[KZMOD] Kreedz Climbing
Hi everyone, It's been about year and a half since Kreedz Climbing got released on steam, I will start with what is Kreedz Climbing, maybe all of you know but anyways, Kreedz Climbing is game mainly made for kz, it has CS:Source graphics and Counter-Strike (1.6) accurate movement, It has multiple disciplines such as climbing, bunnyhopping, surfing, coop, bungee jumping and more. Many players that are currently playing 1.6 do not even care about this game which is made especially for them to have a kreedz game that will be much better than 1.6 because it is a lot smoother, better looking and more interesting gameplay, but players do not even want to try it out saying it is bad, if you have tried beta versions or some before steam release, you should deffinetly try steam version because movement since then has changed and now is accurate as 1.6, trust me you won't get disappointed. So if you are 1.6 kz player and you are reading this, go to Steam, go to Explore and search for Kreedz Climbing, download it and try it out, u will like it. Do not judge the book by the cover!
People don't play it due to the lack of competition and global leaderboards. Game can't just rely on new maps when it misses it's second essential thing.
Everyone I know tried it and it's not that they don't like it (most of them like it) it's just that it lacks competition, not enough servers and overall activity.
And I don't know if Raptor has changed his opinion, but from what I remember he refused to make integrated global leaderboards relying on 3rd party ones that are hardly satisfying.
Plugins are also still lacking with bad ljstats and bad record bot, which again, don't come from the game but from 3rd party members.
Don't get me wrong I like kzmod and most people do appreciate it, so I'm simply saying the reason why it's not being played atm and why cs 1.6 still has such massive advantage over it.
Originally posted by p0kerPeople don't play it due to the lack of competition and global leaderboards. Game can't just rely on new maps when it misses it's second essential thing.
Everyone I know tried it and it's not that they don't like it (most of them like it) it's just that it lacks competition, not enough servers and overall activity.
And I don't know if Raptor has changed his opinion, but from what I remember he refused to make integrated global leaderboards relying on 3rd party ones that are hardly satisfying.
Plugins are also still lacking with bad ljstats and bad record bot, which again, don't come from the game but from 3rd party members.
Don't get me wrong I like kzmod and most people do appreciate it, so I'm simply saying the reason why it's not being played atm and why cs 1.6 still has such massive advantage over it.
No activity just because they don't play, if everyone will change mind and play there will be more and more
The lack of activity is due to the reasons I stated above and then from this inactivity comes more inactivity.
I think it's just that KZMod has nothing new to offer, same physics, same techniques, just different engine and some new stuff that leave the jumping experience unintact. Look at it this way, you have GTA San Andreas and then you have GTA V:GTA San Andreas mod. Theoretically, it should be better since it's based on very good game (GTA V Engine), yet people would rather play the original game because it is unique and nostalgic, rather than going for insane graphics and improved terrains, player models, etc. It is quite the same with 1.6 and KZMod, pretty much 99% of people in here started playing kreedz in it's originator 1.6, around 40% of them tried KZMod because it was something different. 1.6 Kreedz looks to me as a very well established mod. If KZMod came out in the state as it is right now around 8 years ago, things would be different. The only positive thing i see in it, is the fact that it's free to play on Steam, so you don't have to pay for it. Even CSGO kz is more refreshing than KZMod nowdays. I know handfull of 1.6 pros that also turned pros in csgo kz, matter of fact, when i played it i met a guy whom i haven't seen in roughly 8 to 9 years. Nevermind. Moral of the story is- KreedZ doesn not need a new engine to live in, it needs to have it's home revamped and improved (talking about XJ's overall health). So far it's going OK. Just like every time the administration is managed or renewed. KreedZ it's just KreedZ. It doesn't "die" or "end" if people don't play it. KreedZ can be defined as a sport in a way. Think about it, if people stop playing football regularly, does that necessarily mean football is dying? Do you change the rules or the way it's played in order to bring back focus on it? Just as i thought. 1.6 KZ is like playing football on the pitch, everybody likes it. KzMod is like indoors football, most lf us have watched it and probably enjoyed it, but it's like meeeeh compares to pitch football. 90% of players here play kz for the jumping experience, not flashy graphics with 300fps and tons of settings to make your player model customizable af. KZMod is cool, but not what people are after these days. Sry for long posterino
Better competition, plugins or wrbot were or still are from far as I know created by community, that means the more players would play the more stuff like this could be added by community, that's why it's not entirely implemented, because players simply aren't playing. Which is kinda paradox.
I've been enjoying kzmod since beta and I still am, Iam just kinda sad that alot of hard work was put into development and there are not enough players to appreciate it.
Hi (I'm KZMod's programmer), I thought I'd address some of the issues brought up here:
First I'll touch on this idea that KZMod doesn't offer anything "new", which doesn't seem entirely correct: KZMod offers a host of mapping options that are not possible in 1.6 (such as having easy and hard versions of the same course in a map with blocks that appear/disappear only for specific players), team based timers that use those mechanics, the size and scale of maps, how quickly they compile, new mechanics like the powerjump and bungee, etc, and there's even more than just that.
Add onto that the workshop for easy access to maps and you have a game with a lot of potential. If you just load the game up expecting to see filled leaderboards and constant community events, you're going to be disappointed as the game is maintained by one active developer - who's responsibility is the features in the game and the tools that support the game, not also building an entire community and keeping them interested. I can appreciate some people might want that, but there's only so much you can expect one unpaid developer to do.
KZMod's biggest attribute though is the fact it's still being developed, and still changing and improving. I've worked on this game for over 10 years now and never given up, I got the game into Steam for the benefit of the KZ community, and continue to support and develop it for the benefit of it's players. With the game on Steam, easily accessible, there's no reason why it cannot be played anymore (which in the past the old mod format was an issue in that regard).
I can understand if some feel nostalgic and want to play 1.6, but that does not mean that KZMod is a clone of 1.6 with fancy graphics. KZMod tries to extend 1.6's KZ gameplay to a new engine and add new possibilities while keeping the core 1.6 gameplay alive.
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As for the leaderboard issue p0ker brought up, it's true in the past I've been unwilling to implement a global steam-based leaderboard system because if all servers submitted times to a global leaderboard, it would be really easy for a bad server to submit cheated times that would ruin the competition.
Even if you restricted upload permissions to a few select servers, what if they have unscrupulous admins who use plugins to cheat? Not all cheaters are so obvious as to submit times of 0.1 seconds - they might shave a few seconds off their final time, giving them a #1 position that is unbeatable legit, but still seems believable, ruining the competition again.
The only way to have legitimate competition in this regard is for the leaderboard times to only be updated from official, developer controlled servers, and as the game is free and I'm unpaid, I have no financial means to rent servers like that for the game. And even if I did, I've always believed the heart of KZ is in the community-run servers, so if I host a bunch of official servers that is the only place to get toplist times, why would anyone play on community servers?
These are the reasons I've always said I prefer community-run plugin based toplists, because those communities are responsible for policing their own servers and their toplists, and any mistakes will only affect their toplist and no one else's. There's no reason multiple communities can't share a toplist, but if you make things official in a Steam leaderboard, people expect and demand security assurances and guarantees of integrity that just isn't possible on uncontrolled servers - any built in protection in the game to prevent cheated times (which would be really easy if you allow plugins in the first place), can be bypassed by those prepared to put in the time and effort to hack the game.
I have been thinking about each community having it's own Steam leaderboard, but right now there is other KZMod related work to do.
I have always been willing to support communities and plugin makers in any way I can, as well as mappers, and still continue to do so. I've been asked plenty times to create an "official" KZMod community, with a website and records and so on, and I've always resisted BECAUSE of websites like XJ, who I want to see the game as an opportunity and platform to bring themselves forward and create new community options for them.
So that's my two cents on this, apologies if it's a bit disorganised, I'm haven't been feeling well today :(
Well in regards to the "true" global leaderboards, as I told you in the past, raptor, look at momentum mod, they have found a way to do it while not hosting any "official" servers from what I remember. I can't remember the details but it's not something to be looked at lightly unless you speak with the guys themselves. Meaning - it's not impossible.
As for the leaderboards, sorry to tell you, but players themselves don't like such separation by different communities. You prioritize other things but for players - KZ, as in competition, is one of the most important things together with maps and movement.
You can see XJ as a clear example. We can do movies, cups, map releases and so on, but the highlight of XJ is none of this but the demos themselves. That's what people care about - the world records and the competition. And if it wasn't for XJ the official KZ community, claimed as well by kreedz himself, having "official" WRs, we would have ended up like CS:S kz/bhop with separated communities, each one of them having their own thing.
This is why it's so dead and the mod never actually flourished. People want to know the best times and the best competition in a true and organized way and that's why XJ managed to exist for so many years imo.
Another example is CS:GO KZ, in the beginning from what I've been told it was pretty bad up until they made the global leaderboards system. No one cares nowadays about some random server time until it's done on a globally accepted server. That's how it managed to survive as well, pretty much in a similar way to XJ unlike CS:S where these global "WRs" that matter didn't exist.
And by no means I'm saying that I don't understand your situation, you already explained this to me tons of times and that's why I don't bother you with it anymore. :D It's just that I tried to explain why it's so important for people the competition in KZ, it's what makes KZ, well you know - KZ. Which is why, unfortunately, your idea of every community having its own times and plugins and all that won't work because people want a true global competition when it comes for kz. It could work for any other game but the nature of KZ is just too competitive to have it in any other way...
btw Also didn't organize my thoughts well enough but anyway, this is targeted not only to raptor, but to all the players who are wondering - "Why is such a good game like kzmod still failing?" Because trust me on this - as I said before - most people do appreciate and like kzmod, it's just that it lacks true competition and objective which are essential for KZ. And of course, 3rd party global system, I know, we already have it, we have also demos in XJ, but it's far from satisfying the players in a true competitive way. If you look some of the times in the servers, names like noxer and toffifee stll have top1-top3 times from the damn first 3 days of the game's release, and well they quit eventually due to the lack of better system for this kind of competition.
Competition isn't all about a global leaderboard to put a time on, it's about having others to compete against. For the sake of hypotheticals, if everyone on XJ played on the kzmod XJ server, how alive would the game feel? How filled would the toplist look? The situation can't be simply stated as "no developer-created competition makes the game empty". As you said, CS:GO KZ didn't really take off until they (and the team of admins who support them) created their own leaderboard solution, just like anyone else could for kzmod. My priorities have always been to make as many possibilities as possible, and I don't consider the game failed as long as one player plays it, and I continue to develop the game with that attitude.
As for Momentum Mod, I believe their solution was having a team of admins who check each submitted time/demo for cheating before accepting it to the global leaderboard, or have a team who looks through for cheated times. To my knowledge there is no way to prevent a server, run on a possible insecure machine, to upload directly to Steam without the risk of cheated times due to security measures in the game being hacked.
There is no reason why multiple servers and communities can't share the same toplist, as long as they are prepared to handle the problems with cheating that might occur from doing that.
Of course it's not but that's what people are satisfied from. As I mentioned before - yes, we do have demo releases in XJ and 3rd party leaderboards but no one is slightly hyped from them. I'm just saying why people don't want to play it, that's all. And by not organized and well thought way of competing, this is what draws them away. Competition is about hyping people as well, anticipation, movies, new players looking at the pros and wanting to become just like them.
Also I'd support what I'm saying with people (pro players) that I've talked with. I tried to make so many of them to play the game, and while they do like it, it's just that they don't feel it's competitive enough and not only that, but also it doesn't feel rewarding enough. Getting a wr in 1.6 is much more satisfying than getting a wr in kzmod. Literally all of the people I've spoken with feel this emptiness of almost having a pointless wr in kzmod because there's not really a good way to compare yourself with others.
And I didn't say it failed but that it's failing as of now, because it's still not dead and as you see people still care about it. (Just realized I repeated what you said lol)
And of course CS:GO KZ took off once they did the global leaderboards thing but now there's ONLY that and it's good that there's only that. No different communities, no different leaderboards and so on. It has to be JUST one community/leaderboards that's generally accepted by everyone as the true place for top tier KZ. Similar thing needs to happen with KZmod.
Also CS:GO KZ didn't have official developers like you and soulfather who could directly claim whatever they do as the official thing, so it's a little bit different as to why people want GL in KZMod as well and consider demo releases outdated.
Another example is Cosy-Climbing and kz-rush. No matter how many years have passed, they still respect each other with official map and wr releases. Cosy is even the official community for "unofficial" maps, meaning to the player - make no mistake, this is not the place where the biggest of the big boys are playing. Same with kz-rush, always respecting the official community and the "WR", coming from XJ. Same with national communities and so on. It's not something forced, but something that players like.
And just to note, I'm not saying all of this to convince you to start working on global leaderboards, I'm just trying to show the main reason behind kzmod's general inactivity and that's the lack of competition and motivation for newer players to become better as well. After all, most of us became good after having and idol and at the moment it's quite hard for a new player to have an idol he would like to follow. That's what I mean by organized and expanded competition not just sending demos to XJ.
As for momentum mod - you said to your knowledge, so we can't be sure what's really going on until they are asked in detail how they operate these stuff.
Speak in your own name, p0ker.
KZMod needs separate official community, and to not have anything to do with XJ. Nobody coming to the game will ever go on google and type xtreme jumps, and besides that one server that is hosted by ((different)) community, xtreme jumps doesnt have anything to do with the game. Raptor is absolutely right about global toplist, it could be miss used by admins any time, and that did happened in the past with our current toplist.
As I've said before, I'm unwilling to create an official KZMod community because I want the existing communities (like XJ) to have a chance at having their own playerbase. If anyone wants to create their own toplist and community setup, like CS:GO kz did, they are welcome to without the developers telling them they are unofficial (which might affect how players percieve them). KZMod exists for the benefit of the KZ playerbase and the existing communities.
I personally have always wanted a global leaderboard, but as said before uncontrolled servers cannot be trusted to submit times that aren't cheated, and unless someone can come up with a foolproof way to get around that problem (which I can't imagine there is since any client-side solution is vulnerable to hacking), my opinion is still that toplists and toplist sharing between communities is the best choice, because they are capable of policing themselves.
KZMod has the potential as a great platform for competition, if enough players give it a chance. The means for competition exists (toplist, multiplayer, demos).
I want the existing communities (like XJ) to have a chance at having their own playerbase.
Sure, but that's the reason why I said games like CS:S completely rejected the mod, because every community had it's own playerbase, rules, competition and so on. Meaning, it was never a true competition because there were too many and there wasn't one official or at least globally accepted as the "truly" competitive one (like CS:GO KZ)
Same thing 1.6, reason it survived for so long is because there was only one community (wether official or not) that was considered as the competitive one. There are more reasons to the competitive aspect of the game but that's the first step really.
they are welcome to without the developers telling them they are unofficial
Welp, sure, but that's what people wanted, even though you envision it in a different way, they want the contrary (again, from the players I've spoken with, they are not much, but all of them shared the same opinion)
KZMod has the potential as a great platform for competition, if enough players give it a chance. The means for competition exists (toplist, multiplayer, demos).
That's a good idea, anything that comes close to a way to determinate the sole and only competitive community/toplist and etc. as long as it's universally accepted by everyone - then yes. If communities are going in together but still doing their own thing it's fine, again with the cs:s example (even with their popular mode - surf) they weren't and that cost them. Early cs:go kz was the same, the debates over the 128, 102, 64 tick and so on. Even nowadays there are remnants of this issue due to the liberty of having communities doing their own thing, thankfully the one that matters now is 128 tick and everyone agrees.
But you said it yourself - you've been developing the game alone for years, no one helped you. I doubt people will start doing such massive projects (not just 2-3 people but entire communities) and it's more of a reason of them knowing that there are developers who can do this by making an official toplist for everyone. Let's not compare kzmod communities to cs:go kz guys in this aspect because there they were forced to do the global leaderboard system because there was no one else who could tell them what's official or not. They are still suffering to this day from this decision (and xj's lack of intervention as well) with example from the settings they decided for KZ. Some of the numbers chosen for the settings of the kz mod playing there were completely randomized by the first developer due to his lack of knowledge in KZ and all of them have to bear it nowadays due to how big the community is now.
KZMod doesn't have this problem as it has it's developers with full control over the game so it's more than understandable why people don't want to do it themselves. Again - I'm not saying you have to do it, I'm just trying to show the mentality of the community regarding this issue and why they don't want to play it, wether their reasoning is good or not. You might be right in what you are saying but that's not going to change their minds.
Originally posted by MenkoSpeak in your own name, p0ker.
KZMod needs separate official community, and to not have anything to do with XJ. Nobody coming to the game will ever go on google and type xtreme jumps, and besides that one server that is hosted by ((different)) community, xtreme jumps doesnt have anything to do with the game. Raptor is absolutely right about global toplist, it could be miss used by admins any time, and that did happened in the past with our current toplist.
Who's talking about kzmod and xj? The examples I gave with xj were related to 1.6 and not KZmod. In fact the entire time I was explaining that it's bad to have XJ (an outdated demo wr system) for the official community of KZmod or for tracking world records. So I guess you misread or misunderstand something. If you read raptor's posts, It's actually him wanting to make kzmod more accesible for communities like XJ (he gave example with it several times), not me. I completely agree with a separate official kzmod community that's not based on demos, but it has to be just one, not 20. In any event, as you see, this can't happen due to the reasons raptor mentioned and it's really unfortunate for kzmod but that's the reality.
And yeah I know perfectly the reasoning behind raptor, he explained it to me long time ago, probably before you started playing kzmod and I agree knowing his situation. All this time I was just explaining the inactivity behind the game and that's due to how the community overall reacts at it, wether or not they are right.
29/11/2018 10:25A centralized demo system for world records is bad and totally not adapted to 1.6, KZMOD or any other multiplayer online game. It should be specifically used for single player games. It is not only outdated but also a brake on growth. It is slow, restrictive and annoying to use. A global leaderboard should have been a standard in KZMod and in any other upcomming game like it was done on CS:GO. CS:GO kz is utterly bad and yet, it is somewhat still alive, I could not think of any alternative universe where a centralized demo system as XJ would have worked for it.
As more players play the game, the faster game will improve, The biggest problem are actual nostalgic people that has only 1.6 in their heads, they do not even want to try kzmod, they tried it in beta version when the movement wasn't the same and do not know it has changed.
29/11/2018 16:18@Raptor, sorry but i don't understand you. You said that you are developing alone and there is no payments for your work. But in the same time when i or other developers suggest you our help you rejecting us due to "security" or other reasons. When our KZ-Rush team suggest you testers and developers you told us that its insecure to give code to peoples who not deserve the trust. So your answer is "Make it with plugins" and our answer "For what?". Big projects like games very hard to support in one developer. For example, our players said that it would be nice to see nightvision or something similar in the game, and what you say? - "Its good idea". It was more than 5 months ago. When i talk about linux server, you said that its hard. When i said about savepos - you said that its hard and i must make it with plugins. Great way, make with plugins functionality without proper documentation and knowing how it works in backend. Nice. I'm sure that you can find a lot of players/developers/testers/other who want to help you, but you don't want it.
This here is just to get this thread back on top
@lxr KZMod has security measures in it, like anti-cheat measures and anti-scripting measures that wouldn't work anymore if how they work became known. I appreciate that others want to help, but understandably I'm extremely hesitant to trust strangers I don't know with something as important as the game's code.
Nightvision: At the time it was suggested there was a lot going on in my life and it was forgotten about, my apologies.
Linux: Is difficult because I'd have to set up a VM for compiling and testing it which would make my updates take a lot longer, so I pushed it back because the server operators are very kindly using windows.
savepos: I explained how I felt that the most complicated kzmod maps would be broken by savepos and that's why I didn't think it would be worth the effort, if it didn't work on half the maps it's used on. It would need significant work to get it to support all the different entities like func_brush_kzmod.
Instead of arguing what went wrong, it isn't late to save kzmod(?) With XJ picking up activity im sure you could make something out of it, if people are willing to put time into it.
And what happened to the leaderboard that was in beta? I think there was a way to check everyones time in a certain map from a website.
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