Ok, so I've been silent for a while. Here are some ideas I have for new gamemodes, etc, with lack of somewhere better to post them. Theme's already working on the first one.
The MetaServer Project
Passion is a great map, as are many other maps of similar design. The truth is though, there's a very good reason we are not first on the server list. The map cannot accommodate over a certain number of players. Gameplay degenerates into a hectic frenzy shootfest with all skill going out the window, replaced with a race for who can get the best superflags.
I know some of you like this, great. I don't. Its annoying and I tend to leave and find a different server.
I propose a radical idea. A person does not play with everyone on the server. They play half of them. The map would be a stacked passion, two passion maps (or any map really, but work with me here). They would be completely separate from each other in every way.
When a small number of people are on the map (yet to be determined), only the first floor is active, everything is normal. A sky texture will be provided so people will not see anything above the flying MoFo.
When a larger number of people are on the map, it is possible to spawn in both regions. The amount of players in each area would be 1:1 within a few minutes, effectively cutting server crowding in half.
There will be a slight margin for ratio error, also yet to be determined, that will allow players to select which Passion they want to play on when numbers are fairly even and both levels are active.
Theme97 has already created a working demo plugin that controls spawning by playercount. However, it disables the slight amount of spawn positioning done that ensures tanks don't spawn directly in front of shots. He and L4m3r said they had ideas on ways around it, I have no idea.
Also it is important to realize that this strategy could also be used rather creatively to combine different maps into non-passion "MetaServers", allowing for two small maps to be served together, maps of similar styles to unite, etc. Also unlike previous attempts at such large servers the secondary map would not become active until there is actually enough people to fill both maps.
There are several caveats for use outside Passion-ala-Passion:
Both maps would have to have similar vars, or compromise on vars. (Like if you want a sniper server above and something else below make MG super good but not have it on the map below.)
This could get really complicated if not implemented correctly. Considering there's no user interaction and can be completely transparent if the two maps are chosen wisely, it shouldn't be that bad though.
CTF is a bitch. Actually without a miracle of coding its not possible. You'd need to modify autoteam and playercounts in the conffile and lie to the listserver.
Now that I think of it teams even on FFA are a big problem too. For example sometimes on MoFo half of the players are one color. If that half is isolated on one level and everyone else on the other, things could get ugly. Team detection will either have to be built into the main plugin or mod; or more ideally be provided by a spawnjoinByTeamColor to ensure this doesn't happen.
Secondly if that comes to pass, FFA-CTF will be possible. All colors are allowed in FFA, and SBTC could make sure only the two colored teams spawn on the CTF map. I don't know if this might confuse people though, as people think most CTF maps are FFAs as it is.
CTF will cease to be a bitch in 2.1x, and two CTF maps (CTF-CTF) will be able to be stacked. How? Easy, the map is 4-team CTF. Green and red, let's say are below, and blue and purple are above. How would players spawn above without rejoining to purple or blue? Easy. The plugin will simply change their team. That's right, Jeff claims that he added support in the API for changing team color. I don't know if I heard wrong, and if I'm pulling that out of my ass I'm sorry. But obviously we can't do that yet so think of it as m00t.
4CTF-2CTF or 4CTF-4CTF will never be possible. Ever. There just isn't enough teams. I've heard more rumors about eight teams in 2.1x eventually, but again, I think I'm pulling that out of my arse.
The FFA League Project, PermaColor Play
This has been suggested by other people, I'm not taking credit but this is how I envision it working.
It would still utilize SBTC code obviously.
Everyone joins the server as rogue. Admins with a special perm may join as whatever team they want. Admins can "scout" players for their team. When they see someone they want, they can type something like "/teaminvite". The player's callsign is "remembered" so that on rejoin they join as the color that invited them.
Once on a team, said player's score info is collected ala ladder or playerlist type thing. Caps and who did the capturing is also recorded. All of this information is displayed on a "scoreboard" website. It is important to remember that all team organization is done through the client.
There would obviously be "/teamkick" and other management features.
Another "feature" would be a "/teamtrial" command, that only joins a player to a team for an amount of time. Kind of like shortban, only not bad. This would allow someone to check out a team and not be committed for a long time requiring a website unsubscribe or admin intervention.
Also a "/teamquick" command could be used to join bunches of players to a certain team, well, quickly. It would obviously only do a batch teamtrial for either everyone on the server or a specific group of people.
Note that after the trial a person would revert to their normal state, meaning if they were red and wanted to switch teams with a trial, afterwards they'd go back to red, unless they were kicked.
I think "public" leagues are a long time coming, where there is no reliance on websites or schedules to create lasting rivals and enhanced teamwork.
Testing
Well for MetaServer there's not much I can do. I might be trying generic maps with all rogue players on Theme's current version of spawnByPlayerCount. I can also assess how much of a problem the lack of shot detection is. In order for serious betatesting we'd need a way to ensure there's enough players of each color on each level IMO.
With the FFA league, we actually have the technology. We have done playerlist, which dumps scores and info to a site in realtime. We also did raceToSeven, though I don't think anything we've learned from that is applicable. Only thing that's needed is the ability to force a player to a certain team on join, and everyone else who's unteamed to rogue for that matter. Is that doable without serious voodoo?
Anyway, these two ideas are pretty out there and are probably only pipe dreams never to be realized. Anyone else have anything clever they have been thinking could work? Dodgeball seems to have taken off; even Bungee jumping was popular for a while.
Also we need more maps. Met struck gold with Boxy war. We struck gold with Passion. The veins aren't dry yet; the next greatest map is waiting to be designed/found.
Just like when we went from Cable connection to a dedicated machine we expanded, we should think of moving from one machine to another as an opportunity to once again grow and more importantly come up with new ideas.