TAGS for missions

[Destined]

Hi guys,

 

through the "cheats" topic I got the idea, that it would be quite useful, if there were tags for missions (the post was about removing the killing restriction in some missions to suit the prefered play style). I don't know how easy or difficult this is, but with them, it would be quite convenient to pick missions with playstyles, environment, etc one does want to use. This could also be expanded to other mission properties. I remember a discussion about climbable drains, handles on doors, that cannot be picked and other things the map author chooses for himself. That way these things would be clearer and as I said before, it is easier to choose missions with playstyles that suit oneself. What do think?

[SteveL]

It's a good idea, if someone wants to invest the time in it to gather all the info for existing missions. That would be a lot of work. We already have missions tagged for undead and spiders, but the tags are on the wiki and website mission lists rather than visible in the downloader. And it could get a bit complicated where the tagged property depends on the difficulty level.

[demagogue]

We can tag threads in this forum. So maybe someone can put together a tag list for release threads, and then an Admin can zip them in maybe. Then fans can search for threads by tag anyway, and that leads them to the FMs.

[Tels]

It's a good idea, if someone wants to invest the time in it to gather all the info for existing missions. That would be a lot of work. We already have missions tagged for undead and spiders, but the tags are on the wiki and website mission lists rather than visible in the downloader. And it could get a bit complicated where the tagged property depends on the difficulty level.

 

If the code supports tags, I'm sure someone will go through the missions and tags them. (We can even collect the tags on the wiki). It doesn't have to be perfect, but anything would be better than the mile-long list we have now, with almost no way to decide which to play (first). Even I have no idea what the newest FMs are actually about, and the title doesn't tell you much. Newcomers are absolutely lost.

[Tels]

We can tag threads in this forum. So maybe someone can put together a tag list for release threads, and then an Admin can zip them in maybe. Then fans can search for threads by tag anyway, and that leads them to the FMs.

 

People who download and try TDM are not looking at the forums at all (some of them can't even read English very good) - either they have some way in the game to decide which mission to try, or they try one at random. Which might led to frustration and a lost user for us.

[SteveL]

 

People who download and try TDM are not looking at the forums at all (some of them can't even read English very good) - either they have some way in the game to decide which mission to try, or they try one at random. Which might led to frustration and a lost user for us.

 

That's a point worth keeping in mind. The ratio of non-member visitors to forum members displayed on the front page never falls to less than 4:1, and the number of people who never or very rarely visit the forum must be even higher.

[Tels]

Thinking a bit about categorizing missions, simple "tags" might not be as helpful. For instance, if you look for a small mission, do you search for "small", "simple", "fast to play", "short", "tiny" or any other of the myriad of words/combinations?

 

I think adding a few fields to the FM database would be a good idea. Each of the should have about 5 levels - more means to fine-grained, less means it's to caorse and people might argue wether a mission is "small" or "medium".

 

* size of the mission (tiny, small, medium, large, huge)

* base difficulty of the mission (simple, easy, medium, hard, ultra)

* something else?

 

For everything else, like type of the mission, contains undead, spiders or has "noblackjack", tags might work actually better.

 

 

The ingame downloader could then let you filter missions (show only "simple" and "small" missions, available in my language) and allow you to add tags ("show only with tag undead,but none with tag spiders").

Edited April 28, 2015 by Tels

[ShadeDrifter]

Enviroment: Outdoors, caves/crypt, mansion, city, etc

 

The lack of tags is the dark mods biggest problem for me. Theres no way to know what kind of mission you're getting into other than trying to guess from the name and description, so you're taking a total stab in the dark when it comes to finding a something you want to play, which some people might want to put them on edge, but it was the reason I quit when I first tried the dark mod because I wanted to play exploration mansion/castle/etc missions and kep getting undead or linear levels.

 

 

We can tag threads in this forum. So maybe someone can put together a tag list for release threads, and then an Admin can zip them in maybe. Then fans can search for threads by tag anyway, and that leads them to the FMs.

That sounds really inconveniant and like a mess for anyone who isn't familiar with the system.

Edited April 30, 2015 by ShadeDrifter

[Destined]

I would even volunteer for gathering the tags (even though I have no idea how long I would actually take), but since I have absolutely no idea about programming, I am not able to implement the tag system into TDM. There I would need help from experienced programmers.

[ShadeDrifter]

Theres still brainstorming how it would work hypothetically.

 

Where would it be stored? I see 2 viable options:
On the map file somewhere.

Having a list on a server somewhere of all the maps and their tags.

 

I think option 2 might be the best in the long run because it allows expansion onto the tags without having to go through each map file and update them if something comes up.

 

 

How it will look in the client.

Would the tags be in a drop down box in each section where you can filter out maps you want? (I think gamebanana had this way back)

Would it be like steam tags where you can search certain or multiple tags?

Where should the tags be? I personally think they should be out of sight unless you specifically click to see them so it's easy to go into the mission not knowing whats ahead if you like that.

[Tels]

I agree with all of what ShadeDrifter said: store tags on server (where the download links, i10n links and version are already stored), hide tags unless user wants to see them, allow searching for multiple tags ("has undead, but not spiders").