Become a Reviewer!

Thanks for you interest in helping out the Insite team! With any luck we'll have you reviewing for us in no time!

As you may have been aware, Insite's frequency of review output has been dropping off steadily since 2005. With waning interest throughout the UT2004 community, many reviewers found that real life issues were more important, and many left us during 2005, the second year of UT2004's life. During 2006 we struggled to force our way through as many reviews as we could, but there were just too many mappers and not enough writers. With UT3 on the semi-distant horizon and drawing ever nearer, Insite will likely pick back up in popularity and submitted maps in the coming months.

This is where you come in. The bigger our staff, the better. We don't need a huge group of guys, but we need more than three. What we need is dedication, and some other stuff, but you can read that other stuff later.

First thing you need to do is let an admin know you're interested. Head over to the contact page, put something worthwhile in the boxes ("I want to be a reviewer" in the subject box is a good start), and shoot over an email. Tell us a little bit about yourself: who you are, why you want to become a reviewer, and any relevant experience. You don't have to write a book; just keep it short and to the point. Someone will get back to you in a couple days with a test. Yes, a test.

The Test Review
You didn't think you'd make it on the team just by sending an email, did you? No, someone's got to see if you've got potential first. When we get back to you, our reply will say that you've got a review to do, and this is your ticket in... if it's up to scratch. Hopefully you've been around Insite long enough to know how a review is put together, because I'm not about to walk you through it step-by-step. You need to cover visuals and gameplay, and your review needs to have some flow to it. Go wild and be creative - boring reviews suck. If you get stuck, take a look at the reviews we have posted and see if you can draw some inspiration from them. There's a couple of basic things to note on the procedures page, but ignore everything below the first section because it only applies to current team members. Write the review (don't take screenshots), give it a score based on our schema (take a peek at the lower section of that page if you never have), tack on a bottom line, and email your results to an admin. If we like what we see, we'll upgrade your site status to a reviewer (you've got to be registered first, obviously), post your view for the world to see, and welcome you as the newest member of the Insite team!

Now, about those other things we need from our reviewers. We've been through situations where people can't write, reviewers stop reviewing after a single map, and other dumb stuff, so we've got to have some standards around here. Here's a relatively short list of things we require from our reviewers.

• Writing Ability
  I don't expect you to be able to write novels in your spare time, but to be a reviewer, you've got to have some writing skill. It's really hard on the admins to go through and edit every review with poor grammar and nonsensical sentences, so it's unlikely we'll take on anyone who doesn't display a decent ability to craft their words. English does not have to be your first language, but you must be fluent in it. Mainly, though, your reviews must have a flow. No one wants to read something that's "Lighting is like this, architecture is like this, bots act like this," so don't expect to get very far if that's how you write.
  
  
• Dedication
  If we take you on, we expect a decent amount of work on your part to help us and the community out by providing reviews as quickly as you can. We understand that games aren't life and that many people have many other things to do, so we don't expect the world from you. One review every two weeks is all we would like. If it's going to be hard to spare a few hours of your time every two weeks, you're probably not right for the job. One review, two weeks... think you can handle it?
  
  
• Gaming Skill
  Online experience is, well, we can't really say it's required, but it's a very strong plus. The better you are at the game, the better you can analyze a map's worthiness when it comes to gameplay (in theory, at least). If you don't ever play online, how will you get a feel for how a group of real people would play a map? That's not to say that you should attempt to play every map online, because there's very little chance of that happening. By having general online experience you gain a better understanding of the overall gameplay dynamics offered by the game, and this is what we want you to have. Watching bots is okay, but it's not really sufficient at all because they don't play like people one iota, so you cannot rely on them to show you how a map's gameplay works. You need to have a strong understanding of UT's gameplay and how it applies to maps, because bots will not show you this. If you're that guy who bunny hops around Rankin demo servers while spamming nothing but rockets, it's unlikely you could tell me what's good and bad about the amp placement in that map. It's hard to analyze gameplay when you suck, so we expect you to not suck. You don't have to be great, but you shouldn't suck.
  
  
• Mapping Skill
  You don't have to have mapping experience to review a map, just as I don't need an art degree to tell you which paintings look pretty. It can be helpful to know your way around UEd, but it is by no means required. The difference is, for example, only being able to say "I get worse framerates than the average retail map" versus being able to say "better zoning would have reduced the amount of BSP being rendered in each area threefold and boosted framerates greatly." Regardless of mapping skill, you should be able to recognize what is good and what isn't, both in terms of visuals and gameplay, because both are essentially measureable aspects of a map.
  
  
• Attitude
  Being one of a sarcastic nature and a cynic, I, T2A`, am quick to criticize, bitch, and moan, whether I'm serious about it or not. Don't be like me. If the map you're reviewing is the dumbest piece of crap you've ever had the misfortune of downloading, that's fine, but don't write it out like that. It's better to show what's wrong and give suggestions on how to fix issues than it is to piss off some mapper and make him quit the hobby. We won't get better maps to review if you anger all the mappers and cause them to stop mapping altogether rather than help them improve. However, there should be a balance. We don't write reviews solely for mappers; it's basically a balance between letting the reader know why the map is or isn't a worthy download and showing the good and bad things the mapper did throughout. This way we help out both parties.
  
  
• Have Fun!
  Remember, this is only for fun and done as a charity toward a community that you enjoy being a part of. You're not going to get paid, so hopefully just knowing that you're helping out a community is recompense enough.

So, that's it, essentially. Don't suck at writing, don't suck at the game, and don't be a sucky person. Good luck, and happy fragging!