Map Ratings and Map Pruning

[Astrum]

So lately I think we've been suffering from map clutter on a few servers. It seems every so often it gets bad enough that an AO takes a ton of time to clean it up, only to have it happen again later. It's also kind of lame that we get map removal requests and my system would make it much easier.

So my proposal is thus, we add a map rating system to all of our servers except for Garry's Mod, FBG, and Hide 'n Seek. At the end of every round players will get a pop-up asking them to rate the map from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest). A user can opt-out but will be asked again next time he plays the map. If a user votes then he will not get another rating pop-up for that map unless the db gets wiped. For more details see here. The AO process would be like this:

1. Every time an AO adds a new map to a server he must remove a map, selecting the one with the lowest score with over a certain number of votes (don't have a good number atm). That is, if a map only has a few (like 5) votes and and is the lowest scored, it won't be considered for deletion as it's obviously not been played much.

2. A map which has previously been removed can be re-added provided that it's been removed only once and it's been at least a month since it was removed. If a map is removed twice (trap escape comes to mind ) then it's obvious the majority of players don't like it, but it's only fair to give a map a second chance.

3. If an update to a map is released which contains bug fixes and only minor cosmetic changes then this map should replace the old version on the server. If the previous version has been deleted for a poor score then the newer version can be added regardless of whether the previous version was given two chances or not.

4. If an update to a map is released which contains vast changes (Jurassic Park comes to mind) then the new version should not replace the old version. Both versions should compete with each other to stay on the server.

5. If a map has several variations (electric large comes to mind) then the top ranking variation should be used and the others removed.

The number of maps on a server could be decided later. Another possibility would be removing a certain percentage of maps when adding new maps, or removing a certain number of maps regardless of how many are added, or removing all maps with fall below a certain threshold (for instance anything below 2 stars is removed). All of the aforementioned of course requiring a certain number of votes before it's eligible for deletion. These would allow for a dynamic number of maps on each server (whereas my suggestion is a static number), each offering it's own advantages and disadvantages.

In either case, I think this would help with map clutter, gauging what maps should be removed, and keeping our servers extremely fun and hopefully rtv free (I can dream right?).

[Paul]

I'd love to see that script get added, I was playing on my map in a server which had this and it showed the ratings that people have given it. DO IT NAO

[Itch]

Yes this should be done.. Most of the popular GG servers that I frequent use scripts like this. Makes map maintenance much easier and helps get rid of maps that will potentially hurt server popularity.

[LVG]

There annoying them and Astrum pretty much everybody still spams one So is the Mod customizable? so option one would be -?

[Jaffa]

Three things:

1) when some maps are first added to the server, players (who are very fikkle) might simply vote 1 as soon as they play it. Eg if we added a new map to escape now, with everyone always rtving to moria, a new map might suffer from poor votes from players who might not fully understand our system.

2) views on maps, and popularity chang over time, so will we reset votes after a certain period of time?

3) 1 spammers. If you add the mod you must make sure that the option to opt out of voting is 1. Otherwise players might simply hi 1 (like they do in mapvotes) and their vote won't reflect their views EDIT: LVG beat me to it

[mNote]

Why not just add a rating of 0 which means that map should be removed. If a good percentage of the players voted 0, then that map can be taken out.

Maps that aren't popular can still be on the server and be RTV'd for, but it won't show up on the 'end-of-round map-vote'.

[Svendy]

damn it jaffa... you were faster than me :/

[Astrum]

Why not just add a rating of 0 which means that map should be removed. If a good percentage of the players voted 0, then that map can be taken out.

The rating returns an average of all scores. Currently if one person votes 1 (the lowest) and another 5 (the highest) then the average is 3. If we added a 0 option and one person voted 0, and another 5, then the average would be 2.5. So really it just has the potential of shifting the average downwards. It can be done, but I don't think it's that big of a deal and doesn't change anything conceptually.

Maps that aren't popular can still be on the server and be RTV'd for, but it won't show up on the 'end-of-round map-vote'.

Mani controls RTV and I can't really control that with an eventscript. Technically I could rewrite RTV in ESP, but I'd rather not.

My intent is just to keep the servers clutter free. I've seen it where people will go to a new map and the entire server will instantly try to rtv. This would solve that problem and keep the most popular maps on the server. My hope is that we get enough new map suggestions so that the selection doesn't get stale. If the selection does get stale we can always modify how many maps we're removing when adding new maps.

[Lux]

One problem would be that, some maps might not even be played once before you add a map, in which case what is the lowest :O?

[Astrum]

One problem would be that, some maps might not even be played once before you add a map, in which case what is the lowest :O?

That's why the map would require at least X number of votes before it can be considered for deletion. Maybe 100? I don't know, something like that though.