Review Stars - what do they mean to you?

mosby1 · May 2013

I'm sure we all have our own definition of what 1* vs 5***** means, and I find mine are evolving as I play more.

Personally, I've never given a 1* or 2** review, though I have skipped the review and sent some feedback to the author.

I've given some 3*** reviews (fewer as I learn how hard it is to do anything in the foundry heh), but most have been 4**** and 5*****.

Here's what they mean to me:

1 * - Not worth your time to play it.

2 * - Okay. Has some interesting features, but there are many better ones out there.

3 * - Pretty good. Has some noticeable flaws. You'll enjoy it if it fits your style (e.g. story vs combat, etc), but it's probably rather one-dimensional (e.g. all story or all combat).

4 * - Very good. Some room for improvement; maybe some minor flaws. Has a good story in addition to other elements (lore/combat/humor/mystery/horror/puzzle/etc). Worth your time.

5 * - Excellent; very few noticeable flaws if any. Well-paced. Balanced content of various types. Has a good story *and* is reasonably challenging, and has some other redeeming qualities. Worth playing for anyone.

Notice I'm partial to ones with a good story -- though I did like the Old Jerry one, which kind of makes fun of itself for not having a story. I don't equate story and dialogue though. Good authors can tell a story without relying completely on dialogue and exposition.

I also prefer challenging content -- but that can be combat, or puzzles, or a mystery, or whatever.

Here are some things I give bonus points for:

- some nice foundry tricks (which I either don't know how to do, or I *know* are hard to do)
- encourages/rewards exploration (like Wininoid's accolades, which I plan to borrow)

- cohesive mood (supported by lighting, sounds, etc)
- creative use of props
- memorable (good plot twist, or unusually hard, or funny, or whatever)
- unique; doesn't use all canned maps and decorations
- non-linear (player has some control over the pace and order)
- multiple outcomes (player choices have some impact on the quest)

I do have a few pet peeves, but I try not to let these affect my review score too much:

- poor description on the main quest panel
- objects with default names
- bad grammar and typos

Overall, I've been amazed at how good a lot of the quests are, and the amount of time some authors clearly spend on them. Keep up the great work!

boydzinj · May 2013

Essentially, I grade them on how I like them...

5 - It was great, perfect or really close and I had FUN (it felt good enough to tell people about it).
4 - Had some problems, but was still fun. (My most common rate)
3 - If it had lots of problems, but still fun. Likewise I use this as a way to promote those people who did good work like a great looking map, design, and direction, but failed someplace - i.e. Great looking map, design, concept, but I did not have fun or there were WAY too many stacked encounters and it was meant to be a solo challenge. If it is meant to be for 2+ people and there are stacked encounters - I do not think negatively because of that.
2 - Can tell the person was intending to use it to farm and needs some serious work. I generally do not use 2 stars.
1 - I think i gave 1 star once. It was obvious the person wanted to farm and exploit. I am not sure I would rate anyone under 3 stars unless it was an obvious exploit situation.

boydzinj · May 2013

There is NO reason to give anyone under a 3, unless it was a farm, exploit, or something so serious wrong that it was intended. Of course that is just me.

coanunn · May 2013

1 - Substantially broken, unplayable, or simply no fun for anyone. Exploit maps.
2 - Sub-par performance. These are the maps that had great ideas and intentions but they overlooked something major. Constant use of broken grammar and slang as well as extreme issues with both design and story execution. This would be reserved for occasions where the pacing is so horrible that every encounter is stacked, the story is fraught with grammatical and spelling issues and there are holes in the map.
3 - Par. Run of the mill Foundry missions. Does nothing to stand out. Is equitable to all other foundry and Cryptic content. Average.
4 - Above Average. Goes the extra mile, either in pacing, challenge, or story. Delivers a fun experience you want to repeat.
5 - Best of the Best. Delivers a top notch story, in a living world, that is entirely immersive and sucks the player in, truly setting the standard for UGC. I think I have only given out 2 of these.

boydzinj wrote: »

There is NO reason to give anyone under a 3, unless it was a farm, exploit, or something so serious wrong that it was intended. Of course that is just me.

I disagree, there is no reason to NOT give out the score the content deserves. Failure to execute is failure to execute, it doesn't matter the intentions and giving people a score of 3 so as to be nice does them a disservice.

zogvarnoka · May 2013

coanunn wrote: »

1 - Substantially broken, unplayable, or simply no fun for anyone. Exploit maps.
2 - Sub-par performance. These are the maps that had great ideas and intentions but they overlooked something major. Constant use of broken grammar and slang as well as extreme issues with both design and story execution. This would be reserved for occasions where the pacing is so horrible that every encounter is stacked, the story is fraught with grammatical and spelling issues and there are holes in the map.
3 - Par. Run of the mill Foundry missions. Does nothing to stand out. Is equitable to all other foundry and Cryptic content. Average.
4 - Above Average. Goes the extra mile, either in pacing, challenge, or story. Delivers a fun experience you want to repeat.
5 - Best of the Best. Delivers a top notch story, in a living world, that is entirely immersive and sucks the player in, truly setting the standard for UGC. I think I have only given out 2 of these.

I disagree, there is no reason to NOT give out the score the content deserves. Failure to execute is failure to execute, it doesn't matter the intentions and giving people a score of 3 so as to be nice does them a disservice.

Coanun has the exact same standards for ratings as I do. I assumed it was pretty self-explanatory myself but can see people can very quite a bit.

And I also agree with giving less than 3 stars. If you give 3 stars for "effort" (just like a participation prize) you do not only the author, but also the rest of us a disservice. If something has low plays and low rating, I'm still willing to try it out. If the UGC has high (50+) plays and low rating I'm not touching it unless it has a massive change log attached.

boydzinj · May 2013

The three stars for effort is one way of looking at it. I look at it another way. The person is trying. He or she can be very new to creating foundry quests or events for other people. I would really hate to discourage people by giving 1 star. Let us face it. If you had a brand new foundry quest and no one played it for a week (and you worked on it for weeks) and FINALLY someone played it... and you got... 1 star... how would you feel?

Even the best foundry quest out there will get a bunch of 1 stars.... for no other reason than "just because." On the flip side, if it is an exploit or farm mechanic... there is no excuse.. 1 star it is.

Now keep in mind, I have not played any seriously terrible quests that... made me want to quit outright. So... maybe I have not met a quest that I felt like giving 1 star to... other than the exploits. Stars or number or ratings in general are just an imaginary figure you give someone on something you can not quantify. Fiction and story telling is not a quantified basis of measurement. There is no way you can honestly tell me with any scientific method on how to measure a "good" story or foundry quest. Did I enjoy it? What if I had a bad day at work and one of the characters reminded me of my boss who yelled at me... 1 star? The next day, I play it again and the bartender looks like the girl I flirted with in college... 5 star? Three words are not spelled correctly in the last dialogue... 2 stars? I notice a reference to some Forgotten Realms lore all over the place - but I did not like the quest, 4 stars?

coanunn · May 2013

boydzinj wrote: »

The three stars for effort is one way of looking at it. I look at it another way. The person is trying. He or she can be very new to creating foundry quests or events for other people. I would really hate to discourage people by giving 1 star. Let us face it. If you had a brand new foundry quest and no one played it for a week (and you worked on it for weeks) and FINALLY someone played it... and you got... 1 star... how would you feel?

Even the best foundry quest out there will get a bunch of 1 stars.... for no other reason than "just because." On the flip side, if it is an exploit or farm mechanic... there is no excuse.. 1 star it is.

Now keep in mind, I have not played any seriously terrible quests that... made me want to quit outright. So... maybe I have not met a quest that I felt like giving 1 star to... other than the exploits.

Again though you can't take the persons feelings into account. If you have horrible breath and I never tell you because it would hurt you feelings then everyone you meet gets to experience your horrible breath. Had I just said, hey man, horrible breath, here's a lifesaver, I could have saved everyone a lot of suffering. In the case of giving a 1 or 2 star rating to someones failed UGC, I expect it to be incentive to do better, to realize that what you did wasn't quite good enough yet. Otherwise what motivation do they have to get any better?

boydzinj · May 2013

coanunn wrote: »

Again though you can't take the persons feelings into account.

Why cant I?

Is there a rule? did I sign an agreement? I don't like the line of questioning... i should rate yours 1 star because of it? I rate it my way, you can rate it your way. However, is the way I rate wrong? Is the way you rate wrong? Or are they just opinions and are opinions right or wrong? Ultimately speaking, I answered the question. you can accept the answer or don't.

coanunn · May 2013

boydzinj wrote: »

Why cant I?

Is there a rule? did I sign an agreement?

Of course not, it was a general "you" not specific, and you can feel free to rate things as you see fit. I just simply feel that if a 1 or 2 star rating is deserved I am insulting their effort by rating it higher than it deserves to protect their feelings. They can not improve if no one shows them the short comings. But that is a grey area as in effect this is art and what I find to be a short coming is another persons feature. Thus the very subjective nature of the rating system.

bestarallin · May 2013

I usually don't give one star unless it's painfully obvious the person knows what he is ddoing but choose to to a bad/sloppy job of it.

I rather send the person a mail explaining what i didn't like and asked to send me a mail if they change it and wait to rate it later. I love it when they do and I get back into it and see the changes.

Most foundry missions are a continual work in progress. There's always things to add, stuff you didn't know you could do before or just new ideas on how to flesh out your story you want to add. It would suck to give a one star rating and a negative comment to a person starting out knowing that quest just won't be played by anyone and the maker will probably just stop working on it.

worndown · May 2013

The stars don't mean anything to me personally. Every star is an opinion and never based on actual fact. I've played some 4star maps that I thought were horrible and some 1 stars that were actually pretty well thought out. Why? Because we all look for different things when we play something.

I only care about that at least a few people enjoyed that which I have put together. If there are bad reviews due to a bug or something I will fix it and move on. There will always be some ermm.. "tro.. People" that will rate a map 1 because it was too long, too short. bad loot, wrong language, item from chest wasn't for their class.. You know.. Something we have zero control over. Then we have the people that rate 1 just because they can.

Getting an HONEST review? Hah! Yea. maybe 1% of the time.

mosby1 · May 2013

It is really hard (and not terribly meaningful) to rate a quest with a single 1-to-5 value. Sure, there will be some with 5*****, and that's great. But the vast majority are going to end up with 3 or 4 stars. Not really all that helpful.

Do you read the reviews before you play one? Skim a few maybe?

When you write a review, who do you direct it towards - the author, yourself, or other players? I've been directing mine towards the author (and a lot of other people do too), but maybe it would be better to direct it to other players.

It might be nice if we could rate on several categories (story, encounters, dialogue, lore, etc). Then the software could average those numbers for an overall rating. You could leave some categories unrated if you wanted, or if they didn't apply, and they wouldn't be included in the average. Then someone looking for a good story could search on the Story Rating, or someone looking for lots of combat could easily find that.

It would be nice to have a few really good reviewers, to highlight the best content for us (I'm sure they're out there). Just like we subscribe to Authors, it would be nice to be able to subscribe to Reviewers. Maybe what we need is a good out-of-game review site - Rotten Tomatoes for Neverwinter heh.

kamaliicious · May 2013

mosby1 wrote: »

Maybe what we need is a good out-of-game review site - Rotten Tomatoes for Neverwinter heh.

There is at least one, tavernugc or whatever it's called. As for it being good, I haven't been to the site so I have no idea.

Anyway, I compare the quest to what the author says in the description the quest is trying to do. If they say "this quest is all story", then I don't mark them down for not having combat. If they say "this is an low lore old school dungeon crawl", then that's what I'm looking to see done well. Three stars is average. One star means you failed completely at doing what you said you were going to be doing. This means I sometimes give high ratings to quests that I don't personally like, because the author said "I've made an X" and then made a well executed, good example of an X.

boydzinj · May 2013

mosby1 wrote: »

Do you read the reviews before you play one? Skim a few maybe?

When you write a review, who do you direct it towards - the author, yourself, or other players? I've been directing mine towards the author (and a lot of other people do too), but maybe it would be better to direct it to other players.

I do read the reviews... and not the stars. I will direct the review to the author but leave enough information to let other players understand my.. thoughts as well.

"great art work and design of the map. However, several enemy encounters are stacking and at level 45 I could not defeat them as a trickster rogue solo."

is a message I used before (of course my level changes).

bestarallin wrote: »

Most foundry missions are a continual work in progress. There's always things to add, stuff you didn't know you could do before or just new ideas on how to flesh out your story you want to add. It would suck to give a one star rating and a negative comment to a person starting out knowing that quest just won't be played by anyone and the maker will probably just stop working on it.

I agree. Could not have said it better myself... and infact, I tried and fail. You are right. IMHO.

hercooles130uscg · May 2013

When I do my detailed reviews, I try to be subjective. So even if the quest is not the style I typically enjoy playing I will still rate it based on it's own merits. I try to put myself in the mind of the audience that the Author was trying to draw in. I may not like tons of Combat, but some do. So I try to pretend "If I liked combat, would I enjoy this over all the other combat quests? and why?"

A complete boondoggle. Obvious attempt at exploiting, trolling or not even trying.
A 3 that has far to many technical issues or a confusing plot that can not be followed.
Technically sound and does a good job at what it is trying to be. if it is trying to be hack n slash, but does not excel in delivering fun or interesting combat, it gets this. If it is story quest, but has a very unoriginal story and does not compensate in other areas, such as interesting combat, excellent map design or fun objectives. A three is average. It is not bad nor great, and it does a good job of keeping in line with some of the better Cryptic quests with are usually bleh.
I had fun. It not only accomplished what it tries to do, but adds unique flavor that makes it stand out above the average crowed. A four is above average.
Hard to get me to do this. even if I love a quest, I will always find reasons to give it a 4. To be honest, a five should be dedicated for those times I walk away from a quest and am just like, "oh wow". I have given only two 5's. One was story based, and one had more combat, but both surpassed anything Cryptic could make and had me smiling the entire quest.

As for the actual review, I always direct mine towards the player. That is who needs guidance on what quest out of thousands to play, however it is still worded in a way that the Author can take some insight from it. Plus, I try to always give separate and specific feedback and suggestions to the Author as well.

If I am not doing a detailed review (which is rare, 99% of my Foundry time is clearing my pile of requests) then I rate a bit more harshly, as I will also take my own opinions more heavily into factor. Here, if I play a combat quest, I will not give it as high as I might if I was not having fun, as I was reviewing it based on MY fun factor, not some hypothetical player.

So it depends really, how I approach a quest.

eb2013 · May 2013

Some people are docking stars for the tiniest bug that can be fixed in five minutes. Some people dock stars for poor loot or xp. And some people will give one star if there is any bug at all in the quest. It reminds me of a review for the new Dan Brown book "Inferno" on Google Play where someone gave the book one star because he didn't like Tom Hanks and was expecting another movie.

kamaliicious · May 2013

eb2013 wrote: »

Some people are docking stars for the tiniest bug that can be fixed in five minutes. Some people dock stars for poor loot or xp. And some people will give one star if there is any bug at all in the quest. It reminds me of a review for the new Dan Brown book "Inferno" on Google Play where someone gave the book one star because he didn't like Tom Hanks and was expecting another movie.

Additionally, sometimes a quest will just be bugged on your play for no reason. I played Labyrinth of Lunacy by Chili. The first time I played it an object didn't disappear, so I couldn't continue. Played it again, no problems.

Also, sometimes Cryptic will change something and not tell anyone or invalidate quests that use it. They changed some maps during beta without any indication, breaking one of my quests because the npc's spawned under the new terrain level.

luther8 · May 2013

Would be interesting where my quest falls in your rating.

Review Stars - what do they mean to you?

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