Hi there! We're your HAs. That's short for Hold Administrators, but that's far too long to type often. So, whenever you see HA, think "
Hold Administrator"
, unless the person is laughing. Or, you could do it then too, if you really really wanted to.
Anyway, we figured we should answer some questions you might have about uploading your hold to the Holds forum.
First things first - who are the hold admins?
Blondbeard, Briareos, Chaco, Dischorran, Doom, hyperme, kieranmillar, mauvebutterfly, mrimer, navithmastero, Rabscuttle, RoboBob3000, Schik, skell, and Someone Else. We make Captain Planet when our powers combine.
And what is it you do?
Basically, we administrate holds. Our job is to stop "
bad"
holds from getting onto the Holds board, by reviewing it before it shows up there.
Why does it matter what gets on to the holds board?
The Holds board is the place where Caravel keeps finished holds, both user made and official. A hold that's on the Holds board can be downloaded from within DROD, and it participates in the highscore system. Bad holds ruin the experience for everyone.
What are the pros and cons of promoting my hold?
The biggest reason to promote your hold is to get people playing it. Many players only play holds from the Holds board, especially if they have Caravelnet and can get the holds in game. Holds on the Holds board can also be rated by the community at large, giving everyone the chance to show just how much they love your work.
At the same time, we take it seriously when we say that the Holds board is for FINISHED HOLDS. By offering your hold for promotion, you are saying that as far as you are concerned, you are done with it. From the moment you press that promote button, every change you make to the hold has to be approved by the hold admins. See below for what the rules for that are.
Also, to slip into a slightly more formal tone here, promoting your hold to the holds board gives Caravel the right to distribute it on the board and through Caravelnet, in perpetuity. This means that you can't delete the hold, and that Caravel is under no obligation to honor requests to delete it. Note that you're not giving Caravel exclusive rights - you can still distribute the hold yourself off the Holds board. But once you promote it, you cannot unpromote it.
Ok, I understand all that, and I want to promote my hold. How do I know if it is "good" or "bad"?
That's a good question, and it was a subject of much discussion in the architecture board. So, we thought about it for a bit, took a nap, and came up with this:
1. Your hold is bad if it is not completable.
2. Your hold is bad if there are backtracking issues, like you can't return to a required room you didn't complete, or there are two required paths, either of which make you unable to get to the other one. Unrequired rooms that are not backtrackable are okay...they're just bad form, and we will let you know about it. Also, secret rooms should be reachable. Otherwise people will get mad at you when they can't master your hold.
3. Your hold is bad if there is #$!@%^@#ing profanity. Unless it's Eighthized. See
here for a selection of acceptable Eighth profanities.
4. Your hold is bad if there are copyrighted images, or sounds, or anything that somebody has their copyright on. (Unless it's your copyright.) That's just bad news, and would get us into a whole lot of legal mess and jargon that we just don't want to deal with. Also, we consider rooms in DROD to be copyrighted by their authors. You must obtain permission before putting another architect's room in your hold.
5. Your hold is bad if it's essentially the same as a hold already on the Holds board (even if the older hold is your own, or if you have permission to copy it). By "
essentially the same"
we mean that the puzzles can be solved by the same solutions. Making an easier/harder version of an existing hold is ok.
If you hold has any of the problems on the list, we will request that you revise it, and delay its promotion until you do so.
We also have the power to flat out reject your hold. This doesn't mean that it will never be able to be promoted, but it does mean that we feel the hold could benefit from more testing and fine-tuning. We are not your Beta testers--that is your responsibility to coordinate.
Some ways you can get your hold rejected are:
1. Ignore HAs requests for updates/fixes for a long (~2 weeks) period of time.
2. Upload more than one copy of the same hold at once, for example, if you upload from both Architecture and a private Beta board. We'll reject one, and keep the other. Just for housekeeping.
3. Upload a hold that has severe playability issues.
This is both to keep us sane, and to make sure that the holds board has holds that are playable, and won't drive players crazy. This last one is subjective, but we plan to use this great power with great responsibility.
Oh, and it's worth pointing out that we may add or modify the rules in the future, to fix loopholes or in response to new problems that arise. If that happens, we will post it in this thread.
What happens if my hold is "good"?
Well, if your hold meets these requirements, and doesn't suffer from rejectables, then the HAs will work their magic to send it to the Holds board, where it is made readily available to the DROD community at large.
Yay!
How can I make sure that my hold is "good" and expedite the HA process?
Glad you asked! As you can find later in this friendly note, we have a new Demo Submission Interface.
Big thanks to Schik for implementing a new interface for submitting a set of demos to HA. This interface appears after an architect submits a hold to HA. It works from both Architecture and private beta boards. Demo submission is private, even from Architecture; only HAs will be able to download the demos.
Demo submission is recommended, but not required at this point. This may very well change later. We're trying it out to see how it goes.
Why should you play your own hold to create this set of demos? It's polite. Because that's how you catch silly mistakes that you can't see just by staring at it in the editor (missing power token, required room after blue door, etc). Because that's how players will experience your hold. Because testers don't like playing holds that the architect hasn't played him/herself. Because that will expedite the HA process. And if you really don't like that, and you've found a generous tester, a complete set of tester's demos will work as well.
Thanks for this info, CSR!
It looks like there are some holds there that would be bad by your rules. Why?
Time for a brief history lesson! The Holds board was created in 2003. In the beginning, it was just a place to put finished holds, but there were no real rules about it.
April 2005 marked the first big change, as Caravelnet was born, and rules started being more important. But people were too eager to get their work out there to read the instructions carefully, and a bunch of unsolvable holds ended up on the Holds board, as well as duplicated holds and other issues. Fixing the problems turned into a major hassle for everyone, and quite a few people started getting annoyed.
That was why, in 2006, the hold admin process came into play, with its mission to prevent problems rather than solve them retroactively. Since then, all the unsolvable holds have been fixed, but as of the time this is being written, the other "
bad"
holds were allowed to remain, for various reasons. This may change in the future, but what's important to understand is that just because we cannot fix all the mistakes of the past, doesn't mean we'll allow people to repeat them.
Can you explain the review process in a bit more detail?
Sure. You can submit your hold to the HAs from either a beta board, or the architecture board. After that, you'll get a shiny new area accessible from either your beta board or architecture zone. There, you can chat with the HAs, and the HAs can chat with you. You can see all of the text that you have in your hold (checking for typos), as well as all of the custom media. Nifty! Give Schik a couple of mods if you dig the system.
A HA who thinks your hold is ready for the board will vote "
Yes"
. If they don't think so, they have two choices - if your hold is just not ready for the whole process, they can vote to "
reject"
. If the hold is generally finished but has problems that need to be fixed, the HA can vote "
no"
until the architect makes the necessary corrections. "
Meh"
is also an option, as we've got a neutral button.
If there are 2 Yes votes, and no No or Reject votes, then your hold is ready to be promoted jiffily. That means in a jiffy, which means quick. Of course, we're attempting to put a 24 hour minimum on the time between a submittal and a hold board appearance--just so all of the HAs can take a look at it and say either "
Swell!"
or "
Not so well"
.
Remember, though, that HAs are volunteers and people and have busy lives to live. We all try to review holds as fast as possible, but it might take a few days, or even a few weeks if your hold is large or very difficult.
I understand that you are not being paid for this and can't review holds instantly, but I still want to speed up the process. What can I do?
Well, it is probably a good idea to invite HAs to participate in your betas/holds in architecture. Especially if you've got a hold that will take a looooong time to complete. While not all of us will be able to participate, you may be able to convince a few of us to roam around the worlds that you have created, and lessen the time on the "
Submit me!"
board in the process.
So my hold just got promoted to the Holds board, and I suddenly realized that I need to change something. What do I do?
Hold admins are also in charge of approving hold updates. We try to be as reasonable as possible, but remember that by the time we see it, the hold was supposed to be finished. If you just don't like the hold anymore, and want to change it, then tough cookies. You should have been sure before you submitted it. If, however, we screwed up, and let a playability issue pass through, then we'll attempt to fix the problem together with you, doing the least amount of modification to a room as possible. UNINTENDED SOLUTIONS ARE NOT A PLAYABILITY ISSUE. You have been warned. On the other hand, if it's a textual/speech/artistic change only, then we're probably going to be nice and approve it. We do have ways to see if you're trying to sneak more changes in, so no lying. That's bad.
You know what? I think the Holds board has too many rules for me. I want to put my holds somewhere where I have full control over them.
If you don't want your hold to be part of the Holds board for whatever reason, you can make it available on the Architecture board. The architecture board is a fun and carefree frontier where anything goes, and you can do whatever you want with your hold there (assuming it's not illegal, so no copyrighted stuff or anything that a 10 year old shouldn't be able to get their hands on, please).
Any last words?
Welcome to the new system, give it a whirl, and keep building!
____________________________
Click here to view the secret text
×
First Delver! (I was the first non-tester/dev
to conquer TCB.)
d
/dy
[Last edited by Schik at 09-23-2024 07:30 PM]
