Well, if you ask me by removing the top lists unknown authors or single player authors would suffer even more.
It is just a normal thing that most people don't want to pick tracks out of the blue.
Chances they get something they don't like are too high.
So they would, even more than now, go for tracks from authors they know.
I've found many authors in the botw I had never heard of before, enjoyed their track, tried more from them.
Without the botw I would have had no other chance than pick a random track or search for authors I know already.

Plus many authors take it as competition and try to get into the list. Without the list - no more motivation.
You could argue the result would be less mainstream tracks, and that's probably true.
But also less orientation about what people enjoy.
And after all a top list is nothing bad, nothing ashaming, like stated before. It is something good, something helpful that most players appreciate.

Let's face the fact that most people complaining about the botw are authors who feel like having no chance to get in there, not the mass of players who just play the game and download tracks.

... says:
Plus many authors take it as competition and try to get into the list. Without the list - no more motivation.

qft, at least for me.

Remove botw? Are you crazy? (joking, no ofense) How could we find nice tracks then? Testing lots of tracks every day? Absurd. There's people, like me, who don't have much time for playing, so if you remove the sytem we will have just nothing... A totally caos of maps, and a big waste of time looking for a nice track. I know we don't have the perfect system, but is a sort of system wich allows me to find nice tracks.
Random system? Don't make me laught. Do you pick a random game when you want to buy a new one? Of course not. This site is the same. We are looking for nice maps.

SkunkY says:

Let's face the fact that most people complaining about the botw are authors who feel like having no chance to get in there, not the mass of players who just play the game and download tracks.

I'm not agree with that. I'm more interested in playing than building. And I'm complaining because I want a working and dynamic system in order to discover NEW nice tracks and new authors...
I understand your point, and it's the truth in some cases... but not the most. Anyway, if more authors could get in botw (and not always the same tracks) all this mass of player who just play the game and download track would find something new and fresh more often, and they would enjoy mucho more this site... There are lots of fun tracks lost forever in the mess... That mass of player don't even read this forum. This don't mean they like the system. But for sure they would apreciate a better system wich will improve the site.

Sriver says:

SPIDER says:
maybe a random week list
10 random tracks one week in the spotlight.

Then, people would only play those 10 tracks, and others would still be ignored.

That's why I think we should abolish such lists... or maybe the ability to search by awards at all.

I mean that list to ofc.

I'm glad there are well grounded people like MrA and fastforza that are deciding this stuff. This thread gives me a headache.

You guys have a million ideas. Some might be new.. but most have probably been considered in previous iterations of this thread on the various sites that came before MX. In fact, I've shared in such discussions in the past. Perhaps that's why I'm rather "ugh" about this whole thread. It feels like a rehashing of old stuff. I'm sure a lot of older users felt the same when I was participating in a similar thread on United. So I'll try not to be too negative.

I do have my concerns about making changes though.

I fear that if you change the site too radically, it'll no longer be MX.

Do you notice how ManiaPlanet isn't that different from United? The menus are very familiar, even the organization of the solo campaign, etc.

It feels good.

Familiarity is a good thing. It makes old users feel at home and makes it easy to explain to new users how things work.

Everyone has the same opportunity to get exposure on the site. Older builders have put in their time already and users know they can expect quality tracks from them. New builders still need to put in their time marketing their tracks to reach the same level (if they even want to).

You can't skip ahead. You have to market your tracks.

Some of those mechanisms for marketing that existed in the past are missing at this point. (PPO, PlayPal, etc). But it's only a matter of time before they're added again. PlayPal already has a button up there, so it may be among the first to return. I don't know. I'm not privy to those details.

I feel like this thread has wandered all over the place, but recently taken on the notion that a new system would make it easier to not have to promote your tracks. It's been discussed from the standpoint of players who are looking for maps from unknown authors, but the idea is the same. Those authors wouldn't be "unknown" if they cared the least bit about exposing their tracks to people. Many of those users, delnuelo for example, just post their tracks here for convenience... but they're mostly focused on playing online... enjoying some rounds with friends. Do you think he really cares how many awards he gets? I'm sure he appreciates them, but he doesn't need them to validate the quality of his maps.

A few tweaks could be done to the site, introducing some new features (even ratings, if done right). But the existing features shouldn't be radically changed, lest the site lose all familiarity.

If you really want to try other maps that aren't in "Best of the Week", without resorting to checking random maps, then I suggest you go to one of your favorite maps, check an awarder's profile page and check what other tracks they've awarded. You'll no doubt find a treasure trove of tracks with very few awards that are worth checking out.

On United Exchange, you could mark authors as your 'favourites' and had a list showing the newest tracks from these authors. This way, you could make sure that, if you had found some authors whose tracks you really liked, you wouldn't miss any of their tracks. I guess this function will also be added here on MX soon.

Also, when uploading replays is finally possible and the LB system works, it will be possible to sort tracks by LB ranking - another way to find some probably good tracks.

You can have a look at which tracks someone with a similar taste to yours awarded as eyebo suggested.

Then, there'll hopefully be PPO, the MTC, PlayPal and many others...

So, if there wasn't a 'BotW' list, that wouldn't mean we had to 'pick tracks out of the blue'.

Btw, people wanted to have that 'random' track search, which shows that they actually like to pick tracks that way.

Anyway, to me, the 'BotW' always seemed to be as random as the 'Recently Awarded' list. I was on top of it one or two times, which at least tripled my download count then, but I didn't really like the fact people were only trying my tracks because they were on that list.

I also don't think that list really helps unknown authors. Did anybody get 'known' that way? Just by appearing on top of the 'BotW' 3 weeks consecutively? I don't think so. At least I didn't get known that way. I'm not even sure if I should regard myself as a 'known' builder. But if I am, it's certainly not because people remember me as the one whose name was once on that list.

If you want to help unknown authors, don't use the 'BotW'. Offer your help to them if they've got any questions about track building. Recommend their tracks to others (for example in the 'Recommend a track!' thread). Tell them about ways to promote their tracks in order to get more helpful feedback.

Anyway, eyebo's completely right. We shouldn't change MX too radically. I think we should first see how things turn out when this site is (more or less) finished. There'll be the first MTC on MX soon. - Maybe, we'll notice some authors who were completely unknown before. Who knows?

-

@ DeMeNs:

DeMeNs says:
That mass of player don't even read this forum. This don't mean they like the system. But for sure they would apreciate a better system wich will improve the site.

Maybe, they're just satisfied with the award system and thus don't feel the need to post here. Maybe, they aren't, but do not post here for some reason we don't know. However, you can't speak for them.

I said that because I'm user in the other site (TMU) from long time ago. I was playing in a team (nothin big, just for fun) and spend some time looking for tracks to our servers... I remeber some conversations with friends about this. I am not, at least, the only one.
We all were registered users, we all didn't liked the award system... And we all didn't used the forum. (We were almost all from spain... You can't imagine the time I need to write this with all my mistakes XD English is dificult to me )
I tryed to read most users mind with my telepathy ten minutes before. But you have all the reason: I can't. XD

Feedback is good. It's a brand new start to a new site. Certainly discussing new ideas isn't a bad thing. I just don't think anyone should get their hopes up that there will be extreme changes such as awards being removed from the site altogether. It'd be like expecting TM itself to start having car-to-car collisions. It would be abandoning our DNA as a site.

I think we should do all we can to promote unknown builders. It was one of the main goals of the Showcase on TMU, and will continue to be so once we start doing Showcases again.

Sriver brought up some good points about how builders can promote themselves as well.

The thing is, we make all these tools for builders to promote themselves, but it's up to them to take advantage of the tools so that users like you can find the maps for your server.

I think the best way to find good maps is word of mouth. There are always users who try a lot of maps. If you find a user who has similar taste in tracks as yourself you can use their award list as a sort of "recommended tracks list" and find more maps you like off it.

The ratings system may help you find some gems as well, but only time will tell.

I think it's a good idea to not make a radical change.

Perhaps just adding some sort of rating to the current awards seems like a good idea, but maybe instead of numbers we could give it 1-5 stars. A numeral rating would seem less positive than with one with symbols.

I also think that if we keep awards as the measurement for "Best of the Week"(BotW), we should instead rename it to "Most Popular of the Week"(MPotW). Or we could use rating, because that's a far better way to tell if a track is good or bad.

Lastly, I think we should be able to give awards without text. These wouldn't appear on the trackpage, but still count. On the trackpage, only awards with text would appear. This could work as a motivation for awarders who want their award to be noticed, while people who didn't really care about it, would just not be visible. This would make it more convenient for the authors, because s/he would be able to see only those who cared to write something on their awards, instead of having to read through pointless awards with no real feedback. (Such as an award with only a smiley would be better if it were invisible, than wasting precious space for more meaningful awards.) All awards would still be visible from a list at the bottom saying "View all awarders" or something similar.

What do you think?

If you will you could say the botw is random because it's no guarantee you'll like those tracks.
But that's about it. Tracks in the botw have been appreciated by a certain number of players so chances are better you'll find tracks you like in that list than downloading random tracks.

Of course people wanted the random track box, and they got it. But it's additional to the botw. Without a botw we wouldn't need the random list either.

Did authors become more popular after they had a track in the botw? Certainly they did.
I didn't know any of your tracks before I saw you in the botw.

Certainly there are other ways to get recognized. And that's good. Botw is just one part of the site. It's one way to get recognized by more players, along with other possibilities.