OK here is my problem with the response from Sominator.
There have been thread after thread about problems with the Foundry. (Publishing Failed, Login Failure, Publishing stuck for hours, Respec not working, etc) And what thread does Sominator respond to? How to improve the ignore list. And on top of that the total response... "Cool ideas. Thanks everyone" A little lame. I would prefer no response.
Sweet Water and Light Laughter Till Next We Meet.
Narayan
Feeble copy+paste attempt at pretending to interact with the community is a feeble copy+paste attempt at pretending to interact with the community.
All The Best
Significantly more impressive than any of your attempts to interact with the community... *Shrug*
A world to defend
A city to protect
innocents to save
"Why?" They ask "they hate you"
We're heroes it's what we do.
*patiently waiting on Paragon City*
Significantly more impressive than any of your attempts to interact with the community... *Shrug*
Given this is the 1st post of yours I have seen in the Foundry, and that 95% of my posts are in the Foundry, and that I spent 10 hours this last Monday doing nothing but free reviews for anyone who asked, and then PM'd them a full feedback I'm not sure you are even close to making a coherent point.
But please do try again, I laughed so much at this attempt that I am sure I'll enjoy the comedy show if it continues.
OK here is my problem with the response from Sominator.
There have been thread after thread about problems with the Foundry. (Publishing Failed, Login Failure, Publishing stuck for hours, Respec not working, etc) And what thread does Sominator respond to? How to improve the ignore list. And on top of that the total response... "Cool ideas. Thanks everyone" A little lame. I would prefer no response.
You see, I knew others would understand.
This was my point as well, seems some need it spelling out in "Peter and Jane" steps though.
You would rather have no idea that anyone, even if it's just a mod or CSR, is actually reading your suggestions and complaints than to know that they are, because he only casually replied to something you don't really care about?
You're putting an awful lot on Sominator, it's not like he's the foundry lead and he's committed all their resources to the topic of this one thread. He just chimed in to say that he/they have noticed this thread, that's all.
I have a lot of gripes with this game, I'm not really even a real fan of any of the ideas in this thread, but even I don't understand this response to his post.
I got 1-star bombed a total of 20 times just today cause I was at the top of the 'new' tab. I was at a solid 4.1 after the adjusted rate. I'm now lying at a 3.1 in one day.
It's discouraged me a bit, but I know in due time the amounts of players enjoying my content and rating it honestly are the ones worthy of my time to be concerned with. My quest can be easily 1 star trolled because it's short and fast.
Almost want to make a quest that is 60 mins long, which may help in deterring those trolls from wanting to waste so much time attending this behavior.
I feel your pain, and I'm flabbergasted as well. But at this point in time there is little to be done about it. I'd honestly like for all ratings to require a comment. The 1 star trolls really do need to stop...it's getting out of hand now.
You would rather have no idea that anyone, even if it's just a mod or CSR, is actually reading your suggestions and complaints than to know that they are,
But we don't know they are.
There is not one bit of proof in sominator's post that he has read anything in this thread other than the title. The title is all anyone would need to read to know there are ideas in this thread about improving an aspect of the game.
I'd dearly love to believe that someone with influence in the game company had read and taken note of the ideas in this thread, but the track record isn't good.
Go and found every post that Sominator has posted "Cool ideas! Thanks everyone! " or some variant thereof in, take note of the problems those ideas were aimed ad resolving and then see how many of those problems are still in the game.
I'll be shocked it its less than 90%.
So how much real notice has been taken of those "Cool ideas!"? None.
Which is why we need far more than four words as evidence that anyone has taken notice of anything.
Looking For Reviews For Your Foundry Quest?
Drop By Scribe's Enclave & Meet Up With Volunteer Reviewers.
0
delthaninMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 188Bounty Hunter
edited July 2013
If you guys have an issue with how developers are responding, can you not hijack threads to talk about it? It's annoying for everyone else who want to see what people have to say about the actual subject the thread is about.
You would rather have no idea that anyone, even if it's just a mod or CSR, is actually reading your suggestions and complaints than to know that they are, because he only casually replied to something you don't really care about?
You're putting an awful lot on Sominator, it's not like he's the foundry lead and he's committed all their resources to the topic of this one thread. He just chimed in to say that he/they have noticed this thread, that's all.
I have a lot of gripes with this game, I'm not really even a real fan of any of the ideas in this thread, but even I don't understand this response to his post.
Sure, he chimed in to say he/they noticed this thread. What about all of the other threads that actually affect authors ability to work in the foundry? No response in any of those threads. Just this thread about a ignore list for authors.
The response is simple. Why respond to this thread and none of the other more important threads which actually affect play?
Sweet Water and Light Laughter Till Next We Meet.
Narayan
I got 1-star bombed a total of 20 times just today cause I was at the top of the 'new' tab. I was at a solid 4.1 after the adjusted rate. I'm now lying at a 3.1 in one day.
It's discouraged me a bit, but I know in due time the amounts of players enjoying my content and rating it honestly are the ones worthy of my time to be concerned with. My quest can be easily 1 star trolled because it's short and fast.
Almost want to make a quest that is 60 mins long, which may help in deterring those trolls from wanting to waste so much time attending this behavior.
I feel your pain, and I'm flabbergasted as well. But at this point in time there is little to be done about it. I'd honestly like for all ratings to require a comment. The 1 star trolls really do need to stop...it's getting out of hand now.
Savai,
Let me start by saying two things... 1. I have not played your quest. 2. And getting 1* bombed is wrong. I am totally against it.
Now let me say this. If you quest is one of the quests that has over 20,000 plays/reviews... Why is it in the "New" tab. It can't be that new. This is one of the things I do not like about their (Cryptic) way of sort/displaying Foundry quests. They need an expanded way of doing it.
Again let me state that you getting 1* bombed it totally wrong and something should be done.
Sweet Water and Light Laughter Till Next We Meet.
Narayan
I got 1-star bombed a total of 20 times just today cause I was at the top of the 'new' tab. I was at a solid 4.1 after the adjusted rate. I'm now lying at a 3.1 in one day.
It's discouraged me a bit, but I know in due time the amounts of players enjoying my content and rating it honestly are the ones worthy of my time to be concerned with. My quest can be easily 1 star trolled because it's short and fast.
Almost want to make a quest that is 60 mins long, which may help in deterring those trolls from wanting to waste so much time attending this behavior.
I feel your pain, and I'm flabbergasted as well. But at this point in time there is little to be done about it. I'd honestly like for all ratings to require a comment. The 1 star trolls really do need to stop...it's getting out of hand now.
Savai,
I rated honestly and transparently. I gave 3 stars so, personally, I think the average rating is fair. I also gave some feedback that I think would encourage those looking for nothing more than a suitable daily - they appear to be your target audience anyway.
Look guys, there are so many incredible works out there now that even if players may not know what goes into making a Foundry mission from the toolset provided, they sure as hell know what can come out of it. From that perspective a three is NOT a bad score.
This whole issue arises from the fact the catalogue holds a very limited amount of viewable quests. Spend your energies on getting that corrected, instead of complaining about the subjective stuff.
For my money, the best change to the review system would be a fairly simple one, both in terms of concept and execution.
Separate ratings from reviews. They are not the same thing.
You have to author a completed, published quest to unlock the right to rate other people's quests.
This would weed out a lot of the stupid/uninformed reviews I get. I am still getting a significant number of one and two star reviews for no reason other than "bad loots!" and "fix shiny path!". Uninformed reviewers are almost as disheartening as intentional trolls. I am not adverse to one or two star ratings when the reviewer's comments are genuine criticisms that I can address, but when I get downvoted because of limitations of the game that are beyond my control, it frustrates the hell out of me. And when I get a low review, I always look up the player who left the rating, not as a means to enact vengeance, I hasten to add, but just so that I can see what they themselves deem to be a good foundry mission. Except not one of the low-scorers I've looked up has published a single quest, which just adds weight to the impression that the people judging my content to be low quality actually have no clue what authors are actually capable of controlling. I genuinely believe that if publishing a quest were a requirement for unlocking the right to rate, the overall quality of reviews themselves, both favourable and unfavourable, would be more honest and more meaningful. And again, I stress that an honest, informed low review is not a bad thing; we grow from constructive criticism. But we do not grow from uninformed irrelevance dragging our content down.
This suggestion would not outright cure trolling and rating assassination, but it would limit it at least by ensuring that everyone who rates a quest is a genuine author and not just a random dummy account or a goon for hire.
It would also not prevent non-authors from playing and reviewing content, just from putting a star rating on it.
Hmm but then you wouldn't get any stars from players like myself
Actually I am kidding. I couldn't care less about the star rating, I just want to see what other players have to say about the quests, so it wouldn't bother me if I couldn't give a star rating. I already ignore all the "loot" or "pathing" comments anyway and I am sure the majority of the Foundry audience does too.
But I do have some idea of what it takes. Before I started playing Foundries - or at least around the same time - I did delve into the toolset to get an idea of how it works and how methodical one has to be in order to make simple placements. Ugh :eek:
Separate ratings from reviews. They are not the same thing.
You have to author a completed, published quest to unlock the right to rate other people's quests.
This wouldn't work, for two reasons.
First, it wouldn't stop malicious ratings or otherwise gaming the system since it's ridiculously easy to publish a quest. And if you require things like, has to have X plays/reviews or be/have been on list X, you will exacerbate problem #2.
Second, cliques would be a much more serious problem with your proposed system. Just look through this forum and you'll see we're already somewhat clique-ish, we talk down about the "common", "ignorant" player who has never used the foundry and how their reviews are inferior because they don't know what goes into making a quest, or they're just plain incorrect when they're lower than what we want. With your system we would be the only ones rating each other, which would increase this behavior and lead to a lot more in-fighting as well. And frankly, as is the case with any rating based off only those "in the know", they don't reflect how most of the consumers/players would rate things (e.g. the SAG awards), making the rating system into nothing more than ego-stroking. There's too much of that already, in my opinion.
There is not one bit of proof in sominator's post that he has read anything in this thread other than the title. The title is all anyone would need to read to know there are ideas in this thread about improving an aspect of the game.
Then we know he at least peruses the titles, unless you want to argue he's also an automated response searching for keywords like "idea" in the title, heh.
I still say that's better than not knowing someone is at least doing that, and I don't really understand how anyone could argue it isn't. Sure, have detailed responses to all complaints and suggestions would be nice, but it's not only unrealistic it would undermine their ability to update the game at all both because of time limitations and the inevitable PR disaster it would cause.
Engineers, programmers, technically minded people are simply not good at communication, the few that are passable will eventually explode in a frustration filled rant if they are forced to have to deal with customers constantly. PR, CS, marketers are not good at expressing complicated, technical concepts in a way that makes any kind of sense, and even the ones who are passable at it will eventually make mistakes, causing the forums to explode with frustration filled rants created by players.
There's no winning here for them, the best they can do is to be infrequent in their contributions, expressing only the most important things either concisely if it's simple or vaguely if it's complex. Any more than that would likely cause even larger problems for them.
And we really don't know where these foundry publishing issues fall, or what, if any, solutions they have to the problem at this point. It could be that we would consider any solution they've come up with so far to be far worse than the problem. What would be their incentive to come on the forums and tell us that? To increase the amount of rage on the forums?
Would anyone really be satisfied just to know that they know there's a problem with foundry publishing? Because if so, I think it's pretty safe to assume they do since it appears they have to manually restart the server every time it happens.
<snip>
And when I get a low review, I always look up the player who left the rating, not as a means to enact vengeance, I hasten to add, but just so that I can see what they themselves deem to be a good foundry mission. Except not one of the low-scorers I've looked up has published a single quest, which just adds weight to the impression that the people judging my content to be low quality actually have no clue what authors are actually capable of controlling.
<snip>
I just wanted to talk about this one part. Forgive me for snipping your post.
Playing Devils Advocate here. How do you know that not one has published a quest? You do know that not every new quest shows up in the For Review tab, right? And you do know that not every quest shows up in the new tab either, right? So these being true, how do you know that not one has published a quest?
Edit to add: Just to show you... I have 4 quests published. Please try and find them listed in the For Review tab. One has 7 reviews. Two have 2 reviews. and One has 1 review. The one with 7 reviews you can find by searching @narayansingh. The other 3 you cannot find without the short code. And yes I know they are not that good. I am still learning and have a long way to go. But I enjoy making them anyways.
Sweet Water and Light Laughter Till Next We Meet.
Narayan
0
orodalfMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited July 2013
I will further add that what an individual publishes may not be a good indication of what he/she believes to be a good quest. There are people capable of evaluating art without being able to produce good art, after all.
First, it wouldn't stop malicious ratings or otherwise gaming the system since it's ridiculously easy to publish a quest. And if you require things like, has to have X plays/reviews or be/have been on list X, you will exacerbate problem #2.
I never said it would. In fact, I specifically said it would not directly completely cure malicious ratings. I was aiming entirely at uninformed ratings. There is a world of difference between the two, yet they are both a problem.
Second, cliques would be a much more serious problem with your proposed system.
I do not believe this to be true. As you say, they are already an issue. Personally I want no part of them; I do my own thing. If other people like my stuff, that's nice, but I do not make for those people, I make for myself. But none the less, cliques exist, there is no avoiding that, it's human nature to group up with like minded individuals; neither my suggestion, Cryptic's system, nor any system you or anyone else could possibly come up with will ever stop cliques from happening.
There are people capable of evaluating art without being able to produce good art, after all.
Right, but we're not talking about people simply evaluating, here, we're talking about their evaluation having impact regardless of context or qualification. Your comparison is massively over simplified and does not reflect how either the foundry or the art world works. Anyone can appreciate art (or not appreciate it), but art is not valued or curated by unqualified observers.
My suggestion was that non-authors should still be able to review quests, just not impact on the overall quality rating. I've never said you need to be an author to appreciate a foundry quest, but I do believe that uninformed reviewers should not be able to adversely affect quality assessments. By your example, this is the equivalent of someone saying "This photograph is out of focus and should not be in this gallery!" of an oil painting, which, if enough people leave that comment then gets removed from the gallery for being an out of focus photograph, shortly followed by the artist throwing away his oil paints, burning all his canvases and taking up a life of crime. You do not need to be an artist to appreciate art, but in the real art world, art is not assessed for value by random passers by any more than the Louvre is curated by random tourists who walk through the door.
There is a world of difference between public opinion and professional critique in the art world, and the same applies to movies, books, theatre, sports, holidays, basically everything that is assessed. Both public opinion and professional critique serve their purpose, and both are important, but they are entirely different beasts. This is why sites such as metacritic typically separate the two and why awards ceremonies are more frequently including "viewers choice" awards. Both matter, but they need to be separated, not indistinguishably mashed together like they are in the foundry at present.
I do not believe this to be true. As you say, they are already an issue. Personally I want no part of them; I do my own thing. If other people like my stuff, that's nice, but I do not make for those people, I make for myself. But none the less, cliques exist, there is no avoiding that, it's human nature to group up with like minded individuals; neither my suggestion, Cryptic's system, nor any system you or anyone else could possibly come up with will ever stop cliques from happening.
By giving a small group, many of which already consider themselves superior to regular foundry players at judging the quality of a foundry quest, exclusive control over ratings you would be greatly increasing the impact of cliques on those rating. Yes, there are plenty of issues we have no control over, and some of them unfairly skew the rating (such as the wacky loot from the chest). But in the end a few "loot sucks" 1 star ratings are better than nothing but the ego stroking that would come from author only ratings.
Remember the ratings and reviews here are really more for the players of the foundry quests than the authors. They're an attempt to give would be players quick, at a glance, information on whether or not they will like the quest based on what other players have thought of it. I wouldn't mind if they added a separate review and rating system, removing the option to leave no review/anonymous ratings and they would only be visible to the author. Also people could submit more detailed, technical, helpful reviews there and rate the quest based solely on the quality of the work the author put into it.
I could see how that would benefit authors who crave validation from fellow authors/patrons of foundry quests. And those ratings would actually make more sense for use in determining a "featured" list, rather than just the input of the in-house review team.
Comments
By @Stebss
Short Code: NW-DM900IFHK
There have been thread after thread about problems with the Foundry. (Publishing Failed, Login Failure, Publishing stuck for hours, Respec not working, etc) And what thread does Sominator respond to? How to improve the ignore list. And on top of that the total response... "Cool ideas. Thanks everyone" A little lame. I would prefer no response.
Narayan
Significantly more impressive than any of your attempts to interact with the community... *Shrug*
A city to protect
innocents to save
"Why?" They ask "they hate you"
We're heroes it's what we do.
*patiently waiting on Paragon City*
I loled at this.
By @Stebss
Short Code: NW-DM900IFHK
Might be right, if I ever used c+p that is; but I don't.
All The Best
Looking For Reviews For Your Foundry Quest?
Drop By Scribe's Enclave & Meet Up With Volunteer Reviewers.
Given this is the 1st post of yours I have seen in the Foundry, and that 95% of my posts are in the Foundry, and that I spent 10 hours this last Monday doing nothing but free reviews for anyone who asked, and then PM'd them a full feedback I'm not sure you are even close to making a coherent point.
But please do try again, I laughed so much at this attempt that I am sure I'll enjoy the comedy show if it continues.
All The Best
Looking For Reviews For Your Foundry Quest?
Drop By Scribe's Enclave & Meet Up With Volunteer Reviewers.
You see, I knew others would understand.
This was my point as well, seems some need it spelling out in "Peter and Jane" steps though.
All The Best
Looking For Reviews For Your Foundry Quest?
Drop By Scribe's Enclave & Meet Up With Volunteer Reviewers.
You're putting an awful lot on Sominator, it's not like he's the foundry lead and he's committed all their resources to the topic of this one thread. He just chimed in to say that he/they have noticed this thread, that's all.
I have a lot of gripes with this game, I'm not really even a real fan of any of the ideas in this thread, but even I don't understand this response to his post.
Okay, Panic.
It's discouraged me a bit, but I know in due time the amounts of players enjoying my content and rating it honestly are the ones worthy of my time to be concerned with. My quest can be easily 1 star trolled because it's short and fast.
Almost want to make a quest that is 60 mins long, which may help in deterring those trolls from wanting to waste so much time attending this behavior.
I feel your pain, and I'm flabbergasted as well. But at this point in time there is little to be done about it. I'd honestly like for all ratings to require a comment. The 1 star trolls really do need to stop...it's getting out of hand now.
Savai,
But we don't know they are.
There is not one bit of proof in sominator's post that he has read anything in this thread other than the title. The title is all anyone would need to read to know there are ideas in this thread about improving an aspect of the game.
I'd dearly love to believe that someone with influence in the game company had read and taken note of the ideas in this thread, but the track record isn't good.
Go and found every post that Sominator has posted "Cool ideas! Thanks everyone! " or some variant thereof in, take note of the problems those ideas were aimed ad resolving and then see how many of those problems are still in the game.
I'll be shocked it its less than 90%.
So how much real notice has been taken of those "Cool ideas!"? None.
Which is why we need far more than four words as evidence that anyone has taken notice of anything.
All The Best
Looking For Reviews For Your Foundry Quest?
Drop By Scribe's Enclave & Meet Up With Volunteer Reviewers.
Sure, he chimed in to say he/they noticed this thread. What about all of the other threads that actually affect authors ability to work in the foundry? No response in any of those threads. Just this thread about a ignore list for authors.
The response is simple. Why respond to this thread and none of the other more important threads which actually affect play?
Narayan
Let me start by saying two things... 1. I have not played your quest. 2. And getting 1* bombed is wrong. I am totally against it.
Now let me say this. If you quest is one of the quests that has over 20,000 plays/reviews... Why is it in the "New" tab. It can't be that new. This is one of the things I do not like about their (Cryptic) way of sort/displaying Foundry quests. They need an expanded way of doing it.
Again let me state that you getting 1* bombed it totally wrong and something should be done.
Narayan
I rated honestly and transparently. I gave 3 stars so, personally, I think the average rating is fair. I also gave some feedback that I think would encourage those looking for nothing more than a suitable daily - they appear to be your target audience anyway.
Look guys, there are so many incredible works out there now that even if players may not know what goes into making a Foundry mission from the toolset provided, they sure as hell know what can come out of it. From that perspective a three is NOT a bad score.
This whole issue arises from the fact the catalogue holds a very limited amount of viewable quests. Spend your energies on getting that corrected, instead of complaining about the subjective stuff.
I should be able to search for quests involving eggplants and puzzles that my friends have rated highly.
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?
That and their listing system to be vastly improved.
Narayan
This would weed out a lot of the stupid/uninformed reviews I get. I am still getting a significant number of one and two star reviews for no reason other than "bad loots!" and "fix shiny path!". Uninformed reviewers are almost as disheartening as intentional trolls. I am not adverse to one or two star ratings when the reviewer's comments are genuine criticisms that I can address, but when I get downvoted because of limitations of the game that are beyond my control, it frustrates the hell out of me. And when I get a low review, I always look up the player who left the rating, not as a means to enact vengeance, I hasten to add, but just so that I can see what they themselves deem to be a good foundry mission. Except not one of the low-scorers I've looked up has published a single quest, which just adds weight to the impression that the people judging my content to be low quality actually have no clue what authors are actually capable of controlling. I genuinely believe that if publishing a quest were a requirement for unlocking the right to rate, the overall quality of reviews themselves, both favourable and unfavourable, would be more honest and more meaningful. And again, I stress that an honest, informed low review is not a bad thing; we grow from constructive criticism. But we do not grow from uninformed irrelevance dragging our content down.
This suggestion would not outright cure trolling and rating assassination, but it would limit it at least by ensuring that everyone who rates a quest is a genuine author and not just a random dummy account or a goon for hire.
It would also not prevent non-authors from playing and reviewing content, just from putting a star rating on it.
Preview/Freedback thread: http://tinyurl.com/NW-DTNZTFYDS - Now eligible for Daily Quest!
A Dwarven Dilemma Part 2 - Luskan Delights : Coming soon!
Actually I am kidding. I couldn't care less about the star rating, I just want to see what other players have to say about the quests, so it wouldn't bother me if I couldn't give a star rating. I already ignore all the "loot" or "pathing" comments anyway and I am sure the majority of the Foundry audience does too.
But I do have some idea of what it takes. Before I started playing Foundries - or at least around the same time - I did delve into the toolset to get an idea of how it works and how methodical one has to be in order to make simple placements. Ugh :eek:
This wouldn't work, for two reasons.
First, it wouldn't stop malicious ratings or otherwise gaming the system since it's ridiculously easy to publish a quest. And if you require things like, has to have X plays/reviews or be/have been on list X, you will exacerbate problem #2.
Second, cliques would be a much more serious problem with your proposed system. Just look through this forum and you'll see we're already somewhat clique-ish, we talk down about the "common", "ignorant" player who has never used the foundry and how their reviews are inferior because they don't know what goes into making a quest, or they're just plain incorrect when they're lower than what we want. With your system we would be the only ones rating each other, which would increase this behavior and lead to a lot more in-fighting as well. And frankly, as is the case with any rating based off only those "in the know", they don't reflect how most of the consumers/players would rate things (e.g. the SAG awards), making the rating system into nothing more than ego-stroking. There's too much of that already, in my opinion.
Okay, Panic.
Then we know he at least peruses the titles, unless you want to argue he's also an automated response searching for keywords like "idea" in the title, heh.
I still say that's better than not knowing someone is at least doing that, and I don't really understand how anyone could argue it isn't. Sure, have detailed responses to all complaints and suggestions would be nice, but it's not only unrealistic it would undermine their ability to update the game at all both because of time limitations and the inevitable PR disaster it would cause.
Engineers, programmers, technically minded people are simply not good at communication, the few that are passable will eventually explode in a frustration filled rant if they are forced to have to deal with customers constantly. PR, CS, marketers are not good at expressing complicated, technical concepts in a way that makes any kind of sense, and even the ones who are passable at it will eventually make mistakes, causing the forums to explode with frustration filled rants created by players.
There's no winning here for them, the best they can do is to be infrequent in their contributions, expressing only the most important things either concisely if it's simple or vaguely if it's complex. Any more than that would likely cause even larger problems for them.
And we really don't know where these foundry publishing issues fall, or what, if any, solutions they have to the problem at this point. It could be that we would consider any solution they've come up with so far to be far worse than the problem. What would be their incentive to come on the forums and tell us that? To increase the amount of rage on the forums?
Would anyone really be satisfied just to know that they know there's a problem with foundry publishing? Because if so, I think it's pretty safe to assume they do since it appears they have to manually restart the server every time it happens.
Okay, Panic.
I just wanted to talk about this one part. Forgive me for snipping your post.
Playing Devils Advocate here. How do you know that not one has published a quest? You do know that not every new quest shows up in the For Review tab, right? And you do know that not every quest shows up in the new tab either, right? So these being true, how do you know that not one has published a quest?
Edit to add: Just to show you... I have 4 quests published. Please try and find them listed in the For Review tab. One has 7 reviews. Two have 2 reviews. and One has 1 review. The one with 7 reviews you can find by searching @narayansingh. The other 3 you cannot find without the short code. And yes I know they are not that good. I am still learning and have a long way to go. But I enjoy making them anyways.
Narayan
I never said it would. In fact, I specifically said it would not directly completely cure malicious ratings. I was aiming entirely at uninformed ratings. There is a world of difference between the two, yet they are both a problem.
I do not believe this to be true. As you say, they are already an issue. Personally I want no part of them; I do my own thing. If other people like my stuff, that's nice, but I do not make for those people, I make for myself. But none the less, cliques exist, there is no avoiding that, it's human nature to group up with like minded individuals; neither my suggestion, Cryptic's system, nor any system you or anyone else could possibly come up with will ever stop cliques from happening.
Right, but we're not talking about people simply evaluating, here, we're talking about their evaluation having impact regardless of context or qualification. Your comparison is massively over simplified and does not reflect how either the foundry or the art world works. Anyone can appreciate art (or not appreciate it), but art is not valued or curated by unqualified observers.
My suggestion was that non-authors should still be able to review quests, just not impact on the overall quality rating. I've never said you need to be an author to appreciate a foundry quest, but I do believe that uninformed reviewers should not be able to adversely affect quality assessments. By your example, this is the equivalent of someone saying "This photograph is out of focus and should not be in this gallery!" of an oil painting, which, if enough people leave that comment then gets removed from the gallery for being an out of focus photograph, shortly followed by the artist throwing away his oil paints, burning all his canvases and taking up a life of crime. You do not need to be an artist to appreciate art, but in the real art world, art is not assessed for value by random passers by any more than the Louvre is curated by random tourists who walk through the door.
There is a world of difference between public opinion and professional critique in the art world, and the same applies to movies, books, theatre, sports, holidays, basically everything that is assessed. Both public opinion and professional critique serve their purpose, and both are important, but they are entirely different beasts. This is why sites such as metacritic typically separate the two and why awards ceremonies are more frequently including "viewers choice" awards. Both matter, but they need to be separated, not indistinguishably mashed together like they are in the foundry at present.
Preview/Freedback thread: http://tinyurl.com/NW-DTNZTFYDS - Now eligible for Daily Quest!
A Dwarven Dilemma Part 2 - Luskan Delights : Coming soon!
By giving a small group, many of which already consider themselves superior to regular foundry players at judging the quality of a foundry quest, exclusive control over ratings you would be greatly increasing the impact of cliques on those rating. Yes, there are plenty of issues we have no control over, and some of them unfairly skew the rating (such as the wacky loot from the chest). But in the end a few "loot sucks" 1 star ratings are better than nothing but the ego stroking that would come from author only ratings.
Remember the ratings and reviews here are really more for the players of the foundry quests than the authors. They're an attempt to give would be players quick, at a glance, information on whether or not they will like the quest based on what other players have thought of it. I wouldn't mind if they added a separate review and rating system, removing the option to leave no review/anonymous ratings and they would only be visible to the author. Also people could submit more detailed, technical, helpful reviews there and rate the quest based solely on the quality of the work the author put into it.
I could see how that would benefit authors who crave validation from fellow authors/patrons of foundry quests. And those ratings would actually make more sense for use in determining a "featured" list, rather than just the input of the in-house review team.
Okay, Panic.