Admiral Keth

OGF Keller, Please note that, in my spare pico-seconds, I'm feverishly working on the CMBB Operation Synopsis page, so I would ask that you postpone reviewing CMBB Operations until: 1) I've posted the new pages, and 2) Received and posted the correct data from the authors.

I played this battle as the Germans, and thoroughly loved it. Spoiler! . . . . . . . . . . The crest of the road that cuts through the forest became, as Lt. Bull put it, a scrap heap. If you are playing the Russians, find a different path. It was almost too easy from the German perspective. The real joy came when several Luftwaffe squads double-timed up the right side of the map, discovered several Russian tanks making their way through the forest, and promptly close assaulted them. The Luftwaffe destroyed 4 tanks and SPA's, only taking light casualties in return. Iron Crosses and Close Assault badges all around, if you please!

hardcampa, Please send me the URL of this site. I would like to see what methods they are using to achieve this.

OGF Keller, This campaign has my full support and endorsement. Let me know if there is anything I can do to facilitate your efforts. In addition, have you already thought about establishing a set of standards or a checklist of aspects of a scenario by which your group can evaluate each battle or operation? Perhaps the authors themselves can chime in here and suggest criteria by which the Review Platoon can more easily execute on this idea. [ January 13, 2003, 09:58 PM: Message edited by: Admiral Keth ]

I'm currently enjoying the heck out of the operation B&T Seelow as the Germans when I receive much needed reinforcements (Yes, I'm getting my butt kicked by the AI). However the Veteran weakened sharpshooter shows up already eliminated in the setup phase! Should scenario designers be conscious of the possibility of 1 and 2-man units potentially being eliminated outright when using unit strength variables and simply designate them as being full strength?

In addition, I am personally committed to the continued existence of The Scenario Depot. Even if, one day, I decide to no longer maintain it, I will hand it off to another caring and dedicated soul. Thus the CM community will never loose some of the oldest and rarest scenarios.

All, there are search pages for each category, as illustrated below: Although not every field associated with a battle or operation is available for searching, this mechanism still provides you with a method for finding CMBO/CMBB battles, operations, and maps.

All, Here's my final views on this matter: 1) The paradigm by which The Scenario Depot operates is not going to change any time soon. If you don't like how it operates, if you think it's too cumbersome or hard to use, then don't use it! There are plenty of other superb and well-designed scenario sites. Or better still build one of your own, apparently it's easy. 2) I am certainly not opposed to building a "Read the Scenario Synopsis, click the download checkbox", but I am not in a position to build this anytime soon. Nor will I do it without 100% consensus from the authorial community. I spend 10+ hours per day building fecking complex order entry systems for companies such as Time Warner, Sun Microsystems, Broadcom, and 36 other Fortune 500 companies. Don't tell me what can and can't be done. Right now I'm working with a company that uses FileMaker and Lasso; fecking primitive compared to other technologies out there. With regards to statistics, 1/10th of 1% of all scenarios downloaded are reviewed. Everybody ask yourself this question, of ALL of the scenarios you have downloaded, how many have you reviewed? The way I see it, the arguement boils down to this: people want a simple method by which they can download scenarios en masse without having to feel guilty about doing anything for them, or offering anything back to the authorial community for their (the authors') efforts. If that's what the authors want as well, then I'll happily build it. In the mean time, the current system stands as designed. Frankly, I'm sick and tired of people pissing and moaning about free scenarios and services. For God's sake, what do you want?

OK, I'll bite...designed better how? What is it that you don't like? Cumbersome how? Using PHP/MySQL, can you provide me with the code you would like me to use in order to achieve this vision of perfection? The ENTIRE point behind the way it is designed is so that you HAVE to download each scenario seperately, so that you learn something about it, so that you read some of the reviews...and maybe come back to contribute a worthwhile opinion about the scenario after you play it. Each author gets appropriate credit on each and every scenario. I get emails daily asking for all of the scenarios in a zip file. I couldn't do it 1.5 years ago and I'm not going to do it now...and neither should anyone else. Otherwise what's the point of me maintaining The Scenario Depot? Guys, we have been through this a couple times before. The reason for The Scenario Depot's existence is due to the fact that I did something pretty much identical about 1.5 years ago. I got labasted by just about everyone here when I created the ScenarioMegaPack. The rules laid down by the authors themselves was that: 1) I had to get authorial permission prior to redistribution. I went through EVERYONE and got explicit permission. 2) Each author gets explicit credit for each scenario they create. Authors could either have me host the file directly, or I would provide a link to their site. 3) Each author gets player reviews so that they can make better scenarios in the future. Can anyone remember what it was like prior to The Scenario Depot? Scenarios spread all over the internet, sometimes becoming lost as each author became tired of maintaining their personal site and let their subscription lapse. Hundreds of scenarios have been spared from obscurity. Sure The Scenario Depot isn't perfect...the rating system isn't perfect...navigation isn't perfect. I can't spend 8 hours per day coding for it. So someone design a better, more durable repository for 1385 battles, 129 operations, 120 maps, 2894 reviews, and 60 AAR's. I'll turn it all over to you.

xerxes, Thanks for the head's up. I'll make some corrections over the next few days.

I have to agree with everyone here in that these were not intended to be constructive or helpful reviews, but instead pointed and blatant personal attacks. Let it be known here and now that I will not put up with this kind of abuse, neither of the scenario author nor of the review system. If you have something personal to say, take it up with the author. If you have a problem with a particular author's scenarios, don't play them. If you, as a reviewer, have something useful to say, with the intent of aiding the author in improving their work, then by all means post a review, and be extremely explicit about what it is you like or don't like, and why. In the past I have been fairly lenient of the nature of reviews which people post, but since it has come to this, I'm going to begin exercising a little more veto power than before. If an author asks to have a review removed, I'm going to tend to lean in favor of the author's request, as long as there he provides a reasonable arguement for deletion.

Yes, it is entirely possible, as well as a good idea. I'll add it to the "List O' Things To Do".

All, I personally own the server space, code the PHP and MySQL pages, design and maintain the database, upload and link the scenario files, and perfom daily backups. Bigdog and Harv gracious capture screenshots and interact with the authors. I genuinely appreciate their extremely hard work, plus putting up with me. Paul Synott does some data work. The long and the short of it is that the buck stops with me on whether the site meets your needs, as well as the needs of the players. Everyone who comments here contributes to the design and functionality of The Scenario Depot. The Scenario Depot was originally (and still is) intended to be a forum for the scenario authors to showcase their products, receive (hopefully) constructive feedback, and improve the appeal of their scenarios based on responses from the players. So, what does all this mean? If the scenario authors are dissatisfied with the nature of the response system, then they must necessarily decide amongst themselves (preferably within this forum) what would be most meaningful to them. The original system was semi-designed upon everyone's initial idea of what they would like to see in a rating system, as well as the types of categories they needed to see (there's a thread around here somewhere regarding this). What has happened here is that, after some usage, the original rating system is shown to be inadequate. Therefore, the time has come to completely revamp it based on the input from the authors. You guys tell me...how do you want it to work? In addition, how do you want to handle the 1000's of existing scenarios and reviews? I think at this point I would prefer that we all agree upon a single course of action prior to me putting one finger to the keyboard.

I think you may be close to what is the true source of the issue. A failure on my part to precisely explain the rating values in a manner which is precisely understood by the reviewers, as well as agreed upon by the authors. I everyone can agree upon: 1) Categories which are meaningful, as well as 2) Scores which are exlicitly explained then I think I can develop a system which will elicit more meaningful responses from the players.

This is a task which I have nearly finished (about 4 hours more work), but my day job is consuming waaay more time than I would prefer (12+ hour/day). Authors will be able to edit their own scenarios descriptions, as well as respond to reviews. Both of these features were in the system prior to the move to the new servers, I just have not had a moment to reinstitute them. I have several other tasks in the queue as well, including the CMBB Operation submission page. I'm on holiday between 12.20.02 and 01.05.03. I'm going to do my best to finish up these tasks for everyone.

CMBO - Had a Hummel parked next to a building and a second Hummel next to him. The Hummel next to the building caught sight of some Ami infantry scurrying across open ground. The gunner promptly traversed the gun and began tracking the squad as the loaders rammed in a new round. The gunner, with complete line-of-sight to the squad, happily blazed away. The shot immediately deflected into the corner of the building (less than 3 meters away), destroying the building and both Hummels.

ADSL 1.5 at home T3 at work

Ignus, Contact me offline and I'll be happy to give you some advice on what methods to use for user data entry. My email address is in the profile.

Uploaded and linked! Download, play, review.

Maps and screenshots posted. Thanks, Jason!

Maps and screenshots posted. Thanks, Jason!

Uploaded and linked. Thanks Gonzo!

The following addresses work, but I use the former for CM-related messaging and the latter for work-related messaging. admketh@dragonlair.net kmiller@dragonlair.net Actually, since the dragonlair.net domain is mine, anything preceding the .dragonlair.net should get to me. Wyatt, Received your last message: 1) I think this issue may be related to the Author Comments field issue. I'll be having a look at it this weekend as well. 2) Link corrected. [ November 25, 2002, 11:02 AM: Message edited by: Admiral Keth ]

Wyatt, Looking at my inbox right now...not seeing it. I would appreciate it if you sent it again.

CombinedArms, The Author Reply feature is slated to be put back into place after Thanksgiving (I'm even postponing brewing a batch of of my Fulminator dopplebock to get this feature finished). Look for it to be in place by 12.08.02.