Just to keep honest, I wrote this up, so you will see something similar when I can actually finish it off:
Morax’s Maps & Modifications Councilor Application for 2020
FAF Community,
If you have not heard, it was requested that the vote for M&M councilor take place now. I have been the M&M councilor for the past years and for those who have not been here since the start, and are looking for some background, here is my original application back in late April / early May of 2019: https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17394&hilit=morax+councilor&start=50
The only reason I can think of why the election did not take place at the annual mark is due to the pandemic disrupting schedule, my lease ended and bought a home (was busy moving), and maybe because of a lack of interest in others having the vote? Regardless, it is taking place now.
For the most part, I am unchanged in most of my views, except in that I believe one major issue is at hand: the management of the vault showrooms. This includes both the mapping and modification ones, so pay attention to what I would like to do going forward:
Vault Management for Maps
Facts ( numbers are from Downlord Client as of 09/01/2020
There are 248 pages of maps in the vault at the moment of writing
This amounts to approximately 20 (number of maps shown on each page) by 98 pages for a total of 4,900+ uploads.
The first map uploads were not possible until 2.5 years into the existence of FAF (typical “Soon []” slow development capability!)
Part of the responsibility of the FAF map and mod council is to decide how the community sees and has access to contributions from map and modification authors, and it is hardly ever a fun process: there are plenty of people that have no regard for others, they take others’ work without permission (call it their own), and in general a lot of quite unfinished work goes in.
Let us start by taking a look at the latter vault page:
https://i.imgur.com/fGwpUGD.png
Now let us look at the listings on what is currently page 1 in the client:
https://i.imgur.com/nNkweWj.png
In my observation, the average quality has not really improved by much, and therefore that is a problem. Per many requests, authors that spend a greater deal of time making something more interesting see their content “buried” by new uploads, and spare their creation ending up in the ladder pool, or advertised by the promotions council, they average # plays is abysmal: a low 10 or less. That is, not really, helping anyone get their work out to the community.
To help demo maps that really show off what the game can do, we created the “M&M Top Picks” showroom that permanently keeps content created by authors who pour their heart into creations:
https://i.imgur.com/u89yg4Z.png
You can read about why it was made here to better understand its history: https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17820
Still, this did not really do much, and a lot of the community has still voiced - in my research - disdain for the level of content one finds in the vault. I don’t have good data here on this as it never was something I did, so your vote for myself or whomever runs against me will have to be based on whether you agree with me or not.
Long story short, I gave up on managing the vault recently after others did as well. With so little people managing FAF, it became apparent it is not the best focus; yet, we still do want to try and boost the quality of the additions. There are good maps and mods in the vaults, but one has to sift through pages upon pages to really find anything.
That is why, I would like to present the following idea to FAF:
First, see my original post here - https://forum.faforever.com/topic/3/m-m-map-vault-plans-for-fall-2020-and-on
Whitelist Vault System 2020 (and on) for Forged Alliance Forever:
The main showroom, what is known as “Most Recent” will become a whitelist showroomwhere authors are given permission, and unlimited access will be given.
CARE must be taken to keep to the vault rules and regulations as a author can be removed for multiple violations
One can become a whitelist author by applying for it, and show a few maps, with demos, to the M&M team to show they can at least grasp the basic rules.
Authors who ARE NOT on the whitelist STILL can upload to the vault!
A person who hosts their uploaded map can expect players that join to be able to see information and download the map
There is no blocking of content: anything will be allowed, regardless of whether it follows the rules (maybe spare egregiously broken ones, hacked)
M&M team can work on other valuable pieces of content like tutorials, video reviews, learning new things themselves, and best of all: be a lot less stressed by people.
Will the author permission system be as strict as the M&M top picks list? Not even close… I simply want to dodge having entirely low-effort maps go into the vault and have to spend so much time chasing people around.
For reference (and this is not complete), here is a running list of authors I believe should be a part of the whitelist vault without question, starting Day 1:
Farmsletje
Mozart
biass
FTXCommando
Petric
svenni_badbwoi
Robustness
lilsidlil
Size
borgcubejanitor
MadMax
Jip
speed2
Exotic_Retard
keyser
Chosen
Saske_Kaske
Mikkz
This_Guy
CurrySmuggler
Box-
Lionhardt
Blodir
Tokyto_
Blue_Owl
CookieNoob
Krapougnak
Molotov
Marlo
lextoc
DesertWolf216
Raymorend
F-Odin
Sandokan
SoviertPride
Arhurt
MichaelRosen
Plasma_Wolf
Gingerbreadman
AchievedCheetah8
barmaleushko
StrangePotion
seero
Winged_Mind
Ajack
DeathWolf99
deGRONDDateNoob
MadCat
iBeaver
TheBestUsername
Hell
eptaceps
Snoop
Kiliax
Hellgich
Freedom
BRNKOINSANITY
Picco
silly_noob
Degulum
TheBlackWolf
EvanGalea
SiwaonaDaphnewen
Pl4t_
GrunttiNoob
seraw
Chipi
H-Master
Capricious
Wifi_
Montana
Warner-Valholl
Evildrew
Nequilich
Hawkei
ika_m
Bodabubdub
Aware
It is my hope that, if you take a look at the maps created by those people above, you will see it is not overly strict, nor condemning.
Other Thoughts:
It really blew my mind away how much time was spent being a “vault policeman” over other things as the FAF M&M councilor. I do realize, as I am getting more and more busy with work, that is more difficult to produce content and run the council. But I will remind people that, as a FAF council member, you only need to commit to a minimum time a week, which is believe it or not, 2 hours.
My goal with this proposal and application, is to get some headway on the project, and begin working on more advanced content assistance. The community does not have a lot of modifications nor authors, so that needs attention next. We work at the availability of software development time, so things are planned and often not executed for months, maybe a year or more.
If anyone has any questions about other matters not discussed here, or in my original application, feel free to inquire and I will respond in this post.
Morax