Red-XIII
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File: Holds catalogue.xlsx (48.7 KB)
Downloaded 17 times.
License: Public Domain

Greetings everyone!

The architecture board has always been my favorite on this forum, as I love testing and building holds. Out of curiosity, some weeks ago I went into the board and peeked at the very first posts that were made, and I found out that some of the holds posted there were never published, so this got me thinking: how many unpublished holds are lurking in the architecture board?

Thus, I started to catalog all the posts of the architecture board to check for unpublished holds, but I soon found out that the task was not a quick one, as it took me a week to analyze just five pages (30 posts per page). I attached an excel file of the work I did so far, and here is what turned out.

Out of 172 analyzed posts (I arrived at mid-2004), there are 80 unpublished holds (47%), 48 published holds, and 44 normal posts. Now, considering that the number of posts on the board is 1641 (I did not consider the first page), if the trend is the same we can extrapolate an estimate of the total number of unpublished holds, which is 763. This is most likely an upper bound of the real number. Most of the holds I analyzed actually received a lot of feedback, so I am not sure why they never were published. I should also mention that most of these are one-level or one-room holds.

As to the main point of this post, I would like to know if you (Drod community) think that it would be interesting to build a compilation hold and release all of the unpublished holds. It is sad that most of these holds (some of which are high quality) were never published and I would like to do something about it. Of course, I would try to reach out to all of the architects to see if it is ok for them to use their holds and ask permission (one of these architects is Rabscuttle! See here: https://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=4023 neat maze, by the way).

If you think this is worth a try, I could try to complete the catalogue, but in that case, I would like to ask you what I should do if the authors are not reachable. Would it be ok to use their holds (giving credits, of course)?

Also, there are holds (like lunchbreak special 2) that would probably require a separate argument.

Of course, this hypothetical compilation would require more testing and making the holds compatible to modern architectural standards (e.g. checkpoints, avoid rooms filled with monsters). In addition, some holds are “only you” editable, so that would require more thinking. The huge number of holds could also be dealt with by dividing the project in four parts (AE, JtRH, TCB, and GatEB).

What do you think about it?

____________________________
There's not some other world out there where everything's gonna be okay.
There's just this one, just this rock.
-33th Skywatcher

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[Last edited by Red-XIII at 10-01-2024 10:33 PM]

Chaco
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3743
Registered: 10-06-2005
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(Preface: These are just my opinions and preferences, I don't claim to have a "correct" answer for this.)

The statistical analysis is interesting, but I think generally the division between the Holds board where architects have been directly involved in getting a hold "finalized" and "published", and the Architecture forum where holds can just be casually posted in experimental form, and aren't really finished, is fine. It's a pretty good way of organizing things and letting the browsing player know what to expect.

Generally I don't think everything needs to be published to the Holds board, it's OK to just leave something as a draft.

Taking architects' work and adapting it and publishing it without their involvement doesn't seem like the right way of going about things; if one wants to draw particular attention to overlooked masterpieces it's perfectly possible to just simply recommend playing the hold instead and/or send the architect a message/email asking them if they're going to do anything with that hold. (For example, I did Let's Plays of two holds in Architecture, If on a summer's day a delver and The Legend of Master Hunter, and was fine with just simply linking to the Architecture threads for those holds for reference if viewers wanted to play said holds themselves.)

The situation is a little different for contest compilations, particularly for official contents; I think the general operating assumption has been for those that the architects were intentionally making parts of a whole that would eventually be compiled, and that it's up to the architect to request an exemption if they want to take the material out of the compilation and publish/use it separately. That seems to be how the historical precedent has been for those. So if someone wants to try to finish an unfinished compilation or compile a contest that never got one, I'm more supportive of that.

____________________________
Quick links to my stuff (in case you forgot where it was):

Someone Else
Level: Smitemaster

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Registered: 06-14-2005
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Holds can be unpublished for many reasons: it wasn't actually good (in the architect's opinion), it was published, but in a different form, the architect didn't want to publish it, it wasn't eligible for publication (for whatever reason). I don't think it's necessarily possible to distinguish these.

Going just through my posts in Architecture, counting only those with a hold attached:

2 holds that were eventually published

A fun little demonstration of an idea, ultimately rendered moot by timeclones. Realistically, it wouldn't have been fun as anything more than a demo.

An intentionally bad hold because of a dangerous comment in chat to the tune of "why doesn't Bad Evil Restaurant have a sequel?". It wasn't published, and that's probably a good thing. But the entrance is possible despite taking several thousand moves.

A demo of a rocket launcher - this probably could be developed more/improved. It isn't, however, anywhere near worthy of promotion.

A couple of holds made when I was 13 or so. If I promoted them at the time, I probably would have been pleased with myself. They're much better than I expected - but still not good.

Ultimately, nothing worth publishing.

Rabscuttle
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My hold eventually became Maze Nineteen (via a contest). I wouldn't have published it as it is, because it's not that interesting, more just a demonstration of an idea.

Camwoodstock
Level: Master Delver

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Registered: 07-02-2014
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we have a FEW unpublished holds and while we dunno how much we'd like to share from them (in particular, i had a WIP hold based on darts we'd REALLY like to go back to someday), there are at least a few rooms we feel comfortable with potentially submitting! ...if we could even figure out where they went, it's been a hot minute and we've moved hard drives not once but TWICE since we were last really "Active" in the world of DROD stuff, so we wonder if we even have some of those rooms we're thinking of.

____________________________
Camwoodstock - The Epic Blunder, Dugan's Best Janitor, Rooted Hold Runner, Lowest Point Watcher, and 132nd Skywatcher (and 13th Gel Authority)
Mastered all of GatEB, KDD 2.0, JtRH, and TCB! | Saw The Second Sky! (lots of secrets left!)

Her/him | & | Steam | Backloggery

Red-XIII
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 749
Registered: 08-05-2012
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Thank you all for your responses and suggestions!

To Chaco, there are two passages in your reply that are really insightful and made me think a bit. In particular, 1) “if one wants to draw particular attention to overlooked masterpieces it's perfectly possible to just simply recommend playing the hold instead and/or send the architect a message/email asking them if they're going to do anything with that hold” and 2) The situation is a little different for contest compilations, particularly for official contents… …if someone wants to try to finish an unfinished compilation or compile a contest that never got one, I'm more supportive of that”.

For 1), I think this can be accomplished by completing my catalogue, which would contain information not only on the best holds that never were published, but also on all of them. If there is no need for the holds to go to the hold board, then we can at least give an interested player/anyone a sort of guide on what to expect in the architecture board, what he can play, the type of hold, and so on. The catalogue/list could be sorted by edition, number of levels, and by high quality.

For 2), even in my small catalogue version, I found a compilation hold that never was published; this is because the person who was in charge of compiling the holds was waiting for two contestants to publish their entries in anyone-edit version https://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=2779). In this case, one could simply complete the compilation and post it without the two entries that were not sent (or, if there is some magic tool to by-pass the anyone edit, add them too).
So yes, I think that the compilation holds that never were published can be published, after all the preliminary tasks are completed (asking the architects if they want to use it or not, testing them, polishing them, and stuff like that).

Since this work would be done by the community and for the community, I think it is important to figure out which options the people would prefer.


____________________________
There's not some other world out there where everything's gonna be okay.
There's just this one, just this rock.
-33th Skywatcher