Remember, the casual gamer thinks most popular = best. (Which is why the sheeple keep buying Blizzard products!)
Sadly enough, Blizzard products are the best, or, at least, the most entertaining games around. I played CnC4, quit after first mission. I installed sc2, and managed to spend frikking 90 mins playing just the Viking minigame.
What I have seen on those new blizzard forums that they created, for I dont know what reason, since I didnt notice representatives reply there, I noticed lots of people bought SC2 coz of map editor and they are now just disappointed.
Most of people if not everyone dislike that map popularity system.
And lots of people dislike editor's features, like you cant create lots of different map types.
Brother laz is saying truth actually.
Facebook is popular, but actually people hate it colliding that shit with battlenet.
Editor isnt something also, like they created things, but nothing is usable actually. Best thing you can do with GE is creating SC2 custom melee map.
If I knew sc2 was like this, I wouldnt have bought it.
Sure I even like playing melee some times, but even that seems BOOOOOOOORING. There could be lots of improvement on melee (Are they seriosly saving units for HoS or so? or why does it seem like zerg has like 8 units).
And the custom game system has been like this for so long...maybe it would be better to just give up on sc2...
My suggestion is a "Thumbs Up" System and a "Map Sections".
THUMBS UP SYSTEM
There should be two ratings for each map. It's Popularity as before, and it's "Thumbed Up" Rating (shown by a thumb and a percentage). After a game players must thumb up or down a map. The percentage is calcuated by thumbs up per UNQIUE plays. For example if 3 in 4 people that play the game give it a thumbs up it will have a 75% thumbs up rating.
A game on screen would look like this Blood TD Category: TD Mode: FFA Thumbed Up Symbol: 62%.
No popularity bar in any list apart from the "Popular List", as it discourages people joining games. If people dont know how popular games are it will let them actually try the game first. And games will fill up more evenly (especially newer ones).
MAP SECTIONS
There should sorting catergories for groups of maps. A "New Releases", "Highly Rated & New" "Highly Rated & Premium", "Popular" and "Evaluated". I know this is quite extensive, but with a good layout it would be entirely possible. Default list would be "Highly Rated & New" to let new good maps get in to circulation.
1. "New Releases" would a sequential list of NEW maps in order of release into the B.net system. Once a map gains over 75% thumbs up and at least 50 unique plays it is moved into the "Highly Rated & New". If after a week if it has 75% thumbs up with 50 unique plays or more it will be moved into the "evaluated" section. Games will stay in the "New Releases" section until they have 50 unqiue plays.
2. "Highly Rated & New" will be the default list. For a map to gain entry into the "Highly Rated" section they must have at least 50 plays (to prevent people and their friends simply thumbing up their own map - so a little push is needed for the inital plays from the New Releases section). It will consist of maps with a Thumbs Up Percentage of 75%, more than 50 unique plays, and at not older than 1 week old.
3. "Highly Rated & Premium" will consist of maps older than 1 week old, more than 100 unique plays, and a Thumbs up Percentage of 75%
4. "Popular" will be as before and based purely on plays in the last 1 hour, regardless of thumbs up or newness.
5. "Evaluated" is probably the trickiest category. These will be games with a 74% thumbs up percentage or less. They will be sorted by thumbs up. The way for a map to get out of the "Evaluated" category is for the map maker to release an update of the map. If the map has spent longer than one week in the evaluated section AND has a 50% thumbs up or less AND the maker updates his map it will be (after a week) put back into the new releases for another chance to gain above 50% thumbs up, when it is put back into the New Releases it's thumbs up and plays is reset. Generally maps between 74% and 50% likes will be in this category.
When you search for a map in Join or Create it will tell you the map name, category, mode, thumbs up percentage( or just popularity if your look at the popular list), map sectioning. Examples... //
Blood TD, TD, FFA, New Releases.
Poker Game, Card Game, Full Deck, 78%, Highly Rated & New
Nexus Wars, Custom, 4v4, (Popularity Bar), Popular
Super DotA, AoS, 5v5, 51%, Evaluated//
This should even out the pages and make for 5 concise categories. As the default is "Highly Rated & New" and no map can stay in the category for more a week it will allow a constant stream of new and good games to get played. I do believe this would be a lot better for map makers and players in all respect. Of course it would need to be tweaked in some way I've probably missed to stop and abuse of the system.
Funny.
I wrote very VERY similar things on the EU Beta forums 3 months ago...
and now someone with my name reposts this.
Too many tabs though, imho.
You should have your own Thumbed Up and Thumbed Down tabs, not Popular lists decided by others.
The New Releases tab should be sorted by release date and only include maps without enough votes.
The only Popular tab should be sorted by positive votes percentage, not including maps you already voted on (you don't need those there, you already have your "bookmarks").
The Battle.net playerbase is so addicted to brainless maps we would see the very same situation otherwise, honestly I'm not that worried about the system itself as much as how people are playing that crap over and over. That's depressing :/
Sadly enough, Blizzard products are the best, or, at least, the most entertaining games around. I played CnC4, quit after first mission. I installed sc2, and managed to spend frikking 90 mins playing just the Viking minigame.
Go figure, you enjoy this '80s minigame more than the actual game. :P
Not really, the SP campaign is truly epic, but this one is sooo addictive...:D
What I have seen on those new blizzard forums that they created, for I dont know what reason, since I didnt notice representatives reply there, I noticed lots of people bought SC2 coz of map editor and they are now just disappointed.
Most of people if not everyone dislike that map popularity system.
And lots of people dislike editor's features, like you cant create lots of different map types.
Brother laz is saying truth actually.
Facebook is popular, but actually people hate it colliding that shit with battlenet.
Editor isnt something also, like they created things, but nothing is usable actually. Best thing you can do with GE is creating SC2 custom melee map.
agreed
If I knew sc2 was like this, I wouldnt have bought it.
Sure I even like playing melee some times, but even that seems BOOOOOOOORING. There could be lots of improvement on melee (Are they seriosly saving units for HoS or so? or why does it seem like zerg has like 8 units).
And the custom game system has been like this for so long...maybe it would be better to just give up on sc2...
My suggestion is a "Thumbs Up" System and a "Map Sections".
THUMBS UP SYSTEM There should be two ratings for each map. It's Popularity as before, and it's "Thumbed Up" Rating (shown by a thumb and a percentage). After a game players must thumb up or down a map. The percentage is calcuated by thumbs up per UNQIUE plays. For example if 3 in 4 people that play the game give it a thumbs up it will have a 75% thumbs up rating. A game on screen would look like this Blood TD Category: TD Mode: FFA Thumbed Up Symbol: 62%. No popularity bar in any list apart from the "Popular List", as it discourages people joining games. If people dont know how popular games are it will let them actually try the game first. And games will fill up more evenly (especially newer ones).
MAP SECTIONS There should sorting catergories for groups of maps. A "New Releases", "Highly Rated & New" "Highly Rated & Premium", "Popular" and "Evaluated". I know this is quite extensive, but with a good layout it would be entirely possible. Default list would be "Highly Rated & New" to let new good maps get in to circulation.
1. "New Releases" would a sequential list of NEW maps in order of release into the B.net system. Once a map gains over 75% thumbs up and at least 50 unique plays it is moved into the "Highly Rated & New". If after a week if it has 75% thumbs up with 50 unique plays or more it will be moved into the "evaluated" section. Games will stay in the "New Releases" section until they have 50 unqiue plays.
2. "Highly Rated & New" will be the default list. For a map to gain entry into the "Highly Rated" section they must have at least 50 plays (to prevent people and their friends simply thumbing up their own map - so a little push is needed for the inital plays from the New Releases section). It will consist of maps with a Thumbs Up Percentage of 75%, more than 50 unique plays, and at not older than 1 week old.
3. "Highly Rated & Premium" will consist of maps older than 1 week old, more than 100 unique plays, and a Thumbs up Percentage of 75%
4. "Popular" will be as before and based purely on plays in the last 1 hour, regardless of thumbs up or newness.
5. "Evaluated" is probably the trickiest category. These will be games with a 74% thumbs up percentage or less. They will be sorted by thumbs up. The way for a map to get out of the "Evaluated" category is for the map maker to release an update of the map. If the map has spent longer than one week in the evaluated section AND has a 50% thumbs up or less AND the maker updates his map it will be (after a week) put back into the new releases for another chance to gain above 50% thumbs up, when it is put back into the New Releases it's thumbs up and plays is reset. Generally maps between 74% and 50% likes will be in this category.
When you search for a map in Join or Create it will tell you the map name, category, mode, thumbs up percentage( or just popularity if your look at the popular list), map sectioning. Examples... //
Blood TD, TD, FFA, New Releases.
Poker Game, Card Game, Full Deck, 78%, Highly Rated & New
Bounty Hunters, Custom, FFA, 91%, Highly Rated & Premium
Nexus Wars, Custom, 4v4, (Popularity Bar), Popular
Super DotA, AoS, 5v5, 51%, Evaluated//
This should even out the pages and make for 5 concise categories. As the default is "Highly Rated & New" and no map can stay in the category for more a week it will allow a constant stream of new and good games to get played. I do believe this would be a lot better for map makers and players in all respect. Of course it would need to be tweaked in some way I've probably missed to stop and abuse of the system.
@WhiskyEU: Go
You should also post this in the Battle.net forums. Ultimately we want them to see our suggestions;p
Funny.
I wrote very VERY similar things on the EU Beta forums 3 months ago...
and now someone with my name reposts this.
Too many tabs though, imho.
You should have your own Thumbed Up and Thumbed Down tabs, not Popular lists decided by others.
The New Releases tab should be sorted by release date and only include maps without enough votes.
The only Popular tab should be sorted by positive votes percentage, not including maps you already voted on (you don't need those there, you already have your "bookmarks").
The Battle.net playerbase is so addicted to brainless maps we would see the very same situation otherwise, honestly I'm not that worried about the system itself as much as how people are playing that crap over and over. That's depressing :/