Plus disallowing non-authors to review missions would exclude people like mikewendell who are obviously passionate about the Foundry but are not authors, either by choice or by bugs.
Not a matter of being passionate. Just a strong dislike of being shut out of something that they're promoting as a feature.
I was going to give a line along the lines of, "the only real thing people should rate a mission with is to answer the question 'did I like it?'" but then I got to thinking that people come to missions with expectations all over the spectrum of possibilities, some of them bizarre and unreasonable. As much as part of me wants a mandatory publishing requirement to filter ratings I just can't envision a solution that's practical to implement and fair to non-authors that really do get it.
I think the opinion of the average player is important. What's considered good among Foundry authors might be wildly different from the average person. It seems like we're creating missions to have them played by more people than just Foundry authors, so the opinion of all players is definitely relevant.
In addition, if some sort of Foundry bug or issue is causing people not to enjoy one of my missions, then I'd like to know that. It means that a workaround either has to be put in, or the objectionable part needs to be removed. The fact that Foundry authors "understand" why the problem occurs wouldn't be much consolation to me.
I definitely agree with you on that Nagorak. It is important to get opinions from a wide audience so that we as authors can see what is liked and disliked in our creations. I can deal with a 1-star rating as long as it has some kind of review. Although I may not agree with it, everyone has a right to their opinion. If we have a bug stopping the mission from completion, perhaps a bug button added by Cryptic with a link to an email to the author from the player would be a nice addition.
The ones I do not like are the "drive-bys" that as was mentioned before, seem to come out early as missions are coming out of review stage and are doing well. It takes time to recover from multiple hits on that basis. I cite an example using Alimac when his newest one got blasted with this "phenomena" a while back. He did recover as he is a great author and has popularity and fantastic missions, but the aggravation caused is maddening. I had this happen to a couple of mine as well. They too have recovered, but it was a big aggravation nonetheless.
I still subscribe to the requirement to play the mission in it's entirety for the right to rate it. I think this will stop a lot of this from happening. If it is indeed an author hitting a mission with a low rating to secure their spot at the top, it would be sad, but I would also hope that is not the case. I believe authors know the work that goes into building the real missions and all the ones I know are full of integrity as well as the ones I do not have the honor of knowing yet. We encourage each other often, and also support each others work. As a review writer on http://starbaseugc.com , I always will rate missions on the story elements and the work that has gone into the mission.
If it is a group of people, whether author/friends or just a group of folks whacking missions, the requirement to play it completely before being able to rate it might stop most of that from happening.
Duke-of-Rock
ABI-Artificial Borg Intelligence by Duke-of-Rock Available on Holodeck
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Also play Spawn of Medusa - The 5 Part series
by Duke-of-Rock Available on Holodeck
I choose to disagree. NO content should be gated in such a way that increases the difficulty in exploring it. If that means people have no idea what it takes or what is required to make a mission, so be it.
With that said, perhaps it would benefit players to have access to a resource in game to better aquatint them with the can and can nots the foundry have.
That said, I still think there needs to be in game access to things like the forums and other FAQ bearing material without having to tab out.
Well here's a thought... what about weighting the votes according to average rating of published content? That way, the vote someone who either publishes nothing of their own, or has only bad ratings on what they've published, will be less dramatic on your popularity score, than the vote of someone who has published several well-liked projects.
_____________________ Fix the problem, not the blame
Comments
Not a matter of being passionate. Just a strong dislike of being shut out of something that they're promoting as a feature.
I definitely agree with you on that Nagorak. It is important to get opinions from a wide audience so that we as authors can see what is liked and disliked in our creations. I can deal with a 1-star rating as long as it has some kind of review. Although I may not agree with it, everyone has a right to their opinion. If we have a bug stopping the mission from completion, perhaps a bug button added by Cryptic with a link to an email to the author from the player would be a nice addition.
The ones I do not like are the "drive-bys" that as was mentioned before, seem to come out early as missions are coming out of review stage and are doing well. It takes time to recover from multiple hits on that basis. I cite an example using Alimac when his newest one got blasted with this "phenomena" a while back. He did recover as he is a great author and has popularity and fantastic missions, but the aggravation caused is maddening. I had this happen to a couple of mine as well. They too have recovered, but it was a big aggravation nonetheless.
I still subscribe to the requirement to play the mission in it's entirety for the right to rate it. I think this will stop a lot of this from happening. If it is indeed an author hitting a mission with a low rating to secure their spot at the top, it would be sad, but I would also hope that is not the case. I believe authors know the work that goes into building the real missions and all the ones I know are full of integrity as well as the ones I do not have the honor of knowing yet. We encourage each other often, and also support each others work. As a review writer on http://starbaseugc.com , I always will rate missions on the story elements and the work that has gone into the mission.
If it is a group of people, whether author/friends or just a group of folks whacking missions, the requirement to play it completely before being able to rate it might stop most of that from happening.
Duke-of-Rock
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
by Duke-of-Rock Available on Holodeck
Well here's a thought... what about weighting the votes according to average rating of published content? That way, the vote someone who either publishes nothing of their own, or has only bad ratings on what they've published, will be less dramatic on your popularity score, than the vote of someone who has published several well-liked projects.
Fix the problem, not the blame