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Creator Crisis: It's killing my dreams and creative future
Archive: 126 posts
| **WARNING**: Prepare for a great wall of text. Short version is down at the bottom for all you lazy-poo's. d: Alright, guys... I feel I need to let something out my chest. I'm not sure which of you care or not, but here it goes anyway. This goes out to fellow creators, players and sharers alike... Even to people who don't own the game but enjoy lurking. For the past year(or more) I've been dreaming about LittleBigPlanet, making sketches, drawing monsters, planning out levels, writing out stories, annoying the heck out of my girlfriend and sister, and so on... I've been doing so much related to it. So much dreaming... All those times in my micro-economy class not listening to the professor as I doodled on the back of my notebook, always questioning, "how will I get this door to open?" without having known of switches at all. Funny how I ended up making contraptions that would even replace switches and their functions. So many high hopes and expectations for the game... Were they met? Yes, and surpassed...except for one thing. As you all know(and have heard PLENTY of times before...), the way levels are presented in LittleBigPlanet is flawed. By this, I mean the "Cool Levels" section. So many great and amazing levels often buried beneath the mass of horrid, putrid garbage like the "ramp" level... But, well, you've all heard of this before, I'm sure. That isn't the point of this thread anyway. For the last two to three weeks I have been working on my first level (not counting my Beta level) and have been very happy with the progress. Feedback has been positive from my good friends who have tested it, and the comments they give could only make me happier... It lets me know they care(I think? lol), and it gives me new challenges to overcome. I am only a few rooms away to finishing it... I'm almost there, really... But lately I feel I'm just forcing myself to create the level. It's starting to feel like a chore, turning on my PS3 to boot the game... Going into MyMoon, hitting Edit... Why, you ask? It's simple, really. Right now, my Beta level has over 300 plays and around 100 hearts. Pretty decent, I'd say... a 1:3 ratio. I'm happy with it. The problem is, I didn't invest two weeks of HARD work to only get 300 plays, when other levels out there are getting thousands and thousands of plays, when they are complete garbage. Sad part is, it has NOTHING to do with how the level looks or plays, because even if the person goes "oh, this sucks!" it still adds a number to the total of plays. This is causing me to lose motivation every passing day, wondering if this level will be worth it, wondering if people will bother to play it... and I certainly do not mean you guys. Not our awesome community. I mean the general LBP audience... Don't get me wrong--it brings great enjoyment to see that my friends and fellow community members played my level. I love hearing what they have to say about it, whether it rocks or stinks. They played it!...But, er...not many others did... This next level I'm working on will probably decide if I'll keep Creating or not, maybe decide how often I'll even log onto LBP (the game, not the forums... I come into the forums every single day and will until I die in a helicopter crash or something). Until they change how "Cool Levels" works, I'll probably not be Creating much (or at all). Same goes for the inaccurate "Search" feature. So why am I here typing this? I saw this (https://lbpcentral.lbp-hub.com/index.php?t=t=4298) thread earlier and couldn't help but to frown, seeing a fellow community member and creator going through a similar situation (that's you, Chaz). I felt I had to get this off my chest. And yes, I understand certain events such as our very own "Community Spotlight" is done to help make good levels public, but...even then, TF only got a couple of plays after that first Spotlight. Now, let me make this very, VERY clear to you guys... I am NOT asking you to go play Tekno Fortress and I am NOT asking you to go play my upcoming level whenever it's done. So please, don't get the wrong idea. This isn't an advertisement thread or anything of the sort. Anyway, yeah. Just ranting, I suppose... No real point to it, but still... Thanks for reading. Short version: "Cool Levels" sucks; I'll probably stop Creating thanks to it. | 2008-11-26 06:13:00 Author: aer0blue  Posts: 1603 |
| I agree. I got my platinum, and I refuse to create until theres a better way to plug our levels. | 2008-11-26 06:22:00 Author: Pinkcars  Posts: 380 |
| Saw a level called "Ramp" with over 170,000 plays. Needless to say, it's a terrible level. | 2008-11-26 06:28:00 Author: Tyler  Posts: 663 |
| I am NOT asking you to go play Tekno Fortress ... *goes to play Tekno Fortress*  | 2008-11-26 06:37:00 Author: Unknown User  |
| I agree. I got my platinum, and I refuse to create until theres a better way to plug our levels. I'm sure there will be...eventually. I hope. Saw a level called "Ramp" with over 170,000 plays. Needless to say, it's a terrible level. Oh man, you're telling me. I was completely DUMBSTRUCK when I finished playing it. ... *goes to play Tekno Fortress* I couldn't help but laugh. xD Thank you, though. | 2008-11-26 06:40:00 Author: aer0blue Posts: 1603 |
| Good ol' short version. I agree though, quality levels have like 45 views -_- | 2008-11-26 06:51:00 Author: Stix489  Posts: 2080 |
| haha stix... I read it all. And totally agree - even though i don't get to play LBP much. I'm definatly going to try your levels out, as well as as many levels as possible from this community. It's just hard when i get to play it every other weekend, and am in the middle of creating my level. | 2008-11-26 13:35:00 Author: ryryryan  Posts: 3767 |
| I think there are probably a lot of people feeling the same way. It means nothing to publish user content out to the world if nobody will play it. I'm planning on finishing the full-length level that I'm developing, but the response to it will determine if I decide to make more. It's really sad that I feel like the only plays I got on my score challenge level were from my friends and a few from these forums. It hasn't had a play in weeks. (To top it off, I had to delete it in order to clear out the high scores because someone found an exploit in the beta version and their score was impossible to beat. So I lost all the plays/hearts before that point, too.) Without some improvements, I don't know how long I'll be creating either. If I do, it will be because I want my friends to play it. There seems to be consensus that the community level distribution system is flawed. Why not pull together support for this? I'd sign a petition for that. I think it's a more worthy cause than complaining about a moderation system we don't understand. I summed up what I think should happen in another post, and a lot of people appear to agree with me. Why don't we use it as a starting point? http://www.lbpcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=75060 | 2008-11-26 14:04:00 Author: Risen  Posts: 251 |
| I can understand the sentiment completely. I felt the same way after I spent most of my time pushing for my level to be out before the Beta's end, finally published it after who knows how many lost hours of sleep... only to get a handful of plays over the weekend, and then the beta ended. I was very disappointed. They've kept the exact same system as the beta in all regards, and I had put high hopes that since the beta had been an "old" build the final system would be better. My hopes were dashed. The way the system works, you can only get a significant amount of plays by republishing your level daily, and even then you can only hope to get about 20 plays per day. I've done this and have been satisfied with the results, but it takes time and dedication beyond the time it takes to make the level, and it really shouldn't be necessary. I'm going to continue the republish circus with my future levels, and hope that with a significant number of levels they'll end up promoting each-other. However, things would be a lot simpler for creators if there was a better way to find our levels. Why do we not have an option to see recently added levels? Why do we not have an option to see the levels with the least amount of plays? Why does an uninspired level like 'Ramp' get so many plays and hearts? But mostly, why are we not hearing from MM about these issues!!? These couple of suggestions I've posted are NOT hard to do, but would accomplish a lot already. Okay, I think I've vented enough :hero: | 2008-11-26 14:27:00 Author: Gilgamesh  Posts: 2536 |
| Man I totally feel this thread. I pimped my level so hard I should be wearing a fedora cap and driving a cadillac. It shouldn't be like this, its unfair that the search system is as broken as it is. Media molecule lied to us and let us believe that the searching would be more robust then it is. Does anybody remember this? http://i34.tinypic.com/5n6d05.jpg http://i36.tinypic.com/29gbryh.jpg http://i36.tinypic.com/2j19yxz.jpg This is what the search function was supposed to be like. This is what we were led to believe. This is what ****** me off the most, because the net commercial where those pics aired was to me the defining moment that made me want to buy this game. | 2008-11-26 14:52:00 Author: tyboogie  Posts: 96 |
| I'm with you guys on this one. My only hope is things get fixed with a patch. Would be pretty sad if LBP failed in the end because there wasn't a way to get the quality content we all so badly desire. LBP hasn't even been out worldwide for a month yet; there's still time to fix the broken system. Let's just hope they do. My advice to all of your frustrated creators is to - very bluntly - take a break from the creating side. Come here and stay in the loop as things change. There's no reason to burn yourself out now when it might get better just as soon as you've lost all hope. Just my opinion. | 2008-11-26 15:12:00 Author: supersickie  Posts: 1366 |
| I'm with you guys on this one. My only hope is things get fixed with a patch. Would be pretty sad if LBP failed in the end because there wasn't a way to get the quality content we all so badly desire. LBP hasn't even been out worldwide for a month yet; there's still time to fix the broken system. Let's just hope they do. its gonna happpen later rather then sooner  . Heres the official word from one of the developershttp://forums.littlebigworkshop.com/lbp/board/message?board.id=pod&view=by_date_ascending&message.id=8656#M8656 First, we're aware that it's not working as well as people would like right now, however currently there are no firm plans to update it. This does not mean that there will never be any change to search (if that ends up being the likelihood, we'll let you know) just that at present the team are working on other aspects of the game, so changes to search aren't being discussed. Both Media Molecule and SCE are committed to supporting the game and over the coming months there will be plenty of updates to make the experience more enjoyable, but for the time being there are no plans for redeveloping the way search works. | 2008-11-26 15:47:00 Author: tyboogie Posts: 96 |
| three words.... Amen my brother! | 2008-11-26 16:22:00 Author: Unknown User |
| I hear you I published a level less than a week ago and only have 300 plays and around 4 hearts....after I republished like 6 times. Know I know my level isnt the greatest thing out their, but it took alot of time and if anything it at least looks really good. It sure as heck deserves more attention than "Ramp" =__= | 2008-11-26 17:40:00 Author: PsychoticMarik Posts: 12 |
| I hear you I published a level less than a week ago and only have 300 plays and around 4 hearts....after I republished like 6 times. Know I know my level isnt the greatest thing out their, but it took alot of time and if anything it at least looks really good. It sure as heck deserves more attention than "Ramp" =__= DUDE! Ramp is the best level EVER!!!! They should put a level like that in God of War! or Killzone2! or Rockband2!!!!! lmao!  what a waste of resources that is!!!! | 2008-11-26 17:46:00 Author: Unknown User |
| solution to pointless levels -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- as u are awear there are rubblish/pointless levels like ramp, my solution to get the of the cool levels is to report them because they are like spam and are not levels, if they get reported enough it will get taken down, it sad but the only way to get rid of them, my other idea is to have different catagories of cool level, like Cool Story levels, Cool mini games, Cool fun games, Cool platforming, basically all the rubbish level will be in fun, and so on, this way is nicer but goin to be hard on MM, so i would rather report to teach them a lession i did make a thread about it but i got closed, because there was thread like which i knew but none of them talking about how to solve the problem, they are taking about it like this one | 2008-11-26 17:55:00 Author: panzer3000 Posts: 362 |
| I don't think griefing the rubbish levels will accomplish anything other than make us seem petty. The fact of the matter is that the popularity of rubbish levels is a symptom of the bigger problem. The bigger problem is that good levels are not getting the amount of exposure they deserve, while the rubbish levels are getting exposure they don't deserve, but getting rid of all the rubbish levels will not change this problem. The system itself needs to be changed so that good levels actually get a better chance to be found and played. Unfortunately, this is not something we can change ourselves, MM must change it. | 2008-11-26 18:17:00 Author: Gilgamesh Posts: 2536 |
| how about the other solution of making different catagories of cool levels any toher sujestions, i was think of greifing them because if player relise that people down what those rubbish levels they weill stop making them or publish them, | 2008-11-26 18:23:00 Author: panzer3000 Posts: 362 |
| I couldn't agree more. I have invested many hours into my levels, and now I only feel that to get a decent amount of plays and hearts* I have to create a god-awful excuse of a trophy level, then plug every forum I know with "Plz plz plz plz heart and rate!!" Its almost as if Mm and Sony are rewarding bad level design and promotion. *By this, I'm not being big headed about the quality of my levels, but its sure better than ramp I can assure you! | 2008-11-26 18:26:00 Author: floor3013  Posts: 287 |
| Well, I don't know what else to say, really. Obviously I agree with the majority of you. Might just go ahead and follow supersickie's advice after I publish my current level. Man I totally feel this thread. I pimped my level so hard I should be wearing a fedora cap and driving a cadillac. It shouldn't be like this, its unfair that the search system is as broken as it is. Media molecule lied to us and let us believe that the searching would be more robust then it is. Does anybody remember this? http://i34.tinypic.com/5n6d05.jpg http://i36.tinypic.com/29gbryh.jpg http://i36.tinypic.com/2j19yxz.jpg This is what the search function was supposed to be like. This is what we were led to believe. This is what ****** me off the most, because the net commercial where those pics aired was to me the defining moment that made me want to buy this game. Oh, if it had only been that way... | 2008-11-26 19:10:00 Author: aer0blue Posts: 1603 |
| I feel the same way, I'm not going to spend another 2 weeks building a level thats just going to be played by a small amount of people. | 2008-11-26 19:48:00 Author: Rabid-Coot  Posts: 6728 |
| I know it's ridiculous. Every time I to Cool levels that Ninja Warrior, over-hyped, piece of crap is looking at me! | 2008-11-26 21:16:00 Author: Killian  Posts: 2575 |
| This is the number one complaint for 99% of all lbp players. Finding anything decent or getting your 100+ hour level played is insanely difficult. The whole "good levels will float to the top" concept is a joke. Anything on the front 5 pages will always get the most plays as long as new people log online. "Whoa, ramp!!! 904754545 plays! MUST BE GOOD!" This is insane and a direct insult to anyone willing to put time and effort into their level. It's also a very poor presentation for anyone new to the game. They login, get online, and see crap like ramp [forgive me if the creator is here, doubt it]. If people cannot find the good levels they're not going to play this game very long. Short of spider linking through hearted authors hearted pages [very youtube] we're never going to find anything worth playing. I look at the levels I find randomly online and then I compare them to what I see you guys creating and then get ******. Then I read a post by Sam Protagonist. Apparently they're not even working on the cool level pages or search function. I know MM is a small dev studio and there are many things the fans want like co-create, moderation fixes/explanations, but doesn't Sony have a boat load of money? Hire some guys to setup a better database.. Arg. A rant reply for a much better rant post. It's pretty bad when you see your hearted authors annoyed and not willing to work. That's right. Work. This is work and fun twisted into some sort of awesome nightmare. | 2008-11-26 21:26:00 Author: docpac  Posts: 601 |
| YES. I totally agree with you. The 'Cool' Levels system needs A LOT of work, but I'm sure Mm are willing to put that work in. | 2008-11-26 21:28:00 Author: mongoose7  Posts: 473 |
| This is the number one complaint for 99% of all lbp players. Finding anything decent or getting your 100+ hour level played is insanely difficult. The whole "good levels will float to the top" concept is a joke. Anything on the front 5 pages will always get the most plays as long as new people log online. "Whoa, ramp!!! 904754545 plays! MUST BE GOOD!" This is insane and a direct insult to anyone willing to put time and effort into their level. It's also a very poor presentation for anyone new to the game. They login, get online, and see crap like ramp [forgive me if the creator is here, doubt it]. If people cannot find the good levels they're not going to play this game very long. Short of spider linking through hearted authors hearted pages [very youtube] we're never going to find anything worth playing. I look at the levels I find randomly online and then I compare them to what I see you guys creating and then get ******. Then I read a post by Sam Protagonist. Apparently they're not even working on the cool level pages or search function. I know MM is a small dev studio and there are many things the fans want like co-create, moderation fixes/explanations, but doesn't Sony have a boat load of money? Hire some guys to setup a better database.. Arg. A rant reply for a much better rant post. It's pretty bad when you see your hearted authors annoyed and not willing to work. That's right. Work. This is work and fun twisted into some sort of awesome nightmare. had to add to your rep for that post. Well played sir! | 2008-11-26 21:29:00 Author: tyboogie Posts: 96 |
| Man I totally feel this thread. I pimped my level so hard I should be wearing a fedora cap and driving a cadillac. It shouldn't be like this, its unfair that the search system is as broken as it is. Media molecule lied to us and let us believe that the searching would be more robust then it is. Does anybody remember this? http://i34.tinypic.com/5n6d05.jpg http://i36.tinypic.com/29gbryh.jpg http://i36.tinypic.com/2j19yxz.jpg This is what the search function was supposed to be like. This is what we were led to believe. This is what ****** me off the most, because the net commercial where those pics aired was to me the defining moment that made me want to buy this game. Omg, dude this is the exact reason why I sold my Xbox 360 and bought a PS3, that video where they showed how the search engine would be was how I wanted it, that's what made me buy a PS3, sell my Xbox 360, and buy LBP. I haven't played LBP in about 2 weeks now because of this exact reason... I'm sorry but until they fix the search engine ( if they ever do according to a recent post ) I'm not going to play LBP as much as I had wished ( every day lol ) I just quit making my level too because I knew that it wouldn't get the hearts and plays it rightfully deserves. I'm really ****** off guys, and what ****** me off more is that they might never fix it. Yes I know I haven't been on the forums in a while, that's because my computer wasn't working but still, I definately agree with everyone on the forums and I think that this should be first priority. Ah, the good ol' days when I still thought the search engine was going to be that awesome... | 2008-11-26 21:34:00 Author: Whalio Cappuccino  Posts: 5250 |
| Seems a lot of people share my sentiments too. I guess all we can really do is complain as loud as we can and hope that MM take notice. | 2008-11-29 12:43:00 Author: UmJammerSully  Posts: 1097 |
| The biggest problem to me seems to be that levels don't fall away from the top spots with age. A level with loads of plays and a high rating will always remain at the top indefinitely. This is a problem because those original highly-rated levels are basically staying put, continuing to get plays and ratings simply because of where they are. The simplest solution to me would be to introduce a time mechanic, so if a level doesn't consistently get high ratings it'll still fall down the pile even if it's receiving many plays. Thus, as time goes on and players grow less accepting of absolute **** they won't rate the levels well and they'll soon fall into oblivion ? even if they once had high ratings and lots of views. With this system, great levels like Azure Palace will remain high because people will continue to play it and continue to rate it high. However, TROPHY HUNTER 2008 will become tiresome to 99% of players after a while and they'll no longer rate it well after playing it, resulting in it sliding down the ranks and subsequently also being played less. Heck, perhaps something similar to what I describe is actually in place and it just needs more time for its effects to be noticeable. | 2008-11-30 02:27:00 Author: Ryan Williams Posts: 11 |
| Saw a level called "Ramp" with over 170,000 plays. Needless to say, it's a terrible level. Gos that level is AWFUL! I played it this morning, the turbo boost isn't even stuck onto the skatebaord and my Skateboard kept flying around and then landing upside down therefore disintergrating. MM should remove levels like this and not amazing levels that just might be based on another film or game. | 2008-11-30 12:56:00 Author: Plasmavore  Posts: 1913 |
| I totally agree with you mate. I will probably one more level, and make it 'Easymode' to see if it gets more plays but I was really happy with 'Fortress of the Teeny Tiny Electric Death Crabs' when I published it. It was never supposed to be an easy level it was supposed to be a real challenge and although it didn't look the greatest (although it was supposed to look shonky), I playtested it to absolute death. It requires pixel perfect execution at some points to get through, and although hard, it is never unfair. Indeed unless I could Ace it myself it wouldn't get published. Now its been online for a while and has a pitiful amount of plays, with some derogatory comments against it. But it has a 1:3 ratio of hearts and a 6/10 review on Kit07's blog. Out of 50 odd plays only 4 people have ever completed it and I am the only one who has aced it. So I was again really happy it was challenging enough. I'm not interested in making levels that people can play through in 5 minutes and ace on the first attempt, I'm interested in making it a challenge. However people aren't interested in challenging levels, won't play them and won't heart them either. Ipso facto, I'm going to make a 'Paris Hilton' level, pretty but oh so easy. Then I'm going to give up because people aren't interested in the level I want to make. That is hard challenging levels. Its also totally disheartening to see the first 6 pages filled with trophy levels, and levels that are so poorly constructed you can't finish them (GLUE THINGS DOWN PEOPLE), or are broken in such a way that you fall through them and have to try again. Someone said " Hell is other people" In LBP "Hell is other peoples levels" | 2008-12-01 15:25:00 Author: Piratepete  Posts: 110 |
| I agree. I haven't played LBP in over 4 weeks because the most popular levels are so bad. The rating system is so clearly broken. I was so excited about this game but its been a huge let down. - Broken search and rating system - Cannot import images from hard drive - Cannot import sounds from hard drive - No paint tool I'll probably check for updates every few weeks to see if these issues have been fixed but until then I'm not playing LBP. | 2008-12-01 22:03:00 Author: mhdsummers Posts: 1 |
| The biggest problem to me seems to be that levels don't fall away from the top spots with age. A level with loads of plays and a high rating will always remain at the top indefinitely. This is a problem because those original highly-rated levels are basically staying put, continuing to get plays and ratings simply because of where they are. The simplest solution to me would be to introduce a time mechanic, so if a level doesn't consistently get high ratings it'll still fall down the pile even if it's receiving many plays. Thus, as time goes on and players grow less accepting of absolute **** they won't rate the levels well and they'll soon fall into oblivion ? even if they once had high ratings and lots of views. With this system, great levels like Azure Palace will remain high because people will continue to play it and continue to rate it high. However, TROPHY HUNTER 2008 will become tiresome to 99% of players after a while and they'll no longer rate it well after playing it, resulting in it sliding down the ranks and subsequently also being played less. Heck, perhaps something similar to what I describe is actually in place and it just needs more time for its effects to be noticeable. Well that wouldn't work either. Think about it, there is a limit to how many levels can be seen on the cool pages. As soon as we have a few pages of decent levels that are constantly being hearted and played, we will never see anything new again because they'll continuosly stay at the top. I think that even if it's the most amazing level anyone could possibly hope for, it should still have it's "time in the sun" and then fade away. | 2008-12-01 22:55:00 Author: UmJammerSully Posts: 1097 |
| Just keep republishing your level. My stupid joke level that I made because I was bored got around 200 plays because of this. Cheap I know, but until they fix the Cool Levels feature, that's the only way to get your levels noticed. *edit* Hm, I've had a brainwave. I don't think Media Molecule will ever update the search feature, or the 'Cool Levels' page. You remember that little spec of leaks and speculation introduced to us in the distant horizon a couple of days ago? You've gotta know what I'm talking about. | 2008-12-02 09:54:00 Author: Unknown User |
| what leak? am i missing something? I was thinking of making this awsome cool race level where everything blows up while your racing in a straight line on a cheetah, i should get alot of hearts -end sarcasm.  and yes the cool level system sucks | 2008-12-03 01:43:00 Author: BinkTGH Posts: 15 |
| I don't think Media Molecule will ever update the search feature http://blog.us.playstation.com/2008/12/02/sack-it-to-meweekly-answers-to-the-lbp-communitys-questions/ "Now that the servers are stable, we?ll continue to improve the ?Share? experience. We?ve heard your requests to get better search functionality to find levels and getting the PLAY, CREATE, SHARE stats up and running on the Info Moon and have put this on the top of our list. So stay tuned for a few announcements" | 2008-12-03 02:12:00 Author: UmJammerSully Posts: 1097 |
| For updating the cool levels... Maybe select a few random levels (10-20) Every week or few days to just be put on the front page. (In addition to all of the newly (spelling on that?) published levels like normal). The random levels that are selected will replace some of the other ones that have gotten a lot of visits, and these levels will get pushed back to page 2. Levels that are forced off page 2 because of this go on page 3, etc. As for selecting these random levels, maybe it should do a plays to heart ratio? (only if they have more than 50 plays?) I don't know, just brainstorming, but anyone else have any ideas? | 2008-12-03 02:52:00 Author: GangsterGarfield  Posts: 63 |
| Well that wouldn't work either. Think about it, there is a limit to how many levels can be seen on the cool pages. As soon as we have a few pages of decent levels that are constantly being hearted and played, we will never see anything new again because they'll continuosly stay at the top. I think that even if it's the most amazing level anyone could possibly hope for, it should still have it's "time in the sun" and then fade away. Perhaps an additional mechanic could be that levels require increasingly more ratings as time goes on, meaning that if they don't continue to be highly rated at a high rate they'll fall with time. This will work with the natural tendency for people to not play those front page levels as much because they've already seen them. Anyway, I guess we'll see what's going on soon enough. As the guy above mentioned, Sony made a big post about various things today: http://blog.us.playstation.com/2008/12/02/sack-it-to-meweekly-answers-to-the-lbp-communitys-questions/ Part of which concerns the search tool being improved. I don't know why some people here are so cynical, saying stuff like MM are never going to add much to LBP and save it all for a mythical sequel, they'll never update features such as search, etc. They've shown every sign of listening to the community and trying to address isues thus far, as well as communicating well with the community! | 2008-12-03 13:36:00 Author: Ryan Williams Posts: 11 |
| Hmmm... I've suggested this theory in the past, let me suggest it again. There was a time when LBP was in Beta. A few people got a chance to get hands on with the creation tools. The complexity of learning that you need to make complex system is quite high... learning dissolve/magnetic key switch sets, for example, is not clearly explained and takes a lot of logic and planning to implement well. Then there was a time when LBP was released to the general public. Anyone could create anything, though those fresh from the Beta would be able to get more complex systems set up faster. But initially, there were two things driving content in create mode.... The first are the so called "trophy levels". Trophies are/were new to the PS3 at the time, and LBP was one of the first fully fledged games to implement trophies. Some of them were very easy to create levels that just got you the trophies. Those that worked this out made quick levels, and due to a combination of the "new" trophy system and being the first out on the block, the ones that worked became popular quickly. Everyone wanted the trophies, everyone wanted to try creating content, everyone wanted to play new content. Put all this together and you get an initial dominance of the trophy levels. The second thing that drove create mode was easy content. Simple sled rides, simple spring jumps, nothing too complex. Use some basic stickers to make it not look absolutely terrible, release it very quickly after launch, and even if it was a little bit buggy, people would play it as it was new and interesting. So these sorts of levels rose very quickly to the top. People played them, did not know any better, recommended them to other people... and others saw the huge hit numbers and thought they must be good. Meanwhile, serious creators, both beta users but especially new ones, took time building quality stuff. A good, serious, pretty much bug free and complete level can easily take 20-100 hours to create, even more. But... Because it took so long to make quality stuff, when these proper levels came out, well, think of it like this. You buy LBP a month after the release. Enough time for both serious creators and rubbish creators, to use other people's terms, to release their stuff. Your still trying to figure out create mode, still watching the tutorial levels. You haven't finished the story mode, but might be a few chapters in. So you go online to the cool levels function. That should have all the good ones, right? You see a page of levels. One has 1,000 plays, the other 10. You won't necessarily think of the hearts to played ratio. You might look at the hearts number... and see 100 hearts for the 1,000 level, and 3 hearts for the 10 level. Now... which one would you play? How would you know the difference between levels apart from those numbers?  Over time I do hope they either improve the cool levels function. Maybe given enough time rubbish will sink and excellence will rise... but, well, at the moment it's unlikely I fear. :o Sure, you might have spent 100 building your level. But I am sure there are others as well who have done the same. What's the difference between yours and the next guys? Maybe, maybe they could take the drastic action of completely resetting the hearts and numbers played count. Maybe even go so far as wiping out people's record of what they have hearted. For at the moment you might play a trophy level and think it's good, but a month later you would have changed your mind, but you never bother to remove your heart. I know it's a drastic thought, but I can't see any other way to fix the situation. TLDR: Reset all hearts and played counts for all levels. That should put levels that have 2 hours of development on equal footing with those with 200 hours. | 2008-12-03 14:55:00 Author: Elbee23  Posts: 1280 |
| I guess I am strange because I don't make levels to have thousands of views. I make levels for you guys. As long as you all play and appreciate them, I'm sure I'll be making levels. Would I rather have thousands of plays? Of course, but I can live with 200. | 2008-12-03 15:04:00 Author: Voltiare  Posts: 646 |
| That's a pretty thorough analysis Elbee23, looks like you nailed the situation on its head Unfortunately, I have to disagree about the benefits of resetting the heart and plays counters. The problem would still remain that levels on the first page of Cool Levels (whether they be good or bad) will stay there forever, and that gives all future good levels no time in the spotlight (even if they're better!). It would be the same situation we have now, except instead of having 'Ramp' on the first page, we'd have the Azure Palace and the current cream of the crop levels instead. This seems like an improvement at first glance, but then you have to consider that even if those level's creators make a new level that's 100 times more amazing than the one there... it STILL won't make it to the first page, so we'll be stuck with those old levels forever, while the newer levels never get any plays. And Voltiare, I don't mind not being on the first levels or having thousands of plays myself either. Sure it would rock, but I don't let it bring me down as long as I get positive feedback from the people that have played my levels. What I DO realize though is that having the same levels on the Cool Levels all the time is ultimately detrimental to the LBP community. We can all learn from the techniques and ideas found in other creator's levels and this allows us to become better creators ourselves. If we are always presented with the same old levels, we can never learn whatever new technique someone may have devised, or ways to make our levels more enjoyable for everyone. The more people see what can be done with LBP, the more they'll be able to push the boundaries further. What would our society be like today if each of us had to individually reinvent the wheel? For this I say, I want my levels and every deserving level to get more exposure than they get now. Not for popularity's sake, but for the sake of exposing the masses to what we can do, so that they can do better and amaze us in turn. I'm Gilgamesh, and I approve of this message TL;DR : Wow, I wrote more than I expected... in short, the more people are exposed to the good, new levels, the better for the overall community. | 2008-12-03 15:34:00 Author: Gilgamesh Posts: 2536 |
| ... *goes to play Tekno Fortress* lol after he said that I just needed to play it too and i have to play ramp... i want to know know how stupid it is. | 2008-12-03 15:56:00 Author: Yarbone  Posts: 3036 |
| [...]and i have to play ramp... i want to know know how stupid it is. No matter what you expect it to be, you will be disappointed. That's really all that 'Ramp' is Experience it once, and then ask yourself why you even bothered. | 2008-12-03 16:10:00 Author: Gilgamesh Posts: 2536 |
| If you're dismayed with the share function, create your levels and refrain from publishing them for now. If you're working on a big multi-level project, finish it all the way and publish it then. Hopefully by then the share system is better than it is currently. Also, releasing a finished multi-level project at once is going to get a lot of attention. But yeah, I agree, the level search system is absolutely horrible as it is. It's strange how the online functions in PS3 games are always so horrible. PC games have made decent lobby systems for over a decade - it's not that hard! | 2008-12-03 17:03:00 Author: Linque  Posts: 607 |
| I demand a random-function, that you are random connected to any level. Don't know if anybody already said this | 2008-12-03 19:20:00 Author: Unknown User |
| Well, seems I'm done. Guess I'll take a break for now. Thanks for keeping an intelligent discussion, guys. I don't know if Sony or Media Molecule will listen to those suggestions, but a lot of them seem to be way, way better than what we have now. Oh, and thanks for taking a moment to read the post...if um...you did read the long version, I mean. | 2008-12-04 05:47:00 Author: aer0blue Posts: 1603 |
| Even to people who don't own the game but enjoy lurking. wow you summed me up....... but yea i agree =P | 2008-12-04 08:09:00 Author: Thee-Flash  Posts: 3154 |
| Man I totally feel this thread. I pimped my level so hard I should be wearing a fedora cap and driving a cadillac. It shouldn't be like this, its unfair that the search system is as broken as it is. Media molecule lied to us and let us believe that the searching would be more robust then it is. Does anybody remember this? http://i34.tinypic.com/5n6d05.jpg http://i36.tinypic.com/29gbryh.jpg http://i36.tinypic.com/2j19yxz.jpg This is what the search function was supposed to be like. This is what we were led to believe. This is what ****** me off the most, because the net commercial where those pics aired was to me the defining moment that made me want to buy this game. Wow, same here. That was the trailer that made me think: "Okay, this is really awesome". Not that LBP isn't awesome (I love it <3), but it's kind of sad that they led us on like that. *sigh* I wish we had that search feature. | 2008-12-04 11:25:00 Author: Unknown User |
| That's a pretty thorough analysis Elbee23, looks like you nailed the situation on its head Unfortunately, I have to disagree about the benefits of resetting the heart and plays counters. The problem would still remain that levels on the first page of Cool Levels (whether they be good or bad) will stay there forever, and that gives all future good levels no time in the spotlight (even if they're better!). It would be the same situation we have now, except instead of having 'Ramp' on the first page, we'd have the Azure Palace and the current cream of the crop levels instead. This seems like an improvement at first glance, but then you have to consider that even if those level's creators make a new level that's 100 times more amazing than the one there... it STILL won't make it to the first page, so we'll be stuck with those old levels forever, while the newer levels never get any plays. That's a good point Gilgamesh. There must be some way to balance things out or rejiggle the system, balancing between good levels and new levels. I don't know an easy answer to that problem though. I do hope that MM will think more about this issue though. Ultimately we will have to wait and see. | 2008-12-04 14:26:00 Author: Elbee23 Posts: 1280 |
| I think this is an issue that most of us into the game can certainly appreciate. I put out my first level maybe 2 weeks ago? "Ampere Cave: Trials" Im no artist, so parts of it arent particularly pretty to look at, but I put a bazillion hours into it, half of which was testing, and created a boss based on all the shmups I play (which fell apart at one point due to the stupid "glue" bug, adding another couple hours of me yelling at the screen to the process). It has currently gotten 100 plays, 8 or 9 hearts, I think, when I last looked (yesterday). Now, granted, I wasnt expecting it to be considered the best thing ever..... I wanted something difficult enough to challenge myself, specifically..... and apparantly this means that many players find it insanely hard. (Nobody but me has managed to kill the boss yet, though it IS entirely fair....). So I didnt go into it expecting a bazillion hearts. I wanted my first level to really be something for me, and a chance to really learn what the game engine can do (which is apparantly everything). Actually I've gotten a good amount of positive feedback from it, but that's beside the point. What really irks me is that "100 plays" part. I'd like MORE feedback, but I cant very well get that if it isnt even getting selected by people! Even the positive tags put up for it by those who've tried it isnt helping. I keep republishing, too, as was suggested by someone on this board (moving it to a different location, specifically) but it isnt helping. And I very quickly realized that just because a level has 1903757 plays, doesnt mean it's ANY GOOD AT ALL. In all, very few of the gazillion-plays-and-hearts levels I've seen were anything I considered worth it. Making this worse, many of those I found of that type that DESERVED it, got taken down by the mods.... This system really does need to be fixed, but I sure as heck aint letting it stop me, I'll say that much. Whole game is just too dang awesome for that.... | 2008-12-05 07:58:00 Author: Bridget  Posts: 334 |
| Ok, I hadnt noticed till now, but there seems to be only 9 pages in the "Cool Levels" section..... This brings up the interesting question of where the heck all of the other bazillions of stages are? Am I missing something? Dont tell me they expect me to use that crappy search...... | 2008-12-05 09:42:00 Author: Bridget Posts: 334 |
| Ok, I hadnt noticed till now, but there seems to be only 9 pages in the "Cool Levels" section..... This brings up the interesting question of where the heck all of the other bazillions of stages are? Am I missing something? Dont tell me they expect me to use that crappy search...... You can go past 9, you have to wait for the current batch of levels to finish loading their description and icons. But yes, I do think the idea is that the seach feature was supposed to work... | 2008-12-05 11:12:00 Author: Gilgamesh Posts: 2536 |
| I completely agree with the basic sentiments being expressed in this thread. It's absolutely mind boggling to me that they so badly neglected one third of the game design. Play, Create, SHARE. Time and time again in interviews they stressed how carefully they were working on making sure the level sorting features would be good. The screens from that Share trailer posted earlier in this thread prove that they knew the kinds of things we needed. Even in the beta, when everyone kept saying how bad the search was they kept stressing that it was an early build and we should just wait for the final. Now we're over a month away from launch and they're still stringing us along, Sam posted in a thread over at the Workshop that we shouldn't expect anything soon because they're 'making sure they get things right'. Shouldn't they have made sure they got things right BEFORE the game launched? BEFORE we all spent sixty dollars on it. Don't get me wrong. I love LBP. I just finished my level Dr. Mattavious vs The Ice-cream Machine and I had a blast working on it. I don't know how good it is really, and I don't know how well people are going to like it, but I don't care because I had so much fun making it. And I guess this brings me around to my next point, this thing is supposed to be fun. I hear you guys stressing out about plays and hearts and how you're going to quit the game because not enough people saw your stuff and I can't help but roll my eyes a little bit. So the cool levels and search are broken, well, so what? You only got a 100 plays or 200 hearts or whatever...give me a break. That's great. I can only hope my level gets up as high as some of the stuff you guys are complaining about. The fact is, even with the greatest sorting and search engine in the world good stuff is going to go unnoticed quite often. It just will. How many levels total have been posted so far? Over 100,000 isn't it? No sorting system in the whole universe could give every one of those levels the attention they deserve...be it less or more than they get. Look everywhere else driven by user content, blogs, websites, video sites and you'll see the same thing happen. Even search engines driven by Google don't stop this from happening. Anytime you have tons of content, stuff is going to get lost in the shuffle. Again, MM had better fix what is there, but some of you guys sound like you're expecting a miracle that is going to magically catapult your level to 1,000's of plays. And it might happen, but it might not. Even when the fixed search comes out some of you are going to have to face the fact that you are just one out millions and that the level you spent hours and hours working on is not necessarily above average. This might sound horribly depressing, but my point is that it isn't worth worrying about. If your main reason for creating a level is to compete in a popularity contest...well, frankly I think you're missing the whole point: fun! Anyone who stops making levels because of all this search and sorting stuff is just being plain silly. Whew...it actually feels good to get all that off my chest. I hope nobody takes what I wrote the wrong way. | 2008-12-09 22:52:00 Author: Unknown User |
| Hmm. Features. A lot of obvious ones out there. But I think I've got some that haven't been talked about really. Random. It would be cool to be able to go to a random level. Then again, how long would it take to randomly choose one from millions of level. I still would like to see a random level feature though. Playlists. Well, for right now, we enter a level, and when we're done, we go back to the Pod. I think it would be cool to be able to select about up to ten levels, and then you could choose when to start them (think Guitar Hero World Tour style, where you choose a list of songs, and each one plays after the next). And like GH, you could choose to skip or replay a level in the playlist. When you reach the scoreboard (or died), you'd be shown your score, and then you'd be given the options to replay the level or move onto the next level in your playlist (with levels without ending scoreboards, that's when the skip option would be handy). Cool, no? | 2008-12-09 23:04:00 Author: Unknown User |
| Hmm. Features. A lot of obvious ones out there. But I think I've got some that haven't been talked about really. Random. It would be cool to be able to go to a random level. Then again, how long would it take to randomly choose one from millions of level. I still would like to see a random level feature though. Playlists. Well, for right now, we enter a level, and when we're done, we go back to the Pod. I think it would be cool to be able to select about up to ten levels, and then you could choose when to start them (think Guitar Hero World Tour style, where you choose a list of songs, and each one plays after the next). And like GH, you could choose to skip or replay a level in the playlist. When you reach the scoreboard (or died), you'd be shown your score, and then you'd be given the options to replay the level or move onto the next level in your playlist (with levels without ending scoreboards, that's when the skip option would be handy). Cool, no? I like both those ideas very much | 2008-12-09 23:06:00 Author: dorien  Posts: 2767 |
| Maybe if you have the PSN of your favorite developer you can view his or her playlist... Maybe they have some pretty great levels in there... eventually this playlist could become the new "RAMP"! We all aspire to be as great as "RAMP" Also could be updated. So if you can't find what to play you look to that playlist of whoever and check out some unheard of levels that are good. Sorry if some one posted this already. ( I know someone talked about the playlist ) | 2008-12-09 23:22:00 Author: PhatCakes Posts: 22 |
| I completely agree with the basic sentiments being expressed in this thread. It's absolutely mind boggling to me that they so badly neglected one third of the game design. Play, Create, SHARE. Time and time again in interviews they stressed how carefully they were working on making sure the level sorting features would be good. The screens from that Share trailer posted earlier in this thread prove that they knew the kinds of things we needed. Even in the beta, when everyone kept saying how bad the search was they kept stressing that it was an early build and we should just wait for the final. Now we're over a month away from launch and they're still stringing us along, Sam posted in a thread over at the Workshop that we shouldn't expect anything soon because they're 'making sure they get things right'. Shouldn't they have made sure they got things right BEFORE the game launched? BEFORE we all spent sixty dollars on it. Don't get me wrong. I love LBP. I just finished my level Dr. Mattavious vs The Ice-cream Machine and I had a blast working on it. I don't know how good it is really, and I don't know how well people are going to like it, but I don't care because I had so much fun making it. And I guess this brings me around to my next point, this thing is supposed to be fun. I hear you guys stressing out about plays and hearts and how you're going to quit the game because not enough people saw your stuff and I can't help but roll my eyes a little bit. So the cool levels and search are broken, well, so what? You only got a 100 plays or 200 hearts or whatever...give me a break. That's great. I can only hope my level gets up as high as some of the stuff you guys are complaining about. The fact is, even with the greatest sorting and search engine in the world good stuff is going to go unnoticed quite often. It just will. How many levels total have been posted so far? Over 100,000 isn't it? No sorting system in the whole universe could give every one of those levels the attention they deserve...be it less or more than they get. Look everywhere else driven by user content, blogs, websites, video sites and you'll see the same thing happen. Even search engines driven by Google don't stop this from happening. Anytime you have tons of content, stuff is going to get lost in the shuffle. Again, MM had better fix what is there, but some of you guys sound like you're expecting a miracle that is going to magically catapult your level to 1,000's of plays. And it might happen, but it might not. Even when the fixed search comes out some of you are going to have to face the fact that you are just one out millions and that the level you spent hours and hours working on is not necessarily above average. This might sound horribly depressing, but my point is that it isn't worth worrying about. If your main reason for creating a level is to compete in a popularity contest...well, frankly I think you're missing the whole point: fun! Anyone who stops making levels because of all this search and sorting stuff is just being plain silly. Whew...it actually feels good to get all that off my chest. I hope nobody takes what I wrote the wrong way. I agree with this post! Well said. It's fun to create. Full stop. If you are not having fun creating, then stop. The people playing and hearting is a bonus, and i'm sure it's very nice when thousands of people play your level, I wouldn't know, the maximum number of plays i've got is just over 100 which I am pretty happy with. But I have fun anyway..... Besides, if a level like ramp can get so many thousands of hearts..... are hearts really a good thing... think about it..... maybe less is more. | 2008-12-09 23:45:00 Author: chillum007  Posts: 228 |
| Saw a level called "Ramp" with over 170,000 plays. Needless to say, it's a terrible level. QFT I will rep you for that. | 2008-12-10 01:54:00 Author: qrtda235566 Posts: 3664 |
| Ax23000, interesting post, but I'll have to say not everyone finds satisfaction the same way. Mine comes in having people play the level, whether they heart it or not. Yes, it's fun to Create, but it was also a lot of hard work. I did it so people would play it. I wanted to expose my creations to as much people as possible...but obviously, that isn't happening any time soon. As said on this thread previously, they emphasized on "Share" in a lot of interviews...only to give us this flawed, mediocre engine. "Ramp" is about to get a million plays, while good levels are getting 5k at MOST. Totally fair if you ask me. | 2008-12-10 02:22:00 Author: aer0blue Posts: 1603 |
| Yeah. I feel no one is going to care about my "game", so I'm really getting down about it. Well, I don't mean like it's ruining my day, but I wish more people would show interest and play it. Do I come across as someone whose work is probably rubbish? I could show you some stuff if that's the case... | 2008-12-10 02:34:00 Author: Unknown User |
| I am really starting to doubt this game's online potential. This game in the beginning had nothing but ups and downs! With the delayed release, server issues, and the immense problems with the online interface and moderation issues! I am just not enjoying what is taking place when I play this game online. Simply, the "Cool Levels" section is a joke! I feel like I got mislead with what we were going to be able to do. I invited some friends over to check out some levels online (first time online) and I got tricked into playing some levels like "Ramp". My friends just look at me and say, "Is that it? This is the amazing game that you were telling me about?" Even when hopping into Create mode they started having some ideas of recreating Mario or stuff from RPG's and then I had to tell them that it would just get removed. Basically, they didn't stay over for long! Plus I don't have the most stable internet, but other games (FPS of all games) on other systems work fine...but LBP is unplayable for me in multiplayer games! Anyone out there with amazing high speed internet having any issues with this game? I want to know before I upgrade my internet and pay more money! | 2008-12-14 19:19:00 Author: Serbius  Posts: 38 |
| Things are looking up guys! I've found the first really good level on the first page of Cool Levels since the Beta, and that is Legend of Zelda: Deku Tree. Very high quality, and it's almost an exact replica of the Deku Tree part of LoZ: OoT | 2008-12-14 20:35:00 Author: qrtda235566 Posts: 3664 |
| Just gimme back my Azure Palace (especially since it was brought down twice...) I really don't care too much about my other moderated levels. That was the selfish me speaking, but all these issues do need to be addressed and saying that they're working on it without truly updating us really does not give me too much hope in how they're going to deal with future updates. I love the game as much as many of you, if not more... but throw us a freaking bone here Sony/Mm or whoever needs to take all this blame. | 2008-12-14 21:03:00 Author: gevurah22  Posts: 1476 |
| The only levels that make it on the first pages of Cool Levels are one of the following: 1) Trophy levels. Ex. "Ramp" 2) Based on popular culture (Games, TV Shows, etc) Ex. "Metal Gear Sacklid", "Mirror's Edge", "Gladiators" 3) Levels that gained hype in the Beta. Ex. "Azure Palace", "Little Big Calculator" Now, some obviously deserve it, but it is amusing to see the ones that don't. I mean, Metal Gear Sacklid is okay, but c'mon... | 2008-12-14 21:11:00 Author: Voltiare Posts: 646 |
| I'm getting burned out on this game. I hope this rumored Christmas update brings the fun so it shall overcome. | 2008-12-14 21:19:00 Author: docpac Posts: 601 |
| Cheer up guys, I have enough faith in MM to believe they've realised the error they've made and are working hard to create a worthwhile solution. Right now, all we can do is be patient, wait and hope. These things take time. | 2008-12-14 21:49:00 Author: UmJammerSully Posts: 1097 |
| Well, I've just re-read this long and thought provoking thread in it's entirety yet again. But this time it's different. This time I actually have levels that are put in the public of LBP, and can be rated and played by people as much as they want, if they can find them. Let me point out some things I've experienced. The more I repost, the more plays I get. It's tempting to just republish the level every waking hour I have to try and get the level out there. I suspect the cool levels page includes a selection of new and republished levels as well as the ones with a tonne of plays. So... do I republish constantly, or just let things sit with the likelyhood of my level disappearing for all time? I don't know, to be honest. It just feels wrong to me to be republishing exactly the same level just to get more plays. But if I don't, well, the level won't get played. And that's not because the level's not that good, but because people can't find it. And again, that's partly because of the 80,000 other odd levels out there, and it's partly because it seems the search engine is at the moment broken. But I do republish my levels though, sometimes by accident (hitting the left diretion while the cursor is over the "lock" setting. ). But usually it's because I've tried to improve the level some how.But then again, that leads me to think about what sort of different the patches I have make. Sometimes I just make minor changes, like adjusting the stickers for a better looking layout. But sometimes it's big. I just ripped out a third of my level and replaced it with a different system because of feedback. It's a major, major change which makes the level a very different experience. But... well, I can't really communicate that sentiment easily. The level is not famous enough, and according to what I believe the search engine will think, it will just register is as another "your level has been republished" hit. On a slight tangent though, I notice some levels have in their comments "this level has been republished"... often times several times a day. These levels have high play ratings, and not all of them are good. Have the creators of such a level done the wrong thing? Are they clogging up a bad engine and making it just a boosting sort of service? I don't know. It's one way to get things out there and be played, it's one way to possibly look bad as a publisher, it's one way to get over a bad system. It's just a very mixed feeling I have. :blush: It's really tempting and addicting to track the number of plays, rating, tags, all that stuff. It's just kind of addicting, well, at least for me, to see how the response to the level is evolving. Watching tags come and go give some idea of how the level is fairing. Some people do post genuine comments within LBP on your levels, but most do not. It's all very addictive though, even though we are talking about numbers that are going up a few a day rather than 1,000 per hour. So... does that make it bad to check? Does it put pressure to make the level more out there, so I can see the numbers tick over faster? Certainly, for sure. But... well, apart from doign the republish tango and pushing the level in places like lbpcentral and other sites, there is not that much I can do about it. Yes, the search engines broken. My work will likely never recieve the attention it may in fact deserve. But ultimately... does that make the work I've done not worthwhile? At the end of the day, I still enjoy create mode. I still enjoy developing new content, and publishing is just a side effect of it. I think this is the key conclusion I've come up with. Maybe I'll dabble with the republishing a bit, but perhaps once a day rather than once an hour. But at the end of the day it all comes down to this point. I enjoyed creating my levels. I love that people are enjoying them, but postive feedback is always the thing that comes after the creating, not before. So, as long as I keep enjoying the creation process, as long as I keep doddling new ideas, as long as I keep trying to improve what I've already published... well, ultimately, the number of plays next to the level is the after effect of an enjoyable experience, rather than the point of publishing in the first place. | 2008-12-14 22:21:00 Author: Elbee23 Posts: 1280 |
| Yeah. I feel no one is going to care about my "game", so I'm really getting down about it. Yeah, I feel the same way. I might not carry on my GEON Story, after all. I am really starting to doubt this game's online potential. You and me both, bro'. You and me both. Good thing this is only "temporary"... Makes me wonder WHEN it'll be fixed, though... Things are looking up guys! I've found the first really good level on the first page of Cool Levels since the Beta, and that is Legend of Zelda: Deku Tree. Very high quality, and it's almost an exact replica of the Deku Tree part of LoZ: OoT ...Zelda. It'll get moderated, probably. Even if not, one really good level will not change how awful the online interface is. Just gimme back my Azure Palace (especially since it was brought down twice...) I really don't care too much about my other moderated levels. That was the selfish me speaking, Selfish indeed. Now, some obviously deserve it, but it is amusing to see the ones that don't. I mean, Metal Gear Sacklid is okay, but c'mon... This may just be my opinion, but I didn't quite dig it. However, since it's MGS, it's on Cool Levels. Didn't really like how the guards were handled and stuff... Meh. I'm getting burned out on this game. I hope this rumored Christmas update brings the fun so it shall overcome. Yeah. Probably won't play that much 'til the updates come... Cheer up guys, I have enough faith in MM to believe they've realised the error they've made and are working hard to create a worthwhile solution. Right now, all we can do is be patient, wait and hope. These things take time. As much as Mm would want to do something, it goes through Sony. Meaning, if Sony doesn't approve or their priorities are different (as they clearly stated before), it won't happen anytime soon. We already saw how Sony reacted to the IN-GAME IMAGE IMPORTING PICTURES found in that Mm Flickr page. So, as long as I keep enjoying the creation process, as long as I keep doddling new ideas, as long as I keep trying to improve what I've already published... well, ultimately, the number of plays next to the level is the after effect of an enjoyable experience, rather than the point of publishing in the first place. I wish I could enjoy this as much as you. >.< It's like I enjoy "Share" more than "Create"... | 2008-12-15 01:32:00 Author: aer0blue Posts: 1603 |
| Well I think Aero wrapped up all my negative feelings about LBP in his original post. I'd just like to shout out to his level "Tekno Fortress", as its a truly bad@ss level. Top 3 in my opinion. As a personal note, I create to share with others, and to make others "happy" or make their time spent worthwhile, which in turn makes me happy. I'm like this with everything, and its just kind of carried on to LBP I guess. So I republish my levels 3 times a day, and I think it's completely fair and warranted to do so with our current broken search system. I need to get my levels out there. And on a side note, does anyone have the same problem as me? I have to play my level through before I get an updated heart/play/comment section for my levels. It is sooo ridiculously annoying. I'm beginning to dislike my own levels  | 2008-12-15 01:34:00 Author: Neverynnal  Posts: 374 |
| aeroblue! you are not doing a maltay on us we LOVE YOU! | 2008-12-15 01:37:00 Author: Thee-Flash Posts: 3154 |
| I'd just like to shout out to his level "Tekno Fortress", as its a truly bad@ss level. Top 3 in my opinion. O: Thanks! Haha. aeroblue! you are not doing a maltay on us we LOVE YOU! ...I love you guys, too? lol I'm not going anywhere. Even if I stop playing LBP for a while, I'm not taking a break from the forums or anything like that. I enjoy being part of this community. | 2008-12-15 01:41:00 Author: aer0blue Posts: 1603 |
| ahhhhh..............(sigh of relief) well we will make you play xD | 2008-12-15 01:50:00 Author: Thee-Flash Posts: 3154 |
| Ah yes, the beauty of peer pressure. And yeah these forums are awesome. Probably the biggest reason I'm really involved with LBP. | 2008-12-15 01:56:00 Author: Neverynnal Posts: 374 |
| This is why we're here, right? We're building a community of sensible and intelligent Gadders! Think of the "Cool Levels" section like the "Cool" kids at school, you know? The big meatheads who have brawn and no brains. You should be ready for this influx of complete crap, it happened with Garry's Mod. So how about this? We tag our levels with a certain keyword; let's say, "LBPC". Then, we search for LBPC levels and so we know where all the REALLY COOL AND WELL MADE levels are! | 2008-12-15 19:58:00 Author: DrMelon  Posts: 51 |
| I get roughly 3.7 times less plays and hearts on my levels, but you're not intrested in that, they're not intresting, but they don't suck enough to make it to cool levels. Azure Palace, best level in existence, now look at it, it's plays and hearts are back on square one, it probably won't even get past square two thanks to all those stupid levels in the way. Search pees me off too, it doesn't give you the closest thing to what you typed on even the first page, grrr! Recent page isn't as relieable either. | 2008-12-15 20:40:00 Author: neonrage0  Posts: 284 |
| Recent page isn't as relieable either. Recent is actually for levels you've recently played, contrary to popular belief that it is levels recently published. | 2008-12-15 20:42:00 Author: Gilgamesh Posts: 2536 |
| The reality is this issue is going to get worse. In case anyone out there that matters is reading this, here are some cool thoughts. If even one of these were implemented it would probably help: 1. Don't count # of plays unless someone FINISHES a level. This way we can see how many people were able to finish a level instead of just who started it, got frustrated, and left. 2. Don't allow RATING a level unless the level has been finished. I wouldn't want someone being able to put a star rating on my game unless they took the time to complete it. By the way, this and the above suggestion would also help with server issues. If a person didn't finish a level, there would be no reason to send messages back to the server and update the databases. 3. If a person finishes a level, don't default the star rating to the previous # of stars. The player must either select a star rating or not rate it at all (which, in turn, should not affect the average). This way we get a more accurate idea of what players thought, rather than a young player simply zipping through the rating without thinking about it. (by the way, I have watched my 6-year-old son try a difficult level, quit after about 10 seconds, put a 1-star-rating, and choose "Vehicles" as the classification when there wasn't even a vehicle - as well as throw a star on "Ramp"....) 4. Even if I know the name of a level, I have a problem finding it. I know the "world browse" is cool looking, however I would much rather have a prioritized list of search results starting with the best match for the search words. Could you imagine what would happen if I was using Google search and my results were displayed on 3-D random orb? | 2008-12-17 15:12:00 Author: CCubbage  Posts: 4430 |
| The reality is this issue is going to get worse. In case anyone out there that matters is reading this, here are some cool thoughts. If even one of these were implemented it would probably help: 1. Don't count # of plays unless someone FINISHES a level. This way we can see how many people were able to finish a level instead of just who started it, got frustrated, and left. 2. Don't allow RATING a level unless the level has been finished. I wouldn't want someone being able to put a star rating on my game unless they took the time to complete it. By the way, this and the above suggestion would also help with server issues. If a person didn't finish a level, there would be no reason to send messages back to the server and update the databases. 3. If a person finishes a level, don't default the star rating to the previous # of stars. The player must either select a star rating or not rate it at all (which, in turn, should not affect the average). This way we get a more accurate idea of what players thought, rather than a young player simply zipping through the rating without thinking about it. (by the way, I have watched my 6-year-old son try a difficult level, quit after about 10 seconds, put a 1-star-rating, and choose "Vehicles" as the classification when there wasn't even a vehicle - as well as throw a star on "Ramp"....) 4. Even if I know the name of a level, I have a problem finding it. I know the "world browse" is cool looking, however I would much rather have a prioritized list of search results starting with the best match for the search words. Could you imagine what would happen if I was using Google search and my results were displayed on 3-D random orb? I elect this man our new leader, because i agree with him | 2008-12-17 15:40:00 Author: Pinkcars Posts: 380 |
| **WARNING**: Prepare for a great wall of text. Short version is down at the bottom for all you lazy-poo's. d: Alright, guys... I feel I need to let something out my chest. I'm not sure which of you care or not, but here it goes anyway. This goes out to fellow creators, players and sharers alike... Even to people who don't own the game but enjoy lurking. For the past year(or more) I've been dreaming about LittleBigPlanet, making sketches, drawing monsters, planning out levels, writing out stories, annoying the heck out of my girlfriend and sister, and so on... I've been doing so much related to it. So much dreaming... All those times in my micro-economy class not listening to the professor as I doodled on the back of my notebook, always questioning, "how will I get this door to open?" without having known of switches at all. Funny how I ended up making contraptions that would even replace switches and their functions. So many high hopes and expectations for the game... Were they met? Yes, and surpassed...except for one thing. As you all know(and have heard PLENTY of times before...), the way levels are presented in LittleBigPlanet is flawed. By this, I mean the "Cool Levels" section. So many great and amazing levels often buried beneath the mass of horrid, putrid garbage like the "ramp" level... But, well, you've all heard of this before, I'm sure. That isn't the point of this thread anyway. For the last two to three weeks I have been working on my first level (not counting my Beta level) and have been very happy with the progress. Feedback has been positive from my good friends who have tested it, and the comments they give could only make me happier... It lets me know they care(I think? lol), and it gives me new challenges to overcome. I am only a few rooms away to finishing it... I'm almost there, really... But lately I feel I'm just forcing myself to create the level. It's starting to feel like a chore, turning on my PS3 to boot the game... Going into MyMoon, hitting Edit... Why, you ask? It's simple, really. Right now, my Beta level has over 300 plays and around 100 hearts. Pretty decent, I'd say... a 1:3 ratio. I'm happy with it. The problem is, I didn't invest two weeks of HARD work to only get 300 plays, when other levels out there are getting thousands and thousands of plays, when they are complete garbage. Sad part is, it has NOTHING to do with how the level looks or plays, because even if the person goes "oh, this sucks!" it still adds a number to the total of plays. This is causing me to lose motivation every passing day, wondering if this level will be worth it, wondering if people will bother to play it... and I certainly do not mean you guys. Not our awesome community. I mean the general LBP audience... Don't get me wrong--it brings great enjoyment to see that my friends and fellow community members played my level. I love hearing what they have to say about it, whether it rocks or stinks. They played it!...But, er...not many others did... This next level I'm working on will probably decide if I'll keep Creating or not, maybe decide how often I'll even log onto LBP (the game, not the forums... I come into the forums every single day and will until I die in a helicopter crash or something). Until they change how "Cool Levels" works, I'll probably not be Creating much (or at all). Same goes for the inaccurate "Search" feature. So why am I here typing this? I saw this (https://lbpcentral.lbp-hub.com/index.php?t=t=4298) thread earlier and couldn't help but to frown, seeing a fellow community member and creator going through a similar situation (that's you, Chaz). I felt I had to get this off my chest. And yes, I understand certain events such as our very own "Community Spotlight" is done to help make good levels public, but...even then, TF only got a couple of plays after that first Spotlight. Now, let me make this very, VERY clear to you guys... I am NOT asking you to go play Tekno Fortress and I am NOT asking you to go play my upcoming level whenever it's done. So please, don't get the wrong idea. This isn't an advertisement thread or anything of the sort. Anyway, yeah. Just ranting, I suppose... No real point to it, but still... Thanks for reading. Short version: "Cool Levels" sucks; I'll probably stop Creating thanks to it. Gotta tell you, I joined this forum a few days ago and read your post. I looked you up as an author in LBP, and wow! You really put a lot of thought into your level. This thing should be in the top 10. Nice job. Hope you don't get discouraged and continue to create content. (by the way, I played your Tomb level. Going to play Tekno Fortress tonight.) | 2008-12-18 13:45:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430 |
| Gotta tell you, I joined this forum a few days ago and read your post. I looked you up as an author in LBP, and wow! You really put a lot of thought into your level. This thing should be in the top 10. Nice job. Hope you don't get discouraged and continue to create content. (by the way, I played your Tomb level. Going to play Tekno Fortress tonight.) Thanks. I'm getting a Creator itch again, but it still bums me out... You know, the whole Cool Levels thing. Anyway, TF was made first, FYI. For some reason, though, I'm more attached to that one than Raz's Tomb... Guess it's because it was my first level. | 2008-12-19 01:16:00 Author: aer0blue Posts: 1603 |
| You guys are great authors. I'm terrible i have so many ideas that i want to convert but i just can't create. I get frustrated or build something wrong and it makes me made that it doesn't look the the high expectation i had in my mind then i shut the game off. Big disappointment for me i need to one day over break just sit down and try and create without quitting for once. | 2008-12-19 02:42:00 Author: Frank-the-Bunny  Posts: 1246 |
| TLDR: I don't think restricting rating to "must finish a level" is a good idea. I'm worried the new search engine will lead to a permanent top 50 in the "highest ratings" list which will never allow new good content to see the light of day. To be honest, I'm more worried about how the new search engine will work than the old one. We all new the old one was broke, but this new one... well, it just feels like it will be impossible for anyone to make decent new content. The reality is this issue is going to get worse. In case anyone out there that matters is reading this, here are some cool thoughts. If even one of these were implemented it would probably help: 1. Don't count # of plays unless someone FINISHES a level. This way we can see how many people were able to finish a level instead of just who started it, got frustrated, and left. 2. Don't allow RATING a level unless the level has been finished. I wouldn't want someone being able to put a star rating on my game unless they took the time to complete it. By the way, this and the above suggestion would also help with server issues. If a person didn't finish a level, there would be no reason to send messages back to the server and update the databases. 3. If a person finishes a level, don't default the star rating to the previous # of stars. The player must either select a star rating or not rate it at all (which, in turn, should not affect the average). This way we get a more accurate idea of what players thought, rather than a young player simply zipping through the rating without thinking about it. (by the way, I have watched my 6-year-old son try a difficult level, quit after about 10 seconds, put a 1-star-rating, and choose "Vehicles" as the classification when there wasn't even a vehicle - as well as throw a star on "Ramp"....) 4. Even if I know the name of a level, I have a problem finding it. I know the "world browse" is cool looking, however I would much rather have a prioritized list of search results starting with the best match for the search words. Could you imagine what would happen if I was using Google search and my results were displayed on 3-D random orb? Please note that all of my comments are written in light of the 1.7 update which expanded the search engine functionality. I've admitted many times that my platforming skill is not that of a super human. There are many levels that I have enjoyed but have not finished, either because I've been caught in a random bug, I don't have the skill or patience to get past the bit I'm up to, or I just plain run out of time. Still though, by the time I have to move on I generally have a good feel of whether a level is actually decent or not. You can clearly see the difference between rubbish work that's been slapped together and then published, and those that have taken the time to implement a good story, atmosphere or challenge, without things being impossible. So... does that mean I can't rate these games? And what of the levels that no one can really finish, either from some bug the creator missed or because they are ridiculously hard (or never really designed to be finished, like hiding the scoreboard in an area that the player can never access). If you limit rating to just people that finish levels, I fear this would put pressure on creators to simplify or shorter their levels too much. There is a difference, as I said before, between quality levels that I just haven't been able to finish, and rubbish ones that I also have not been able to complete. --- But yes, let me put an update on some thoughts on the original topic as a whole. --- Aeroblue, you will be pleased to note that I saw your tomb level on both the "busiest" and "highest rating" sections of the new search engine. More people are getting exposed to a genuinely good level, and I am sure you will notice a huge shoot up both in terms of number of plays and number of hearts in the very immediate future. I also noticed that the levels that most people rubbish the most, the "ramp et. al. trophy level" ones, featured mainly on the "most hearts" section. I'm guessing people will start to wise up to this point and pretty much ignore that page of the search function. So I suspect people will in the future just stick to the "highest rated" page when they want a quick fix. But this leads me to a new issue. When I first released my digestion level, people were saying it was good, but the small intestine section was letting the whole level down. The number of plays was a bit ho hum, and the number of hearts was also low. I've gone and changed that section that was holding back the level though, and have noticed a big increase in terms of number of plays and number of hearts on a day to day basis. But because it launched in a less than ideal state, according to the average player, it was not getting 5 stars every time people played it, at least initially. So... my level may never ever get into the "highest rating" search page. So what shall I do about it? Do I scrap the old stats and release the same level with all the improvements, but with the same name, into a new spot and therefore get a chance to go for new ratings, which might get them on the top page? Would I need to do this every time a major improvement is done, in the hopes that one of them might make it to the highest rating page? It also brings me back to the reposting conundrum, at least from a moral point of view. Over time, I've reposted the levels sometimes by accident and sometimes just to improve their positioning in relation to each other (let's call those non-intentional reposts). Sometimes I've reposted because of micro fixes (saw a sticker not matching up), minor updates (changing the background colour of certain sections) and major updates (the whole change of the small intestine, 1/3rd the level's content). But sometimes, I just repost because I can, in the hopes that it will bump up the number of plays and hearts my levels are getting. But with this new system though... the default "cool levels" option is still there I suspect, you can see it when you click the community button by default. But once people realise there is a better search engine, I suspect this will fall by the wayside, and the highest ratings page will be the one to aim for. So... what about those that don't get onto that page, or started off in a less than ideal way but are continually seriously improving their levels? Will things change from random reposting so people will play your levels, to random republishing of the whole level in the hopes of getting a 5 star start and the highest rating page? Time will tell. I suspect that initially, the highest rating is going to be dominated by what's already there, and it might all just stay like that, like "ramp" did. I do wonder how new levels will ever break that stranglehold, like Gilgamesh was warning about how a reset in plays and hearts would just lead to a new lot of top levels just stuck in a position of dominance without letting new levels have a decent shot. Maybe people will grow tired after doing the first few pages of highest rating and start to look for new content, but in a way I fear this new development may in fact make it even harder to find new gem levels. But I also suspect that over time the "most hearts" search might eventually become meaningful. If people stop playing ramp and trophy levels by default, then actually decent levels might get a high number of hearts, maybe even more than the current dominators. But still... I do fear that it will all clog up with a top 50 odd. That's kind of good if you are there now, but for new content, new artists, even new and improved levels from levels that are already on the top 50... how will they ever see the light of day? TLDR: I don't think restricting rating to "must finish a level" is a good idea. I'm worried the new search engine will lead to a permanent top 50 in the "highest ratings" list which will never allow new good content to see the light of day. To be honest, I'm more worried about how the new search engine will work than the old one. We all new the old one was broke, but this new one... well, it just feels like it will be impossible for anyone to make decent new content. | 2008-12-19 15:22:00 Author: Elbee23 Posts: 1280 |
| Thanks. I'm getting a Creator itch again, but it still bums me out... You know, the whole Cool Levels thing. Anyway, TF was made first, FYI. For some reason, though, I'm more attached to that one than Raz's Tomb... Guess it's because it was my first level. Congratulations! After updating LittleBigPlanet this morning, they updated all the search features! There is now a "Top Rated" section, of which your Tomb level was right smack in the middle of it! It looks like MM have been listening. Good job. TLDR: I don't think restricting rating to "must finish a level" is a good idea. I'm worried the new search engine will lead to a permanent top 50 in the "highest ratings" list which will never allow new good content to see the light of day. To be honest, I'm more worried about how the new search engine will work than the old one. We all new the old one was broke, but this new one... well, it just feels like it will be impossible for anyone to make decent new content. Please note that all of my comments are written in light of the 1.7 update which expanded the search engine functionality. I've admitted many times that my platforming skill is not that of a super human. There are many levels that I have enjoyed but have not finished, either because I've been caught in a random bug, I don't have the skill or patience to get past the bit I'm up to, or I just plain run out of time. Still though, by the time I have to move on I generally have a good feel of whether a level is actually decent or not. You can clearly see the difference between rubbish work that's been slapped together and then published, and those that have taken the time to implement a good story, atmosphere or challenge, without things being impossible. So... does that mean I can't rate these games? And what of the levels that no one can really finish, either from some bug the creator missed or because they are ridiculously hard (or never really designed to be finished, like hiding the scoreboard in an area that the player can never access). If you limit rating to just people that finish levels, I fear this would put pressure on creators to simplify or shorter their levels too much. There is a difference, as I said before, between quality levels that I just haven't been able to finish, and rubbish ones that I also have not been able to complete. --- But yes, let me put an update on some thoughts on the original topic as a whole. --- Aeroblue, you will be pleased to note that I saw your tomb level on both the "busiest" and "highest rating" sections of the new search engine. More people are getting exposed to a genuinely good level, and I am sure you will notice a huge shoot up both in terms of number of plays and number of hearts in the very immediate future. I also noticed that the levels that most people rubbish the most, the "ramp et. al. trophy level" ones, featured mainly on the "most hearts" section. I'm guessing people will start to wise up to this point and pretty much ignore that page of the search function. So I suspect people will in the future just stick to the "highest rated" page when they want a quick fix. But this leads me to a new issue. When I first released my digestion level, people were saying it was good, but the small intestine section was letting the whole level down. The number of plays was a bit ho hum, and the number of hearts was also low. I've gone and changed that section that was holding back the level though, and have noticed a big increase in terms of number of plays and number of hearts on a day to day basis. But because it launched in a less than ideal state, according to the average player, it was not getting 5 stars every time people played it, at least initially. So... my level may never ever get into the "highest rating" search page. So what shall I do about it? Do I scrap the old stats and release the same level with all the improvements, but with the same name, into a new spot and therefore get a chance to go for new ratings, which might get them on the top page? Would I need to do this every time a major improvement is done, in the hopes that one of them might make it to the highest rating page? It also brings me back to the reposting conundrum, at least from a moral point of view. Over time, I've reposted the levels sometimes by accident and sometimes just to improve their positioning in relation to each other (let's call those non-intentional reposts). Sometimes I've reposted because of micro fixes (saw a sticker not matching up), minor updates (changing the background colour of certain sections) and major updates (the whole change of the small intestine, 1/3rd the level's content). But sometimes, I just repost because I can, in the hopes that it will bump up the number of plays and hearts my levels are getting. But with this new system though... the default "cool levels" option is still there I suspect, you can see it when you click the community button by default. But once people realise there is a better search engine, I suspect this will fall by the wayside, and the highest ratings page will be the one to aim for. So... what about those that don't get onto that page, or started off in a less than ideal way but are continually seriously improving their levels? Will things change from random reposting so people will play your levels, to random republishing of the whole level in the hopes of getting a 5 star start and the highest rating page? Time will tell. I suspect that initially, the highest rating is going to be dominated by what's already there, and it might all just stay like that, like "ramp" did. I do wonder how new levels will ever break that stranglehold, like Gilgamesh was warning about how a reset in plays and hearts would just lead to a new lot of top levels just stuck in a position of dominance without letting new levels have a decent shot. Maybe people will grow tired after doing the first few pages of highest rating and start to look for new content, but in a way I fear this new development may in fact make it even harder to find new gem levels. But I also suspect that over time the "most hearts" search might eventually become meaningful. If people stop playing ramp and trophy levels by default, then actually decent levels might get a high number of hearts, maybe even more than the current dominators. But still... I do fear that it will all clog up with a top 50 odd. That's kind of good if you are there now, but for new content, new artists, even new and improved levels from levels that are already on the top 50... how will they ever see the light of day? TLDR: I don't think restricting rating to "must finish a level" is a good idea. I'm worried the new search engine will lead to a permanent top 50 in the "highest ratings" list which will never allow new good content to see the light of day. To be honest, I'm more worried about how the new search engine will work than the old one. We all new the old one was broke, but this new one... well, it just feels like it will be impossible for anyone to make decent new content. I completely agree with you on the entire new search and browsing feature. I think for it to work properly people with good levels are going to need to hunt out new great levels and attach hearts to them so they can funnel people from their own levels to new levels they feel are worthy of attention (I need to give Donkey Show some credit here - he regularly seems to find new fledgling levels and attach hearts to them so people give them a chance). As regards my list of other changes - yes, some of my ideas would definately need a little work. In fact, without properly designed implementation they could fall flat. However, let's throw a few scenarios together: If my 6-year-old zips through an easy level, finishes it, but must make a cognitive decision to "rate" a level and choose a tag, he is not really going to do it. So, if he not paying attention at least he would not be affecting the rating of the game. If he plays Azure Temple, other other hand, he will HATE it. However, since it is beyond his ability to play at least he is not going to LOWER the rating and put a bad tag on it. If "I" play Mobile Suite Armorboy (I think that's what it's called...) and put the time into beating it (which I did last night, by the way.. whew!), I will appreciate it and give it a high rating. My suggestions are definately not "end-all", but possibly some small steps to prevent the entire rating and heart system from getting out of control. And by the way, here's another interesting thought: Allow the author to classify their level into an easy, medium, hard level (not just in the description). My son LOVES LittleBigPlanet and so do I. To him "Ramp" (why do we always pick on this one?) is fantastic. When he's going to play, I could select "Easy" levels only. When I am going to play, I could select "Hard" and look at only the levels that the author has classified that way. This, combined with the other ideas, may make more sense. | 2008-12-19 15:42:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430 |
| This is really hitting me hard right now. Maybe somehow the improved search will help, but unless there's a way to expose people to random levels I still don't know. How do you get many people to even try your level? I published mine and as of two nights ago I had only 17 plays. It's frustrating because I posted about it both here and at the official workshop, but I'm not getting much of a response. I don't care about getting hundreds on hundreds of plays and hearts... but only 17 plays (a number of which are my direct friends, with a few repeat visits there) after an entire week, when two communities outside of the game itself have been notified? Now, maybe I just don't know how to promote my level very well outside the game... but I'd think I would have been sent a few more plays even within the game. My level only got 2 stars despite people telling me it was good. I'm fairly sure this was because people couldn't figure out how to complete it and therefore rated it badly. The level IS complete-able but requires a little thought. I revised the level to include hints that tell people how to get further. I also ended up doing what Elbee just described -- deleting and republishing, in order to wipe the star rating. I knew I'd lose the hearts/plays... but at 2/17 I didn't think it was a problem. I still think the level-finding mechanic needs to go further. As long as the system is always driving people to 'cool' or 'best' levels I don't think it succeeds. People need the opportunity to be exposed to any level, randomly. Don't require a rating, and don't expose the star ratings until a critical mass has been accrued. And it'd be nice if ratings made after the most recent republishing were weighted more heavily. | 2008-12-19 17:46:00 Author: Risen Posts: 251 |
| This is really hitting me hard right now. Maybe somehow the improved search will help, but unless there's a way to expose people to random levels I still don't know. How do you get many people to even try your level? I published mine and as of two nights ago I had only 17 plays. It's frustrating because I posted about it both here and at the official workshop, but I'm not getting much of a response. I don't care about getting hundreds on hundreds of plays and hearts... but only 17 plays (a number of which are my direct friends, with a few repeat visits there) after an entire week, when two communities outside of the game itself have been notified? Now, maybe I just don't know how to promote my level very well outside the game... but I'd think I would have been sent a few more plays even within the game. My level only got 2 stars despite people telling me it was good. I'm fairly sure this was because people couldn't figure out how to complete it and therefore rated it badly. The level IS complete-able but requires a little thought. I revised the level to include hints that tell people how to get further. I also ended up doing what Elbee just described -- deleting and republishing, in order to wipe the star rating. I knew I'd lose the hearts/plays... but at 2/17 I didn't think it was a problem. I still think the level-finding mechanic needs to go further. As long as the system is always driving people to 'cool' or 'best' levels I don't think it succeeds. People need the opportunity to be exposed to any level, randomly. Don't require a rating, and don't expose the star ratings until a critical mass has been accrued. And it'd be nice if ratings made after the most recent republishing were weighted more heavily. An additional thing to think about (more of a reality check than a complaint): At this point tens-of-thousands of levels have been published. During the beta there were limited levels and no bars set for quality. There were a few levels that were well designed and these garnished all the praise and recognition. Because there were so few levels, however, many people thought the poorly-designed levels were good, so they got a lot of stars because the development bar was set so low. Media Molecule faces a daunting task - how to have a popular game with hundreds of thousands of people all wanting to create levels and have them played (regardless of their level-designing skill) Also, you need to consider who is designing levels. My 6-year-old designs levels and thinks they're good. He get's poor star ratings and not too many people play his game. I want him to have fun, not be sad because he feels people don't like his work. Also, he is going to have a completely different concept of what a good game is (he still likes happy meals, for goodness sake!) (see my previous reply talking about author classifications, such as easy, medium, hard). | 2008-12-19 18:04:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430 |
| All good points, yes. The way the system is set up, you have a limited window given to you to be on the 'cool' page when your level is recent, and then it disappears. I got nearly nothing in that window. However, my other level, a score challenge map, has over 100 plays... and I never intended it to be a "good" level, nor did I promote it anywhere near as heavily. I got a lot of those plays in its first week up. There are an increasing number of new levels, yes... but shouldn't there be an increasing number of new players to play those levels? | 2008-12-19 18:28:00 Author: Risen Posts: 251 |
| I think we must be patient, and wait that the wave of short-time-users be down. Then, rapidly created level will be less and less published and rating system more and more accurate... | 2008-12-19 18:55:00 Author: Takelow  Posts: 1355 |
| I think we must be patient, and wait that the wave of short-time-users be down. Then, rapidly created level will be less and less published and rating system more and more accurate... Maybe... but I definately think MM is scouring the internet and listening. If they can find a way to keep level creation fun and organized, and keep people from being frustrated, they will certainly do it and end up with a more long-term successful product. For that to happen, LittleBigPlanet user-created content needs to end up being fair and appeal to a large segment. Finding rules to do that is difficult and is going to take some time. | 2008-12-19 19:04:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430 |
| I understand what you said and mostly agree. But i think that what they do, they will always be frustrated players. Some player enjoy making levels even if its are not good... These will be frustrated with a "perfect" search system... SSo with time, i think that a good part of these "casual" users of LBP will stop playing. Then great levels will emerge... | 2008-12-19 19:11:00 Author: Takelow Posts: 1355 |
| I understand what you said and mostly agree. But i think that what they do, they will always be frustrated players. Some player enjoy making levels even if its are not good... These will be frustrated with a "perfect" search system... SSo with time, i think that a good part of these "casual" users of LBP will stop playing. Then great levels will emerge... I agree, but the problem is we WANT the casual gamers to buy the game and create (not just the few talented ones who are good at it). Here's why: For LittleBigPlanet to continue to be relevant, it is going to need continued sales and interest over a long period of time. This will encourage Sony to put effort into the servers. Without the motivation to create, LittleBigPlanet is an above-average game. WITH the motivation to create, it kicks proverbial butt. In looking at the latest LBP patch, I think MM agrees with me. They are putting a lot of work into this area, although they are missing a couple of key things: 1. There are different levels of gamers. 2. People are interested in different game subjects. I would personally like to see people directed toward the games that are appropriate for them to play and that they will enjoy. The reason the game-creators are frustrated is that they feel like their hard work is being smooshed into one big pot of games, and therefore they are personally responsible for going out and getting people to play it (either on the internet or with "please please give me a heart" comments). Media Molecule is attempting to categorize them, however it is flawed by the fact that they are organizing by: A) "Big smooshed pot" (community games), B) "Highly rated games" (could be any game rated by any age group, but somehow it ended up being highly rated), and C) "I may spend 2 hours wading through muck games" (recent). By the way, I am not a biased gamer who would be critical of anything they do. I REALLY want them to succeed. All I'm doing is sitting, playing, and trying to figure out how it can be better - and then making a turd out of myself by writing really big forum posts about it. By the way, I wish there was another classification for one of my levels: "Highly rated, but not quite high enough to be in the Highest Rated" or "Good but Not Great" for short | 2008-12-19 20:36:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430 |
| HEY guesse what all of your problems have been revised, OOOOO (sorry just got a really good idea, Rub Goldberg Machines with out using many switches and just letting the physics do it for us ) the search function is great now, and there is now star rating and all kinds of stuff now, so just keep in mind that this game is getting better, week by week, oh and last time i checked Ramp had over 1 million plays *sigh* people play that their first time and never actually get to see a good level (oh another idea, i could have made a thread about feeling sorry for all of our LBP players deprived of good levels (like one of those African Children commercials but for deprived players and on this forum))Cheers! | 2008-12-19 23:45:00 Author: RAINFIRE  Posts: 1101 |
| Personally it wouldn't take much to make me happy. I just want a fair shot at having my level played when people want to play levels. I think the two simple steps I outlined above would accomplish this. It gives everyone a fair shot at getting play, and the 'worth playing but not absolute best' levels will still get to stand out against the crap when people see the star ratings. It would also be nice to know that once a level has dropped off the face of the planet, it would actually stand a change of getting a play again ever without people specifically searching for it. Everyone wins. | 2008-12-19 23:50:00 Author: Risen Posts: 251 |
| Personally it wouldn't take much to make me happy. I just want a fair shot at having my level played when people want to play levels. I think the two simple steps I outlined above would accomplish this. It gives everyone a fair shot at getting play, and the 'worth playing but not absolute best' levels will still get to stand out against the crap when people see the star ratings. It would also be nice to know that once a level has dropped off the face of the planet, it would actually stand a change of getting a play again ever without people specifically searching for it. Everyone wins. Tell you what. I have a level (Dante's Temple) that has 4-out-of-5 stars, over 800 plays, and about 10% hearts. But since yesterday no one is playing it anymore... If you play mine, I'll play yours. You don't even need to give me a heart or a comment. I just want to see the plays on my level go up a little.... it would give me just a tiny bit of joy.... If only my star ratings had been a tiny bit higher... | 2008-12-20 00:33:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430 |
| I've been thinking about checking out your levels anyway... I tend to enjoy playing the creations of people that can carry on intelligent conversation! But I think everyone deserves the same chance at getting plays, from the expert creators, down to people in the middle like me, down to the 6-year-olds who don't yet understand what makes a level good. Anyway, give it another hour or so... I want to make a quick tweak I thought of earlier today to make it just a little easier to get through. | 2008-12-20 01:26:00 Author: Risen Posts: 251 |
| I've been thinking about checking out your levels anyway... I tend to enjoy playing the creations of people that can carry on intelligent conversation! But I think everyone deserves the same chance at getting plays, from the expert creators, down to people in the middle like me, down to the 6-year-olds who don't yet understand what makes a level good. Anyway, give it another hour or so... I want to make a quick tweak I thought of earlier today to make it just a little easier to get through. Amen. Everyone deserves to have fun creating and having people enjoy their creations. Just need to find a fair way for that to happen (which I'm sure will happen eventually) (Later...) After playing your levels, in my opinion you are definately up there in the expert creators level - however, you approach design from a unique perspective. Instead of designing around the obvious (like me - I pretty much do standard platformers) you base your levels around interesting mechanics you figure out. I would NEVER have thought of the ways you used that wheel. In fact, it took me about half an hour to get the technique down. Once I did, however, your level was a blast! (played it for a couple hours). Unfortunately, that means a lot of people would probably give up before realizing "oh, I can solve the puzzle THAT way". (not that I am dissuading you - I'm just saying it will never be as popular as "Ramp" or "6 trophies in 3 seconds"). With my levels my test subject is my 6-year-old. If something frustrates him so much he cries, I change it... | 2008-12-20 02:59:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430 |
| TLDR: Maybe the search engine might help different tastes find the levels they want to find. Maybe. I don't know if we will be left with a permanent top 50, only time will tell that. I hope that up and coming great levels will still be found and highlighted, without being "grief 1 starred" into oblivion. Will I start making levels "open beta" instead of a full launch, get the feedback sorted out, and then release an identical thing with a new count to try and get a 5 star permanent rating? Maybe. --- I've had some more thoughts on the matter after a good night's sleep. I'd have to check over time, but maybe the highest rating thing won't be too bad. For a level to maintain a very high rating means that it actually has to be good, which is not a bad thing in and of itself. This might lead to a new form of griefing though. Instead of people doing false reports on the good grief system, they might go to a highly rated game and give it 1 star. This won't be too big a problem with levels that already have 200+ plays and have maintained a high rating, but up and coming new games that have say... 30 plays with some 4 but mainly 5 stars may get completely knocked off the list with just one griefer giving it 1 star. I said it before, but I do hope this ultimately leads to the removal of the current "heart for heart" system that people do. I've had one person comment on my level to do so. I went and checked their work... and it was just terrible. The first example had explosives miss-firing, leaving the vehicle you are in at an unusable state (with no explanation or reason behind it), the second one I kept getting caught on all sorts of bugs and the direction as a whole on where to go was terrible. Anyway... I just can't see people saying "5 stars for 5 stars" with a straight face. If anyone was to do that, and their work was mediocre, then I'd go and give them one star, even if I would normally give them 2 or 3. --- I've also had a think about how the different pages will sort themselves out. As I saw it last night, the "highest rating" page was mainly full of serious, high quality platformers. Something a parent would enjoy. The "most hearts" page was full of the ramp et. al. type levels. These would be great for the younger audience. At the moment they are levels that are mainly quick, fun, and not always bug free, but something that is quirky and easy, though not always good from a professional critique point of view. I suspect the "newest" page just makes it clearer which levels are doing the level repost circuit, it's all on the one page. I saw some levels that had 1,000 plays on that page, I don't think they did that number overnight. So it could kind of be seen as the random gold mine area if your looking for new treasure. Finally, the "busiest"... well, I'm not sure what to make of that. Last night it was mainly the same as the "highest rating" page, but it might also point out the quirky, fun, short stuff as well. Maybe it will become a "family friendly" page. I don't really know. So on the surface, on further reflection, maybe the new search engine will not be so bad... It still feels like it has got the same problems as the old one, in that instead of people going for the most plays or most hearts to get on the front page of cool levels, they will instead go for the highest ratings, which might lead to short term frustration... But in an older post I made on this topic, the search engine was not ideal then, and it might not really be ideal now. I still do enjoy creating though, and if some people enjoy the work, then it makes it all worthwhile. Those statements haven't changed with the new search function. --- Time will tell if just a few stay on the "highest rating" page, preventing new levels, even better ones by the original top creators, from getting a play. Everyone has different opinions on what makes 5 stars. To some, it's the best they have ever seen. If it's not, it won't get 5 stars. To some, it has to be a great level, but what makes "great"? Quirkiness? Quickness? Ease of play? Fun in multiplayer? The chance to finish something? A great story? To others, they won't give 5 stars if they won't finish a level. So top quality productions that are long but great might not appeal to younger players, as they don't have the attention span for it. So I suspect the highest rating page might be more volitile than initially thought. The only potential problem with this is the "hidden gems" that were there from the start and have a high rating from a small base, let's say a few hundred plays. Those ones might be very hard to dislodge, but in reality, only time will tell. --- Should they introduce some sort of decay to their search system, or limit ratings being visibile until after 50 plays? Well, I think we need to wait and see how it all goes. If we get the permanent top 50, those methods will possibly fix the original top 50 and prevent up and comings from being griefed and never getting a shot. --- I still wonder about the "levels that are getting genuine improvements though". Take the work from OCK and myself. We listen to what people say, we try and change things to reflect feedback. But will such levels just dissappear in the repost shuffle? Maybe once I'm really, really happy with my current level I'll repost it as a proper level. Perhaps my new creations I'll post as a Beta, until the feedback irons out all the bugs, and then re-release the same thing in a hopefully feedback happy state. I don't know though. That's the future, and only time will tell. So... how do I summarise all this up? --- TLDR: Maybe the search engine might help different tastes find the levels they want to find. Maybe. I don't know if we will be left with a permanent top 50, only time will tell that. I hope that up and coming great levels will still be found and highlighted, without being "grief 1 starred" into oblivion. Will I start making levels "open beta" instead of a full launch, get the feedback sorted out, and then release an identical thing with a new count to try and get a 5 star permanent rating? Maybe. | 2008-12-20 05:08:00 Author: Elbee23 Posts: 1280 |
| No one likes Philly here, so no one plays Philly's levels! ;_; Philly will go play it himself then. He thought they were polished... | 2008-12-20 06:54:00 Author: Unknown User |
| This might lead to a new form of griefing though. Instead of people doing false reports on the good grief system, they might go to a highly rated game and give it 1 star. This won't be too big a problem with levels that already have 200+ plays and have maintained a high rating, but up and coming new games that have say... 30 plays with some 4 but mainly 5 stars may get completely knocked off the list with just one griefer giving it 1 star. This is my number one concern at the moment, thanks for pointing it out Elbee. It could also lead people who would normally never do such a thing to give your level a low rating because maybe their own level is not doing so well and out of frustration they would resort to this kind of thing. Also, remember that you do not have to play thorugh a level at all to rate it. You just need to enter the level, exit right away and you are free to rate it. So if someone really wanted to they could sit there for an hour straight and keep giving your level a 1 star rating to bring it down, not a good thing. So while I like most of the changes there are definitely things that MM still needs to look at. | 2008-12-20 08:29:00 Author: OCK  Posts: 1536 |
| I think it's important that you can rate a level if you don't get to the end, due to the sheer number of 'broken' levels out there. On some levels you simply can't get to the end, and while on some this may be due to an oversight by the creator (in which case a 'needs work' is appropriate) on others it's apparent that the creator wasn't that bothered if you did or not, and other potential players should be warned with a one star rating. On another note, I can't help but think that people a being a little bit insular about the whole search issue. While decent levels are in the minority on lbp, that minority could quite easily be in the thousands, and even if the search tool could hand them to you on plate, you still wouldn't have time to play them all. This community is a marvelous thing, but I don't think I've ever seen a post where I've seen somebody say 'hey I've just played this great level by such and such', where such and such is not a member of the community. I appreciate that 'every mother thinks their baby is the most beautiful' and wants to publicize the fact, but people need to realize that it might not be 'top 1000' let alone 'top 100'. Don't get me wrong, the community is a valuable tool for finding great levels, but it needs to remember that there are probably thousands of people in the same boat. _______________ Gorilla Curling. Enough said. | 2008-12-20 11:07:00 Author: KenBlayton Posts: 21 |
| On another note, I can't help but think that people a being a little bit insular about the whole search issue. While decent levels are in the minority on lbp, that minority could quite easily be in the thousands, and even if the search tool could hand them to you on plate, you still wouldn't have time to play them all. This community is a marvelous thing, but I don't think I've ever seen a post where I've seen somebody say 'hey I've just played this great level by such and such', where such and such is not a member of the community. I appreciate that 'every mother thinks their baby is the most beautiful' and wants to publicize the fact, but people need to realize that it might not be 'top 1000' let alone 'top 100'. Don't get me wrong, the community is a valuable tool for finding great levels, but it needs to remember that there are probably thousands of people in the same boat. The majority of the people posting on this thread realise that there are thousands of other people creating levels of different qualities. I'd say that most of us realise that, say a top 100 level list would exclude the vast majority of content, not just rubbish but also high quality content as well. What I'm trying to express though, and I think others are as well, is that we are concerned that our levels might not recieve the recognition they deserve. While we can still highlight potential problems with the search engines, and new issues they can cause, I don't think we should close this discussion. Certainly, someone could spend 100 hours developing a level and, well, just make something awful. But there are several brilliant creators on this site, as I am sure there are many others on other lbp sites, and many more again that don't associate with any site what-so-ever. We aren't trying to be arrogant, we are just trying to raise possible concerns. If we make a good level and get no recognition for it, for some people that will mean that there is no point in making such a level. Which would just be a shame. | 2008-12-20 13:12:00 Author: Elbee23 Posts: 1280 |
| don't worry - I agree with what you are saying, but the point I'm making is that I'm not sure there is a solution - I can't really see a way the search engine could solve the problem. I'm not suggesting we close the discussion either - personally I think a system of categorizing levels might help - if an author had to give his level a category e.g. platformer, mini-game, race, remake etc, then we might avoid the problem of levels being given bad scores because it wasn't what the searcher was looking for. _________ Gorilla Curling. Enough said. | 2008-12-20 13:40:00 Author: KenBlayton Posts: 21 |
| There definitely needs to be a way to narrow down the number of levels by some objective criterion (as oppose to ratings, tags etc.), which categorising levels would do. KenBlayton has pointed out the unfortunate truth that there will always be way more levels, good and bad, than can be displayed as results of a search, especially in the 'planet' format. Companies pay Google big bucks to get them featured at the top of a search, purely because with a million hits everything after the first few pages gets lost in the mire. So any way to boil down results to something the player is specifically looking for would be a good thing - newest, highest rated and busiest is a start, but we could do to have more options. Categories like platformer, mini-game, race etc. is the logical next step. | 2008-12-20 14:03:00 Author: WilsonPhillips-X Posts: 17 |
| I think it's important that you can rate a level if you don't get to the end, due to the sheer number of 'broken' levels out there. On some levels you simply can't get to the end, and while on some this may be due to an oversight by the creator (in which case a 'needs work' is appropriate) on others it's apparent that the creator wasn't that bothered if you did or not, and other potential players should be warned with a one star rating. On another note, I can't help but think that people a being a little bit insular about the whole search issue. While decent levels are in the minority on lbp, that minority could quite easily be in the thousands, and even if the search tool could hand them to you on plate, you still wouldn't have time to play them all. This community is a marvelous thing, but I don't think I've ever seen a post where I've seen somebody say 'hey I've just played this great level by such and such', where such and such is not a member of the community. I appreciate that 'every mother thinks their baby is the most beautiful' and wants to publicize the fact, but people need to realize that it might not be 'top 1000' let alone 'top 100'. Don't get me wrong, the community is a valuable tool for finding great levels, but it needs to remember that there are probably thousands of people in the same boat. _______________ Gorilla Curling. Enough said. From a different perspective, I'm the lead designer for a popular service management software package (not bragging I promise, just pertinent to my comment). When designing a search engine (which is what the entire LBP database is) - as there are more entries and you need to find what you are looking for it is necessary to break things down into subcategories. Let's take PSN for instance. If you are looking for a movie, you first choose "Video". Then you possibly choose a genre (maybe your favorite subject is "Sci-Fi"). Finally, you get a list that is relevant. One of the issues I see with LBP is there will be well over a hundred thousand games published out there (assuming every single person out there publishes at least one game, even if it took them half an hour to create). With all these levels and no classifications, there really isn't any way to properly search. Right now with the information LBP is collecting, I don't see a way to fix this. DON'T GET ME WRONG - as a gamer I absolutely LOVE the new search features. This morning I popped into "highest rated" and didn't need to go anywhere else. As an author, however, I'm not sure I want to spend the time. I'm a decent author, but I'm certainly not a 5-star-rated author. And their "Tag" system is not really a "Genre". It has FAR too many tags to be used for accurate categorization. One thing I mentioned in an earlier post is a suggestion to let the game author themselves set a difficulty and a category to guide appropriate players to your game. The ability to find what you are looking for properly has already been perfected over the years. Public Libraries have been around for a fairly long time. Could you imagine what would happen if you walked into a library and what you saw was a) a gigantic stack fo 10,000 books in the middle of the floor labeled "community books", and another stack of 50 books labeled "highest rated books", and a third seemingly organized stack of 50,000 books organized by 100 terms applied by the people who read them? People visiting the library may be able to find good books, but I'm not sure as an author I would be pleased.... | 2008-12-20 14:38:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430 |
| Perhaps you didn't read my second post.... I'm not sure author assigned difficulty would work - many authors think their levels aren't difficult because they've played them hundreds of time while creating, yet to a newcomer they may seem impossible. Also, a well designed level should get progressively harder. If levels were categorized by type, then perhaps a 'kids' category might help.... | 2008-12-20 14:50:00 Author: KenBlayton Posts: 21 |
| Perhaps you didn't read my second post.... I'm not sure author assigned difficulty would work - many authors think their levels aren't difficult because they've played them hundreds of time while creating, yet to a newcomer they may seem impossible. Also, a well designed level should get progressively harder. If levels were categorized by type, then perhaps a 'kids' category might help.... Your absolutely right - I published a video game back in '86 called "Earth 2500" for the Atari 800 and Commodore 64. It was a good game, however I had played it so many times that I thought it was easy and kept kicking up the difficulty level. People liked it, but I don't think anyone ever finished it. A few years ago I found the game being pirated on a web site that had Atari emulators. I had not seen it in about 18 years. I downloaded it and tried playing it and I couldn't even finish it myself. However, that doesn't mean the idea wouldn't work - it just means if authors want their games to be popular they are going to need to learn to listen to feedback. (I did not have the internet, a comments section, or the ability to republish a game in '86) So, if a person publishes a game under "Easy" and people get frustrated with it, the author can either fix the game or change it to "Medium" or "Hard". Or they can leave it under easy and suffer from poor ratings from people like my son.... Although, your idea of "kids" would also work. I'm not really partial to specific terms for a difficulty level, just that I think authors being able to further categorize their work would help. | 2008-12-20 16:00:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430 |
| I know. Some of the levels I play that have like 100,000 views are awful, and yet there's my (not perfect, but still ok) level with only 48 plays. It annoys me soooo much that a level that had about 5 seconds thought and took about 2 minutes to build is getting more plays/hearts than mine that I worked on for like 4 days solid. /rant | 2008-12-20 16:23:00 Author: alexbull_uk  Posts: 1287 |
| Your absolutely right - I published a video game back in '86 called "Earth 2500" for the Atari 800 and Commodore 64. It was a good game, however I had played it so many times that I thought it was easy and kept kicking up the difficulty level. People liked it, but I don't think anyone ever finished it. A few years ago I found the game being pirated on a web site that had Atari emulators. I had not seen it in about 18 years. I downloaded it and tried playing it and I couldn't even finish it myself. However, that doesn't mean the idea wouldn't work - it just means if authors want their games to be popular they are going to need to learn to listen to feedback. (I did not have the internet, a comments section, or the ability to republish a game in '86) So, if a person publishes a game under "Easy" and people get frustrated with it, the author can either fix the game or change it to "Medium" or "Hard". Or they can leave it under easy and suffer from poor ratings from people like my son.... Although, your idea of "kids" would also work. I'm not really partial to specific terms for a difficulty level, just that I think authors being able to further categorize their work would help. I can't help but think that authors would just go for 'medium' to ensure maximum exposure, and after all, the difficulty of a level is as much determined by the player's skill as any other factor.... | 2008-12-20 16:58:00 Author: KenBlayton Posts: 21 |
| I can't help but think that authors would just go for 'medium' to ensure maximum exposure, and after all, the difficulty of a level is as much determined by the player's skill as any other factor.... They may. However, wouldn't it be cool if you could choose a "Hard" "SciFi" game and get a list that includes ArmorBoy? How about a list of "Easy" "Puzzle" games and get TicTacToe? Maybe get rid of "Medium" and force people to choose easy or hard? Also, if you forced people to classify and a particular classification started getting a TON of games, it may encourage the authors to be more creative. | 2008-12-20 17:16:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430 |
| indeed. I'm not saying grading difficulty is a bad thing necessarily (and there would have to be more than just easy and hard IMO), but I'd say genre was a more important distinction. One of the best things about lbp is that for those with young children like yourself, you can knock up a level they will enjoy in a couple of hours and include everything they like - you don't even have to publish it. | 2008-12-20 17:23:00 Author: KenBlayton Posts: 21 |
| indeed. I'm not saying grading difficulty is a bad thing necessarily (and there would have to be more than just easy and hard IMO), but I'd say genre was a more important distinction. One of the best things about lbp is that for those with young children like yourself, you can knock up a level they will enjoy in a couple of hours and include everything they like - you don't even have to publish it. Yes... but I published "LBP Playstation Home" which is a highly polished multiplayer kids game. Each time I watched multi-players in it they were having a blast. Bouncing on a couch, grabbing points in a maze-like washing machine, or being thrown around a bedroom by springs. Kinda wished there was some way to get it out to the masses of kids that would enjoy it. Instead it get's buried by people giving it poor reviews and saying it is "too easy"... Here's an additional add-on idea to the difficulty/genre combination idea (I know it will never happen, but here it goes...) When you go into a list of games, it comes up with a globe of, maybe, 50 randomly selected games along with a list of "Top 10 recommended from last week". At the end of the game you simply select whether you recommend it to others. If your game is one of the most recommended from the previous week it appears in this list. (games already listed in the recommended list could not be recommended during that week) This would force people to give new games a chance, and reward great levels by putting them up on a recommended list under a genre for a week. | 2008-12-20 17:57:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430 |
| Well you have another play on it now, very nice it is too. I see what you're saying about the 'recommended' system (although obviously this was how hearts were supposed to work - I think they messed up big time by awarding trophies for hearts), sadly there's so much garbage being published that plays would be spread too thinly for an accurate poll of results. Also, how would you allow for the (currently) 'necessary evil' of republishing in this system? | 2008-12-20 18:32:00 Author: KenBlayton Posts: 21 |
| Perhaps instead of the author picking categories, it could be part of the tag system. As it stands, people probably just skip tagging or flick through a few pages to see if a slightly appropriate word pops up. The problem is, all sorts of words are thrown into the tag bin together. What if the tag screen consisted of three columns, and the player could pick anywhere up to three tags, one from each column? The first would be a selection of game types - platformer, race, kids etc., which are essentially objective descriptions of what they thought the level was about. Second could be difficulty, easy, medium, challenging in parts, very tough etc. Then the third column could be subjective opinions such as brilliant, fun, creepy, lousy, rubbish, broken etc. This may overcomplicate things (hence MM's currently simplistic but 'user-friendly' approach), but would lead to more accurate level descriptions and categories in the long run, which could then be searched by with the search engine. | 2008-12-20 19:02:00 Author: WilsonPhillips-X Posts: 17 |
| Makes sense to me... | 2008-12-20 19:55:00 Author: KenBlayton Posts: 21 |
| I guess I'm kind of spoiled right now with internet searching. I can author a web site, put my own tags, and control how people find me. Then the quality of my web site determines if people use it. The direction they are going may be the best course for the game. I am just used to having a little of that control myself... By the way, KenBlayton, thank you for playing my Home level. Hope it wasn't too kiddie for you  | 2008-12-20 20:09:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430 |
| But are they going in a direction, or have they just fixed it so it works how they originally planned? I think a chap called Takelow (?) had a a good point on another thread when he said that after time the number of new levels being published will drop dramatically. Perhaps when the dust has settled a different picture may emerge. | 2008-12-20 20:19:00 Author: KenBlayton Posts: 21 |
| True. Many times there is no right or wrong answer, just different ones. This game is unique, however. No one has really attempted to put this much emphasis on "design your own game" before, or provided tools that were this powerful but intuitive. It would be nice if we were looking back at this in a couple years and saying "wow, this really works and we're all still happily building content" instead of "man, that could have been great.. but I've moved on to playing Tomb Raider 16". Regardless, I'm having fun with it right now so it was definately worth the money. | 2008-12-20 20:47:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430 |
| I agree and thanks for playing my Tomb Raider 16 level, hope you hearted it.... | 2008-12-20 20:50:00 Author: KenBlayton Posts: 21 |
| LittleBigPlanet II - Build ANY fully 3D game you want. And carry all of your objects over from LittleBigPlanet I. And find any game, anywhere, anyway you want. And it comes free with your Playstation IV. Street price: $12,000. | 2008-12-20 21:40:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430 |
| Thanks. I'm getting a Creator itch again, but it still bums me out... You know, the whole Cool Levels thing. Anyway, TF was made first, FYI. For some reason, though, I'm more attached to that one than Raz's Tomb... Guess it's because it was my first level.Congrats on Raz's Tomb. It's on the front page of the Highest Rated levels and it's been boosted to almost 4k plays. I'm sure you already know, but congrats. Crisis averted? | 2008-12-20 22:42:00 Author: Voltiare Posts: 646 |
| It's a great level, and deserves the recognition, So that's one of the 10,000 sorted..... | 2008-12-20 23:09:00 Author: KenBlayton Posts: 21 |
| Congrats on Raz's Tomb. It's on the front page of the Highest Rated levels and it's been boosted to almost 4k plays. I'm sure you already know, but congrats. Crisis averted? Thank you. Well, sort of... The "Crisis" isn't totally done for because of... So that's one of the 10,000 sorted..... ...This. You see, levels are getting recognition now. Good levels are being exposed to the general audience. However, there are still probably hundreds of levels that may be even better than the ones on "Highest Rated" right now...and they're not there. This update is a good start, definitely, but there's still a lot of space for improvement. | 2008-12-20 23:23:00 Author: aer0blue Posts: 1603 |
| So now that your level is a celebrity you can go out, meticulously hunt down all the good hidden levels, put hearts on the levels and the authors, and let everyone else ride on your success.... You have a lot of work to do. The future of LittleBigPlanet is in your hands. | 2008-12-20 23:49:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430 |
| I suspect the "newest" page just makes it clearer which levels are doing the level repost circuit, it's all on the one page. I saw some levels that had 1,000 plays on that page, I don't think they did that number overnight. So it could kind of be seen as the random gold mine area if your looking for new treasure. But why not have the random area all by itself, so people don't have to republish constantly for their level to show up there? I really think this needs to be not only an option... but the default option. A random selection of levels is the ONLY way to ensure that everyone has a fair chance of getting plays. If someone wants to look at the search to see what the best levels are, that option is still there. And if people are primarily sorting through random levels, it's more likely that the other search items are more accurate. (Unfortunately, there is now the problem of players being trained to go right to the search, which will defeat the purpose of making it the default option...) As for difficulty classification, you could have the players do that instead of the authors. The search itself is much better now... but the "discovery" aspect is still considerably lacking. | 2008-12-22 18:42:00 Author: Risen Posts: 251 |
| I agree with this Risen, a planet of completely random levels should be the first thing you see in the Community section, give everyone a fighting chance. And regarding this As for difficulty classification, you could have the players do that instead of the authors. The search itself is much better now... but the "discovery" aspect is still considerably lacking. this was exactly my idea in my previous post in this thread - let the players decide what the level is about, with a refined tag system. | 2008-12-22 19:29:00 Author: WilsonPhillips-X Posts: 17 |
| Man, the more I think about it the more I realize what a challenge Media Molecule has. They are probably going to sit down in a room and look at all the issues they face at once. Think about it: 1. Make sure gamers are browsing through good content so LittleBigPlanet does not end up getting a reputation for being a dumping ground for garbage content. 2. Give new content a fighting chance so really good levels don't get buried and game creators don't get frustrated (therefore not producing as much high-quality content). 3. Make younger designers not feel bad because no one wants to play their games (which, realistically, they don't - but we don't want them to feel that way) 4. People can easily find content that interests them and is within their difficulty level. 5. Level designers can build challenging levels which aren't buried because people have so much content available that they end up with an incredibly short attention span and won't focus on a level long enough to get good at it. A system like this can certainly be built, but it is difficult. If you look above at all of the input on this forum, there are great suggestions but everyone is coming at it from a different standpoint and are trying to solve different problems. I'll be interested to see where Media Molecule eventually goes with all of this. Of course, maybe the untimate solution is to market the heck out of this site so that an online community can solve a lot of these issues. | 2008-12-23 03:38:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430 |
| I hear you brother! For the sakes of all the good creators in the world, PREACH! | 2008-12-23 10:24:00 Author: kobrakai15 Posts: 52 |
| I played LittleBigPlanet last night and guess what... * Prize bubble levels had taken over the majority of the highest rated. * Raz's Tomb was off the highest rated (probably because of afformentioned (not that it deserves to be there forever, but come on... prize bubble levels instead???) * Tried to perform a search with an exact level name in the text and got an entire world of games that weren't the one I was looking for. Had to flip up and down and up and down for about 10 minutes just to find it wasn't in the list.... * Of note, still noted "Metal Revolution" which is one of my favorite games out there STILL had an absolute minimal amount of plays. (althought the author has not been performing the "publish every 2 hours to catch some players" trick - but should he REALLY have to?) * Had a guy tell me my level "sucked" while I was trying to multi-user test it. He was right, it was not really multiplayer friendly yet... but then, I had single player in mind when I wrote it. Do I really deserve a lower rating for that? Does anyone think some of the following are good ideas: * Please add at least a "Genre" that can be set by the author so we can stear interested ones into our game. All the other searches (for instance highest rated) could be first filtered by Genre so people can get, for instance, the "highest rated adventures" or "highest rated prize-bubble" (if you're 12 and that's really your thing) levels. * It is seriously difficult writing a well-designed level that is both single-player AND multi-player friendly without damaging the original idea of the game. Could there be, maybe, some way to specify single user for searching. I HATE people rating my well-written adventure low scores because they try to play with 4 players flailing all around. (HEY - how about separate single player and multi-player star ratings, so it is automatic without ruining my score???) Just some thoughts... | 2008-12-30 14:32:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430 |
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