I'm not sure this was ever really hashed out, but wouldn't mind seeing something on the Help page for a Guideline.

asm wrote:

EDIT: I just want to add that I do think we should at least mention some minimum required level of graphic appeal. The whole time this thread has been here I've been trying to figure out how to say it properly and I can't. (Anybody remember Nasal Commander? If you can't figure out how to save your board as anything other than a GIF where the territory white fill doesn't even work, you're not getting your map through as far as I'm concerned.) All I want is a rule guideline that says essentially if your map looks egregiously crappy, it will need some work before passing the Review process. How should that be phrased?

Should there be something like this and also unclear territories/borders with the new use of Dual layers?

Original thread: http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/229p1/Board_Review_Guidelines

Help Page: http://www.wargear.net/help/display/Board%20Review

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, one man's trash is another man's treasure, art is one man's self expression, and all that hooey. that makes even a rough minimum level of acceptability a challenging thing to define and enforce.

but really, if it looks like shit bad, most people are going to recognize so. the converse is also true. and as we were shown by that traveling risk website rating guy (anyone heard from him lately?), the casual observer values eye candy perhaps too much. so there is value in filtering out the less attractive efforts if the goal is to attract more players to the site. that compels me to agree that we should have something in place

as with most review committee questions, though, i'm going to default back to my stance that the review board should only be failing on some fundamental flaw -- such as using a file format that doesn't adequately fill, broken fog or fill layers, etc. not just because its ugly.

instead, the community should have the tools available to promote popularly appealing boards and sending ugly trash to some realm of irrelevance. the board rating system is in place, and is probably that tool. we just need some sorting features to make it work for that purpose.

Lol...sooo...from Cram:
--Good graphics can't necessarily be defined.
--But if it's bad there should be something in place to be able to point to.
--Though the Review committee maybe shouldn't have the ability to define good graphics.
--Use the Board Rating system.

That's pretty much been my same thinking :p, but I do wonder/think perhaps there should be something in place.

I can't define "un-Passably poor graphics", but I know it when I see it.

If it's good enough for the USSC, it's good enough for me.

It's so nice to see Cram self-censoring.

This may seem a bit unrelated but we have already had a preliminary discussion about the categorization of boards, partly by defining their ease of play and "riskyness".

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the consensus was that the assessment of these attributes should be placed in the hands of the Committee Of Low People In High Places (COLIHP) along with the developer, in who's best interest it is to see the board properly categorized.

From here, if we want the cream to rise to the top, we're going to need a way of collecting the data that is necessarily quantitative.  Which in my mind means coming up with a rubric for a number of attributes that are relevant to the category.

This data should cover anything that falls into the realm of subjectivity (aesthetics, game-play, etc.) and the responsibility of creating this data should clearly fall to those that play the games, which may seem like a recipe for chaos - but not necessarily; not if they have guidance.  As Cram metaphorized, one man's bottleneck is another man's turtleneck (I have no clue why I said that).  So to the degree that it is possible, criteria for each category should be as clearly defined as possible.

For instance, rate on a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 is poor, 3 is average, and 5 is outstanding.

Clarity of borders

Overall asthetices (use of color, pleasing to look at, etc.)

Game Play (appropriate use of bottlenecks)

Game Play for 2-3 players

Game Play for 4-6 players

Game Play for 7+

Team Play

Overall Rating (not optional)

I'm just throwing these out there.  Obviously, you could totally overdo it, but if you had a simple form where most of the fields were optional, rating a board would be a simple process, and checking off on a half dozen or so categories would take most people almost no time at all. No doubt, a lot of people prefer checking things off to having to actually write something, and you get a lot of data.

Of course from there, writing a comment would be optional..

M57 wrote:

This may seem a bit unrelated

Yes, it seems like a completely separate topic. 

Well, I'm piggy-backing on Cram's point that the quality of the graphics should not necessarily be the pervue of the "Reviewers". They can give advice, but ultimately, the decision about what's good and bad and the resulting "how hard it is to find on WG" should be in the hands of the players/consumers. So I went over the edge and suggested how that might happen.

Bad graphics is like porn, etc. etc. Oh and M57: tl;dr. Srsly.

If I posted every tl;dr opinion I harbored, my post count would double.

IRoll11s wrote: Bad graphics is like porn, etc. etc. Oh and M57: tl;dr. Srsly.

Srsly  nxt tm i cld mk t shrtr fr y by nt sng ny vwls pncttn r frmttng

That would just be silly. How about just not talking as much?

If boards are really failing for Graphical reasons then there should be something in the Help to point to. I haven't got back to throwing anything in there yet, any suggestions? Same with Cards/Board Description.

I find myself far more tolerant of sub-par graphics if a board delivers unique or innovative gameplay. If a board has plain graphics and standard gameplay, I question if it should be passed.

Wallace Wishmaster wrote: I find myself far more tolerant of sub-par graphics if a board delivers unique or innovative gameplay. If a board has plain graphics and standard gameplay, I question if it should be passed.

My philosophy, in a nutshell.

Graphics are tough to judge except for an individual basis. Overall, my graphics aren't really the best all the time, but that is just my style. My maps look cartoony but that's just what I like. Mars is not the best looking map, but I enjoy playing it and it doesn't have any graphical issues, it just doesn't have a lot of stuff going on with it. I think the graphical judgment should be if the graphics detour from the play. This could be because they are unclear, incomplete or even if they are so over the top artsy that they interfere with the play. I also am not comfortable with card pics being a reason to deny a map. They are cool to have and I spend quite a bit of time finding mine usually, but in the grand scheme of things, the basic cards or simple pics should be fine. Card size should be judged just because really large cards are allowed but can make the cards tab difficult to use and hence, effect the gameplay of the map. I also think the cards should be all the same size unless there is a reason beyond "I couldn't get them the same size".
That's my 2 cents, you can keep the change.

RiskyBack wrote: I think the graphical judgment should be if the graphics deter from the play. This could be because they are unclear, incomplete or even if they are so over the top artsy that they interfere with the play. I also am not comfortable with card pics being a reason to deny a map. They are cool to have and I spend quite a bit of time finding mine usually, but in the grand scheme of things, the basic cards or simple pics should be fine. Card size should be judged just because really large cards are allowed but can make the cards tab difficult to use and hence, effect the gameplay of the map. I also think the cards should be all the same size unless there is a reason beyond "I couldn't get them the same size".
That's my 2 cents, you can keep the change.

ditto.

I don't fail the board if there are no specialized cards.
I don't fail due to graphics unless they a) have unclear borders, b) too distracting and thus detract from play, c) incomplete or bad/pixlated and thus detract from play.

I really feel that if you are going to spend the time to do a map, make some cards. It's not hard. And label them as well. Boards just feel incomplete without custom cards.
Yes, they all need to be the same size and small enough to fit at least 5 of them on an average screen.
Do you fail someone for not making cards? I guess not, but you should suggest it very heavily in the review process.

Risky's comments also fit in my nutshell

Cards:
I think the Wild card can be a different size if the style works, I wouldn't say just randomly sized, but nice-sized (this is of course because in a couple of my maps the Wild card is a different size and I like it that way so that the Wild stands out more :D).
Same with overall card size, there is a too big, but not sure they must fit 5 across, although that should probably be a goal.
They should definitely be quite distinguishable IMO, I dislike it very much when I have to study which cards I need to click to make a set.

Some games not only don't need cards, but cards ruin 'em.

I prefer to have custom cards in my games but I don't see why it should be necessary.The stock cards that come with the game are very nice.

The size of the cards shouldn't be that much of an issue.  My Fall of Rome cards are over-sized (they only go three across at best) and while at first I was a bit taken back, now I kind of like it, though I will probably avoid it in the future.

The player stats info below the game tells you if you have a set or not. I suppose there has to be some appreciable difference in the cards, but aren't they automatically named?

I know this thread is about graphics, but I'm seeing this conversation as possibly being part of a larger issue.

Missing borders can be fixed on the fly.  Provided that the graphic is properly layered in production, many graphics inconsistencies can be fixed on the fly.  Scenario's, dice mods, and a whole host of rules changes.. You get the idea..  So while technically, your only responsibility is to nix or pass the board, you have the ability to be very instrumental in making the latter occur, and you can (for better or worse) leverage this power to nix boards that (for whatever reason) you don't like on technicalities.