Conquer Club

So I am unclear on how the medal awards work in a collaborative effort. Say you have 1 person doing XML, another doing Graphics, and a third doing gameplay / project management? How does that work, do all 3 get a medal?

Up to 2 people can receive a medal from any single map. If there are more mapmakers collaborating on it, they'll just have to decide between themselves which 2 will get the medals.

I'm not sure about the premium, but I believe the same applies to that too - ie. whoever gets the medals also gets the year's premium.

Not sure why that makes sense. If 3 people work hard on a map, each in their area of specialty - idea/gameplay, graphics, xml, why are only 2 medals given? I realise the cost of raw materials such as metals is going up, but somehow I don't think that affects the production price of CC medals....

I think the rule is in place to prevent inflation of the value of the map medal, or something like that.

Anyway I agree that 3 people would make more sense than 2. If one guy does gameplay, one does graphics and one does XML it would be nice if each got a medal. On the other hand XML:ing isn't very hard anymore, what with the wizards and magicians and whatnot...

Well I'm mainly curious from a personal, selfish perspective. I have an idea for a map and can probably get a draft workable for gameplay but my artistic skills just aren't up to snuff. Since I don't know XML at all, I don't want to work on something where someone would end up getting left out.

Well I for one know that Kab and I couldn't have done Napoleon 1812 without ender12's help for the xml and numbers' placing. I'm fine for the 2 of them to have the medals - but it makes little sense. If they're worried about abuse, it's pretty clear from the forums who contributes and how much and they can always withhold a medal if it's not earned. So the policy could be "up to three medals, at CC's discretion, based on evaluation of the work done by each contributor". This would be both fairer and ensure there would be no abuse or medal inflation.

XML hardly requires hard work; it's just translating the gameplay to a language the computer can understand. If someone only does the XML for a map they at best deserve an honorary mention, and that is my opinion as an established and serious XMLsmith.

An argument can certainly be made for three people getting a medal, just as somebody could probably come up with an equally strong argument for giving medals to four or five folks. At the time that the limit of two was put in place most maps were being completely developed by just one mapmaker, so the notion of giving medals to three seemed ludicrous. Two still seems like a solid number to me, and if somebody else played a key role they could certainly have their name slapped on the map somewhere as credit - more users will see that than the medal anyway.

As for the XML piece, I didn't know squat about XML before I made my first map, but I muddled through it just fine. And now with all of the XML and coordinate helper apps that have been developed a dim-witted chimp could do it. I think most would agree that the two hours or so of coordinate/XML work is nothing compared to the three-six months of regular updates and discussion that the graphics person is in for.

oaktown wrote:An argument can certainly be made for three people getting a medal, just as somebody could probably come up with an equally strong argument for giving medals to four or five folks. At the time that the limit of two was put in place most maps were being completely developed by just one mapmaker, so the notion of giving medals to three seemed ludicrous. Two still seems like a solid number to me, and if somebody else played a key role they could certainly have their name slapped on the map somewhere as credit - more users will see that than the medal anyway.

Agreed with Oaktown. I like the process that two developers receive a medal, and anyone else that contributes can get their signature on the map.


--Andy

AndyDufresne wrote:

oaktown wrote:An argument can certainly be made for three people getting a medal, just as somebody could probably come up with an equally strong argument for giving medals to four or five folks. At the time that the limit of two was put in place most maps were being completely developed by just one mapmaker, so the notion of giving medals to three seemed ludicrous. Two still seems like a solid number to me, and if somebody else played a key role they could certainly have their name slapped on the map somewhere as credit - more users will see that than the medal anyway.

Agreed with Oaktown. I like the process that two developers receive a medal, and anyone else that contributes can get their signature on the map.


--Andy

Maybe a separate medal could be given to XML contributors.

There are older and wiser hippos, monkeys and other miscellaneous foundry animals who have already succintly summarised my viewpoint on the matter

porkenbeans wrote:Maybe a separate medal could be given to XML contributors.

The addition of new medals doesn't seem to be something that lack is particularly keen on; and I can think of other contribution medals (ie script development) that would be more deserving than a couple of hours spent writing up XML.

MrBenn wrote:There are older and wiser hippos, monkeys and other miscellaneous foundry animals who have already succintly summarised my viewpoint on the matter

porkenbeans wrote:Maybe a separate medal could be given to XML contributors.

The addition of new medals doesn't seem to be something that lack is particularly keen on; and I can think of other contribution medals (ie script development) that would be more deserving than a couple of hours spent writing up XML.

Yeah, XML is a thankless, and simple job. But who does "script development" ?

porkenbeans wrote:But who does "script development" ?

All the people who keep user scripts such as Clickable Maps, BOB, Map Rank, etc.... in fact, anything over in this subforum...

MrBenn wrote:

porkenbeans wrote:But who does "script development" ?

All the people who keep user scripts such as Clickable Maps, BOB, Map Rank, etc.... in fact, anything over in this subforum...

Well that seems a little off topic to me. I thought that this thread was about Foundry medals.

AndyDufresne wrote:

oaktown wrote:An argument can certainly be made for three people getting a medal, just as somebody could probably come up with an equally strong argument for giving medals to four or five folks. At the time that the limit of two was put in place most maps were being completely developed by just one mapmaker, so the notion of giving medals to three seemed ludicrous. Two still seems like a solid number to me, and if somebody else played a key role they could certainly have their name slapped on the map somewhere as credit - more users will see that than the medal anyway.

Agreed with Oaktown. I like the process that two developers receive a medal, and anyone else that contributes can get their signature on the map.


--Andy

I notice that you didn't quote oaktown's second paragraph (emphasis mine):

oaktown wrote:As for the XML piece, I didn't know squat about XML before I made my first map, but I muddled through it just fine. And now with all of the XML and coordinate helper apps that have been developed a dim-witted chimp could do it. I think most would agree that the two hours or so of coordinate/XML work is nothing compared to the three-six months of regular updates and discussion that the graphics person is in for.

Cut too close to home, did it?

Seriously, I agree that the XML is a small contribution, especially nowadays, but there is still some room for craftsmanship: naming and organizing the continents so that the game log has a certain fluency, as do the other derivatives, such as text maps and continent overviews from BOB. Overall, though, the XMLsmith is the junior partner in a mapmaking team.

Know this, though: once I get my medal (presumably for Napoleonic Europe 1812: hopefully just one more version of the XML when the graphics finally settle down, which should happen soon), you can have it back when you pry it from my cold dead profile.

LOL ender and right you are. you totally deseve it. there is noting "junior" about the work you've done on N12. Which is why I think there should be enough flexibility to allow for a map medal for xml specialists from time to time.

just to clarify, nobody is saing that you can not receive a mapmaking medal for writing a map's XML. In fact, many users have medals for doing just that; Yeti has more map medals than I do, and I think they were all well-deserved. The question at hand is how many medals should CC hand out for the development of one map. The standard has long been set at two, which means that if there are three (or more) people who work a map, they have to work out between them who gets a medal. And yeah, the number could be raised to three, but then what happens when a group of four wants medals? You have to draw the line somewhere.

Personally - and this is just me talking out of my ass - having solo'd a few maps in my day, I can tell you that between weeks of gameplay discussion and running a thread, three to nine months of crafting the graphics and dealing with dozens of critics, and two hours of copying and pasting territory names and saving it as XML, I find that the XML is by far the easiest piece of the mapmaking puzzle. Again, that's just me.

Two hours? That has got to have been before the XML wizard. These days you can do the XML in 30 minutes...

natty_dread wrote:Two hours? That has got to have been before the XML wizard. These days you can do the XML in 30 minutes...

Is exactly for this reason that personally I think that the medals for writing only xml shouldn't be assigned anymore.
Write an xml nowdays it's a cinch....

Well the medal isn't assigned for doing XML, or doing graphics, or doing gameplay. There are up to two medals given for each map developed, and if a team of developers has more than two members, it is currently up to the team to decide amongst themselves who will be nominated for the medals.

If the XML is so simple and fast, then maybe one or two people, should be given the task exclusively. And, instead of a medal, they could just be given "blue" names.

natty_dread wrote:Two hours? That has got to have been before the XML wizard. These days you can do the XML in 30 minutes...

Yeah, things used to be harder and annoying. Feudal Epic took longer than 2 hours—not in one sitting.

porkenbeans wrote:If the XML is so simple and fast, then maybe one or two people, should be given the task exclusively. And, instead of a medal, they could just be given "blue" names.

Or the task could just go to whoever feels like it like it is now and then we don't get stuck waiting for the dedicated XMLers to do this fairly simple work.

Honestly, I don't see a problem with the status quo. I wouldn't see a huge problem with giving medals to 3 people either though.

Evil DIMwit wrote:

porkenbeans wrote:If the XML is so simple and fast, then maybe one or two people, should be given the task exclusively. And, instead of a medal, they could just be given "blue" names.

Or the task could just go to whoever feels like it like it is now and then we don't get stuck waiting for the dedicated XMLers to do this fairly simple work.

Well, with only two people awarded the medal, the mapmaker is forced to make a decision between the XML person and the person that he feels contributed the most to the development of the map. With the XML being such a fast and easy thing to do, it seems a bit unfair that he should be awarded the medal over someone that put a lot more time and effort in. The boys in blue should, IMHO, be responsible for the XML. If that small amount of work is too much, then I believe that there are others that would gladly do it to get a blue name.