tain.totalcodex.net

Latest top download :
On the mill there was a latest top downloads where it would show the top downloaded plugs of the past few weeks. I think it would be a good idea for the tain since All time top downloads dont tell much, and everyone already have the top downloads Smile

It would be a good oppurtinity for showcasing lesser known plugins because right now, if a plugin dissapears from the list (with new plugins on top) it gets completely forgotten.

Approval of plugins
This is for moderators, when approving, there is an option to approve and one to cancel. Where is the option to disapprove? It would be nice if disapproving a submittion, a private message could be sent to the author saying why it was disapproved.

Agreed to that.

Actually the Tain does have the latest 10 uploads. Go to the Myth II list and look at the side. Click on Most Downloaded, Highest Rated, or Largest downloads and it should be there. When you click on one of the 3 Myth game links, it gives you the list of uploads of that game in order from most recent upload to oldest. Which is why it doesn't show on the side, because you are already in that.

I suggest to add a line that says what category the download is for. If I go straight to a URL of a plug, nowhere on the page does it mention what category it is. I would have to do a search on the Tain to find it and see. Also, what about adding a date as to when it was uploaded? Sometimes plugins appear on the Tain and I am not sure if they are new or just really old.

Both of those suggestions sound great.

Pyro, I believe Zeph's idea was a list of recent hot downloads, not recent uploads. The idea would be for people to see what has recently become popular, which in the long run will showcase more plugins and be more useful than one list of all-time top downloads. The current top download list is a pretty good example of why that is. It's pretty random--it includes a couple of old plugs that everyone downloaded because no one had them yet, and not a single installment of Mazz, arguably the most popular plug ever, because everyone had it already.

Ah yes I just reread Zeph's post. I misread it. Yeah that's a good idea.

it also helps new good submissions

take QUarantine for example, it is now at 120 downloads, should be ranked pretty high in a latest top download, and is slowly descending the list of new uploaded maps. Once its out, no one will see it anymore unless they search for it.

"Downloads" should be measured by completed downloads.

This is not meant in ANY way as a diss or criticizm of the Mazz series of plugs, but I am curious why you think it is 'arguably the most popular plugin ever'? (apologies if I misquoted you, I am too lazy to cut and paste)

Even though I have rarely played WWII, I would think with the dozens of maps people created for it and the whole huge subculture that formed up around it that WWII and it's variants would probably objectively be a more popular plugin if one were doing a historical retrospective.

WWII Recon may have outshone even Mazz in its heyday, but I wasn't around to see it happen. If you're talking about WWII maps as a whole, it's a bit of an unfair comparison, because WWII is a lot of plugins with a lot of authors. Mazz VI has been the most frequently played plugin on Mariusnet ever since it took over from Playmyth as the main Myth server, and Mazz IV and V were equally popular. Then there's Requiem, Dream of Death, Armageddon Universe, the later incarnations of 9vsTFL--all of which are Mazz clones in the purest sense, not to be derogatory--and various others that are in progress or got started and abandoned. I've been hanging around here for about five years now, and I've never seen anything hold a candle to the sheer amount of time people spend playing and talking about Mazzarin's Demise.

A-Red wrote:WWII Recon may have outshone even Mazz in its heyday, but I wasn't around to see it happen.

When pmnet finally kicked the bucket so did WWII Recon (I never see a game of it when I pop in from time to time). AvA (by Zeph) is still played on and off on Mariusnet though, and was pretty popular on pmnet for quite awhile.

Mazz though I don't play, as it's not the style of plugin I particularly like to play (plus it's been done to death in incarnations).

A-Red.

Again: Not criticizing Mazz, but to address your comments.

WWII was basically a unit set for which many maps were created. There were many variations of WWII unit sets, but the basic set was SO popular that dozens of maps were made that incorporated the WWII units. That's what I meant when I said that I thought the WWII plugin was the most popular.

Also, you say it is unfair to compare WWII to Mazz because WWII is a lot of plugins by a lot of authors, yet you then go on to cite several different versions of Mazz and other maps based on the units and others you claim are 'clones' of Mazz. If you can talk about the popularity of the 6 mazz games as a single entity, then I can do the same for WWII. What's fair for one is fair for the other.

If you want to set some specific criteria with which to compare map/plugin popularity over time that might be an interesting discussion - say "Most popular 3rd party Myth II map created by a single individual" or "Most popular unit plugin"(based on how many maps were created to use that plugin).

Also, unless the other solo maps you mention use pretty much the same scripting I would disagree that they are all clones of Mazz 'in the purest sense' . I agree that they might be really similar to Mazz conceptually (maybe that's what you meant by 'purest sense'?) but Mazz is also conceptually very much like it's predessors; the TFL Bungie levels "Shadow of the Mountain", "Across the Gjol" or the SB Bungie levels "The Great Library" - to name a few. Again - NOTHING against Mazz, they are unique (and fun) creations in scope / scale I know the authors really strectched the limits of what Myth can do - just saying that conceptually Mazz and the maps I mentioned are all basically "Start on this hill and kill everything that moves" maps.

Didn't mean to start a big semantic argument--I lump six Mazz incarnations together because they were made by the same people and are bigger and bigger versions of the same story, units, map, and concept. Individual WWII maps as a whole only share the units. When I called those maps clones I was referring mainly to the fact that they are based on the same script, except for Requiem which has greatly different script but shares the premise and most of the units. I am well aware that those mapmakers put a lot of their own work into the plugs, but using the same script makes them pretty "pure" reincarnations of Mazz in my script-centric opinion--and conceptually there's a lot more to it than hold a hill and kill everything. There's the type of units used, the power relation of the player units vs. enemy units, the heavy reliance on inventory, the kind of enemy attack patterns used, etc.

I'm sure no one thought you were bashing Mazz, and for that matter, I'm not defending it. I like it about as much as Horus does.

Anyway, I called it *arguably* the most popular plugin ever because I assumed that other arguments could be made. Your points are noted, and valid.

the first ww2 map was ww2:recon and had no tagset or anything. The map was downloaded more than 15 000 times on the Mill only, add about 5000 on PMNET and all external link and you get a pretty massive number of downloads. I think most every players have downloaded it at least once.

A-Red wrote:Anyway, I called it *arguably* the most popular plugin ever because I assumed that other arguments could be made. Your points are noted, and valid.

Likewise A-Red, I wasn't aware that the scripting was basically the same from one Mazz version to the next - so I can understand your lumping them together for popularity consideration. Thanks for the intelligent discourse.

vinylrake wrote:Likewise A-Red, I wasn't aware that the scripting was basically the same from one Mazz version to the next

Well, that may not be exactly true. V and VI must have had vast changes made to be able to accomodate things like the minibosses. I'm fairly certain that later versions would have been built on top of earlier ones though, as the basics of the script seem pretty similar.