I think quite a lot of people know that I more than occasionally write feedback either in award form or in the comments, based on how I liked a certain track or other piece of work overall. So I feel that my opinion should count in this matter somewhat.
irondragons says:
I had to sit through that same PF start the 100 times I spent testing it, and I still enjoyed it. That's the way I wanted the track to be, and I built the track for me. NOT YOU.
I understand what people complained about on your map is purely a design choice, not a flaw. Yet, you forget about tracks which perhaps are made by drivers who are faster or slower than the average driver. Take for example a track has a jump which a faster driver can jump over a checkpoint placed in-between said jump. Sure, the author designed it according to their driving, but often it's good to point out things like this to the author so they can make a worthwhile improvement to the track for all drivers without sacrificing the author's ideas.
irondragons says:
And what destroys me is that most of the complaints and criticisms I got came in the form of awards. Awards are awards. Have you ever seen anyone handed an Oscar and get told "Yeah, fantastic work there... uh except for that one part which I didn't particularly like. Good job though!"? They're awards. They're not your own little blog where you pretend to give feedback to the user but instead you end up just forcing your own ideals on the trackmaker.
Comparing awards on this site to an oscar is ridiculous. It may be named an "award", but people are always saying "you award a track when you like it." I can still like a track which has flaws or a little part I don't prefer. I don't think I should have to write an award containing everything I like about it and then having to either write a comment about what I disliked or just keep that whole comment to myself.
In the case of criticizing your design choice of a PF start, that would be forcing ideals on the trackmaker, but if it's an a flaw which can be improved for everybody I honestly don't see what's wrong with giving that person feedback whether they wanted to hear it or not. It's ultimately their choice if they want to follow that feedback or just ignore it.
irondragons says:
Another thing, don't give feedback unless you know the author wants feedback. If you're giving me feedback it's probably likely that I've been playing this game a lot longer than you have, and I have a finer grasp on what I want to see in my map more than you. I don't want to hear it. Maybe you can give beginners feedback, but in all honesty, the best way for people to learn are to look at other maps and take and see what they like.
This is the part of your rant that really bothers me. I do agree with that last sentence, but even then there's always some things people are going to find to complain about, nobody is perfect that they can be so sure that every choice they made with a track is the best choice, no matter how long you've been playing the game. I realize your point is that you don't care what other people think of how you build tracks, but to discourage all people to not give feedback simply because the author didn't specify that he wanted any help doesn't make any sense to me. Why try to discourage the freedom of expressing what others think about the track when it actually might help someone, if even a little bit?
If you make tracks for only yourself, great, but if you are so disgusted that there's other who will disagree with you and not only giving out the "Nice track" or "
" awards, constantly praising all of your work and nothing else, then why even bother releasing them on MX? I know that's probably a stupid thing to say, but I don't see the point in making your tracks public if you don't care what anyone has to say or do with it.
Keep in mind I didn't try your track, but I did read the awards available there. I do think your choice to have a long PF start isn't something that every single person is ever going to like, therefore I think it is silly to complain about it. But there are things in tracks, by beginners and veterans of TM, that can occasionally be improved on for everyone, like the example I stated above, and I think it's a good thing to point things out like that, even if they didn't specify that they need feedback from others.
Last edited by NinjAstar, 2011-08-21 03:44:33