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TUMTaRA - Playground

The faq does mention unpacking the maps, but not in regards to playing versus mode.
And since i could usually play addon maps in versus i never got the issue, so i didn't even know it existed.

Extracting the VPK folder and putting the root folder from inside into the addons folder worked. Alternatively, unpacking the BSP files into the maps folder also worked. I can now load the Playgrounds in versus mode from the console and from the Tumtara addon main menu. You may want to put this information into the description so that people can get it running.
The good thing about all of this is that I found out the main Tumtara map can be loaded in versus mode without problems.

Well, you could try unpacking the 2189467576.vpk file from your addons/workshop folder.
That holds all the tumtara_playground files.
Then move the 2189467576 folder into your addons folder. Maybe rename it to "Tumtara_Playgrounds" aswell. Inside is an addoninfo.txt file. perhaps change the addon title just so you know which of the addons in the ingame addon menu is the loose files.
Once that is done, disable the one you get from the workshop from the addon menu. So you'll know when its updated, but then you'd need to unpack it again.

My hope is that "loose" map files would work, because that works for me.
And i have no idea (except for blaming bas coding) why it even breaks like that.
Nevermind that there is no reason at all for a map to break how skins work,

Your maps are really helpful for figuring stuff out, but unfortunately I'm getting the same error as mentioned in Cerberus814's comment when I try to load the playground versus map even though it's the first map I try to load after startup.
Interestingly, after failing to load playground versus, the regular playground and the infected map also fail to fully load. Loading the main Tumtara map succeeded but I spawned as a Special Infected in ghost mode. I could freely switch to the Infected team (with the console) which you normally can't do in the Tumtara map. Weapon skin addons were also disabled. All of these behaviours stopped after a game restart.
Hoepfully this brings some light into what went wrong. It seems that trying to load playground versus enables versus mode for all subsequent map loads and most can't handle it.

Any mod that adds the riotshield script would work.
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2109489322

And if you want the riotshield to not look like ass, i'd reccomend this:
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2011562089
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2011562089

Then idk what I'm doing wrong, the first thing I do when I load the game is, open console, type map tumtara_playground versus, and it crashes to main menu.

The only map relevant error is "Unable to open map"
This error usually only appears when you already played any map at all beforehand.

L4D2 just does that. The only way to load custom maps at any time you want is by unpacking the maps from the addon, into your main maps folder. Or even mounting the entirety of tumtara as a new content folder.

yes there are some error msgs (idk if any of these are the cause of not loading the map)

No pure server whitelist. sv_pure = 0

"Host_Error: CMapLoadHelper::Init, unable to open maps/tumtara_playground.bsp"

lots of CMaterial::PrecacheVars and Particles: Missing errors

and these are the last lines of console after crashing to menu:

Dropped Cerberus814 from server (Disconnect by user.)
BinkOpen( e:\steamlibrary\steamapps\common\left 4 dead 2\left4dead2\media\l4d2_background05.bik )
Connection to Steam servers successful.
VAC secure mode is activated.

are there any error messages in the console after the map loading command?

When I open the game i use in console "map tumtaara_playground versus" it loads the loading screen but when it completes, it crashes to game menu