adding more rating-field will not resolve the problem. because you see, the real issue here is not about 'rating' but 'playing'.
i uploaded a map like 2 days ago and i got 3 (three) downloads.
ok, nobody gives a fuck about my maps. ok, the game is still in beta. ok, 80% of beta players don't know about smx. but what the heck? only 3 down-fucking-loads?
even my very first nation track back in the days got more downloads during the first 2 hours of release!

let's try to give an answer to this.
after i uploaded my map there were at least 3-4 maps i would have loved to try. hegeldave's, diplo's and a couple of other i can't remeber right now. did i downloaded them? HELL NO.
how the hell am i supposed to try the maps i want to try? because as far as i can see, the main goal of the exchange site is to exchange and play other people tracks, right? (and no, i'm not going to play on random servers hoping to find one with the map i would like to try)

it's so obvious that smx will simply not work the same way tm2 exchange did. try to deny that, i double dare you [cit]

what can we do about this? (=what can forzy do about this.. poor guy )
in my eyes the only way to make things better is a heavy and deep integration with the online experience. i aldready expressed this point of view some months ago.
in tm2 exchange the "website/online game" relation is one way only: website looks for the online records and publish them. here we need a much more interconnected relation.

_ on a map page i should be able to see a list of server that are playing that map or are about to play it.
_ i should be able to "queue" my latest map to a "pre-test server" and let random people play on it for like the first week of release, so i can get early feedback and eventually update a better version.
_ it would be cool to have a "karma" system that allows me to earn points by playing online and spend them in order to add my map in a crowded server
_i could also use planets to buy map-slots on servers (finally that online money shit would gain some value)
_when i give feedback (=write a review) to a track, the owner of the track could 'rate/give a point/whatever' to me. like the feedback system on ebay. once i have a certain amount of good feedback i obtain a map-slot on a server for like 3 days.
_you know, shit like that. just think about it. (etc.)

this is what smx/sm needs to stay alive and to be useful for the users. but this is obviously my very own point of view, if you have better or simplier ones, i'm all ears.

tl;dr a horse farted over my face once.

i dunno if you can make this site popular. it's more of a place just to upload your map and hopefully be picked up on a server plugin. you can't test maps out without other players really, and server hosters are a little be wary at this point of adding new maps, because they don't know what they'll end up like online.

however, i really don't think mra or the staff should feel discouraged by that (if they are), because by the looks, QuestMania will benefit a 1,000 times from the mania exchange format.

Adding PPO could boost up sm-x activity.

Forzyy says:
Hey, guess what? SMX is the least of my priorities now.

Typical Forzyy honesty.

Also, it's been great to read everyone's posts in this topic. I won't take the time to respond, but I enjoyed reading everything and everyone's viewpoints.

There are multiple reasons in my opinion on why people dont make as many maps and those maps arent downloaded much.

The first is that making good maps is hard. You cant just throw some blocks together and call it a day. If you do it anyway, youll almost always end up with a bad map. Since making good maps is hard, not many people are going to invest the time to learn how to do it, which in turn means less maps overall.

The second is that maps cant be played alone (except for Time Attack maps, but those arent really popular). This means that hardly anyone is going to look for maps to play on. The only ones looking for maps are serveradmins and thats a very small group of people.

The third is that maps in FPSs take longer to master. Consequently, people are less likely to try and master multiple maps every day. They want stable servers to practice on and servers that keep changing the map pool have a harder time attracting an audience. Theres no incentive to change the map pool often.

To fix these problems i propose the following list of things that might help:

• Bots. They dont need to be all that smart, just reasonably accurate and able to find paths.
  
• More blocks. I think we will see a lot of blocks added with Beta 2, but there are a lot of blocks that are currently missing that should have been obvious to anyone playing around with the editor.
  
• Some form of quality control of the maps submitted here. This should make it easier for good maps to stand out from the background noise.
  
• Design guidelines for maps. Preferably ones by professionals. Theres always a need for documentation and what has been offered by NADEO so far is too little in my opinion.
  

fps game with a block based editor... i called it, it wasn't going to work in the end product. Or that we don't have enough testing tools to speak of...

There's one thing that encourages me to open up the editor. Whenever I join a random server in storm, I either come across the official nadeo maps which were already there since the alpha (which are in my opinion well built maps, but they get boring after having played them over a hunderd times..) or maps I have never seen before, built by people I don't know. In my opinion the quality of those maps are really low, most maps on those servers seem to be built by someone who just opened up the editor for the first time. I'm not saying it's bad to have more new people experiencing the editor, but I have no idea why these maps are played on so many servers. Ofcourse I'm not saying every single map is bad, there are some good maps out there aswell.
I've been building a lot of maps, but somehow I don't have the motivation of even uploading them to MX, because I feel like no one will look at them, and they will most likely not end up online anyways.
I'm pretty sure lots of you have the same feeling..

basbaas says:
I feel like no one will look at them, and they will most likely not end up online anyways.
I'm pretty sure lots of you have the same feeling..

They definitely won't look at them if they're not even on MX.

I remember back in the day in TrackMania United Forever... if you were an unknown mapper (and face it, most of us are unknown in sm now) there was basically two ways to get your maps played:
1. Play online a lot and get to know some of the server admins. If they know you, they'll be more likely to add your maps.
2. Host your own servers with your own maps.

I always tried to do a mix of both.

Of course now I'm fairly well known in TM. I've put in my dues, so to speak. And I don't have to visit every server or play online a lot to get my maps played. People see me upload a new map and they check it out. I'm grateful for that, and I also don't take it for granted. But it's the result of a mature mapping community over there on the TM side. There are many well known mappers.

SM is still very young as far as the mapping community goes. There's a lot of room for builders to rise to notoriety. What will help that? Being active as a community of builders. The MMC is a great start, but individual users could also start their own group projects. Community building projects among multiple builders, for instance.

In a few years, SM will have a more fleshed out mapping community. It will just take time and hard work. You'll get out of it what you put into it.

Hi, I agree with alot of the points here, mapping is not a difficult task yet it can consume alot of time for the less experienced, not so in knowing how to do it, it is the effectiveness of making the idea work. This has a lot to do with how are in our daily lives, that reflects on our mapping skills and techniques.. and not to get carried overboard. For if you just go extreme, you might just overload and steal the flame some one else.. Make map, upload it, update it once a while, try a different version of it. Take it slow, for instance, that map download was worth it! just downloaded one, I might say, or a few, and it worked, I like it! not a 30 maps later and dughh. I already have slowed down, and I've made about ten maps for about four different modes, not released yet, yet whats to be made. some on the SMTRAK server, yet really melee is simply just not action packed enough for me.. (fixed: now different, better with the new script) wait till tomorrow when some TDM and CTF maps are available.

The point is, the game is to motivate to encourage builders to move towards the availability of maps being recognized. So the likely-hood of an greater selection of maps to pick from will just be frustrating. And it can like have the bubble burst effect. The trend will automatically move towards 'concept maps' like scripting or selective themes, like obstacle maps, trail maps, and later, more experienced will slowly move into mt tracks, broaden the horizons with RPG maps. Keeping maps updated, rebuilt, and just simply good quality, will help everyone to enjoy the game fully, and those server's waiting to have a fresh rotation of maps, will be able to pick up a map pack and go home with it. So make a new one and please remember.. will it be played tomorrow, maybe not, if you did it again, maybe yes, again, not ever. The point would be lost if you don't have fun and over criticize others, and not to take wrongly when making an effort. This game is for fun. Well enjoy Shootmania, and lets have fun playing the game, melee is boring, wait till I update again.

Ps.. just a thought I hear in the airwaves.. I lost my uhm.. idea of the game, well waiting for me to feel regretful, or make me believe that I have lost the idea of a good life. Well that is just your EGO boost and lose it, Iam not interested and you need stop being selfish and full of pride. We don't need your type around here.. The only thing we need is the existing, future builders to have good thoughts to make a healthy & fun community. We hope you will change your mind and Fortitude the Good.