Moderator: Cartographers
As an 'outsider' (not being a real mapmaker myself) I suppose I can give my own perspective on what you're saying here Tac.TaCktiX wrote:I could be extrapolating data from nowhere, but if my own map is any indication, we've got to re-evaluate some priorities as a Foundry... Comments in line with what the mapmaker needs (and a lot of the more experienced mapmakers know exactly what they need to go further) are among them, but comments in general on all maps out there is needed...
A spot-on assessment from Tac. The Foundry does involve a lot of narrow-focus groups that pursue projects independently from each other. Natty, Industrial Helix and Isaiah are mapmakers that I've noticed provide a lot of community feedback, and of course the mods (particularly Andy) do seem to follow most of the threads fairly well, but beyond that I find it hard to think of any really involved cross-map commentators.TaCktiX wrote:Yes, your own little nest egg of a map is important, but without community involvement, no one will have the desire to visit and comment on your map. Things are so slow because no one is being a team player and helping out others... Stop doubting, and participate...
Let me state this again for clarity:TaCktiX wrote:...It's good to see a lot of the maps at Gameplay stage when I left are now Beta or Live. But at the same time, maps I thought wouldn't need much more to get Out There are stuck in Forge. My chief disappointment is leaving a long-worked-on, long-expected full version of Research and Conquer out there, with a full list of our concerns to get the gameplay on its way. Instead of seeing good solid answers or thoughts on any of those bullet points, people took three steps back and asked "where are the spies?"
"The Melting Pot is an overloaded forum as is, sticking in advertisements and such of maps that are further along in stage would make it worse, even if it was just a sticky thread of posts noting present maps. The rest of the Foundry is not that much unlike the Melting Pot. You've got your in-the-clouds talk of "move the army circle 1 pixel to the left and 2 pixels up," but the real bread and butter for a mapmaker is general statements like "I think the map is too dark and the description text is hard to read." Yes, a few more words on "how to improve" are great, but that's something big that we as mapmakers can work to fix in future versions. Fixing one or two army circles pales in comparison. Food for thought.Once people comment in the Melting Pot, and if their comments are well-recieved, they'll be more likely to stick around and start visiting the Gameplay, Graphics and Final Forge forums. I know that was the intention of the revision, that I'm not stating anything new; I guess I'm just restating it because mapmakers currently in the Gameplay and Graphics forums who aren't getting comments need to perhaps publicize their maps back in the Melting Pot.
And my hand just got caught in the cookie jar. I have a tendency to vent elsewhere than my thread (you'll notice that I didn't have any of that talk in the map thread), need to work on that.ANY comment on a map is an opportunity to get constructive feedback, if the mapmaker is willing to put in the work moderating the thread.
If a person asks, "Where are the spies?" a mapmaker might be inclined to bang his head against the screen. But you can turn this around by saying,"Hey, thanks for the interest so-and-so. Spies, unfortunately, had to be cut. However, we need some help with blah-and-blah. Any thoughts? Also, do you have any feelings in general about the map... I'd really appreciate your input.
Mapmakers can't expect to just put out revisions and occasionally debate points with the posts that interest them and still keep the whole community involved. That's like inviting everyone to a party, and then just hanging out with the people you know... and then hoping that everyone else somehow has a good time.
Here's my dirty little secret for map topics: I almost never read it all. Most often when I'm checking out a map, I will find its most recent revision and read it and all subsequent posts. Very rarely I end up commenting on an already-settled issue, but the 5% less-than-perfect at the gain of 95% of the time...good tradeoff in my opinion. There is little to no need to read an entire map topic, as there is too much change over time in a map. Reading anything earlier than the most recent 3 or 4 versions is like reading a history book compared to the present map.Finally, thread length and the first page of a post. These are serious problems in a lot of map threads. I won't elaborate too much as this post is becoming way too long itself, but obviously you can't expect someone to come into a thread 40 pages long and read it all before posting. So be patient with redundant comments, even if you feel the issue brought up has been put to bed.
The first post should be a table of contents, but after a while it in many threads it ceases to get updated properly. Tac, I'm not saying this to be negative, but the Research & Conquer map should have a better updated first post for such a long thread. Spies are still mentioned as a viable part of the map, for instance. And the bullet points that you might want addressed need to be put on the first post, clearly front-and-center. I saw a To-Do list, but I'm not really sure what kind of feedback you're looking for.
Eh, I wouldn't worry too much about it for now. Things will change eventually.RjBeals wrote:when nothing changes for years, it's hard to be excited.
Wow, that was exactly what the article-series was intended for. I'm glad I could make a differenceMarshalNey wrote:it took an article by Natty to make my comments feel 'welcome' enough to visit the Foundry. Actually the whole Foundry section of the Newsletter I think is great PR for soliciting outsider comments, but Natty's piece on the Melting Pot specifically convinced me that 'laymen' comments were actually wanted.
