I think it would be easy to implement this, just a simple hash check.

Just don't light up until the map is fully loaded, then!

Besides, the map will be loaded progressively, so you should make out the start way before the map loaded completely.

that's nice, atleast for the new maps it will be fine then, let's hope it's simple enough for every map maker to do it. but what about all the hundreds of old maps already on wmdb?

DonMega: you won't need to be able to find a "START" location, because map makers will be able to specify a starting location.

i know there's many more people wanting this feature than who come to this forum. this implemented well will make starting games a breeze, instead of wait of sometimes up to 5mins+. i play mainly towers and i've seen there's often someone joining the game who doesn't have a fast download, or then it's bad connection between the host and player. kicking them is one solution, but wouldn't u rather there be a better solution? also there's people who use hostingbuddy simply because their upload isn't that good, but using hostingbuddy should not be preferred choice.

btw no matter how cool cybershadow's idea sounds, i'm not in favor of the map loading incrementally because it can cause problems for example knowing where to teleport, if u can't read the START text anywhere in the texture yet. it's nicer to start with the complete map atleast.

lmao 3 post.
lol i play big tower maps. And??? wtf 112 votes for a stupid option -.-
np little wait.

DArK`X`LOrD, i guess u never played big roperaces or towers. those big maps can take a while to load

hmmmm There are more good ideas. What for??

I get it now, ty :)

Going from the P2P system, how about having a way to have the host let a player "suggest" a map?
Instead of the player telling the host to go and download a specific map, just have that player upload the map to the rest (With the host's permission, of course)

Rodent, that's why there has to be a CRC checksum checked against the maps of others so any tiny changes (even if filename is the same) will be recognized and map will be downloaded again

Often map-maker makes some smaller changes in map(bug fixing, additional coloring...) so if you have similar(not same map as host) among downloaded maps is there a possibility to WA load that maps as same and with that make some troubles to players(example when some player get into the buggy part of the map?)

I think map caching should be implemented asap, before 4.0. I don't think it's too hard to implement.

Implementation:
When game starts, it should get sizes of all maps in bytes. Then if host sends the map which is same size, game should calculate some checksum of the file (md5 probably) and compare it with the host's. If it's different, then map is downloaded from the host, in other case it will be taken from the cache. Maps should be downloaded to User\SavedLevels\Download folder.

Sounds really really great, cybershadow!

FWIW: In 4.0, we want to make it so you don't even need to wait for the map to load before starting the game. W:A will first send the monochrome map outline, and send the colour data separately. You will see the map appear in progressively more detail as it is downloaded.

Another idea we're considering is if someone other than the host has the map, clients would download the map from them as well.

Of course, map caching will be in 4.0 as well.

i see plenty of people quitting simply because the map is too big and taking ages to load. but if they only had to load it once they just might think it's worthwhile to wait for it, since then they can get it instantly in the future

yeah and perhaps add an option to limit the size used for this temporary map files. so incase u don't want it to grow huge (have small hard-disk) u can set it to like 1gb or something and then the oldest maps will be deleted automatically to keep the size 1gb. I however would set it to unlimited :D

checksums check are a must cos there's already different versions of same map, and also maps with same names / dimensions.

A lot of players play with very big maps since it's possible to have more than 30000*30000, this sort of maps takes ages depending of your speed to download, some giant maps with 113 colors and dithered takes more than 10 minutes to download if they are more than 1Mo even if you have it, imagine always download the same map you have of Shamballa and wait 15 minutes in best cases..
Happy New Year

(continued)
the map is downloaded.
5) That map is kept in /SavedLevels and the checksum added to "checksums".

The best way of going about it would be to do this:

1) Make a file in SavedLevels called "checksums"
2) On each boot of W:A, find all new maps and grab the md5sums of them (or similar), add the md5 and the filename to the checksums file.
3) When the host hosts a game, his client sends out the md5sum of the map he is hosting
4) If the md5sum is in the checksums file, that map is loaded, else