I realise that there are issues with medals, times, leaderboards etc., but their must be a way of deleting a track... who cares if someone has a medal on it ? Surely we are not as "anal" as the Forza 4 lobby ? They freak out if someone gets 1000 credits too much.
But seriously, here are the issues I have with uploading tracks - issues that could be attended to:
1. It is impossible to Beta test them before final submission - not great really ! - on so many levels
2. Cannot delete - or delete and replace
3. Can't modify
All that will happen with modifying and tweaking, is that people will start having "My Track v1"; "My Track v2"... and so on... where each subsequent "version" is an improvement on the last.
Lack of Beta testing creates obvious problems. This "psuedo-beta" testing system WILL happen - you watch - which will mean the index of tracks will be an utter mess eventually ! You guys need to realise this quickly and redesign the system. It needs thinking through a lot more.
Here are two suggestions as to how it may be changed for the better:
A. Have a way of allowing friends to Beta test it for you ? Comments can be made through normal text system and no scoring or medals are involved, and track is sent 'privately'
OR:
B. Have a 'beta-testing area' - where people rank and leave comments for the designer. When the designer is happy with the end product, he deletes it from the beta-server and uploads it to the main server. If people play these tracks, no medals are awarded.
The stars awarded by "testers" are then wiped, and the "Final" version becomes free to download and be 'scored' in the usual manner.
To encourage and recognise the effort made to help with this beta-testing process, time spent doing it could be rewarded in some way - maybe included in the user-stats: e.g 'Time Spent Beta Testing'
This system, gives users lots of tracks to play with, and has a number of advantages:
[list:2t2ggs2m]they don't feel as though they have wasted their time,[/list:u:2t2ggs2m]
[list:2t2ggs2m]they feel as though they are contributing to the development process - giving a sense of 'worth' even if they are not 'talented' enough (or don't have the time) to make their own[/list:u:2t2ggs2m]
[list:2t2ggs2m]we all end up with better tracks[/list:u:2t2ggs2m]
[list:2t2ggs2m]the developers get helpful tips and comments[/list:u:2t2ggs2m]
[list:2t2ggs2m]the leaderboards don't become choked-up with half-hearted attempts[/list:u:2t2ggs2m]
Senior Member
You can't delete your own tracks? Theres a downside of custom leaderboards then. Fair yes, but highly irritating.
Option B looks like the most sensible one.
Yes, it's understandable as the system stands as of now - clearly people have invested time and earned medals and the time is added to the user-stats... so it needs a complete overhaul - shame they didn't have Beta-testers with a little vision and fore-sight.
It became blindingly obvious on day one, that this system is heading for disaster - not to mention unavailable leaderboards already !
Member
Believe it or not but we have been discussing about these problems already...
you can, however, create a private multiplayer session and invite friends to play your track before it is shared.
Senior Member
That's not a bad workaround. Still be nice if we could tag our tracks as BETA and disable leaderboards though.
Most of the current tracks - i.e "day one attempts" - should really be transferred to a new Beta-Testing index.
Once happy with it, and if it scores at least, say, 3.5 Stars, from say at least 20 people, it can then be promoted to the main index, where people can download it and earn medals on it.
There could be a seperate medal and time system, for all the Beta-tracks ? There must be an incentive for people to test out these tracks - or again, it will not work !
Just thinking out loud... but something should be done, or there will be thousands of tracks - from short mess-around ones, to absolute gems that have taken months to make, all mixed together: many gems will be lost and never found, whilst many "play" tracks, will be downloaded and deleted immediately.
Something needs to be done, as it could be great system - but not as it stands now.
After all, if you're bored, you could spend a few hours a week beta-testing other people's tracks, and giving them the 'benefit' of your wisdom ! Yo could make a career out of it for heck's sake !
Tracks are then constantly modified by the designer, in the light of comments, until it gets to the point where it's good enough to get into the full download section - or not ! I'm sure all designers and users alike, would welcome a system like this.
^this is a genius idea, tag track as beta > no leaderboards + option to delete > problem solvedOriginally Posted by EuphoricFusion
Thank goodness!!Originally Posted by irpx
personally It hink there should be a voting system applied which requires a map to get a specific number of votes before being promoted to an open category.
It's going to be a management nightmare anyway, but the voting should alsoi designate which maps get dropped. a map getting too many low votes drops off completely after awhile.
There has to be some management they have in mind, it can't just be a freee for all is it?
I am currently creating a hard supercross track and am happy that I can invite someone to play it before sharing it.Originally Posted by irpx
So far I have just been driving on all lines to ensure fairness and no problems.
