I think there's a point for most people beyond which any decorative, seasonal mutator/serveractor can go too far where it ceases enriching the atmosphere with just a few colourful & festive additions, where it starts visually oversaturating the play area and might even begin turning everyday playing ppl off. I don't even know at this point whether these suggestions pitched at Wormbo are meant to be taken seriously (and the poor guy is actually expected to go out, shop for meshes and textures and implement 'em) or just part of some ongoing joke among the rest of the smalltalk that's recently been going on here, but I'm pretty sure that even proposing to now extend said mutator so that it'd replace commonplace pickups with commercial products, just because a few ppl might associate 'em with the current holiday season, is probably taking things too far. Not to mention that, as a general principle, CEONSS is interested in promoting quality gameplay within the ONS gametype, not processed foods, other brands or consumerism in general.
I'll admit it's been a fairly long held tradition (in terms of the game's lifespan, anyway) for many UT servers to add some minor, festive flair to their routine whenever the Christmas holiday season would come and that would usually entail using Angel's SantaHats because it's discreet, yet fun and interactive, enough to be on the right side of practicality; I'll even admit I personally like it and look for it every time December rolls in despite not being too enthralled by Christmas itself. Additionally, several CTF servers would use another similar mutator that would turn the flags to Xmas trees and I also remember Race/AS server LDG employing a random wrapped gifts spawning mechanic around this time of the year from back in 2011 - dunno if they're still doing that as it can affect gameplay in significant or even undesirable ways. More recently we've had Wormbo's own Xmas deco mutator and, while it seemed a bit excessive a proposal to have 2 separate bags of custom code just for that kinda stuff, its passive n' minimalistic approach eventually warmed me up to it in the end. I do recognize, however, that other members of the playerbase's silent majority (that I'm no longer a part of) might have different tolerances and might consider the 2 mutators combo too much already, never mind the prospect of pushing with the theme even further. That's why I think the tree decorations and st.mesh hats n' bags is probably a good place to stay for awhile and assess the general sentiment, never mind any potential side-effects it might be bringing about. In fact, I believe I may've already come across one occasion in a popular map where the mutator might have an impact in gameplay, the santa bags restricting dueling space in Tyrant-Renovation-V1's lateral balconies:
- Wormbo_XmasDecoV2_in_Tyrant-Renov-v1.jpg (293.69 KiB) Viewed 11166 times
Btw, please understand I'm not bringing this up as grounds for discontinuing the mutator's use; I'm just suggesting that perhaps the collision of the deco st.meshes shouldn't be universally enabled, but rather subject to a case-by-case examination leading to a white-/blacklist array that the code would check before applying it. Toggling collision for a map's entire set of deco st.meshes could also be problematic as, in the same example map (or Tyrant-V2), one could either be visibly standing on top of the statues' santa hats or be entirely concealed inside 'em, thereby gaining an unfair sniping advantage.
As one final small request, while casual banter can be fun and certainly has its place in any web community aiming to grow, considering this is the Creative Corner forum where authors look for feedback on their projects, I'd like to ask that everyone please try and include some constructive commentary in your posts on the creations presented here, along with whatever else you might want to talk about, if only as a gesture of respect to the ppl still working hard to provide us with something new to play with. Thanks in advance for your understanding
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