Aww, you used my map as an example. I agree with your advice- your rating was very helpful and I was sceptical about the out of map regions so I have severely reduced outside circles. More people should review maps- it is helpful for both the map maker and players of the map. It's kind of sad that my other recent map (Blood Moon) hasn't even got 10 ratings after 3 weeks. Although I am being hypocritical by saying this as I never review maps but what Zephyrum pointed out is too true.

I normally go by:
1=an unplayable map
2=a terrible map, but still playable
3=an okay map, but nothing special
4=a good map
5=an exceptionable map

^

With the current number of maps a 1 - 10 scale would have been nice.

Edited 10/26/2015 19:11:11

GG

80% of the total reviews and rates are from 20% of the players.
80% of the total rates and reviews are on 20% of maps.
80% of the total maps are made by 20% of the map makers.
80% of the total average rating sum is held by 20% of the maps.
80% of the total territories are held by 20% of the maps.
80% of the total server space (for maps) is used by 20% of the maps.
80% of the games played are on 20% of the maps.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry, but I think the problem is not with the amount of people rating it. The maps with the best rating are at the top, causing people to play them more, and rate them good more because they think if other people like it they must, and are more inclined to rate it a 5.

https://www.warlight.net/Play?PreviewMap=10895

This map is disgustingly ugly, yet people love it, including me. Why? It was one of the first maps in the game. The nearly-unanimously accepted (By top players) as the best 3v3 template is on that map.

Duel, on the other hand, is the worst map in the game.

You cannot beat the 80/20 bias, and it is shown evidently in the distribution of whatever in maps.

1. Terrible, how did you make this so bad...
2. Getting better, but still bad...
3. Ok/good, but nothing special...
4. Good/great now we are getting somewhere...
5. Special, only the best, hardly rated any 5/5

It should be increased to 10/10, but I don't see how this could be changed?. The minimum votes needed should also be increased to 50, to help stop overrated maps.

Belgian Gentleman, I really appreciate your attempts to appeal the community on making nice reviews. Unfortunately, you forgot a crucial thing about the review. they are not only used for the creator to help them with some map issues or to improve the map. This part is more related to the testing stage within this forum. In my opinion a good review introduces the map to an uncertain audience, which has never played the map before. additional informations could be about the game youve played and if it was fun or not. for which kind of games you recommend the map for (somehow, you did so, but you always adressed your review towards the creator, which gives the whole review a different purpose.). and best would be a recommendation of cards or even a template.


OFFTOPIC:

https://www.warlight.net/Play?PreviewMap=10895

This map is disgustingly ugly, yet people love it, including me. Why? It was one of the first maps in the game. The nearly-unanimously accepted (By top players) as the best 3v3 template is on that map.

Totally agree. but this map is more like an exception from the rule. It is one of the first maps. The map standard was very low these days and fortunately it evolved/increased. Troll made some things perfectly right. It is a great map for competitive games with medium size. and there was a time, where the number of players was limited to six, when you had no membership. Furthermore there havent been just about 100 alternative europe maps like nowdays. so maybe the rating was well deserved but is outdated. I realized, how bad it was made, after I made my own maps.

anyways, Im unsure what you try to imply. it is true, most maps are rated when they are new or when they are already famous and at least appear among the top 100.

Reasons why I don't do that is because I have to actually do it from a game's end screen. And for that I have to play a whole game to rate/review the map.

No, you can always start a single player game and surrender first turn and write a review right afterwards. which is nearly no effort.

In my opinion, you can give a map a three or four if there's no problem with it, but you didn't particularly enjoy it, and a 5 if you did enjoy it and have no problems with it. I never give out 2's but if there's a really terrible map I'll give it one.

The only thing is, if you're going to be giving out 1's, you'd better leave a review, because even making a terrible map takes a lot of work, and to have that rated 1 star is pretty disheartening.

Look, all i'm saying is, don't refuse to give a map 5 stars just because it's not "made by God". If you have a map that someone worked hard on, and you don't have any problem with it, and you really enjoyed the map, give that person five stars, because that is LITERALLY the definition of a perfect map.

What're you doing? There's already an unified code already, written by Fizzer. There are various interpretations of it, since it's a very short legend, though. Word-for-word:

1: Would not recommend.
2: Okay.
3: Good.
4: Great!
5. Perfect!

There's various interpretations since it's so short; I like Apollo's.

1. Terrible, how did you make this so bad...
2. Getting better, but still bad...
3. Ok/good, but nothing special...
4. Good/great now we are getting somewhere...
5. Special, only the best, hardly rated any 5/5

Here is what I think of it.

1: Clearly few effort was put in. Just a bad map that you think Warlight should remove to stop cluttering the maps (what, now ~1150 maps?)
2: Can't say anything much bad about it, it has good ideas and good bits, but still needs some improvement. Still a time waste to play it, but not so much.
3: I like to play it. It's good, there are no big problems, though there might be several small ones, but it's a good enough map.
4: Wow, this is a really fun map. The mapmaker has some skills, I'll see what other maps he's made. It has very few minor problems (maybe wrong territory names), it's quite enjoyable.
5: Wow, this I can not say anything about. Infallible map, it's everything that I wanted. I can't really wish for more nor suggest anything. This needs to win the map of the year. Very rare.

5 I agree, if you enjoy it and have nothing to suggest at all, no problems, either, 5. But don't give a 5/5 rating and then list some problems in your text rating. 2 is for maps that do have hope, that can get better and already do have good spots.

That's what I'm saying. You don''t have to be like "this needs to win map of the year" or "this map was made by God" to give out five star ratings. Seriously, what sense does it make to only give out one of them per year? :D

For that matter, there's not any reason to only give 6 maps a year Ratings above 3 stars, as you seem to be of the opinion("4/5, that applies maybe for your top 5 maps"/"5/5 is oh my gosh, was this map made by god?").

If a map A:looks really good, B:Does not have any missing connections, and C:is pretty enjoyable to play, then I don't understand what the problem is with giving it five stars. And IMO there is definitely more than one of these released per year, and honestly there are probably more than 6.

Thanks for the guide Belgian gentleman really make reviewing easier.

I don't write map reviews, but I agree with Imperator.
A five out of five does not have to mean no flaws at all. But very very few at all.
What Fizzer gave as his instructions for rating in 1-5 seems pretty easy to understand but you guys are rating everything harsher than he wants.
A 4 is NOT (my opinion) an okay map. It is a good map! This means you can play it and enjoy it.. it still is missing a few things that make it not a 5.
A 3 is an OK map which probably means it isn't great. It still can be played but it's not going to be very fun..
A 1 is complete junk which should be deleted.

good ratings also encourage the creator to work on make similar maps. It is good to know if the community is appreciating your work, because maps did take a lot of time to get done.
Anyways, I second Imperators execution on the subject. there is no need to be thrifty with five and four stars, because most of the time the rating depends on opinion, which means someone will like and give it a good rating someone will not and give it a bad rating. at the end it will be an average value. no map will ever achieve 5 stars in average rating. better consider if the current average fits with your opinion.

Also agreed with Imperator. By the reasoning of some other players, no map deserves 5 stars because none of them are perfect.

For example, 2 top maps: Rise of Rome has gotten a 5/5 rating by probably half of the people rating it. I can't say they are all wrong just because the map is offset to the right, Partha is a bit overpowered, there are no custom distribution modes... Or Troll's Europe: actually has pretty messy borders up close, some eastern territories are stuck against the edge of the screen, and the bonuses are not even that balanced (Spain is easier to control than France and has 1 territory less but both are worth 6). Still, people consider these maps exceptionally good and give them 5/5. It doesn't matter what criteria they use for this, this will be different for different people and in the end comes down to taste. There really are no objective criteria. Two different people will comment with blunt confidence that your map is bad for this or this reason, and contradict eachother.

Edited 10/27/2015 16:45:50

we shall use the IGN rating system
1-7.8 means it's horrible
7.9 is meh
8- 10 means it's paid off and utterly horrible.

Ranek has a point, my reviews are mostly adressed towards the map creator rather than the people interessed in the map. Maybe I should less concern about the map creator in my responses and evade phrases like ' The map creator did a good job at this'?

It's a good thing which I should apply in my next reviews. Thanks for your remark. I didn't even figured it out by myself.

Obviously everyone know partha is stronger but why? Less chock points and pure land to tear though?

The advantage of being "stingy" with your 4's and 5's is that you use the full range of the 1-5 scale.

If everyone is giving out 5's to maps they like and 3's and 4's to maps they don't like as much, you're only using half of the scale.

The more people use the full scale for ratings, the more useful ratings are to the community. It's better for everyone.

I disagree with Raneks comment. From the test games I have played, I have found most people don't actually give feedback with most feedback being on minor things such as territory names, connections and bonus values. There is still the problem of people surrendering or being booted early in the game making the balance vary and other times, people give comments too radical and unrealistic. Yes you should give recommendations to players but you should also give tips to the mapmakers.

What Fizzer gave as his instructions for rating in 1-5 seems pretty easy to understand but you guys are rating everything harsher than he wants.

A 3 is an OK map which probably means it isn't great. It still can be played but it's not going to be very fun..

I really don't get what you're doing. We're being as strict as Fizzer wants. 3 is Good, 2 is OK, as Fizzer himself says.

I really don't get what you're doing. We're being as strict as Fizzer wants. 3 is Good, 2 is OK, as Fizzer himself says.

So do we have different definitions of "OK" and "Good"? To me, if you're going to be using the full scale, it should be like this:

1 - Contending for worst map in existence
2 - Bad map
3 - OK map. It is at least playable.
4 - Good map. This is where most maps that took actual effort to create should go.
5 - Outstanding map. The kind you create multiple templates for because you think it's so good.

If 2 is "OK", then do you not differentiate between maps that are "bad" and maps that "should be deleted"?

Edited 10/27/2015 23:44:45