Skulltag's new Skullstuff

It looks like Skulltag is making a spinoff of /newstuff. Not like it's a bad thing or anything. They even said in the submission rules:

5). We're pretty much going to follow the rules of Doomworld, because I see no reason why to be much different if its already working over there. You can find their rules for "/newstuff" here.

but unlike Doomworld, we are going to be fair and logical. Whereas on Doomworld where you might see something "this wad sucks don't play it,"

So I guess this is a Skulltag version of the Chronicles eh? :P

Hahaha. The exact same bullshit is going to happen with reviewers getting pissed off at the same shit all the time, or with new reviewers being let on that do a shit job, or with the wads being reviewed just plain sucking anyway, and it'll all end in the same place.

Well good luck to them.

But what if the wad really does suck? Doesn't saying "This wad sucks, don't play it" save time? :-P

Naked Snake said:

But what if the wad really does suck? Doesn't saying "This wad sucks, don't play it" save time? :-P

From experience, yes. But if you dare say that about a "famous" mapper's WAD...

Pointing out why the wad sucks, what the author could have done to make it better, and making note of those minor and/or rare aspect of the wad you did think were good (or at least thought had potential) tends to have positive impact on the mapper, and it's likely any future maps he makes will be better.

Just saying "this wad sucks, the author sucks, all his friends suck, and he should go away and masturbate overy furry porn instead of making Doom levels" tends to have a negative impact on the mapper, and it's likely any future maps he makes will be equally as bad.

In other words:

Helping and encouraging people who suck at mapping = good

Opposing and insulting people who suck at mapping = bad

deathz0r said:

From experience, yes. But if you dare say that about a "famous" mapper's WAD...

You mean a pretentious emo drama queen's map?

Yet another flamewar about Deathzor's reviews starting in 5...

Bungleist said:

Pointing out why the wad sucks, what the author could have done to make it better, and making note of those minor and/or rare aspect of the wad you did think were good (or at least thought had potential) tends to have positive impact on the mapper, and it's likely any future maps he makes will be better.

Just saying "this wad sucks, the author sucks, all his friends suck, and he should go away and masturbate overy furry porn instead of making Doom levels" tends to have a negative impact on the mapper, and it's likely any future maps he makes will be equally as bad.

In other words:

Helping and encouraging people who suck at mapping = good

Opposing and insulting people who suck at mapping = bad

Not really. Though I agree with the point about personally attacking the author, saying the map looks like congealed dogshit that was trampled isn't so much negative as it is brutally honest. That's the best thing you could do for them, is tell them the truth. "Go back to the drawing board, bucko".

Bungleist said:
Helping and encouraging people who suck at mapping = good

That's what mom is for, not reviewers. It's just as out of place as deliberate trashing. Each reviewer has his own character; some are more "helpful", others more "critical", but delimiting that they should be one way or the other only dampens the reviewing.

In the end, if the reviewer is too harsh he'll annoy certain type of people that expect helpful stuff, and if he's too kind more critical people will feel they have to wade throught the reviewer's politically correct euphemisms and ass kissing.

It's also a cultural matter. What is rude or bad or good varies widely and this is being done in an international environment where you get many subtly or clearly different perspectives on criticism.

Nothing in this world is black and white, even the internet. Just because I think reviews shouldn't contain nothing but insults, it doesn't mean I think they should contain nothing but praise. On the contrary: telling someone whose work is poor that he's a god, he can do no wrong, and similar is just as useless as telling that person he's worthless, that the community would be a better place without him and his wads, and the like.

Encouraging and helping someone to improve might involve some praise, but it would hardly be at ass-kissing levels. There is, after all, a huge difference between encouraging someone to improve and kissing their arse. If a reviewer of the "maps with lots of detail have poor gameplay" camp were to say something like "admittedly the level does have some appealing visuals, but it's really let down by poor gameplay really lets everything down", those on the other side of the argument might actually be willing to pay closer attention to how their levels play.

Actually explaining why the gameplay is poor would also be helpful: is the ammo-to-monster ration horribly off? Is the map too easy? Is it too hard? Did he forget to implement difficult settings? Does it appear no attention was paid to monster placement? Is it too repetitive? Perhaps someone like Tormentor would get better at mapping if he knew what it is about the gameplay in his maps people don't like, rather than the simple fact they don't like it.

There are also ways to let a level designer know what he's doing wrong without resorting to any insults or praise. "The author really needs to pay more attention to mapping dynamics. There really is nowhere to move to avoid projectiles, and bumping into corners is a frequent occurence" lets the author know that 64 wide corridors and nothing but 90 angles isn't really a good idea, without being either a kiss-ass or a bitch about it.

Adopting a completely neutral tone in all reviews could admittedly get pretty boring, but there are plenty of ways to spice things up without resorting to cheap insults and flames: humour, anecdotes, narratives, and unusual reviewing styles, for instance. The recent "deathz0r vs. Alexmax" review was a perfect example of the latter, and it'd be great if future installments of the Chronicles were more like that. Not that exact format mind, but rather the occasional out-of-the-ordinary thing that takes you by surprise.

At the end of the day, which do you consider preferable: insulting and arguing with people on the internet in the present, or having a larger number of enjoyable Doom maps to play in the future? Or to put it another way: wouldn't you rather have newbies and detail whores start making maps you consider fun to play, rather than continuing to flame them?

If the former, then more power to you, but reviewing Doom maps probably isn't the best hobby for you; you'll undoubtedly have much more fun being a full time poster over at the Something Awful forums.

Bungleist said:
Nothing in this world is black and white, even the internet. There is a huge difference between encouraging someone to improve and kissing their arse.

There isn't necessarily such a big difference, as, like you said, nothing in the world is black and white. And indeed what's encouragement to one is ass kissing to another, and more criticism may well be more ecouraging in the end, however less mild or friendly.

At the end of the day, which do you consider preferable: arguing with and insulting people in the present, or having a higher standard of Doom maps to play in the future?

I guess I'd answer one or the other if things were black and white, restricted to those two (exclusive?) possibilities. but you can't fool me here, so I'll say I'd rather have frank criticism and applicable praise than excessive focus on shitty wads that aren't worth much talking about. I'd also leave the decision of what is worth noting to the reviewer. I might personally object in the comments in one way or another, but would hardly make a mission out of any differences in conception and rhetoric. Reviewer independence gives the best results in the end, and meddling with that dampens the reviewer's work and discourages them. Occasionally some reviewers screw up, and in that case don't get any support (often combining deliberate harshness without any depth in the reviews, but sometimes even mere "harmless" incompetence) and end up giving up, mostly ignored in lieu of a more capable choice (especially if there is one available).

If the former, then more power to you, but reviewing Doom maps probably isn't the best hobby for you; you'll have much more fun being a full time poster over at the Something Awful forums.

Sorry, but nothing stops me from posting at SA (even like a total jerk bag; except maybe a ban) and on the side supplying competent DOOM level reviews. What's true about reviewing is that it's quite a (time consuming) task, demanding you to play through many maps during a week, and then having to say something about each. If that work takes a bit more callousness and impish fun, so be it, as long as that's used intelligently and to effect, producing competent reviews that give a comprehensive view of the wad. And if that is used to add a bit of entertainment value to the reviews, all the better.

But no, hey, reviewing DOOM addons, like the Internet, is serious business!

At first the Skulltag guys can boast that they'll "do it better than Doomworld" if they want, but eventually they'll start to appreciate that there's work there behind the scenes, and, if they don't simply give up or lose interest, will eventually know better than to brag before even starting (heh, that sounded kind of like the newproject tag).

PS: If you're going to rewrite your post, you might as well post a new one. I've replied to the first version as it is. More likely the more sincere and spontaneous one anyway.

myk said:

There isn't necessarily such a big difference, as, like you said, nothing in the world is black and white. And indeed what's encouragement to one is ass kissing to another, and more criticism may well be more ecouraging in the end, however less mild or friendly.

I said reviews shouldn't contain insults, not that they shouldn't contain criticism. In fact the reviews should be stuffed full of criticism, but this should be in the form of constructive, helpful criticism. More often than not the type of criticism featured in Newstuff reviews is of the unconstructive, unhelpful sort.

It's bad enough that reviewers should feel need to resort to "this map sucks", but they could at least do the author of the wad the courteousy of extending it to "this map sucks because..." and then listing their particular grievances with it.

I guess I'd answer one or the other if things were black and white, restricted to those two (exclusive?) possibilities.

Of course, but often the Newstuff Chronicles does hover near one particular end of the spectrum: that of unhelpful, childish reviews.

but you can't fool me here, so I'll say I'd rather have frank criticism and applicable praise than excessive focus on shitty wads that aren't worth much talking about.

I certainly never called for "excessive focus" on shitty wads, or at least I don't consider actually explaining why you consider it to be a shitty wad, or indeed finding a more constructive term than "shitty wad", to be excessive focus.

I'd also leave the decision of what is worth noting to the reviewer. I might personally object in the comments in one way or another, but would hardly make a mission out of any differences in conception and rhetoric.

If the readers don't consider a review to contain anything remotely useful or informative, what's the point? If all a reviewer is interested in doing is entertaining people, there are many other things he could do to achieve that goal. Working on new levels himself, for instance. Yes he can do both, but 6 hours (for example) spent writing a completely uninformative set of reviews is 6 extra hours he could have spent working on his level(s).

Reviewer independence gives the best results in the end, and meddling with that dampens the reviewer's work and discourages them.

I completele disagree. The whole point of a review is to inform other people, meaning the only effective means for a reviewer to know what he should include is to listen to the opinions of other people. A reviewer who's out of touch with the public is a reviewer who can't do his job properly.

Also, why is it unacceptable to discourage reviewers, but perfectly acceptable to discourage mappers? This community would do perfectly well without the former, but would be long since dead if it weren't for the latter. Besides, any reviewer should be held to the exact same standards he holds others to. By that I don't mean he needs to be an awesome mapper to review maps, but if he doesn't want readers to respond to his reviews with torrents of insults, he shouldn't include torrents of insults in his reviews.

Occasionally some reviewers screw up, and in that case don't get any support (often combining deliberate harshness without any depth in the reviews, but sometimes even mere "harmless" incompetence) and end up giving up, mostly ignored in lieu of a more capable choice (especially if there is one available).

I guess I just consider a larger percentage of reviews as being deliberately harsh without any depth than you do :). But I do agree with what I think you're implying: if a reviewer simply must write in a manner designed to offend the mapper for the purposes of entertainment, it's still better to include some particular examples of things the mapper didn't like. I suppose "the ammo balance is shit!" is still more useful than "the gameplay is shit!"

Sorry, but nothing stops me from posting at SA (even like a total jerk bag; except maybe a ban) and on the side supplying competent DOOM level reviews.

Which is precisely why I said "full time" poster, i.e. you spend all your spare time doing that. After all, if you enjoy flaming other people more than any other possible activity and presuming you never get bored of it, why not spend as much time doing that as possible?

Besides, someone who enjoys arguing with and insulting other people more than they do playing Doom levels is unlikely to be capable of writing competent Doom level reviews. As you say, it's a very time consuming task (reviewing, not arguing and insulting), and they're likely to get distracted by the need to, well, start arguing with and insulting people.

What's true about reviewing is that it's quite a (time consuming) task, demanding you to play through many maps during a week, and then having to say something about each. If that work takes a bit more callousness and impish fun, so be it, as long as that's used intelligently and to effect, producing competent reviews that give a comprehensive view of the wad.

I have no problem with impish fun either, but the problem is when it crosses the line into malicious fun, which the Newstuff Chronicles frequently does. Both involve taking the piss, but with impish fun it's lighthearted and goodhumoured, whereas with malicious fun it's spiteful and meanspirited. For example, "I'm not sure what the author was smoking when he decided on the theme for this wad; the texture combinations are utterly bizarre" is impish fun, whereas "the texturing in this wad is godawful. The author of this wad is clearly the son of a retarded whore and an inbred redneck" is malicious fun.

As for intelligent, competent reviews with a comprehensive view of the wad, I'm all for it! Unfortunately, tNC is often somewhat lacking in this regards, and not only when it comes to wads made by a mapper the reviewer holds a dislike for.

And if that is used to add a bit of entertainment value to the reviews, all the better.

I'm all for entertainment in my reviews, and as I mention in the edited post, it would get boring if everything were presented in a completely neutral, monotous style. But there are other ways of entertaining people than being cruel to someone who is, after all, simply engaging in what should be an enjoyable hobby.

At first the Skulltag guys can boast that they'll "do it better than Doomworld" if they want, but eventually they'll start to appreciate that there's work there behind the scenes, and, if they don't simply give up or lose interest, will eventually know better than to brag before even starting (heh, that sounded kind of like the newproject tag).

The only thing they said they'd do better is to be reasonable and helpful. The only people for whom being reasonable and helpful takes a large amount of effort, are people who are unreasonable and unhelpful by nature.

PS: If you're going to rewrite your post, you might as well post a new one. I've replied to the first version as it is. More likely the more sincere and spontaneous one anyway.

I would have, only double posting is considered a capital offence. Besides, I didn't remove anything from the original draft, I simply added more :).

BTW I'm grateful we can have this discussion in such a friendly and adult manner. I just hope somebody else doesn't come along and turn the flamethrower on.

Bungleist said:
I certainly never called for "excessive focus" on shitty wads,

Well, who would call for something like that? The point is that people disagree on what is excessive. To reach agreements we'd probably need guidelines or a "reviewer's constition". From what I've seen as both a reader of the T/nC and as a reviewer, letting things flow tends to be more malleable and responsive.

If the readers don't consider a review to contain anything remotely useful or informative, what's the point?

All of them? Are you talking about some of HobbsTiger1's reviews ealier last year?

The whole point of a review is to inform other people, meaning the only effective means for a reviewer to know what he should include is to know what other people want him to include.

That sounds really messed up, heh. You might want to elaborate there, because what's the point in saying what you're expected to say?

The reviewer has two tasks: Provide a brief view of the wad so that people can get an idea of a wad before they play it, and give his assessment of the wad, to server as a starting point for discussion of the wad (especially with people that have played it as well).

Also, why is it unacceptable to discourage reviewers, but perfectly acceptable to discourage mappers?

The discouragement would come from the guys running the site by directly applying restrictions on their work, not from visitor's or regular's opinions. No such restrictions are being applied on mappers; only opinions at different levels (including, but not limited to, reviews).

This community would do perfectly well without the former, but would be long since dead if it weren't for the latter.

If that's the case then reviewers are harmless (and pointless). But no, they do contribute a dose by sparking debate and discussion. They don't contribute maps, and aren't as pivotal as mappers, but they help link the use of the maps to the mapping (in general as a contribution, regardless of whther whoever likes it or not; that is, not necessarily as any particular mapper or user feels is best).

By that I don't mean he needs to be an awesome mapper to review maps, but if he doesn't want readers to respond to his reviews with torrents of insults, he shouldn't include torrents of insults in his reviews.

Arguably that's more like a mapper receiving as a response of his (bad) wad lots of uploaded joke wads mocking it. Critcism is talk, while mapping is design.

After all, if you enjoy flaming other people more than any other possible activity and you never get bored of it, why not spend as much time doing that as possible?

In that case they usually end up confined to the Losers forum (at least for some time).

Unfortunately, tNC is often somewhat lacking in this regards, and not only when it comes to wads made by a mapper the reviewer holds a dislike for.

At first I was personally inclined to favor the term "previews" for the "reviews", because asking for "genuine reviews" under the circumstances is excessive. For one, here isn't that much time to assess the bunch of wads a reviewer gets, and also, the reviewers work by free contribution. More fleshed out reviews make more sense for wads that have been around for longer, and done separately, to be able to highlight details and specifics of the wad in question. T/nC can't be more than a breeze through the new wads which may sometimes include longer and meatier reviews, plus also one liner ones (generally better than nothing... at least the wad is linked alongside the comment.)

The only people for whom being reasonable and helpful takes a large amount of effort, are people who are unreasonable and unhelpful by nature.

But that's black/white fundamentalism again. What takes effort is the reviweing, and certainly, more so if one does it meeting others's expectations as opposed to under one's own judgement. In the end, one guy thinks A is "unreasonable and unhelpful" awhile another thinks he's "funny and accurate".

Something that rarely (never?) been noted is that the reviews aren't for the map makers/wad creators benefit, but for those who are about to download them. And don't want to wade through a knee deep deposit of crap to find it.
Reviews have never been meant to support the designers ego enough for him to want to carry on and progress. It's there to help the audience find what they want. It's not supposed to help the designer become a better designer. That's something he should have beta testers for, people he trust and appreciate's critisism and opinion. And last but certainly not least, the audience itself.

I admit, I enjoy reading reviews/previews of my own work. It's a nice thing to read a review of your hard ernest work that puts it in a good light. But I am not so full of myself that I will go all nuts if someone writes "I HATE IT, IT SUCKS!" in a review of my work. Or like Tormentor (that is a popular example in this matter) who got all bent out of shape because Deathzor actually wrote down what he thought were lacking in his map and then proceeded to stating that he thought it "sucks".

For some reason Tormentor then proceeded to being gay about it, bringing his friends to be gay about it just because Dean used the word "Suck". It's just a word, so what was the big deal? Tormentor even excused himself by saying that the wad in question weren't an elaborate effort on his behalf. So, should reviews be proof-read by the map's authors before they are publicised just to make sure that the reviewer have understood and taken into account everything that doesn't matter to the person playing the wad?

I've known Deathzor to write reviews that are of a mixed bag, sometimes he can write poor reviews. But most of the times, he write reviews that I agree on. Even though we come from different places in terms of what we like in a wad.

Criticising the reviewers really don't acieve anything, it just makes their reviews get a larger audience really. And at the same time, it gives the maps they reviewed a larger audience too. Since the people that are drawn in by the drama, are more inclined to look at the wad to see what the big deal is about. Had Deathzor reviewed the Sapphire wad to say that it's a trifle story without anything to make it worth your while. Noone would give a shit about that. There'd be the graphic whores looking it up cause of the OpenGL screenshots with the hi-res sky. The map would be forgotten and noone would ever speak of it again.


Sapphire review by Deathzor

Honestly, I think they're should be a section on what the author thought of his map when he played it, then an external review from just your run-of-the-mill doom player, so that others can compare and contrast.

You mean like the idgames archive on DW?

Kind of, but put into more of a comparative form, as the author usually just puts, "This .wad is about <insert possible story line here> and consists of <insert levels here>. I would rather hear "When I played the .wad after I released it, It was <insert something about game play or detail here>, but could use a little improvement in <Insert something about game play or detail here>. Then your run-of-the-mill player gives they're comments, and then after playing the .wad, you make your own inference, as sometimes some of the comments are biased and may throw you off.

I found it hilarious about the Sapphire review that Tormy accuses Deathz0r about being biased, yet Tormy is the one to cause the flaming with his merry band of ass kissers when nothing wrong was said before it.

So you want everyone to start writing reviews and that they write them in a way that you want them to write so you can compare?

Comparision is pointless.

harbringer said:
Honestly, I think they're should be a section on what the author thought of his map when he played it, then an external review from just your run-of-the-mill doom player, so that others can compare and contrast.

The first is called the text file that accompanies the wad, the second, the comments on the idgames database (or comments or reviews by players anywhere else on the Internet).

myk said:

They don't contribute maps, and aren't as pivotal as mappers,

I find that to be subjective depending on who the reviewer is, as the current regular /newstuff reviewers (myself and AlexMax) somewhat goes against that statement. Using some facts, AlexMax has made some of the most popular CTF maps ever in ZDaemon, and we've both been involved in a deathmatch mapset (UDM series) that has been used in tournaments in ZDaemon and in countless FNFs over at Skulltag. We're currently working together on a new series of CTF mapsets that works in Odamex, ZDaemon and Skulltag. The first mapset going to be used for FNF tonight/tomorrow (depending on where you live) and is going to be released fairly soon, and I'm working on a multiplayer mapset for Skulltag which promises to be the most versatile mapset ever released for Skulltag. Admittedly we haven't have a mark in Single Player maps, but it could be something we'll venture into in the future.

On the other side of the spectrum, DD_133 and Hobbs have reviewed for /newstuff before, and have never released anything of significance at the time. I don't recall Grazza ever releasing a map either, but I could be wrong.

Maybe they just get really upset by your reviews because they know you're right. :p

deathz0r said:
I find that to be subjective depending on who the reviewer is, as the current regular /newstuff reviewers (myself and AlexMax) somewhat goes against that statement.

Yeah, sure; what I was pointing to there was the activity of reviewing, in itself, which naturally doesn't produce wads. Not that people can't do both. I mean, nothing stopped T.S. Eliot from being both a writer and a literary critic.

For starters, thank you ling. Secondly, my comments about doomworld in the /skullstuff post on skulltag were completely inappropriate and I take them back. This is not an attack on doomworld, the staff or reviewers. Its simply a way for the skulltag community to take another step forward. I very much enjoy /newstuff, that's why I continue to send wads in to be reviewed. Sometimes I don't agree with the way it was reviewed but most of the time I find them helpful and informative. Personally I don't see why whenever the word "review" is said people freak out and start talking about torm. We all know what went on, its really time to move on.

You don't send wads into newstuff to be reviewed, you send them in cause that's the number one host for Doom projects.

myk said:

The first is called the text file that accompanies the wad, the second, the comments on the idgames database (or comments or reviews by players anywhere else on the Internet).

Text file gives little, if anything about the wad itself. But I suppose I could determine the quality of maps from the "Storyline". The text file really is only useful in the fact that it gives info like it works for this engine, or it has new graphics. But other than that, absolutely nothing about the levels other than the obscure "Tech type maps" or "Hellish". It's gone to the point where I just ignore all text files altogether.

So you're one of those guys that ask stupid questions which answers are in the Text file.

Reviews aren't just for mappers, they're for the players as well. Also, why is it up to the reviewer to tell the mapper how to improve? Shouldn't that happen over time as the mapper progresses in skill as they practice more?

I personally don't care if a mapper gets slammed if his map blows. Sapphire was a good example. The map looked good but didn't play as good as it could have. To say it sucked, would, IMO, be an apt description. Boring things usually do.

Now, to expect a reviewer to walk through every newbie entry in /newstuff and explain the mistakes is silly.

"Ok, so, you didn't align textures, using textures to seperate contrasting textures, lighting is poor, not enough health, ammo, too many tough monsters when you're not well armed enough yet..."

The reviews would be HUGE and boring to read. I don't want to read a list of grievences all the time. Things like "In RTC-3057, sometimes the log messages you get are silly or not really informative, kind of pulling you out of the gameplay to 'waste your time'" are good. Though I don't really believe that, I just said it as an example.

Sparing a mapper's feelings is stupid anyway. If they're so egotistical that a bad review makes them up and quit mapping then fuck them, I'm glad they are gone. While they're off being egotistical drama-queens, people like Kristus are making maps and if they get a negative review at the end, they shrug their shoulders (if even that) and keep mapping. Kristus has released tons of cool stuff, but do you think he would care if I wrote a negative review about, say...Nimrod or something? He might dislike or disagree with my review, but at least he got an honest opinion about his work. Maybe he would even realize and take into account some of this criticism in his next release. Say he released a map that I felt was too flat or say, felt too much like a bunch of squares, even if I said "This map sucks because it's as flat as Nebraska and as square as Napoleon Dynamite. I hate you Kristus and want to feast upon your newborns!!!" he might think to himself "that bastard sure talked a lot of shit about my map, but yeah, there really wasn't a lot of height variation and a lot of the rooms were square, but I didn't feel that impacted the gameplay all that much. Hmm, maybe I'll try something a little different next time..."

Meanwhile, that said review prevented a guy like me from DLing a flat, square, boring map.

Sometimes, rudeness is just called for. When you've got an influx of bad-ass maps pretty much for say, weeks, then suddenly, this guy just totally dumps a shitty map in /newstuff. It's like "haven't you played any wad made in the last 5 years? Look how ugly your shit is compared to even the lowest work of some of the greats." I mean wtf, how can any human sit there and release a crappy wad thinking it's the bees knees when you've got stuff like RTC-3057 floating around. Do I expect every map to be of epic proportions? No. I expect them to at least be fun and not full of mistakes people were commonly making back in 1994.

Naked Snake said:

Reviews aren't just for mappers, they're for the players as well. Also, why is it up to the reviewer to tell the mapper how to improve? Shouldn't that happen over time as the mapper progresses in skill as they practice more?

Yes, that's true. Authors should inherit their own style, not the reviewers.