As the title says boys and girls, this thread is for all your praise or complaints about the Staff Picks program. We want to know what you think works and what doesn't. You've seen the program in action the passed two weeks and it will run for two more. However, keep in mind that this isn't the place to suggest maps to be stuck or complain about specific map choices. We just want to know whether you think Staff Picks is worth it and what would need to be changed to have it operate more effectively.
I think staff picks are a great idea, I'd just like to see a little more diversity in it. First week was good, but second week not so much. I'd like to see 2 or so staff picks in each category.
I think its a great idea. In my experience in other forums there can be some substantial staff disagreement about the quality of someones map. Its a good outlet for a staff member to reward a map or member when perhaps other staff members dont agree.
I would like to see this too, but the problem is: What if, for example, theres not really anything that great in the race section that week? Is the staff member then still forced to pick a sub-par map? Do they lose their pick since there have already been 2 picks in each of the other catefories? etc. Sometimes there isnt that many good maps. Still, I agree it would be nice if there was some way to spread them out.
My answer to that is we are a good 6 months into Reach, hundreds of maps have been released for each category, there should be enough quality maps for 2 picks each week. No one said the map of the week had to be a current map. It would encourage staff to dig deep into the category and actually play a bunch of people's maps to see if they are good. Not just play ones they have heard a lot about from friends.
I really like the whole dealio with the staff picks, it should be 2 maps a week though like someone said before though.
I think having a set number of staff pics per forum might be a good thing, but 2 per forum seems unbalanced because while there may be hundreds of competitive maps from just that week, there may be as few as ten recent maps in the aesthetic section. As long as there's a plethora of old maps since we're so far into Reach this won't be a problem, but as this gets under way, those old gems will be used up. Other than that, I feel like it's not really well structured, but I don't see any immediate way to change that.
We technically have this set up, however a lot of staffers don't pick their maps (I didn't pick this past week) so it doesn't end up working out. Staff are only allowed to max 5 maps per section. 2 Admins + 6 Journos + 4 Mods + 4 Guards is 16 people to choose maps. So there is some spreading out. As people have mentioned there is a large amount of competitive versus the other section, so having more competitive maps is fair. It would be nice to see higher participation though..but it is tough to choose a map.
I think there should be a thread of all the staff picks, aranged by who picked them. with the thumbnail image and link. so we can see the staff picks for that week. kind of what you do with featured maps, except a bunch of maps for that week, and put a link to those threads on the home page or halo reach content. I think that would make it easier for people to find the maps the staff enjoyed, so they can play them too EDIT: just had a better idea. put a "Latest Staff Picks" on the left side of the homepage under "Latest Featured Maps" or "Latest Community Maps".. that would be awesome.
Im loving this, mainly because Ive gotten a couple of maps today (because of SP), that I would have never seen if not for them. So thank you. It should be kept going.
While that may sound like a good idea, it isn't very hard at all to click to each map section and see which maps are pinned at the top.
you're right, its not hard to do that at all, but some people might not know how and i think that would make it easier, and i think the staff picks would get noticed more if they were on the homepage.
That may seem pointless for current staff picks, but in the compilation thread it may be good to have a thumbnail of each map just so people can get a feel for the map or more easily find one they're looking for.
The more staff picks I've seen over the past few weeks, the more I have felt that there is one thing missing. The staff never explain why they picked the map. I feel like it would help if they did because it would encourage the creator of the map in a specific area and it would show newer map creators what specific thing made the map so good, so that they could use it in their maps as well. Example: say a map in the competitive forum has a nearly perfect weapon layout, if the staff member mentioned it when they picked the map, the original creator would be less likely to mess with the weapon layout for a version two and focus rather on other aspects. Also, the newer forgers would see that the weapon layout was good and maybe learn how to create a good weapon layout.
I think just a short blurb about why they picked it would be enough, nothing fancy, but enough to give the reader the idea of why they picked it.