Many years ago now, I wrote a website called NS World. Some of you may remember it. NS World had mapping information, tutorials, author biographies and inspirational links, but mainly it was a custom map list that let map creators share publicise their NS maps. It wasn't perfect, but i've had years of web development experience since then

A PM from ShenTrax set me thinking about a new version for NS2. Before I really get stuck in I thought I'd stick my neck out here and ask if such a site has a place in the NS2 community, or has in-game downloads, the steam community, UWE and the likes of moddb made the concept redundant?

Do we want it? Do we need it?

Maybe a good idea and successful at the time the tech-release for mappers is released.
This would probably help to increase overall map quality in this period of time, where ns2-mapping is new to everyone and even source mapping to some.

I really enjoyed the site when it was current CA, thanks. I'm afraid I cannot comment on the current state of HL2 gaming, but I have no doubt the community will explode once again after the product is released. I remember browsing around the various fan sites eager for more content and things to toy with, I can see it happening again for all those players who are looking for more than just in game time. One thing that I noticed about it was a slowing down of things being posted or updated, perhaps you'd consider incorporating ideas of crowd sourcing or wiki-collaboration this time to encourage the rate of new content?
cheers,
wurm

you can never have too many fan sites, bring it on!

Yes.

I would say it could be invaluable for hosting a basic mapping FAQ, maps and more advanced articles.

I can see it working very well in Wiki format. This way you wouldn't have to worry too much about producing lots of regular content, you could simply focus on producing some quality content and mainly on adminning the site and authing its content.

1. When a mapper adds a new map, the versions changelogs and downloads can all be kept on the same page. Screenshots and YouTube videos can be embedded. The 'discussion' tab can be used to report bugs and make suggestions. Mapper can list the servers playing his custom map. Server admins will be able to check this map page to download the latest version of the map.

2. Self-help documents: think NS Mapping Forum stickies meets NSLearn. In-game lingo and acronyms, beginner tutorials, fading, bunny-hopping, Commander base layout, map strategies, introduction to mapping for NS2, guidelines for official map submission

3. NS2 competitive info: competitive tournaments/leagues and past winners. Demos and Videos of competitive games can be embedded/linked. Top 10 clans per tourney/league can have clan pages.

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Lastly, if you have a voting system for maps, only allow vote results to become public once a map has received 10+ votes. This will stop the mapper getting his friends to give him two or three 10/10 votes and people wasting their time checking out a crappy boxmap. On the old NSWorld this was all too frequent. CHeck out PlanetPhillip to see how this system works in practise.

Wow, even though I have no intention to run a server or create maps, Crispy's ideas sound excellent.

Nice to see generally positive feedback to the idea. Thanks for the encouragement.

I've used a wiki for documentation before now and used the valve developer community wiki, they seem to work quite well. Since the NS development team got there act together with the official NS mapping guide, I would be expecting something at least as good for NS2 from the start, which wouldn't leave much room for an un-official mapping guide like the old NS World berzerkers guide.

If you know better, give a me a shout and i'll happily wiki-ize the current mapping guidelines as a baseline or whatever. However mapping articles aren't really featuring heavily in my vision for NS World 2 at the moment.

I was thinking of including some kind of game server listing service, similar to how maps used to be listed. The idea was to let server operators pick their map rotation from the listed maps and build a server specific custom map bundle. That info could then feed back into the map's profile and players could see what servers to join to play that map.

The I started thinking about the LUA scripting the devs have talked about and the possibility of promoting and distributing those too, but how they will be used, integrated and packaged is still too much of an unknown. Again if you know something I don't please enlighten me.

I don't know much about clans and leagues, but I got the impression there was some quite successful specialist sites for managing that stuff. I'm not sure I need to go writing/hosting another one. That said it might dovetail with the game server listing idea...

Good suggestion about the voting system Crispy, I was just thinking of making the voting system members only and putting in some kind of abuse reporting tool.

That right there! One of the best ideas for map hosting sites I've seen in a while. Besides we need nsworld back in action, not to mention your own hosting location for the ns_sample map (I'm hosting right now on me ISP)

Maybe you could also get some residential reviewers of maps at the site.

I think Shentrax's planet-ns can handle most tutorials/mapping articles though, I guess I need to get to writing some more...

Anyway I'd love to see a NS2 specific maps site back in action. It was the best onlyto be replaced with Bry's ftp server. Which is also very nice, but it does lack the interface

If you have a Wiki format, user content will take care of this. People can choose to make addendums to what is given out officially.

If you remember, the OMGs didn't have a lot of detail on map layout, on the intricate bits and bobs. It also wasn't updated later on to include REALLY important mapping guidelines like 'no doors in the MS or Hive rooms', which became an essential ingredient later but was not identified when the OMGs were originally written.

Secondly, the OMGs had close to zero information on aspects like siege ranges, player collision box dimensions, and so on. Now, this was probably because all of these aspects were being tweaked and changed up from version to version, but I can foresee a way of getting around this.

If all of the information is located in a text file, or a compile bit of code text. Would it be possible to extract all of the variable information into a text file and use that as a basis for updating a web page or a database? Would it be possible for the devs (or a 3rd party LUA programmer) to write a quick additional program that pulls out all this info into a text file for this purpose?

If this were possible you could have a source of up-to-date information to help you work on layouts and so on.

Exactly! What I was trying to say was that i'm expecting to see the OMG 2.0 from UWE as a wiki (which would render a second NS world wiki pointless). Then again I have overestimated the dev team before now, they may not be this organised or want the overhead of another system and database to manage.

I didn't even know about planet-ns.com Kouji_San, looks like it's got a solid CMS behind it, which certainly makes it capable of handling any user contributed articles.

Well some dev input about whether there will be an official Wiki (even if it's only given to Chromey via PM) would be useful at this stage of the planning.

On Thursday I emailed Max with some questions about UWEs documentation plans, LUA and suchlike. So far not even a read receipt, obviously busy making cool game tech

In the mean time i've been looking at my old NS world data backup. If I go with your voting suggestion Crispy i'm going to have to lower the threshold for vote visibility. It seems most maps didn't get 10 votes, even the most active only had 70 votes. Most maps had about 6 votes, so i'd probably set the threshold at 5.

I stopped using the voting system when I saw a boxmap with a better average vote than Lost.

If it were more of a resource site it would have more reason for people to come back regularly. One of the problems with NSWorld was that it was underused and there wasn't regular new content, so it had a small regular userbase. If you promote avenues for user-created content you will have more regular updates and a bigger regular userbase to vote with.

But I don't see any harm starting with 5 to begin with and adjusting the threshold according to circumstances (e.g. if it gets abused too easily).

I've found Charlie to be quite responsive via email, don't know about Max, but if he hasn't responded there is probably a good reason. I wouldn't expect them to spill their guts for a fansite, but maybe if you pose some more general questions that they can answer without giving too much away, you'll get a better response.

E.g. "Do you think there is a place for a fan-run, user-driven NS2 Wiki project?"

Then they can answer: "We have plans to handle expansive mod documentation ourselves, but that's all we can say at the moment." or: "We would welcome something along those lines."

That sounds like mapping snobbery to me, with the right players i'm assuming they just had more fun on the funmap/boxmap than with conventional NS maps. There was quite a lot of "fun" maps when NS really got popular, and yes they were a distraction when you're looking for the serious/classic gameplay.

Makes me wonder if we'll be seeing funscripts/funmods for NS 2... almost certainly.

Maybe I need different ratings for graphics/atmosphere/gameplay

Or, categories. Whoever upped the map can place it into the category, give visitors a report option in case something is in the wrong place, and periodically if you're not too busy look through the maps and see that they're in the right places.
But different ratings for those things also sound fine.

No, it was a horrible, horrible boxmap Classic map.

There is simply no way an unbalanced, horrible looking boxmap can compete with Lost in the same game mode. It was simply a case of vote abuse. When you see stuff like that and you know the voting system is broken, you don't see any point in wasting your time using it.

'Gameplay' is totally subjective. I have never seen a siege map with what I call 'good' gameplay, because most siege maps totally break the balance with ludicrously long and straight corridors and wide open spaces, and the setup period is an unbelievably tedious way to start a game. Stormsiege was one siege map that attempted to A) put some effort into the texturing, brushwork and lighting and B) actually bothered to design rooms in shapes other than boxes and, surprise, surprise, nobody plays it. Now -that's- what I call map snobbery.

Map categories
I definitely agree in categorising maps so that players who value different gamemodes vote according to their appreciation of it. E.g. If there were no categories, I would see a disgusting siege map come up and mark it down for having a 1024x1024 room with zero cover. However, if it were in a 'Siege' category which I almost never visited, only Siege fans would be voting on it, and the score would be much more representative of the view of the players who actually play Siege maps.

Vote categories
I also agree some scoring categories are also necessary, to reward solid game design as much as artistic merit. Atmosphere would cover sound, the look, the 'feel' of the map as an actual place. Gameplay is fairly subjective: for one type of player it might cover balance, for another type they may value atmosphere as adding a lot to the gameplay, and not be so bothered about balance issues. I still think it's important to keep a Gameplay vote separate from Atmosphere. Lastly, perhaps Quality covers how polished the map comes across as. It can cover textures, brushwork, lighting, sound

Kneejerk voting
I do foresee a bit of a problem with kneejerk voting based on looks alone. Some maps look great but have hideous flaws like double siege points and the like. To go some way to solving this, I would suggest a simple box-checking system that asks the reviewer to confirm either "I have played this map" or "I am yet to play this map". Posed with this question, most reviewers will answer honestly. Next you could either separate the played/not played votes into two separate scores, or you could weight the 'played' scores to be worth twice as much as the 'not played' scores.


Versions
There is the issue with voting reflecting past versions of a map. There's nothing more saddening than a mapper putting tons of work into making improvements, optimisations and so on, only to have it rejected based on everyone's past experiences with the map. For this I would suggest each 'map' getting its own page, but the votes for past versions getting locked (or pushed to a less prominent area of the page) as soon as a new version was uploaded. You would keep the votes for all the old versions on display (or, at least, accessible) to cater for the eventuality of a mapper actually making the map worse (crash problems, missing files, balance issue, etc.) - just so server admins could run the best version of a map based on the votes given.

Competitive maps?
There is a big issue I was having with how to show that a new map could be played competitively, without being too divisive. Having a 'Competitive Maps' category obviously creates a division that isn't needed. At the same time, though, any competitive community does need new maps to play on to keep things fresh and engaging. My point here is that NS2World could help the competitive community find new maps to trial by including a short line on a map's page. "Is this map suitable for competitive play?" asks the reviewer a Yes/No answer but actually could offer 3 possible responses.
- "Don't know" (means if you don't feel you are qualified to answer this question you can effectively skip it)
- "Yes" (means you feel qualified to answer this and think it could be played in competition)
- "No" (means you feel qualified to answer this and think it should not be played in competition)
Crucially, only the Yes/No votes would be displayed to give a more accurate account. You could even write in a script that would only display this statistic on the map page if it were 30% or above in favour of being played competitively, meaning the 'competitive' argument wouldn't invade the map pages of the non-competitive realms of funmaps, enviro-maps and siege maps.

Lots of food for thought there Crispy


I cant see anyone ticking a box to say "my vote is worth less" which is what you seem to be getting at there.

You seem to be confusing ratings (where a group of people vote and the subject is rated with with the groups average to arrive at a meaningful single index) with reviews (where one trusted person makes a in deapth study of the subject and weighs up it's pros an cons to save everyone else the bother). NS World tried both approaches in it's time. As has been noted ratings is flawed if a large number of abusive votes are cast, there were never sufficient NS World reviewers to cover the majority of maps.

I'm currently thinking that giving the full range of reviewer feedback tools to the average player would just discourage them from taking part at all (either that or end up with incomplete forms that skew the result anyway).
It would be easiest not to rate them at all :/

Version reset on the rating could be abused by mappers whos map is rating badly even if it isn't a new version at all. Apart from that I don't really have a problem with that idea.

Competitive gameplay is another whole can of worms I hadn't even thought of. Can we trust say a boxmapper to know what makes a map suitable for competition? I think not. The only people who can really judge that is the competitions organizers. How the hell does the system know who they are?

An authorisation system for map builds could be put in place for this. Or, a less labour-intensive user-led reporting system with retrospective admin action (e.g. investigating and archiving a map account that did this based on user feedback).

When you register you are asked if you play NS competitively. If you do (bear in mind this should be the minority) you will be asked to provide a link to your clan page on the site of the tournament you play in - for verification purposes. An NS2World admin will be asked to authorise this (I would imagine a dedicated member of staff with a vested interest in Competitive play would be best suited).

Now you have verified competitive players who are better qualified to rate a map in terms of suitability for competitive play.

I get what you're saying about making the rating system so complex it becomes a chore, so instead, just allow verified competitive players to suggest a map for competitive play. This is separate to the ratings process, and is done by putting in the map's unique ID into a field on a page in the competitive area of NS2Word. Would that be a better alternative?

Maybe not, but you're assuming they are aware that their vote will count for less. If this information is never communicated to them, they will be none the wiser.

I'm fairly sure a set of guidelines could be put in place, but ones that don't interfere too heavily with how quickly the rating system can be carried out by an end-user.

I'm imagining that when you select a score for Quality, some text appears in a box that describes what NS2World considers '7' for 'Quality'. The user then has the option of reconsidering the vote, or just going with their original vote. This isn't prohibitive in the slightest, but it would encourage a better understanding of how maps -should- be voted. It at least attempts to provide a unified rating system that -if adopted by the majority of users- would make the votes less subjective and more educated/objective/considered.

Now, you may then argue that how a siege fanatic rates a map is different to how an experienced ns_classic mapper rates a map. So, in the same way as above, the registration process could allow you to put yourself into a usergroup. Therefore, different people could be given different messages when they give a map '7' for 'Gameplay'. A self-confessed competitive player may be given something like:

"Fairly well balanced, but some areas have obvious exploits."

But a self-confessed newer player could be given something more easily digestible, like:

"Aliens and Marines seem to win 50:50 on this map."

(these are soundbites of what I'd imagine them to be, but they give an example of how they'd be different)

You could take this further so that (behind the scenes) self-confessed Siege fans' votes for siegemaps would be worth more than players who weren't siege fans, and may pew-pew siegemaps through narrowmindedness or prejudice.

Max just got back to me by PM
...with a quick and particularly vauge reply, that didn't address any of my specific questions. It seems UWE may or may not be planning to do some of the things discusessed, which may or may not be available in time for the launch of NS2...

Since i'm sat here ready to start coding (give or take details of a rating/review system) that didn't help. I shall seek clarification.

[edit]
Additional thought on the ratings topic. How about simplifying it even further, using a system like digg or deviant art where registered users vote by simply saying they "digg" or "fav" a particular article?
[/edit]

It doesn't appeal to me, personally speaking. When I see something has been rated highly, I want to know why. I think the same is probably true of a server admin, who needs to cater to (or shape) the wishes of their community and keep them happy. If there is no indication to tell them whether their server's playerbase will be receptive to it or not, they will have to either check it out themselves (using their own time, which may be limited) or try a 'blind tasting', which could give negative responses.

I think when it really comes down to it, sadly it's not up to the players to find a good map and play on it. First and foremost it's down to the server admins to select those maps and put them on the mapcycle. Sure players can recommend maps for consideration, but ultimately it's down to the server admin to pass judgement on it. I think if anything the biggest focus should be on bringing maps and server admins together, and giving the latter a well-rounded system that measure's a map's quality and suitability for a particular game mode.

Only once that is done can players who like the map play it, which is where NS2World can then link a user from the map page to a listing of servers who purport to be running that map, with perhaps even a direct Steam link to jump into the game and onto that very server.

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As for the PM, sounds like they have plans to do such a thing, but I would imagine these plans are secondary to completing the game. Since they're a small team now with a budget and self-made deadlines, I'm guessing that a lot of the things we've talked about would be put on the backburner in favour of getting the release out on schedule. I'm guessing that their immediate plans would be to provide purely informative content along the lines of tutorials and details about the NS universe, basically general text that supports the first-party stuff. Mapping community support is less of a priority, relative to giving new players information about how to play the game and what it's all about.

Bottom line: Go ahead with your vision of NS2World (or NSWorld 2.0). If it's good enough and it really catches on, and it does a lot of the work they would have had to do and includes the features they'd want to see, I wouldn't be surprised if UWE offered to purchase it and/or provide some money towards its continued upkeep.

Even if that doesn't happen, NS2World will get there first and earn the community's allegiance. It minimises the need for UWE to make their own version, allowing them instead to endorse NS2World, sending you traffic to help pay the ad revenue.

Are you a server op Crispy? It might be enlightening to get their perspective on evaluating maps, try and find some common criteria to focus on. I found valve's documentation of the steam protocol, interesting stuff. It should enable site visitors to hop right into servers listed on NS2W. What would be really cool would be if I could find some way of the site knowing which servers are currently playing which maps.

I totally understand this stuff is probably on the very edge of their business plan and so probably has next to zero priority, but could still totally trump NS2W several months or years down the line (with the emotional investment of time and money that goes with a volunteer project). I didn't seek the official seal with NSW and it's mapping guide and got quite hurt when the OMG finally arrived. Which is why i'm fishing for an official stamp and cooperation for NS2W up front.

ZERO priority ! I think not and all you have to do is read some prior threads here and you will find that the UWE boyz understands how much the community and major sites like ns world contributed to the overall success of Natural Selection. "Do we need it?" that's is not the correct question son.The correct question from us should be Where The Hell Have You Been ?
Do we need it? Do we want it? Is the concept redundant? Shall we get picky about a rating system real server admins could care less about blah blah blah. Looks to me that UWE has plenty on there plate and would welcome the kind of quality site I and my friends use to rely on to make our little piece of ns better. I would say that it could be invaluable to the success of Natural Selection 2.

I would consider it an honor to be among the first to sign up and " WELCOME You Back"

Nearly zero Woody They still have to make the game within their deadline before they can start supporting 3rd party customiztions and distributions, NS2W could do that for them if they'll let it.

Thanks for the uneqivocal support for the concept there Woody. I'm sure NS2 will be a hit either way, plenty of other games manage it without any mod support at all.

Sounds like a great project to me. I just got back into NS recently and rediscovered what a great game it is. I say go for it.

Flayra and Max aren't replying to my PMs :/

I'm putting this idea on hold until i've got more information.

No I'm not a server op, but if I had the cash and time I would be. I can't frikken stand how bad most custom mapcycles are and how some servers are adminned. YO Clan is the absolute best example I have of how to admin an NS server but it still has its moments.

If I can do so for NS2 I might consider running an NS2 server, or simply paying for it, managing it and getting some damn good admins.

I'm really glad to hear that you're thinking about doing this again, Chrome. It's hard to say how big an influence NS World had on the mapping community back in the day. I think you should just go do it. Flay has never had any problems at all with community contributions, and I find it hard to believe that he would, now.

A humble suggestion of mine:

Originally, the concept of the Ready Room was not only to increase immersion by getting rid of clumsy menus, but also to force players back into one place after each game so that they could tell each other stories about what had just happened. I'd love to see this idea extended with NS World, maybe as some system were you could attach a story to a map, giving a general location and an outline of what happened. Or map secrets, strategies, and easter eggs could be tagged.

I've just always saw sites like this as a way to build depth in a community. Keep in mind that this is coming from someone looking for ways to use such a site outside of the general mapping community.

Yeah I remember when NS World was going to be about linking all the maps together with their backstories, so we could have like a universe map and place each game map in it's context of the human and alien campeign. The idea fell short on content though. Very few mappers did much with the backstories to their maps, the Devs only ever produced one (short) background story for the entire NS universe. Very rarely did I ever saw any fan fiction in these forums. Let's face it NS is a pretty shallow game and players just don't care.

We'd be better off sharing demos and streaming video (Not in the plan!)

Not even embedded or linked?

Links - Yes, I don't have any problem with contributors linking to whatever.
Embedded - No, I haven't done any research into what's the best video sharing site(s). I wouldn't want users to embed any old thing, in case it gets abused by embedding malware.

I'm not so sure that the community was (is) shallow: http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index....t=0#entry371900

Not sure how many of those links still work, though. That's not even everything that was produced. I'm not an artist, but I remember a lot of drawing work coming out of the art forums, too. Sorry, I just feel the need to stick up for my old haunts. ^_^

I stand corrected.

I hope they keep ready rooms cause I want my ready room to display a screen that has a snapshots and a quick overview of the facilty. In addition I want people who are bored to click various buttons and can gain more information in detail about different parts of the facility. It would include the basic location and purpose of the facility and the individualy hive rooms/rooms of importance and thier significance. I like the idea cause it immerses the player in the setting of the level more. I have my maps back story in my head and layed out already. Unfortunaty I can complete it yet or work on more than concepts till we know how game is played. . Hopefully I'll only have to do size adjusting and hallway adjustments vent locations but you never know.

I really like this idea. The readyroom has worked brilliantly in NS save for one flaw, and that's idle players. However, almost all servers I play on have kicked players after not moving for $ seconds, so it is easily combatted.

This idea would help new players understand the map better. You could even have an HLTV-style camera interface where you could connect to the camera feed and watch the game being played (you'd have to lock players in-game from quitting to the RR to get info with a 'tournament mode' SVAR, but it could work). Anyway, maybe this idea should be explored more in I&S (if it hasn't already).

Hi there,

yeah, i think this is a good idea. I <3 the page :] .. from ur page, i´ve got a lot of mapinformation and more, and the same for NS2 would be great

hope u will do this, and dont stop bombing the player with information and touts ..

i dont remember, was there a section for noobs? .. if not, i think its a good idea to bring this on the page, because, there will be a lot of new players :]

grtz

I used your original web site.

I'm pondering on if NS2W should use OpenID for user identifiaction. In theory it makes using multiple sites easier, but in practice it seems to make signing up in the first place a knotty mess. Do you guys use OpenID on other sites? (eg Yahoo)

After this re-design NS2W is shaping up to be quite a different beast to the original. I don't want to loose the best bits in the process of trying to make it better. What did you think the best bits of NS World were?

If it's what I think it is (registering with a third-party to have a single ID for lots of different sites, such as NS2World and ... well all the other sites listed at OpenID look like sites I'd never visit) - I think it's a bit of a put-off.

What exactly are the benefits of using OpenID? When you say multiple sites, you mean multiple NS2 fansites (that you would convince to use the same system?).

Would it not be possible to build in an optional field in the user profile to link to your UWE user account so people can see who you are on the official forums?

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The best things about NS2 were:
- Map listings (a way to list separate versions under the same name would be great)
- Map comments system
- Map ratings system (although a bit flawed as I've already stated)
- User self-appointed 'helper' information
- Map reviews (this could be transferred to user-generated content, see below for some ideas on making this work)

User-appointed 'helper' status
I liked the bits in your profile where you could write about which areas you would be happy helping out in, although this never seemed to work really because it wasn't uniform enough. I would suggest perhaps making these tags more uniform, i.e. instead of describing which areas you can help out in, allow users to choose tags that reflect their knowledge bases (see Mod Database forum user profiles too see what I mean).

Now, the other problem with this system is that lots of people were willing to help, but I think it was perhaps a bit daunting fora mapper to go through all the profiles and find the right information. I'd suggest making all of these 'helper tags' actually relate to groups. So if I say I am willing to help out with 'lighting' or with 'basic' mapping advice, then I get added to the 'lighting' and 'basic' knowledge groups. The next step is that if you want advice on 'lighting' you write up your question to that group as a new topic in the 'Lighting questions' forum, and all of the 'lighting' group get email notification of the query and a link to the thread.

Additionally, you don't have to be an expert to benefit from this system. Someone looking to learn more about lighting their maps in an NS style could benefit from having notifications to these questions and pick up tips and advice in the process.

Finally this works fine because it's an opt-in, opt-out scheme. Once you feel you don't have time to contribute lighting advice, you opt out of the 'lighting' group.

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Map reviews
Now, one of the reasons map reviews never took off on NSW is because of a lack of volunteer writers. By allowing anyone to write a review, the lack of reviews problem is solved. However, this creates an issue with quality control: how do you stop people writing crappy reviews for maps? The answer is: you don't. The solution again is to look to the users to rate these reviews so that the ones that are generally accepted as the most accurate, well-written and informative are displayed more prominently on the site. E.g. a map is released and 2 users write a review, one is a fairly thorough and well-argued review, the other is 4 LINES OF OMG THIS MAP IS SO KEWL!!!11. The review that users appreciate the most will be voted up and the one they appreciate least will be voted down, to the point where it becomes buried (still visible on the map profile page, but labelled as 'buried user review').

Those are some of my ideas for what could be improved about NSW.

The benefits of using OpenID is that you have only one login to remember across many websites. That's it. It's not just NS2 websites, but a single login that can be used at any one of the hundreds (thousands?) of sites that use the OpenID scheme. If you follow the OpenID link in my previous post they have a directory of sites using the scheme, yahoo being the most prominent that I know of. It's kind of like a Google apps or .NET passport, but not limited to just one company. The downside is you have to go to a big corporate identity provider (like yahoo) to get one of these IDs, which they can then (theoretically) use to track what websites you log into. Scary big brother stuff, which is why i'm not jumping at it to sign up and why i'm trying top find out what proportion of NS gamers have an OpenID first.

Before looking at OpenID, I did ask UWE if I would be possible to verify against the forum logins here, but I haven't heard back about that.

I have planned to allow NS2W users to add a link to their user profile here on the official forums, as well as their steam community page. I'm kind of hoping to be able to nab a link to their avatar from one of those pages

I'd quite forgotten about the voluntary Help in NSW, I shall have a think about how it would integrate with the NS2W design. NS2W design has no forum of it's own, but some RSS feeds for news... perhaps another feed for each help topic (that user can subscribe/post to)?

I have been persuaded to drop the voting part of the NSW comments and allow any user (except the map creator) to post Reviews instead. In the current NS2W design any user submitted content can be reported as "Abusive" by any other user, which removes it from public view and flags it for attention by moderators (eg me).

RSS feeds could work if you were automatically signed up to feeds. Where would these feeds be displayed though, on a user welcome page or dedicated area of the frontpage (as part of the site)? Or would users have to manually set their browser or some other application to check the RSS feeds remotely and then choose to visit the site if a particular newsfeed caught their attention?

Personally I think integrated would be better, but I don't know if that would be heavy on bandwidth or not?

I've never heard of OpenID so maybe you could post a poll? (if you ask permission you might be able to post it in this forum, or if not in Off-Topic)

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I'm not entirely sure about dropping scores in favour of reviews. Not everyone has the time or wants to spend the time either writing a comment/review or reading the comments/reviews to get a balanced overall view. Perhaps some sort of combination where when you give a score you have to give a comment with it. If you give a very low score with very unfair reasoning for it, others can flag/vote down your comment until it gets buried and the score you gave would be factored out of the equation (so the map score average would no longer be affected).

Even if you didn't want to do the whole 'buried comments' thing, the voting system would at least allow people to see why the map was getting high or low scores.

If you had map pages like Wiki entries you could just lock the format for each map page and allow users to edit the text within the Review field (and discuss possible improvements to the user review in the 'dicussion' tab). I don't know if you're considering Wiki or not...

I'm envisioning a "support" link in the main menu that takes visitors to a page listing the support topics, with descriptions and links to each topic's feed and history. If a visitor doesn't have an RSS client they can just come in and check the history page (which is where users can also post replies to the topic). Almost like a single tier forum with fixed topics. I think that would be most doable without too much crossover with the forum here.

Some people don't want to vote when they're commenting and some people don't want to comment when they're voting, tying the two together just muddies things up. A basic thread of comments for each map and a structured review format sort of covers both needs. I can see how comments on the servers and reviews might be handy too, but adds to the coding complexity.

I'm thinking a wiki style for any reference articles (mapping/scripting/hosting/playing guides), but author owned maps, servers and reviews (moderated via easy to use abuse reporting, but only editable by the owner and administrator [me] ).

If people have the option to comment when voting, I'd wager most would, which would at least help get a idea for why a map is receiving negative/positive scores. /£0.02

Mm, I'd have to agree with Crispy in tying votes to comments, but I don't agree that most would if commenting were simply an option. How about if it were the opposite?, in order to vote you have to comment (although you might likely end up with a bunch of simple "good map" or "bad map" comments tied with votes), but you don't have to vote if you only want to comment.

NS World did that, ended up with lots of comments saying "bleh" and alike, usually with either very high or very low votes

Well I suppose the comments thing only really works if you have a vote negation system, where you comment on why you voted how you did, and then people can vote up or vote down your comment/vote. If your vote reaches minus numbers, both the comment and the vote itself get buried and removed from the overall map vote average.