Why does everyone know something about it but I don't? Explain yourselves!

Wait, what? What JCS Ladder?

yes

Head-to-head JCS battling, winner takes all?

Bonus points if it involves WebJCS's real time collaboration.

The JCS ladder rocks \o/

That's actually not a bad idea.

Oh, I planned to post something about it in a few days, but since you're asking, I guess I should explain now. Especially because it won't take much time, as it's mostly going to be just another copy paste of one of my PMs.

I noticed how little level groups mean these days. There is no competition between them, group projects are extremely rare and new group members don't really learn from others. Some believe a group tag works like a guarantee of quality, but imo, in fact most of us cares about individual creator who made a given level rather than the group he/she is in. So I had that idea to create a JCS ladder. Even for me that sounded kind of ridiculous at first (thoughts similar to the ones above), but then I managed to think of some rules and gathered opinions of active groups, and apparently this idea can work!

Rules I thought of:
Every 2 months, a level group submits one level of a certain gamemode*, made either by a single member, or a larger part of the group. These levels are rated by a chosen council** and each group gets an amount of points depending on the rating. By the end of the year, points are summarized for each group, and the one with the most of them wins.
*gamemode, obviously, changes each two months. I recommend starting with the most popular ones, like CTF, Battle and SP, then moving on to the less typical ones.
**I thought it'd include experienced players which aren't part of any group, like Gry, Veg, JJB, MS, etc., but due to some discussions this might be changed to the whole community instead (excluding members of groups). Obviously, it will be based on some external ratings rather than J2O ones, so people too lazy to write a review should be able to rate too.

Go forth and word-procreate upon this ‘forum’ upon which men from the ‘internet’ may ‘talk’ to one another.

I think you needed a site for that? Want one?

I think I'm interested.

I support this idea. So much.

You really don't wanna take me on. >: )

Originally Posted by Jake

I think you needed a site for that? Want one?

Just do it on J2O, the #1 level making site!

I'd like to. But it's usually hard to make any changes here. I suppose the only person who could add a separate J2O section for the JCS ladder is Stijn, who is too busy to change the reputation rectangles into carrots. =P

Let me know what kind of stuff you need, be specific about it, and I can probably make something for you. I'd say J2O is a good place for such a competition, with our facilities for level uploading and all (preview images and whatnot), so I'd definitely give priority to features that make such a thing possible.

As for the "reputation rectangles": I don't know what you mean by that, really. Please report bugs in the feedback forum if you find them, chances I find them by myself are usually not that high

Hey, I didn't mean anything negative, no need to reduce my rep. "Busy" doesn't mean bad and ugly. I meant that post:

Originally Posted by Sir Ementaler

What about Dermo's idea of "carrots" or other Jazz-themed things in exchange of green, red and white rectangles? I don't know a thing about programming, websites and the rest of this stuff but it sounds like an easy job imo - like, just replacing the original images with carrot images? Shouldn't even need any code changes, I think.

and the original Dermo's idea here.

Edit: But other than that, I'm glad you made that unexpected offer. I'll try to let you know what I think should be there asap.

I didn't negrep you, someone else must've done so.

I think I actually tried replacing the boxes with carrots at some point and it looked pretty bad. The carrots need to be downsized so much it becomes an orange-ish blur and the effect is kind of lost. Additionally, there's the problem that there'd need to be some other image to replace the red and white rectangles. Recoloring the carrots would look weird and other images would not convey the meaning of "negative" or "neutral" well. There's also the issue that - apart from the background and logo in some themes - no other forum graphics use Jazz Jackrabbit sprites, so it would look sort of out of place.

Hope that clears things up

Besides, if it seems a suggestion you made once was ignored, feel free to make it again, it happens that I forget stuff or try it out but forget to let you know (like in this case).

If there is a JCS ladder, it sure as hell better have as fair/balanced of a judging system as possible, or there will be flame-wars (not me!).

The quality of a particular level is highly subjective to opinion, so it would be very difficult to come to mutual agreements unless one level really stood out from another in terms of quality. JCS "wars" can be fun and rather amusing, although I don't think a ladder would be the right way of promoting level creation. The main problem is that there's simply too few active JCSers at the moment to have a proper competition. Also, as FS just pointed out there's bound to be arguments. With a clan ladder it's clear who is "better" based on who wins the games, whereas there's room for debate on what the better levels are. I personally do not think a JCS ladder will work, but feel free to prove me wrong.

Not really, theres plenty of active JCSers

The ladder would be a way to encourage them to do it competitively. And besides, isn't the point of the ladder to get more levels and to encourage us to make better levels too? I always thought competition was the biggest motivation for me.

As for judging, most of us have a different idea of what makes a good level...

name 20 active jcsers

Anyway, wouldn't a public vote be the least biased way of determining a level's quality? It seems to work for the annual JCS awards. It's the most democratic way, at least.

I haven't read it all and i am partly agreeing with this.

Yeah i would love to see some great competition that encourages levelmaking, I always liked competition in jj2, so why not competition in JCS.

Problem:
But i am not sure if it's good to have a ladder. It's because of judging, everyone varies with very different opinions on levels. And not everyone looks at every aspect (I mean, find a non-levelmaker that's not in a group that can actually judge eyecandy and theme and take this much into account next to gameplay: in other words, not so many and noone I can think of right away.) As much as i respect SE, the fact he actually suggested grytolle as judge is something i find quite ironic.
(Especially after calling DZ the best levelmaker in jj2, because he made 2 levels and both of them are in the mappool, i'm starting to have my doubts, and more people will.)

As much as i also respect gry, he rates nothing but gameplay. And from the little complaints I've had from JJB and MS on my work, i could easily fix or clarify with clear arguments. Mostly convinced, I wonder where those complaints come from, as i didn't see any reason or argument given. But it's fine to have doubts and ask questions, but as council? No thanks.

Just wondering, can some people even betatest properly? that is with arguments given why something works or not. Criticizing on gimmicks, narrow paths, theme and flow and so on.

Remember you need non-levelmakers to judge these levelmakergroups works, and honestly i think especially those levelmakers are the most experienced with levels and betatesting and drawing conclusions given with arguments.

And remember, there is also still personal influence towards levelmakers. Extreme example: friends rating their friends levels high on J2O. Someone who is pissing them off they rate low.

so when i finish dreamscape can i submit it for this and earn olc point? ;)

Originally Posted by PurpleJazz

name 20 active jcsers

ragnarok ragnarok ragnarok ragnarok ragnarok ragnarok ragnarok ragnarok ragnarok ragnarok ragnarok ragnarok ragnarok ragnarok ragnarok ragnarok ragnarok ragnarok ragnarok ragnarok

Originally Posted by PurpleJazz

name 20 active jcsers

Hi there. All my JCSing is taken up by an SP pack which is taking ridiculously longer than it should.

Blackraptor, CelL, cooba, Djazz, DS, EM, FawFul, FS, Galana, GR, Gus, Jake, Ktos, Laro, Lithium, Loon, minmay, Obi, PT32, Rag, SE, Sean, SJ, Snooze, Treya, TW, Violet, Zoro.

28 so you can exclude the ones you don't consider active enough.

Originally Posted by FawFul

Just wondering, can some people even beta-test properly? that is with arguments given why something works or not. Criticizing on gimmicks, narrow paths, theme and flow and so on.

If it concerns important things like whether certain concepts work properly or not (examples: if leaders don't score points in assassination levels, if it's easy to get stuck in a part of the layout, balance issues in ctf, unintended tile-bugs etc).

A lot of stuff is rather opinion based though, such as narrow/very narrow passages, camp-ability, pits, whether the music sounds "nice " etc. I often comment that I like certain levels, even if they may not be technically good.

Originally Posted by Sir Ementaler

Blackraptor, CelL, cooba, Djazz, DS, EM, FawFul, FS, Galana, GR, Gus, Jake, Ktos, Laro, Lithium, Loon, minmay, Obi, PT32, Rag, SE, Sean, SJ, Snooze, Treya, TW, Violet, Zoro.

28 so you can exclude the ones you don't consider active enough.

Most of which have an equal chance of winning a best map, you're all capable JCSers, I'm just the best.

But on an actual serious note, yeah I was gonna post something to this effect. My previous post had something about voting, but I immediately assumed it would be detrimental to a thread like this. I'll put it back since it's probably worth discussing:

Voting may be a bad idea, when it comes to competitive levelmaking since we're all from different level-groups, meaning even if we vote for someone from our own group, it'd look like the most ridiculous bias ever. In which case, we can just exclude everyone from a level-group, but then that goes to Faw's point; as much as I like most non-JCSers too, most of them play really bad maps, like superconductor and semiconductor, in which case I'd immediately view their viewpoint as 50% invalid. :P

I think the best system would be a set jury of judges, maybe one from each level group, and various others from outside. (Maybe 6 judges tops?)

Originally Posted by FawFul

Yeah i would love to see some great competition that encourages levelmaking, I always liked competition in jj2, so why not competition in JCS.

I've always liked eating candy so why not eat feces

But i am not sure if it's good to have a ladder. It's because of judging, everyone varies with very different opinions on levels. And not everyone looks at every aspect (I mean, find a non-levelmaker that's not in a group that can actually judge eyecandy and theme and take this much into account next to gameplay: in other words, not so many and noone I can think of right away.)

It's not a matter of not looking at a certain aspect, it's a matter of putting it into perspective, of weighting the aspects.

As much as i respect SE, the fact he actually suggested grytolle as judge is something i find quite ironic.
(Especially after calling DZ the best levelmaker in jj2, because he made 2 levels and both of them are in the mappool, i'm starting to have my doubts, and more people will.)

That was a joke, designed to tease you. I'm glad it worked well But it was a miscalculation, DZ only has 2/3 of his levels in the mappool.

As much as i also respect gry, he rates nothing but gameplay. And from the little complaints I've had from JJB and MS on my work, i could easily fix or clarify with clear arguments.

I rate other aspects too, but they're of miniscule importance. Eyecandy is not an issue, because I only look at levels made by experienced level makers. The levels that don't look good enough have already been filtered out. That you want to achieve some kind of aesthetical perfection is up to you, but one doesn't really have time to appreciate it in a competitive gaming situation.

Remember you need non-levelmakers to judge these levelmakergroups works, and honestly i think especially those levelmakers are the most experienced with levels and betatesting and drawing conclusions given with arguments.

Experienced level makers and experienced players tend to have useful opinions, if you're both, then you're probably even better at it because you can pay attention to details that I personally don't think much about. On the other hand the fact that you know how JCS works in detail can lead you into overappreciating something because it's complex in JCS but yields little result from a purely gaming point of view.

Personally I can't really rate a level without playing it a few times. I've been known to overrate levels by a few points (which I then in the best case go back to correct) if I just run around in them and try to predict how the level will play, but I guess I'm not alone in this.

And remember, there is also still personal influence towards levelmakers. Extreme example: friends rating their friends levels high on J2O. Someone who is pissing them off they rate low.

Which is a good reason to have quite a few judges and some internal discussion among them before they cast their votes or whatever.

(I mean, find a non-levelmaker that's not in a group that can actually judge eyecandy and theme and take this much into account next to gameplay: in other words, not so many and noone I can think of right away.)

I'd say judging eyecandy is not all that difficult. There's more to it than "does it look nice?", but not much more. Gameplay on the other hand obviously does require a certain level of insight to be judged.

I don't think there is anything bad overrating a level, if you also do it for others.

For that matter, if levels are all reviewed by the same group of people, then they should be about as overrated/underrated as each other. That'll about solve the problem.

Originally Posted by Grytolle

I've always liked eating candy so why not eat feces

Just, grytolle trolling my grammar -.-'.

It's not a matter of not looking at a certain aspect, it's a matter of putting it into perspective, of weighting the aspects.

Every aspect counts for the quality of the level, perhaps one aspect (gameplay) counts more for you. But that doesn't mean it should heavily outweight the theme or any other aspect of a level.

That was a joke, designed to tease you. I'm glad it worked well But it was a miscalculation, DZ only has 2/3 of his levels in the mappool.

That you correct me on the amount of levels he made is irrelevant to my point there though.

I rate other aspects too, but they're of miniscule importance. Eyecandy is not an issue, because I only look at levels made by experienced level makers. The levels that don't look good enough have already been filtered out. That you want to achieve some kind of aesthetical perfection is up to you, but one doesn't really have time to appreciate it in a competitive gaming situation.

Also for Stijn, overall quality next to gameplay isn't just determined by eyecandy. (although I agree ec is not a huge issue). But also the theme and ammo placement and so on is important. The main goal of a JCS competition isn't just 99% gameplay, and it isn't like "everything next to gameplay should be okay and when it's good enough, rest of the quality is considered by gameplay". You can't just slice JCS in two parts: Gameplay and eyecandy. It's more than just that.

Experienced level makers and experienced players tend to have useful opinions, if you're both, then you're probably even better at it because you can pay attention to details that I personally don't think much about. On the other hand the fact that you know how JCS works in detail can lead you into overappreciating something because it's complex in JCS but yields little result from a purely gaming point of view.

Personally I can't really rate a level without playing it a few times. I've been known to overrate levels by a few points (which I then in the best case go back to correct) if I just run around in them and try to predict how the level will play, but I guess I'm not alone in this.

Ok, so you are kind of agreeing here

Which is a good reason to have quite a few judges and some internal discussion among them before they cast their votes or whatever.

Which brings me back to the main point, that it's not going to work and that JCSers are going to feel like this competition is a straight forward announcement of what's good and wrong. With the amount of opinions, non-levelmaking judges (who can basically weight aspects of 'quality' different. Especially with a huge preference towards gameplay.) And after all, who has the right to claim how much certain aspects weight.

Even with a selection of judges, it can be really disadvantageous for certain JCSers in the competition. And then again, especially when it can't contain any levelmakers out of levelmaking clans who have great betatesting experience.

I agree a internal discussion could work, but i guess these can take a while..

Originally Posted by FawFul

Also for Stijn, overall quality next to gameplay isn't just determined by eyecandy. (although I agree ec is not a huge issue). But also the theme and ammo placement and so on is important. The main goal of a JCS competition isn't just 99% gameplay, and it isn't like "everything next to gameplay should be okay and when it's good enough, rest of the quality is considered by gameplay". You can't just slice JCS in two parts: Gameplay and eyecandy. It's more than just that.

But what other purpose does ammo placement serve than to improve gameplay? (And what do you exactly mean by "theme"?) I'd say you can separate level quality in the aspects of gameplay (or how well the level serves in facilitating a game of JJ2) and eyecandy (or how well it looks and, for the sake of simplicity, sounds). That isn't to say that only the gameplay should be important, how much attention is given to either aspect can and should be a matter of discussion. But in the end a level's purpose is to be a battleground for a JJ2 match. If it pleases the eyes and ears, that's a huge bonus, but a level that just looks good but has tons of dead ends and team imbalance (for example) will never get played often in serious matches, while a level that plays amazingly but looks horrible could become popular.

Obviously both aspects are intertwined to an extent and visuals can help to guide players through levels, bring attention to important locations and such. But as much as I love the usage of JCS as a tool to make stuff that looks great, eyecandy is always secondary to gameplay. Of course things are completely different for single player levels, but I don't think that's what you're worried about.

(The only possible third criterion I could think of would be originality, which is somewhat important given the huge amount of excellent levels out there already.)

Originally Posted by FawFul

That you correct me on the amount of levels he made is irrelevant to my point there though.

Originally Posted by FawFul

Every aspect counts for the quality of the level, perhaps one aspect (gameplay) counts more for you. But that doesn't mean it should heavily outweight the theme or any other aspect of a level.

...

Also for Stijn, overall quality next to gameplay isn't just determined by eyecandy. (although I agree ec is not a huge issue). But also the theme and ammo placement and so on is important. The main goal of a JCS competition isn't just 99% gameplay, and it isn't like "everything next to gameplay should be okay and when it's good enough, rest of the quality is considered by gameplay". You can't just slice JCS in two parts: Gameplay and eyecandy. It's more than just that.

The fact that JJ2 levels are made for playing is what dictates that gameplay outweighs everything else by far. When one considers "theme" the same way as one considers "eyecandy", namely "it has to be good enough but it's too subjective and relatively unimportant to go into detail", it basically boils down to the tileset choice and whether the music fits the lvl (not that I'd think of listening to it).

Which brings me back to the main point, that it's not going to work and that JCSers are going to feel like this competition is a straight forward announcement of what's good and wrong. With the amount of opinions, non-levelmaking judges (who can basically weight aspects of 'quality' different. Especially with a huge preference towards gameplay.) And after all, who has the right to claim how much certain aspects weight.

Ye, if you care a lot about the competition you are likely to be unhappy unless you win, but that applies to every level making competition.

The weighting could be done beforehand though: 8 points gameplay, 1 looks in the broadest sense, 1 originality, for example. Then the judges just need to talk a bit and fill in a short survey which asks about every aspect that has been deemed relevant

Yeah but the main goal is still to deliver a level that is good on all aspects, even if they are not as important as eyecandy or theme, placement, originality.


With theme i mean that when you pick a tileset, you as levelmaker achieves a themed battlefield as you had in mind. You can have great eyecandy by standing on a certain position, but how is the layout and everything polished around it, does it makes sense? which can maybe sound a little weird for such an unrealistic game, but practically a lot of impression goes to the theme.

It's always something i cared about atleast, it's not the amount of eyecandy that does the job, it's how the levelmaker wants to show what he wants to achieve with the tileset. As for my ideas levels, Beach shores were silent with minimal amount of eyecandy, cave were dark, ruined laboratories have lightning and all sorts of chaotic flashing animations. waterfalls in carrotus which are endless.. and in all this music plays a role too. It's up to the levelmaker, if he can execute the theme others can understand.

A good example from other levelmakers is something like: The Curse, where Snooze puts the beach tileset upside down for a cursed theme. Enter the Chaos by Firesword, which theme is a stormy chaotic rainy level. Or Pit of Necrosis, a greyscaled inferno level by PJ that really shows a deathly and deserted feeling. And then of course you have levels that have great eyecandy, but is too random and lacks (the right) theme. which is imo a level like fukushima by loon.
From the music,eyecandy, layout polished around that and the levelname you can tell the theme.

The main parts are indeed Gameplay, eyecandy and originality. But theme is for example related to eyecandy and orginality both, where originality doesn't directly mean the theme makes sense. So is balance,gimmicks and flow to gameplay.


And i agree jj2 is dedicated to playing. But this is very specific about a JCS competition, where you actually need to look at those little points too that outweights the quality of a level overall to another one. You can't have a competition like this where judges hardly take eyecandy into in account, and where they don't take theme and originality and the amount of gimmicks into account at all. (because that's what i fear with this).

In other words: It can't be that a blunt layer 4 level with slightly better gameplay, wins from an original, well themed, great eyecandy level.
I'm just saying this competition should also be dedicated to the skills of a JCSer, and as every decent levelmaker thinks about executing great themes nowadays for a bonus. (that can actually make an 8 rated level into a 9 rated level, which is very hard to do) It should also atleast being taken into account by the judges, which I think will not.

Point is: Judges (which will be non levelmakers out of clans) won't take small things that need a lot of JCS skill into account. such as theme, originality, flow, polished layout.


I'm more in favor in JCS events than a competition, something like a weekly weekend 2 hour JCS broadcast (on jjnet for example) or shown collabs (using WebJCS). This creates a lot more fun, than a competition where most likely all opinions vary.

So what do you think of Grytolle's proposal? 3 ratings per level - gameplay, audiovisuals, originality - with each of those sub-ratings counting for a certain amount towards the end rating?

Originally Posted by Stijn

So what do you think of Grytolle's proposal? 3 ratings per level - gameplay, audiovisuals, originality - with each of those sub-ratings counting for a certain amount towards the end rating?

This can work yes, if people will actually rate the sub-aspects too.

But overall i take back my point in an earlier post where i said i like a competition. I remember why I always liked JCSing and that's why there doesn't necessarily need to be a winner. Of course i entered several JCS tournaments too but that was mainly because there were judges i respected and actually knew what they were doing. And it was a good way to promote your level . and a lot of entries is also still different from head to head battling. I hugely dislike the fact that there can't be judges out of the levelmaking clans, even it makes sense for the bias.

Originally Posted by Stijn

So what do you think of Grytolle's proposal? 3 ratings per level - gameplay, audiovisuals, originality - with each of those sub-ratings counting for a certain amount towards the end rating?

If they're reasonably weighted this should be fine, yeah.

Originally Posted by Stijn

So what do you think of Grytolle's proposal? 3 ratings per level - gameplay, audiovisuals, originality - with each of those sub-ratings counting for a certain amount towards the end rating?

I think this would work well.