Archive: 22 posts

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This thread is about good level publishing practices which will allow you to get the most satisfaction for you AND your players out of your level. I've been performing experiments for the last solid week AS WELL as watching the results of other levels to gain insight into the LittleBigPlanet players. Here's my findings! This initial post will be broken down into several categories: WHAT KIND OF LEVEL DO I WANT TO DESIGN? MY EXPERIMENT - SPLAT INVADERS II HEARTS AND RATINGS - WHATS THE RESULT OF MY TEST *************************************** WHAT KIND OF LEVEL DO I WANT TO DESIGN? *************************************** The TYPE of level you design is going to have a huge impact on your results. Are you designing a level which all age groups and gamer skills can enjoy? Are you designing a level which only skilled gamers can enjoy? Is it a level which requires a lot of time to truly appreciate? Or is it a level which is quick and gives the player immediate satisfaction? Is the subject matter more obscure, or is it something people immediately want to participate in? All of these things are going to come into play. We would like to think that any good quality level has a chance at mass acceptance - but this is not true. Here are some levels I've looked at lately and how I personally see them fitting in to the scheme of things. Keep in mind, I picked a set of levels which I feel are equally good designs and quality, and all of which I immensely enjoy: Pinball Wizard from Wexfordian/Asteroid Pinball by Thegide Synopsis: These are both absolutely fantastic, high-quality, and addicting pinball games. Although they are both completely different as experiences, they have a few things in common: everyone can enjoy them, they take very little invested time to have fun with, and people will play them numerous times in one shot. This is huge from a standpoint of ratings and the number of plays which push you to the top of cool levels. Result: A well designed addictive game that people will play numerous times? This kind of level will a) shoot to the top of cool pages, b) will have a high rating, and c) will have a TERRIBLE heart to play ratio because people can only put 1 heart but can play it unlimited times. Pulse by OCK Synopsis: This one is beautiful and has a really unique style to it - however, it can be difficult the first time you play it. For younger players, they simply won't get through it. For hardcore gamers, they absolutely eat this stuff up. I've personally played this one about 20 times..... and I think many people will play it more than once whether they finish or not. Result: People will play it several times - whether they finish it or not. This momentum pushes it to the top of cool levels - however since it's so visible and th subject intriguing a lot of young players will find their way into it and get frustrated - therefore, worse ratings and bad heart ratio. The heart ratio is hit from 2 sides - people like me playing it many times and hearting once, and young players getting frustrated. The Jack McSetback series by Wyth Synopsis: Beautifully done, a lot of interesting things going on, not very hard. These fit the profile best for a level that pretty much everyone will enjoy. Result: Everyone will play them, most will finish, a lot of hearts. The rise to the top is steady and consistent. However, they don't offer a big challenge for a hardcore gamer - but he/she will still appreciate it and give it a heart. H.A.T.E. 2 by Voltair Synopsis: Ingenious level design. Great but sometimes brutal puzzles. This level is for the hardcore gamer who will invest time in learning the puzzles, solving them quickly, and attempting high scores. Result: Ratings will be high, and plays will be slow but consistent over a long period of time based on hearts. From a LittleBigPlanet perspective, it's a bit of a play risk based on the A.D.D. nature of the general audience. *************************************** MY EXPERIMENT - SPLAT INVADERS II *************************************** For those of you who haven't played it, here's my general feeling about this level: Has several areas which have unique enough gameplay so that the average youngster will probably not finish. Steering the pod at the beginning can be difficult without practice, and until you play around it's not entirely obvious how to kill the final boss. Did I design it this way on purpose? Absolutely. Why? I like those kinds of levels and I'm not really that concerned with overall popularity. So... over the last few weeks I've been doing some publishing experiments with it to see the overall results. And what I've found is kind of interesting. This level has been controllably published several times with completely different scenarios. Scenario 1 - Publish at peak times when the most people are playing - a bunch of times starting early saturday morning. Result: I managed to get about 800 plays on Saturday. But, a lot of people (most likely young) immediately gave it poor tags and bad ratings. The hearts were about 4% and practically no one appeared on the Leaderboard except for the authors here. Scenario 2 - Take the exact same level with poor ratings and heart ratios. Publish it day after day on weekdays after most kids are no longer playing (starting at 10:00 PM EST). Result - Got more plays, but still very few hearts and very few people actually FINISHING the level. ** OK, this is where it gets interesting ** Scenario 3 - Take the EXACT SAME LEVEL, post it out weeknights starting at about 10:00 PM EST - As a fresh level with no ratings. Result: Immediately 5 star 1 heart person finished the level. Results at the end of the evening (about 1 hour later) - 4 star rating, 5 hearts, 18 plays, 2 people finished. Not a TON of plays, but a decent ratio on everything. Scenario 4 - Get a bunch of people in LBPCentral to help out and give me 5 star ratings with a heart to make my level look REALLY good before going in. Have a number of people finish so you can see people on the leaderboard, and upload some nice pics. Result: Same time zone - about 100 plays, 4 star rating, 25% hearts, a LOT of people finishing. ************************************************ HEARTS AND RATINGS - WHATS THE RESULT OF MY TEST ************************************************ Based on my tests, I truly believe that there are some good practices you can use to achieve the results you desire for a well-crafted level. But it all comes down to personal preference. In my case, I wanted a challenging level that takes some brains to complete. To get the best results, I had to target a specific audience, i.e. publish when my target audience was most likely going to be playing. However, this came at a price - there is NO WAY I'm going to get 900 plays out of the level at night on a weekday. So, the tradeoff is "Quality" instead of "Quantity". Also, getting people to believe my level is good, and therefore worth the time, was huge in getting a decent rating and heart ratio AND getting them to finish the level. In my particular level, I would rather have less plays, but feel like the people who played it truly enjoyed their time. Any thoughts?

2009-03-11 16:36:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430

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In my particular level, I would rather have less plays, but feel like the people who played it truly enjoyed their time. I think I agree with this, after having watched my level move from page 15 to page 8 of highest rated in the past few days. I am a very sensitive person and I personally can't handle comments like "yo where da rocket cars, g-dog homie, you suck" on my levels. I think you're more inclined to get that sort of comment from your random cool-leveler than someone who goes to websites to find quality levels. the random cool leveler might be looking for something WAY different than the person who goes to a forum to try to find a nice, polished level to play. Of course, this shouldn't be the way it is, and it comes back to the whole argument that there definitely should be categories for these levels, because otherwise, you're probably going to get the wrong audience, and you're going to get just what you said, ccubbage... 800 plays and two people finishing the level, coupled with rubbish and lousy tags... rather than 80 plays, and 79 people finishing the level, coupled with beautiful and brilliant tags.

2009-03-11 17:14:00 Author: xkappax Posts: 2569

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I think I agree with this, after having watched my level move from page 15 to page 8 of highest rated in the past few days. I am a very sensitive person and I personally can't handle comments like "yo where da rocket cars, g-dog homie, you suck" on my levels. I think you're more inclined to get that sort of comment from your random cool-leveler than someone who goes to websites to find quality levels. the random cool leveler might be looking for something WAY different than the person who goes to a forum to try to find a nice, polished level to play. Of course, this shouldn't be the way it is, and it comes back to the whole argument that there definitely should be categories for these levels, because otherwise, you're probably going to get the wrong audience, and you're going to get just what you said, ccubbage... 800 plays and two people finishing the level, coupled with rubbish and lousy tags... rather than 80 plays, and 79 people finishing the level, coupled with beautiful and brilliant tags. Exactly. And believe me, I truly believe there's a better way. But for now, this is what we have and I figured I would have a positive thread that helps people design a strategy.

2009-03-11 17:44:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430

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well, it's greatly appreciated that you're sharing this with everyone, cause honestly, it's been a frustrating couple of weeks for creators.

2009-03-11 17:56:00 Author: xkappax Posts: 2569

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Just wanted to say thank you for posting these tips and carrying out this experiment. I will do what you advise when publishing my level .

2009-03-11 19:27:00 Author: olit123 Posts: 1341

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I've republished the Idol of Palancthar. This level should fit in with Wyth's style of level (in fact, in many ways its very similar to Jack McSetback & The Spiky Stone of Doom). This level wasn't very popular when I first launched it, and I still haven't cracked 1000 plays on it, but I've done a lot of difficulty balancing which should give it a better shot off the bat. It was unfortunate enough to earn frustrating and tricky tags in the beginning. I'll post here with my results in a few days. It's stayed at 5 stars for the first 20 plays approx, so this is a good start so far. For reference, I republished this morning at 6am EST when the servers were quiet and probably not significantly different from publishing at 10pm EST. (If anything the west coast players have also gone to bed).

2009-03-11 19:49:00 Author: Thegide Posts: 1465

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I'll be interested to see how our secret (shh!) group affects these parameters. Great thread!

2009-03-11 20:09:00 Author: Boogaloo Posts: 254

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Wow, I can see how much work you've put into finding these things out and it completely shows something important. I never really thought about when to publish my level until now Thanks Ccubbage

2009-03-11 21:41:00 Author: Coxy224 Posts: 2645

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Thanks for spending the time experimenting. I've had my newest level on Cool Levels, about page 4 for a while now. Even though it says its part of a series its gotten 1000 plays, more than part 1 (by a hundred I think), nearly three times as many as part 2 (about 400 total). And the total hearts, around 50, out of 1000!!! Its holding on to the 4 star rating, and it should be off dropping off the pages about tomorrow, its around seven days old. I think what your saying will work CCubbage but, at the end of the day, if the level does well, then it will get boosted up Cool Levels anyways, and get the same people we are aiming to avoid playing the level. I'd rather publish without cool levels (maybe an option) and get the level played through word of mouth, as I did with the first one. When I did it that way, people read the reviews and other peoples thoughts and were instrested in the level and wanted to play it, not just hanging around and playing mostly random stuff. Like Part 3 in a series of levels without playing the first two!!! I'd rather have 300 plays, 150 hearts, and loads of good comments on the level than 1000 plays, 50 hearts, and rubbish/lousy etc tags left with no explanation Just my thoughts

2009-03-11 22:06:00 Author: GruntosUK Posts: 1754

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Exactly my point in the end - but keep in mind, you've got situations where people like OCK, in Japan, may go ahead and update his level - not even REALIZING it's saturday morning in the US with 100,000 8-year-olds playing. He starts wondering "why am I suddenly getting all these "lousy" tags???". I think this data is good for everyone to think about a little, whether they are looking for huge plays or not. And I would LOVE to hear about anyone else that has had specific experiences with time zones. Are you having similar results as me based on different types of levels?

2009-03-11 22:49:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430

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Exactly my point in the end - but keep in mind, you've got situations where people like OCK, in Japan, may go ahead and update his level - not even REALIZING it's saturday morning in the US with 100,000 8-year-olds playing. Hmm, but what does this mean about younger players in other countries? When a player in the US publishes a level, won't there be younger players in other countries online? What we need is more statistics on the average ages of LBP players and the times in which they play, otherwise I think we're relying on a lot of guess work.

2009-03-12 05:16:00 Author: mrsupercomputer Posts: 1335

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I totally agree (and believe me, I truly FELT like I was guessing until I started testing it). One thing that I left out is the sales of PS3 units - I believe there are a lot more PS3 units on average in the US, so (even though it's a little flawed logic) I decided to test the theory against this. Also, Canada being to the north of us hits most of the same time zones in the most populated areas. In the US most elementary schools start pretty early. It's suggested to parents that kids go to bed around 8:00 PM. Also, this is when prime time TV starts, so there may be less kids allowed to play. Added on top of this, there are quite a few PS3's in Japan and they share a slightly different gaming culture. From what I've seen in documentaries, many of the kids in Japan are more hardcore than the American audience - so theoretically the kids in Japan are not as big a problem. (I'm inviting people to argue this - I've done SOME research, but I don't consider this definitive) So far it's been positive and worked out exactly as expected, but time will tell. Consistently on my original release of Splat II it was 3 stars, with frustrating, daft, and rubbish tags heavily mixed in. At this point I'm at 130 plays, 20% hearts, and brillient, ingenious, and satisfying tags. I suggest other people give us their results. If would be great if we could build up more data.

2009-03-12 13:09:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430

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This is quite a post! I am off to bed and will leave some thoughts tomorrow but wanted to thank you for taking the time to write all this

2009-03-12 15:23:00 Author: OCK Posts: 1536

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I've moved this to the HELP area as it is more relevant for that section and will get more exposure. Cheers QuozL

2009-03-12 16:23:00 Author: QuozL Posts: 921

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Ah.... so THIS is the help section... what a strange and mysterious place...

2009-03-12 20:39:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430

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On a semi-related note to the original topic: It seems republishing once again places your level on the first "Newest Levels" page. I noticed this when I fixed a camera zone in my latest level 10 minutes ago.

2009-03-12 22:44:00 Author: sny Posts: 144

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Yeah if you saved after a change you're indeed good for republishing. But just like before, you won't stick on the cool page, you'll drop down fast like in 5-10 mins. .

2009-03-12 22:52:00 Author: RangerZero Posts: 3901

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After reading this thread: https://lbpcentral.lbp-hub.com/index.php?t=t=9661 it made me think of your thread here and I began to wonder how much this might play into the results people have been seeing (although we cannot control it, short of editing our levels with this in mind). Food for thought.

2009-03-14 06:01:00 Author: v0rtex Posts: 1878

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This won't change anything unless your level is made that seeing the whole 16:9 screen is critical... like my Dig It! level where each player is in their collumns and getting out of screen kills you. Otherwise there's no problems since all levels are scrolling left and right. .

2009-03-14 07:03:00 Author: RangerZero Posts: 3901

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It's kind of an interesting point, though - I watched a video somebody made of people playing Splat Invaders Saga on a standard Def TV on YouTube and I was shocked to see the difference in gameplay. But on the other hand, I figure the PS3 was made to run on an HD TV with widescreen, so I think a lot of these people hopefully expect differences.

2009-03-15 03:54:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430

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It's kind of an interesting point, though - I watched a video somebody made of people playing Splat Invaders Saga on a standard Def TV on YouTube and I was shocked to see the difference in gameplay. But on the other hand, I figure the PS3 was made to run on an HD TV with widescreen, so I think a lot of these people hopefully expect differences. Well, as not even 20% of people own HDTVs, you need to expect most PS3 owners to actually play on a SDTV (while the percentage probably isn't 20% but I doubt it would cross 50%) .

2009-03-15 06:01:00 Author: RangerZero Posts: 3901

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After reading this thread: https://lbpcentral.lbp-hub.com/index.php?t=t=9661 it made me think of your thread here and I began to wonder how much this might play into the results people have been seeing (although we cannot control it, short of editing our levels with this in mind). Food for thought. I imagine that this effects hearts/stars in two ways. First, hdtv users placing important things in the right or left edges. This can result in frustrated sdtv players who think the level is impossible and will therefore rate it poorly. Second, sdtv users making a good looking level and thinking all of the level 'guts' are hidden from view. HDTV users play and see all the dark matter rods holding up sections, logic gates, backgrounds, etc. These people think the level is unpolished and rate it poorly. Those are the two ways I imagine it makes the biggest impact.

2009-03-15 13:10:00 Author: dcf Posts: 468

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