythical one. I'm already working on it. Thoughts?