At the beginning of the year, the process of adding a new map to the game was very error-prone and undocumented. Once the map was created and file uploaded, the process involved:
!nextmap
configuration (nobody did it) Now the process is:
But that’s not all: I’ve also implemented automatic testing of different map properties, and the steps along the way are monitored. If something goes wrong, I’m automatically notified.
All the metadata about the maps is now available in a single, machine-readable place. This is a very important point as in the past it was spread across many places in custom data formats. Having a single machine-readable source of truth and automation around it allowed us recently to launch https://www.beyondallreason.info/maps. This will also enable us to easily add information about maps to the new lobby.
I hope this streamlined process will allow mappers to focus on what they love: creating maps. For players, this means fewer issues caused by errors in map distribution.