A Couple of Questions about Map Naming Conventions

As the title says I have a few questions about the naming of User created maps. I am hoping one of the Hire Gun can shed some light on how Halo 2 Vista handles map names. I have some theories but currently have no way to test them. I am trying to establish a map name policy for the Halo 2 Vista Maps website file archive.

In Halo Custom Edition the name of the map was the same as the *.map file name. So a map file name of fightmap.map had a displayed name of "fightmap". In Halo 2 Vista you can apparently separate the name of the map from the *.map file's name. So the map named "Earth City" has a file name of "humam_example.map". So that I may better understand how the Halo 2 Vista game works with these variables can you explain what happens in these scenarios:

Scenario 1:

• User 1 creates a map: the file name is "fight.map" the Displayed map name is "Beach Fight".
• User 2 creates a map: The file name is "beach.map" the Displayed name is "Beach Fight"

1. Both map files (fight.map and beach.map) are placed in the \maps folder. What will be displayed in the Host's map selection lobby when preparing the game. Example: Will there be two listings named "Beach Fight"
2. If both maps are being hosted on separate servers what will be displayed in the other users Live game browser?

Scenario 2:

• User 1 creates a map: the file name is "fight.map" the Displayed map name is "Beach Fight".
• User 2 creates a map: The file name is "fight.map" the Displayed name is "Big Battle"
• Both maps are different although named the same and are hosting on separate servers

1. A user visits the first server and downloads the map "Beach Fight" file name "fight.map". After playing he visits the second server running the map "Big Battle". What will happen?
2. The user has already installed "Beach Battle/fight.map" file in his /map directory. Then visits the second server running "Big Battle/fight.map". What will happen?

I am trying to insure that Halo Maps does not lessen the user experience of the Halo 2 Vista game by posting files for download that will confuse the user. Thank you.

Dennis
Webmaster Halo Maps website
http://www.halomaps.org/

hmmm very interesting, i think this can lead to some serious problems.

-edit- dennis, fix your url in your post, it leads to some spam website.

its more of an advertisement site, but still spammed full of shit.

lol. +REP for you guys. Nice find btw.

i hope halo 2 will have more patches and updates coming soon.

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Originally Posted by baturkin17

-edit- dennis, fix your url in your post, it leads to some spam website.

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HUH? Did I have a typo and did someone fix it? Because http://www.halomaps.org is a valid and working website. If someone fixed it thanks! It was posted before the morning coffee :)

I hope people stick to keeping the name of their scenario the name of their map. Thanks for addressing the issue, and I think a mod did fix it. Before you had it linking to halmaps.org, heh.

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Originally Posted by UXB

HUH? Did I have a typo and did someone fix it? Because http://www.halomaps.org is a valid and working website. If someone fixed it thanks! It was posted before the morning coffee :)

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yea it said "halmaps" instead of "halomaps" no biggie ;) someone must have fixed it

The devs sure have become quiet lately. Even Nitrous hasnt visited the site since May 29th. Maybe there hard at work on a big patch...

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Originally Posted by MastaCheefa

The devs sure have become quiet lately. Even Nitrous hasnt visited the site since May 29th. Maybe there hard at work on a big patch...

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We can only hope. The game really needs one. However I'm sure we're all aware that CE was like this when it first came out as well; in dire need of patches and updates.

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Originally Posted by MastaCheefa

The devs sure have become quiet lately. Even Nitrous hasnt visited the site since May 29th. Maybe there hard at work on a big patch...

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I pray for that patch. As for the naming thing I believe it's some deep down hidden secret which will only be released when they want us to know.

I don't have a gold membership or two installs to test it on or else I would test them myself. I also have not seen any of the few custom maps hosted on servers yet either.

I am very concerned about version control: 5 copies of the same maps all named the same but different. Like the HCE Chaos Gulch mods floating around.

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Originally Posted by UXB

I don't have a gold membership or two installs to test it on or else I would test them myself. I also have not seen any of the few custom maps hosted on servers yet either.

I am very concerned about version control: 5 copies of the same maps all named the same but different. Like the HCE Chaos Gulch mods floating around.

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Maybe it saves as a different name. If it overwrites, that's not too good. It's good for updates, but bad for same-named maps.

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Originally Posted by SuperSunny

Maybe it saves as a different name. If it overwrites, that's not too good. It's good for updates, but bad for same-named maps.

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That was one of my theories as well. I just ran a test to see if the file name is relevant to the map name and it isn't.

I took the Beach Battle map/forerunner_sample.map and renamed the file to dupe_test.map and started a network/Lan game. Beach Battle was available and playable in the custom maps section. I then placed two copies of the map the dupe_test.map (copy) and the forerunner_sample.map (original) in the \maps directory and re-started. Only one instance of "Beach Battle" appeared in the custom map list.

This tells me that the map name is not connected to the file name and that the file name is irrelevant. It also leads me to believe that they must be using a checksum as the unique identifier for determining duplicate maps. The followup question to this is: Is the checksum a full file checksum or just a checksum of the the internal maps properties?

Maybe someone can help me here: The only way to test this is to take a test map and give it a name, compile it, rename the *.map file then give it another name and compile it again. Put both maps in your maps folder and see if both names show up. If both names show up then the map name is part of the checksum if not then the checksum only consists of the internal map data.

Depending on the outcome of this test I can foresee several issues for maintaining some selembance of version control on the maps website.

Thanks for pointing me to the thread. I'll poke the developer bears and see if I get mauled. I'll get back to you with some details.

Ok, no mauling today.

Scenario 1: You will see both listed as "Beach Fight" in the browser
Scenario 2: When you try to download the second fight.map you will get a prompt that warns you that there is a newer version of this map available, would you like to download it? Which is great if it IS a new version of the map, but not so great if its totally seperate as in your scenario.

Also, the checksum is full. If any one bit is different it'll fail to match.

Hope this helps. As always if you have suggestions about how to make that experience better, we would love to hear them.

-Bum

Thanks for clearing that up! I just hope problems don't develop later where we have a bunch of 'noobs' seeking attention and compiling crappy box maps with the name of popular custom maps fooling the person browsing the servers to think its a new version of the map.

Perhaps, rather than overwriting the old map with a new one there should be an option to save the old map into an old version folder and tag the version onto the maps filename. That way if it is some crappy trick to spread bad maps you can restore the old map.

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Originally Posted by FireScythe

Perhaps, rather than overwriting the old map with a new one there should be an option to save the old map into an old version folder and tag the version onto the maps filename. That way if it is some crappy trick to spread bad maps you can restore the old map.

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yes that'd be a great thing to have, and have it delete the old map after X amount of days that is set by the player, just in case it is a public beta or a released map that had some bugs that needed to be fixed. One thing I hate about games that can down load custom maps from with in the game/server browser is that you'll have to watch out for tricks that some one might play on others, or you might be the one who made the map and forgot to back up the map file in case you messed some thing up and had to go back to find what you messed up on. I've had to do that a few times back when I use to play StarCraft and made my Zergling blood map.

:sigh:

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Scenario 2: When you try to download the second fight.map you will get a prompt that warns you that there is a newer version of this map available, would you like to download it? Which is great if it IS a new version of the map, but not so great if its totally seperate as in your scenario.

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Thank you for taking the time for answering this, however as I expected the response brings up several more questions. As I said I am trying to set a reasonable policy for map submissions at the Halo Maps website.

I want to be sure that the website does not introduce any confusion about the user created maps. In Halo CE people would make minor updates to their map and keep the same name, also very often one or more people would use the same name for totally different maps and it would cause mass confusion because they would see the map name in the lobby but couldn't join because the map on their PC was different than the one on the server. The confusion was because they thought they had the map.

As I understand it the physical Halo 2 map file (*.map) filename is not integral to the determining the map. I determined this by renaming a custom map - Earth City - file (human_example.map) to another filename (dup_test.map) and the map Earth City was still found and playable. I placed both the original map filename and the duplicate renamed one in the \maps folder and only one instance of Earth City was found. From this I surmise that Halo 2 must use some sort of checksum process to differentiate between maps.

The follow-up questions then are:

1) Is the checksum calculated from the full file data or just a portion of the internal map data: meaning does the imbedded "map name" count in the checksum calculation?

2) So if I take a level and name it "level 1" then compile it into level1.map then take the same level and just name it "level 2" and compile it into level2.map will Halo 2 think they are different maps or the same map?

My ultimate goal is to prevent the distribution of the same map under different names and also to prevent the confusion of people joining a server and downloading an older version of the same map. If you have any suggestions on this matter from your perspective please feel free to impart some wisdom.

Thank you
Dennis
Webmaster - Halo Maps website
http://www.halomaps.org