Elite Author - Featured Track Voting and Feedback Thread

yo!

for the past year or so, VIPs have been voting on tracks to decide whether they get featured or not. more importantly than this, however, is the high-level discussion that develops when we are deliberating on the track. the posts are excellent, and we do our best to share them all when decisions are finalised. however, the discussion only involves a few people at a time, and id love to develop this discussion to more players. the wider trackmaking community does not really have a place to discuss trackmaking at a high level; whilst it happens informally on discord, id love for there to be a centralised place for it. thus, the creation of this idea:

this thread will act as a proxy for an EA-only subforum. tracks that are brought up for discussion by VIPs will also be posted to this thread, accompanied by a poll. whilst the OA forum is obviously open to most people, only the votes of EAs will be counted, and only the CC/discussion of EAs will be posted to the Feedback from featuring discussions thread (however, OAs, if you want to join in the discussion - you can!). there is a twist, however; instead of each individual EA vote counting the same as each individual VIP vote, the collective voice of the EAs will count as 1 vote (example: AMBITION is voted 3 yes, 2 no by VIPs, and 5 yes, 1 no by EAs; so, the final vote becomes 4 yes, 2 no, in light of the collective opinion of EAs being yes). this way, VIP votes still hold the most weight, but EA votes can potentially break up ties whilst ALSO providing more CC/discussion - a win-win in my book!

thread rules/common courtesy:
- be respectful of the player and track that is up for discussion. personal attacks and lazy criticism will not be tolerated. if you have an unpopular take about the track, that is fine - but back it up with examples and above all else, remain respectful
- if your track is up for discussion, you clearly cannot vote. ideally as well, dont respond to discussion of your track in this thread; save it for the feedback thread, so that this space remains focussed on CC/discussion
- VIPs will moderate flow of conversation if/when needed
- dont try to be any more or less harsh/critical than normal due to this being introduced. approach the track the same way you would before
- finally, dont feel the need to vote every single time if you are unsure what to vote. abstaining and providing CC why is perfectly valid!

if VIPs are considered the top .01% of the game, then EAs are the top .05% of the game. your expertise and experience is going to waste, especially for players who are either vying for their first feature or vying for the EA role. this thread seeks to remedy that, develop a tighter-knit community of trackmakers, help prep you EAs for if/when you become VIP, and provide more feedback and votes for tracks that are up for discussion. if this is a resounding success, it could lead to an EA-only subforum in the future, and/or an expansion to this concept. this is a great opportunity to put your skills to work and influence the community unlike anytime before - the ball is in your court!

 

featured track discussion pinned post - check here for quotes to all discussed tracks

The Felines - Part 1 by The_risen_skyrider (https://www.freeriderhd.com/t/945551-the-felines-part-1)
final EA decision, no: 4 yes [pssst, chaos-fallen, loge_0, odysseussupreme], 5 no [foundations, coated_badger, dantexpress, zycerak, rayb25].

 

not sure exactly how this should look so ima just say what came to mind while playing
few things to think about in the future
First off
really think about the placement of checkpoints. A lot of the checkpoints were fine but there was one i would completely miss most times and a couple that had i been on mobile i would have had to restart so to bad positioning
Overall the ride was okay but didnt really wow me, if you check out https://community.freeriderhd.com/threads/communal-guide-to-ride-creation.8254/ theres a lot of info about ride creation.
detail was solid, could be cleaned up a little but it was consistent. only thing i gotta say about it is that the theme was kinda jumbled. there seems to be a story but i cant really put it together.. goes from a big tiger to a random underground facility.

overall really cool but think about composition and ride flow in relation to checkpoints
if i think of anything else ill add it

 

although i wasn;t able to vote last time this was put up for vote, i'd like to say that if I did have a vote, it would have been no. my opinion has not changed.

first things first, I think the head of the tiger is phenomenal. that's honestly the only noteworthy part though as there's a big drop in quality. as you can see in the screenshot below, there is a clear disparity between the cranial and caudal sections of the tiger which was honestly so big that I was questioning whether one person actually drew, but I gave the benefit of the doubt since I remember you lost progress on the track. i assumed that because of the loss, you got lazy on the rest of the tiger, but it seems that you got lazy on the rest of the track. if you put the same effort you did for the tiger's cranial section into the rest of the track, this would without a doubt be a featured track.

now the ground/rock detail isn't horrible, but I'm not a fan since i can tell that you can do so much better than what you put out. the trees aren't bad either, but it really bothers me how small they are compared to the tiger. i;d also like to say that i thought the cave detail was good, but a transition was NOT necessary for this track. it just seems like you wanted to add more, without actually adding more which is a bummer because this track could have been really cool. as for the ride, i think its ok, nothing special. i don;t think that the 2 things i said i liked about the track (tiger head and cave detail) are enough to give a feature, but you're almost there, all you need is consistency.

 

guys this is not what i'd intended, i don't think it's fair that the_risen_skyrider should go through the trauma of his track being voted no again (if it is to be a no), i explicitly said in my revote proposal thread that if the vote were to be a 'no' then it doesn't benefit anyone's mental health for us to post the feedback. We should start this with a different track.

e; I say let's just keep the track at a 'no feature'. And we should further discuss the role of re-voting on feats in general--it's complicated and I'm sorry that it's created this situation in the first place.

 

Btw Volund definitely appreciate you for making the effort to bring EA's into feature voting--it's a really cool idea that I'm 100% in support of. I just think we should start clean on a different track.

 

count me as a future yes for every discussion

 

goated track. if the lion track is worthy this is too. i feel the detail is cleaner than the lion track

 

This is so wrong. Don't let bro cook again.

 

never said it was a bad track. I just think the detail on the tiger's head especially is cleaner

 

hey everyone! new track up for discussion. @EAs

Double Blacks by nasrani, put up for discussion by Maple. (https://www.freeriderhd.com/t/980872-double-blacks)
one week to vote! i thought id be able to edit this poll for each new track, but i cant :S trying to sort out an alternative rn. keep discussion respectful and criticism... constructive !

e; poll sorted courtesy of Ness votes in poll will not be counted after Friday 24 May

 

I didn't comment on the last track because it was a primarily art focused track and I felt like all the other EAs said everything that needed to be said in a much better way than I ever could.

That being said, I'm in love with Double Blacks! I'll ride on that all day! Up and down all night long! The ride being split into differing paths that are all individually distinguishable from another makes each segment enjoyable and less stale than if the cliff section was simply maneuvering down and teleporting back to the top. The use of optional faster and slower paths that are clearly labelled and such is a nice touch. When I was just looking at the track zoomed out I didn't like the labels at first because it sort of took away from the vibe the track had as this secluded mountain/boulder formation. They grew on me as I played through the track but I think I would've liked discovering them more if I wasn't told that they were there. Either finding them myself by replaying or by watching ghosts made by others would've felt more satisfying in my opinion. My expectation for the ride on this track going in were so low after Bay of Biscay lmao, very happy finding out that this track is just super fun. All the checkpoints are all in super fair spots and the small reusing of parts of the cliffs is great to see.

I don't like giving feedback for detail on tracks because it's so clear that pretty much all featured tracks with detail are better than my tracks lol, but I will say that some of the trees in the cliff section feel really unfinished. mostly the bottom ones when compared to the one that's in the middle that looks really nice. I hate to rag on unfinished parts since I don't finish ANY of my sh.it EVER. love the 3-d rock detail as well. makes me jealous that you can draw like that while I'm using isometric view for my own stuff bahaha. good shi.t.

The hills section, while only taking up the final quarter of the of the track, is extremely clean. I was constantly expecting to have my wheels hook on blades of grass that peak through into the rideable lines so when they didn't, I thought "that was cool" instead of "this fu.cking sucks". Love the trees and how differently the ride flows in the area compared to the cliff section, it really makes it feel separate area of the track that I unlocked by completing the cliff.

Huge yes from me. probably in my top 15 if not top 10.

 

we gotta close this thread bruh wtf

 

yo ! new track up for discussion 8) hailing Ness to update the poll when he's free !

Weem's Dream by nasrani (again!), put up for discussion by me. (https://www.freeriderhd.com/t/983259-weems-dream)
one week to vote! this is a really unique track, with very cool art styles and themes used here. really looking forward to seeing some discussion on this !

remember: keep discussion respectful and criticism constructive !

 

hi guys two for feedback