What to do with your New Scenario
Last Revised 19-Oct-1996
Steps to take to distribute a new Warlords scenario for public access:
- PC - Deluxe Warlords II:
- After designing, documenting, and playtesting is done, email your
(zipped, uuencoded) scenario to these archive sites, and ask to have
it made publicly available:
- After the scenario is publicly available, send the address to
me (Bob Heeter), at
rfheeter@phoenix.pixgen.com,
and I will add it to the scenario list here.
- After the scenario is in the list, it will be reviewed by one or more
of the volunteer reviewers listed below, when they have time. Reviews
are done on a voluntary basis, so there is no fixed review schedule.
You are welcome to send them encouragement and request that they
look at yours, but we can make no promises until we clear the backlog
of unreviewed scenarios.
(We would like additional volunteers - anyone out there?)
- The reviewers can then download the scenario (thus checking that
it is available online) and write a review.
- Reviews that are sent to me will be put on the Web site here.
- PC - Classic Warlords II:
- After designing, documenting, and playtesting is done, email your
(zipped, uuencoded) scenario to these archive sites, and ask to have
it made publicly available:
- After the scenario is publicly available, send the address to
me (Bob Heeter), at
bob@heeter.net,
and I will add it to the scenario list here.
- After the scenario is in the list, it will be reviewed by one or more
of the volunteer reviewers listed below, when they have time. Reviews
are done on a voluntary basis, so there is no fixed review schedule.
You are welcome to send them encouragement and request that they
look at yours, but we can make no promises until we clear the backlog
of unreviewed scenarios.
(We would like additional volunteers - anyone out there?)
- The reviewers can then download the scenario (thus checking that
it is available online) and write a review.
- Reviews that are sent to me will be put on the Web site here.
- Mac - Classic Warlords II:
- After designing, documenting, and playtesting is done, email your
(stuffed or compacted, binhexed) scenario to these archive sites,
and ask to have it made publicly available:
- After the scenario is publicly available, send the address to
me (Bob Heeter), at
bob@heeter.net,
and I will add it to the scenario list here.
- After the scenario is in the list, it will be reviewed by one or more
of the volunteer reviewers listed below, when they have time. Reviews
are done on a voluntary basis, so there is no fixed review schedule.
You are welcome to send them encouragement and request that they
look at yours, but we can make no promises until we clear the backlog
of unreviewed scenarios.
(We would like additional volunteers - anyone out there?)
Note - It's considered bad form to review your own scenario.
- The reviewers can then download the scenario (thus checking that
it is available online) and write a review.
- Reviews that are sent to me will be put on the Web site here.
Note - the distinction between PC and Mac scenarios will blur significantly
when the new Mac CD comes out, since it will allow Mac users to use Deluxe
scenarios from the PC, provided they are saved as .scn archives with the
compression option turned off.
How Scenarios are Reviewed:
- If you would like to review a scenario, you can check the
Reviews Summary page to see which scenarios
have and have not been reviewed. Each class of scenarios listed
(Deluxe, PC-Classic, Mac-Classic) has two sections:
- On the top of each list are all the scenarios which
have been reviewed, in rank order from best-worst.
- At the bottom of each list are all the scenarios
which have not been reviewed, in alphabetical
order.
The easiest way to see what has been reviewed and what hasn't is to
look at the summary listings and look for the numerical rating.
No rating = no review! Also, on the right hand side of the table
there's a column for the reviewer's initials. If that's blank, it
hasn't been reviewed. If it's got initials, then it has been reviewed.
If it has one or more asterisks, that means it is currently under
review by someone. Once you have a scenario to review, download and
playtest it, and then follow the instructions below for writing the review.
- We continue to use the basic format originated by Dirk Pellett. See
Dirk's Explanation for details on
the methodology, and the collection of
scenario reviews for examples and references.
- We have moved beyond Dirk's format in some important ways, thanks to Will
Michael. First, the scenario description (# of players, # of cities, etc.)
is now in a table-like format. Also, if a scenario makes a significant
original contribution to the
scenario designers database, this should be noted. See the review
of Crystal Isles by Will Michael
for an example.
- To actually write a review, just download the *source* of the new
Review Template, fill in the
scenario details, and then write several paragraphs of comments.
Of course, you should actually look at the scenario carefully and
play with it a few times first... :)
- When you email the review to me, also include a table entry for the
scenario review summary table listings.
- Reviewers are not playtesters. We only review finished products
which are publicly available online. This is why we ask for a URL
so that we can download the scenario, rather than for an email attachment.
- If a reviewer has been involved in the design or beta/playtesting of
a scenario, he/she should not review it due to conflicts of interest.
Some Thoughts from Will Michael:
We're in agreement then. I don't mind giving some friendly advice, but I am not
offering a playtesting service. Who is to say the the file submitted to the
reviewer is that same as that available to the reviewer? I just thought that
you should pass these thoughts on to the other reviewers.
... I expect the same kind of
documentation/background text that would accompany any other scenario.
Designers should not assume that every Warlords player is familiar with all the
creatures/characters in fantasy literature. If I ever do review this scenario
then I will be doing so on the basis of game play and not how close it is to the
books. The fact that there are several scenarios on the same subject matter
gives the reviewer the opportunity to make comparisons between them. The Lord
of the Rings scenarios jump to mind but I know of two 30 Years War scenarios,
and two scenarios set in the dark ages (one in Scotland and one in Ireland).
Written by Bob Heeter