As request by TheMuffinMan in another thread and a few others by email over the years.... it would be a good idea to add keywords or tags to maps. Personally, this is a long overdue feature and I'm hoping it will not be too much of a hassle to add :]

This thread is designed to discuss some possible way to integrate them, and just what they should be.

The current thinking is to add a 'Keywords' box under the vote area, under the screenshot on a levels page. All the keywords for a map will be listed there and registered members will be able to add / edit the tags.

People should also be able to 'browse' or search based on keywords as well.

The keywords should not be things like: CTF, Space Map, Single player or 'Has a video' as these are already covered.

The keywords should be things like: No bots, BFG, Cell shading, Exploding barrels, Snow, Rain, Flight power-up, anything else that can be used to describe a feature of the map.

OR.... maybe the keywords should be grouped into things: Theme / environment, Power-ups, Weapons, Other.

Any ideas? These are just mine but I'm more than happy to hear from others.

We would need to add these keyword with the proper maps, yes it would be easy to add that to the maps waiting to be reviewed, but for all the maps already in the DB, we would need to go through all of them in order to decide what keyword to associate with it. It is me or do I think it's a big job? - In french we have an expression for this kind of job, we say "Un travail de moine" I guess I could translate it in english with "a monk's work", I don't know if that expression exist in english. Meaning, it's going to be a long and slow task for adding all the keyword in the DB.

The keywords should be more like your second example, themes/env, weapons, power-ups, so we could like make a search of maps with snow in it or other idea theme that we are looking for in a map. My personal opinion, maybe the others have some better idea. But we would also need a fixed list of these keywords before deciding on which map to tag them.
Edited 39 seconds after the original posting.

Quake Live now divides arenas by theme. The three categories being "gothic, tech, and industrial", not counting space ofc. I guess something similar could be done for ..::LvL, maybe on a broader scale though as some people get tech and industrial confused. I was thinking for theme:

• Gothic
• Tech
• Urban / Industrial (Kind of QL-style, or basically something that involves a city-like atmosphere with a lot of concrete, etc. it could also be anything that's not gothic or minimalist but seems too antiquated to be classified under "tech", i.e. dONKEY's Steam Arena)
• Minimalist (Little use of fancy textures, perhaps with more focus on geometry or gameplay than visuals, such as Concrete Void)
• Miscellaneous of course

I think that should cover most of the maps on ..::LvL. Stuff like "snow" wouldn't really count as that is more of an environmental thing put on top of a basic design. For example Arctica may have lots of snow but it still has a tech style, and there are gothic-themed maps with snow too. Same goes for space, cell-shading, terrain, etc. I guess in that case though, subcategories might do well. And of course we should be able to put a map under more than one tag, since some arenas combine tech with gothic, etc.

Just my two cents.
Edited 8.28 minutes after the original posting.

Yes good idea about your theme's suggestions. I like it. I would add the space theme and nature theme also with these.

A little idea...
How about the textures used: stock, e8, Arctic
and additional the creator of the textures: evil-lair, lunaran, Id

now i'll brainstorm some more :)

I'm wondering now if the current game mode and player count (eg. DM/Tourney 2-4 player) that currently appears under the screenshot on a review should be moved into the (new) Keywords groups.

This may make things a lot clearer as the keywords will be describing aspects of the map - the game mode and player count fits into that grouping.

I'm all for including a 'Texture' group as well.

For the level author made textures, the keyword could be 'Personal', 'Custom', or 'Author made', or even the authors name, as the authors textures sometimes end up in another map.

Tig : Yes, I would add all the game types and the player's count (but this can be subjective) to the tag

Possibly take a page out of Worldspawn Archive's book and list weapons, important items and 'functions' available in the maps, possibly with icons to make it more presentable and readable. Then from there just make it searchable.

For people to contribute keywords it might be best to have predefined keywords to select from as much as is possible in order to avoid inconsistency/bad spelling/bad grammar/stupid crap. Some keywords would obviously still have to be user defined though.

Map sizes could be added with tiny, small, medium, large and huge options to select from.

Searching parameters could also include searching within a range of overall map ratings.

Encouraging reviewers to add all this information with the submitted review can make the map pages complete from the start.

A quick mock-up to what I'm currently thinking: lvlworld.com/img/l...ags_mock-up.jpg

Notes:
The Weapons, Items and maybe even Bots lines will have corresponding images, not words. Also, this is a mock-up, so the details are NOT correct for this map :]

The Edit keywords line will only appear if you are logged in as well.

There is no 'Mod' group as I think that falls under the 'Game type' heading. Do others think the same?

Suggestions? Changes?

Looks good to me Tig. 'Space' listed under game-type though...? Doesn't seem right. Not sure what it should be listed under, maybe characteristics?

I agree with the MuffinMan on Space as well, but I would just put it under "theme" imo rather than putting it in a whole new category. Also, for items - if an item such as YA appears more than once in a map, it should probably have a counter like YA (x2) or something along the lines.

For themes: Are themes something that users get to type in and use, or do they have to select from a predetermined list? I'm kind of hoping it's the latter, so people can't go and troll around with it and use weird theme tags. But that's up to you though.

Yeah i also agree with MuffinMan.