Some pointers and tips regarding releasing maps in this forum:
1. Nexuiz is free software, including all of its content. As such it is rated highly on this forum to release your map under the GPL license as well and if you have made a very good map that is GPL, it might even end up in the game. Just ask sev ;] To release a map under the GPL license you should:
- - Include a copy of the GPL license in the .pk3. It's advisable to also add a readme file that says who you are and that you are releasing this map under the included GPL license.
- Make sure all the things in the .pk3 are either made by you or are taken from something else under the GPL license. When you have added a custom music track to the map, take special note of this. Rule of thumb is: when in doubt, leave it out!
- Include the sources. In most cases this will be the .map file but if you have made more files for this map (models,sounds,etc) then you also need to supply its sources in the .pk3 or provide another means for people to obtain them.
To read more about Nexuiz and what its GPL license on the included media means, visit this page on the DevWiki.
2. To host your map, please use a host (possibly as a backup) that allows direct download links to the .pk3 file. This is because most Nexuiz servers will not be running a GUI (for best performance) and as such the admins can not use a web browser to navigate themselves to a download on sites like RapidShare. This makes it a lot harder (sometimes even impossible) for them to add your map to their server(s).
Some examples of filehosts that allow direct download links:
*** Omploader.org
** Fileden.com
[at everybody: if you know of another good file host that allows direct downloads, please post or send me a pm so I can add it to this post]
3. To whet people's appetite you will want to add some screenshots of your map to the post. Just about every map I see being released here already has screenshots in its opening post so this point is here mainly for completions sake. And to tell you that the Nexuiz community has its own excellent picture hosting service at:
pics.nexuizninjaz.com
(on a personal note, using that one helps me significantly to easily add your map to my monthly map release post at NexuizNews.com)
4. When the map is for a specific game mode, you can put a tag in the thread's title to point this out. This helps people find maps for a certain game mode more easily. So if you are releasing a race map you can make it [Race]My Race Map and when it's a CTF map you can make it [CTF]My CTF Map. If the map supports multiple game modes you can put them all in as tags (for example: [DM][TDM][KH]My New Map Title), or just don't put any in at all.
5. You are your own best critic. So take a step back and assess if this map is good enough to rotate on servers for a long time. Once it is out there, it's out there. This point should never be a showstopper by the way, as long as you take the next point to heart.
6. No matter how good you think your map is, there will always be small or big (hopefully constructive) pointers, tips and bug reports by other users. We hope you will look at those objectively and are willing to do bugfix releases to change things that really need changing.
7. Once the map has been bugfixed we also have a Map Reviews section on this forum where you can make a thread with a poll, to get some more opinions on the map as a whole. This might help you when you set out to design your next map.
That's it for now. Thanks!
