Survivor Review Board: Discussion

[xofelf]

Alright, so Klick and Nya have had this idea regarding future games(Nich also gave some input), and once this ends, I'm going to push for it. I love you mods, but some of this game has been poorly designed. I'm sorry, but it has. With the survivor queue as long as it is, we need a review system. Former mods who players can all agree on as being rather good, players who don't plan on playing for a while and then at least one of them reviews game setup before it can be run. Have them as a spectator or a sort of backup mod, whichever. You run two games that are reviewed and there aren't any huge mishaps like mod flaking or severely unbalanced challenges or twists that are beyond cruel(barring another purposeful bastardish game like Arkham) and then you can be added to said list of good mods. Just.. I feel lately there's been too many games that have glaring issues at one point or another and we need to get on top of that. Sorta use the system MS already has(or at least had last I knew) for mafia modding. New mods are great, really, I just think we need to make sure that their games aren't complete trainwrecks or used as the next measure of "Okay how bad is this game? Is it *insert game name here* bad?"

And also, for the love of god, can we PLEASE get some new challenges in these games? Some of them are great, but some challenges are overused and not changed at all. If you're going to recycle a challenge, please tweak it so it's something new or different. At this point I don't think I'm the only player who thinks that if they never have to see RAF again the world would be a better place. Want challenge/twist ideas, look at your theme(if you have one), look at old MishMash games(and by old I mean like super super old. There were some nice challenges/twists there that have been forgotten). We can do better.

Those of you have been paying attention to Bahamas have probably seen the idea Klick proposed that I posted about in my confessional(which has since made it's way into the thread itself). If you haven't, that's fine because this is the updated fleshed out version anyways.

So there's been a handful of games lately where either the players or the mods just stop caring about the game. Often that's due to pacing, but slightly more often it seems to be because of challenges and game setup. What I propose is this: A group of people willing to review future games so they can avoid some of these issues. The point of a game is to be fun for everyone isn't it? Yes all games have moments players don't particularly like, that's an inherent part of these kind of games. I'm not saying let's have all games be these fluffy handholdy things. No. What I want to avoid is games where for whatever reason people just give up, whether they stop trying or just keep going because they feel obligated but just couldn't care less.

Who should be part of this review board? Well that's where the community comes in. You can volunteer to be a part of it, or people can nominate their favourite mods/spectators and they can choose to take part. I think there should be a requirement of having successfully modded a game, or played a specific number, or spectated a few. As it's a community thing, discussion on that would be fantastic.

But it would work like this. Congrats, you have a game you want to mod and want reviewed. You would come here to the board and someone who wasn't going to play the game will volunteer to review it, if you have a preference of reviewer that's okay too. The reviewer could comod with you if you and they were both willing, they could also spectate to be around to help you during game, or they could just review and go on their merry way. That's between you and your reviewer. What sort of things would they be looking for? Well, Ani had a few good ideas on things he would be looking for in games he'd be reviewing, and I think they're all things that should be covered in games.

When you're getting your game reviewed, it will be sent off to a reviewer - that person has the liberty to check for anything they think could help your Survivor become even better than it was before. This includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• Clarity
  • Your reviewer may want to check any and all posts and PMs (things like TC posts, challenges posts, and reward PMs). Have this done beforehand so your reviewer can look into it. This is good for 2 reasons. Firstly, it's less things for you to have to worry about during the game. Secondly, it'll make sure that your posts aren't completely vague, and that you don't spend the entire deadline clarifying.
• Looking for backups
  • No site is up 100% of the time, and sometimes you may accidentally delete a file and lose your stuff. Having any and all important things in multiple different spots that all mods can access (ex. Google doc and MS PMs) will decrease your chances of losing all of your info.
• Challenges & Rewards
  • In addition to checking for clarity, these also have to be checked for balance, and fun. If one thing ends up becoming drastically overpowered, then the game is no fun for anyone.
• Twists
  • Any twists that you do include should be fair. This means that EVERYONE can access them at the appropriate times. Examples of such would include redemption island (where everyone who is eliminated competes in challenges to return), and HIIs. Feel free to come up with your own twists and have your reviewer look at them!
• Co-mods or Backup mods
  • Co-mods or a backup mod is a fantastic thing to have. Whether just there for the off-chance real life comes up and limits your modding capabilities, or just for a second pair of eyes and to assist with punctuality. Comods are always great things to have. You can look for your own or perhaps your reviewer would be willing.

From personal experience I can say having challenges written out and planned way in advance is a major help. You can look over things multiple times to make sure they're balanced and worded correctly, flavour can be added in easier or not if you wish, if for some reason you have a crisis, a comod/backup can post the challenge for you and it's exactly what you want it to be and they aren't scrambling around trying to figure out what should be done.
Also, if people wanting to run other Mish Mash games want a review, I don't see why this couldn't be used for that as well.

I would be willing to be a contact person for this. I wouldn't be reviewing any games until I have a few more under my belt. I have quite a bit of time on my hands and usually I can be contacted easily in a multitude of ways.

Finally, Survivor: Game of Thrones has already volunteered to be reviewed by Ani, so if there's any other suggestions of things he should be looking for, I'm sure he'd take them into consideration.


So thoughts? I want this to be a community thing that is agreed on. Mafia games get reviewed frequently, why couldn't Mish Mash games?

[Xalxe]

And I'm gonna critique it here because I feel like if it's gonna happen a) I'm putting on my official hat when talking about it and b) it should be discussed. If it gets out of hand I'll split these posts off.

*puts on official!Koopa hat*

Consulting my slightly out-of-date list of Survivor games, I'd like to cite some statistics at you all. First of all, we are currently in the best period for Survivor games in site history from a moderation standpoint (if you wanna talk player standpoint I'm gonna have to take off my official hat because HOO BOY WORDS). We have not had an abandoned game since mastermind's Survivor: Two Worlds in summer of 2012, which means we're nearly or almost at a year and a half with no abandonment. We're also at probably the highest rate of new moderation; of the first five completed games, four were Blackberry, and while our repeat rate is not that high (off the top of my head, currently active users who have run multiple games are myself, Nicholas1024, animorpherv1 and Snakes), we're still getting fresh blood at a great rate--provided that new things keep happening in games.

Now let's look at game quality (again, moderation only). I'm going to ignore Greece simply because I can't evaluate that objectively, and for historical sake I'm ignoring this too for the most part. I believe that there's only one past game that people truly say was awful, and I'll let Nick tell you which it is. That's one awful game, one iffy one if we want to talk about Bahamas already, and one abandoned game since early 2011 (Botswana), nearly three years ago. I'm going to officially go on record here:

I don't think bad games are enough of a problem as of yet to warrant drastic action in the form of an official review committee.

Now that I've said that, let me add a caveat:

if you're going to run any large game, not just Survivor, it never ever hurts to get it reviewed.

A fresh set of eyes does so much for games. Send it to me¹, hit someone else up, whatever.

Now, in terms of advice that I'll give anybody who wants to run anything ever, I personally feel that the Survivor market is very stale. One of the reasons I did Redemption Island in Greece was so that there would be something new in the game, and I think that when you're designing any game, one of the first things you should ask is "What am I bringing to the table that's new?" (tooting my own horn for a moment) Kingdom Clash was conceived because kloud and I wanted a format that was new. It went over pretty well; a KC2 may happen someday. Amazing Race happened because I wanted something fast-paced and a Race had never finished before. Greece had Redemption and the tribe breakdown from 2 to 4 simply because they'd never been done before. These kinds of things are what we need here. I'm not saying don't do Survivors, I'm saying that at this point if you're gonna do them, you need to do them good and you need to do something new.

Well that got away from where I meant it to but that's okay.

¹(I'm an especially good choice; the most I'm going to do until the fall player-side is small games)

[Drench]

all large-scale games should be reviewed really: the culture round here would potentially be served better if it saw a non-reviewed game as inherently weaker than a reviewed one, as it is with mafia games above the line

not even large themes need to pass review committees--but they do need reviews, and these are of a comparable size

(also re challenges, if you let me just smoke this cigarette and go all sotto voce on you all while sitting on a stool with one leg going over the other, i think it's time for the scopey timed challenge renaissance we've all been waiting for)

[Xalxe]

(also re challenges, if you let me just smoke this cigarette and go all sotto voce on you all while sitting on a stool with one leg going over the other, i think it's time for the scopey timed challenge renaissance we've all been waiting for)

Drench, I love you and I think you're the only one on this crusade so please stop it.

[Drench]

(also re challenges, if you let me just smoke this cigarette and go all sotto voce on you all while sitting on a stool with one leg going over the other, i think it's time for the scopey timed challenge renaissance we've all been waiting for)

Drench, I love you and I think you're the only one on this crusade so please stop it.

i didn't sacrifice a night of my life in 2008 only to fall asleep lose by 6 metres and be voted out in third to be spoken to like this

seriously though with significant innovation and a heavy move away from prioritizing endurance, they could be really good
i mean the amazing race was essentially one big fat scopey timed challenge and it was wicked as heck

[Xalxe]

I think we're on different levels here because my definition of "timed challenge a la Kscope" is posting shit endlessly for hours, am I wrong?

[Drench]

it can be? but as i said there's posting shit endlessly for hours and then there's like an actual challenge with actual structure and shape and direction involved

the difference between the last challenge of mafiascum survivor (run a hundred metres) and the first of seafoam (get these boulders aside, and then climb the mountain, and then do the thing)

[Xalxe]

I consider both equally not-good but this is a personal preference here and I'm not going to wave my modwand and impose sanctions unless someone breaks site rules and/or votes me out.

[Drench]

there's an art in making challenges full stop

i'll maintain there's such a thing as a good timed challenge

also i'm gonna call them interval challenges alright

[Shiidaji]

^ Agree wholeheartedly with Xalxe, he brings up a lot of good points, though I feel one more thing needs to be addressed:

Complaining!
While we [the Survivor community] may be a very smart and creative crowd, we are also extremely spoiled. There is a line drawn between the moderator and the players when the game begins, and over the past couple of games players have seemed all too eager to hop over it. While there are obviously times where complaints are completely valid, (clear mod bias, terrible player conduct) openly bitching about it in-thread is shameful. This trend has only increased ever since Mehdi's game, which is now being used as some sort of baseline for 'bad modding'.
"Wow, this is turning into the next Mario Bros, isn't it?" Anyone who parrots this needs to deeply rethink the implications of their comment. All this constant bashing does is increase negativity and bad feelings all around. Think about the mods' feelings, they are people and participants in the game as well. If you want to complain about their labor of love, take it to PMs or save it for discussion post game. Stop backseat modding y'all.

Felt like this was a good place to put it stay happy :>

[animorpherv1]

Posting to say that kloud is indeed alive also, and has also volunteered to help review.

[xofelf]

I wasn't thinking about it from a player standpoint, but as someone who mods to help keep players happy and enjoying things. Yes there's moments that suck in games, but there's been a string of games lately where either players or mods have started to feel a tad apathetic about their games. That post was just an original thought, I have more to think on and it's a community thing, not just a handful of players/mods who are slightly disgruntled. Xalxe, I'll talk with you more on things one on one, alright?

Edit: Also, let's not derail any more threads with this. I want to make a separate thread for it. My original post idea that was in my confessional was just a starting point, there's more I've thought of since then. It'll be in the opening post. But if you have any direct suggestions, my PM and IM boxes are open.

[Nicholas1024]

I get your point, but at the same time, I think it's extremely important that a survivor game be properly designed and run. Joining a survivor is a significant commitment by the player, and it's not uncommon for the most dedicated to spend multiple hours per day managing the social game, even before challenges come into play. If the challenges, or worse, the twists involved in a game are disappointing, players can lose motivation, which will hurt their gameplay, and typically worsen the overall experience for all involved. Furthermore, as Xalxe mentioned, there's a huge amount of new blood looking to run their own games. The Mish Mash community can't really run more than one (or maybe two) survivors at the same time, so running your own game forces any other planned games to wait for the three or so months it takes your game to finish. While this shouldn't stop you from trying to run a game, I just really want to emphasize that as much of a time commitment you put into designing it, you have a duty to the players, spectators, and anyone else involved to try to make it the best game possible.

Finally, I want to point out that getting people to review your game is extremely simple. Just message Kloud, or Ani, or myself, or Xofelf, or Xalxe, or any experienced moderator, and ask if they'd be interested in reviewing or comodding your game. If not, no problem, simply ask someone else. If they are, just link them to whatever notes you have written up, and ask for their thoughts. A second person can look at your game objectively in ways that you personally can't, and they're often a great aid in coming up with challenges. As someone who's designed and run multiple games, I can confidently say that both Middle Earth and Arkham wouldn't have been nearly as memorable without the aid of my comods.

That said, I will apologize for some of my comments, I was exaggerating to make a point, and I recognize that I went overboard at times.

[Nyalite]

the Survivor market is very stale. One of the reasons I did Redemption Island in Greece was so that there would be something new in the game, and I think that when you're designing any game, one of the first things you should ask is "What am I bringing to the table that's new?"

I agree very much with this, this has been one of the driving factors for Jal and I.


I think any survivor review needs to be viewed from two angles. First, whether the mods are properly prepared to mod. This is the easier part, and as Xalxe pointed out, hasn't been an issue recently. However I do think that with a queue of 6+ months it's very easy to say "yeah let me save myself a spot" and then 4, 5 or even 6 months down the line they really aren't ready. This either leads to a delay of the start of the game which affects every other survivor game down the line, or a substandard game. I'd rather this issue be identified earlier, so steps can be taken to remedy it. Again this may not be an issue currently, but when you weigh the cost of having one person look at a game with a very specific set of criteria and say, "Yeah these guys are making a good faith effort to be ready for their game and mod it properly" against the potential risk of having a botched game? It seems like it's worth looking into.

The second angle, and really the harder to execute one is deciding whether a game is really adding to the Survivor discourse. I do personally believe this is worth looking into, but it seems extremely subjective and would need to be handled in a very delicate way. I have many personal feelings about this, but I think that's best to be discussed elsewhere.

I think my final thoughts on any review committee is that we need to create a separate space where it can be discussed by a diverse group of people. This means people who are in support of it and those opposed. I also think that the committee aspect needs to set standards and that no more than two people should be actually reviewing the game. I do not think it should be an ad hoc set of people who you can message to have them look at your game. That was already an option, so it wouldn't change anything but moreover I think any review group needs to have firm, non-subjective things they are looking for. These need to be written down, not just whatever the reviewer finds important personally. We should also minimize how much their personal opinion influences their review.


I want to say a few words about Bahamas itself. I want to thank D3f3nd3r and Snakes for modding it. I know I did my fair share of complaining, but I regret a lot of it. I also agree with Shii comments about complaining during the game. It's fun to complain sometimes, and some of the challenges were frustrating. But I think it created a negative atmosphere around the game, when players all complain publicly it normalizes it and erodes the essential respect I think players should show to the mods. There is no doubt in my mind D3f3nd3r and Snakes both worked hard on this game and whatever our thoughts on what they produced, we need to first give them credit for their hard work.

So again, thank you D3f and Snakes for your hard work and diligence in modding the game.

[animorpherv1]

Alright, since this has been all removed and what not, we should maybe get a skype call or something going at some point about this (bonus points to whomever's idea this was) - people who are both for and against are willing to join and say their piece.

[Xalxe]

For transparency's sake, I would prefer that most discussion occurs here simply because not everyone has Skype and I'd like to have some things on the record. For example, I'll probably be dumping my current convo with xof here or elsewhere at some point.

[kloud1516]

Edit: Ninja'd.

[Klick]

Well this looks like a fun conversation.

I'm probably not very qualified to have much of an impact in this discussion, but I'm going to leave an egopost here.

[Xalxe]

Well this looks like a fun conversation.

I'm probably not very qualified to have much of an impact in this discussion, but I'm going to leave an egopost here.

Okay then here's a question to a "layman," as it were: If a game had a review board stamp on it, would you care? If a game didn't have it, would you care?

(anybody can answer this btw)

(hello the koopa is playing the bad guy here what fun)

[Nyalite]

I am also against the idea of a skype call. That limits the discussion of this to those in the circle of friends willing to talk to each other on skype.

[Klick]

I'm not likely to play many more games in the near future. However, if I were to jump back in and play, I'd be more likely to play a game if I was confident it would be well set-up. Having a "stamp," per say, from this system would make me confident that the game I'd be joining would be a quality game.

So yeah, if I felt like playing, I'd more likely join a game that was approved by the Survivor Review Board. It'd make me feel more confident about it.

[animorpherv1]

I'm not likely to play many more games in the near future. However, if I were to jump back in and play, I'd be more likely to play a game if I was confident it would be well set-up. Having a "stamp," per say, from this system would make me confident that the game I'd be joining would be a quality game.

So yeah, if I felt like playing, I'd more likely join a game that was approved by the Survivor Review Board. It'd make me feel more confident about it.

QFT.

[StrangerCoug]

I'm in agreement on part of this. No Skype.

What are the opinions on a formal Survivor queue?

[animorpherv1]

I'm in agreement on part of this. No Skype.

What are the opinions on a formal Survivor queue?

We already have an "informal" one anyways.

[KingdomAces]

I don't think I need to say this, but the main problem here is that in general the people modding the game is already removing people who would likely join games. Having a dedicated review board would cause there to be even more people who aren't playing. I don't know about anything since, but I was only actually in Arkham because it got to the sign up deadline with one playerslot still being empty. It seems like every game there are more and more people saying that they don't want to play again, and I really don't know how many people there are that want to start playing for the first time.

The other major problem here is for anon games. I know Xalxe/kloud are volunteering to review the games, but what happens when they want to play again? The mod would have to find someone else to review the game, but that would be kind of hard to do without just flat out saying that one/both of Xalxe/kloud are playing in the upcoming game which ruins part of the point of anons.

I'm not saying I disagree with the proposed system, it's just that there are a lot of things that need to be worked out before it is imposed.