Article - A Proposal for Updating How The System 11 Forum Record Scores On the Site (Retrospective)

What  is written below is a post I made on the ShmupSystem11  forums about  updating how we record scores on the forum. Here is the  link to the  original post:

https://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=63002

Since  making this post, I have come to the conclusion that any sort  of  change on the ShmupSystem11 forum is never going to happen. The   response I received on this very well-meaning post goes to show how   closed-minded the farm is and how it cannot be the place we look to for   the future of the genre.

It’s  been two years since I made this post, and I think it still  holds up as  direction this genre needs. I have now moved on and am  currently about  to launch a new leaderboard for the genre with a ton of  support from  the community:

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Hi everyone,

I  would just like to start off this post by saying that it is not my   intention to spit in anyone’s eye or spite anyone’s work. I really   appreciate all the work everyone has put in over the years, in terms of   recording scores and preserving them. Also, I would like to say that I   make this post out of genuine care for the shmup community and the   shmups forums. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t bother to put all of this   work together. Seriously I have put less work into college papers.

So,  with that out of the way, what I would like to talk about today  is the  need for the shmups forum to update how we keep track of scores. I   believe that if we do not update our methods soon, there are a number   of benefits we will miss out on and leave on the table. To give my full   William Shakespeare view on the matter, I have composed this document:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1sBc4ndgfsVv6mz5H3tuujjr2JDd-8pCh

However,  if you are not in the mood to do a good deal of reading, I  am going to  provide a concise breakdown of my thoughts in this post.  Again though,  if you want the entire picture, please take the time to  read the  document.

Here is the summary of my thoughts:

Problems with our current record keeping methods

1. It  is fragmented. There is no unified database. There is no way to   quickly compile statistical data. For example, if I was interested in   seeing a player’s entire resume of scores, I would have to manually go   through all the different game threads and hope I didn’t miss a score.
2. None  of our scores (that I found) have video links attached to them.  Our  scores are just recorded names and numbers.(Replay links don’t  count,  I’ll explain why soon).
3. Many  of our score threads are too small and intimate. The people in  charge  of the scores are often high scoring players. This discourages  newer  players with lower scores from posting out of fear of being judged  or  other social reasons (I’ll explain the importance of low scores  soon).  The fact that people have the opportunity to readily comment on  your  score, since it is posted on a forum thread, adds to this problem.
4. Many of our score threads appear abandoned and haven’t been updated in years. Take this one for example: viewtopic.php?t=36854
   Poor Plasticxo at the bottom of the thread never gets his score posted.
5. The  majority of our score threads are top-heavy, meaning that the  majority  of the recorded scores are being submitted by expert players.  The  number of recorded scores is often extremely small, which further   discourages newer players, as a low score would really stand out and   look ridiculous.
6. There  is no standardized system of deciding what we do with  arrangements and  variations of games. Sometimes they have their own  thread and  sometimes they don’t.
7. It  is cumbersome and confusing to track how a game’s scores have  evolved  over time. Dates of when scores were submitted are often not  readily  available.
8. Aesthetically, forum posts appear outdated, like we are a community stuck in the past.

Why These Problems Matter

•  In other gaming communities, their scoreboards, time boards,  ladders,  and leader boards are the central hub for player interaction  and game  play content. They are the avenue in which new players are  introduced  to the community and assimilated into it. If we don’t make a  change,  our deficiency in this area will be a continual barrier for  growth as a  community.
• As things are, our current player base has limited  interaction with  each other, when it comes to sharing our scores and  competing. Only a  small minority of expert players have their scores  visible and actively  compete with each other. To the average and  beginner players, these high  scores might as well be flags on the moon.  This disparity decreases  overall community participation and  engagement. This is similar to  trying to learn a fighting game, where  your only competition are expert  players who will completely destroy  you. Beginner and average players  need an opportunity to interact with  each other.
• Without readily accessible video to accompany our  scores, outside  visitors of the forum (who might be initially  interested) have no  content to get them hooked. Names and numbers are  meaningless to them.  For example, it is not uncommon for casual people  to go to a  spreedrun.com page and watch a bunch of speed running vods  of a  particular game. Right now this is impossible with our current  system.  Casual observers are not going to have the motivation or  know-how to  upload replay files.
• If our scorekeeping appears  outdated or under populated, this gives  new people and outsiders the  impression that these shmups are no longer  being played actively and  that the scene is dead. It also decreases the  prestige of our top  scores.
• And obviously, it sucks if your score doesn’t ever get  posted because  the thread owner left the scene and the thread has been  abandoned.

My Proposed Solution

First  off, I would just like to say that, when it comes to the  details, I  think we as a community can work together to figure out what  works for  us the best. This is not my pet project or anything, just a  change I  think needs to happen (though I am fully invested in helping  make the  change happen, if that is what is needed).

So, to address the problems I’ve listed above, here is what I think our new score-keeping system needs.

1. It needs to be a unified database. It can continue to be managed by a variety of people, but the data needs to be centralized.
2. Video  needs to be strongly encouraged. Obviously there are some  barriers  depending on people’s setups and stuff, but the year is 2018,  we can  make this happen. There will be scores without video, but we  should aim  for the majority of scores having video. Also, the video  doesn’t have  to be direct capture, people can do off-the-screen capture  too.
3. We  need the scoreboard to feel less personal, and more general. This  will  encourage a wider range of scores, rather than just a small list of   top scores. A healthy spread of scores is good for everyone. It also   adds prestige to the top scores.
4. Finally, and most importantly,  we need our new  method of tracking scores to be connected directly to  the forum. As in, a  first time visitor opens the site, sees the “hi  scores” section, clicks  on it, and is immediately directed to the new  scoreboard in some  fashion or another.

Models we can learn from

While  speaking to my discord about this idea, I got a great deal of  very  helpful feedback. One of them being that there are currently two   websites that are close to what I am envisioning. There is the French hi   score website:

http://hiscores.shmup.com/

or Restart Syndrome:

http://www.restartsyndrome.com/

Personally of the two, I like the French site better. Really, I’d say it is perfect other than being light on videos.

Again though, as great as these websites are, the problem with them is that they are external to the forums. What we need is an internal solution of some kind, as referring players to these other sites is just fragmenting our already small player base.

So what should we do? (The Action Plan)

Overall,  this is the part of the proposal that could go a number of  ways,  depending on how things shake out. So, what I will do is list some   possible outcomes we could work towards, ranked from best to worst. I   am sure there are other plans we could put into action as well, but this   is what I have come up with so far.

A++ tier Outcome:

That  the mods and admin of these great forums decide to take me up on  this  idea and the hiscore section of the site is reworked and updated  to  reflect these changes.

B tier Outcome:

That  the mods and admin agree to create a permanent and prominent  link to  either the French website or RS in the “hiscore” section and we  work  with them on integrating with the shmups forum.

Or

We  build a new external website specifically for this purpose and it  is  integrated into the shmups forum. Here’s an example I’ve put together   on my basic WordPress website (this is just for demonstration purposes, the new site would be much more robust and appealing).

https://shmuppodcast.wordpress.com/shmup-scoreboard/

C tier:

We,  at the very least, go through and try to start cleaning up the  system  we have now and adding video links. Though, honestly, I feel like  this  effort would be better spent working towards an update.

So that’s what I for everyone. Hopefully this post generates constructive conversation   about this topic. Also, when you do reply to this post, please try to   focus on the larger picture, rather than just focusing in on some super   specific minor detail, otherwise this conversation isn’t going to go   anywhere.

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Reading  this back, it’s funny to see how some of my ideas eventually  did come  to fruition. For example, for those familiar with this  website, you  will probably notice that the demonstration scoreboard that  I built is a  precursor the the Shmup Video Index on this site. After  making this  post and realizing that the scoreboard update on the forum  is probably  never going to happen, that’s when I came up with the  inspiration for  the Video Index in the first place. I found that, of all  the ideas I  wrote about, the one that my supporters (who were mainly in  my discord)  and I were the most passionate about was getting an  accessible  database of shmup replay videos.

So  I guess, besides wanting to preserve my post and have it be  easily  found, I also created this article to demonstrate that, if you  have a  new idea that you genuinely think will benefit the community,  don’t  give up on it, even if you do get slammed by a landslide of  opposition  or ambivalence.

Sincerely,

Mark MSX

(11/26/18)