Surely if you began with production values you wouldn't end up with a cheat plugin.

Actually, TOPS Mods is a sort of anti-cheat. A cheat plugin doesn't add any graphics, storyline, personalities or planets, it just makes the game easier at the cost of realism and game-play.

TOPS Mods doesn't add graphics, planets, ships or outfits. But it tweaks the ones that are there and adds some crunchy missions to make the game more challenging, enhance realism and improve the game play.

I suspect that a lot of people begin wanting to post something on the add-ons board, and start playing around with resedit, and then ask themselves 'what can I make?'. A cheat is simply the easiest thing to make without putting any thought into it. Any developer could put together a hundred cheater plugins in a single afternoon.

But how about this as an alternative strategy for people who want to make something, without doing all kinds of graphics and without spending hours on it:

Start off with a new character (see the published EV Nova Bible for this), and then give him or her some basic motivations - let's say he's seen this girl in a bar who looks exactly like a girl he was crazy about ten years before (or make it five if you're under twenty and can't imagine what ten would be like). He decides to quit his boring job, and go and look for her. Now think of a reason why this is in fact much more difficult and dangerous than it might appear (oh, please, no, not 'secret agent' or 'mafia king-pin') give him three challenges he has to meet to find her (but he doesn't know it's three yet). Then write the missions to do it, using only the stuff already in Nova (whatever that is).
Play through it a couple of times to make sure it really kicks. Then, release it. I reckon you could do this in about two hours, once you've actually played through Nova to get a good feel for it (and goodness knows how long that will take).

Much more satisfying to make than a cheat, will give you real cred with the top table, and could make you a living legend like the Old Professor.

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M A R T I N • T U R N E R

Good...

Cheat plugs are still inevitable, but at least this will make a dent in them. But if you have someone who released 5 cheat plugs over several months, it's proably because they want to make cheats.

Anyway, if everyyone thinks that my other post(not the one about the cheats) is a good idea, maybe we should try it. New topic?

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Cuz I'm a 21st Century Digital Boy
I don't know the Monty Python but I've got a lotta toys
My daddy is a Renegade, his name is Hellcat Helian
Wait a second...

I have become rather dissillusioned with plug-in making. I spent a lot of time on so many plug-ins that never were released, such as the delta-v one, New Republic, and countless others I can't even remember fully. I think that the most important production value is commitment. New Republic was pretty awsome and nearly completed, but somehow even after it was handed off to several people it camewith in an inch of being finnished. The ships, missions, outfits, systems, worlds, and everything else was completed, it just needed some reformatting and tweaking to be consumable.

-improvdude-
(formerly walter)

My primary "production value" is to make a plug that I would enjoy playing. I find that generally covers most of the stuff that's been mentioned.

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(Insert Signature Here)

This kind of sums up all the values into one- We expect a product with quality as high (or higher) to that of the original.

And, of course, there are exceptions to every rule.

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Silent Night will be converted to Nova! Should be done in 2 years!
------==========------
If you look far enough on the horizon, there will always be a cloud.

The "review committee" idea has come up almost as many times as requests for a EV:3D.

The merits and pitfalls of such a committee has been extensively discussed by others so I won't bother outlining them.

To me, this question is easily solved. If some people truly want a prestigious review committee, they should ask the plug-in authors of some of the most renowned plug-ins to review plug-ins and then write reviews and give ratings.

How much standing this committee gets is really optional. I also agree that a dictatorial committee is not in our best interests. Then again, I think it is fair to say that there are a number of plug-ins out there that are simply not worth the download time.

The current ratings system is flawed. I think the results can be skewed by an unscrupulous plug-in author.

Let us not forget that these plug-ins are being hosted by Ambrosia's servers, courtesy of the company. They have absolutely full authority to decide whatever goes on their servers. I don't think any of us should be presumptuous enough to think that we have any right to decide how they use their servers. We can offer recommendations, though.

The following possibilities are available for this "review committee":

1. Ambrosia officially endorses the committee. The committee's review and ratings for a plug-in are listed on the Add-Ons page in different colored text. Suppose if all committee members reach by unanimous decision that a plug-in is a waste of memory space, then Ambrosia can decide not to host that plug-in.

2. The committee is unofficial. However, there will be a topic in the various EV web boards announcing the committee's ratings of plug-ins. That topic should be consistently updated as new plug-ins are submitted and reviewed and rated. Ambrosia continues to host whatever comes its way. But since the people on the committee are all renowned plug-in authors, people who are looking for new plug-ins to try out may decide to use that topic as a resource to make up their minds.

The problem about a committee is whether its members will be diligent enough to review the submissions, which are numerous for EV/O and I would imagine would be the same for EVN. In addition, there are also numerous other questions, such as:

1. How many members should it have? Who are they? How should they be decided? Chosen by members? Simply by default to those who made TCs? Chosen by Ambrosia?

2. Does everybody on it has to review the same plug-in or do they trust one another enough so that each of them can review a different plug-in and the rest would agree to whatever recommendation one makes?

3. What if the committee takes too long to review a plug-in? It's been my observation that the best plug-in authors usually have lives.

These are just some thoughts I'm throwing out in the open. I look forward to additional thoughts on this matter.

Sincerely,

htjyang

P.S. I apologize for my bureaucratic mentality.

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(url="http://"http://www.reverseroe.com/reverseroe/")http://www.reverseroe.com/reverseroe/(/url)

My opinions on the comittee(I assume we're talking about that now)

I think that only a fraction of downloaders see the webboards, so a webboard topic would be ineffective in reaching people. I think that if this comittee is to be effective, it would have to be endorsed by Ambrosia.

Also, I think that we should have as many members as are managable. The more people who are on the comittee, the less radical the views on plug-ins will be and making stupid mistakes(like rejecting frozen heart because of giving the player a powerfull ship too early) will become less likely. However, if it becomes too big, it may become unorganized and unmanagable, and that would be a disaster.

As for the reviews, I think they should be written by individuals and ratified by a large majority of the comittee(75%, for example). Rejecting plug-ins should proably be only by a vast majority. (90-100%, depending on the size of the comittee).

Lastly, I think a comittee would benefit from having non-programming players on it. These are the people who make up most of our target audience, and sometimes developing plug-ins can change people's outlooks on plug-ins. I know it changed mine.

Anyway, those are some more ideas/opinions out in the open to kick around.

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Cuz I'm a 21st Century Digital Boy
I don't know the Monty Python but I've got a lotta toys
My daddy is a Renegade, his name is Hellcat Helian
Wait a second...

if we're going to have some form of review board, i suggest we don't make it just a seal of approval or even a numerical rating. my local paper gives new movies ratings (1-5 stars, more being better), but many very good movies have gotten only 2 stars and several 4-5 star movies have utterly sucked, at least in my opinion. the point is, you can't read one number and expect it to tell you how well you'll enjoy something, people have very different opinions as to what constitutes good material. so if we must have ratings for plugs, i suggest that we have whole reviews. not only should opinions about the plug be expressed, but they should also be explained. perhaps it could even go so far as to give ratings (and explanations thereof) in several categories. then, instead of getting snap judgements from 10 or 20 people, we could get meaningful ratings from 1 or 2 people (or more, but if we're going for quality i wouldn't suggest trying to also push for quantity). the committee wouldn't have to have anything to do with ambrosia (better it doesn't: if it becomes a censorship board we'll lose a lot of talent around here), it could just put up its reviews somewhere (maybe there could be links to reviews next to the download links for each plug?) and let players decide on their own

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if tin whistles are made of tin, what's a fog horn made of?

Quote

Originally posted by nighthawk:
**if my local paper gives new movies ratings (1-5 stars, more being better), but many very good movies have gotten only 2 stars and several 4-5 star movies have utterly sucked, at least in my opinion.
**

That is mostly because the people who rate movies on the actors (and some other things). Good actor=good rating. This would be like execepting an aweful plugin from Bob because he made a really awesome plug in EV.

Next subject. A place that people could put typed comments on a plugin would be very nice. Second, I feel that the rating system should have parts to it (graphics, plot, balanced, and overall). A missions plug should star in plot, balance, and overall. A TC should star in every catogory ect. Also I feel that the plugins in the "highest ranked" must be rated more than 20 times. (Zork ship, rating: 100 (one person rated this))

If we had a commity of people rating plugins, it would either work very well or not at all.

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Silent Night, a plug-in for Nova, will feature a small, unique galaxy. With only three races, I will be able to change the galaxy to my hearts desire. To help me finish it faster, I will not be slowed down by making ship graphic- I will use the ones from Nova.
------==========------
If you look far enough on the horizon, there will always be a cloud.

I never said anything about numerical ratings. Here's what I was thinking:

As someone submitts a pluging, they have the option of sending it to the comittee for rating.

When the comittee recieves a plug-in, they send it to several members. How many would depend on how long it would take them to get to know the plug.

They play the plug and then discuss it. Then they come up with a written review, and anyone else on the comittee who wants to can play the plug and then ratify the review. When the review is final, ambrosia puts up the plug with the developers description and the review. If the developer doesn't wish to have it reviewed, they simply say that no review is avaliable.

So this would be a general idea of how I was thinking a review would look like.

Plot: Good
Balance: Could be better
Graphics: Excellent
Governments: Average
Universe: Average
Other Commets: Exciting, but a little short.

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Cuz I'm a 21st Century Digital Boy
I don't know the Monty Python but I've got a lotta toys
My daddy is a Renegade, his name is Hellcat Helian
Wait a second...

I think your review was a little short. In my opinion, you couldn't possibly cover everything that quickly except by quantity or quality ratings of a very few number of individuals. A full article could explain the thoughts behind the ratings.

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Signed,
Brian Schack
"DOS Computers, manufactured by millions of companies, are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use worldwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form."
--The New York Times, November 26, 1991 (also quoted in MacAddict 4)

Quote

Originally posted by 21st Century Digital Boy:
**I never said anything about numerical ratings. Here's what I was thinking:
...
So this would be a general idea of how I was thinking a review would look like.

Plot: Good
Balance: Could be better
Graphics: Excellent
Governments: Average
Universe: Average
Other Commets: Exciting, but a little short.**

the only difference between that and a set of numerical ratings is symantic. the review would be exactly the same as
plot: 4
balance: 2
graphics: 5
governments: 3
universe: 3
other comments: exciting, but a little short.
granted, it's better than just giving it an overall rating of 3.4, but not by far. for a review to mean anything at all, it has to include justification. it doesn't help me a bit to know what one person thought of a plug, but if i know why they thought what they did, i can begin to predict what i'll think of it

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if tin whistles are made of tin, what's a fog horn made of?

"Could be better", "Good", etc weren't suppost to be set-in-stone ratings. They were jsut supposed to b what the reviewer thought was appropriate for the area. But you guys are right about the justification. That would just be a general overview. Any other thoughts?

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Cuz I'm a 21st Century Digital Boy
I don't know the Monty Python but I've got a lotta toys
My daddy is a Renegade, his name is Hellcat Helian
Wait a second...

On the old EV site there was a reviewer option, where you could send your plugin to someone who would review them.

Unfortunately, the guy didn't actually have time to do it, and it never got anywhere.

How about this -
either: get Andrew to set up a plugin review board (I mean a discboard, not a committee), where people can post on pre-created threads which relate to each plugin which has been posted on the Add-ons pages.

Or - better - do what they do with Version Tracker, where you post a comment with your rating, alongside your name.

This would also stop unscrupulous plugin makers or the unscrupulous enemies of plugin makers from stacking the figures by rating their own plugin from a computer lab (VTracker only allows registered users to rate things, and they must have a legit email address).

Actually, I've seen this happen a couple of times. On one occasion a twelve year-old kid got onto the board and started mouthing off about how much he hated a particular plugin (which was an opinion he was entitled to). Somebody else posted that the plugin had a 96 rating, based on more than 300 votes - in other words, that the kid's opinion was a minority one. The kid then posted back, cryptically: 'Not for long'. Within a week the rating had dropped from 96 to 86 - which is either an awful lot of people who decided together to rate it 'terrible', or one kid with access to a lab.

On another occasion, someone posted a file that was about 0k long as a plugin. It shot up through the 'most downloaded' section to about fifth place, before the admins deleted it. Clearly the 'author' was downloading it thousands of times (literally) to push it up the table.

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M A R T I N • T U R N E R

I'd just like to say
I agree totally with Martin's ideas,although they may be hard to meet.
Some of the few plugins I would give a "graphical excellence" stamp to are the Complete Incomplete by UniversalWolf,both MAGMAs,and (of course)the Frozen Heart and Femme Fatale..
By following his standards,Martin Turner has made the two best TC's I've ever seen.
Congrats!

Oh man... I just made a hugely long post with little use. I'll just sum it up:

*I think the idea of an "approval committee" is not bad, but having it decide whether Ambrosia hosts plugs on its Addons pages might not be a good idea - but of course, as htjyang said, it's Ambrosia's decision whether or not to host all these plugs.

*Frandall, the values you put down as the values the Nova plug people had used have just turned into my values.

*Folks, above all, keep the story interesting, consistent, involving, detailed, and as original as possible.

There - I just sent a post I spent 45 mins. making to the crapper and replaced it with a 2-minute post.

(This message has been edited by Joolzman5 (edited 08-02-2001).)