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[Brainstorm] A.U.T.H.O.R. union
wuhsin
Banned Users Posts: 0 Arc User
Alright, this idea may be a tad extreme, but try to keep an open mind, and you'll see why it may be necessary. We already have Scribe's Enclave to help authors get honest reviews. That's all fine and dandy, but exploit maps still sit above well, pretty much everyone using Scribe's Enclave. Only a handful of the Best authors have risen above this menace on their own. You want to know why?
Because Foundry authors insist on being "honest" with their ratings toward each other. Go look at the ratings for the exploit and farm maps. Almost all five star reviews. That's why you see them making the Best list. That's why so many of them sit so high up on the New list even with less than thirty plays. Farmers and exploiters support each other UNCONDITIONALLY. A farmer doesn't go into a farm map, and down-vote it because <insert trivial nonsense we tend to down-vote each other over in the Foundry> or because they view the author of said farm map as competition. The same is true for exploiters, they religiously five star exploit maps.
"What are you getting at, Wu?", you might feel inclined to ask. "Are you saying we should just five star every quest we review?", you might ask. Well, do you have a better solution? Begging the devs to help us out doesn't seem to be doing any good. Neither does complaining, or making accusations towards the Best authors, community mods, devs, etc. There is indeed a solution, we've just been too blind to see it, or too stubborn to use it.
A.U.T.H.O.R.
See that acronym? You're probably wondering what it could possibly mean. I'll tell you.
Authors
Union
To
Help
Our
Ratings
The idea is this, we band together, and form a union of talented authors well established in this community. You know, those of us who have been around since Open Beta, and poured hundreds of hours into the Foundry. Those of us who know the ropes, and aren't going to be publishing buggy, generic quests. Membership would be exclusive to those who not only produce quality content, but are willing to invest time in helping other union members. What is the goal of this, you ask? To ensure there are plenty of quality quests visible at the top of the New list, by boosting the ratings of those quests above the exploits and farm maps.
I really believe this idea would help the whole Foundry community. As long as we keep giving "honest" reviews, while the exploiters/farmers give stellar ratings only, we'll keep being placed below them. It's our constant criticism and trolling of each other keeping us down. Even if we just four star each other out of some idealistic sense of honesty, we're hurting our adjusted ratings, and letting the bad guys win. If around thirty of you got together, and made an effort to boost each other's quests up, it would bury the exploiters/farmers, and restore the Foundry list to it's former glory.
I understand if you what to berate me for this idea. You might think I'm trying to skew the rating system. But you know what? If the farming/exploiting community is more supportive of each other than the Foundry community, I guess they earned their spots on the Best list and the top of the New list. If we can't stop being overly critical of each other for the sake of the whole community, they win. Any feedback would be appreciated. My quests will remain withdrawn indefinitely to prove I have no ulterior motives in presenting this idea. Whether or not this idea becomes a reality will depend entirely on the community.
Because Foundry authors insist on being "honest" with their ratings toward each other. Go look at the ratings for the exploit and farm maps. Almost all five star reviews. That's why you see them making the Best list. That's why so many of them sit so high up on the New list even with less than thirty plays. Farmers and exploiters support each other UNCONDITIONALLY. A farmer doesn't go into a farm map, and down-vote it because <insert trivial nonsense we tend to down-vote each other over in the Foundry> or because they view the author of said farm map as competition. The same is true for exploiters, they religiously five star exploit maps.
"What are you getting at, Wu?", you might feel inclined to ask. "Are you saying we should just five star every quest we review?", you might ask. Well, do you have a better solution? Begging the devs to help us out doesn't seem to be doing any good. Neither does complaining, or making accusations towards the Best authors, community mods, devs, etc. There is indeed a solution, we've just been too blind to see it, or too stubborn to use it.
A.U.T.H.O.R.
See that acronym? You're probably wondering what it could possibly mean. I'll tell you.
Authors
Union
To
Help
Our
Ratings
The idea is this, we band together, and form a union of talented authors well established in this community. You know, those of us who have been around since Open Beta, and poured hundreds of hours into the Foundry. Those of us who know the ropes, and aren't going to be publishing buggy, generic quests. Membership would be exclusive to those who not only produce quality content, but are willing to invest time in helping other union members. What is the goal of this, you ask? To ensure there are plenty of quality quests visible at the top of the New list, by boosting the ratings of those quests above the exploits and farm maps.
I really believe this idea would help the whole Foundry community. As long as we keep giving "honest" reviews, while the exploiters/farmers give stellar ratings only, we'll keep being placed below them. It's our constant criticism and trolling of each other keeping us down. Even if we just four star each other out of some idealistic sense of honesty, we're hurting our adjusted ratings, and letting the bad guys win. If around thirty of you got together, and made an effort to boost each other's quests up, it would bury the exploiters/farmers, and restore the Foundry list to it's former glory.
I understand if you what to berate me for this idea. You might think I'm trying to skew the rating system. But you know what? If the farming/exploiting community is more supportive of each other than the Foundry community, I guess they earned their spots on the Best list and the top of the New list. If we can't stop being overly critical of each other for the sake of the whole community, they win. Any feedback would be appreciated. My quests will remain withdrawn indefinitely to prove I have no ulterior motives in presenting this idea. Whether or not this idea becomes a reality will depend entirely on the community.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post edited by wuhsin on
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Comments
I'm not the leader of said union, nor do I want to be. I am simply presenting the idea. I believe it would be best for the Foundry community and the union if we at least required members to demonstrate at least a minimal level of skill before boosting their rating. I'm sure you'd qualify though.
I do understand what you're saying, and realize you have good intentions. I think you are putting more emphasis on ratings and rank, whereas Scribes' Enclave puts more emphasis on understanding the editor and producing good quality quests. Our guidelines do call for 3-star or higher reviews, or else declining the in-game review and sending feedback to the author. I do not suggest, or give, all 5-star reviews simply because i don't want people expecting that, throwing together bad quests and handing them to us for a bunch of free 5-star reviews. (None of our members have done this, just saying hypothetically. We have some really great quests in the works over there.)
To be honest, i don't think there's anything we can do to "win" over the exploit maps. We are the minority, we're grossly outnumbered. I joined a new in-game guild over the weekend, only to be seriously disheartened by the comments made and seeing the members praise and repeatedly run those maps that are hurting this author community. I couldn't be a part of a group like that, so for now i'm soloing it. But it made me realize that, like i said, we are the minority.
I totally agree something needs to be done, and i think brainstorming ideas is a good thing. *cough* Hopefully eventually we'll find a solution to this.
[UGC] Kolde Acres (Discontinued)
In response to the underlined sentence, this is exactly why I suggested having at least minimal prerequisites for joining the union. If your quest as dialogue typed like this.. "I r goingz 2 kill u u ebil villin!!!" or it is full of bugs, NPC's with numbers in their name, etc. then I agree, it shouldn't have its rating boosted. However, there are many, many decent quests, worthy of five star reviews, that get kept below all these exploits because one or two Foundry authors want to be stingy or "honest" as they like to claim, and three star those quests because they feel they are mediocre. This would be all fine and dandy if all quests on the Foundry lists were legit, but that's simply not the case. We have a well organized army of farmers/exploiters to combat here, and we're going to have to stick together unconditionally to beat them.
Perhaps after we get the improved search and tagging (and tag rating) it may become unnecessary.
If we provide a "tag" that the ADD kids can latch onto perhaps the search will allow all the other tags to really mean something.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Searching by tags MIGHT help authors get more plays. I don't think they are actually going to change how the lists are formatted though. We're still going to be overshadowed by the Best and Featured tabs, and still competing for spots on the New list. The reason for this is most players probably won't have a clue what tags to even search for. What would be really nice IMO is if they just got rid of "Best/Featured/New/For Review" tabs, and replaced them with tabs for each genre.
[UGC] Kolde Acres (Discontinued)
Under these circumstances, we can't afford to keep knocking adjusted rating points off of legitimate quests. My suggestion to all the critics is that if you really feel the need to down-vote someone, why don't they go down-vote one of these dozens of farm maps, or exploit maps? The rating system is no longer about Foundry author vs Foundry author, but about Foundry authors vs Exploiters and Farmers.
Yes, unionizing won't stop that. However, it will help alleviate some of the damage done by said reviewers. When you add up the ignorant "No loot" reviews, the troll reviews, and the reviews from exploiters, we can't afford to add competitive author reviews into the equation, and have any chance of coming out on top.
Indeed Wuhsin, we are currently losing that battle:(. Also it never ceases to amaze me why some people for instance give those kind of reviews "The quest was amazing.bla blha,... but one mob wasn't named properly" - 2-3 stars... Like, is that really such a big deal? I mean really? One single detail makes your quest so bad that it can't get 4-5 stars? Sometimes I feel like some people just don't want to give 5 stars to anyone regardless of whatever they play. Even if the quest would be Foundry Heaven Incarnate it would be "Quite good" -4 Stars...
This is what I mean about "Competitive Reviews" from other authors. In my experience, the authors most likely to give me five stars were the ones on the best list, such as dzogen, mrthebozer, Zovya, etc. They're not so insecure about their adjusted ratings they feel they have to cut anyone else down. When it comes to authors lower on the list than myself though, I find I'm lucky to get a four star rating, even if the quest is better than their own. I've gotten bad ratings from authors in REVIEW TRADES who didn't even take the numbers out of the names of their NPC's, who named the encounters things like "Minion Minion", and typically made lots of other n00bish mistakes. I'd give them five stars anyway, point out all their typos and mistakes so they could fix them, only to get down-voted in return because the sky looks funny or they ran out of potions. This is exactly why I quit review trading, just one jerk like that would cause me to lose all the progress I had made advertising my quest for weeks, and review trading daily. We all know how the adjusted rating system works, we all know how devastating it is to get even a three star review, yet we keep doing it to each other when we have four other groups of players already doing it to us. It's like we're in a war-zone, hunkered down in a trench, surrounded on all four sides, and a couple of us decide it would be funny to start shooting each other in the foot.
I've done author searches on quite a few of my bad or mediocre reviews, and when I find quests done by said reviewer, I always review them in return because I'd really like to learn from these supposedly superior authors. However, like I said in my last post, they tend to be pretty terrible, with an adjusted rating of around 1.4, lots of typos, NPC's with numbers in their name like "Horse 6" or "Street Urchin 3", usually on a prefab map with little or no added detail, and stacked mobs.
Yes, they feel they have a right to insult your work, but if you insult them as a person they go bonkers. lol
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
1) Who would get to decide which quests are good enough to be heavily promoted by members? I don't think too many people would sign up to 5 star everyone else's quest if theirs is not selected as 5 star worthy. Might make it work if everyone who joins gets to select one quest of their own to be promoted, but then it's just an in-group popularity contest.
2) It would pretty well force people to join if it worked. It's hard enough as is to get on the best list. If the group worked, anyone who ever wanted to be on it would be forced to join and 5 star everyone else just to get a shot. Some people wouldn't mind, but I think it would upset a lot of authors.
On a somewhat related note, I think the best thing this could do is prove that the current rating system is flawed. To that effect, how about instead trying to organize a group to do essentially the same thing, but only promote copies of a semi-legit quest named something like "The current rating system is flawed". If you could get 30+ copies of that quest into the top of the best tab, I think it would generate some impossible to ignore attention about the problem. And if it's a legitimate quest that doesn't break any Foundry rules, there's not much Cryptic could do aside from taking them down for being copies (but hell, doesn't look like that's happening anyway).
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
I'm not a 'big' author or anything, but I have been working on my new project for almost 2 months now and I fully expect to be buried under 1-2 star reviews once I publish it, since it's an unpopular mix of puzzle/exploration that not many will appreciate.
What you're proposing, seems to me like a mutual circle of "you scratch mine, I scratch yours". Like a club of people who will pat each other on the back just because.
The SE is different, since they actually want honest opinions. If I think your quest sucks, I will tell you so. I rarely give anything less then four stars anyways, since I know how rating system works, but if you deserve 1 star, I will give it to you.
Do you honestly think that people who gather on this forums are the ones who intentionally downgrade your stuff? Because the way I figured, authors gathered here are nice and honest people, not trolls.
You people need to get over yourselves. Ratings are <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>, yes, exploit maps are higher then our stuff, yes.
You do foundry for ratings and tips or for fun of giving others something they will enjoy?
Now featured!
'A wayward child' is currently taken down for upgrades
Interesting idea, but I don't think it will work to get you on the best page.
The system is inherently competitive, and if you try to artifically inflate everyone's rating, then it will be impossible to get on the best tab unless you have a 5 star average. And even then, there's limited real estate there even if you manage a perfect or near perfect average.
A way you could make this work, and make it profitable, would be for someone to pay you 1M AD to get on the best tab, then you could guarantee it through a network of people, that you could pay 10k AD each to 5 star, then pocket the difference.
It only takes about 90 5 star ratings to achieve a 4.6 average approximately, which would be enough to take any quest to the top of the best list.
According to this model that would net you 900,000 AD for your time & guarantee people best tab listing (until it gets to a point where everyone is doing it then the system breaks down).
Bill's Tavern | The 27th Level | Secret Agent 34
I thought that most of that was pretty much the reason for trying to be part of this so called foundry community. But if it's only for those of you who have been around since Open Beta, and poured hundreds of hours into the Foundry. Then that counts me out straight away.
Also, I always read the reviews before I play a quest and you give out more one stars than any other author I have seen on these boards. Often with a silly comment like, there wasn't a cow.
I think you misunderstand my motives, dzogen. My quests have been withdrawn indefinitely. I do not want to be a part of this union. I just thought it would be a nifty idea to help the community rise above the current trend of farm and exploit maps.
As stated in a previous post, I reviewed plenty of authors who down-voted my quests. The comment you are thinking of is "Needs more cow-bell."
Let me explain something to you. We'll pretend all the Foundry authors are nice and "honest" people, who mostly give out four star reviews to other authors. Because of this, most authors get mostly four star reviews in this hypothetical story I'm telling. However, the exploiters and farmers rate the exploit and farm quests 5 stars 99% of the time. Now, let's add into the equation that there are more exploiters and farmers than authors. Do you understand now why exploit and farm quests are higher up on the list than most legit Foundry quests? The only way for the Foundry community to change the answer to this equation is to change the numbers they are putting into it, which seem to be mostly 3's and 4's.
I understand why those quests are higher.
Unlike you I simply don't care.
My quests tick along slowly, getting a few plays here and a few plays there, I seem to get honest reviews 99% of the time, even the occasional 1Star that I have doesn't seem to be a "troll" just someone who didn't like my style.
What quest is at the top of the Best list is of absolutely no importance to me whatsoever, unless its mine - then I'll star caring.
Wuhsin, you seem like a guy who "has it good" but doesn't see that because some other guy "has it better" - that's a recipe for life-long disappointment.
Enjoy what you have and give not a care for the other guy.
All The Best
Looking For Reviews For Your Foundry Quest?
Drop By Scribe's Enclave & Meet Up With Volunteer Reviewers.
I am sorry, but I don't think anyone's indifference will contribute to the long-term happiness of the Foundry community. Not that I blame you, I've become rather detached from this community myself over the past few days. I'm simply offering my suggestion that everyone should focus on building each others adjusted ratings up instead of tearing them down, at least until the exploits and farm quests are put in their places. It's hard enough to get plays, and we shouldn't try to hinder each others progress and call it honesty.
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