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...I saw two jerks yesterday talking on one of the old protector channels (was it elite badge?) about if it was possible to rate other peoples stories as 1 stars, as many as possible, so their stories float to the top...
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I've stated this before, but yeah, it doesn't take a genius to realize that with the current star system, it is much, much easier and less time consuming to 1-star the competition than to fine-tune and promote your own arc into earning 5 stars.
█ Players Guide to the Cities
That is a glaring mistake.
Probably explains the one-star on this arc. Somebody simply went in, and either zapped it to rate it lower than theirs, or, saw it wasn't a simple kill-fest and zapped it as they hate interesting or challenging items.
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Question -- do people have to complete a story / arc to rate it?
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Nope you can quite in the first mish and still rate it
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You can rate an arc without even leaving the Architect desk; you do not need to enter any mission to rate an arc. You can rate an arc about one second after accepting the arc and there is no limit to how often you can rate arcs, though only one rating from an account is "recorded". You can also change the rating you give an arc after rating it.
| Issue 9 Fly poses | IO's and ED
| Cycling the Combat Monitor | Load Macros from a Text File |
You seem to have some knowledge about this Grumble.
Do you know how long one has to wait until re-rating the same arc?
█ Players Guide to the Cities
I don't know for certain if there is any limitation for that. The only limitation that I am aware of is that only one vote per account is counted and that the rating can be changed. Presumably, the reason is that the author can change the content of the arc and, therefore, players can change their opinions so, I assume there is no limit to the number of times someone can change their rating.
However, the rating still only counts as a single rating, the most recent rating being the rating that counts toward what is ultimately displayed on the arc.
I think the only other real limitation is that you cannot mark an arc as "unrated" at any time after you have given it a rating as removing allstars from a recorded rating would then result in a "zero star" rating.
| Issue 9 Fly poses | IO's and ED
| Cycling the Combat Monitor | Load Macros from a Text File |
The real problem (IMO) is that the rating system is totally subjective with no quantifiable values. For example, to me, a 5-star AE arc is one which knocks my socks off with a good story, presents a challenging enemy which doesn't cheat (mudda-frakking sappers), has excellent in-game and contact characters with unique personalities, and makes me want to play it again and again. A one-star AE arc is just the same-old same-old farm, no attempt at dialogue, and packed full of sappers.
To date, I've not awarded 5 stars to an AE arc. The few I thought about giving a single star, I just quit and ignored.
Again, this is all subjective evaluation. Without a objective quantifiable metric, it's impossible to truly compare AE arcs based solely on user star ratings.
Oh, and I hate sappers. I HATES them, my Precious... 
[ QUOTE ]
...To date, I've not awarded 5 stars to an AE arc. The few I thought about giving a single star, I just quit and ignored.
Again, this is all subjective evaluation. Without a objective quantifiable metric, it's impossible to truly compare AE arcs based solely on user star ratings.
Oh, and I hate sappers. I HATES them, my Precious...
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So ... have you tried my FREEM! arc yet? 
More seriously: The Malta group fits the arc's plot, and so they are included.
Personally, I rate on the story, not the spelling (unless illegible to the point of incomprehension), not the choice of map nor mob types (unless it is illogical based on the story). It's still subjective, but ...
One of my arcs has a complaint about it - which is directly tied to a bug the map is producing (and has since been "fixed/ by removing an objective).
I must admit it ticks me off that someone out there wasn't objective enough (or knowledgeable enough) to rate the arc according to merit and story.
I guess it's more important to remove badges than to take a long hard look at this rating system.
█ Players Guide to the Cities
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I guess it's more important to remove badges than to take a long hard look at this rating system.
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How would you fix it?
"Goodbye, Jean-Luc. I'm gonna miss you... you had such potential. But then again, all good things must come to an end..." -- Q
I wouldn't.
I would replace it entirely.
Go for a 10 level rating system and have it applied to different criteria, such as
<ul type="square">[*] Story[*] Dialogues[*] Appropriateness / Choice of critters[*] Appropriateness / Choice of environments [*] Overall appreciation[/list]
Each of those could have a percentage weight of the overall score. I.E.: Story / Dialogue being weighted more than Overall appreciation.
Or, just go for a Weighted Bayesian Rating System.
I like the way The Instructables has set up their rating system to weigh the votes of those who commented higher than those who do not. Griefing (by typing in anything to fill the comment section and voting all 1s) could be curbed simply by allowing players to flag these votes for review, and once an account passes a certain threshhold of flags it is "frozen" from voting again.
Any peer based system will have to deal with subjectivity.
But really, the current system is probably the worst one we could be using. The ease with which one can abuse the system outweighs its usefulness.
If an arc isn't locked at a given star rating, all it takes is a few 1 votes to bring it down from 5 to 4. No one will keep 5 stars otherwise under such a system.
No rating system will be perfect, but there is definitely room for improvement here.
█ Players Guide to the Cities
Does anyone know who is the "official" dev for Mission Architect? I need to send a PM.
| Issue 9 Fly poses | IO's and ED
| Cycling the Combat Monitor | Load Macros from a Text File |
I prefer the "Recommendations" style of voting, which I've seen on various fanfiction sites. It basically works this way:
You like a story arc? Click on the button that says "I recommend this story!" Other people can see how many recommendations a story has. They can also click on your toon (or type in your account name, or look at your global name), and see what's in your recommendation list. Don't like a story? Don't recommend it.
The catch is that you can have only 10 recommendations at any time. So - you have to decide which ones you actually like, and which ones you're just trying to pump up the vote count on.
With that, I'd also like to be able to see what comments others have left, as these tend to hold interesting bits that don't show up in a recommendation or star rating. Yeah, a good chunk of them will be trite, but those that aren't are usually pretty useful.
Also - I disagree vehemently on requiring people to explain why they liked or didn't like something. Because if such a system existed, the immediate run-around would be typing in "I didn't like it, so I one-starred it" into any and all required comment fields. Now: that is a completely valid reason to one-star something - if you didn't like it, then you didn't like it. It's just not helpful to you.
Finally - it's not the audience's job to help you write your story. If they want to leave constructive feedback? Good for them. That's not what the voting system is for. It's (in theory) to help other audience members find the kind of arcs they want to play. Yeah, it doesn't do a very good job of that. But even if it did do a good job of that, it still wouldn't be doing what you want it to do. Why? Because you want help writing your arc. And that's not fun for the person helping you - it's work. And that's not going to fly at ALL.
Ha Ha Prey! Beat ya to it.
Blazing Blue 50 fire/fire Blast, BlueStarr 50 PB, BlueSt 50 stone/ss Tank, Purple Pummaler 50 bs/regen Scrap, Green Puritan 50 emp/nrg Def, Raging Red 50 ice/cold Cor,WhiteLightning 50 ill/storm Cont, GrayMatter 44 WS,Green Marauder 24 nrg/stone Brute,Dark Blue Blaze 26 fire/fire Cor,etc