AWESOMEGUY, the ratings are just that, ratings. I don't know why they weren't factored into deciding the top templates as that makes sense, but the ratings were for a small part ignored in making the final decisions.

MoD that's easy, I just won't have Gnuff commentating ;)

Also MoD, I hope you don't think I'm lumping you in with most players, I've played against you, so I know you have a good brain and a good eye for this game, and on the whole I respect you as a player. I hope that comes across between all the garbled ranting...

Edited 12/1/2015 06:15:45

I wish you good luck by making it better on your contest. Already curious if you will have a stream and if so, how you're going to solve the time problem if you play every template.

A really easy way to do this is to play the games ahead of time and just use the stream as commentating, showing the previously played games, and perhaps highlighting turns which demonstrate strengths and weaknesses of the template. All it takes is some prep work, rather than trying to ad lib and do everything on the live stream.

Yeah, that's what sze should have done, but it's clear from the stream that he hadn't even read this thread before the stream... :/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5axNSPz6rT0&list=PL220ON1RGnhKoI1DAr9b9D0LQfEUbj-GP&index=1

The stream is uploaded to youtube if any of you want to rewatch it. It should also be available in past broadcasts on twitch for the next 2 weeks.

Yeah i guess you are right on that. Unlike a wgl yesterdays stream would heve been better with more preparation.

I still think sze gave you all more than 4 hour of his time and we were able to give improvement suggestions on most templates, if not all. The stream has improvement potential but it's not like only 3 templates were good or have been honored

#motd, stop to accuse me for didn't saw the number of picks, i didn't know till today, WL display lesss territory if there are 4 player instead of 2.
When i saw it was 6 territory and not 4, i said that would completely change my opinion, as i could have coverred well the Whole map and get balanced.

I rated templated based on the fact if i would have joined that game if it was in open game, which make sense imho. if i given a 6, i would have barely joined it, more than 6 i wasvery interested to join it. As i play only strategic games (no diplo or RP r whatever), make sense, no?

@awesomeguy, szew picked and winner, and than he let us (me sephi mod) pick between greece or Eartsea. I personally give out the same rating, but in the point to pick one, i think greece was slightly better. Mod and sephi rated Earthsea higher, but in the point to pick between those 2, they decided greece.

Also, i truly think, like mod said, i dont' even need to play a game for get if a template is good or not.

And i am very surprised nobody used some maps like LOTR, phobia (of chaos), baltic sea, asia (of gui), volcano Island etc. that are supergood for a 1v1 template, but there is not yet any good tempalte on it!

Also, i truly think, like mod said, i dont' even need to play a game for get if a template is good or not

I am afraid that u aren't that smart. cleary you havent understand mine, and a few others I suppose. And as some people above have already said - your comments were generally well below the average... sorry gnuffone but you should not take part in such contest anymore with your attitude and lack of understanding...

@ MOd - thx for your comments, I appreciate that you were the only one who tried to addres such accusations

@Shweningen - since you were the organizer I am afraid that it was mainly your fault. It is very starange why you havent analysed those templates upfront (not to talk that in fact you should have played all of tham at least once). I was afraid that it may end like that therefore on friday I have invited you to 1v1 game in my template - you were absent during weekend but on moday morning you did not agree to join it and only asked whather I have post its description on forum thread. If you dont have time to chec those templates and to read thier desriptions please dont organize such contest "anymore" because you are insulting other people. Also I'd suggest to chage the name of this contest to "My favourite template" which would be more accurate according to what was presented. Fianly, since you were the main organizer, I'd expect you to addres those issues (but plewse dont write that you dint have time to analyse all templates properly, if you dont have time dont do it or at least dont judge sb's work)



Geberally i think this whole contest should be held once more but in much changed formula with four stages.


1) Stage 1: -contest organiser should check all templates and discrad ones which are obviouselly "unplayable", "copied" etc. Also I'd suggest the rule "one person - one template".

2) Stage 2: 2 judges (like Shwieningen + MOD) should play all that templates. I suggest they play quick real time games. Thing is they should play at least 2 games between themselves + one of them should play one game with author of particular template. I know it will take some time but if you want to make it properly it is must-have. After that you shouls create a list of all templates where every tamplate included would contain: 1)template link 2)link to the example game proposed by author, 3)link to one of the games played by judges. 4) medium/short description from author (max 400 words) 5) short opinions from both judges . It is important that this opinions should not contain numerical evaluations like 7/10. Only words, although such phrases like "my favourite" or "has some potential" are encouraged. After the list is done, you should also present it to authers for few days before public release so taht they could discuss/respond to some of your opinions

3) stage 3: after the list is done you stat it public in forum and ask top 50 seasonal ladder players from last season to vote on it: every player should point 3 templates. I suggest that the results of this poll should be revealed only after the voting is over, so that they dont bias the players preferences. This shopuld take 3-4 days max.

4) stage 4: after the voting is over you pick first few (3 or 4? max 5?) templates (with highest number of votes) and only then you organise the streaming similar to one we have seen yesterday - but this time you only have few tempaltes which you know well and which you can analyse detaily. At this stage the number of juries can be increased to 4. Also at this stage the tamplates should be valued with numbers ( i suggest categories:"strategy/luck dependance"//"new features"//overall gameplay + additionall points from the number of votes gathered in stage 2 (like 1st template from stag 2 gets +6 poins and 2nd +4))

Edited 12/1/2015 09:54:32

Also, i truly think, like mod said, i dont' even need to play a game for get if a template is good or not.

You need to actually understand the template though, if you don't play it. You clearly did not understand my template for example, thinking it was intended as a joke. Simply reading the template description would have been enough to understand that it isn't. You clearly did not bother to take even a small amount of time to try to understand templates that did not fit your preconceived notions of what a strategic template should be.

Again, I honestly don't care about my template's position in this or any contest. I'm merely replying because you are so sure you are right in your assessment, when you are so clearly wrong. It's that narrow-mindedness that prompted this response. That kind of thinking is one of my pet peeves, and I enjoy calling it out when I see an opportunity.

@Kain

I'm not sure what exactly is that you want from me. First of all I rated your template quite high in comparison to others and I feel like I understood it. We did discuss it twice upon your request and I have explained on stream what I think were the major advantages and disadvantages of the template. When it comes to organising the event I agree, it could have been done very differently and much better, if other people are motivated enough I hope they will also sponsor, host and stream an event like that. Nothing would make me more happy than those people with good ideas putting them to use.

@wct

Please tell me what exactly is that we did not understand about the template. I've explained to the viewers how 100% luck can be more/less managed by high stacks, I also explained why it has not been used before (because of order delay moves). OD cards do not help this issue, I've even suggested that possibly overriden attack kill rates can help with that.


In general I agree more/less that on most templates we do not need to play a game in order to understand the dynamics of the templatem that goes for most experienced players. The whole idea of the event was to promote strategic template making, nothing else. I was hoping new template makers could use both positive and negative feedback in order to make more strategic templates in the future. If you choose to be salty instead, I cannot do anything about it. If you genuinely feel hurt please talk about specifics, meaning "I feel like you did not appreciate the aspect X of my template or you misunderstood it". If I did misunderstand some of the templates I'm sorry for that, however one of the other points of having multiple commentators was constantly checking each other. Considering we were all in agreement on most templates I'd find it weird if all 4 of us missed a specific thing.

if this is ever done again, I. think it would be better to do it offline, because that gives you multiple days for grading, and you have time to play some games on it.

Since everyone is complaining about the template contest, I want to go on record thanking all of the guest commentators, master of desaster, Sephiroth, and Gnuffone for giving several hours of their time to talk about our submissions. I especially want to thank szeweningen far putting it all together and offering up a prize. This isn't something he had to do, so I think people should be more appreciative of the time and effort he expended.

Up front szew said that he had two goals: (1) to encourage more people to try to create strategic templates, possibly implementing features of Warlight that traditionally hadn't been considered viable for them, and (2) to reward the best submissions. I think we can all agree that he was successful on the first count, and on the second, while you may not agree with the particular winners, they are definitely both very solid templates.

As far as implementation criticisms go, I would agree that it is hard to get a complete sense of a template without having played it at least a few times. I still don't quite understand why they didn't open up the sample games, rather than looking at the distribution of a new game, since obviously you get a better sense of the template by looking at a game even very briefly rather than just looking at the settings.

That being said, I was very impressed with how quickly szew in particular was able to get to the heart of the templates. His criticisms of all of the templates (including my own) were generally on point even without having looked at games. The only exception I'd make for that was his handling of ChrisCMU's template, which I think deserved better. MoD (the only one who had actually played the template) rated it a solid 5, and instead of asking him why he thought it was an OK template or looking at the sample game they skewered it.

And finally, since all of us template makers must complain bitterly about the unfair judging, I now cry for vengeance against master of desaster and Sephiroth for their craven betrayal! Henceforth I proclaim a vendetta against the both of them! I shall make them pay for the injustice they have done! I shall likewise bring down my wrath on all those who grant them succour! Let all who love justice stand with me!

Edited 12/1/2015 14:44:59

Do you need some bribery to be my friend again? :(

wuhuuuuu..... Beren on a crusade xD... i love it

Well, I cannot watch the video broadcast, so it is hard for me to comment on what went into the ratings (talk, games played on it, etc). What I do know is I explained it when I posted it, and I played about a dozen games against people and got pretty positive feedback on it (except for Gnuff, who only played the first of 4 versions of it, which I suspect he did not see the changes I made to it or something).

I don't care about winning the contest. What I care about is that I was basically given a zero rating for a template I worked hard on, and I think has merit. Yet it was 0.5 above a lotto in the eyes of Sze. I think that is total crap and obviously he did no real evaluation on it.


I applaud the idea of this (it isn't something he had to do). I give an A for thought, a D for execution.

What Chris said.

Please tell me what exactly is that we did not understand about the template. I've explained to the viewers how 100% luck can be more/less managed by high stacks, I also explained why it has not been used before (because of order delay moves). OD cards do not help this issue, I've even suggested that possibly overriden attack kill rates can help with that.

Why do you think OD cards don't address the issue? If you received an OD card each turn, and even had one at the start of the game, then for all intents and purposes, single-army delay moves would be moot under very nearly all circumstances.

As I explained on the other contest thread (after your stream, to be fair), when I tested the template on several occasions, the need to use delay moves was actually fairly limited. That's why I didn't really bother adding extra OD cards to the template for your contest, because I expected that you wouldn't just *declare* that delay moves would be a problem, but you would have done a little leg work and found that, no, actually, in practice it's not such a big deal. In short, I expected you to either try the template or to examine at least one of the games that I linked (something like 7 or 8 of them).

There is another aspect of delay moves that you did not consider, which puts the nail in the coffin regarding whether they will be a big problem or not: The number of delay moves you can make is not *only* limited by the number of armies you have, but also by the number of connections between territories you have access to. If you've got 1 million armies in a territory which only has 3 connections out of it, you can only make 3 delay moves from there. Combine that natural limitation with OD cards, and problem is pretty much solved except in rare circumstances where you both only have 1 or 0 cards, a large stack in each of your territories (very rare) and desperately need to out-delay each other. A situation I have yet to experience even *without* extra OD cards.

Again, the only way you can really know about this is if you either think about it a long time, as I did in prep for making the template in the first place, or actually try out the template yourself to get a real feel for how it works.

The whole idea of the event was to promote strategic template making, nothing else.

Well, that seems to have back-fired in a lot of ways, hasn't it? I won't say it was a failure though, because it certainly did raise a lot of interest in making templates, but it has obviously left a bitter taste in many of the participants' mouths. Don't get me wrong, here. I'm glad you did it and appreciate the time you put into it. In the grand scheme of the universe, I would agree that it was a success (esp. since there was nothing like it before). But I think you are not really appreciating the other perspective in the conversation here, that of the template creator whose template was not given a fair shake (I do not include myself in this category, since I didn't care about the contest aspect of this from the beginning, but I do understand how the others feel in this: severely let down, perhaps feeling cheated, perhaps losing a lot of trust and respect for you guys). Sure you put in a good effort, but so did they, and I personally think it would be beneficial if you not only defend your efforts, but also acknowledge the efforts of the others, and their feelings of being betrayed. A simple 'sorry' would probably be enough, honestly.

If I did misunderstand some of the templates I'm sorry for that

I wrote the above before reading this part of your comment. For me personally, I consider the matter closed (to a large extent in my case, it was barely ever open, though I can understand why other participants would have been more offended).

I was hoping new template makers could use both positive and negative feedback in order to make more strategic templates in the future.

I agree that constructive negative feedback is a good thing. That is not the issue at all. The issue is that the critique of several templates was not an *informed* critique; the critics did not actually understand or have an accurate feel for the templates in question, due to lack of preparation which led to lack of time.

Considering we were all in agreement on most templates I'd find it weird if all 4 of us missed a specific thing.

Well, hypothetically, if none of you have actually played a particular template with unusual settings, such as Kain's for example [clarification: the example of Kain's is an example of having unusual settings, not an example of a template no one played], I would not be surprised at all if all 4 of you had missed some particular subtle setting that was crucial for balanced play. That's why trying the templates out is so important, IMO. Nothing beats actual experience.

Edited 12/1/2015 17:52:40

Since everyone is complaining about the template contest, I want to go on record thanking all of the guest commentators, master of desaster, Sephiroth, and Gnuffone for giving several hours of their time to talk about our submissions. I especially want to thank szeweningen far putting it all together and offering up a prize. This isn't something he had to do, so I think people should be more appreciative of the time and effort he expended.

Personally, I agree with this. Even in the case of Gnuffone, who I feel could have done a much better job and with much more humility, I still thank you all for the time and effort you put into this. My disagreements do not take away from that. It seems to have got off to a rough start, but I think the main idea of promoting template creation is here to stay, with special thanks to szeweningen for the idea and first implementation.

OD won't solve the delay-war. If you play the same amount of delay cards, it still comes down to who makes more delay-moves. Plus you'd want to delay as hell to gather info about your opponent using one (or more) of his OD. Thus adding more OD cards makes it even worse, "forcing" you to make max delay all turns, not only the ones you plan to attack.

wct, I wouldn't bother mate, it's just falling on cloth ears.