Ok so after a few months I finally have time to put more energy into Nibbits.com. For those of you who aren't familiar, we are the largest map database for StarCraft on the web.

Here's the current overview:

- Goal is to simply make it easy to find new, and exiting maps.
- Maps are parsed automatically to retrieve data such as number of players, tileset information, and description.
- Screenshots are generated automatically using the same tool.
- Maps are ranked, and popularity is determined by a simple weighting system.

What I have planned on changing:

- Screenshot rendering has been rewritten. It's almost ready to go live, but it now draws units, resources, and other things, in high resolution. It's pretty damn sexy in fact
- Ranking algorithm will probably change. Right now its average(last_seven_days_downloads). While this is a great measurement, it's going to also now take into account the rating, and date. The idea is that 60% will be downloads, 30% will be rating, and 10% will be date. This means newer maps that get a lot of downloads will be able to show up in the popular system much easier than older maps. Poorly rated maps will now also adversely be affected with this change.
- Project management... this is still kind of under wraps, but its just a simply system to say "this is my project, and here's all the maps on Nibbits that are a part of it"
- Better map filtering. For starters, we're adding in the ability to sort maps that are UMS, or Melee. This is also going to be handled automatically.

You can obviously tell I have believe in automation, as I'm a one-man shop, so if things require moderation/etc it just doesn't work for me. If you have ideas for additional features, which could be made by parsing maps or relying on users feedback, I'll glady take them into consideration.

I wanted to take this time to also say thanks for all the support from Staredit. I've seen much more activity in the comments and quality of maps posted since getting the community here involved.

I'm glad to see that you're continuing to make updates.

So go mod Ghost++ to work with Starcraft then

Also you may have the largest 'map' database, but your 'most popular' maps are infact 'money' maps and other various melee maps that are symmetrical and ugly to look at.

Oh and Temple Siege isnt even on it, one of the most popular maps as of late, even thought the fuss is dying, its still a great map.

Agreed.. Especially Temple Siege (j/k) ..
But seriously.. it needs map categories.. so ppl won't be blown away from your site by fastest maps...
Nevertheless.. I wish SEN could adopt some of your ideas.. cause it's great..
It's just that right now, a simple "most popular" rating won't be good enough

and fix "exiting maps" to exciting

I think that depending on what types of categories the maps would be sorted into it would be hard to make that automated, which is why there aren't categories right now.

And I don't think it really matters that Fastest is a popular map in his database because it's a melee map. Melee maps are different than UMS maps.

Can we keep feedback constructive? it is the largest map database, and most popular maps are based on an algorithm, just like I said. I'm planning on tweaking this so more quality maps can easily compete with the "omg money" maps.

GHost++ is also much harder to make work for StarCraft. Not only is the protocol different, but you have to deal with Warden. Right now, this is not an option.

As for categories, while they would be nice, as stated, they cannot be automated so they will never exist. There are tags which allow you to label your map with keywords, and help it appear in search. I tend to like the search approach vs the "which category am I supposed to put my map in?" approach.

The only true categories we'll have is "Melee" and "UMS" unless I can find some other way to automatically categorize them.

Anyways, again, I'm going to be tweaking the "popular maps" algorithm in the next few days to try and level the playing field.

Why can't you just make the user submit some info when there uploading the map.. I mean it doesn't ALL have to be automated, Why can't the user just put it in the certain category's. Like these are SEN's Category's for Maps.

Maps: Use Map Settings

* Arena
* Assault
* Board Games
* Bounds
* Defense
* Madness
* Movie
* Offense
* RPG
* Role Play
* Sports
* Tactical


Maps: Melee

* League
* Casual
* Alternative
* Melee Style (UMS)

Why can't you just use something like that? And have the User select where it fits.

The problem is it's not that simple. Maps can be submitted other ways than just a user submitting them. They could come from other websites, or even potentially come from Battle.net.

Well new rankings are live. So far they seem to be much more effective. Let me know what you guys think!

http://www.nibbits.com/sc/maps/

Here's the ranking multipliers:

x1 Post Date
x6 Download Average (7 days)
x3 Rating

your ez public comments are awesome. It's also good to see only 1 fastest map in the top 10. I might have to start going to more than 1 sc site now...

Ya my goal has been to allow as much user interaction as possible, but not require it. That means I automate the entire submission process (e.g. it can spider a map site), as well as allow anonymous users to post content.

Why is devilesk's map at the very top of the popular maps list?

High rating and daily downloads.

The intention of my post was indeed costructive, even if I came off like an asshole.

The point is, though you are indeed a large database of maps, the userbase on your site has proven to be quite...less knowledgeable of even UMS maps (as told to me by a various amount of my closer bnet friends who had posted a map or two on there). My other point is, I have joined your autohost on WC3 many a time for Bships (Which is why I brought up Ghost++), and if you're going to pursue such things on WC3, why even bother with SC.

You might have the most maps, but having every map in yer downloads folder on the site doesnt mean QUALITY maps are spread, only the cancer that is killing Starcraft UMS as we know it, causing more people to come to such places as here to post UMS help and ask the same questions over and over again (Not saying your site is full of noob/crappy maps but from what I saw I wasnt too impressed with top selections in the Most popular).

Maybe you have the wrong idea. We're not trying to be a one-stop-shop for map makers. The goal is to simply allow players of the games to find maps that are popular, or new, or simply archived.

You can try to blame sites like myself for bringing "newbie" users to StarEdit, but in reality where would you be if these newbies never came? SC mapping would just eventually die out. It's the circle of life.

The reason I cover both SC and WC3, is because there were no good sources, for either of them. WC3 had a few that had a lot of maps, as you would describe, but nothing saying "hey this map is good", or "hey this is what people are playing". I want to be able to not only provide an archive for maps of the past, but also a place for users to find maps of the present. It is, after all, up to the users to decide what is good and what is not, not simply up to people like yourself

After realizing Zeeg that you have in common with Moose and IP the qualities I hate about them, IE valuing noobs over community veterans, I will no longer be uploading any of my maps to your site. You sicken me. DM pointed out some things that could be done to improve Nibbits, and you choose to be rather hostile.

What you, and our administration here seem to fail to see is that if the knowledgeable, experienced users left it up to the masses of noobs that you have running rampant both here and at Nibbits, the sites would simply degrade and no one would learn anything. You'd be on your own, and I'd like to see you single handedly handle that. We may be a minority, but that is indeed because experienced mappers are harder to find, and you should be glad we gave you any support at all when you're spitting in our faces like this.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 11 2009, 10:11 pm by Excalibur.

That's a pretty terrible way to look at it. His site is dedicated to hosting maps, not teaching people to make them. Therefore, the masses of noobs that play maps are a much more important demographic for him than the people who make them. I hardly see how he's spitting on anybody's face. He's just doing what's best for his own site. Appealing to the masses.

Either way, people are going to play the maps they want to play. If they want to play fastest maps, your elitist attitude isn't going to stop them from dling one off of battle.net or any site on the web.

You guys complain about the maps that are in the most popular categories or whatever, but it's not like zeeg purposely set out to put shitty maps on top. And besides, if they're managing to get there in the first place, they're obviously not shitty in someone's mind. And if that someone happens to be zeeg's chief demographic, there's no reason he should try to get rid of those people.

I completely agree.

Excalibur has clearly missed this key point and I am sickened by his condescending response which is a really poor reflection of the SEN community.

I didn't miss it, but if he wants the support of the people making the maps, and those teaching others how to make maps, I think he should be a little more considerate of us. Not treat it like WELL BECAUSE YOU GUYS ARE A MINORITY I AM GOING TO BE HOSTILE AND INCONSIDERATE OF YOUR OPINIONS.

Devilesk, you can't even talk about community reflection. How many times have you been banned? You're nothing but an arrogant troll who proclaims himself to have made the best map ever. When you can fit your ego through a door frame maybe you can talk, but not right now.

Where did you get that from?
It looks like to just be a database.

I'm not sure where you are getting your feelings from, but you need to calm down Ex.