52 weeks of Luxiness

Game of universal domination. New dice available free upon request.
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Bean
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52 weeks of Luxiness

Post by Bean » Wed Dec 05, 2018 8:38 pm

I have advocated for a weekly curated competition (leaving the current popular maps with a monthly ranking system).

As part of the process, I have been trying to get to 52 weekly ideas. Should be great maps or fun themes and not too too redundant. Here is my start. Please make your suggestions and suggest maps or themes you love.

WP= Winner Pics (if it's a pain, we can just rotate the maps during the week manually)
Grouped in 10's

Hot Gates
California - Gold Rush
Cube Wars
Traditional game play (selecting countries, placing armies) Winner Picks
WP: Small Castles
Utah Wars (mnemo's favorite)
WP: Big Castles
Rome II
Vietnam
Castle Lux - Three Kings

WP: Classic and derivatives (e.g. two worlds)
WWII Euro
WWII Pacific
Twitch week
Classic
Bio Maps Small
Bio Maps Large
Assassins....
Kill the King
Imperium

Bio Deux
WP: Giant Maps (3 rivers, Hunters Keep, etc)
Hexwood Showdown
Last King
Guest curator
USA War Zone
Diadochi
Blobs
Dragons Bane
6 Day War

Arms Race
American Civil War
Canada HD
Anglo-Celtic Isles
Antarctica
Alamo
Rise of Sparta
Kakotopia
River Castles
Silken Sails

WP: Hex Maps
Scotland - The War of Clans
Armengia
Chaos
Booze

* Make small and big castles 2 or 4 week events. (there are lots of castles)

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landlord
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Re: 52 weeks of Luxiness

Post by landlord » Wed Dec 05, 2018 9:45 pm

Thank you Bean its a real fun playing others map than just bio

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PJB
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Re: 52 weeks of Luxiness

Post by PJB » Mon Dec 10, 2018 7:50 am

Shapes
MARATHON
Castle Realms
Friesland :)

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Red Beard
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Re: 52 weeks of Luxiness

Post by Red Beard » Wed Dec 12, 2018 7:21 pm

So. I like the idea of this 52 weeks of varying maps, especially with a winners pick system that is relatively easy to operate, but i feel like it might be a big jump at a point where you should be testing the waters. The system is changing from one that is stable, consistent, and relatively well understood to having a system that is constantly changing every week. By the time people start to understand a set of maps well and get the hang of them, the system will switch and they'll have to start all over again. While some people might really dig that approach to the game, it's going to make a lot of people frustrated until they learn to appreciate the enjoyable aspects of that kind of game play... Like it or not, a lot of people don't have the patience to continuously learn new maps. If they did, MOTW would still be wildly more popular than it is currently.

Might I suggest, instead, taking a smaller step first. Boiling this list down to 10 solid maps to start off with and let that list stay consistent for a few months. Choose 10 of the best and most approachable maps (a certain amount of simplicity is key here imho) that still have varied game play. Leave this system in place until people start to get used to it and appreciate what the system has to offer. Take that time to work out the kinks that will INEVITABLY appear. For instance maps like Two Worlds are ONLY fun if the settings are just right... If a map just leads to people consistently marathoning (as happened with Two Worlds during luxtoberfest) no one is going to want to play it. Not because it's a bad map, but because the settings don't fit the map. Same thing holds true if the maps is skewed the other way and sheer luck determines the winner of each game. And these are going to be issues that hold true for just about every map. They're all going to take watching and tweaking by SOMEBODY who knows the game well enough to make half way decent calls and who is willing to put in some time. This can't be a headless server and for that matter, there will have to be people who have the power to make those changes on the fly other than Dustin. Otherwise this system will never find stability and by the time these maps are enjoyable enough to play, there may no longer be anyone around to play them.

Once people start to get used to things, you can check and see what maps aren't getting played and why. maybe start switching out maps that don't get any consistent game play. Communicate with your player base. Start introducing new winner picks maps in a few at a time. Etc. Etc. With any luck, you may by then have a group of people who really enjoy the variety and facing off on constantly changing turf... But it's going to take a while to get there.

Just my two cents. Take it for what it's worth. Totally open to criticism or other points of view on this. Wouldn't be the first time that I've overlooked something.
-Matt

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Bean
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Re: 52 weeks of Luxiness

Post by Bean » Wed Dec 12, 2018 10:42 pm

Winner picks is a little harder than just hosting a map each week, but I suppose it would be cool and take away some of the risk of a map being a dud one week. At the same time, it would violate the sensibilities of your hypothetical person who is overwhelmed by the change from week to week. Imagine wanting to play and the winner picks something you don't like or expect. I was thinking WP would be more solid themes here and there a few weeks a year. (e.g. Small Castles, Hex, etc), but now you got me thinking about it again and I wonder if WP would even be popular at all. When I have played it, I have found it to be a little annoying chore when I am used to the map just starting up again in a room where I am playing.

My starting this thread was mainly to hear about "solid" maps that I may have overlooked. Totally agree there should be care taken not to mess up the settings, and you seem to agree there ought to be care taken in map selection. Just saw the MOTM marathon today and noticed the card/cont setting spread was too high.

I don't think any of what I imagine is very complicated or disrupts the stability of the system. It just makes the weekly rank a curated thing and leaves the popular maps always hosted and ranked on their own. I suppose we could make all the popular maps weekly instead of monthly and have one of the weekly chases be curated. Have the seedings be based on a person's average rank across the rooms. We could just make all the maps monthly ranked too, or just call the weekly rank a bio rank (since that is what it is). The real crime is calling the seeds in any way "overall" when they just reflect one map the main virtue of which is brevity.

I don't know if fixing the incoherence of the ranking system will attract and retain folks, but I do know that system has failed. Bio deux became the face of lux and Lux has declined steadily since. If the ranking scheme has something to do with it, I'd like to make that simple fix and see if it helps. Along the way, I'd like there to be some mechanism for curation in Lux, which has never been tried without that old raw albatross.

It makes sense that those who FEW who remain might like bio deux (duh), but I'm not proposing taking it away, just letting it sit on its own. Viewership is way down; time to put another show in that prime time slot. (in case you didn't like the weird restaurant analogy)

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Re: 52 weeks of Luxiness

Post by Deep Blue » Fri Dec 14, 2018 6:22 pm

I don't see a big change here, Red Beard. Bio only has it own map ranking now just as classic, and Rome. The weekly challenges are extra, for those who like variety. Of course the maps need "tweaking" for the settings etc but I see that as a work in progress. And yes, it may need a great deal of time for people to enjoy other maps and who knows maybe people never get interested. And they don't have to! I think it's great to try to come to a solid 52 weeks rotation, not just including maps but also game variation like we have with tournaments. So I don't think stability is an issue here. The big three will be still hosted.

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