Aemanyl on 12/1/2023 at 09:56
How do you rate fan missions? What makes you like or dislike a particular level? What kind of rating factors do you take into consideration?
My approach to rating fan missions comes from a rather optimistic and positive point of view. I believe that every new fan mission is a small blessing to the community. People are keeping alive a 20+ year old game by putting their unpaid time and effort into mastering DromED and releasing their creations. Naturally, I want to make it clear that I don't think that every new fan mission is a good mission. Yet anything new that comes out deserves my basic respect and congratulations.
In my personal rating system, I tend to give bonus points for debuts and/or missions released in the early era of FM creation 1999-2002. I am willing to overlook some bugs or construction problems if this is the author's first attempt at creating a public level. I rate early era FMs a bit higher, because fans in this period didn't have as many resources, tutorials, and reference points required to construct a good-looking map. They were experimenting a lot through trial and error, which I respect and admire. While today, just like in the past, not everyone is meant to create a masterpiece, there is no excuse for not beta testing the mission properly and not getting basic things right.
Since I am a right-brained individual with an unsophisticated understanding of geometry and technical aspects of DromED, I focus more on rating atmosphere and storyline. Whether it is a classic mansion break or a tomb raiding venture, I like when a mission conveys a specific mood and tells a compelling story. Of course I recognise poor construction decisions, but they are not going to spoil my overall perception of the level, unless it's something really bad (Koobze comes to my mind).
A.Stahl on 12/1/2023 at 12:16
There are a few things I dislike: forced ghosting, forced fighting, forced running, excessive acrobatics (I never liked Super Mario too).
There are a few things I like: realistic room positioning (kitchens, toilets, just overall architectural adequacy), real plot but without a crazy verbiage in the readables.
Well, the less the FM has bad things and the more it has good things -- the better the FM is.
Simple.
P.S. Hello from the Reddit :)
Taylor on 12/1/2023 at 13:53
Basically I give good ratings if I enjoyed the FM overall.
Usually I deduct some points if the story is lacking, or something is insane (I particularily hate bright+tiles+no hiding spot+many enemies areas but if the rest of the FM is good enough, I can be forgiving :) ).
I don't mind a forced gamestyle until it is enjoyable, maybe I dislike if the rules are not clear.
Mostly I give 80-100% scores on ratings, unless the author was unfortunate enough to hit on of my few pet-peeves I find serious, or I really did not enjoy the FM which rarely happens with the FMs made nowadays.
Other than that I try to give close to max score and deduct points based on which of the FMs in question I liked more, often giving out multiple 100%-s because I can't decide which one is the winner.
Jonfeldt on 12/1/2023 at 14:32
Interesting question. I find the atmosphere, architecture and details to be the most important to me, a good story can then be a plus. I love atmospheric missions, where you can just soak up the dark atmosphere by simply looking around dark city parts or dilapidated industrial zones/warehouses. For example, just walking around in "The Whistling of the Gears" is great, or looking at the rain falling on top of some building in "Endless Rain". It already makes me immersed in the world around me.
Then the architecture. I like it when you can take multiple paths, the city layout makes sense and looks "real". When the buildings don't just look like boxes. And all that with some nice details. I really don't like it when the spaces seem empty. Rooms with carpets and paintings and furniture and bookshelves, sort of a cozy feeling of a room actually lived in. That's always nice. "Into the Odd" for example has so many details in every part of the mission that I could explore a single room there for a long time. And that mission also has incredible atmosphere, like something is not quite right, even in the sunny outdoor parts. And that sort of weird feeling is also always welcome to me. That's why I don't really like simple mansion heist missions, it lacks that weirdness and atmosphere to me. I mean, they can be very well done but it's probaly not going to get a 10 out of 10.
So the more immersed I am, the more I want to explore the mission, the more details there are, the better the score will be. A good story is also a plus but you don't really have to have an epic story for me to enjoy the mission. I just don't like it when the story makes no sense or when there are too many "out there" moments in the story. And for some reason I don't like when Thief world and real world collide. Like when Garrett is the main character but the story references Christianity or something real, it just takes me out of immersion.
Sometimes it's hard for me to rate missions though. Some missions are not really my thing but I can se them as being objectively good so it's hard to rate them then. Like "Heist at Hilbert's Highrise Hotel". It's very puzzle oriented (and I'm not good at that and don't like it in the amount haha), there's not that much classical exploration and there's lots of thinking involved. But objectively it's an amazing mission. Very unique puzzles, very interesting solutions, a really well done mission all in all. So when I gave it a 7 out of 10 on thiefguild.com I actually felt kinda bad because I recognize the greatness of it, it's just that I didn't enjoy it that much. Kinda like jazz, much of it I can't completely enjoy but I have great respect for the skill and the talent haha.
In the end I just ask myself how much I enjoyed a particular mission. And if I'm not too sure what score to give it I compare it to a mission I rated before. The two favourites of mine, "Endless Rain" and "Into the Odd", are sort of the template for example. If I'm not sure if I should give something a 9 or a 10 then I just ask myself did I enjoy it as much as one of those two and that's it.
zappenduster on 13/1/2023 at 11:33
I set up an EXCEL list with the following columns
* FM name
* T1[ND] or T2[ND] (I never play FMs made of other engines)
* translated and available in german?
* a plot summary
* a simple rating between 1 (best) and 6 (inadequate) like in the german primary school
My personal rating criteria are ...
* story and texts (yes, I still can read fluently and love to browse in scrolls and books!) :p
* architecture, atmosphere, ambient :cool:
* interesting objects/effects/jokes/surprises/... :eek:
... but ...
* is there too much stress in the FM so I can't enjoy it? :sweat:
* are there severe and annoying bugs that could have been avoided by sufficient testing? :mad:
Hit Deity on 13/1/2023 at 14:06
Interesting question, and even more interesting answers...! :)
For me, I usually start with about a 3.5 out of 5 rating in my head for a mission that I enjoyed, with 1 being the worst and 5 being the best it can be. That 3.5 to 5 range is for FMs that when I get done with them, I want to replay them almost immediately: I don't always, but sometimes I do. But, to get in that "feel good" category, a mission has to be playable without major bugs, look pretty decent (not perfect), have enough to do in it that I didn't feel like I was fumbling around from room to room with nothing to do in them, and gave me a sense of satisfaction and completion when I'm done.
I know a lot of that is highly subjective, but that's the way my brain works. I don't really have any set number of errors or problems that I have to encounter before I start taking off points in my head; but eventually after enough, I usually say "I'm done" and it will probably get a 1 or 2 or so rating. Same for translatables and conversations and things.. I can put up with quite a lot, just because I know someone put a lot of work into something, I'm not going to just dismiss it out of hand for a few problems. But yeah, eventually, my brain has to say "Why didn't they get one of the many folks who are available here and elsewhere to correct some of these?"
But, like I said, I know how much work goes into making FMs, and I try not to knock folks who are actually trying to make these things for us. I'm thrilled by each an every one of them.
I learned a very valuable lesson when I was proofreading Mark Smith's (AsyluM) FM "Hidden Agenda" ... something that should have been obvious from the start, but wasn't to my proofreading "perfectionist" of a brain at the time: Not every text should be perfectly worded and grammatically impeccable. Just like in real life, characters in a game world should expectedly have differing levels of education and spelling ability. He outright rejected my first set of corrections and I had to redo almost all of the readables again. It turned out to be not such a simple task after all. :D
Estel Randir on 14/1/2023 at 06:55
I do not have a formal rating system myself. But I tend to judge missions on things such as:
1) Does the atmosphere draw me in and capture my attention. Also small details like spilled wine cups, etc make a difference for me. I find missions that are "too clean" a bit boring.
2) Is the mission so large it is empty
3) How "crowded" a mission is & does this lead to overall confusion. Getting lost is all part of the fun. But if the mission is too crowded and poorly laid out, it becomes confusing and not fun.
4) How stupid /or clever the secrets & puzzles make me feel. My opinion on this is that a well designed mission will have challenging puzzles / secrets but allow you to find them naturally with a moderate amount of exploration. This makes me feel clever. A mission with secrets / puzzles that make no sense or are purposely made to be only found by 1 in 100 players makes me feel stupid. I do not mind a challenge, but an experienced player should be able to find most of them with decent effort. Skacky for example is notorious for putting things in places where you "should have" looked as you were exploring. I often slap my self for missing them. But they do not make me feel stupid & when I find them on my own, I feel clever. On the other hand the mission"The Seven Shades Of Mercury" has secrets that purposely make me feel stupid & in my opinion they were purposely done that way.
5) Does the story have a bit of a twist or is it a cookie cutter type
6) Does the mission have layers. I.E. you are exploring pretty standard areas and then you stumble into an odd doorway, ladder, hole, etc that leads to much more interesting sub areas. Worlds within worlds.
7) How boring are the guards AI. Some missions I can walk up behind a guard with my boots clacking away on stone tiles and they never notice. Or I can blackjack everyone with little effort. Boring.
8) On the flip side of 7) Do too many of the npc's have AI turned up so high that it is impossible to sneak up on them without a moss arrow & total pitch black. Too much frustration. I like balance.
9) How well is the overall scripting in the mission. Do npcs constantly get stuck in loops. Dos the FM author try something really far out there and the scripts often break the game? I recently tried a wonderfully atmospheric & interesting mission 4x and the scripts broke it every time. Same happened to others.
10) Does the mission have a mix of horizontal and vertical paths through the game? A good mix keeps things interesting and allows you multiple solutions to an objective.
Lord Taffer on 14/1/2023 at 17:30
I also give early era FMs some bonus points when rating because it definitely was harder back then to create missions. But what I've noticed lately is that authors were quite creative back then and many old FMs have a special atmosphere. Maybe it's because old FMs aren't visually as detailed as today's FMs but still many of them has a good gameplay and strong atmosphere. Definitely some nostalgia can be felt when playing these early era FMs. I recently played Lorgan's Web and that was probably one of the most nostalgic FMs I've played so far.
Maybe the most important factors for me when I'm rating a mission are the atmosphere and gameplay. I usually like FMs that aren't so conventional. I give bonus points if the surroundings aren't so ordinary. I'm not a very big fan of mansion missions because there are just so many of them and it tends to get a bit boring after playing dozens of them. Usually there have to be some weirdness (preferably T1/TG style) in them for me to give higher ratings.
Custom ambients and objects can be a bonus if they fit in well. Some bonus points also if there's darker ambient light because often times it enhances the atmosphere.
Also a good story and good looking architecture will increase my rating. So after I've finished a mission I recollect it's strong points and possible weak points and rate it.
My rating scale is 1-10 (accuracy 0.25) and I just write my reviews in a notepad file.
