Sigh. You actually think these exploit quests get 100s of 5 star reviews almost instantaneously by having friends vote them up? That is not how they do it... They use bots.
Not talking about exploit quests. I'm talking the same small group of people in a certain guild who get Best and Featured over and over and over, and it always happens overnight. When you got a hundred people on hand to instantly five star you due to allegiance, it's easy to continually be successful, and hog the best list.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
0
Options
cipher9nemoMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
1) Honesty: start being honest with ourselves (individually) that people have the right to 1 Star us if they want to. Yes, we'd like some constructive feedback with that 1*, but we can't make that happen.
And let's stop bashing people who give 5 stars all the time too. It goes both ways.
3) Honesty: as reviewers and reviewees. I have used the "Review Trade" thing twice so far - I have no intention of using it for my "Part 3". Because there is an implicit expectation that in a "review trade" we are actually asking for "good review trades".
I think that's where it is right now, but it doesn't have to be that way. Authors can start saying "I want honest reviews, not just positive reviews". If the authors don't expressly initiate that interest in all reviews from 1 to 5 stars, it's not going to happen. And that's because of the way the rating system works.
It's not really the author's fault for wanting high ratings, it's the system into which we're placed. When the system rewards high ratings to be placed higher in the catalog, there's little we can do as an entire community to expect people to ignore that. So before we try to ask each other to change the laws of human nature, let's ask to change the rating system instead. Otherwise this will be a problem that occurs over and over again, indefinitely.
If we all did that, time permitting, there'd be no real reason for any Foundry Quest to be stuck in "review hell" for longer than a couple of day.
7) Review Guidelines: It'd be nice if we would all voluntarily choose to work towards using a similar set of guidelines for reviews. I suggest we start a thread to hash that out, but I think we all have a rough idea of how it works.
Instead of trying to change human nature, how about we rally to change the system instead? After all, we are not a closed community. You can't expect authors who show up here and are new to abide by some unwritten rules we agreed to in a thread that will eventually sink to the bottom of this forum over time.
8) This one needs a Mod's / Community Manager's help A "For Review Sticky", a stickied thread where we can all pop a single post asking for Reviews, there would be no feedback provided in this thread (so we'd need a Mod to help keep it that way), only requests for a review.
That's just not going to happen. It defeats the purpose of the forums for discussion and debate. The only forum mechanic to do that is to lock/close the thread, which then makes it difficult to "pop a single post asking for Reviews".
Now, I'm happy to take criticism for any of these ideas, but if you can't keep it constructive/civil please send it via PM so as to avoid getting this thread locked. Thanks.
Hopefully I did, or at least came across that way. No personal attacks or insults, just debate.
Like I said, you do not need hundreds of people. All you need are questionable morals and a PC that can run a bot.
Either way, I think we both agree the rating system is already badly skewed, whether it's by bots, super advertisers, guilds, or whatever. I spent a fortnight review trading, and the result was negligible. Don't believe me? I have an achievement to prove it.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
0
Options
xhritMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
drnoesisMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited July 2013
I don't have enough friends that play in order to get a map out of review limbo through word of mouth. Even those friends I do have that play haven't yet played the quest through, despite promising to do so.
As Wushin said, it might not be ideal, but review trading is necessary for some of us to even get our work out there for others to see.
As for these unspoken rules regarding review trading, in my case the feedback I had seems pretty objective and balanced, and that's all I'm interested in receiving or returning in kind. I'd like to think the reviews I've had were earned rather than bought, but I can't be held responsible if a reviewer believes otherwise. Either way I've been extremely fortunate that the people that have reviewed me have been willing to work through a pretty quest breaking bug caused by cryptics software and made it to the end to leave a review.
That said, I just want to tell stories. I kinda hope other people like experiencing them, and I know that some people wont. For me at least the real thing is getting the idea out of my head and down into a medium that I can share. Once that's done, the typos are dealt with and the silly bugs caused by oversight are resolved, it's out of my hands. Sure I'd love to be the new Tolkien or Rowling, but the ratings really don't bother me, it's just cool that other people can climb inside of a piece of my imagination and take it for a spin for 30-40 mins.
Instead of trying to change human nature, how about we rally to change the system instead? After all, we are not a closed community. You can't expect authors who show up here and are new to abide by some unwritten rules we agreed to in a thread that will eventually sink to the bottom of this forum over time.
I'm pretty new to this forum, haven't really noticed much abuse. A little from one person but that's about it.
There dose seem to be a system, from the small amount of reviews I have had I would say it is like this:
Authors trade reviews to get plays so there quests can be 'seen', if the reviewer feels it is worth 4 or 5 stars they do so if it is below that then they don't, instead they pm the author and tell them why, such as bugs spelling and what not. This is a good system.
realistically this is not about stars, it is about getting plays. I think you need 5 plays for it to appear in the new tab and be searchable by name and 20 plays for the daily thing. The stars is a system that is for players, so they know the good from the bad. With a better
categorization system this would work better. but whatever, that's another issue.
But in my opinion no author should give another author anything lower than a 4 star. The reason for this is because Authors are playing quest's that are often incomplete. If we are to one star a quests because of some bugs or bad grammar then when those mistakes are fixed then the rating becomes obsolete. However, how will a player know this? He/she will just think it is rubbish and choose another.
Not everyone will stick to this and that is why some people get offended when they receive a low rating from another Author. I'm afraid that is life, but if people then go and one star in return then the community breaks down and we end up with threads like this.
I don't have enough friends that play in order to get a map out of review limbo through word of mouth. Even those friends I do have that play haven't yet played the quest through, despite promising to do so.
As Wushin said, it might not be ideal, but review trading is necessary for some of us to even get our work out there for others to see.
I kind of agree, my Guild has gone from 40 active players to just me since game went live.
Even then only 3 of my guildmates have played either of my quests.
Now, IIRC, a quest needs 5 Reviews to get out of "Review Hell" and 20 Plays to make it to Daily eligible.
So what we need is a group of Authors willing to fairly review "new quests" and get them out of "Review Hell" ASAP.
If there's enough willing to help it may even make it to Daily Eligible.
So are there 15-20 of us willing to band together to do that?
I'm not talking about "trading" reviews. Because not all of us will have something for review when others of us need reviews.
I'm talking about when one of us says "Just released xyz, would like some reviews to get it out of review hell / daily eligible" are there enough of us willing to stand up and lend a hand and make that happen as soon as is reasonably possible?
Even if that means taking 20 - 60 mins away from our own work?
I've noticed from my own two days of doing reviews that a 20 minute "play time" quest usually takes me twice that long to review, and then another 15 mins typing the review in to a PM.
So a 60 minute quest could be 2 hours "work" to review.
I'm certainly willing to step up and give it a go; if it works then cool, we've found a way to help one another out of "review hell", if it doesn't work we'll know soon enough and can call it quits.
But in my opinion no author should give another author anything lower than a 4 star. The reason for this is because Authors are playing quest's that are often incomplete. If we are to one star a quests because of some bugs or bad grammar then when those mistakes are fixed then the rating becomes obsolete. However, how will a player know this? He/she will just think it is rubbish and choose another.
Not everyone will stick to this and that is why some people get offended when they receive a low rating from another Author. I'm afraid that is life, but if people then go and one star in return then the community breaks down and we end up with threads like this.
I think the problem some have mentioned is that there is back-stabbing occurring as a rivalry between authors. As in they intentionally rate down a rival's quest in order to drop it on the lists. Others mentioned that authors are just giving honest ratings and not intentionally trying to drop a quest's average rating. So there is some mistrust there on either side.
I don't know which of those is true, or if both have some truth to them, or how rampant this is. So I have to take every author's input here 'with a grain of salt'.
As for the general insults and personal attacks, I have seen that since it's easily visible in multiple threads.
Ultimately I just hope 1.) the rating system gets revamped by Cryptic, but that's probably going to be slow or never happen, and 2.) we don't feel the need to create these drama threads. For the latter, it's a real problem or a perceived one, but either way we shouldn't be having these sort of threads since they only bring about more drama.
I'm talking about when one of us says "Just released xyz, would like some reviews to get it out of review hell / daily eligible" are there enough of us willing to stand up and lend a hand and make that happen as soon as is reasonably possible?
Even if that means taking 20 - 60 mins away from our own work?
I've noticed from my own two days of doing reviews that a 20 minute "play time" quest usually takes me twice that long to review, and then another 15 mins typing the review in to a PM.
So a 60 minute quest could be 2 hours "work" to review.
I'm certainly willing to step up and give it a go; if it works then cool, we've found a way to help one another out of "review hell", if it doesn't work we'll know soon enough and can call it quits.
All The Best
I'd love to, but my problem is getting time to get online in the first place. Outside of work, there's only a window of around 3-4 hours a night at a push, weekdays, where I can potentially get on the pc and game. Into that I have to squeeze gaming, spending time with the missus and every other IRL job that needs doing before I go to bed. It means I get on very sporadically, if at all during the week, and the weekends aren't much better.
That said, I'm happy to sink some of the game time I do get into providing people with objective review's if they want them and can be as in depth and analytical as people want.
If you (or anyone) want to set up some kind of review factory scheme thing, and are looking for reviewers, you can count me in, but like I said, I can't guarantee when I'll be on from one day to the next.
Possibly the best approach would be to have categorised pools of quests to review, and reviewers just dip in to their genre of choice, pull out the next Q on the list and start work on it if/when able.
0
Options
cipher9nemoMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Of course, I do realize that's unlikely to happen, however I am always reminded of the old quote:
The fallacy of that old saying "rat race" is people buying into the notion that they have to compete in life in the first place. Some people get enjoyment from that, and that's fine. But on the other hand, what would happen if you remove those rewards? You still want to help the bottom line without removing the competition and success model that encourages people to 'put their best foot forward'. I would argue that bottom line of human nature within our societies seeks comfort and convenience above all else. So if you provide just enough of those two to take away the other rewards, you end up with a dependent society that never gets anything done. You need a mix of comfort, convenience, and competition.
As for how that plays into Foundry authors in Neverwinter: our comfort is having our quests played and appreciated, and the convenience is having the Foundry editor working smoothing and those quests automatically sorted and listed within the catalog system. When one of those two breaks or lets us down we'll try to join in the "rat race" to compensate. Then the competition is getting your quest to the top of the listings. Some will of course want to put even more effort into it to work the system, so we'll see things like contests, hyper advertisers, etc.
So why don't we come together as a community and try to rally for a change that provides all of these: comfort, convenience, and a way to succeed? Surely we can find a system that can reward on all levels. You won't be able to please everyone, but you will be able to provide ways for everyone to seek out that which makes them happy.
5) Review Pass It On: If you review me I'll review someone else (ash4ll's review thread is very, very much based on this). It breaks the implied bargain between reviewer and reviewee, because the relationship is now linear, not circular.
Agreed - that's one reason I started the "Review the Post Below Yours" thread:
So what we need is a group of Authors willing to fairly review "new quests" and get them out of "Review Hell" ASAP.
If there's enough willing to help it may even make it to Daily Eligible.
So are there 15-20 of us willing to band together to do that?
I'm not talking about "trading" reviews. Because not all of us will have something for review when others of us need reviews.
I'm talking about when one of us says "Just released xyz, would like some reviews to get it out of review hell / daily eligible" are there enough of us willing to stand up and lend a hand and make that happen as soon as is reasonably possible?
...
This should be how these forums work anyway, at least it is for me. I agree with the comment made earlier that new authors should just post their quest, describe it so we know what it's like, and wait for us to review it, rather than ask for trades. Most likely newer authors keep posting "trading reviews" because that's what they see others doing.
My method is this:
1. Look for posts about new quests, read for certain flags in their description. I test with a level 60 Cleric, so if they say "hard," or "heavy combat," or "may be easier with two people," i'm sorry, i can't do that one, but hopefully someone else can. When i've really wanted to run one of those anyway, i asked a friend to come with.
2. Write the info down on a post-it note, and play it when i can. Certain circumstances keep me from being able to review just any time, and i don't like to review if i'm rushed, too tired, distracted, or in the wrong mood for it, as it skews my perception.
3. After playing it, go back and post what i liked about it on their thread, being careful not to drop spoilers. Tell them i'm sending notes in a PM, and then send the notes in the PM, including specific spoilerish things i really liked, what i didn't like about it, and errors that need their attention. I don't say "okay you do me now," and most of the authors i've reviewed have not reviewed me in return, but that's okay. I don't want them to feel obligated, and they may not like the type of quest i've published, so i don't want to force them into playing something they don't want to play.
Honestly, i've neglected reviewing for awhile, for different reasons. As much as i'd like to say "yeah i'll be in your reviewer group!", i worry that i will not be able to contribute as much as would be expected of me. Sometimes people ask me directly to review their quest, and those i try to accommodate asap. Otherwise, i do try to help new quests out of the review tab and over the 20-play mark, when i am able.
The root cause of the drama is not the people within the community. It is the review system itself.
I have to ask. How is the review system in NW different then the one in STO? Because STO doesn't seem to have these same kinds of problems. At least it didn't when I was last playing that game about 4-5 months ago.
In STO, you can rate a mission with 1 to 5 stars, and leave a comment give a tip. Then missions are ranked based on their avg star rating. Although you can do an advanced search and filter the list based on star rating, time of mission, and author name. In STO the easy grind missions all raced to the top, because people wanted to do 4 15 min missions to get the daily done. Myself because I play foundry missions for the story, I only ever looked at 4+ stars and 30+ minute missions. That always got me missions that were much more then simple grinders or exploits.
I haven't had much chance to really look at the foundry in NW yet, just started playing on Monday. But I played a ton of foundry stuff in STO and would lurk the foundry boards there. I never saw the kind of issues that you all have here, in that game.
So either the rating system works differently, and Cryptic needs to port the STO system into here. Or else it's not the system but the community that's the problem here.
0
Options
xhritMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
I think the problem some have mentioned is that there is back-stabbing occurring as a rivalry between authors. As in they intentionally rate down a rival's quest in order to drop it on the lists. Others mentioned that authors are just giving honest ratings and not intentionally trying to drop a quest's average rating. So there is some mistrust there on either side.
I don't know which of those is true, or if both have some truth to them, or how rampant this is. So I have to take every author's input here 'with a grain of salt'.
I don't need a grain of salt. I have screenshots.
<<Do not repost private ingame communications. This falls under the rule of no reposting of private communications of any kind in RoC.>>
Never used a forum which insists on randomly deleting half a post before. Fun, eh?
I sent you a PM about this but won't be surprised if you didn't spot it because PM notifications aren't turned on by default.
Even the forums only half work around here!
It's not random, if you use a character with an accent mark, it deletes everything after that. Even dev's posts have been affected, posts corrected, and commented on that being why. That happened to devs long ago, still not fixed, so my eta on the fix is never.
I haven't had much chance to really look at the foundry in NW yet, just started playing on Monday. But I played a ton of foundry stuff in STO and would lurk the foundry boards there. I never saw the kind of issues that you all have here, in that game.
Wow, what??
There was a MASSIVE flamewar several months ago, there's been a constant harangue by some folks who like farm maps and authors, with the grinders just tearing into the authors as 'self-styled Foundry elite.' The grinders accused the 'elites' of dictating behavior from Cryptic (ha!) because authors would complain about exploits and Cryptic EVENTUALLY fixed many of them (it took Cryptic a year to fix a 'go in and click something, done, here's your reward' thing, and at the end of it Cryptic complained that the authors hadn't adequately policed themselves. Nice)
Grinders claimed that Cryptic was eager to do anything the elites said because they provided vital content for Cryptic. It was... bizarre.
And, yes, there was constant 1-star bombing of authors. A bunch of really good authors left.
It was so fun. I managed to get my first permanent forum ban, anywhere, on STO over it. (Some guy was being really terrible and loud without getting modded in any visible way to people who were nice and not up to being shouted at, then a mod chided some authors for being 'part of the problem' when they were snide. Yeah. I pretty much suicided by mod at that point. Sigh)
So, no, STO isn't better.
Campaign: The Fenwick Cycle NWS-DKR9GB7KH
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?
0
Options
cipher9nemoMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
There was a MASSIVE flamewar several months ago, there's been a constant harangue by some folks who like farm maps and authors, with the grinders just tearing into the authors as 'self-styled Foundry elite.' The grinders accused the 'elites' of dictating behavior from Cryptic (ha!) because authors would complain about exploits and Cryptic EVENTUALLY fixed many of them (it took Cryptic a year to fix a 'go in and click something, done, here's your reward' thing, and at the end of it Cryptic complained that the authors hadn't adequately policed themselves. Nice)
Grinders claimed that Cryptic was eager to do anything the elites said because they provided vital content for Cryptic. It was... bizarre.
And, yes, there was constant 1-star bombing of authors. A bunch of really good authors left.
It was so fun. I managed to get my first permanent forum ban, anywhere, on STO over it. (Some guy was being really terrible and loud without getting modded in any visible way to people who were nice and not up to being shouted at, then a mod chided some authors for being 'part of the problem' when they were snide. Yeah. I pretty much suicided by mod at that point. Sigh)
So, no, STO isn't better.
Thanks for the summary from your perspective. I never came back to STO to see what the Foundry was like, so I'm glad I missed that whole community flaming session. Good to know the Foundry community there wasn't perfect either.
And as I pointed out in my post, I haven't been playing STO for several months. So the most I could comment on was what I saw when I was there.
with the grinders just tearing into the authors as 'self-styled Foundry elite.'
That I remember, but that was a different thing then what seems to be talked about here. That was two different types of authors fighting over the "proper" use of the foundry. A number of foundry authors seemed to believe that unless the mission was over 30-45 min's as a minimum, and didn't have at least X words of dialog. It shouldn't be allowed in the system.
Can't we all just do the same here and apologize for our own parts in whatever disputes have come up and move on? And I'm not just talking about mine or where I'm involved.
0
Options
xhritMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
You really think you're so clever? This is a small community buddy. Everyone knows the reference. How some ppl are going to sit here on the forums and try to make friends even though the whole community knows their MO. I just find some of these post amusing.
And what reference is that? The reference to a certain person, who's name I will not mention, that 1 star troll people's quests if they are above their own on the best list?
That's what the grinders claimed the elite were saying. Which wasn't.
Actually that was exactly what some of them were saying. Not all of them, perhaps not even most of them. But it wasn't a completely unheard of attitude. That the grinder missions were polluting the Foundry system.
Actually that was exactly what some of them were saying. Not all of them, perhaps not even most of them. But it wasn't a completely unheard of attitude. That the grinder missions were polluting the Foundry system.
Grinder missions were drowning the lists so you couldn't FIND other, more involved missions. They were getting all the plays and visibility.
They 'pollute the system' because the point of Foundry is to provide a venue for creative and varied content, not just another way to pump the handle for loot.
But like many authors pointed out, this didn't require a lot of dialog or long missions. Authors REPEATEDLY pointed out that a good story mission could be 15-30 minutes, and didn't have to be some monstrously long all-day mission.
This was constantly ignored over the easier cheap-shot about 'foundry elites want these unattainable boring stupid story missions nobody else wants to play, give it up, we don't want to read your garbage!'
This sound familiar to anyone? Yeah.
Which is one indictment of Cryptic -- they've had 2 years of this crud going on with STO to learn from.
Campaign: The Fenwick Cycle NWS-DKR9GB7KH
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?
0
Options
ellindar1Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
And what reference is that? The reference to a certain person, who's name I will not mention, that 1 star troll people's quests if they are above their own on the best list?
Funny.
I have very little input anymore sigh. I've said my peace to all and apologized to those I needed to. One thing I do know, I've never given out a 1 star to a an author's quest. If I actually had bad feedback or something I felt needed fixed I let them know and moved on.
Grinder missions were drowning the lists so you couldn't FIND other, more involved missions.
No, that's not even remotely true. I had no issue at all finding good and involved missions when I played. Just had to use the filters. In fact I played most of the Spotlight missions before they were even featured. This was during the time of the Click the Console missions and the 15 minute long nothing shoots back missions.
Anyone who couldn't find good missions had only themselves to blame, and not the grinder missions. Because it was quite easy to filter out the grinders.
Comments
Not talking about exploit quests. I'm talking the same small group of people in a certain guild who get Best and Featured over and over and over, and it always happens overnight. When you got a hundred people on hand to instantly five star you due to allegiance, it's easy to continually be successful, and hog the best list.
And let's stop bashing people who give 5 stars all the time too. It goes both ways.
I think that's where it is right now, but it doesn't have to be that way. Authors can start saying "I want honest reviews, not just positive reviews". If the authors don't expressly initiate that interest in all reviews from 1 to 5 stars, it's not going to happen. And that's because of the way the rating system works.
It's not really the author's fault for wanting high ratings, it's the system into which we're placed. When the system rewards high ratings to be placed higher in the catalog, there's little we can do as an entire community to expect people to ignore that. So before we try to ask each other to change the laws of human nature, let's ask to change the rating system instead. Otherwise this will be a problem that occurs over and over again, indefinitely.
Instead of trying to change human nature, how about we rally to change the system instead? After all, we are not a closed community. You can't expect authors who show up here and are new to abide by some unwritten rules we agreed to in a thread that will eventually sink to the bottom of this forum over time.
That's just not going to happen. It defeats the purpose of the forums for discussion and debate. The only forum mechanic to do that is to lock/close the thread, which then makes it difficult to "pop a single post asking for Reviews".
Hopefully I did, or at least came across that way. No personal attacks or insults, just debate.
Hammerfist Clan. Jump into the Night: NW-DMXWRYTAD
Like I said, you do not need hundreds of people. All you need are questionable morals and a PC that can run a bot.
Feast of the Moon | Rising of the Dark | Shadow of the World | Everdark
Either way, I think we both agree the rating system is already badly skewed, whether it's by bots, super advertisers, guilds, or whatever. I spent a fortnight review trading, and the result was negligible. Don't believe me? I have an achievement to prove it.
Feast of the Moon | Rising of the Dark | Shadow of the World | Everdark
As Wushin said, it might not be ideal, but review trading is necessary for some of us to even get our work out there for others to see.
As for these unspoken rules regarding review trading, in my case the feedback I had seems pretty objective and balanced, and that's all I'm interested in receiving or returning in kind. I'd like to think the reviews I've had were earned rather than bought, but I can't be held responsible if a reviewer believes otherwise. Either way I've been extremely fortunate that the people that have reviewed me have been willing to work through a pretty quest breaking bug caused by cryptics software and made it to the end to leave a review.
That said, I just want to tell stories. I kinda hope other people like experiencing them, and I know that some people wont. For me at least the real thing is getting the idea out of my head and down into a medium that I can share. Once that's done, the typos are dealt with and the silly bugs caused by oversight are resolved, it's out of my hands. Sure I'd love to be the new Tolkien or Rowling, but the ratings really don't bother me, it's just cool that other people can climb inside of a piece of my imagination and take it for a spin for 30-40 mins.
Indeed. I've recommended your quest in a couple of threads. Hope that helps you.
W000t
Fēichang gǎnxie
EDIT: lost half my post as the forum deleted everything after Fēich o.0 can't remember enough of what I typed now to put it back lol
I'm pretty new to this forum, haven't really noticed much abuse. A little from one person but that's about it.
There dose seem to be a system, from the small amount of reviews I have had I would say it is like this:
Authors trade reviews to get plays so there quests can be 'seen', if the reviewer feels it is worth 4 or 5 stars they do so if it is below that then they don't, instead they pm the author and tell them why, such as bugs spelling and what not. This is a good system.
realistically this is not about stars, it is about getting plays. I think you need 5 plays for it to appear in the new tab and be searchable by name and 20 plays for the daily thing. The stars is a system that is for players, so they know the good from the bad. With a better
categorization system this would work better. but whatever, that's another issue.
But in my opinion no author should give another author anything lower than a 4 star. The reason for this is because Authors are playing quest's that are often incomplete. If we are to one star a quests because of some bugs or bad grammar then when those mistakes are fixed then the rating becomes obsolete. However, how will a player know this? He/she will just think it is rubbish and choose another.
Not everyone will stick to this and that is why some people get offended when they receive a low rating from another Author. I'm afraid that is life, but if people then go and one star in return then the community breaks down and we end up with threads like this.
Personally, I'd rather change human nature
Of course, I do realize that's unlikely to happen, however I am always reminded of the old quote:
I kind of agree, my Guild has gone from 40 active players to just me since game went live.
Even then only 3 of my guildmates have played either of my quests.
Now, IIRC, a quest needs 5 Reviews to get out of "Review Hell" and 20 Plays to make it to Daily eligible.
So what we need is a group of Authors willing to fairly review "new quests" and get them out of "Review Hell" ASAP.
If there's enough willing to help it may even make it to Daily Eligible.
So are there 15-20 of us willing to band together to do that?
I'm not talking about "trading" reviews. Because not all of us will have something for review when others of us need reviews.
I'm talking about when one of us says "Just released xyz, would like some reviews to get it out of review hell / daily eligible" are there enough of us willing to stand up and lend a hand and make that happen as soon as is reasonably possible?
Even if that means taking 20 - 60 mins away from our own work?
I've noticed from my own two days of doing reviews that a 20 minute "play time" quest usually takes me twice that long to review, and then another 15 mins typing the review in to a PM.
So a 60 minute quest could be 2 hours "work" to review.
I'm certainly willing to step up and give it a go; if it works then cool, we've found a way to help one another out of "review hell", if it doesn't work we'll know soon enough and can call it quits.
All The Best
Looking For Reviews For Your Foundry Quest?
Drop By Scribe's Enclave & Meet Up With Volunteer Reviewers.
I think the problem some have mentioned is that there is back-stabbing occurring as a rivalry between authors. As in they intentionally rate down a rival's quest in order to drop it on the lists. Others mentioned that authors are just giving honest ratings and not intentionally trying to drop a quest's average rating. So there is some mistrust there on either side.
I don't know which of those is true, or if both have some truth to them, or how rampant this is. So I have to take every author's input here 'with a grain of salt'.
As for the general insults and personal attacks, I have seen that since it's easily visible in multiple threads.
Ultimately I just hope 1.) the rating system gets revamped by Cryptic, but that's probably going to be slow or never happen, and 2.) we don't feel the need to create these drama threads. For the latter, it's a real problem or a perceived one, but either way we shouldn't be having these sort of threads since they only bring about more drama.
Hammerfist Clan. Jump into the Night: NW-DMXWRYTAD
I'd love to, but my problem is getting time to get online in the first place. Outside of work, there's only a window of around 3-4 hours a night at a push, weekdays, where I can potentially get on the pc and game. Into that I have to squeeze gaming, spending time with the missus and every other IRL job that needs doing before I go to bed. It means I get on very sporadically, if at all during the week, and the weekends aren't much better.
That said, I'm happy to sink some of the game time I do get into providing people with objective review's if they want them and can be as in depth and analytical as people want.
If you (or anyone) want to set up some kind of review factory scheme thing, and are looking for reviewers, you can count me in, but like I said, I can't guarantee when I'll be on from one day to the next.
Possibly the best approach would be to have categorised pools of quests to review, and reviewers just dip in to their genre of choice, pull out the next Q on the list and start work on it if/when able.
The fallacy of that old saying "rat race" is people buying into the notion that they have to compete in life in the first place. Some people get enjoyment from that, and that's fine. But on the other hand, what would happen if you remove those rewards? You still want to help the bottom line without removing the competition and success model that encourages people to 'put their best foot forward'. I would argue that bottom line of human nature within our societies seeks comfort and convenience above all else. So if you provide just enough of those two to take away the other rewards, you end up with a dependent society that never gets anything done. You need a mix of comfort, convenience, and competition.
As for how that plays into Foundry authors in Neverwinter: our comfort is having our quests played and appreciated, and the convenience is having the Foundry editor working smoothing and those quests automatically sorted and listed within the catalog system. When one of those two breaks or lets us down we'll try to join in the "rat race" to compensate. Then the competition is getting your quest to the top of the listings. Some will of course want to put even more effort into it to work the system, so we'll see things like contests, hyper advertisers, etc.
So why don't we come together as a community and try to rally for a change that provides all of these: comfort, convenience, and a way to succeed? Surely we can find a system that can reward on all levels. You won't be able to please everyone, but you will be able to provide ways for everyone to seek out that which makes them happy.
Hammerfist Clan. Jump into the Night: NW-DMXWRYTAD
Agreed - that's one reason I started the "Review the Post Below Yours" thread:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?255122-lt-lt-Review-the-post-below-yours-gt-gt
The Cursed Emerald:
This should be how these forums work anyway, at least it is for me. I agree with the comment made earlier that new authors should just post their quest, describe it so we know what it's like, and wait for us to review it, rather than ask for trades. Most likely newer authors keep posting "trading reviews" because that's what they see others doing.
My method is this:
1. Look for posts about new quests, read for certain flags in their description. I test with a level 60 Cleric, so if they say "hard," or "heavy combat," or "may be easier with two people," i'm sorry, i can't do that one, but hopefully someone else can. When i've really wanted to run one of those anyway, i asked a friend to come with.
2. Write the info down on a post-it note, and play it when i can. Certain circumstances keep me from being able to review just any time, and i don't like to review if i'm rushed, too tired, distracted, or in the wrong mood for it, as it skews my perception.
3. After playing it, go back and post what i liked about it on their thread, being careful not to drop spoilers. Tell them i'm sending notes in a PM, and then send the notes in the PM, including specific spoilerish things i really liked, what i didn't like about it, and errors that need their attention. I don't say "okay you do me now," and most of the authors i've reviewed have not reviewed me in return, but that's okay. I don't want them to feel obligated, and they may not like the type of quest i've published, so i don't want to force them into playing something they don't want to play.
Honestly, i've neglected reviewing for awhile, for different reasons. As much as i'd like to say "yeah i'll be in your reviewer group!", i worry that i will not be able to contribute as much as would be expected of me. Sometimes people ask me directly to review their quest, and those i try to accommodate asap. Otherwise, i do try to help new quests out of the review tab and over the 20-play mark, when i am able.
[UGC] Kolde Acres (Discontinued)
I sent you a PM about this but won't be surprised if you didn't spot it because PM notifications aren't turned on by default.
Even the forums only half work around here!
Quest ID: NW-DPCZNUVQ7
I have to ask. How is the review system in NW different then the one in STO? Because STO doesn't seem to have these same kinds of problems. At least it didn't when I was last playing that game about 4-5 months ago.
In STO, you can rate a mission with 1 to 5 stars, and leave a comment give a tip. Then missions are ranked based on their avg star rating. Although you can do an advanced search and filter the list based on star rating, time of mission, and author name. In STO the easy grind missions all raced to the top, because people wanted to do 4 15 min missions to get the daily done. Myself because I play foundry missions for the story, I only ever looked at 4+ stars and 30+ minute missions. That always got me missions that were much more then simple grinders or exploits.
I haven't had much chance to really look at the foundry in NW yet, just started playing on Monday. But I played a ton of foundry stuff in STO and would lurk the foundry boards there. I never saw the kind of issues that you all have here, in that game.
So either the rating system works differently, and Cryptic needs to port the STO system into here. Or else it's not the system but the community that's the problem here.
I don't need a grain of salt. I have screenshots.
<<Do not repost private ingame communications. This falls under the rule of no reposting of private communications of any kind in RoC.>>
Feast of the Moon | Rising of the Dark | Shadow of the World | Everdark
Wow, what??
There was a MASSIVE flamewar several months ago, there's been a constant harangue by some folks who like farm maps and authors, with the grinders just tearing into the authors as 'self-styled Foundry elite.' The grinders accused the 'elites' of dictating behavior from Cryptic (ha!) because authors would complain about exploits and Cryptic EVENTUALLY fixed many of them (it took Cryptic a year to fix a 'go in and click something, done, here's your reward' thing, and at the end of it Cryptic complained that the authors hadn't adequately policed themselves. Nice)
Grinders claimed that Cryptic was eager to do anything the elites said because they provided vital content for Cryptic. It was... bizarre.
And, yes, there was constant 1-star bombing of authors. A bunch of really good authors left.
It was so fun. I managed to get my first permanent forum ban, anywhere, on STO over it. (Some guy was being really terrible and loud without getting modded in any visible way to people who were nice and not up to being shouted at, then a mod chided some authors for being 'part of the problem' when they were snide. Yeah. I pretty much suicided by mod at that point. Sigh)
So, no, STO isn't better.
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?
Thanks for the summary from your perspective. I never came back to STO to see what the Foundry was like, so I'm glad I missed that whole community flaming session. Good to know the Foundry community there wasn't perfect either.
Hammerfist Clan. Jump into the Night: NW-DMXWRYTAD
And as I pointed out in my post, I haven't been playing STO for several months. So the most I could comment on was what I saw when I was there.
That I remember, but that was a different thing then what seems to be talked about here. That was two different types of authors fighting over the "proper" use of the foundry. A number of foundry authors seemed to believe that unless the mission was over 30-45 min's as a minimum, and didn't have at least X words of dialog. It shouldn't be allowed in the system.
See? There's the same BS and conflicts over there.
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?
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?397351-Disappointed/page2
Can't we all just do the same here and apologize for our own parts in whatever disputes have come up and move on? And I'm not just talking about mine or where I'm involved.
And what reference is that? The reference to a certain person, who's name I will not mention, that 1 star troll people's quests if they are above their own on the best list?
Funny.
Feast of the Moon | Rising of the Dark | Shadow of the World | Everdark
Actually that was exactly what some of them were saying. Not all of them, perhaps not even most of them. But it wasn't a completely unheard of attitude. That the grinder missions were polluting the Foundry system.
Grinder missions were drowning the lists so you couldn't FIND other, more involved missions. They were getting all the plays and visibility.
They 'pollute the system' because the point of Foundry is to provide a venue for creative and varied content, not just another way to pump the handle for loot.
But like many authors pointed out, this didn't require a lot of dialog or long missions. Authors REPEATEDLY pointed out that a good story mission could be 15-30 minutes, and didn't have to be some monstrously long all-day mission.
This was constantly ignored over the easier cheap-shot about 'foundry elites want these unattainable boring stupid story missions nobody else wants to play, give it up, we don't want to read your garbage!'
This sound familiar to anyone? Yeah.
Which is one indictment of Cryptic -- they've had 2 years of this crud going on with STO to learn from.
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 have very little input anymore sigh. I've said my peace to all and apologized to those I needed to. One thing I do know, I've never given out a 1 star to a an author's quest. If I actually had bad feedback or something I felt needed fixed I let them know and moved on.
I do hate 1 star trolls, and always will.
No, that's not even remotely true. I had no issue at all finding good and involved missions when I played. Just had to use the filters. In fact I played most of the Spotlight missions before they were even featured. This was during the time of the Click the Console missions and the 15 minute long nothing shoots back missions.
Anyone who couldn't find good missions had only themselves to blame, and not the grinder missions. Because it was quite easy to filter out the grinders.
But thanks for proving my point.