So, I am currently 45 submitted custom maps behind! At the current rate this means there is a 4-5 day waiting period since I only post 10 maps per day.
I am re-doing the map viewing page and will try to have a new version up tomorrow night sometime. At that time I should be able to start posting more than 10 maps per day.
thanks, should do it so there r like 4 colums instead of 1, though ull have to shorten the width of course
Quote from: TheBuilder on January 30, 2010, 09:18:32 PM
thanks, should do it so there r like 4 colums instead of 1, though ull have to shorten the width of course
I 2nd this!
4 columns would be too wide i think, 2 would do fine i think
Perhaps you should have made the map creation tool harder to use ? ;)
Only joking .. thanks for making great software that we all want to be a part of ;D
4? I've been experimenting with 10! :)
10! that would be freakin awsome, to have 100 custom maps per page would be perfect
lol 10 o.o
that would certainly solve your problems
Any chance (and forgive me if this has been discussed) any chance of making the Map download section searchable?
Often I DL a map, play it weeks later, then want to comment, but finding it amidst the now 40 some odd pages is.. well, difficult.
---Now is when someone usually comes along and says, "it is searchable you dufus, click here" :-[
Don't worry Cyber... he's trying. If you know the author then just search for it.
First revamp is up. I went with 5 wide and 75 total per page. I simplified the front page info, but everything is still there. When you click a map you go to the detail page for that map. This may have the effect of driving more comments over time since you have to go to that page before you can download it.
I left the rating off of the main page, but it is still there on the detail page. So a user at least has to click on the map and have a chance of reading more about it before they can rate it.
I have added the search. It does a substring search across both the title and the description. The author filter is still there but I sort alphabetically now. I have removed the sort options for now. I wasn't too happy with the map rankings being used as a sort, and the search and author filter handle most of the other use cases.
Anyway, we'll see how it goes. Now I just have to sit down later tonight and try to post 20+ maps so I can start to catch up.
Just one observation, perhaps I overlooked this in my initial look. I do not see the difficulty level of the map in the overview map page, nor do I see a filter for that.
It pretty much homogenizes all maps, regardless of rating (which not many maps stood out on anyway), difficulty or any other aspect.
like he said he did it this way so that u have to go to the map's page to see such things
So I show the difficulty on the overview now. I also changed the background color to match the difficulty. I don't know if I'll keep this or not.... just trying it out.
wow, that actually makes the custom maps page more fun to look at. I say keep it that way
Quote from: virgilw on January 31, 2010, 05:42:43 PM
So I show the difficulty on the overview now. I also changed the background color to match the difficulty. I don't know if I'll keep this or not.... just trying it out.
Cool, thanks. Much more useful this way. The use of color to grade maps is neat. I would probably suggest hues - Eg. start with a light blue for trivial, and then darker to perhaps black for "expert only" maps. But even this way it is usable.
Awesome!
This is very handy indeed.
Where else can we get so much support?
You da' Man Virgil!
actually he's not da' man, he's a demi-god
either way, still some awesome changes :D
I wish I didn't spend yesterday morning downloading every map before this new update came out. Would have been a lot smoother.
well now that you can release more maps at once ... we - the map creators - will endeavour to post more ;D
Can you still organize the full list by rating? just wondering
And while we`re at it --- a option to sort the maps by the number of comments would be nice too
Quote from: George on February 01, 2010, 05:41:13 PM
Can you still organize the full list by rating? just wondering
Not currently. I left it out on purpose since I was trying to get rid of sorting altogether. I also wasn't too happy with how the ranks worked out. The ranks still have a purpose, I'm just not sure they are important enough to be a way to promote some maps above others. I could be wrong and convinced otherwise, though.
Quote from: virgilw on February 01, 2010, 06:06:22 PM
The ranks still have a purpose, I'm just not sure they are important enough to be a way to promote some maps above others. I could be wrong and convinced otherwise, though.
You should do some math on the ranks... remove the highest quartil, the lowest quartil, and avarage the rest of the votes... then divide "number-of-comments"(other than the map-makers) with "number-of-votes", and add that to the score.
That way you secure that odd-man-out-votes gets canned, and the final score also rewards a thread with many comments.
Bingo... a nice scoring-system, that is hard to mess with.
Quote from: virgilw on February 01, 2010, 06:06:22 PM
... The ranks still have a purpose, I'm just not sure they are important enough to be a way to promote some maps above others. I could be wrong and convinced otherwise, though.
I made this example rating-function in php... if you like it, you are welcome to use it as you please.
This function tries to take user-behavior into account, and filter out the most obvious attempts of tampering, while it rewards map-page-activity, and implements a more "democratic" calculation for the actual votes (Balance).
<?php
/*
$Votes = (array);//Fill this with all votes as integers between 1 and 5
$NumOfComments = (integer);//subtract map-creators own comments first
$NumOfDownloads = (integer);//subtract map-creators own downloads if possible
$DaysOld = (integer);//Number of days the map has been available
*/
function CalculateRank($Votes,$NumOfComments,$NumOfDownloads,$DaysOld){
sort($Votes,SORT_NUMERIC);
$NumOfVotes = count($Votes);
$VoteThreshold = 6;//minimum number of votes cast, to make them fully count
if($NumOfVotes < 3){//only 0-2 votes available, so just set rank to neutral
$Rank = 3.0;
} else if($NumOfVotes < $VoteThreshold){//Downgrade vote-importance if only a few votes have been cast.
$Rank = 3.0 + ( ((array_sum($Votes)/$NumOfVotes) - 3.0) / ( ($VoteThreshold+1)-$NumOfVotes) );
} else {//Enough votes, so do real statistics
$Votes = array_slice($Votes,floor($NumOfVotes*0.25),ceil($NumOfVotes*0.5),false);//Remove Low & High
$Rank = array_sum($Votes)/ceil($NumOfVotes*0.5);//Set Rank to avarage of remaining vote-values
}
$Balance = 0;
foreach($Votes as $Value){//Calculate "positive-/negative-vote count"
if($Value > 3){
$Balance++;
} else if($Value < 3){
$Balance--;
}
}
$Rank += ($Balance/ceil($NumOfVotes*0.5))*0.5;//Weighing for "positive-/negative-vote count", rather than actual voted values ( = max. ±0.5)
$Rank += $NumOfComments/$DaysOld/100;//Reward for many Comments per day
$Rank += $NumOfVotes/$DaysOld/200;//Reward for many Votes per day
$Rank += $NumOfDownloads/$DaysOld/400;//Reward for many Downloads per day
return round($Rank,2);
}
?>