zex20913 wrote:
Not everything needs to be epic.
But I think that's a misstatement of my criticism.
Edit to note: zex20913 didn't actually direct that at my post. But I've heard "holds don't need to be large/hard/etc. to be good!" before, and specifically in response to other times that I've criticized a hold the way I have here. So.
Note that this hold comes to us less than 24 hours after Directions of the Compass 2, an eight-puzzle-room hold which I rated much higher, I assure you (and said it was "
worth the time it takes to play"
). I don't think holds need to be epic.
What I objected to is the fact that three of the rooms had nothing but staircases--no monsters, no decoration, just bit empty "
and now on to the next level"
spaces; and of the three remaining (non-secret) rooms, two of them involve stationary monsters. In one of them you might get yourself into trouble if you accidentally release one of the rattlesnakes that are immobilized, but in the other you can't die even if you wanted to. That's what I meant when I called the rooms "
trivial"
: you might have fun optimizing them, but in terms of actual actions, five of the six (non-secret) rooms in this hold involve almost nothing more than walking through them.
A look at the architecture thread in fact confirms what I speculated earlier: the time between Alberttox posting the hold to Architecture (July 1, 7:39am EDT) and the time it appeared here (July 2, 5:42pm EDT) is thirty-two hours. Given that the HAs
"put a 24 hour minimum on the time between a submittal and a hold board appearance", that means he left at most eight hours to get feedback from players. I think that sort of thing ought to be discouraged. And again, I based that earlier comment not on the timestamps (which I didn't check), but rather on the fact that the hold felt like something that could have benefited from polishing, if only the architect had taken the time.
(If this sounds familiar, it's because I said much the same thing about
The Great Adventure: "
it certainly plays as if the architect didn't bother getting comments on it (or else did but ignored them)"
; "
Put it in architecture, wait for people to play it and give you comments, and then change your hold based on those comments. That's how to make a good hold."
This I believe.)
[Last edited by Tahnan at 07-03-2009 02:11 PM]
/dy
