Designing CarcassonneCentral user badges

[mjharper]

Once again, welcome to CarcassonneCentral. You'll have noticed by now that you have at least one badge in next to your avatar on the left - probably say that you're a founding member, something only available to those who become members in the first month that the site is up. Well, we want to do something a bit more Carcassonne-specific with those badges, and we'd like you to help. Here's how: read the suggestion below, make a comment, or add your own suggestion. At the end of the month, we'll finalise our decision based on the discussion here, and the new badges will be implemented.

Logically enough, we thought about using the meeples themselves as badges, and we've got a few ideas of what they could stand for. So here they are:

1. Normal follower: author
You get this badge for posting material you have previously created.

2. Big follower: CC author
This one is for posting original content here - stuff never before seem anywhere else. CarcassonneCentral exclusives, if you will.

Builder: variant designer
Design a variant, post it here, and get a builder badge. There should be a logical connection between the action and the badge, as this one illustrates. If you can think of better logical connections than the suggestions here, post a comment!

pig: proof-reading rule dude
There's a lot of proof-reading to be done, especially in the rules and FAQ sections! And the idea in the back of my mind on this one is that 1) pigs are hardy, inquisitive creatures and 2) grazing could be considered a metaphor for proof-reading - getting the field/text in shape, that sort of thing. A bit tenuous maybe…

The Count: founding member
During the first month sign-up drive you receive a Founding Member badge - that's like being the aristocracy of the site!

Fairy: puzzle master
We plan to run regular puzzles on the site, and you would be awarded a badge for being a winner. The Fairy is the most intellectual of all the meeples - honest - and some people think it looks like a wizard in any case. But what it is really is, and why it blocks the dragon and offers the bonuses it does is an enigma…
 
Dragon: forum contributor
No flaming allowed! Don't flame on forums, win a dragon instead, for the number and/or quality of posts (merit points)

So, there's a few suggestions. As I said earlier, feel free to comment or make your own suggestions.

A further side to the badges is colour. User-customised colour shouldn't be automatic, but something to strive for, and there's two simple ways we could do that. Firstly, when you are initially awarded a badge, it comes in a default colour, and custom colour is a second level - you get that freedom instead of being awarded a second badge. Alternatively, we could create a hierarchy of colours - based on the colours in the game (red, blue, black, yellow, green and grey) and custom colour would be the seventh level. It would take a long time to achieve that level, but at the end it would be a real sense of achievement, I think. Again , let us know what you think.

- Matt

[Gantry]

Time to comment on this!

1. Normal follower: author
You get this badge for posting material you have previously created.
2. Big follower: CC author
This one is for posting original content here - stuff never before seem anywhere else. CarcassonneCentral exclusives, if you will.
Builder: variant designer
Design a variant, post it here, and get a builder badge. There should be a logical connection between the action and the badge, as this one illustrates. If you can think of better logical connections than the suggestions here, post a comment!

Perfect!

pig: proof-reading rule dude
There's a lot of proof-reading to be done, especially in the rules and FAQ sections! And the idea in the back of my mind on this one is that 1) pigs are hardy, inquisitive creatures and 2) grazing could be considered a metaphor for proof-reading - getting the field/text in shape, that sort of thing. A bit tenuous maybe…

I'm okay with the suggested symbolism, although in practicality the pig is not something that most societies and cultures link to proof-reading.  How about a farmer meeple - if the follower laying on his side isn't clear enough, we could photoshop a normal follower holding a pitchfork or something.  Farmers are universally recognized as hard-working and important to society.

The Count: founding member
During the first month sign-up drive you receive a Founding Member badge - that's like being the aristocracy of the site!
Fairy: puzzle master
We plan to run regular puzzles on the site, and you would be awarded a badge for being a winner. The Fairy is the most intellectual of all the meeples - honest - and some people think it looks like a wizard in any case. But what it is really is, and why it blocks the dragon and offers the bonuses it does is an enigma…

The Count, good idea.  The Fairy idea makes a lot of sense, but there could be more than one good answer to the puzzles.  Not sure about this, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it.
 

Dragon: forum contributor
No flaming allowed! Don't flame on forums, win a dragon instead, for the number and/or quality of posts (merit points)

aight

A further side to the badges is colour. User-customised colour shouldn't be automatic, but something to strive for, and there's two simple ways we could do that. Firstly, when you are initially awarded a badge, it comes in a default colour, and custom colour is a second level - you get that freedom instead of being awarded a second badge. Alternatively, we could create a hierarchy of colours - based on the colours in the game (red, blue, black, yellow, green and grey) and custom colour would be the seventh level. It would take a long time to achieve that level, but at the end it would be a real sense of achievement, I think. Again , let us know what you think.

I know what you're saying, but at a glance I don't think most people would ever recognize or remember a heirarchy of colours, other than already-recognizable ones like olympic awards (bronze, silver, gold) or street signals (green, yellow, red).  Colours are tough to implement.  The military gets around this by using a stripes/chevron/star system.  A geometric progression of some kind.  For instance, take a look at my Battlefield2 badges here.  The rank is shown by 3 chevrons, the badges and medals near the bottom of the page are in bronze/silver/gold each with their own unique design.  As well, at the very bottom, unique ribbons round them out.  Mouse-over each medal to see a nice popup with each of the 3 types.

Now I'm not suggesting that we use military insignia, but at least whatever we pick should be somewhat recognizable at a glance, or without any confusing reference guide.  In addition to our existing badge system of 88x31 pixel badges, I also will be shortly testing an awards module that allows us a gallery of awards in each member's profile.  Fun stuff!

[mjharper]

Re: colours - Okay. I'd ordered the colours alphabetically, but I see that it's tricky.
Re: pigs & farmers - the problem with using farmers is that it makes a distinction which wasn't there before. We have meeples, big meeples, and farmers. But farmers are also meeples. Using farmers would be fine if we had knights… And if there's only one of the figures which is stretching it a bit, is that a problem? And pigs help out the farmer anyway…

[Gantry]

Re: pigs & farmers - the problem with using farmers is that it makes a distinction which wasn't there before. We have meeples, big meeples, and farmers. But farmers are also meeples. Using farmers would be fine if we had knights… And if there's only one of the figures which is stretching it a bit, is that a problem? And pigs help out the farmer anyway…

Well all I was thinking was possible objections to pigs on the basis of religion, as Islam and Judaism consider the pig to be an unclean animal.  Most people consider the animal to be smelly and dirty.  Personally, it's not a problem, but I don't want to alienate anyone and cause them to not help out "in case" they get a pig.  Just thinking outside the box, doesn't matter to me personally.

Farmers, knights & thieves... would it be stretching it then to add an item to each to clarify them, ie farmer gets a pitchfork, knight gets a sword, thief gets a ... knife or mask?  Getting a knight badge seems like a cool thing to me 

[mjharper]

I hadn't even considered the religious implications, and I don't think we should either. We can hardly not use the figure for a badge because someone might get offended at the idea of having a pig associated with them - after all, even without religious connotations, if I say 'You're a pig!' to you it isn't very nice. And everyone who comes here knows about the pig's place in the world of Carcassonne should accept it as such.

Wouldn't complaining about the idea of having a pig badge on religious grounds be a contravention of the rules for forum membership anyway? And if someone still can't get over the idea, then they don't have to actually earn one, or can ask for it to be removed.

If we start getting into the possible symbolism of everything in Carcassonne, then nothing will work anymore. Are we capitalists saying that farmers are lazy because they're lying down? Are we heretics because The Cathars is based on the oppression of a religious order by established Christianity? No - because it's just a game. Really, I think if anyone was going to be that easily offended, they wouldn't end up here in the first place, and we can't possibly work out all the things which potentially insult people who are easily insulted…

Just my two pence's worth.

(Re: farmers, knights etc - what function would they then have? And we'd also need to have normal and big-sized versions)

[Gantry]

NOTE TO MEMBERS: see what kind of fun Matt & I have? lol   

rofl lazy farmers hehe 

[mjharper]

Yeah, this is becoming a 'public' admin forum… oops

Just noticed something else - it might be cool if we could click on the badge and be shown a list of all the other users with the same badge. Help community networking…

[canada steve]

Hey Matt just wondered how the badges are coming along ?

Also comment for using a pig is fine as pigs are often used to route out truffles, so using it as a badge for prrof reader tester etc is good.

[Tobias]

I'd like a pig-badge, give me somehing to proof-read :P

I'm a linguist (albeit only in Swedish - and swedish as a second language) and to be honest, Sara sometimes call me a pig

I do spell like crap myself, but that's becuase of a faulty keyboard. Yepp.

[mjharper]

I'll get right to it when I get back from holiday. Promise!  :

[mjharper]

Here's a bunch of possible colours I made using Aquatint on my Mac:




The edges are a little rough in places because I used an original scan as the basis of the shape; as the images become smaller that wouldn't be noticeable anymore. I'll probably redo these again in any case. Obviously the colours run through the whole spectrum.

Since the badges are meant to be visible both on the user's profile and on the side-bar of posts, what two sizes do we need?

We'd have to create a set of colours for each type of badge and let users select which one they want, rather than having the process automated with a transparent image and a colour, but I think these look more interesting. The first level badges could be plain matt badges in contrast...

Any comments? Oh, and I'll have a go at the pig next, since that one seems popular… 

Here are some smaller versions (26x26)

[mjharper]

And some pigs:




Smaller:

[mjharper]

Something I hadn't thought of: we need an admin badge too! I suppose that should be the Count - so maybe a founding member gets a matt Count, and admin get a custom one? Or does that run the risk of suggesting that founding members are somehow connected with admin?

[Tobias]

Different badges are always the best. I'd spontanously connect the two - matt for ordinary moderators or something.

Size should be small, my suggestion is somewhat bigger than the AIM-guy or something like that.

They look nice though

[Gantry]

Just to be sure we're all on the same page, a "badge" is the little graphic below your name on the left side of each post in the forums.
<--- over there!

We currently have ones like "administrator", "founding member", etc.  and they appear one badge per line.  I'm not sure if the meeple badge graphics you have, like the pig, are complete as is?  Or will they be on a background with a visible title next to them?