A Call to Action! (In honor of labor day...It's time for epic to get to work!)

yeah, I'm with you ooze, more skins

Your ideas have merit. I too find it a little frustrating. Some of the custom Quake3 models and skins are fantastic.

But aren't you up against a simple logistical problem? That is, the server has to have whatever skin you want to wear... all players have to download that skin whether they wear it or not. Downloads take time. Few servers will voluntarily start carrying a ton of custom skins (and models, voicepacks, sound effects, taunts, etc., which is what I'd really like to see) on the off chance someone wearing the skin might stop by.

With maps and mutators, it's a little different. The game on that server doesn't run unless each player is willing to go get the map or the mutator or download it from the server. Skins don't really affect the game much (the gameplay, anyway), and they cater to a very few players who might not even show up, so there's obviously less call to add them to the server, unlike custom maps or new mutators.

I'd like to see custom skins used more in clan matches, assuming all parties agree.

By the way, has anyone started to notice it's getting harder to tell if someone is skin cheating or if the server's just in some varying degree of discombobulation?

One idea is to have any player attempting to join a server with a custom skin SEND that skin automatically to the server. The server would receive it, hold it, not let the player join until the next match, at which point all continuing or new players must now download the new skin. Not very elegant, I'm afraid.

I know it would defeat most of your purpose, but what if skins/models were client-side only? I think that would satisfy SOME people. What I mean is, everyone else sees a normal default skin, while you're actually running around with your custom skin/model. When you die, use behindview, look in a mirror, or watch a demo afterwards, what you see is your client-side custom skin.

I think there would be more of a push for this in servers if skins/models actually affected gameplay. Classes. Even Half-Life has altered bounding boxes (doesn't it?) depending on the player model. In standard UT, every model is exactly the same, gameplay wise.

I think if you look at the huge number of Face servers that aren't running (and never will run) spawnguard (very simple mutator to prevent spawn sniping), you'll see how hard it is to get anything to change.

On a different note, KS is having its first weekly Friday Night Frag Fest tonight, there's a thread around here somewhere... Just tell Skold or Spectre or Sir Robin or me what skin ya wanna use, and it'll be added, no sweat. Next week, ahm gunna play as Jarhead ( http://www.planetquake.com/polycount/info/ut/jarhead/jarhead.shtml ). They'll add voice packs, sounds, custom maps (DOM maps), and even a mutator or two maybe...

Plus... this was from a post I made recently about skins... "You know, I find that a player's name, their tactics, their playing style, what role they take, and the way they present themselves when chatting or teamsaying really combine with whatever built in skin they're using to make individuals out of a lot of players. Work on distinguishing yourself this way, too."

I know, not much consolation. Also, go check out Real Tournament-- http://www.planetunreal.com/realtournament/rt/spec.htm --they've done a couple of clan/texture related things, and they add new features all the time. They seem pretty open to ideas too. Go argue your case on their forum, see what kind of opinions you can get. RT is going to be really good when it's out the door, and subsequent releases will only get better.

Well, keep trying, hope I didn't discourage ya too badly

Why not do it like, say, Quake 2, when the server had nothing to do with it.

If you use a skin I have, I see you. If you use a skin I don't have, I see you as a default model/skin. That way you don't have to worry about someone using an unfair skin ... just delete the skin from your own hard drive, and you'll see that guy using a default model/skin instead. Same could be true for voice packs.

Seems so easy ... I must be overlooking something

How can you see custom skins in Q3A without having to download them?!

I agree...

Why not make a petition, seems to be all the rage now