I have been browsing around for a while and I think this new design feels refreshing and professional. Somehow it actually reminds me of the blizzard website, I like it. I was a bit confused about not seeing the reviews of maps, but then I saw that it was still in development, so that is cool. The new download system is also more up to date and a good way forward from the old one. The "available updates" is also a good way of keeping track with new releases. Before it was kind of chaotic if you wanted to stay up to date with maps. So far so good! Thanks for this great design ;)
M iLLHello Mindplay, Appreciate the feedback! Yes the reviews for content is not yet completed. There are a few things left for this page actually that should really enhance it further. Here is a few things we are focusing on. - Separating reviews from comments. (Reviews being the focal point) - Displaying an overall rating, members rating, and VIP rating. (3 ratings) - The ability to see which comments or reviews were posted during older versions. - Ability to view guides, addons and discussions related to the item. - Allowing developers to post instructions. - Allowing users to reward publishers. (pre-planning phase.) We will be focusing on these tasks all this week and hope to have achieve great progress. You will be able to see the changes as they develop. We will update the site changlog with specifics as progress is made. Glad you like the new direction thus far. :) Regards, iLL
Rayman1103 suggested I look at the new beta website and I'm glad the gave me the invite. Well, iLL I generally like what I see so far but I do have a few suggestions: 1. It would be VERY useful to modders (even retired ones like me planning a comeback eventually), to know how many people have downloaded each of our mods. I released 40 of them in a period of a year and 5 months before my retirement and while it is nice to know how many viewed my mods, it would be far more useful to know how many people actually downloaded it! I do like the new feature that says when it was last downloaded though. 2. Long ago I had a discussion with Rayman1103 where he assured me that when the new gamemaps.com was released it would require people to speak English, as this is supposed to be an English speaking website and it is the most popular language in the world. However, I don't know if the plan to enforce that rule is still there and I therefore want to say that I hope that it is. It is not reasonable to let people upload a mod and describe it in Spanish or some other language, but that has been happening more and more. Now, I don't care if they also describe it in Spanish (the 2nd most common language) or even some other language and I don't anybody else would care either. But you can't expect someone to go through all the trouble of learning a language just read a mod description, right? Furthermore since this is supposed to be an English speaking website, it would make sense to require that the description be in English by default and a foreign language UNDERNEATH the English description to make it as easy as possible for the majority of users to read the brifef description before clicking on a complete mod description. 3. I hope something is done about all of the harsh comments that are directed at reviewers like myself. Recently I had somebody (I think their name was IHAVEBAES) say something totally out of line about my mother, just because they didn't care for my review. And it was even their mod, though that is hardly the point. I don't believe in starting flame wars with people but on the other hand, if "management" isn't going to enforce the content rules then that will probably start to happen as reviewers and those who leave comments (I do a lot of that too) get tired of being attacked. I'm pretty impressed by the website so far and keep up the good work!
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M iLL
Hello AlfredENeuman, Thanks for supporting GameMaps during your modding days. I'm sure we all look forward to you coming out of retirement. ;) I will touch a little on each topic you presented with my thoughts here. 1. The ability to view your download count was originally hidden from visitors however it was still shown to developers (at one point). Our goal is to increase your download conversion ratio and we felt the best way to do this was by not displaying the download totals to your visitors as this may give them a biased sentiment. At the same time, we do understand that the developers themselves would like access to this information and I agree, the more data, the better you can improve your download conversion rate. That leaves us one question which we are still debating.. Do we display both the visitor and download count to visitors, or; Only let the visitors see the view count, while developers can see both stats. As of right now during development we felt we would postpone this debate and come back to it another time, but it is something we have been contemplating. --------- 2. In terms of the language situation... This is another topic the team has discussed and it's actually a very difficult balance in a world with multi-language gamers. At present, the website itself is in English which automatically caters to the English speaking community. At the same time, we want to bring the world together and allow users to access and download content across the globe that is not limited to just English speaking users. English is the second most spoken language in the world and the largest native language would be Mandarin (Chinese)... In fact, I am currently in China right now. The gaming industry is not limited to language and there is millions of content items that are created across the globe from many different non-english users. In fact, the very first maps ever created for L4D actually came from Japan. We collaborated with the Japanese developers and brought this content to the English community and then custom maps started gaining popularity and began accelerating at a fast pace. But if it was not for foreign content, the L4D scene might have turned out dramatically different today. There are various maps and mods that come from all around the world and many talented developers. Even if someone in China posted content, this is still unique content that may be appreciated by a vast amount of users, especially if nobody else in the world is modding at the same level. There may be a communication barrier for some users, however we feel that good content can come from all walks of life and we would be missing out on a lot of creative content (now or in the future) if we rejected these users. The situation is actually very complex and requires a lot of planning and thought. Originally we did not allow users to post comments and reviews in any language other than English. But then we started to see a spike in traffic from around the world and the global demand has risen dramatically. So now the question is... how do we make this work so everyone can appreciate and enjoy what the service has to offer. We have a few ideas in mind to help curate content by language. Now when you view the details page it will display what language it was developed in. So when someone creates a mod, for example an Audio mod in Japanese, Korean, or Chinese they can select the appropriate language. We can then allow users to browse content based on language as well. Even still, when it comes to languages there is a lot of work involved and it will take time to really perfection this feature. But we want to do our best to make GameMaps enjoyed around the world and bring all the gamers together. As of right now the GameMaps platform is still English only however we have thought about providing settings to change the language in the future. Let's see how things go, in the meantime we have no intent to ban or revoke non-native english speaking users and we would much rather try and see how we can unify them within the community. Efficiently of course. --------------------- 3. We are definitely aware of the constant bickering going on between a vast amount of users and without a doubt we are looking at ways to mediate and reduce this type of behavior. This is also a fairly complex situation however it's definitely an area which has lots of room for improvement. We released the Social Bans feature which has definitely helped silence unwanted users from posting comments on your mods, but there is still a lot more than can be done. This is also a fairly complex situation that will require a range of adjustments... From the platforms front-end design, to the automated backend detection and lastly oversight from our staff / moderators. When it comes to human behavior there is no 'off switch' that just simply fixes the problem which is what makes it a little more complex. There are definitely ways to detour abuse, report abuse, monitor abuse and ban/silence users. We want to do this in a way that provides a equal opportunity for everyone to voice their opinion without being scrutinized. As i've mentioned there are many things we can do to improve this situation and we are definitely building our social framework with this in mind. The first focus is to detour abuse to reduce the likeliness of it happening to begin with, then follow up with automated actions, community reporting, temporary restrictions and then last but not least, staff actions. We appreciate your patience on this matter as we have not been able to focus our development efforts on the old website. So moving forward with the beta is where our changes and improvements will shine and be implemented. ----------------- I hope this answers your questions / concerns and we look forward to tackling each of these situations with care. Appreciate the feedback. Regards, iLL
I already sent you my concerns privately. At this time they're my only concerns. Please respect the requests of original authors when they find their content modified/redistributed. If I explain a troublesome history of a certain project and inform you it has a new team, please respect it. That being said, you and Rayman should reference my past messages. Speaking of Rayman, please allow him to continue doing his moderating duties and trust his judgment. As we've removed the old reporting feature long ago from the "l4dmaps" days... we are now limited. I've had to use the old contact form, private messages, offline Steam messages... And if you're never around it jut leaves Ray... There is no other "team" although you've mentioned there is one. What are we supposed to do when we're victims of theft or harassment? The most common more concerning issues are trolls... harassment or theft. Like I said I already sent you private messages about it and Rayman might still have the same. I hate to name shame or name drop but "Huck" for example, whatever account he's on, needs to go. I once informed Rayman about harassment from Huck he brought over from the Steam community to here. I sent him a screenshot from a duplicate account he was on. But his main "Herbius" account still remains although most of the uploads were abandoned. I've been informed by mutual friends that this 50 something year old man has some mental issues. I really feel it's best he's removed from this community along with the others I informed you and Ray of. But perhaps more serious matters are best kept to private messages. Just know you have a lot more to improve upon here than you might think and you and Ray can't do it alone. And even if you consider bringing on new moderators or administrators you should take it very seriously. Any new "team" members need to be people you all actually have known and seen around here for a long time. Well rounded and respected and reputable members without a troublesome track record. Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, I'd start by removing the most common users I've contacted you and Ray about. And don't allow re-uploads of content that already exists including what I've already contacted you and Ray about. We don't need multiple versions of the same thing for reasons that should be obvious. Bad enough the Steam workshop is bloated with it because they have the same problems as here. However, at least with here, I see there might still be a chance. Listen to your users, your long term standing ones such as myself. Heck I'd be surprised if you even remember I used to work for you before and we both used to be on Steam.
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Following up to Alfred's comment, I would have to agree. Enforce a universally accepted language. And something definitely needs done about harassment. That guest feature is nothing but abused. At the least disable it by default.
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And if it'd help I'd be more than happy to continue keeping screenshots of abuse. Again, Ray has seen most if not all examples from just me alone. All you'd need to do is spend time in the Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 sections.
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As if it wasn't already obvious on all sides here... you want help... start by listening to your users. And learn from your mistakes... as there have certainly been plenty. Removal of the reporting feature was one. Perhaps even the addition of guest posting (at least enabled by default if it is). Maybe even the whole review feature as well... as constructive criticism and feedback can happen without.
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Oh, one more random thing. If comments are removed, most of the time it's probably for a reason and not abuse. Why do we need to have that notice "message removed by whoever"... I don't really see any point to it... And a bit of a related note, deleting reviews should be possible if we're going to keep reviews. Sometimes reviews are also abused same as comments. I personally have encountered unfortunate drama from users who I feel can't review properly. All because we clearly disagree in how to define a "review" and what a review should be. Ultimately I feel they should just go entirely, leave the feedback and criticism to comments. People will just continue abusing reviews to gain unfair popularity. This has already happened with what's become of Helm's Deep which i already contacted you and Ray about.
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M iLL
Hello Trunten, I understand you have some concerns about certain members, situations and the ability to react to the situations. We have been working on the new GameMaps for a very long time, this is not something that can change and be resolved overnight. There is no quick-fix to the issues you have mentioned. We don't disagree that there is room for improvement in various community driven areas. We are definitely working to resolve and remedy the situation as best as we can with the new release. Much of this takes time and as I've mentioned we cant fix this overnight. Forward looking related updates - The ability to give users warnings. - The ability to restrict ones actions. (privileges) - The ability to restrict users actions for a limited duration. (1 day, 1 week, 1 month) - The ability to revoke publisher privileges from users. (also duration based) - The ability to dispute content in an official manner. (with end-to-end solutions) - The ability to report content or members with a statement. (moderator handling) - The ability for staff, moderators and managers to resolve issues unanimously and anonymously. Forward looking updates (for members) - Dispute resolution area. (Staff mediate the dispute) - Transfer ownership options. - The ability to disown content rights. (allows new ownership claims) - Joint ownership options (debatable, pre-planning) - The ability to disable reviews. (Uses likes system instead) - The ability to purge comments, ratings and reviews. (To purge older version data.) - Developers will also have more control over what data is displayed. In the meantime, without these features in place we can not perform many of the actions needed to appropriately moderate and handle majority of situations. At the current time we have an account ban, that's all. Therefore it is essential that we remain patient because these new features are a integral part of the new GameMaps that will also greatly improve the overall experience. It also makes our jobs easier and more efficient as moderators. I appreciate your patience. Regards, iLL
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Perhaps it would've been best we just continued discussing things in private like before. Let me know if you ever use any other communication methods. With all due respect, I'd rather not download something just for one thing. Again you imply you want to take ownership and privileges seriously. One more time I'd ask you respect my and my team's wishes to remove that other version of Helm's Deep. But I'd rather not get into this argument here... but it's nice to see you might be listening to your users.
Hey thank you for all this infos iLL, I'd like to share a small bug, some comments on my mod have gone missing, it's not a big deal but I thought you needed to know about it, here's a screenshot of the crime scene : https://imgur.com/a/bBPALfG Tank you !)
Hi Bloue, Thank you for reporting the comment bug! Those comments seem to have been missing because they were old style reviews. Those should be fixed and working as well now. Please let us know if you have any further issues or more suggestions!
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any day now we'll respect the wishes of original authors who ask for removal of redistribution/re-uploads... honestly this is one of the biggest problems with this site. I know it's something you can quickly and easily do without the new site. are you seriously going to focus on new design changes when you can still do little things on the old? never used to be a problem for Rayman. why's it so hard to respect my wishes to remove the "Helm's Deep Reborn v16"? the correct, safe, and working version is the one on my account that I was given approval for. or are you not aware of the drama and history of this map that dates as far back as TEN years ago? if so I'll gladly link you to the 40+ minute YouTube video by Jaiz but that shouldn't be necessary. again, one of the biggest issue is delay in communication and response when original owners get involved. I really shouldn't have to bring this up as an example here but this is one problem you should prioritize.
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