I see that some score summaries miss a descripton on the rating breakdown. I'd suggest that you included that (in a spoiler), otherwise the rating can seem haphazard and in some cases even arbitrary. I know it adds more work in to it, but it makes your ratings carry more weight. Anyways, I love your vids and keep the map reviews comming!
I believe the only ones missing some context have videos, in which I provide tons of commentary.
I guess that's fair enough. Only problem with that is that the vid content can be hard to digest if it's several episodes long.
I admit, it's partly done to drive viewers to my videos of course
I really wish I had enough character room to show the breakdown of score in an easy-to-see manner. I've thought about publishing 5 scores for each map and NO total, but it just doesn't look right with the bb formatting available. My rationale: some maps are only geared to 2 or 3 of the criteria that I use.
For example, Survival maps don't care about story. It would be unfair for me to take points off for something that doesn't belong (debatable) in that type of map. So instead of taking points off, I used to rate them 'average' but then make sure maps WITH good stories were 'above average'. But the net effect was that all Adventure maps were getting higher scores than Survival, and so naturally it looked like they were inferior. But it's like comparing apples and apple-orange-hybrids. (I really do believe that ALL maps need some kind of background, motivation, and closure (i.e. story) to be good, even if it's just skyblock - WHY are you there?! but I digress)
I feel that in most cases you could look at my 5 scores (ignore the total) and then look at the forum thread for a map to get the 'atmosphere' and screenshots or trailer, and that is enough to determine if you want to play it. Unless I give the map below a 10, I think they are all enjoyable in their own way. Some days I'm tempted to throw away the numbers and just label them all "Love it" "Play it" and "Ignore it"
Similarly, I would LOVE to have enough room to give a paragraph for each map (the way Fellonius does on his personal website) but there are just too many to fit in posts nicely.
I gave up trying to get any of my ground-breaking (at the time) maps or this thread spotlighted on the forums. I either got silence, or a polite response saying they didn't feel that maps were newsworthy enough. Nowadays, I believe that they instantly cater to and spotlight certain 'celebrities' who will drive traffic TO the forums (and their ads) but I've never seen them highlight a GOOD map that comes out of nowhere.
Also, at this point, since I'm not taking requests, I don't want it to be sticky. That would mean the true conversation would get diluted in a mass of people trying to pimp their own maps and not actually interested in honest evaluation.
I still believe that THIS forum is the best place to FIND great, good, and underdog maps. And as far as I can see there are NO other threads that offer this many consistent and thoughtful ratings.
Isn't this is an ADV map LPer's sweet dream?
And it gets updated daily as far as I can see.
Yes and no.
I happen to know that there are a few 'big channels' who check the thread occasionally and vet some of my recommendations. And I feel like my little bit of publicity helps get some maps bumped more often, which helps them get noticed and played. But it's super hard to be sure, and I don't think I've ever seen anyone put a link to this thread in their video saying they found a map via me.
Let's face it. As far as I can tell, there is no other thread with as many or as consistent reviews as this and is still active.
This isn't custom map specific, but a good friend of mine (Faume, the creator of the Alpha vs. Beta PVP experience) is hosting his 2nd annual MOJAM Build Contest tonight, and I'd love to see more map makers vie for the title!
I gave up trying to get any of my ground-breaking (at the time) maps or this thread spotlighted on the forums. I either got silence, or a polite response saying they didn't feel that maps were newsworthy enough. Nowadays, I believe that they instantly cater to and spotlight certain 'celebrities' who will drive traffic TO the forums (and their ads) but I've never seen them highlight a GOOD map that comes out of nowhere.
Nowadays, it seems like the forums only showcase Hypixel's maps because they know that they will become popular on youtube. It used to be that they showcased interesting new maps of any kind and made by any person. *ugh*
Nowadays, it seems like the forums only showcase Hypixel's maps because they know that they will become popular on youtube. It used to be that they showcased interesting new maps of any kind and made by any person. *ugh*
We have to second Ron's experience with this. At one point we decided to ask some people how the features are picked, and to our surprise, they soon after posted a topic saying to message them with maps people think are good enough. This was when Deja Vu really was the next big thing, getting mega downloads and great feedback in the most organic ways possible (before any big youtube attention or notable ratings). Our thread was clean, our request was polite, everyone who played it saw big things coming, and we got totally ignored. Luckily for us, the minecraft france forum also has features, and stratocrafteur (the guy who made the tourist) liked our map enough to put in a good word over there.
Nice time travel mechanisms. The build is a little bland, however.
I struggled for gear because I chose not to explore the Tardis maze right away, and there was never any food. At one point I believe I needed 2 ender pearls, which I had to farm from natural endermen in a confined area - a little too painful. Some mossy cobblestone that is breakable (per rules) but shouldn't be broken. Not sure why iron was also designated as breakable - just standardize to one block type.
Boss fight seemed to not spawn actual mobs after the first wave and was a little confusing, coming in between gathering all of the records, but I trust this will be fixed.
Very basic build. Would have been better in a randomly generated world (not flat world) and use terrain to define the path. Good (short) storyline, but told a bit awkwardly through a mix of books and signs. Played on peaceful. Important: Must play in survival, not adventure mode (as stated in the rules) or you won't be able to break the clay. Unless the map maker adds a shovel.
Another brilliant game mechanic from Bigger. Fun little puzzles that require you to think in 4 dimensions (although I did get a little frustrated with 3 or 4 hard parkour jumps). Fun texture pack, clearly contrasting heaven and hell-like dimensions. A single redstone clock that (hopefully) won't cause too much lag for players, particularly in light of the parkour, but otherwise played on peaceful with no real death penalty. I do believe I bypassed 1 or 2 puzzles, and got stuck in 2 places (that should be easily fixed).
Congrats to stratocrafteur (The Tourist), Smenx and Ssankoo (Questworld: Shipwrecked) and MARS MISSION (among others) to be named as 'favorite maps' on Curse!
Great use of the custom texture pack. Fun logic puzzles, although this beta version was too short. I really like the incremental recursion in the 'last' room (which might just be a fancy way of me saying you keep circling back through the room after each mini-puzzle!). A little bit of parkour in this map, although it's not always the best route to take
I am experimenting with a new hosting solution for my Minecraft custom maps - right here on Curse!
I've started with "The Toybox". Please help support me by going to this link and downloading the map. Let me know if this is more convenient then dealing with adfly or mediafire?
Total Rating: 8/20
Creativity - 2 (average - multiple puzzle types, but nothing innovative)
Detail - 1 (below average - plain rooms, nothing that great to look at)
Experience - 2 (average - it has a 3 part story)
Challenge - 2 (too easy)
Progression - 1 (scoring is arbitrary, puzzle sequence feels off, terrible boss fight and... why?!)
Progress through a short set of 'training' puzzles to become an astronaut, including a trivia question that makes no sense. Fight a skeleton(?) to build a new key for your rocket. Fly to space and fight... you guessed it, The Ender Dragon. No idea why. Oh - and collect butter as your score.
Review Summary
This is the kind of survival map that someone who doesn't like pure survival would enjoy.
A nice, shortish survival map with proper character motivation. I really enjoyed the vehicle search mechanic. Gear was sparse, but as long as you keep it daylight and stick to the streets or roofs, it's not that challenging. Spoiler: don't bother going onto the massive blue bridge - seemed a huge waste of time. Otherwise, I really enjoyed this one!
Total Rating: 15/20
Creativity - 3 (above average - I love the vehicle search mechanic)
Detail - 4 (excllent, for a survial map)
Experience - 3
Challenge - 2 (easy to avoid danger. Food was the toughest challenge)
Progression - 3 (limited wood made gear feel scarce, but the void broke the immersion, and going across the bridges was a waste of time)
I re-added the rating breakdown to all of the entries. So now you'll see the total rating in bold and then the 5 component ratings in (parenthesis) in the following order:
I'll be honest, this is not that attractive to me. I would LOVE to be able to give you some sort of filterable table, but it will have to do for now, within the limits of bbcode.
A creative twist on CTM. Collect falling blocks (from custom spawners) by bridging out to various monument material satellites. Mobs (and blocks) fall in a set grid, so it's fairly easy to avoid any conflict unless you aren't paying attention. The basic building blocks (wood, cobble) are available near spawn, as well as lava and water. Food can be a little tricky to find, but if you aren't jumping or fighting it's needed in much less quantity. This is a good map if you want to play somewhat mindlessly - without really needing to think or talk.
I think an 18 would have been better for the Minemas map. The teleporting issues were game-breaking for me, and good content does not matter if it is inaccessable without cheating.
Fantastic build, as an entry in Planet Minecraft's Caved In contest. The story feels rich, although it was a little hard to read with command block scrolling while fighting hordes of mobs. A lot of darkness - could have used a few more torches. At first, there was minimal gear, but then you are suddenly overburdened with enchanted diamond. A little parkour thrown in. This is played on hard mode, but with the number of spawners and dispensers, I would think normal to be challenging as well.
I believe the only ones missing some context have videos, in which I provide tons of commentary.
I admit, it's partly done to drive viewers to my videos of course
I really wish I had enough character room to show the breakdown of score in an easy-to-see manner. I've thought about publishing 5 scores for each map and NO total, but it just doesn't look right with the bb formatting available. My rationale: some maps are only geared to 2 or 3 of the criteria that I use.
For example, Survival maps don't care about story. It would be unfair for me to take points off for something that doesn't belong (debatable) in that type of map. So instead of taking points off, I used to rate them 'average' but then make sure maps WITH good stories were 'above average'. But the net effect was that all Adventure maps were getting higher scores than Survival, and so naturally it looked like they were inferior. But it's like comparing apples and apple-orange-hybrids. (I really do believe that ALL maps need some kind of background, motivation, and closure (i.e. story) to be good, even if it's just skyblock - WHY are you there?! but I digress)
I feel that in most cases you could look at my 5 scores (ignore the total) and then look at the forum thread for a map to get the 'atmosphere' and screenshots or trailer, and that is enough to determine if you want to play it. Unless I give the map below a 10, I think they are all enjoyable in their own way. Some days I'm tempted to throw away the numbers and just label them all "Love it" "Play it" and "Ignore it"
Similarly, I would LOVE to have enough room to give a paragraph for each map (the way Fellonius does on his personal website) but there are just too many to fit in posts nicely.
I gave up trying to get any of my ground-breaking (at the time) maps or this thread spotlighted on the forums. I either got silence, or a polite response saying they didn't feel that maps were newsworthy enough. Nowadays, I believe that they instantly cater to and spotlight certain 'celebrities' who will drive traffic TO the forums (and their ads) but I've never seen them highlight a GOOD map that comes out of nowhere.
Also, at this point, since I'm not taking requests, I don't want it to be sticky. That would mean the true conversation would get diluted in a mass of people trying to pimp their own maps and not actually interested in honest evaluation.
I still believe that THIS forum is the best place to FIND great, good, and underdog maps. And as far as I can see there are NO other threads that offer this many consistent and thoughtful ratings.
Yes and no.
I happen to know that there are a few 'big channels' who check the thread occasionally and vet some of my recommendations. And I feel like my little bit of publicity helps get some maps bumped more often, which helps them get noticed and played. But it's super hard to be sure, and I don't think I've ever seen anyone put a link to this thread in their video saying they found a map via me.
Let's face it. As far as I can tell, there is no other thread with as many or as consistent reviews as this and is still active.
http://faume.tumblr.com/post/43601710655/mojam-building-competition
My Minecraft Maps: coldfusionmaps.com
We have to second Ron's experience with this. At one point we decided to ask some people how the features are picked, and to our surprise, they soon after posted a topic saying to message them with maps people think are good enough. This was when Deja Vu really was the next big thing, getting mega downloads and great feedback in the most organic ways possible (before any big youtube attention or notable ratings). Our thread was clean, our request was polite, everyone who played it saw big things coming, and we got totally ignored. Luckily for us, the minecraft france forum also has features, and stratocrafteur (the guy who made the tourist) liked our map enough to put in a good word over there.
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1473688-tardis
Total Rating: 13
Creativity - 3
Detail - 2
Experience - 3
Challenge - 3
Progression - 2
Nice time travel mechanisms. The build is a little bland, however.
I struggled for gear because I chose not to explore the Tardis maze right away, and there was never any food. At one point I believe I needed 2 ender pearls, which I had to farm from natural endermen in a confined area - a little too painful. Some mossy cobblestone that is breakable (per rules) but shouldn't be broken. Not sure why iron was also designated as breakable - just standardize to one block type.
Boss fight seemed to not spawn actual mobs after the first wave and was a little confusing, coming in between gathering all of the records, but I trust this will be fixed.
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1705547-funeral
Very basic build. Would have been better in a randomly generated world (not flat world) and use terrain to define the path. Good (short) storyline, but told a bit awkwardly through a mix of books and signs. Played on peaceful. Important: Must play in survival, not adventure mode (as stated in the rules) or you won't be able to break the clay. Unless the map maker adds a shovel.
Total Rating: 9/20
Creativity - 2 (average)
Detail - 1 (below average)
Experience - 2 (average)
Challenge - 2 (too easy)
Progression - 2 (average)
All of those map makers should be proud!
http://www.planetminecraft.com/project/advpuzz-15-dimension-jumper/
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1688262-dimension-jumper
Another brilliant game mechanic from Bigger. Fun little puzzles that require you to think in 4 dimensions (although I did get a little frustrated with 3 or 4 hard parkour jumps). Fun texture pack, clearly contrasting heaven and hell-like dimensions. A single redstone clock that (hopefully) won't cause too much lag for players, particularly in light of the parkour, but otherwise played on peaceful with no real death penalty. I do believe I bypassed 1 or 2 puzzles, and got stuck in 2 places (that should be easily fixed).
Total Rating: 18
Creativity - 4 (astounding)
Detail - 3 (above average)
Experience - 4
Challenge - 4
Progression - 3
http://www.curse.com/news/minecraft/47054-lindsays-favorite-minecraft-maps
I played beta 2 version. The rating may improve with the full release.
Total Rating: 16
Creativity - 3
Detail - 3
Experience - 3
Challenge - 3
Progression - 4
Great use of the custom texture pack. Fun logic puzzles, although this beta version was too short. I really like the incremental recursion in the 'last' room (which might just be a fancy way of me saying you keep circling back through the room after each mini-puzzle!). A little bit of parkour in this map, although it's not always the best route to take
I've started with "The Toybox". Please help support me by going to this link and downloading the map. Let me know if this is more convenient then dealing with adfly or mediafire?
http://www.curse.com/worlds/minecraft/the-toybox-collaboration
http://www.planetminecraft.com/project/nasa-advenutre/
Duration: 30 min
Total Rating: 8/20
Creativity - 2 (average - multiple puzzle types, but nothing innovative)
Detail - 1 (below average - plain rooms, nothing that great to look at)
Experience - 2 (average - it has a 3 part story)
Challenge - 2 (too easy)
Progression - 1 (scoring is arbitrary, puzzle sequence feels off, terrible boss fight and... why?!)
Progress through a short set of 'training' puzzles to become an astronaut, including a trivia question that makes no sense. Fight a skeleton(?) to build a new key for your rocket. Fly to space and fight... you guessed it, The Ender Dragon. No idea why. Oh - and collect butter as your score.
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1712101-last
Review Summary
This is the kind of survival map that someone who doesn't like pure survival would enjoy.
A nice, shortish survival map with proper character motivation. I really enjoyed the vehicle search mechanic. Gear was sparse, but as long as you keep it daylight and stick to the streets or roofs, it's not that challenging. Spoiler: don't bother going onto the massive blue bridge - seemed a huge waste of time. Otherwise, I really enjoyed this one!
Total Rating: 15/20
Creativity - 3 (above average - I love the vehicle search mechanic)
Detail - 4 (excllent, for a survial map)
Experience - 3
Challenge - 2 (easy to avoid danger. Food was the toughest challenge)
Progression - 3 (limited wood made gear feel scarce, but the void broke the immersion, and going across the bridges was a waste of time)
This thread explains my rating system: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/260249-rsmalec
Duration: 1.5 hrs
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1713931-nachos
It was so weird, I actually liked it.
Total Rating: 11
Creativity - 2 (average; simple, self-governed puzzles)
Detail - 2 (average)
Experience - 3 (above average; I really did laugh)
Challenge - 2 (too easy)
Progression - 2 (average)
TOTAL (Creativity + Detail + Experience + Challenge + Progression)
I'll be honest, this is not that attractive to me. I would LOVE to be able to give you some sort of filterable table, but it will have to do for now, within the limits of bbcode.
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1702360-bridge-out
A creative twist on CTM. Collect falling blocks (from custom spawners) by bridging out to various monument material satellites. Mobs (and blocks) fall in a set grid, so it's fairly easy to avoid any conflict unless you aren't paying attention. The basic building blocks (wood, cobble) are available near spawn, as well as lava and water. Food can be a little tricky to find, but if you aren't jumping or fighting it's needed in much less quantity. This is a good map if you want to play somewhat mindlessly - without really needing to think or talk.
Total Rating: 12
Creativity - 3
Detail - 2
Experience - 2
Challenge - 3
Progression - 2
Fantastic build, as an entry in Planet Minecraft's Caved In contest. The story feels rich, although it was a little hard to read with command block scrolling while fighting hordes of mobs. A lot of darkness - could have used a few more torches. At first, there was minimal gear, but then you are suddenly overburdened with enchanted diamond. A little parkour thrown in. This is played on hard mode, but with the number of spawners and dispensers, I would think normal to be challenging as well.
Total Rating: 14
Creativity - 2
Detail - 4
Experience - 3
Challenge - 3
Progression - 2