I love some of the maps that users have made, and many of them are pretty fun. It seems lately, however, that we're getting multiple new maps per week, and sometimes they're coming out on a daily basis. For me, as well I'm sure for other players, it's getting to be a little too much to handle. Unless I counted wrong, we're now up to 5*61=305 maps. That's just insane. I love the categories for maps, but it doesn't seem like enough as some of these categories have almost 100 maps in them. I'd like to see some new organization for these maps. One thought is to have ratings from players. Each player can give each map a vote from 1-5 (one vote for each player only) and the maps would display in the order of popularity (or just have this as a sorting option). My other thought is to have a way to make one or two custom lists of maps for your favorites. This would make it easier to make games and easier to see what map choices there are to use.

And ban all Skunk maps.

I kid.

Well, only kinda...

I agree, isn't there any user-voice for map ratings? The sorting systems should be made in the same update.

I would like to see about the maps that how much played them. So how many game played in the maps.

There it is on UV: http://warlight.uservoice.com/forums/77051-warlight-features/suggestions/1537395-ability-to-sort-user-created-maps-by-highest-ratin

If I may suggest a small tweak: don't sort by rating, but filter by "has at least this rating" (or, alternatively, filter by "the N highest rated maps in the given category").

Ratings are not an exact science; if you *sort* by them, the result will not appear very ordered at all. Also, two maps with very similar ratings will tend to flip places every once in a while when more ratings are given.

On the other hand, if you *filter* by minimum rating (and then *sort* by another, properly-sortable criteria, let's say name or territory count), it's still easy to find maps which most people (and, therefore, hopefully you as well) like best, in a list which you can actually search (a map with a particular name, or a slightly smaller/larger map). As an added bonus, it's not completely trivial / a no-brainer to find the map with the very highest rating. That's a bonus, because it will prevent people from only ever playing that map since "it's the best".

Going off on a tangent here, are there really that many GOOD (fun, balanced) maps out there? I tend to play 4 on a regular basis: Medium world (ladder games), Africa, Europe, and East Asia (my current favorite). Although Chaos is currently testing a pretty crazy new map with the Large Earth territories jumbled around all over the place, that one is a bit interesting. The ones I hate are linear maps, or the myriad hexagon-based maps. Those things have got to go!

I *love* hex maps.. some of the hex maps -namely the first one to be made- is one of the best maps on the site, imho... It wouldn't be good for highly competitive people because there isn't exact balance, but it's incredibly fun to play on... personally, when I want fun, I don't play with highly competitive people.
rating system could be interesting, but it would come to the downfall that some sites come to, of people looking at it, and giving a low rating cause they don't like it....
Ratings could be useful for this, but I think a favorite map(s) setting, as well as a blacklisted map(s) setting would be more useful for many people... maybe even adding tags to maps (hex, real, fantasy, space, large, 4_players, 2_players) could be nice... people could blacklist tags so that those maps don't show up, or could search for certain tags to find the maps they like best... ofc' the difficulty in implementing any of these is...

True, but some maps wouldn't really fit into the whole tagging thing. East Asia can be played 2v2, my favorite, but it can accomodate many more. What I was really getting at is that some maps just seem pointless. Ninja vs Pirate? Come on!

one of the main reasons I find hex maps to be more balanced then non-hex maps.. partial realism.. many territories, while you ignore the difficulties of travel, it doesn't make sense to be able to capture brazil in the same amount of time it takes to capture venezuala, with the same defending forces.. the terrain massed with the sheer size would include additional time.. . hex maps each territory is *the same size* so you can wrap your mind around the possibility of each attack taking just as long, and capturing just as much, without your army suddenly being much quicker just because an area you happened to attack was bigger..

If I was to make a map, say making a *-Earth Realistic-* map.. Antartica would probably have about 100 territories, to show the difficulty of traveling accross arctic terrrain.. and then have a 2-3 bonus, to show the real strategic irrelevancy it has as a army building location...
namely, my map would not be ideal for real strategic people *-Although, it is hard to tell, since real strategic people like Europe..-*, but you could wrap your mind around why your troops would be able to capture as much land as they could each turn, due to territory size.. rather then due to some current political positioning

they would not be limited to a single tag..
Ninja vs Pirate is about the only map that I can see no possible strategic point to retaining.. some of the others have curious patterns, but they can be kept for people that are interested in those styles of games...
If Fizzer started to Impose his wills on maps, then likelyhood would be that map-makers would stop making maps, for fear their work would be deemed unworthy, and that would hurt the community.. unless ofc' he also implemented a standard for which maps must follow in order to be allowed to remain.. While I know Fizzer will not want to implement a standard like this, I do foresee in the possible future it being necessary.

I would prefer if i could make a tick (check mark) on every map i'm sure i will never use for making a game.
So i can eliminate every map i don't want for my own.
Those descisions should be saved and everybody can sort out what they want.

Right, it seems like a lot of you are on the same page as I was. There are way to many maps to easily keep track of. Some people like certain maps while other despise them. I wasn't talking about getting rid of maps, because that's one of the coolest parts of this game is that the users create the maps. But we need a way to organize them better. I like a lot of the ideas you guys came up with, but having a list of your favorite maps and a way to filter maps out with a "blacklist" option seems like the best.

p.s. I use the pirate v ninja map all the time :D

Ratings would be cool, but - how can you compare maps such as, say, my Grid (which is just a 21x21 grid of squares, arranged in a 7x7 grid of bonuses) to, say, USA Big? You can have a jolly good game on both of these. (I played a handful of fun FFAs on Grid and even won one.)


I think we need, first of all, more map categories. The current system is like this - it's actually twofold, but its two parts are not really separated:

----
By contents:
* Real World
* Fictional
* Novelty
* Local

By quality:
* Featured
----

I would suggest something like this, with threefold system and two levels of division:

----
By playability:
* Large (over 500 territories)
* Medium (100-500 territories)
* Small (below 100 territories)
* Art / Novelty *(for ex. Duel map, Yin-Yang, etc.)*

By contents:
* Real World
** Large scale *(more than one country - eg., entire world, continents, or East Asia map)*
** Medium scale *(usually just one country)*
** Small scale *(what is now called "Local maps", possibly also maps like Reunion Island)*
* Fictional
** Classical *(for example Middle Earth, Tamriel, The World of Warhammer - maps from well-established fantasy series)*
** Original *(fresh creations by Warlight community members - for ex. Drakemor's world)*
* Geometric *(hexagon or square maps - maps such as Eranis World by jacek would be included, but could be present in other categories as well, in this case Fantasy / Original)*
* Art / Novelty *(this would be synonymous with Art / Novelty category above)*

By quality:
* Featured *(I'd expand this category to about 10-15 maps, maybe)*
* Great *(maps which are stable, balanced and conform to all guidelines, including nitpicks like overlaying bonus borders)*
* Other *(unrated or sucks ;), but the map is grandfathered or we don't want to be harsh to mappers)*

incidentally, on the games pages, you can see players names when you hover over their colour square. i think the map name should also pop up as alt-text when you hover over it. sometimes its hard to tell exactly which map it is just from the open games list.

Right, I want going to preview, and of course clicked the wrong button, it all got borked, and now I can't edit.

I've put it all on the Wiki for easy editing: http://wiki.warlight.net/index.php/User:Matma_Rex/Map_category_proposal

I think what I created here is pretty well thought-out. Also, if this system gets accepted and you, Fizzer, have better things to do, I volunteer for the great sorting of the maps ;).

And Monaco? It is a country, but I wouldn't call it medium because even the "big" version has **18** territories...

i'd like to see the following options (without having to scroll down):

1. all maps [ ]
2. fictional [ ]
3. novelty [ ]
4. local [ ]
5. real [ ]
6. small 2-50 territories [ ]
7. medium 51-100 territories [ ]
8. large 101-200 territories [ ]
9. huge 201+ territories [ ]
10. high rating (4-5) [ ]
11. good rating 3-4 [ ]
12. ok rating 2-3 [ ]
13. low rating 0-2 [ ]

and then when i want to play a game, i just go to custom game, i see these options, i click the box of the option(s) that interest(s) me, and maps appear.

i'd probably usually only search real (option 5), medium (7) maps with a high rating (10).

Metal, that was almost precisely what one of my ideas was
Gui, I think that checkboxes would be a great addition, not only to map searches, but my games, my tournaments, and others I can't currently remember.

great for life too perrin:

i want my wife to:

1. not complain [ ]
2. stop worrying about money [ ]
3. clean more than i do [ ]
4. stop giving me that ugly face [ ]
5. trust me more [ ]
6. etc.