hi guys,

i tried to create an almost complete and up2date mappack for portal
for me and my mates 'cause they are all portal fans as well

as i spend a lot of time to edit all the .bns files, adding thumbnails to every map and sorted the maps in categories (challenges,jumpmaps,funmaps and of course "shicemaps*"), my mates said i should not hold it back from the community any longer.

so here it is...

Phr??kpack Portal v1.37

contains ~137 maps
size ~835mb packed ~200mb

i will try to update it regulary, so watch for updates.

if i made some mistakes, or if you do not want your maps inmy pack, please do not hesitate to contact me, i will remove it from the public version or just fix the problems. i you want let me know of new maps or updates please contact me to

@moderators

as the mappack sizes about 200mb i will wait for the ok before uploading it here. i can provide rapidshare links for the mappack if allowed in this forum. please let me know

so this was the first part

cheers phk

*just an insider for german users (means crappy maps)

I think these sort of things should be opt-in, rather than opt-out.

I've not made any full public Portal maps yet, but I know I wouldn't want to have to hunt down people distributing my maps in a pack like this if I did.

I agree with Cargo on this, and I think most mappers would feel the same way.

Looks nice, but do you credit the authors and ask for their permission before adding their maps?

If you don't, some may get angry after you...

But the idea of grouping maps in itself is good. Just be careful.

Phr??k wrote:
if i made some mistakes, or if you do not want your maps inmy pack, please do not hesitate to contact me, i will remove it from the public version or just fix the problems. i you want let me know of new maps or updates please contact me to

So you've put every TWP map into your map pack? In this case you need to post a list of all the maps you've used and who made them so the ceator can ask for you not to use it, as unlikely as it is.
And as cargo said, it should be opt in not opt out

thats why i asked before releasing it.
as i said it is not public at this time, just a collection for me and my mates.

if i would making maps, i would enjoy to see it played by many guys.

but its up to you to decide

Quote:
it should be opt in not opt out

my english is not the best so i do not know what you mean

Quote:
Looks nice, but do you credit the authors and ask for their permission before adding their maps?

i put all readme files into the pack so if there were credits there are still there.

i can make a list with all availbale credits, the most mappers come from here, until this point i have not asked for someones permission because of "home use"

cheers phk

Phr??k wrote:
Quote:

it should be opt in not opt out

my english is not the best so i do not know what you mean

This means that instead of putting maps into your map pack, and people having to tell you to remove their maps, you shoudl get the author's permission first before putting thier maps into the map pack.

I agree that these things should be opt in situations.

I think I can put it beter than that megadude.
Opt is like choose. so an "Opt in scheme" is where you have to choose to join
but an "opt out" scheme is where everyone is entered and you have to choose to leave.
Due to various legal things its actually better to do opt in for things like this.

That's a much better way of saying it. I'm never good at explanations

Quote:
This means that instead of putting maps into your map pack, and people having to tell you to remove their maps, you shoudl get the author's permission first before putting thier maps into the map pack.

ok i understand, thanks for the lesson

i thought it would end up this way but thats ok and the reason why i asked you.

this means a lot of permissions when looking at the amount of the maps,
but will try to take some time to start with that.

and at this time i would say a big thanks to all of you mappers, some maps are really great looking, quite challenging and "enriching" my portal experience. so do not stop doing what you do

cheers phk

in general posters of intellectual property ought to put creative commons info along with the work.

hm msleeper do you think there would be an easy way to easily allow somebody to enter their creative commons prefs whenever they upload anything? I've seen that on sites like flickr.

http://www.creativecommons.org/license

that way, if somebody didn't mind having their map in a map pack they could include a non commercial, non modify, worldwide license, for example...

and if somebody wants to make a map pack that is for sale, they will need to contact the mapper for royalty info...

If you're looking for some way to have that posted on the DLDB, I would imagine that is somewhat unnecessary. Just include a license.txt with the map that specifies the type of license you want to release it under.

Just tell me that some bozo didnt just go grab my friggin' WIP map and stick it in some mappack somewhere. When my map is ready for distrubution, I WILL DISTRIBUTE IT. And to do so as a WIP is not a fair representation of my work, at the very least.

When I DO release my map, its for public consumption and I expect I will download it to multiple sites. . . but I am going to be seriously pissed if somebody sticks it in a mappack without getting my permission. And I will then track down every site that has it on it and bother them until they take if off, and will gladly encourage other folks in the pack to do the same.

Its not that I really dont want it distributed; heck, I'd almost certainly say yes IF ASKED. Its the sheer arrogance of somebody just thinking they can gather up other work and do who knows what with it that pisses me off. For all I know you'll charge money for the whole collection. (which you will almost certainly say is ridiculous, but the fact is I WOULDNT KNOW if you did).

I am all for people adding some distribution-related text to the zipped download stating their wishes in regards to distribution. (Adding it to the website doesnt help much IMO, since many other websites wont have that feature). If such distrubution test is NOT present though, then the mapper should be asked before addition.

The bottom line: MapPackers who dont get permission from mappers to add their map to the pack may not be respecting the wishes of the mappers (ie the people who invested all the hard work). That is a bad ethics for a person to have, and a bad practice for a website to support.

xitooner wrote:
Just tell me that some bozo didnt just go grab my friggin' WIP map and stick it in some mappack somewhere. When my map is ready for distrubution, I WILL DISTRIBUTE IT. And to do so as a WIP is not a fair representation of my work, at the very least.

When I DO release my map, its for public consumption and I expect I will download it to multiple sites. . . but I am going to be seriously pissed if somebody sticks it in a mappack without getting my permission. And I will then track down every site that has it on it and bother them until they take if off, and will gladly encourage other folks in the pack to do the same.

Its not that I really dont want it distributed; heck, I'd almost certainly say yes IF ASKED. Its the sheer arrogance of somebody just thinking they can gather up other work and do who knows what with it that pisses me off. For all I know you'll charge money for the whole collection. (which you will almost certainly say is ridiculous, but the fact is I WOULDNT KNOW if you did).

I am all for people adding some distribution-related text to the zipped download stating their wishes in regards to distribution. (Adding it to the website doesnt help much IMO, since many other websites wont have that feature). If such distrubution test is NOT present though, then the mapper should be asked before addition.

The bottom line: MapPackers who dont get permission from mappers to add their map to the pack may not be respecting the wishes of the mappers (ie the people who invested all the hard work). That is a bad ethics for a person to have, and a bad practice for a website to support.

Actually, thinking about it I can't agree more. Especially as this has already happend to me. The pack compiler posted a link and said YAY MY MAP PACK IS OUT.... I downloaded it to find it contained my map..... which was HUGHELY WIP and not ready for release.... So I asked him nicely to remove it, and a few weeks later after someone else had sent him multiple emails asking him to remove their map aswell both were still in it. so after then we flamed his ass down to the ground untill he took the maps out.

Seems to me, map packs wouldn't be really needed if people weren't so damned lazy.

I don't even download maps from servers on other mods (For instance: Garry's Mod). I look at a server, see what map it's on (That I don't have) or trying to download, disconnect, find it online (Google is your friend!) and get it at not only a much faster speed, but at a premium to the server owner who is probably paying more upfront costs to run a server than someone running a website.