Scenario Depot suggestions

[Panther G]

Hi Admiral,

Here's some suggestions to make the Scenario Depot an even better site:

1. Form a "Directory." What I mean is have a sidebar that says Directory. Inside have a choice of Historical and Fiction. Inside of historical have different regions of the war, like Normandy, Ardennes, etc, etc, etc. When you go inside Ardennes for example, you get a list of battles for that area that are historical. I would also like to see a separate listing inside fiction for battles that have a plan, like Blowfish, Fishcove, Fertile Fields and so on. You could have a separate listing for battles based off movies, books, and so on. I think this would be a good idea because if you just read the book "Band of Brothers," you could go on to the scenario depot, click books inside of the directory and, bingo, there's the Band of Brothers scenarios, instead of hunting around for a while hoping to find one. You could just crosslink the files (have a link to the one in the alphabetical part). When you would submit a battle, you would chose that, for example, this is a historical battle in the Ardeenes region based off a book. So you would select:

Historical

Ardennes

Book

2. Make replayibility less important. Is there any way you can make replayibility less important ane make maps, for example, more important? I think this would make a more accurate judge of a scenario, as IMHO a good map is a heck of a lot better than good replayibility.

3. Make it mandatory to sign your name somewhere before d/l a scenario and have a list of people that have downloaded the scenario in a link on the battles page. That would make people more likely to review the scenario.

4. Make a low-graphics version of your site. I, having a 56k modem, am constantly getting boged down on your site. I would rather have a more bare-bones site graphics wise. I'm not suggesting replacing the current one, I'm just wondering if you could add a "mirror site" so to speak.

And now, finally, to everyone who is reading this, make sure you review scenarios you play! There is nothing a scenario designer hates worse than seeing 15 downloads and NO reviews (except than having all your CM files erased) on his scenario. I can't stress how important this is. To make scenarios better, designers NEED FEEDBACK! If you don't like a scenario, make sure you review it and state exactly what the problem is, so the designer can see it and possibly make a revision. Also, feel free to make a AAR. If you don't want to tell exactly what you did, just tell them your stats, like your score and how many people were wounded... What I do is when I finish a battle I hit escape when i get to the AAR screen and log on to the depot, post a review, then post an AAR with my stats. I hope all this made sense. Thanks for your time.

Regards,

Ryan

[Panther G]

Here's another one: Have a spot on the list for the top 10 downloaded scenarios in terms of volume of downloads.

Regards,

Ryan

[Admiral Keth]

PantherG,

I love your ideas!

1) Code-wise, this is fairly easy. I'll need to place additional fields in the database for these values. Then I'll see if I can't get Craig Harvey (the Scenario Depot Combat Historian) to populate these fields with the correct values.

2) This one's a little more difficult. What you are looking for is kind of a "weighted value". It's a little problematic to code, especially when it would become necessary to go back through hundreds of already reviewed scenarios and recalculate their values by hand. I'll examine the possibility of some additional factor by which a reader can make a visual comparison. There is the possibility of increasing or decreasing the scale by which a particular rating, but that would again mean refactoring a large number of scenarios.

3) I'm not so sure players would be willing to "sign in" to download scenarios. I'd like to hear arguments from both sides prior to architecting this feature.

4) I'm already reworking the graphics to be considerably smaller. I realize that some of the graphics are a little big. I am architecting the site to have all smaller graphics or all PHP-generated menus and some small graphics. Depending on which route I take, this could be done in 2 to 5 weeks.

5) I am also already working on adding a Top 10 Downloads. I'd like to re-code The Lists page into something a little more modular; perhaps a seperate page for Battles, Operations, Maps, and Downloads. It would speed individual loading and keep my webhosts's server from having a nervous breakdown each time that page gets loaded. Gimme a couple of weeks to implement this one.

Prosit!

[Bigdog]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Admiral Keth:

PantherG,

2) This one's a little more difficult. What you are looking for is kind of a "weighted value". It's a little problematic to code, especially when it would become necessary to go back through hundreds of already reviewed scenarios and recalculate their values by hand. I'll examine the possibility of some additional factor by which a reader can make a visual comparison. There is the possibility of increasing or decreasing the scale by which a particular rating, but that would again mean refactoring a large number of scenarios.

Prosit!<hr></blockquote>

Hey Boss did we not talk about changing replayibility to a yes/no item in the score. Scenarios 1 to 5 No Scenarios 6 to 10 yes? That was a great way to take care existing reviews, or do we have a tech issue?

[WWB]

Hey Keith, one big suggestion from me:

Make the default home page be something like 'The Lists' with an area for a news blurb. That is the first place I, and I suspect, most other people go.

Now for other, more minor stuff:

And, if you are giving the site a facelift, how about moving the menus, or at least giving us a set of quicklinks (to Battles, Ops, and The Lists) along the top of the page. I would also think about making the buttons generally smaller. I run at a pretty high resolution, and I still have to scroll the menu at times.

I strongly second the graphics reduction. If you need any help mass-reducing bitmaps, etc, drop a line. I am quite good at that kind of stuff.

As for score recalculation, I have a suggestion as to method. I am making several presumptions here, and admittedly know not how you handle things in your database nor how MySQL runs in general. But, here goes. I am guessing you currently use some sort of average function to compute score, after weeding out the zeros. Why not build your own weighted average function and use it in its place. I have done this before, in access, and it is not too hard to make happen. Drop a line if you have questions.

WRT the idea of having user sign in, especially for that purpose, will end up being a major waste of effort. People do not want to deal with sign ins, loose passwords, etc. All of which is an administrative nightmare. I know, working at a place and trying to set up sign-in only access to part of a website. It is not worth the trouble unless there are thousands of dollars invovled.

While encouraging reviewing is a lofty goal, I think that forcing people to sign in to download is going to effect a net reduction on downloads and reviews. Best thing is to give it time, the number or regular reviewers is rising.

WWB

[Mr. Johnson--]

How about a playtesters section?

[Admiral Keth]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Mr. Johnson-<THC>-:

How about a playtesters section?<hr></blockquote>

I'm presuming a section where authors can post requesting playtesters for their scenarios prior to the full submission for reviews? What would the authors like to have as the minimum fields for the database in order to convey the nature of the scenario? Name, historicality, size, forces, etc?

It's entirely possible, but I'd like some guidance prior to building it.

Keep the ideas coming guys...I'm making a list and checking it thrice.

Prosit!

Frohe Weihnachten!

[WWB]

I think the playtesters section is a good idea, but it could well be handled thru a new section of the message board rather than a full blown playtesters section of the DB.

WWB

[Panther G]

Here's another one:

Could make it so that you can edit your review of a scenario and also edit your bio?

Thanks,

Ryan

P.S. Thanks for the great site.

[Panther G]

I think the Playtesters section could be handled similar to the way the battles are now, although you start running into problems. For example, what would keep someone from d/l a "playtest" scenario and not reviewing it?

Regards,

Ryan

[Admiral Keth]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Panther G:

I think the Playtesters section could be handled similar to the way the battles are now, although you start running into problems. For example, what would keep someone from d/l a "playtest" scenario and not reviewing it?

Regards,

Ryan<hr></blockquote>

The author would have access to an admin screen which would have a checkbox which would enable/disable the appearance of the playtest scenario on the menus.

[Panther G]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Admiral Keth:

The author would have access to an admin screen which would have a checkbox which would enable/disable the appearance of the playtest scenario on the menus.<hr></blockquote>

If that would work, I'm all for it. BTW, I like the new system of clicking on the name of the scenario instead of "reviews." I also like the graphic for a Preview or AAR. Thanks!

Regards,

Ryan