GreenAsJade

Actually, it happens quite often. Back in the past (10 years ago!) I wrote a play-by-email server for a game called "Firetop Mountain". It originally was conceived as a duel between two mages, but a later person added to my code multi-multi capability. People loved it, and they still (10 years later!) play melees. The most I've seen is a 20-player brawl. With strict rules about what happens if people don't submit orders in time it chugs along just fine. I'm sure that if BFC come out with multi-multi PBEM support, someone will quickly produce game-moderator software. Heck, I might even. GaJ. (If you go and look at Firetop Mountain, please remember that it is 10 years old, none of the original contributors (myself included) play anymore or maintain it... so its nothing fancy, but its still going strong! I guess 'cause its a simple, fun, challenging game...)

Count down to thread-lock commences now... 10... 9... 8...

The status so far is that Gordom has shown me a class of "Mod" that I was not aware of: the kind of Mod that CMMOS itself modifies as it installs. You can't install these by hand, and you can't install them with McMMM. This I would call a "CMMOS-only" mod. A mod designed only for users of CMMOS. Gordon calls it an "Overlay mod". Gordon is right: everyone needs to know that these exist, and I need to not mis-represent that McMMM can handle them. McMMM can handle all Mods that you could install by hand. It will also be helpful if it warns you when it bumps into an Overlay Mod... I need to work on that! GaJ.

(I've taken this one-on-one conversation to email) GaJ.

What do you use it for? What is important to you about it? Why am I asking? Because in another thread there is a lot of discussion over how an aspect of it must be changed. But actually no-one really knows why. No-one really knows what is great and what is not about the Scenario Depot. So before Adm Keth goes and implements a change, how about letting him know why you love it, or maybe why you don't and what would make you start using it. But please don't tell us how it should be done, just tell us what stuff you would like to be able to do there. Here is the answer for me: I go to the Scenario Depot to find a great scenario to play. I go to the "Lists" and look at the ratings for PBEM games. I check how many people have reviewed a game, and what average score it has. I select amongst the ones with lots of reviews and a good rating, and I read all the reviews, to see if it will actually be the kind of scenario I like. It is important to me to be able to see what different things people liked and did not like. It is important to be able to compare scenarios. I also go there to read reviews of scenarios that people mention in threads, and to get scenarios that people mention in threads, even if they don't rate highly. I also like to let people know what I thought of a scenario by submitting reviews. I like to be able to rate different aspects of the scenario. I would like to be able to rate the scenario overall as well. I wish I could tell if there were green/conscript troops in scenarios, because I hate playing those. GaJ.

I would bet that is a minority opinion...the lists though in need of refinement, are a practical place for someone to start on their quest for a good battle. What do the downloaders want? Maybe the opinions of scenario designers(mine included) should come second. </font>

Sheesh! Now we have dust grogs!!

Where do I find an appropriate, complex King Tiger CMMOS compatible Mod to try out McMMM compatibility? I found CMMOS_King_Tigers.zip. McMMM appears to be able to handle it fine. This is what it has to say about it: Users can read the description and info using the "open" feature, as shown above. Users can select and deselect any or all of the various optional BMPs and install or uninstall them as their fancy takes them, just as they could do manually. The can examime the BMPs in each option: and mix and match the bits they want to install. Sure, McMMM doesn't know how to present the options in a clean integrated way. That's what CMMOS does. McMMM just lets the user inspect BMPs and install at will. That's what I mean by "Can handle CMMOS compatible Mods". Am I missing something? Cheers, GaJ.

I completely agree - please don't take away a way of relative ratings for scenarios, and ways to ask to see the ones that people thought were best. That is a valuable part of Scenario Depot as it is now, and it is _not broken_. Sure, there might be a scenario that should be 3rd instead of 4th or something, but only the author cares about that. The rest of the public uses the system to find the kinds of scenarios that lots of people liked. That is important. GaJ.

One of the basic intents of McMMM was that it would be able to sensibly install BMPs and WAVs from all Mods that are out there. As far as I know, it does this. I would love to take a look at a CMMOS-compatible Mod that someone feels McMMM can't sensibly handle... maybe CMMOS has moved up a notch in complexity since I looked at it last? Cheers, GaJ.

Can you send me an email telling me - The scenario, and where I can get it - The mods you are using, and where I can get them - A "bug report" from McMMM: use McMMM to examine the contents of one of the Mods, then do "bug report" from the "Help" menu and follow the instructions. But first you might want to check if the season of the Mod matches the season of the scenario: if it is a winter mod it won't show up in summer etc... GaJ.

There were good things about Fru, but my own opinion is that the "suprise" briefing was not one of them. It can be done well: take a look at the CMBB scenario "Meeting!". Same "lum de dum, we're not expecting trouble" atmpospherics, but a clean transition into "oh, we are under attack". In addition, in a situation of response to a suprise attack, one would not expect to have the opportunity to set up a defensive position. To match the scenario with the briefing better, a scenario like Fru could have had all the units padlocked in "having morning tea" positions. That for me would have made the difference between an adequate briefing (which is was) and an inspirational one. Just my opinion... everyone will have one, they'll all be different GaJ.

Yes, I need to do this. Unfortunately, the assumption that the Mods will be in one place is a bit built in to McMMM right now, so its not a quick-fix. It will be done though... GaJ.

McMMM uses the default Windows program to view any kind of file that is in the Mod Zip if you select that file then click on the "Open" button. It sounds like this is how SDK's default JPEG program is getting activated. The picture in the McMMM preview is the result of using the "Examine Contents" button - rather different. GaJ.

I just noticed a definition thing here. When I say that McMMM "supports a Mod", it means that it "can read the ZIP file that the mod is in and correctly install sets of BMPs from there". It doesn't meant that it can do all the things that CMMOS can do with the same Mod. For me, a Mod is just a zip file containing BMPs. Instead of saying "McMMM supports all CMMOS mods", maybe I should more carefully say "McMMM can handle all CMMOS mods". Which, as far as I know, is true. Is that OK with you Gordon? As per my previous post, let's not talk about CMMOS becoming irrelevant! As posters were quick to tell you, they love CMMOS. GaJ.

CMMOS and McMMM are two different tools with different goals in mind. What would be the point of having two tool that do the _same_ thing? If we find that McMMM does exactly what CMMOS already does, if the answers to Gordon's questions above were "yes, yes, yes", then I just wasted months of my life! I would have been better off contributing to the development of CMMOS or doing something else. But McMMM and CMMOS are different tools for different needs. Users have choice! Great, eh? Here's how I see the choice: McMMM is an application that takes the hassle out of unzipping and installing/uninstalling BMPs and WAVs from ZIP files ("Mods"). That's it. No frills, very easy to install and use, no imposition on Mod makers, handles any Mod. No rules, no conditional thingys, nothing to download except a zip file containing the BMPs or WAVs that you want to swap in or out. CMMOS is completely different. It is much more sophisticated. It lets you do a list of things that Gordon hints at above. With sophistication comes a price: higher learning curve, some extra effort for Mod makers, some restrictions on the Mods that can be handled. These buy you the list of features that CMMOS has. Sometimes posts give a feel of competition between the two tools. I don't see it that way at all*. I would like to see places that distribute CMMOS and/or McMMM distributing them both. They should have a feature list for each, like the ones above (but with all the sophisticated CMMOS things spelled out) and let users choose the tool that they want. A richer set of tools for people to use, more fun had playing and Moding CM. I don't want McMMM to be seen as "better" or "worse" than CMMOS. The choice is about what you want to do, not which is better or worse at the same thing. GaJ. *: Well, OK... of course the developer of any application would like people to use their application, and I'm no different, I'm sure Gordon is not either. But its not adversarial competition in the same space, it's a friendly rivalry to see what different tools attract lots of happy users.

I made the suggestion I did because it was </font> Simple</font>Requires no chance of anything for either player or reviewer</font>Addresses the most problematic issue: adverse scores of irrelevant aspects detracting from the overall rating of a scenario. ...while still allowing reviewers to give ratings on those irrelevant aspects should they feel the need.</font> Another positive aspect of the suggestion I made is that it can be implemented with low impact on the current reviews, and taken out again without detracting from reviews that are done while it is in place. Some of the objections from WWB I'm afraid to say indicate that he isn't understanding how the suggestion is intended to work. They are objections to features of the suggestion that don't exist. However, WWB is entitiled to his opinion. We know what WWB's opinion is now, and there seems to be little prospect of changing it by debate or further attempts to describe the proposal. What happens next is up to Admiral Keth I guess... there's little point in three people with fixed opinions (Michael, WWB and me) debating disagreements further. What would be productive is suggestions for refinements to address shortcomings (if there are any) or alternatives. Or any opinions from anyone else. Otherwise Admiral needs to decide to do something or just put us out of our misery by telling us he's not going to do anything! GaJ.

As far as I'm aware McMMM is 1) Compatible with all CMMOS mods You can us McMMM to install and uninstall mods labelled as CMMOS compatible. 2) Interoperable with CMMOS. IE you can install some mods with CMMOS and install others with McMMM and you should not have a problem. McMMM puts things back just the way it found them, if you use it to uninstall a mod that it previously installed. About the only thing you can't do is use McMMM to uninstall a mod when you used CMMOS to install it. Is your head spinning now? GaJ.

What does "exclusive" mean? GaJ.

Strategy Guide by JC: put me on the list to buy one. GaJ.

And what I am saying is 1) The mechanism to make it crystal clear is by having the designer supply the weighting for each aspect If your scenario is for PBEM, put a weight of 10 on PBEM when you submit it. People can then look for scenarios that are PBEM 10 and know they are getting scenarios designed for what they want to do. and 2) Having this intent cause reviews relevant to that intent to have higher weighting in the overall score than reviews that target non-relevant aspects. And do this using a simple, elegant mechanism. If the designer weighted PBEM 10 and "vs AI" 0, and the reviewer gave "vs AI" 3 then 1) A reader knows the scenario sucks vs AI 2) The designer is not offended by this rating because 3) The overall rating is not pulled down at all by the "3". GaJ.

I hope that my suggestion of the possibility retrofitting scenario ratings from the designer to existing scenarios won't detract from sensible discussion of using the proposal for going forwards. They are two separate possibilities. Supposing people like the suggestion going forwards, there will be an aspect of retrofitting that I am aware will need debate: whether authors will retrofit weights towards existing good scores. I imagine this possibility would initially cause great concern, but I don't think its warranted. If someone rates their own scenario as 10 in "Play against AI" and one or zero for all the others, to target some good ratings people gave them, they have to realise that they will be telling potential users that they believe their scenario is worthless in the other categories! That, I think, is the beauty of the proposal: the weighting is also a statement of intent and self assessment by the designer. Let me say again, though: how about deciding if this makes sense for a system going forwards first, then decide if retrofit makes sense second... GaJ.

No, no, he weights them BEFORE the reviews are made, if I am reading this right. IE - you make a scenario that is intended to be unbalanced, so you weight that factor at 20%, say. But it is designed to be PBEM so you weight that at 100% and weight "playable vs AI" as 0% Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that was Green as Jade's intent; also correct me if I"m wrong but it appears you've read it as weighting things after the reviews are in? </font>

Interesting conversation. A context that seems to be missing: - The current system is not broken. - The current system has an awesome amount of investment in it. Look the stats in the Admiral's sig. - All ratings systems are subjective. Subjectivity must be accepted, and even welcomed. The range of opinions is valuable. - People using the reviews are not silly. They can recognise the "friends" syndrome. The current system does have some flaws. Maybe these can be redressed without a major overhaul. Here's a suggestion: 1) Implement registration 2) Put in place a guiding scale like Dorosh's. Never forget that guidance is all it can be. 3) Allow the designer to describe their scenario against the rating categories. IE When they submit a scenario, they fill in numbers, 0-10, against the categories. These serve two purposes: 1) People get to see them, so if the designer puts 0 for "vs AI", then we know that play against the AI is not recommended. If the designer puts 3 for "balance" then we know that its not supposed to be balanced, so don't bitch about that. 2) These designer ratings are used to weight the reviewer ratings . This means that if I submit a scenario with 0 for "vs AI" then the reviewer numbers for "vs AI" don't affect the scenario rating! And if I put 3/10 for "balance", then what people think about the balance issue is way less significant. A beauty (in my eyes) of this is that it is entirely backwards compatible and retrofittable. Admiral could allow designers to fill in the settings for their current scenarios, with entirely appropriate effects... ... all that investment in effort that is there already would not be lost, and the system would be improved. GaJ.