Archive: 7 posts

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Alright, so I saw OCK and Wexfordian briefly discussing this in another thread and I figured I'd get the topic started. How do you get there? Are these levels hand picked? Anyone know anything. I just assumed that once you get a certain amount of plays/hearts/rating you get moved up there and the play count just keeps racking up because your level is "front and center". But after scanning through some of the "cool" levels it doesn't seem to be the case. Ghostbusters and The unbeatable Banzuke are both 3 star levels and they're still there. Obviously Ramp, Cat Race and WFS aren't there but they had millions of plays. Most of the cool page levels have heart ratio around 10-15%, so that's probably not it. How do you get there? I know that making a great level doesn't guarantee you anything. There are a ton of gems from creators here that don't even get 10% of the attention they deserve. Marketing doesn't work. We've all made threads at most of the fansites trying to promote our levels. Very, very few of these levels get the momentum to get up there. I hardly ever see threads at fansites promoting levels that are on the cool pages. I guess the reason I ask is because, like I said, Ock and wex were talking about it and I feel like giving up on the whole 'marketing' thing. I published my eighth level last week and only posted some pictures(over at GAF) because people keep bugging me to push it. I put so much time into Abyss! and I couldn't believe that after everything people were saying about it, that it just slowly faded from page 4 of the highest rated to page 11 over the last two weeks. I know there are so many levels out there that deserve the "cool pages" spotlight...I have 11 pages of them hearted. So how do we get there, or does it even ever happen?

2009-01-27 20:06:00 Author: Jaeyden Posts: 564

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I was wondering the same thing. It seems to be that the 'cool levels' (ie community levels) are handpicked to be there by mm. Case in point look at the levels maxed out, little dead space and distress in ocean. All three of those levels are on the first page of the highest rated levels, racking up insane # of plays, yet they are nowhere to be found in the cool level section. Now as far as the highest rated section, I believe that you move up or down based on the amount of heart you are CURRENTLY receiving. It is possible that your level initially received a lot of hearts, but as time went on the amout of hearts your were receiving compared to other levels was low. I do see levels move up and down somewhat, but not as much as I would expect. I dont know man its weird. Either way your level was hella dope and I hearted it.

2009-01-27 23:02:00 Author: tyboogie Posts: 96

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Cool levels The "cool levels" Section comprises of 50 pages which are a mix of recently published levels and levels that have high amount of plays and a high rating. The closer you are to page one the higher the proportion of Highly played, highly rated levels to new levels. eg. On page one you will see only one or two newly published levels and the rest are permanant but on page 50 you will see only one permanant level and the rest are newly published. The way MM rank them is simply a calculation made between the rating (stars) and the amount of plays the level has. As far as I can tell they use the star rating as a multiplier so a level with 10,000 plays and a 4 star ranking would appear on the same page as a level with 13,333 plays and 3 stars. I'm not entirely sure if the hearts matter to be honest. Now to permanantly get onto page 50 of the cool pages at the moment its looking like you need around 10 thousand plays with a 4 star (When I say 4 star it's not quite as simple as that but I'll explain that later). the more plays you get the higher up you go. Also MM have put in a great little clause in order to get rid of levels from the cool pages that any level that hasn't been published in a certain period of time (I think its around a month) gets taken off of the cool pages rankings. This allows for other levels (more current) to move up the line. Highest rated First thing you got to remember is that star rankings is not just as simple as 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. As your level is played people rank your level as they see fit so you actual star ranking is more like 3.6 or 4.4. Both of these scores would be shown as a four star level but obiously one of them has been raked higher than the other. This is how they can sort a list of the highest ranked. For the whole level going down in rankings this could be for many reasons. The first 100 plays of your levels is usually made up of a higher proportion of friends, people that know and like your wotk etc and would score you that little bit higher than the random gamer. Also I find people heart levels and then unheart them a few weeks down the line (fickle bunch of **** )

2009-01-28 10:34:00 Author: wexfordian Posts: 1904

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So basically..get 10,000+ plays and have a 4 star rating? How do you get 10,000 plays without being on the first few pages of the "cool" ?

2009-01-30 23:12:00 Author: Jaeyden Posts: 564

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Also I find people heart levels and then unheart them a few weeks down the line (fickle bunch of **** ) .... Wow, seriously? I am speechless...

2009-01-30 23:37:00 Author: Whalio Cappuccino Posts: 5250

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.... Wow, seriously? I am speechless... Yea I'm farely certain that I was recently victim of an angry H4Her. Left me a H4H comment on my newly published level (has about 60 plays) and I deleted it, I could have left it but I really don't see H4H comments as useful in ANY way, so I usually delete them if I notice them. So next day my level has a few more plays and one less star (went from 4 to 3 stars). I know people have been liking this level, I've gotten great feedback from those who have played it and for it to go down a whole star rating in such a short period with so few plays smells of foul play. I'm guessing he noticed I deleted said message, then played and down rated my level. Of course I could just be paranoid and insane, but after reading what OCK, wexfordian and others have observed and described, I'm not surprised by such actions and mentality. Pitty for my level, but I've developped a much more zen view of it to just let it be Some will play it, hopefully they'll like it. I might use wexfordian's tricks though to get them out there at least a little more, you have to figure many are doing it and if you don't do it at least a little, then your level just gets lost. There are ALOT of creators out there now, this isn't Beta times anymore

2009-01-30 23:51:00 Author: KAPBAM Posts: 1348

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In my experience, just as wexfordian explained it, levels are on the cool pages because of the amount of plays AND how recently it has been published. My Starfox Music level has been up on the front page for quite a bit. I think you get taken off of cool pages if you haven't republished in a week or more. A month seems a little too long, though. Luckily, when the game first came out, I secured myself by making one of the first music levels, called "Mario Music". It wasn't a good music level by today's standards, but back then, it was good. It grew rapidly by leaps and bounds. People kept playing it and playing it. Then, one day, I made an awesome Starfox music level. I was a little upset because my Mario got all the attention even though it wasn't my best work. So.... what I did was I republished my Starfox music level right on top of the Mario one, and the Mario one where my Starfox level used to be. Not many people noticed the change. Then, the plays started to skyrocket until now, I'm one of the most hearted creators ever. I know what I did was wrong if you look at it from a certain perspective. BUT, I wanted my most popular level to be the one that represented me the best. While I probably don't deserve every heart I have, and I KNOW for a fact that my music levels are nowhere near the best out there, I'm still glad that I'm as popular as I am now... because now I don't need to deal with the crap you guys need to to get noticed. If I publish a new level, I'm guaranteed to get thousands of plays out of it. What's also helping me right now is the music I made for NOBODY (a creator). I didn't like that he advertised my name in his level like that (it makes me look like an egomaniac) but on the upside it does help get my name out. All I can say is it's all based on luck, not talent. Many of you guys on these forums deserve the front page much more than myself. Just keep making awesome stuff and eventually, you'll get noticed. Hang in there!

2009-02-01 00:41:00 Author: TheJollyRajah Posts: 466

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