38 réponses à ce sujet

[Adinos]

My opinion is that this site has the potential to be the #1 site for those who enjoy using the toolset to create content for their own (and others) enjoyment  and want to share that content.

However, currently the site is lacking in some ways and a few improvements are badly needed, or people will go elsewhere, which would fragment the community.

The primary problem is the design - it is just too hard to perform certain common tasks.

Consider the following scenarios:

• Suppose I am a player, looking for additional content for the game or playable modules.  How do I find material of this kind?   Well, I would have to go to Projects->Categories, and select either "Dragon Age Addons" or "DA End-User modules", Even then I will not find everything, because some projects were mis-classified originally, and cannot be placed in the correct category.  Another big problem is that there is no way to distinguish between projects that are under development and projects that are finished, and most likely, 90% of the projects at any given time will be under development, or even abandoned - making it needlessly hard to find actual usable content.
• Suppose I am a builder looking for specific types of Builder-to-builder content to add to my work.  One problem is that the categories are not suitable (where would I look for ready-made levels, for example?), but I also have the problem of unfinished and finished stuff being mixed up.
• Suppose I am a builder with specific skills, looking for a project that needs my skills.  Here I would like to list only projects that are under development - not those that are finished and released.
• Suppose I am looking for any kind of content, and I want to know what others think of the content in question.  We have a "popularity" index, but no proper rating system.  NWNVault had both - sure they were flawed, but the relative rankings of modules were a pretty good indicator of how good they were - even if the absolute numbers were kind-of meaningless. 
• Having just a single "Toolset" forum is not sufficient.  In fact, it is a complete disaster.  What is needed is a "Builder's section", with several forums. for scripting, bug report, requests, ideas, new content announcements and so on.  Having everything jumbled together is just not working.

As things are, this site just does not measure up to the old NWVault, but that can be fixed....and should be fixed before the amount of available content starts growing, people become dissatisfied and move elsewhere.

So, a few specific suggestions:

• Add more project categories (areas, scripts, machinima, tutorials and so on)
• Separate builder-to-player content from builder-to-builder content.
• Add the ability to classify/search projects by status (inactive, under development or finished)
• Add a rating system (with a proper download counter)
• Add the ability to re-classify projects that were incorrectly classified originally
• Add more discussion forums (a separate sub-forum for scripting and so on)

Modifié par Adinos, 12 novembre 2009 - 11:43 .

[CID-78]

a simple status for the project. ie work in progress, Continious, finished. where work in progress means nothing is released but the project is on its way, continous means something has been released but the project is working on enhancing it, extend it. finished. the project is complete and might only be patched in the future.



I would also like to see the author of the project without opening it up.



I agree that a single "+" per user isn't good enough rating system. especially since you can't remove it once it's there or give a negative rating. besides it's way to easy for larger groups to rally votes this way. the small but potentially good project will disappear. and not to talk about the fact that old project will remain on top for a very long period of time. even when the quality of Custom modules raise.



and please add a >>> (to last page) on threads especially usefull for group discussions.

[FalloutBoy]

CID-78 wrote...

I agree that a single "+" per user isn't good enough rating system. especially since you can't remove it once it's there or give a negative rating. besides it's way to easy for larger groups to rally votes this way. the small but potentially good project will disappear. and not to talk about the fact that old project will remain on top for a very long period of time. even when the quality of Custom modules raise.

This is a huge problem IMO. The modules that have been around the longest will have the most "+" while a brand new awesome module may never get noticed. This encourages builders to do a rush job just so they can be one of the first ones out there.

Furthermore, the 5-star ranking is very inadequate compared to the 1000 point scale average from NWN Vault (0.00 to 10.00). Imagine if there were no way to tell the difference between a 8.5 and a 9.5 since they would all be classified as 4 1/2 stars. Just replace the stars with a 0-10 dropdown and display the average out to 1 or 2 decimal places. This should not be difficult.

Then provide a way to sort by ranking, not popularity.

Provide a checkbox on a project that a host can check when he/she considers the content "done" and ready to be ranked with the others. This would allow you to post work-in-progress downloads to gather feedback, without the concern of getting low ranks because it is not done yet.

[Adinos]

I am actually more concerned about the difficulty in finding things rather than the problems with rating, but to make this site work as well as NWVault, something like this needs to be done.

Modifié par Adinos, 09 novembre 2009 - 11:02 .

[Adinos]

I have noticed a few more posts from people looking for a "good site for mods", as they find this site unusable.



Now, instead of just complaining that this site sucks, how about some constructive suggestions for improvement? I came up with a few above - If you can add more, and keep this thread active, something might get done.



BioWare does listen (well, at least sometimes), and if we can come up with a list of specific suggestions on how to improve the site so it better meets the needs of builders, we increase the chance that something will get done.



It is to everyone's benefit if the builder community does not fragment and scatter to different sites.

[Havelock2009]

Fix the the forum search function.

It comes up empy for me with any search term. Until this function works properly we will see the same posts again and again and it would also be a good start to find mods you are looking for.

[Trigonous]

- Fix the search function. It'll not only allow easier access to mods, but fix a lot of duplicate thread issues.

- Replace the one-big-list project page with a splash page with links to separate categories, and add more categories.  Say weapons and armor, quests, new areas, new single player modules, builder resources (with separate categories like the ones already present) etc. Include an "all mods" button so we can still get to the huge list if we want to. And allow mods to be in more than one category.

- With fixing the search feature, allow searching within categories of mods.

- Add a proper rating system.  Either the traditional 1-to-10 or a + AND - button.  And force comments on ratings (attaching the rating to the comment), so we can see why people love it/hate it.  Also try a weighted rating system, so that a very large/old mod can sit up their with a brand new smaller mod of equal caliber that just hasn't garnered the high amount of ratings yet.

- Separate the toolset forum into a Mods section and a Builders section. Mods section containing a forum for mod release announcement and discussion, WIP threads, and mod request threads. Builders forum can have a section on toolset help and discussion. For the mod forum, enforce prefixes on threads to tell the user what type of thread it is, [WIP] [REL] or [REQ] (work-in-progress, release, and request).

- Do not censor mod content. I may not be the one to download the "adult only" mods, but I can understand their importance (on principal). Allowing free reign as far as content goes (with the exception of copyright law, of course) can help the community from fragmenting and going to other sites. I can understand if the developers of the game cannot allow "adult only" mod content on this site, but it is important for a healthy mod community to not be inhibited.

Just my two-cents worth. I would really like it if this site could be the one-stop shop for mods that the Nexus sites have become for Bethesda mods.  Click here and here to see really great mod sites at work.  Seriously, the nexus sites are the best designed mod sites you can find, even if their forums are lacking.

I am willing to wait for Bioware to fix this site, especially with the strides made just since release last week, but not everyone is.  And if nothing is done, I can guarantee this site will stagnate and die, a bane to developers and players alike.  Trying to have a comprehensive mod site hosted by the developers is a huge stride forward for the modding community as a whole, so please don't blow this chance.  I belive in you BIoware, you make amazing games and have an amazing community, so let's get this ball rolling.

Modifié par Trigonous, 09 novembre 2009 - 08:13 .

[Trigonous]

Bump for awesome.

[Smakit]

I agree with pretty much all this. Hopefully the Maker's little helpers up there will be tweaking it as time goes on to make it better. =) I guess it is still super early, but might as well get the idea out there -- just in case.

[CausaDennis]

May it go from your lips to the Makers ears.

v.v

[Havelock2009]

Some simple rules of behaviour or if i think about it one simple rule of behaviour concerning comments on content of mods. I read comments like unimportant or immature and sometimes i think the same but the toolset forum and especially the builder's thread is not the place for this kind of discussion.

[Ranlas]

Trigonous wrote...
<snip>And force comments on ratings (attaching the rating to the comment), so we can see why people love it/hate it.  <snip>

This is a bad idea: it will end up spoiling the rating system.  Either people will not rate at all (which still gives no feedback AND loses voter turnout), or people will rate and fill it with a garbage comment (which still doesn't help feedback).

Furthermore, forcing a rate + comment pair is bad the other way: if people want to comment, but not rate yet (perhaps they found a bug but are not finished the module), they're forced to give it something innaccurate.

There is no way to force people to give feedback. Users are lazy; instead of trying to
force them to do something, make it easier for them to do what you want. Perhaps a dual rating system where disinterested users can vote up/down, while more inclined users can use a secondary feedback form to rank different facets of the mod separately (story, art, level design, etc).

[Nalencer]

I agree wholeheartedly with almost everything said here. I think the projects area needs a major overhaul. I could see making it more of a portal than just a list of projects, with a news section to announce new projects, separate categories for projects, top rated/downloaded lists by category, etc. I realize that the social site is still in beta, but I would echo the comments about the risk of the community fragmenting if these issues are not resolved. All it would take would be for a 'DAVault' to come along and it would be over for the social site. Users are used to the way NWVault operates, and in my opinion, it is much more user-friendly than the social site.

[FalloutBoy]

Ranlas wrote...

Trigonous wrote...
And force comments on ratings (attaching the rating to the comment), so we can see why people love it/hate it. 

This is a bad idea: it will end up spoiling the rating system.  Either people will not rate at all (which still gives no feedback AND loses voter turnout), or people will rate and fill it with a garbage comment (which still doesn't help feedback).

Furthermore, forcing a rate + comment pair is bad the other way: if people want to comment, but not rate yet (perhaps they found a bug but are not finished the module), they're forced to give it something innaccurate.

There is no way to force people to give feedback. Users are lazy; instead of trying to
force them to do something, make it easier for them to do what you want. Perhaps a dual rating system where disinterested users can vote up/down, while more inclined users can use a secondary feedback form to rank different facets of the mod separately (story, art, level design, etc).

Commenting without rating is fine, but rating without comment makes it too easy to cheat. As a mod maker, I want to be able to see exactly what each person rated my module. If I see someone put up a 1, then I can see who did it and can figure out if they really didn't like my mod or if they are just trying to bump mine down the list. This is why I loved the Vault so much.

No offense, but if the only way you will vote is anonymously, then I don't want your vote. If there is some reason why you don't want someone to know you opinion about their work, then don't vote. It takes months of long effort to make a good module. If users are too lazy to write a sentence that says "Tanks for this it wuz gud" then I'm not interested.

[Adinos]

As I said before, the main problem I see is how hard it is to find anything. Better organization will help, but impreoved searching would be useful too.



Apart from being able to limit the search by project status (inactive, under development, released/finished or released/ongoing), any kind of text search would help - maybe search through project descriptions, or possibly also search through project keywords - assuming the project author(s) are allowed to specify a set of relevant keywords.



Any other search-related suggestions?



And yes, it would be really nice to know if anyone from BioWare is actually looking at our suggestions - I don't expect them all to be implemented, and I realize the team is under severe pressure right now, but I think I speak on behalf of many builders when I say that the site needs some imprevements to be really useful for us - so if would be really good to know if anyone it all is listening.

[E.C.Patterson]

We have been asking about file distribution for at least a month now, in this thread, this one and this one, for instance, in addition to this one. All of these threads express the need for improvements and make various suggestions.

Indeed, the first step would be for BW to acknowledge the need for major improvements and give an indication of what they are willing/capable of addressing.

Bottom line, we need at a minimum: better classification, better searching and an effective ranking + feedback system; first and foremost, to make it easy for players to get into a good game and for builders to find the community made assets they need; but also to give proper recognition to creators and ensure their game and CC finds their audiences.

To address the specifics, one suggestion would be for BW to set up a group specifically for that purpose once they have shown their intentions and placed the goalposts.

Modifié par E.C.Patterson, 11 novembre 2009 - 02:12 .

[E.C.Patterson]

Double post...

Modifié par E.C.Patterson, 11 novembre 2009 - 02:08 .

[Dark0ne-]

Out of curiosity, if you could control the categories available in the files area, what categories would you like to see?

[Arkenor Oakshadow]

Dark0ne- wrote...

Out of curiosity, if you could control the categories available in the files area, what categories would you like to see?

For the top level categories:
Content mods, Rules changes, UI Mods, Art Mods (ones that reskin things or otherwise change the graphics without changing anything else), and Mod resources which are not mods in themselves, but are models, special effects, and anything else that might be used by content modders.

Modifié par Arkenor Oakshadow, 11 novembre 2009 - 03:26 .

[Martin E]

I think splitting the toolset forum up into at least:



Scripting

Building

Custom Content

Projects (announcements, WIPs, news etc.)



I know projects can be dealt with as 'projects' on the social site, but having a central project news forum provides one location for such announcements / progress / recruitment etc.

[Challseus]

Ranlas wrote...

Trigonous wrote...
And force comments on ratings (attaching the rating to the comment), so we can see why people love it/hate it. 

This is a bad idea: it will end up spoiling the rating system.  Either people will not rate at all (which still gives no feedback AND loses voter turnout), or people will rate and fill it with a garbage comment (which still doesn't help feedback).

Furthermore, forcing a rate + comment pair is bad the other way: if people want to comment, but not rate yet (perhaps they found a bug but are not finished the module), they're forced to give it something innaccurate.

There is no way to force people to give feedback. Users are lazy; instead of trying to
force them to do something, make it easier for them to do what you want. Perhaps a dual rating system where disinterested users can vote up/down, while more inclined users can use a secondary feedback form to rank different facets of the mod separately (story, art, level design, etc).

I don't agree that people being forced to comment when rating will spoil the system. Look at what we have at NWVault. There are always nice and long comments that go with the ratings, and I love reading them when deciding which module to play. Of course there are the simple "Great mod" comments that don't tell people anything, but overall, I think it works just fine.

I also don't agree that we need a system to rank the mod by category. Something like that will always penalize the module maker that doesn't comform to the "standards" of the categories. Like if there was a "roleplaying" category, that would seriously hurt someone who is make a straightforward hack & slash module with no roleplaying. Just a straight score should suffice in my opinion. In fact, they had that system at NWVault in the early days, and canned it eventually.

I think the solution is quite simple. Have the normal comments section where people can ask questions and whatnot. Then, have the "ratings" section, that just have the "rating" comments, along with the vote itself. Problem solved.

[Challseus]

Nalencer wrote...

I agree wholeheartedly with almost everything said here. I think the projects area needs a major overhaul. I could see making it more of a portal than just a list of projects, with a news section to announce new projects, separate categories for projects, top rated/downloaded lists by category, etc. I realize that the social site is still in beta, but I would echo the comments about the risk of the community fragmenting if these issues are not resolved. All it would take would be for a 'DAVault' to come along and it would be over for the social site. Users are used to the way NWVault operates, and in my opinion, it is much more user-friendly than the social site.

I wholeheartedly endorse this post

[Llanite]

I will also support Nalencer's comments. Further, to be right, a project tab really needs an active moderator to insure stuff gets categorized correctly, clean up the dross, review submissions for correct information, etc.



Frankly, looking at the current project tab I would be moved to create a new 'Completed Projects' tab and just start over, leaving the current Project space as a place for developers to meet and post on their own development efforts.

[Roam Hylia]

I agree with many of the ideas in this thread. I just started with the toolset and should I manage to complete anything I'm hoping that others will be able to find it.

[Mithrildream]

I think they should split it up so there's one forum for classified finished projects and ratings only. I like the original posters idea of classifying mods.  No one likes to sift through pages of promise to make a mod, or just plain drivel while they are trying to find mods. When I'm going to find a mod on a website I like to click on sections that divide mods by type and rating.  I'm not sure on rating though and I don't think there should be room for negative feedback, it has no place imo. I think if a person loves something they should come back to the website and rate it high and if they hate it then don't say anything at all and by all means don't even use it. They could make another one for modders to communicate with each other and collaborate ideas and take requests/ideas from the community members. Also another one for all the drivel and by that I mean all the "other" stuff that's posted. I think some posters posted just to try out the features and should have removed whatever drivel they left after they were done playing with it. I think the moderators aren't doing their job very well, they need to clean it up or divide it into sections.

edited to add more thought without making a whole new post

Modifié par Mithrildream, 11 novembre 2009 - 08:17 .