Thought I'd weigh in...
Personally, I don't have any issues with what BigzipZ has done - it's a great service, especially given the rate at which levels are coming out now. It's also good for newcomers who can get all levels at once...
As I mentioned before, our direct involvement in the forums is going to decrease over time - it's a place for the community to meet and ensure that there's at least one place to share levels, and I trust you guys and gals to work together to make this the place you want it to be (which, I think, is happening already).
As to how to handle the amount of levels, there are several ways this forum could go... I'll just throw out some options and ideas (I have no real preference) and let you guys discuss it.
- leave it exactly the way it is, thank you very much
- have users create off-forum sites for levels (similar to what BigZipZ has started). Some of you PHP-experts might even have fun doing something with a voting system, "most popular" lists, thumbnail screenshots, photo/message of the level creator, etc. Obviously such a "fan" site is effort - not sure if there are budding (or professional) webmasters out there who are looking for an outlet for their html skills?
- take all levels from time to time and post them as a Level pack. With BigzipZ's permission I could for example use his Zip files and post them as level packs, say monthly. Or some of you might have the levels nicely sorted as well (by user name, or perhaps by category) and I could post those once a month as an update. If categories are to be used you folks would just have to think and decide about appropriate ones.
- Split the forum into several sub-categories for levels ("For Kids", "Medium Difficulty", "Hard Difficulty", "Experimental Levels")... the pro of that is obvious, the con is that there's more forums to check - and there will be many levels that fit into several places (and people might end up posting their levels in the "wrong" categories).
- etc?
As I said, just some ideas. Obviously nothing _has_ to be done. And again, please understand that our involvement would be minimal. I can happily setup the forum for a "split", if you wish, or do the monthly level pack backups, but we wouldn't be involved in tabulating/listing/rating/reviewing/etc incoming levels. Not that it wouldn't be fun.
In another thread someone pointed out that we wouldn't do too many updates/changes/etc since they wouldn't be worth the money/time (which makes us sound like capitalistic swine - which, really, we're not! Trust us!). I think the "better" way
to think about the amount of our involvement is this: Given that time is limited, which would you, the users, prefer - that we spend our time playing and managing custom levels, or working on the next game for you to play?
This was a long post - and will be followed by some silence in order for you guys to take the time to discuss this, if you wish.
Cheers!
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