Dungeon Master Forum

We're beginning to have a big list of dungeons. However, very few of them are rated, commented or reviewed.

I'd like to make available a big table showing the ratings for each dungeon to help the newcomer to choose what he wants to play, but I think it's not possible right now.

Does it sound like a good idea to implement some systems of rating?

* on an individual basis, for each dungeon?

* a top 5 or top 10 dungeons, with several categories (ie: fun, ambiance, hack n slash, exploration, size, craft, originality, story, replayability, etc.) ?

* a system of "awards" that would be sticked to the titles of the dungeons in the main list?

Feed this thread with your ideas and comments!

I think maybe giving kind of review-ratings of dungeons to give an idea of their content, but not ratings as in "This dungeon is crap, blah-blah dungeon is much better", 'cause that might put off the person who made the dungeon, especially if it's, like, a first effort and they tried really hard or something.
But stuff like "This dungeon has lots of mobs in, it's hard because you must sneak around avoiding them to get the equipment before you can fight, making it for more experienced dungeoneers" is good 'cause it gives an idea of what the dungeon is about and tells players whether it's one that might suit their play style.
Though I'm sure the hardcore fanatics will have a bash at anything resembling a tunnel with doors and mobs and stuff .
Or is all that boringly obvious?

maybe each new dungeon could have an associated poll in the 'Custom Dungeons' forum with a note from 1 to 5 given by dungeon reviewers... and their comments under.
we can put this rule into a sticky post named "Releasing a new dungeon : read me first" or something like that.
but i don't know if you can link the average note into the "List of dungeons" post...

This has been mentioned before, a long time ago, and I agree it would be a good idea: not only to reward the designer for their efforts but to offer constructive criticism. This can only end up with better dungeons.

We had ratings system before, from neophyte to archmaster or simply 1-10. If a player does not want to give a full review they could simply give a plus and minus points and an overall rank for example.

Awards will be a good idea I suppose. However after looking at your dungeons Zyx, many might feel they haven't got a chance! One thing I have always said about dungeon making is that you don't need a massive knowledge of the games mechanics or secrets to create an enjoyable dungeon. Undoubtedly Conflux has done what the mortal man is not capable of and produced a unique envioronment: however Imprisoned by Sucinum is simply laid out and very playable. The new editors, especially CSBuild make it easy to produce a good looking dungeon.

Oh no, it would be unfair to compare a 2-years-development dungeon like Conlux to a first time, two levels dungeons, but also not pertinent, since players don't look for the same fun when playing a 2 levels dungeon as with a 20 levels dungeons.
That's why we should use categories. At the very least, "Short dungeons" and "big dungeons", but I'm sure we can find better ones.

I agree with the constructive criticism, but I wonder how to organize this information so that the would-be player can have all the necessary information about all the dungeons in one single page in order to make his choice.

What do you think of a poll option? Maybe it lacks subtility (and it would be much work for me to add a poll to every released dungeon, but that's not the point).

A lot of the categories would overlap which makes things difficult to organize, but I am sure it can be done.

There are also a lot of pages already open for discussing dungeons, and gameplay within. Are you suggesting starting a new page, or subpage, for each dungeon, with an accompanying poll? I believe that will work, if the designer of the dungeon starts each page off himself and all comments are focused on the completed dungeon and reviewing. This would also sieve out the dungeons that are no longer actively worked on where we can start maybe a shorter series of pages.

Overlapping would not be necessarily a concern in all the cases since a same dungeon could participate in several categories.
Size categories should not overlap, I guess, but "best hack n slash" and "best puzzles" categories, for example, are not exclusive. However, it is quite improbable that a dungeon specialized in one is also good in the other one...

We therefore need a 'jack of all trades' category: one dungeon could be pretty darned good in every other category, but not the best in a single one, and get left out!

OK, how should this start? Maybe a post for each dungeon from the designer, with poll at the top for overall rating (1-10), then space under for reviewing. Each new post should maybe be entitled: REVIEW:*dungeon name*. Poll results could be collated in one page which would tie in with your original vision.

Categories: we don't want too many here. Maybe 6 or so. But I can think of at least 12 which may be overkill (?)

Ok, guys, propose your categories!

If erverybody agrees, I'll put an announcement like this for the poll:

Dungeon creators: if you want your dungeon to be rated, create a poll entitled "[dungeon name] : REVIEW" with ratings from 10 down to 1 as options. I'll update the average note on the master list of dungeons.

Hmm...kinda making these up as I go...
-Number of puzzles/Amount of brain power required
-General difficulty of puzzles
-Amount of fighting required
-Level at start (ie newbie like DM, higher level like CSB...therefore gives a hint of overall difficulty of dungeon)
-Size of dungeon/approximate length of play
-Is dungeon linear or "chaotic"?
-Atmosphere/Scariness factor ((or something like that...)

Ummm...I could probably think of some more, but erm...not atm hehe .

I wouldn't want to see too many polls popping up on the forum as I think it'll become unmanageable.

A better solution would be some kind of web app that stores user polls in a database. It would then be relatively straight forward to pull out any kind of comparison you want.

It would be something I'd be interested in looking at but I simply do not have the time. Any other takers care to investigate this?

i agree, about 20 - 30 polls cluttering up the custom dungeon thread possibly not the best idea, unless we created another forum purely for reviews and ratings...which sounds too many forums

i'm sure an elegant solution will present itself - in the meantime there are alreayd ratings and reviews attached to each thread with the dungeons - i think for now just base it on that and create a score and general 'feel' for each one

i think you can rate the dungeon from
a) creator - begginer, medium, expert
b) dungeon- easy, medium, hard
c) size / replayabliltiy (two score, kinda tie in)
d) type - can have multiple - like puzzler, exploration, story, hack, fast, etc

i think the original areas highlighted by zyx in the encyclopaedia section is fine though, it hit all these and a few more like atmosphere

i somehow liked the old reviews we had - you can explan your rating in 3 words or write some lines, so very flexible and after 2-3 reviews you have a good overview over the dungeon. since it's not only 1 thread per dungeon here, the overview is lost a bit.
how about a new forum with 1 thread for each dungeon (including a download-link in the 1st post until we get a file-upload-mod here) and only reviews are allowed as replies. all questions, spoilers, competitions and general threads remain in this forum here. this gives a quick overview about the dungeon's popularity (number of reviews/thread views and date of last review) in the forum index and details after opening the thread (reviews^^). maybe we could import the dungeon-forum from the dmweb-forums and clean out non-reviews to keep the reviews which were already done - will require to add a download-opportunity/link, but next to creating lots of work, it will also preserve many work already done in reviews.

Well this seems to have stalled a bit. I think a new forum is a good idea. New dungeons are surely the best thing to happen to DM, and are the future of it, so only one forum for this seems balanced the wrong way. After all RTC has 5 forums.

I don't agree -- poll/reviews on this forum are simply not the best way to manage this. There are already too many forums here.

The difficulty is that those of you discussing it obviously want something quickly. But I see it as a false economy to establish a forum -- I think it's simply wasting effort on something that could be done much better as a web application. As I said before, I think this is something that needs careful consideration and for someone with the time to invest in it -- ie, looking in to setting up a proper database with upload facility.

I would do it myself but I simply do not have the free time with my other projects on the go. Any takers?

Web applications unfortunately not my cup of tea. But if it is genuinely a better option than opening a new forum then so be it. But it comes back to, 'Who's gonna do it?'. Either way I think it is VERY important. Without new dungeons the WHOLE forum would be a shadow of what it is now.

If I could, I would. But I can't.

if you like, that forum already exists, its on the encyclopaedia -a thread per dungeon, reveiewed underneath if possible

and the start of that web application exists, it's on paul stevens webspace...he's taken the trouble to put surraries and instant starter packs there

So for the short term, someone could either a) summarise very quickly the reviews and review more dungoens, and zyx could put that into his current dungeon thread, or they could summarise in details and create a test pack and give the webpage and

in the long term hopefulyl someone with time or energy can create somethign, or we can put something ion place when the encyclopaedia upload merge here - like each dungeon has the thread, and below it a rating answer that is updated with all the reviews, whcih is reflected in zyx's sticky thread

I agreee, custom dungeons are very important, especially they are more accessable and more likely to be done than the various clone projects that also keep this crazy community alive : )

A web application would be the best of course, but it's not happening, so, while we sort how we want to organize the reviews, I propose we vote for some "top 3 dungeons". I'll create the threads...

conflux II, imprisoned again, tower of chaos.... I've seen that before, and that tends to be the ones i would recommend

No, no, I was thinking about a top 3 with several categories, and to distinguish between short sized, medium and big dungeons.

The three threads for "Top 3s" is a good idea -- I would definitely have put my administrators foot down over one thread per dungeon.

Yes, very good idea. We may have 7 contributors by the end of the year. Come on people lol!

Well, I'm ashamed to say I haven't played many custom Dungeons other than Conflux 2. I did start an early version of Imprisoned Again but it was buggy -- haven't tried the later ones.

I'm simply too busy with my own creative projects for much playing these days!

I realize I forgot a lot about the dungeons I played. I should test them again to remember what I liked, but I'm too busy.

I have not played them all either so I suppose a lot of my comments may appear somewhat hypocritical. I have played several all the way through, and started many others and stopped. Some do appear buggy still.

I think that ot would be a good idea for designers of old dungeons for DM to convert them to CSBWin and brush them up using the editors: this would overcome a lot of the original limitations and will probably get a lot more people playing them.

yeah, my replies are all fom quick thinking bad p- i need to look at the reviews i have done on the DME to remind myself of the dungeons!
I used to play them all, but reached a point where there were a few out and i didn't have the time...so there are some like black flame i don't think i have ever touched...
I tried to bursh up DM:Alt for CSBwin, but got to level nine playtestign it before shiny thigns distratced me...i may finsih testign it and release it...can't beleive its the only dungeon i ever released!