Very small thing to complain about, but when I am on SC2 mapster on my phone and I am on the forums with all the topics and last post, I tap on the link to the last updated forum thread (this one) it rather taking me to that forum thread it takes me to all the threads of that topic. It does not do this on the computer.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Stranded on Krydon Renewed- A renewed version of Stranded on Krydon that is being constantly updated, has improved visuals, is more friendly to new players, lots more fun tweaks and much more planned to come.
Hey Mr Flamegoat it was nice of you to explain what add-ons were but we aren't asking for more information about the Curse promos, we're asking for changes to the front page. Thanks for answering but the front page feels very much like a cut-and-paste thrown together template. It's clear whoever made it was (a) in a rush, (b) doesn't have an eye for design, and (c) doesn't really understand who the mapster community is and why they come here.
These are the real issues that need to be addressed...
Still swamped, but I want to address this directly.
The design of the front page is good, it's clean, professional, and matches the other sites we have here (check wow.curseforge.com minecraft.curseforge.com wowace.com so on and so forth). Some of which have been up for quite a while now. So it wasn't rushed, nor is it a bad design - in fact, based on modern design practices it nails all of the most essential tasks and exceeds our quality standard here at Curse.
It's different, yes - and I ask that you keep that in mind when judging it. This is coming from someone who has been in the design and development world for well over a decade. Change is definitely scary and can lead to knee jerk reactions very quickly. As an outsider, I think it's great.
Now, that being said you did hit on something that I feel IS important and IS objectively true. It doesn't feel like what this community is all about. I want you to know personally, that we ARE aware of that :]
As for which questions and concerns I answer - it's quite simple. I answer the ones I can, I give the information I can (good or bad) and I do my absolute best to under promise, over communicate, and most importantly - be honest with you guys.
I don't mean to sound harsh - I just want to make sure that while concerns, criticisms, suggestions, ideas, and dislikes are all welcome, you must keep in mind that purely subjective criticisms fueled by a knee jerk reaction won't help.
Don't stop speaking up :] There's good stuff there, and I definitely still want to hear it.
Hey Mr Flamegoat it was nice of you to explain what add-ons were but we aren't asking for more information about the Curse promos, we're asking for changes to the front page. Thanks for answering but the front page feels very much like a cut-and-paste thrown together template. It's clear whoever made it was (a) in a rush, (b) doesn't have an eye for design, and (c) doesn't really understand who the mapster community is and why they come here.
These are the real issues that need to be addressed...
Still swamped, but I want to address this directly.
The design of the front page is good, it's clean, professional, and matches the other sites we have here (check wow.curseforge.com minecraft.curseforge.com wowace.com so on and so forth). Some of which have been up for quite a while now. So it wasn't rushed, nor is it a bad design - in fact, based on modern design practices it nails all of the most essential tasks and exceeds our quality standard here at Curse.
It's different, yes - and I ask that you keep that in mind when judging it. This is coming from someone who has been in the design and development world for well over a decade. Change is definitely scary and can lead to knee jerk reactions very quickly. As an outsider, I think it's great.
Now, that being said you did hit on something that I feel IS important and IS objectively true. It doesn't feel like what this community is all about. I want you to know personally, that we ARE aware of that :]
As for which questions and concerns I answer - it's quite simple. I answer the ones I can, I give the information I can (good or bad) and I do my absolute best to under promise, over communicate, and most importantly - be honest with you guys.
I don't mean to sound harsh - I just want to make sure that while concerns, criticisms, suggestions, ideas, and dislikes are all welcome, you must keep in mind that purely subjective criticisms fueled by a knee jerk reaction won't help.
Don't stop speaking up :] There's good stuff there, and I definitely still want to hear it.
Thanks :D
Thank you for what you're doing sir. I'm sure we'll get something very good soon :)
Heh, I don't expect to make everyone happy - by a long shot. This is a big change, and no matter what we fix, change, update, etc, I'm sure it won't be enough for some. But I hope everyone gives it a chance at least :]
I also hope that we can get new blood coming into this community. I'm an outsider, but there's a lot of passion here, and I dig it. :D
So it wasn't rushed, nor is it a bad design - in fact, based on modern design practices it nails all of the most essential tasks and exceeds our quality standard here at Curse.
It's different, yes - and I ask that you keep that in mind when judging it. This is coming from someone who has been in the design and development world for well over a decade. Change is definitely scary and can lead to knee jerk reactions very quickly. As an outsider, I think it's great.
I feel you keep coming back to this. The majority of people on this forum are people who have used the internet before in their life. they are people who have used forums in their lives. A great many of us had been members of the hiveworkshop.com before SC2 existed. While nostalgia may play a role in our feelings of the new layout; you really need to stop assuming this is some knee-jerk reaction to change. It is insulting to all of us; on the heels of being ignored for 3-4 years.
The way the forum works, the layout, ect; sure, it can grow on us. A forum is a forum. The main page though? You have altered what this forum stood for, and honestly, I agree, the front page looks like something that was made in a weekend. Sites dedicated to stealing your login info have similar front pages.
Lets look at what you have:
"Start a project" 2 links leading to the same place. this is NOT where a new player should be going. If you are new to the forums, you do not jump into the projects thread. People do not browse the project threads; people do not post in the project threads. Project threads are where people go, after reading about your project on the forums, or in your sig, or when the are familiar with the site.
"For authors" NOPEEEE. Screams nope. "Why not link your paypal and amazon with us?" Anyone new to a site who sees "wanna pay me?" links. Scam. This is the world we live in.
"Popular projects" outdated projects, simple icons on a pure white background. No one who actually uses mapster has any interest here. Looks shoddy, and is shoddy.
"Whats new" the most important thing, at the bottom. This is what people are interested in; the newest updates, the newest news, the newest mods. A giant icon saying "update" and then 6 words before it cuts out.
Put news at the top, a spot for events (weekly terraining contest, monthly testing thread, live streams, ect) up there, recently updated projects; and then you can spam the bottom half with stuff no one is interested in.
This isn't a knee jerk reaction; this is people who are part of a community, who see that you are taking the best parts of a bad system, and removing them; while making the bad system perform a little better. The gain is not worth the loss thus far. Your response so far has been, "We hear you, but don't plan to do anything, because your forum needs to match everyone else's; and we feel you will learn to accept that."
All of your concerns have already been noted - but I feel you missed a few key points in my post. As well as the same key point in all of my posts. I'm here to communicate the current situation, what we can do right now, what we can do in the future, and what we're willing to do.
Edit: Wanted to add, the concerns about the Rewards system still boggle my mind. It's hard for me to understand. We've been working with Authors for years now with the Rewards Program. I apologize profusely for not understanding, it's just hard for me to wrap my head around that concept that it's in anyway negative :[
If you feel insulted, I'm deeply sorry for that - however, that's a two way street. I think if you re-read my post, you'll note that I'm far from unreasonable :]
"We hear you, but don't plan to do anything, because your forum needs to match everyone else's; and we feel you will learn to accept that."
Believe you me, if that were the case I'd be cracking open a beer right now instead of charging into hour 10 of the work day to make sure I don't miss anything here. The only reason I make it clear that I make no promises on certain issues, is because it's too close to the holidays for me to make promises the dev team might not be able to keep. But because internally, this migration had to happen for security and simplification purposes, I felt it was vital that I reach out and do what I can to help. Even if currently, I don't have all the tools and info.
If you still feel that way, that's okay. I really do understand - it's part of the reason I'm here :D
Stranded on Krydon Renewed- A renewed version of Stranded on Krydon that is being constantly updated, has improved visuals, is more friendly to new players, lots more fun tweaks and much more planned to come.
We did our best to move things over and convert them accordingly - but a lot of things did get a bit fubar'ed in the process. With broken images, at least, it's fairly easy to fix. Any hardcoded images should be available in your Images tab still, so you can update the URLs.
We weren't sure how widespread that issue would be, but if it's too big of an issue, I can bring it to the devs to see if we can possibly fix that up in bulk. Not sure at the moment.
I do not intent to insult you, or suggest that you yourself are slacking; or even that curse is slacking. The overall theme that (we) endure around here; is that the sc2 arcade is, and always will be an afterthought for people who have financially vested interest elsewhere. If we can make ourselves content with what is offered, that is great. Similar to forum suggestions over the past (since the forum has come up), Blizzard often replies with "We hired a guy to listen to you rant and rave and get a list of things you like; and we will continue to do what we want."
"We know you are unhappy with some things in the editor; so we created terrain modifiers for you, because we are using them in an upcoming project."
"We know you are unhappy with some things on the forum, so we created an all new forum, so they are all easier for us to manage."
I do appreciate that you are here, listening to us (me) rant and rave; blizzard has a guy like that too; I believe trasent is an alcoholic by now. While I am sure both of you care about what we have to say, I doubt you guys have any more pull than us when a programmer says, "Well, we already wrote this code" (I've pulled that one quite a few times).
I think you are as dumbfounded by the rewards program as we are. I don't think anyone here has been a member of the rewards program; and what does it offer us as mappers? Having it at the top of the page- It seriously looks scammy to a first time viewer, and annoying to anyone else. "Upload your project here, connect to paypal here" While you mean well, it does not come off that way to a player just wondering how to periodically spawn marines in front of a bunker. It is a choice no one will make their first time viewing; and as long as we know it is a choice, it isn't something we need to be reminded of every time we check the newspaper. This is poor design; plain and simple. "Upgrade to curse pro" at the top or bottom bars is simple enough, right? not 1/3 of the news screen?
To (you), who made the layout, and the programs, i am sure everything makes perfect sense. As game makers, we often find ourselves in the same boat. After spending hundreds of hours making something, we could play it in our sleep. A new player says "that looks silly, I don't know how to do this, where can i find that?" We often say, "Pfft, new players just don't get it." But that is the wrong attitude to have. Just like a good game, you need to keep the forums "entertaining enough" for the oldschool players, and "interesting enough" for first time players; while keeping it all intuitive.
Now that my friend, was a post I was looking for. Thank you for taking the time to reiterate and explain. Much more helpful for me :D
I can understand those frustrations to an extent, but I also understand that some of that frustration I just cannot understand because I wasn't here for it. While I can in no way speak on behalf of Blizzard, let me explain how I personally see it, and I feel the CurseForge developers do too.
We couldn't fix things before. We just couldn't. The legacy site was running code that was just too much to delve into, had too many heads, too many arms, and was monstrous. Especially for a small team. Sure, moving everything to something simple and straight forward takes the character out of it, but now any of the fixes and benefits we make to any other site in our network, also applies to you guys. That was step one, the most important step. We've not worked on any major features for any other site, SC2Mapster or otherwise since we started migrating legacy sites. It's been a big job and one we needed to get done before any development could continue.
The biggest reason that we get this feedback is because you guys aren't the only ones to say many of these things. We've moved a lot of legacy sites in the last couple of months, and you know - there's a lot of overlap between what you guys want and what other communities want.
The good news is, if a certain majority want something - that becomes priority. There's now more of you, because it's not just SC2Mapster anymore, it's the entire CurseForge community. But we can't know what people want without asking, and of course, when asking we risk looking like we don't know what we're doing. The straight truth is, we know code, we know our core communities that we started with over a decade ago, but communities that we've picked up along the way? You got us. We don't know you the way we should.
Hi! I'm MrFlamegoat :] Your new communication pipeline advocate.
For every negative, there really is a positive. I know patience is thin, and promises have been made before (that's why I only promise to listen :]) but hearts and heads really are in the right place.
So, back to business. I'm going to work on documentation, lots more documentation. Especially on the Rewards system, and see if we can get some of that information updated and moved around to be less... imposing and a bit more true to what it is - a way of helping Authors out.
That's something I know I can do personally over the holidays.
Sorry! I get chatty sometimes. I'm as passionate about what I do as many of you are about this community. I hope that shows :D
1. News section needs to be at the top, and should show the last 2 news items (it already does this, but the update image above them looks stupid), these news items also need to fully shown or close to it (1000 pix max vert height).
2. Either under or to the side of the news there should be a box containing the last 5 threads (not posts) that have new posts in them, with a 20 character snippet of the start of it underneath or blank if the start references an image or video (thumbnail if you want to be snazzy) (links also show as links) (call it the recent posts box)
3. The project info box thingy gets moved under this followed by the popular projects and then the for authors sections. Alternatively display the for authors section along the side underneath the recent posts section. (Ideally it'd show up in start project page instead of the front page, but I understand why it is there to show/advertise it's existence)
The reason for these changes is to make it more clear that 1) we show what's happening recently (highlight projects, recent blizzard announcements), 2) show we have a(n) thriving existent community that discusses the topics, but also provides support, 3) provides a way for people to spread their own creations among the community while potentially getting rewarded for it.
Currently the only thing on the first page that shows that there is a community is the forums button at the very top, that most people (at least I do) ignore on their first look at a web page, otherwise this just looks like a hosting spot for the sc2projects.
p.s. was browsing even the minecraft curse website has a better layout for the front page, just steal theirs and modify it so that the featured/top servers is the featured/top projects for sc2mapster, and the recent server ads is the recent project additions/updates.
edit: pls change link colors, it's stupid how it's orange in the preview but almost a match in the actual post. Also despite not loving the background i actually don't mind it too much.
I'll wait for the documentation you will prepare to give my final opinion on this, but here is what I feel when I think about a "Rewards Program".
I do not believe this will help the community to growth at all. You never know when a map will get popular or not when you are making it, you may invest hundreds of hours of work into something that just get played a few times even though it's awesome, and someone else could make a map in a few days and somehow the simplicity makes it fun and top rated. You cannot base any kind of reward system on that, it's partially random.
Also, I personnaly think that a community like this one that creates content BY the community FOR the community in free maner does not need any sort of money reward. It was never a question of money and I hope it never becomes the thing in futur. Of course mapping takes time you could invest elsewhere, but we're all aware of that and we do it in our spare time, for fun, for sharing, for the community, we do not expect to have any sort of revenue by mapping. Only some extreme case of mapping had revenues, thinking of Carbot Mod for example which passed through donations in order to be able to fully complete the project which was enormous and is now fully part of starcraft 2.
Introducing such Reward Program to me feel like a step in the wrong direction in term of community, you won't do stuff for the community, but for the potential reward it could get you. People will start to share as much as possible and get known for the wrong reasons. There would always be a thought about it, which no one have currently because there is no reward of this kind.
The Rewards that everyone gets naturally for the things they made just goes through the news and the forums. People get known because they make and share awesome stuff freely. If someone really want / need money revenue, they will get a patreon or any kind of open donation and the community will give naturally to the best creations.
To me a Reward Program like the one proposed here is exacly like every stupid point card every cashier are forced to propose you when you go buy stuff at the shop not far from where you live. Of course it's some kind of reward, but to me, the best reward does NOT come from money, of gift card or whatever, it's from people who says things like this (real example of a project of mine):
Metalking1417 - thank you for your work on this project. I really appreciate the effort put into displaying all the game's doodads and putting a marine thee to give us a sense of scale.
GnaRefootsirk - Much appreciated. Wish I could have found your work sooner. Thanks man.
alleyviper85 - Nice +1232123!!
Jones313 - I've only looked at these briefly before, but I should definitely start using this. Especially the reference viewer looks to be incredibly helpful on a second monitor. Thanks for putting in the effort to do this. Terrainers everywhere should definitely appreciate this.
IliIilI - Everybody who has ever worked on creating a terrain would love to have this one. It'd have saved me soooooo much time when creating the terrain for my map... Amazing work.
GhostNova91 - This is extremely helpful. Me and a couple of other guys were using doodad maps for reference but this will make it even easier than that!
JacktheArcher - This is fantastic. I can't imagine how long this took you though. Either way I can't wait to see the HoTs additions and I will totally be using this from now on.
StealthToast - Ohh, this is perfect! Would save me a ton of time, since I go through all of the doodad list to see what would fit with the map, now it'd take me only a few minutes. Thanks so much!
ScrinKing - you legend, take all my upvotes
IcyJay - Great job. Thanks for your efforts on this.
wargirlwargirl - Thank you, im updating my file now. This is something so necessary for me to start a new map thank you Scbroodssc2!!!!
MaskedImposter - Awesome. I was wondering if those would be added. From experience I know it's a great resource for poor terrainers like me, haha. I'm sure it's a lot of help to the pro terrainers as well!
DEFILERRULEZ - Yes i think too that this is incredibly helpful
LucidIguana - SCBroodSC2 deserves SO MUCH credit for the work it takes to do this. I have the web reference open 100% of the time that I'm terraining.
Taintedwisp - I was going to call this useless... But then I looked at it and realized this could be very useful thanks
AdrianXtra - Ahh, it would be really nice to have pictures showing all of the doodads. Keep em' coming! I like your job so far
sigmapl - That is actually a great idea to put those all in one place. Good thinking man
To me, this is the best reward you can get, recognition BY the community for something you made FOR the community. Not recognition through some point program that could get you a $5.
I'm really curious still, to see what this is all about and how it works and if it will actually benefit the community in a good maner. My door is not closed to new stuff, but I'm truly mitigated about this introduction.
Still completely fair! I think there's a misunderstanding maybe about the Rewards though. It's not "Awards", it's "Rewards". Once you sign up, you accrue points based on a long list of things that I can't begin to accurately describe here - completely opt in. Once you get enough points to cash in for something you can get a Steam Gift Card, or an Amazon Gift Card, or if eligible a PayPal payout.
It's not really "you da best, here's money!" - it's really more of a very small amount of kick back and gratuity for being a part of Curse.
Like I said, it's new here, but not new for Curse. But I get it. I think I understand now the disconnect there, and I can see how it can be misconstrued given the terminology. The "Rewards" are personal, private, and yours to manage. They in no way have any bearing or affect on the community as a whole, and that's important to understand.
So if it's not your thing, I completely understand! No pressure!
Also I really do appreciate how understanding YOU guys are being with me. Since I'm new here and don't know this community - you guys really have been pretty generous in dealing with me just barging in and talking a lot :D
Fair enough with me, I think we all want the best, so to me it's just a question of time, just like when Blizzard decides to introduce a new unit to the game, it's not always perfect and it needs balancing along the years. This seems like a similar situation where we have a brand new forum that isn't fully finished, that still need tweaks here and there and it's fine.
I just hope that the discussion is not mis-interpreted sometimes as by writing you don't always have the tone on which it is said (if that makes sense). I just want to say what I write is just my personnal impressions and suggestions and are nowhere against someone in particular, it's open ideas for better hope.
You're not just barging in and talking a alot, you express your point of view just like everyone in a mannered way. In fact I really appreciate talking and sharing like this. It gives a very good and positive feeling to the conversation, everyone is read, and everyone can answer from their perspective. And that's awesome.
"An error has occurred while trying to save the file you uploaded: You have exceeded your maximum upload limit of 4.77 MB. This limit is based on your highest role on the site."
Hi FlameGoat, thanks for the reply, I appreciate how much time you're taking out of your day to answer people. I think Curse sent the right person.
The design of the front page is good, it's clean, professional, and matches the other sites we have here (check wow.curseforge.com minecraft.curseforge.com wowace.com so on and so forth). Some of which have been up for quite a while now. So it wasn't rushed, nor is it a bad design - in fact, based on modern design practices it nails all of the most essential tasks and exceeds our quality standard here at Curse.
In terms of being mobile responsive and using lots of white space, yeah you could say the homepage is "modern" in its aesthetics... but that's not what I was talking about. The execution is pretty poor you have to admit... nobody really tested the site or proofread before launching... Come on man there are only 2 buttons above the fold and they both go to the same page.
And the Rewards Program debacle with the wall of text and unclear rules... Anyone who agrees to join it has a 0% chance of understanding what they just signed up for.
And the verbose and misleading headline of "Starcraft II" that looks like someone literally copy and pasted the first sentence out of the Starcraft II Wikipedia page for a headline...
And are we just going to have a permanent ad for Mass Recall above the fold instead of something dynamic or informative? The presence of the link itself basically ensures that another project will never oust it from its #1 spot, so it'll undoubtedly be there forever. Obviously this wasn't by design, whoever made the site just "put the most popular content on the site in this box" which was another oversight... It all boils down to lack of really caring or knowing about what the community wants... but now I'm a broken record.
So most importantly, if we all in unison agree that something fundamental has to change about the homepage, will it get done? Can we start some kind of petition or something? I only ask because I'm a huge fan of this community and what it produces...
This is a text-based layout of a site that I am working on. Key features aim to enhance the quality of the interactions as well as address critical points of a game developers career. These things are:
-Testing
-Portfolio
-Networking
I have deleted some content that included memberships, incentives for activity to keep my site different. If interested in the missing pieces we can discuss them in private. The main reason for creating my site is because of the features this one was lacking and because I started a Masters program in Game Development at the Academy of Art University. I wanted to address the 3 critical points mentioned above: Networking, Testing and portfolio creation.. as well as bringing Unity, Unreal, and Maya communities together.
One place Allows Game Developers and Players to Interact. Site Features: • Published Content Compiles to Developer Portfolio and Displays on Sites Home Page • Profile Types to Distinguish Between Types of Developers and Players/Testers • 5 Star Profile Ratings to Recognize Quality of: Developer Support, Created Content, and Player/Tester Interactions • 5 Star Content Rating System for Developers Created Items Players/Testers can: • Discuss Strategy with Sites Community via Showcases • Rate Profiles and Content Developers can: • Discuss Strategy with Sites Community via Showcases • Rate Profiles and Content • Can Earn Gold Points by Testing/Playing/Creating for other Devs > Create Project Groups and Separate Chat Groups > File Sharing (Drag and drop to live chat, or attach to posted messages) > Showcase Projects (Models, Games, Animations, Textures, Scripts etc.) > Post Upcoming Patches/Content, Current Events for Showcases > Sell Assets for Gold Points or Cash Player<Tester<Developer<Moderator<Admin Players can test games to upgrade their accounts from Player to Tester. “Testers” are preferred over “Player” types as it indicates commitment to the game developing process. The “Tester” upgrade will increase how often that Profile receives ratings which results in increased QA for developers. This will encourage “Player” Types to test for the profile upgrade. From Tester to Developer; you can earn “Developer” by testing for other Developers.
Hope this helps. If interested, Contact me, I have with sc2mapster and Team Genesis since 2012.
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Curse Premiumoh.. i just remembered to ask, does this update mean that we can delete our PMs that are not needed? xD
Adun Toridas :)
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Curse PremiumVery small thing to complain about, but when I am on SC2 mapster on my phone and I am on the forums with all the topics and last post, I tap on the link to the last updated forum thread (this one) it rather taking me to that forum thread it takes me to all the threads of that topic. It does not do this on the computer.
Stranded on Krydon Renewed- A renewed version of Stranded on Krydon that is being constantly updated, has improved visuals, is more friendly to new players, lots more fun tweaks and much more planned to come.
Stranded on Krydon Renewed EXTREME- A modified version of SoKR with much harder difficulty.
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Heh, I don't expect to make everyone happy - by a long shot. This is a big change, and no matter what we fix, change, update, etc, I'm sure it won't be enough for some. But I hope everyone gives it a chance at least :]
I also hope that we can get new blood coming into this community. I'm an outsider, but there's a lot of passion here, and I dig it. :D
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Curse PremiumThe way the forum works, the layout, ect; sure, it can grow on us. A forum is a forum. The main page though? You have altered what this forum stood for, and honestly, I agree, the front page looks like something that was made in a weekend. Sites dedicated to stealing your login info have similar front pages.
Put news at the top, a spot for events (weekly terraining contest, monthly testing thread, live streams, ect) up there, recently updated projects; and then you can spam the bottom half with stuff no one is interested in.
This isn't a knee jerk reaction; this is people who are part of a community, who see that you are taking the best parts of a bad system, and removing them; while making the bad system perform a little better. The gain is not worth the loss thus far. Your response so far has been, "We hear you, but don't plan to do anything, because your forum needs to match everyone else's; and we feel you will learn to accept that."
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
@GlornII
All of your concerns have already been noted - but I feel you missed a few key points in my post. As well as the same key point in all of my posts. I'm here to communicate the current situation, what we can do right now, what we can do in the future, and what we're willing to do.
Edit: Wanted to add, the concerns about the Rewards system still boggle my mind. It's hard for me to understand. We've been working with Authors for years now with the Rewards Program. I apologize profusely for not understanding, it's just hard for me to wrap my head around that concept that it's in anyway negative :[
If you feel insulted, I'm deeply sorry for that - however, that's a two way street. I think if you re-read my post, you'll note that I'm far from unreasonable :]
"We hear you, but don't plan to do anything, because your forum needs to match everyone else's; and we feel you will learn to accept that."
Believe you me, if that were the case I'd be cracking open a beer right now instead of charging into hour 10 of the work day to make sure I don't miss anything here. The only reason I make it clear that I make no promises on certain issues, is because it's too close to the holidays for me to make promises the dev team might not be able to keep. But because internally, this migration had to happen for security and simplification purposes, I felt it was vital that I reach out and do what I can to help. Even if currently, I don't have all the tools and info.
If you still feel that way, that's okay. I really do understand - it's part of the reason I'm here :D
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Curse Premiumhmmm on my map page the youtube video link (look here https://www.sc2mapster.com/projects/stranded-krydon-renewed) still works. Odd...
Stranded on Krydon Renewed- A renewed version of Stranded on Krydon that is being constantly updated, has improved visuals, is more friendly to new players, lots more fun tweaks and much more planned to come.
Stranded on Krydon Renewed EXTREME- A modified version of SoKR with much harder difficulty.
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Curse PremiumI do not intent to insult you, or suggest that you yourself are slacking; or even that curse is slacking. The overall theme that (we) endure around here; is that the sc2 arcade is, and always will be an afterthought for people who have financially vested interest elsewhere. If we can make ourselves content with what is offered, that is great. Similar to forum suggestions over the past (since the forum has come up), Blizzard often replies with "We hired a guy to listen to you rant and rave and get a list of things you like; and we will continue to do what we want."
"We know you are unhappy with some things in the editor; so we created terrain modifiers for you, because we are using them in an upcoming project."
"We know you are unhappy with some things on the forum, so we created an all new forum, so they are all easier for us to manage."
I do appreciate that you are here, listening to us (me) rant and rave; blizzard has a guy like that too; I believe trasent is an alcoholic by now. While I am sure both of you care about what we have to say, I doubt you guys have any more pull than us when a programmer says, "Well, we already wrote this code" (I've pulled that one quite a few times).
I think you are as dumbfounded by the rewards program as we are. I don't think anyone here has been a member of the rewards program; and what does it offer us as mappers? Having it at the top of the page- It seriously looks scammy to a first time viewer, and annoying to anyone else. "Upload your project here, connect to paypal here" While you mean well, it does not come off that way to a player just wondering how to periodically spawn marines in front of a bunker. It is a choice no one will make their first time viewing; and as long as we know it is a choice, it isn't something we need to be reminded of every time we check the newspaper. This is poor design; plain and simple. "Upgrade to curse pro" at the top or bottom bars is simple enough, right? not 1/3 of the news screen?
To (you), who made the layout, and the programs, i am sure everything makes perfect sense. As game makers, we often find ourselves in the same boat. After spending hundreds of hours making something, we could play it in our sleep. A new player says "that looks silly, I don't know how to do this, where can i find that?" We often say, "Pfft, new players just don't get it." But that is the wrong attitude to have. Just like a good game, you need to keep the forums "entertaining enough" for the oldschool players, and "interesting enough" for first time players; while keeping it all intuitive.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
@GlornII
Now that my friend, was a post I was looking for. Thank you for taking the time to reiterate and explain. Much more helpful for me :D
I can understand those frustrations to an extent, but I also understand that some of that frustration I just cannot understand because I wasn't here for it. While I can in no way speak on behalf of Blizzard, let me explain how I personally see it, and I feel the CurseForge developers do too.
We couldn't fix things before. We just couldn't. The legacy site was running code that was just too much to delve into, had too many heads, too many arms, and was monstrous. Especially for a small team. Sure, moving everything to something simple and straight forward takes the character out of it, but now any of the fixes and benefits we make to any other site in our network, also applies to you guys. That was step one, the most important step. We've not worked on any major features for any other site, SC2Mapster or otherwise since we started migrating legacy sites. It's been a big job and one we needed to get done before any development could continue.
The biggest reason that we get this feedback is because you guys aren't the only ones to say many of these things. We've moved a lot of legacy sites in the last couple of months, and you know - there's a lot of overlap between what you guys want and what other communities want.
The good news is, if a certain majority want something - that becomes priority. There's now more of you, because it's not just SC2Mapster anymore, it's the entire CurseForge community. But we can't know what people want without asking, and of course, when asking we risk looking like we don't know what we're doing. The straight truth is, we know code, we know our core communities that we started with over a decade ago, but communities that we've picked up along the way? You got us. We don't know you the way we should.
Hi! I'm MrFlamegoat :] Your new communication pipeline advocate.
For every negative, there really is a positive. I know patience is thin, and promises have been made before (that's why I only promise to listen :]) but hearts and heads really are in the right place.
So, back to business. I'm going to work on documentation, lots more documentation. Especially on the Rewards system, and see if we can get some of that information updated and moved around to be less... imposing and a bit more true to what it is - a way of helping Authors out.
That's something I know I can do personally over the holidays.
Sorry! I get chatty sometimes. I'm as passionate about what I do as many of you are about this community. I hope that shows :D
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Curse PremiumThis is my feeling looking at the new front page.
1. News section needs to be at the top, and should show the last 2 news items (it already does this, but the update image above them looks stupid), these news items also need to fully shown or close to it (1000 pix max vert height).
2. Either under or to the side of the news there should be a box containing the last 5 threads (not posts) that have new posts in them, with a 20 character snippet of the start of it underneath or blank if the start references an image or video (thumbnail if you want to be snazzy) (links also show as links) (call it the recent posts box)
3. The project info box thingy gets moved under this followed by the popular projects and then the for authors sections. Alternatively display the for authors section along the side underneath the recent posts section. (Ideally it'd show up in start project page instead of the front page, but I understand why it is there to show/advertise it's existence)
The reason for these changes is to make it more clear that 1) we show what's happening recently (highlight projects, recent blizzard announcements), 2) show we have a(n)
thrivingexistent community that discusses the topics, but also provides support, 3) provides a way for people to spread their own creations among the community while potentially getting rewarded for it.Currently the only thing on the first page that shows that there is a community is the forums button at the very top, that most people (at least I do) ignore on their first look at a web page, otherwise this just looks like a hosting spot for the sc2projects.
p.s. was browsing even the minecraft curse website has a better layout for the front page, just steal theirs and modify it so that the featured/top servers is the featured/top projects for sc2mapster, and the recent server ads is the recent project additions/updates.
edit: pls change link colors, it's stupid how it's orange in the preview but almost a match in the actual post. Also despite not loving the background i actually don't mind it too much.
Still alive and kicking, just busy.
My guide to the trigger editor (still a work in progress)
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Curse PremiumI'll wait for the documentation you will prepare to give my final opinion on this, but here is what I feel when I think about a "Rewards Program".
I do not believe this will help the community to growth at all. You never know when a map will get popular or not when you are making it, you may invest hundreds of hours of work into something that just get played a few times even though it's awesome, and someone else could make a map in a few days and somehow the simplicity makes it fun and top rated. You cannot base any kind of reward system on that, it's partially random.
Also, I personnaly think that a community like this one that creates content BY the community FOR the community in free maner does not need any sort of money reward. It was never a question of money and I hope it never becomes the thing in futur. Of course mapping takes time you could invest elsewhere, but we're all aware of that and we do it in our spare time, for fun, for sharing, for the community, we do not expect to have any sort of revenue by mapping. Only some extreme case of mapping had revenues, thinking of Carbot Mod for example which passed through donations in order to be able to fully complete the project which was enormous and is now fully part of starcraft 2.
Introducing such Reward Program to me feel like a step in the wrong direction in term of community, you won't do stuff for the community, but for the potential reward it could get you. People will start to share as much as possible and get known for the wrong reasons. There would always be a thought about it, which no one have currently because there is no reward of this kind.
The Rewards that everyone gets naturally for the things they made just goes through the news and the forums. People get known because they make and share awesome stuff freely. If someone really want / need money revenue, they will get a patreon or any kind of open donation and the community will give naturally to the best creations.
To me a Reward Program like the one proposed here is exacly like every stupid point card every cashier are forced to propose you when you go buy stuff at the shop not far from where you live. Of course it's some kind of reward, but to me, the best reward does NOT come from money, of gift card or whatever, it's from people who says things like this (real example of a project of mine):
To me, this is the best reward you can get, recognition BY the community for something you made FOR the community. Not recognition through some point program that could get you a $5.
I'm really curious still, to see what this is all about and how it works and if it will actually benefit the community in a good maner. My door is not closed to new stuff, but I'm truly mitigated about this introduction.
Working on projects:
@Scbroodsc2
Still completely fair! I think there's a misunderstanding maybe about the Rewards though. It's not "Awards", it's "Rewards". Once you sign up, you accrue points based on a long list of things that I can't begin to accurately describe here - completely opt in. Once you get enough points to cash in for something you can get a Steam Gift Card, or an Amazon Gift Card, or if eligible a PayPal payout.
It's not really "you da best, here's money!" - it's really more of a very small amount of kick back and gratuity for being a part of Curse.
Like I said, it's new here, but not new for Curse. But I get it. I think I understand now the disconnect there, and I can see how it can be misconstrued given the terminology. The "Rewards" are personal, private, and yours to manage. They in no way have any bearing or affect on the community as a whole, and that's important to understand.
So if it's not your thing, I completely understand! No pressure!
Also I really do appreciate how understanding YOU guys are being with me. Since I'm new here and don't know this community - you guys really have been pretty generous in dealing with me just barging in and talking a lot :D
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Curse PremiumFair enough with me, I think we all want the best, so to me it's just a question of time, just like when Blizzard decides to introduce a new unit to the game, it's not always perfect and it needs balancing along the years. This seems like a similar situation where we have a brand new forum that isn't fully finished, that still need tweaks here and there and it's fine.
I just hope that the discussion is not mis-interpreted sometimes as by writing you don't always have the tone on which it is said (if that makes sense). I just want to say what I write is just my personnal impressions and suggestions and are nowhere against someone in particular, it's open ideas for better hope.
You're not just barging in and talking a alot, you express your point of view just like everyone in a mannered way. In fact I really appreciate talking and sharing like this. It gives a very good and positive feeling to the conversation, everyone is read, and everyone can answer from their perspective. And that's awesome.
Working on projects:
someone managed to attach a file?
"An error has occurred while trying to save the file you uploaded: You have exceeded your maximum upload limit of 4.77 MB. This limit is based on your highest role on the site."
image size 47k I wanted to upload
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Curse Premiumthat all said, the 'rewards to authors' is still too much 'in the face' to me, perhaps that, and its current position that are off-putting to me
Adun Toridas :)
Hi FlameGoat, thanks for the reply, I appreciate how much time you're taking out of your day to answer people. I think Curse sent the right person.
In terms of being mobile responsive and using lots of white space, yeah you could say the homepage is "modern" in its aesthetics... but that's not what I was talking about. The execution is pretty poor you have to admit... nobody really tested the site or proofread before launching... Come on man there are only 2 buttons above the fold and they both go to the same page.
And the Rewards Program debacle with the wall of text and unclear rules... Anyone who agrees to join it has a 0% chance of understanding what they just signed up for.
And the verbose and misleading headline of "Starcraft II" that looks like someone literally copy and pasted the first sentence out of the Starcraft II Wikipedia page for a headline...
And are we just going to have a permanent ad for Mass Recall above the fold instead of something dynamic or informative? The presence of the link itself basically ensures that another project will never oust it from its #1 spot, so it'll undoubtedly be there forever. Obviously this wasn't by design, whoever made the site just "put the most popular content on the site in this box" which was another oversight... It all boils down to lack of really caring or knowing about what the community wants... but now I'm a broken record.
So most importantly, if we all in unison agree that something fundamental has to change about the homepage, will it get done? Can we start some kind of petition or something? I only ask because I'm a huge fan of this community and what it produces...
<Click Here> To See My Epic Single Player Campaign (LifeForceCampaign.com)
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Curse PremiumThis is a text-based layout of a site that I am working on. Key features aim to enhance the quality of the interactions as well as address critical points of a game developers career. These things are:
-Testing
-Portfolio
-Networking
I have deleted some content that included memberships, incentives for activity to keep my site different. If interested in the missing pieces we can discuss them in private. The main reason for creating my site is because of the features this one was lacking and because I started a Masters program in Game Development at the Academy of Art University. I wanted to address the 3 critical points mentioned above: Networking, Testing and portfolio creation.. as well as bringing Unity, Unreal, and Maya communities together.
One place Allows Game Developers and Players to Interact.
Site Features:
• Published Content Compiles to Developer Portfolio and Displays on Sites Home Page
• Profile Types to Distinguish Between Types of Developers and Players/Testers
• 5 Star Profile Ratings to Recognize Quality of: Developer Support, Created Content, and Player/Tester Interactions
• 5 Star Content Rating System for Developers Created Items
Players/Testers can:
• Discuss Strategy with Sites Community via Showcases
• Rate Profiles and Content
Developers can:
• Discuss Strategy with Sites Community via Showcases
• Rate Profiles and Content
• Can Earn Gold Points by Testing/Playing/Creating for other Devs
> Create Project Groups and Separate Chat Groups
> File Sharing (Drag and drop to live chat, or attach to posted messages)
> Showcase Projects (Models, Games, Animations, Textures, Scripts etc.)
> Post Upcoming Patches/Content, Current Events for Showcases
> Sell Assets for Gold Points or Cash
Player<Tester<Developer<Moderator<Admin
Players can test games to upgrade their accounts from Player to Tester.
“Testers” are preferred over “Player” types as it indicates commitment to the game developing process.
The “Tester” upgrade will increase how often that Profile receives ratings which results in increased QA for developers.
This will encourage “Player” Types to test for the profile upgrade.
From Tester to Developer; you can earn “Developer” by testing for other Developers.
Hope this helps. If interested, Contact me, I have with sc2mapster and Team Genesis since 2012.
"You either are doing it, or you are not": Me
Team Genesis: Founder/Leader
Skype: Grasso2012 or Add me in-game 558
Free Model Developing Program: http://www.autodesk.com/education/free-software/maya