Community interest in User Made Missions?

[StrongHarm 13]

If you're someone who has no interest in User Made Missions, can you share your thoughts on why? What are the frustrating or undesirable attributes you notice most frequently?

I've noticed a very significant decrease in the amount of subscriptions in the missions I develop... though I think they're getting better..

Here's the latest comment on Close Air Support (ECAS) in the Workshop:

Absolutely stunning, you made the perfect mission. I've replayed this countless times and never have been disappointed once. If I could rate this 5 stars more than once, I would. Exellent work!

Yet.. there are less than 5000 subscribers. Has the user base fallen away, is no one able to find the mission to play it, or is the expanded BIS content sufficient enough that there's no interest?

I'm anxious to see discussion on the topic and poll results.

[vegeta897 13]

The workshop is a really convenient way to both find, and automatically keep updated, missions for arma. The only thing I don't like about multiplayer workshop missions is that I can't sort them in order of when I subscribed to them, like you can in the singleplayer workshop missions. Steam lets you view this kind of information if you look at your subscribed content, but it would be ideal if I didn't have to take extra steps from the multiplayer lobby to do this.

I would also really like to see an indication in the mission list of which missions I've played (or how many times), but that's not really a workshop-specific note.

5000 sounds like a lot of subscribers for an Arma mission, if you ask me. I would wager that most Arma players just play on public servers, not actually download missions and host their own games. For the people that do host their own missions, over 4000 is quite a lot. What's the average download count for missions on Armaholic?

Edit: I just noticed that's a singleplayer mission. Probably even less people play singleplayer than they do private hosted games with friends. I'm just speculating here, but I still think nearly 5000 subscribers on a singleplayer mission is quite a lot.

Edited July 28, 2014 by vegeta897

[warlord554 2065]

Alot of us are old school, never messed with steam until we had to with A3. And with that said many don't spend time in the workshop. However like vegeta897 already said it's probably because it's a SP mission. I wouldn't worry about it though, who cares how many you have, if ppl subscribe, great, if not, well that's ok too.you can still take pride in your work :)

[soulis6 24]

I voted yes, but not for SP missions. I almost never play single player, as MP is the main draw for me in Arma.

I'd say our MP games get split about 70/30 between my own custom Zeus mission, and other people's MP missions we find on the steam workshop.

The one really frustrating thing for me on the missions workshop, is there's no way to look at 'recent top-rated'. If you're trying to find ones that have a lot of good reviews, you can only sort by 'Top Rated All Time,' which is pretty annoying if you want to see what, for example, the highest rated missions in the last couple months or weeks are, because the top rated all time is generally all pretty old stuff. They just need better filters and searching tools.

[Phantom Six 25]

I usually prefer manually downloading missions and renaming them to fit naming conventions. I am very interested in usermade missions that contains no respawn/group respawn/or side respawn usually with BIS style first aid (Psycho's first aid script comes closest). The guys I play with at Comrades in Arms, we're always looking for more of those kind of missions as well as some mission makers like myself make them as well.

We even keep a server mission list around of the missions we've played. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AoIzrb1yPxg2cG9hTkJubUhKZGFNUDEzSHkwdFgyZlE#gid=18

[.kju 3244]

Yet.. there are less than 5000 subscribers

Probably the natural process of player numbers overall going down over time.

For MP the trend is just different due to the hype for the Life game mode.

To disapprove this notion find several missions released the same time as yours with considerable higher number of subs.

[eclaird 1]

Yes, I subscribe to some missions. However, I mostly play with my group on a dedicated server and as you may know, the workshop doesn't work there at all. So for now it's just some random SP missions to fill boredom.

[novemberist 2]

Personally I only play ZeusGM missions in MP anymore these days and think the playing experience beats most user made missions any day of the week. Not to mention limited replayability value of pre-built missions.

I know a lot of people on private and public servers think so too. So maybe the introduction of Zeus has (among others) after all also led to a decline of interest in user made MP missions...

[Echo38 1]

The reason that I virtually never download user-made missions is simply that I dislike the process of sifting through the missions which don't meet my requirements in an effort to find the few which do.

[StrongHarm 13]

For the sake of comparison:

Close Air Support (Day2)

had over 20,000 subscribers last year in the same amount of time that..

Close Air Support (ECAS)

accumulated only 5,000 subscribers this year.

Of course, Day2 is a helo mission and ECAS is a fixed wing mission, but the written reviews for ECAS are the best I've received of any of my missions, yet it has the lowest amount of subscribers over a relative period of time.

I'll buy that it may have something to do with Zeus.. that's a very good point.

[yxman 90]

no, cause workshop (for dedicated server its the worst thing ever)

99,9% are just crap.

0,1% ok but also available on armaholic etc (less pain for server hosting)

Edited July 30, 2014 by yxman

[Wiki 1558]

Another point is lots of people download the mission but very few say thanks or provide feedback.

Really frustrating for mission maker.

[zimms 22]

Plus I guess most people unsubscribe after they played the mission.

[vegeta897 13]

Another point is lots of people download the mission but very few say thanks or provide feedback.

Really frustrating for mission maker.

This is simply the nature of people, really. But workshop missions actually have a big advantage over typical web downloads in this particular area, because at the end of every mission there's a handy button to take you right to the workshop page for rating and commenting.

[Wiki 1558]

yes it's easier, but still, not a lot of people comment, rate or provide feedback :(

[StrongHarm 13]

I've found that more people post comments than take the time to click the thumbs up.. which is interesting. My ECAS mission is full of really great comments, but when I first posted it there was a flood of 'thumbs downs'.. with no comments. I had a theory at the time that since the competition was starting up, someone thought it would be a good idea to suppress my mission in the workshop list so it wouldn't receive attention. Since then I haven't received a single thumbs down. I really don't want to accept that someone could be that petty, but I know it exists. I attribute some of the lack of subscribers to this, but at least it's up to 4 stars now (though verbal feedback indicates it should be a 6 heheh).

To give an idea of the affect;

Last Year's Mission: 31,812 Subscribers - 682 Ratings, 662 Positive/20 Negative (#6 Top Rated of All Time)

This Year's Mission: 4,636 Subscribers - 131 Ratings, 127 Positive/4 Negative (#100+ / 4 Stars, rated just above mission 'Fly Like Superman')

I don't care much about the ratings though.. as long as people can find my missions and enjoy them, it's worth my time to create them.

[R0adki11 3949]

I had to answer "No" as i don't play Single player. I only play PvP Multiplayer :)

[rakowozz 14]

I don't see it as a competition either. But in any case, don't worry, since Arma is and probably will always be based on user missions and content in general. I speak for a lot of people when saying I pretty much exclusively play user-made scenarios, created by myself and my community or not.

I don't usually play singleplayer. I haven't played your CAS missions, but I've seen videos of it, and loved your voice acting in it, by the way.

[StrongHarm 13]

Thanks a bunch, rak. I was in during desert storm, so it's been a while, but I still remember my radio discipline. Some of the voices in ECAS are actual ground and air assets. They were taken from Red Flag recordings and from an A-10 gun cam vid. You're actually flying a re-enactment of the real mission.

I think from the results of the pol that I'm going to have to shift to making MP/Coop missions.. I don't like the idea of swapping form for function, but hey, it seems to be what people want.

[gfresco 21]

I find co-op missions that you can play either alone or with others tend to be pretty enjoyable and versatile.

[BL1P 35]

Voted No.

Because I was disgusted at the way Benny CTI was copied and on steam workshop under a different author before he released the mission himself.

[StrongHarm 13]

I've had uncommonly good luck in that area. As far as I know no one has published any of my stuff under a different name. I've had several people ask for permission to use some of my scripts, and I've always allowed them. My motivation is to create something that I'd want to play (clearly selfish reasons), then I share it out in hopes that other people will enjoy it as much as me. It's a shame that people would plagiarize missions, but hell, I guess that's a sign of the times and not a problem isolated to the Workshop. I wonder if Benny could get BIS or Valve to intercede.

That's an interesting variable. Do you think that had to do with a significant decrease in subscribers on the workshop?

[BL1P 35]

I've had uncommonly good luck in that area. As far as I know no one has published any of my stuff under a different name. I've had several people ask for permission to use some of my scripts, and I've always allowed them. My motivation is to create something that I'd want to play (clearly selfish reasons), then I share it out in hopes that other people will enjoy it as much as me. It's a shame that people would plagiarize missions, but hell, I guess that's a sign of the times and not a problem isolated to the Workshop. I wonder if Benny could get BIS or Valve to intercede.

That's an interesting variable. Do you think that had to do with a significant decrease in subscribers on the workshop?

It was quite long time ago, I would not imagine that had/has anything to do with the decline in numbers.

I was just speaking personally.

btw Benny did give out permission to others eventually once he had released the mission himself.

[mistyronin 1181]

I voted yes. I only play SP. And after playing a mission I unsubscribe it, unless it's really top notch and I want to replay them.

[gfresco 21]

I love missions like DICE, the HETMAN war stories, the type that create open ended dynamic sort of battle situations. I find linear "kill the officer, reach the LZ" missions rather boring.