Review Group for Open Setups?

[Bicephalous Bob]

In practice, the review process for open setups goes like this:

1. You post a setup in the stickied open setup thread.
2. If your setup is broken, people who frequent the thread will probably explain why. If it isn't very original, they might ask you what you are trying to accomplish with the setup. If they like the setup, they'll say that. (Officially, they should nominate the setup, but no one does that anymore.) Some setups don't receive any feedback at all.
3. Once in a while, Llama comes by and picks one or two setups to try out.

Llama usually doesn't give much reasoning given for why he picked the particular setups. I understand he has a queue to run and I can imagine he can't give feedback to each and every one of them. Still, this means setups that exclusively got positive feedback are often not run, while the picked setups sometimes didn't receive much positive feedback at all. Adding a review group to the mix would solve this discrepancy:

1. You post a setup in the stickied open setup thread.
2. Besides anyone who feels like doing so, at least one of the reviewers gives feedback. When there's a consensus a setup is good, they'll tell Llama about it.
3. If Llama doesn't have any objections, the setup is run in the Open Queue.

This way, every setup receives feedback and this feedback, of which the validity can be discussed, matches trial policy. But this would only work if Llama is okay with this change and there are people willing to review on a semi-regular basis. So?

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

I think most setups in the Open Setup sticky are posted without any intent to put them in circulation.

And if you do want to get your game added to the approved games list, any mod with one game of experience can choose to run it in the Open Queue. That's why I modded Diffusion of Power myself and asked Equinox to mod Semi-Nightless.

[Bicephalous Bob]

Unless I'm mistaken, new mods already get asked to do trial runs of setups suggested in the sticky thread they had nothing to do with. I'm not suggesting any change there.

[xRECKONERx]

They don't. New mods have to run preapproved setups

[zoraster]

Every six months or so, round up the likely open setups and summarize them, describe what the appeal is, and suggest two or three to add to the repetoir. Then PM that to LF. I dont' think anything official needs to be done, but it would probably help LF to have an executive summary so it doesn't involve crawling through not just all the setups but the discussion around them, the refining process, etc.

[wgeurts]

There is a review group, first you get checked in open setups ideas and discussion and then you can move to another thread (look at the links in the bottom of the open queue page) and post ot there were if it gets approved it is allowed to be run as an "untested setup" in the open queue. Darn, all this knowledge from editing the wiki has stuck in my head.

[wgeurts]

Found it:
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=18885

[FakeGod]

whoa man careful where you tread

llamafluff will eat you alive if you encroach on his territory

[wgeurts]

whoa man careful where you tread

llamafluff will eat you alive if you encroach on his territory

?

[wgeurts]

It's in his own queue rules:

[wgeurts]

Lol, I can probaly name all open setups by heart by now.

[Bicephalous Bob]

Unless I'm mistaken, new mods already get asked to do trial runs of setups suggested in the sticky thread they had nothing to do with.

Llama, is this correct?

Every six months or so, round up the likely open setups and summarize them, describe what the appeal is, and suggest two or three to add to the repetoir. Then PM that to LF. I dont' think anything official needs to be done, but it would probably help LF to have an executive summary so it doesn't involve crawling through not just all the setups but the discussion around them, the refining process, etc.

If I'm correct, this doesn't change anything to llama deciding alone on the new open setups without giving much insight to the process.

[Bicephalous Bob]

whoa man careful where you tread

llamafluff will eat you alive if you encroach on his territory

(squattiny)?

[FakeGod]

shhh western aang

we can't let him know of (squattiny)

[wgeurts]

Who's (squattiny)?

[LlamaFluff]

Unless I'm mistaken, new mods already get asked to do trial runs of setups suggested in the sticky thread they had nothing to do with.

Llama, is this correct?

If the setup is not complex I will ask new mods if they would want to run a trial setup, they are more than free to not choose to do the trial and run an established setup instead. As had been stated elsewhere, the open queue is primarily newer mods, waiting for a mod with experience could result in a setup being in limbo of being approved to running for a month or more. Since the split off of micro games already somewhat struggles to have a variety of setups. This is especially true as outside of the core popular ones (C9++, Friends and Enemies, PYP, Jungle Republic, Fire and Ice) most games tend to fill slower. We need a few more good and popular 11-15 player games.

If a setup is balanced and appears either popular in the thread or is similar enough to other past popular setups I will send it in for a trial run. Open players seem to be fans of masons and variable open setups in particular, multiball as well. Some setups crash out and struggle to get players to sign up and are removed after a trial. Some setups are broken or proven to be unbalanced at some point in the future (Fight or Flight and Hard Boiled come to mind as setups that existed for a long time before being broken) and are removed. Some setups are adopted into normal rotation if they have multiple runs with no one breaking them and have demand from players.

If someone thinks that I missed a setup or wants me to comment on something in particular, you are more than free to send me a poke about a setup. To an extent I prefer to let things go on their own to avoid early bias on if a setup if good or not, so on occasion will miss a setup, especially if multiple setups are being discussed at once.