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The future of user made scenarios – and the lack of community feedback


umlaut

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But what about ladder playing? Right now I'm heavily engaged with theblitz.org "Scenario of the Month" event - playing, not organising - and I can't help but observe that when one needs to report the outcome of the scenario, a "comments" and "ratings" box included in the form to be filled in, might be much, much more effective as a device to gather feedback.

Indeed it is one of the goals of theblitz.org 's Scenario of the Month program to create some feedback. I think we can / should do better at encouraging that from happening over at theblitz.org. The tricky bit is that games end at different times so not everyone is ready to comment at the same instant. I'll think / ask about what we can do to make that part better. One suggestion that is being looked at is creating a dedicated sub forum for the Scenario of the Month to help make it easier to find and respond to comments. But now we are wondering off topic and talking about another site so I'll stop now...

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I hate the repository and so do not go back often, if i can help it. I have though previously left (not nearly enough) comments.

I do really appreciate the hard work you fellas put into the maps/scenarios.

ps I also appreciate BFC having the depository just find it very frustrating to use

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If feedback might contain spoilers it would be nice if the player could send text feedback to scenario author ONLY, not for other players to see.

Something useful for other players: I'd like an option where I could recommend a scenario for either H2H or to be played against the AI. This way players might have easier time finding scenarios good for some playing mode. All scenarios are NOT good for H2H, yet all scenario briefings do not mention this.

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Glad to spark a debate. Hope BFC are reading it too and it leads somewhere.

A few comments:

a good feedback indicator is the number of downloads.

First off I think that the amount of downloads in itself shows how well liked a particular scenario is.

Sorry, but I really don´t buy that reasoning. There´s no logic in it:

How do you know if you like a scenario before you´ve downloaded it? You don´t.

Unless, of course, other players have rated it or recommended it. But hey: They don´t! That is what this thread is all about.

Here´s a fact: My first scenario, Two Bridges, is the one that has been downloaded most times: 651. It has recieved 3 ratings with an average of 3 stars (out of 5) and 4 comments, all of them rather negative. Of all my scenarios it is the one that has the worst ratings and comments (I´m disregarding Waylaid that had neither), yet it is the one that has been downloaded most times. Where´s the logic?

I also believe that most people will only rate if they are really blown away or disappointed. If they are content they probably won’t rate/come back to leave feedback. That’s just human nature.

Well, that might be human nature. But as I have said earlier: It is also human nature to lose interest in continuing an activity if it has no payoff.

If we take a quick look at your threads for Ciembienne you have attracted a lot of praise and feedback in them. So maybe the forum should be used in a greater extent. Showing of pictures of a beautiful map and giving some hints about what the battle is about will have more players exited to try the scenario and gives them a easier way to leave feedback (not to mention that you will get reminded of a scenario when you see posts about it on the forum).

I fully agree that the forum should be used to a greater extent to promote scenarios and generate more feedback. That is my main point.

But the funny thing about WIP threads, like the one I made for the Ciembienne map, is that - in my experiece - you get a lot of positive feedback on the map and scenario while you´re working on it (and people are waiting for you to release it) - but next to no feedback after the release.

I played Umlaut's Seizing Ciembienne about a month ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. One thing which stopped me from posting an indepth AAR or too many screenshots was that I didn't want to spoil it for anyone else. Maybe that stops others commenting on scenarios.

Happy you like it :)

Regarding the spoilers, I understand you reluctance to spoil the game for others. Generally, people simply write " ********SPOILERS****** "

- if they want to warn you.

And this reminds me of a suggestion I forgot to mention in my first post: "Special spoiler sections".

On other sites I have seen a sort of "collapsible" text field reserved for spoilers. They are construced so you´ll have to click on them to reveal the spoiler text. Those would be a great feature to have in these threads too.

Unfortunately, I can´t remember where I saw them, so I can´t provide a picture. Does anyone here know where to find examples of those?

EDIT:

Suddenly remembered where I saw the spoiler thingies. At my son´s World of Tanks forums:

2kdf.jpg

oam8.jpg

Cheers

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Umlaut

Thank you for your post. I never really considered to rate or put my input to a scenario I downloaded from the repository but I will do so from now on. The scenarios I play are often ladder games over on the Blitz and they have a rating system you can use when posting a ladder match. That's where I put my input in and thought that was good enough.

Quite honestly I never considered to rate or post comments on the repository because it is such a pain to use. Some have mentioned the Scenario Depot. That was a great place for designers to get feedback, find play testers and whatnot. It was also a great place to find and search for scenarios for the gamer. Why is there no CMx2 games there?

Anyway, I do appreciate the time and effort designers and play testers put in.

:):):)

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It's always a good idea to make things as easy as possible for your "customer/audience".

Suggest designers include links/addresses in their scenario briefing that a player can simply copy and paste so he doesn't forget (or have more of an excuse to put off for another time) to give feedback or rate the game where you want it rated.

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Glad to spark a debate. Hope BFC are reading it too and it leads somewhere.

Sorry, but I really don´t buy that reasoning. There´s no logic in it:

How do you know if you like a scenario before you´ve downloaded it? You don´t.

Unless, of course, other players have rated it or recommended it. But hey: They don´t! That is what this thread is all about.

Here´s a fact: My first scenario, Two Bridges, is the one that has been downloaded most times: 651. It has received 3 ratings with an average of 3 stars (out of 5) and 4 comments, all of them rather negative. Of all my scenarios it is the one that has the worst ratings and comments (I´m disregarding Waylaid that had neither), yet it is the one that has been downloaded most times. Where´s the logic?

You don’t know beforehand.. but If it is a designer that has released quality before you are often up for more quality in new releases. There is also word of mouth. Scenarios/designers can be recommended in other ways than the repository review functions. Most scenarios I have downloaded has been of recommendations in the forum or when the designer has put up nice pics of the map and parts of the briefing/setting etc that catches my attention (Seizing Ciembienne as an example).

Your most downloaded scenario has been out for the longest time, makes perfect sense that it has been downloaded most. If you see an increase in downloads over time that is not only affected by the time they have been released I think that’s a good indication that the work is being enjoyed. By no means perfect and at times hard to interpret though.

Well, that might be human nature. But as I have said earlier: It is also human nature to lose interest in continuing an activity if it has no payoff.

That’s definitely true.

I fully agree that the forum should be used to a greater extent to promote scenarios and generate more feedback. That is my main point.

But the funny thing about WIP threads, like the one I made for the Ciembienne map, is that - in my experience - you get a lot of positive feedback on the map and scenario while you´re working on it (and people are waiting for you to release it) - but next to no feedback after the release.

I’m guessing that might be because it takes time to play. As many have mentioned (myself included) is that I download intriguing scenarios but It might take me six months (no exaggeration) until I play said scenario. Even if the feedback is not as extensive as you would like it’s more on the forum than in the repository so I think that’s the way to go.

On other sites I have seen a sort of "collapsible" text field reserved for spoilers. They are constructed so you´ll have to click on them to reveal the spoiler text. Those would be a great feature to have in these threads too.

This would be nice if possible. And finally. We are on the same page (and I think most are).. players should start to rate more and take the time to comment. We all know that its a lot of time that goes into mapmaking and scenario designing, the least a player can do is give a rating.

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I hate the repository and so do not go back often, if i can help it. I have though previously left (not nearly enough) comments.

I do really appreciate the hard work you fellas put into the maps/scenarios.

ps I also appreciate BFC having the depository just find it very frustrating to use

Pretty much the same for me as Paras comments.

Also I was a tester for Umlauts scenarios so never thought to add comments on the repository as I had given a blow by blow feedback to the author throughout the testing battle. Guess there would have been no harm in also adding a feedback in the repository.

Am also intending to give feedback on Mr X's CMFI campaign...but im still fighting it out!

But keep up the great work chaps! New scenarios and campaigns are what keep these sims alive imo.

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Umlaut, I must admit I download almost all new scenarios, but play only a fraction of them. I usually give a compliment about the map if it is good. But I do admire everyone who makes them and realize how frustrating it must be to get no feedback. Surely something for the community to think about.

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Hey Umlaut,

the whole thing seems to be like talking to a wall - you will hardly get any reaction from the community. I have made three campaigns (for CMBN, CMSF and CMFI), so I am able to know the effort, one has to put in such work - and 50% of the few comments, I got, have been negative :) At the moment, my campaigns all together have been downloaded > 1600 times - result: less than 16 comments - less than 1% of the users...so, following the theory, I have read in the other thread, they must be bad ;)

That´s it. I will go on making campaigns and do not care about their statistics :) and one day in the future, I may decide to buy the BF Company and to hire a professional team of Scenario/campaign designers ;)

Regards

Frank

Hi Frank

I´m in absolute awe of people designing campaigns! When I consider the amount of work there´s in making one scenario, I wouldn´t even dream of making an entire campaign (OK, perhaps I´d dream).

When I read this I tried to find you campaigns by searching the Repository. I didn´t find a single campaign - by you or anyone else. A good example of the usefulness of the search function in the Repository, I´m afraid :( Could you please tell which they are?

Personally, I think I´ve only finished two CM2 campaigns. I always seem to get stuck somewhere - either because of a mission I can´t get through or because of upgrades that force me to start the campaign all over (I´ve started The Scottish Corridor three times now).

I would really like to have some kind of special campaign forums, where you could discuss the missions in a campaign separately. I´m always nervous about entering a campaign thread because people might discuss a mission I haven´t yet reached.

The ability to discuss campaign missions separately would also make it easier to comment on a campaign - even if you hadn´t finished all of the missions yet.

What do you think?

Cheers

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Umlaut, I must admit I download almost all new scenarios, but play only a fraction of them. I usually give a compliment about the map if it is good. But I do admire everyone who makes them and realize how frustrating it must be to get no feedback. Surely something for the community to think about.

Ditto. I spend about half an hour every month or so getting every scenario but probably only play 2 of them if that.

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Back in the CMx1 Golden Years we had the "Rumor of War" tournament series that were very popular.

Members of the community who had the ability, designed H2H battles based on the tournament parameters, and a series of battles were fought over time, until a winner was declared.

One of the requirements of participation as a player was to create AARs of the all the battles from the side one was playing. Some AARs were very creative, and some were plain, about what you would expect from a random group of players. The AARs also served as a feedback vehicle for the designer and eventually when the tournament was completed the scenarios became public domain for general download.

IIRC there were 5 total ROW tournaments. Participation was always high, and believe it or not some players did not review their battles as required by the rules. So even in a semi controlled environment like this some folks just did not bother to give any feedback. The feedback that was provided however was always fair and valid.

There are still a few of us around on these forums who participated both as players and designers, and remember how much fun they were and how valuable the AARs were to the battle designers.

Perhaps a CMx2 based ROW Tournament might increase the feedback for player designed battles.

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Back in the CMx1 Golden Years we had the "Rumor of War" tournament series that were very popular.

Members of the community who had the ability, designed H2H battles based on the tournament parameters, and a series of battles were fought over time, until a winner was declared.

One of the requirements of participation as a player was to create AARs of the all the battles from the side one was playing. Some AARs were very creative, and some were plain, about what you would expect from a random group of players. The AARs also served as a feedback vehicle for the designer and eventually when the tournament was completed the scenarios became public domain for general download.

IIRC there were 5 total ROW tournaments. Participation was always high, and believe it or not some players did not review their battles as required by the rules. So even in a semi controlled environment like this some folks just did not bother to give any feedback. The feedback that was provided however was always fair and valid.

There are still a few of us around on these forums who participated both as players and designers, and remember how much fun they were and how valuable the AARs were to the battle designers.

Perhaps a CMx2 based ROW Tournament might increase the feedback for player designed battles.

I tried to institute the same AAR requirement when I put together and ran "The Farm" mini-tournament. It didn't work. There were a few really well-done AARs, a few perfunctory ones, and a whole lot of nothing from everyone else. Since it was an elimination tournament, I really should have instituted a strict "no AAR, no advancement" rule, but I had too much else to do just trying to run the thing.

There are a whole lot of suggestions one could make, but ultimately it comes down to the players having to actually take some initiative and do some damn work. And from what I've seen, most would rather just be lazy sods and benefit from the labors of others without reciprocating in the slightest. Of course, they'll spend countless hours complaining that the rivets on some tank model are too large, or that they think the game includes the wrong subspecies of grass for a given theater, but take a minute to offer a couple comments on a free community-provided download? That's clearly asking too much. :rolleyes:

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I tried to institute the same AAR requirement when I put together and ran "The Farm" mini-tournament. It didn't work. There were a few really well-done AARs, a few perfunctory ones, and a whole lot of nothing from everyone else. Since it was an elimination tournament, I really should have instituted a strict "no AAR, no advancement" rule, but I had too much else to do just trying to run the thing.

There are a whole lot of suggestions one could make, but ultimately it comes down to the players having to actually take some initiative and do some damn work. And from what I've seen, most would rather just be lazy sods and benefit from the labors of others without reciprocating in the slightest. Of course, they'll spend countless hours complaining that the rivets on some tank model are too large, or that they think the game includes the wrong subspecies of grass for a given theater, but take a minute to offer a couple comments on a free community-provided download? That's clearly asking too much. :rolleyes:

Yeah, I was one of the lazy sods who did not submit an AAR in your tournament after getting knocked out in the first round. I'm sorry for that, some health issues got in the way for me at the time. But you are absolutely right, just running a tournament can be a lot of work, and coming up with a formula to get folks to submit feedback can also be daunting.

Treeburst155 ran several of the ROW affairs, along with someone else who I dont recall now. The tournament itself was based on points and was not a knockout type, that may help. Winecape, offered bottles of South African wines to those who submitted the best AARs. Perhaps offering incentives in the form of prizes is the only way to ensure majority participation in the feedback requirement.

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Yeah, I was one of the lazy sods who did not submit an AAR in your tournament after getting knocked out in the first round. I'm sorry for that, some health issues got in the way for me at the time. But you are absolutely right, just running a tournament can be a lot of work, and coming up with a formula to get folks to submit feedback can also be daunting.

Treeburst155 ran several of the ROW affairs, along with someone else who I dont recall now. The tournament itself was based on points and was not a knockout type, that may help. Winecape, offered bottles of South African wines to those who submitted the best AARs. Perhaps offering incentives in the form of prizes is the only way to ensure majority participation in the feedback requirement.

This was not in any way directed at you personally - I hope you didn't take it that way. I don't remember who submitted and who didn't; hell, I don't even remember who won the thing. I hope your health issues have been resolved.

That said, I really had no expectation of AARs from people who lost a round; after all, there's absolutely zero incentive to write one at that point. If I'd enforced the rules requiring them for winning players to advance, however, I think the whole tournament would have collapsed quickly due to so many victorious players failing to submit.

It's really two different things. At least in a tournament you have some ability to control things. When it comes to scenarios made public, however, there's not a damn thing you can do. And as usual, relying on people to do anything without offering them a positive reward for doing so (and sometimes not even then) is bound to result in utter disappointment, if not downright disgust.

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This was not in any way directed at you personally - I hope you didn't take it that way. I don't remember who submitted and who didn't; hell, I don't even remember who won the thing. I hope your health issues have been resolved.

That said, I really had no expectation of AARs from people who lost a round; after all, there's absolutely zero incentive to write one at that point. If I'd enforced the rules requiring them for winning players to advance, however, I think the whole tournament would have collapsed quickly due to so many victorious players failing to submit.

It's really two different things. At least in a tournament you have some ability to control things. When it comes to scenarios made public, however, there's not a damn thing you can do. And as usual, relying on people to do anything without offering them a positive reward for doing so (and sometimes not even then) is bound to result in utter disappointment, if not downright disgust.

No personal affront was taken. I wanted to male the point that even though I would like to see designers get as much feedback as possible, I too was guilty not providing it. Thank you my health issues have been taken care of.

It is a difficult balancing act.

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Okay. After finding that Topic i first started to THINK about how hard it is to make a Scenario. In this Egoistic and Consuming World you automatic start behave in similar way to those Scenarios.

I will try and leave a Comment on every Scenario i downloaded and played from now on. Will also look into my Messy CMBN-MG Folder to recall wich one i downloaded and leave a Comment on the Repository.

I also remembered the good old Scenario Depot Days and i recently found GAJs nice Mod site. Using the Aris Mods alot now (almost all of them) but couldnt find a thank you button or stumbled on a Topic where i could express myself about that Great Mod.

So Forums and Repository should be better linked together.

Other thing i would like to mention is BFC myabe tries to encourage or start a Contest for best Scenario 2014 or something like this. Because i think the ongoing playability of the Game will be much greater!

RO2 Rising Storm did that (bigger Budget okay) with about giving 25000$ on User Made Map Contest in a Banzai Contest! :)

I think BFC should think about that. One of the biggest things in CMx1 was that Blitz Ladder and the Multiplayer Part with that Great Community! :)

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In this Egoistic and Consuming World you automatic start behave in similar way to those Scenarios.

There is nothing wrong with consuming. In fact, what bigger compliment could one make to the producer of a product than saying "I ll give you my hard earnd money for what you created?". Mass consumption keeps our economy alive and without a working economy there simply wouldnt be anything to consume for anyone, not really a great scenario. I dont consider consuming egoistic. Robbing a bank is egoistic.

It is surely nice though to thank someone who gives yopu somehting for free, like a scenario.

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Other thing i would like to mention is BFC myabe tries to encourage or start a Contest for best Scenario 2014 or something like this. Because i think the ongoing playability of the Game will be much greater!

That sounds like a fun idea.

RO2 Rising Storm did that (bigger Budget okay) with about giving 25000$ on User Made Map Contest in a Banzai Contest! :)

Wow that might be a bit on the rich side but cool idea.

I think BFC should think about that. One of the biggest things in CMx1 was that Blitz Ladder and the Multiplayer Part with that Great Community! :)

Do you mean theblitz.org? Because if so, it is still going and there is a CM2x ladder now.

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There is nothing wrong with consuming. In fact, what bigger compliment could one make to the producer of a product than saying "I ll give you my hard earnd money for what you created?". Mass consumption keeps our economy alive and without a working economy there simply wouldnt be anything to consume for anyone, not really a great scenario. I dont consider consuming egoistic. Robbing a bank is egoistic.

It is surely nice though to thank someone who gives yopu somehting for free, like a scenario.

I don't think that was what he meant. I suspect it is not a native english speaker. The expression does have a negative connotation of consuming to excess for no particular reason. I used to have a neighbor that would buy things just because they were on sale. He could have 50 lawn chairs, but if he passed a store with them on sale at some ridiculous price, he'd buy them anyway. Now they were just waste.

In this case I think he was meaning a self centered society that consumes to excess with no particular regard to it's impact on anything else. The point being the folks are "consuming" the scenarios with no regard to what it takes to produce. Not actually a bad analogy.

I think though we are going a bit too far. The vast majority of BFs consumer base does not even participate in this forum. They are silent for whatever reason. Maybe they are shy, maybe they think we are all a bunch of looneys. Maybe they think the Peng thread is representative of our mental state. For whatever reason though I don't think it is reasonable to expect them to suddenly give feedback of the repository if they don't participate here. The percentage is always going to be small, it is simply the nature of folks relationship to gaming. They don't want to participate in a conversation, they just want to play the game.

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There seems to be a bit of "be careful what you wish for" in this topic. 'Feedback' as it relates to public chat boards is not always pleasant. I doubt anyone would want to post a perfectly respectable scenario only to find 200 messages from fourteen year olds telling them they're incompetent and stupid and deserve to die a slow lingering death. Okay, that's a bit extreme. More likely they'll be told their map is too big/small, gamepay is too easy/hard, their orders text isn't historically accurate or helpful or grammatically correct. Feedback can be a buzzkill sometimes. Sometimes its best to give your scenario to the world then move on.

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