My main bone with the Foundry

[TaCktiX]

First let's talk about the positives: Foundry Rocks. Volunteers work on creating new experiences for Conquer Club players, with other people helping them with comments and suggestions. That's a killer good system...if you get comments and suggestions. That's my bone with the foundry. If you're not an established mapmaker, it takes 3 times as long to get comments on your maps, and that's if you're lucky. Good ideas from newer folks take longer to go through the Foundry for no really good reason.

Case in point, I've got two great concepts going right now. One still needs a graphical update (Trench Warfare, working on it), but the other (The Citadel) got an update that addressed all previous comments, and has since gotten zero comments. What kind of encouragement is that for me to continue making maps if I release a comprehensive update and sit around waiting forever just to have people agree ("hey, it fixes everything I had issues with") or note further things to fix ("that's still unclear")?

I can partially understand an established mapmaker bias. Several map topics start in Map Ideas with little more than a rough image, and never go anywhere. But ones that are fully done graphically should get equal treatment, even if they don't have big-shot names on them. Thanks for your consideration.

[edbeard]

it's nothing personal. it has almost nothing to do with being established or not.

sometimes I'm the only one commenting on cairnswk's maps. And, he's arguably the most 'established' mapmaker out there.

there's just not that many people who comment on maps regularly. I'd make a guess that there's probably 5 or 6 max who comment regularly and who make substantial comments.

it's a younger crowd that frequents the forums for the most part so I'd guess things will pick back up in the summer.

Don't forget the forum was down yesterday too.

[AndyDufresne]

Cartography is something that has to appeal to the masses. It's a fortunate and unfortunate thing. Some ideas that receive little feedback are simply because they aren't popular ideas.

Of course encouragement is great, but most people don't encourage something they aren't interested or invested in, in some way.


--Andy

[yeti_c]

TBH - the new forum is taking a lot of peoples attention at the moment - so don't worry - people will come back soon enough.

C.

[TaCktiX]

Cartography is something that has to appeal to the masses. It's a fortunate and unfortunate thing. Some ideas that receive little feedback are simply because they aren't popular ideas.

Of course encouragement is great, but most people don't encourage something they aren't interested or invested in, in some way.


--Andy

That's what gets me Andy. On both topics of mine, I have gotten pretty hefty encouragement ("I'd really like to play this", "The concept is cool") on previous versions. Yet the versions that fix issues get no comment at all. I don't understand that at all.

[gimil]

Cartography is something that has to appeal to the masses. It's a fortunate and unfortunate thing. Some ideas that receive little feedback are simply because they aren't popular ideas.

Of course encouragement is great, but most people don't encourage something they aren't interested or invested in, in some way.


--Andy

That's what gets me Andy. On both topics of mine, I have gotten pretty hefty encouragement ("I'd really like to play this", "The concept is cool") on previous versions. Yet the versions that fix issues get no comment at all. I don't understand that at all.

Sometimes you get the odd person who pops in and says they would like to paly a map, then they dont come back. Its the constructive comments you need to get develoment going.

The reason more exprienced carotes get more comments is usually becasue they know how to create an ideathat intrests people, create graphics to capture intrest and most imprtantly know how to operte in te foundry to get their feedback.

*DiM's Q to come in and say something about himself*

[DiM]

*DiM's Q to come in and say something about himself*

anyway i don't think it's about the "new carto / old carto" thing.

if a map doesn't show any interest then nobody will comment regardless of how new/old you are and regardless of how many updates you do.

ask cairnswk he has created the most maps and yet he has more abandoned maps than others have quenched.


PS: and to pleasure gimil here's the part where i talk about myself.
my first quenched map was Age of Merchants. i wasn't a good map maker i had no reputation and yet the map attracted lots of comments because people liked it.

[wcaclimbing]

*DiM's Q to come in and say something about himself*

Me first!
EDIT: darn... DiM beat me to it....

Try including a "discussion topics" , "questions", or "ideas for next update" section to get people talking. I use a section like this in each of my updates to sort of kick-start discussions about things that I will need to do in the next update:

Discussion questions:
---Are the new borders good or bad? How could they improve?
---Do you like the +3 bonus for each oasis? Do you have a better idea?
---Army circles. Yes or no?

Straight from my Oasis thread.
I got lots of border comments and a few army circle comments.
It helps a lot just to get people talking. Come into your thread and post a lot. Even if you have already decided to include ______ in your map, start a conversation discussing "should I do _______ or ________ or something else?" That keeps some people coming back to check in and see whats going on. If you can start an active discussion, it will usually keep going if the topic is debatable enough for people to disagree on it. More posts means more people will be coming in to see (and possibly comment) on your map. Its kinda like pushing a snowball down a hill. At first, its really small and doesn't go anywhere, but if you give it a good push and get others to help, it will go on its own, growing bigger and getting more while you can just stand back and watch. The discussion can sometimes gain two or more pages overnight. It all depends on if there is enough to talk about to keep the visitors busy.

[Kaplowitz]

I like to think ive been around the foundry for a while, at least a couple of months and im not an established map-maker. It has nothing to do with new and old . Look at Elijah S, he came, made a map, and left. Not established at all, not known at all. Like said above: I comment on maps that i like, or that i feel like commenting on. Sometimes i dont comment cause im just not in the mood, even though i check almost every thread.

[bryguy]

I like to think ive been around the foundry for a while, at least a couple of months and im not an established map-maker. It has nothing to do with new and old . Look at Elijah S, he came, made a map, and left. Not established at all, not known at all. Like said above: I comment on maps that i like, or that i feel like commenting on. Sometimes i dont comment cause im just not in the mood, even though i check almost every thread.

ive been here since last october (for in the map foundry) and in all i have mad and abandoned/vacationed 3-4 maps (NOT INCLUDING BUILDER!!!)

[wrightfan123]

it's nothing personal. it has almost nothing to do with being established or not.

sometimes I'm the only one commenting on cairnswk's maps. And, he's arguably the most 'established' mapmaker out there.

there's just not that many people who comment on maps regularly. I'd make a guess that there's probably 5 or 6 max who comment regularly and who make substantial comments.

it's a younger crowd that frequents the forums for the most part so I'd guess things will pick back up in the summer.

Don't forget the forum was down yesterday too.

Agreed. Me, Lany, and Pep go to school together, and I only have time to post on their maps because of all the other crap I have to do. By the summer it'll be better.

[gimil]

If lanyards is learning his graphics from pep I expect great things

[Kaplowitz]

I like to think ive been around the foundry for a while, at least a couple of months and im not an established map-maker. It has nothing to do with new and old . Look at Elijah S, he came, made a map, and left. Not established at all, not known at all. Like said above: I comment on maps that i like, or that i feel like commenting on. Sometimes i dont comment cause im just not in the mood, even though i check almost every thread.

ive been here since last october (for in the map foundry) and in all i have mad and abandoned/vacationed 3-4 maps (NOT INCLUDING BUILDER!!!)

My first Map Foundry post was a map of Pangaea in May 02, 2007- before you even joined CC