Missions Ratings

[chakkman]

Hi guys,

 

i just finished 3 of TDM's missions and what came to my mind was that it would be great to have some kind of rating system on the Mission Download page. The reason why that came to my mind was the difference in quality of these missions. While 2 of them were great fun, i didnt like the 3rd mission at all. So if people could give a rating for each mission they played it would be nice to know about the user's rating of each mission before you actually download it. I know that if a mission gets rated bad it might be kind of a demotivation for the guys who put much effort into creating it but on the other hand i think the feedback would be also interesting for them and if i take a look at this forum they seem to be keen on what people think of their work .

 

What do you think?

 

Greets.

[aidakeeley]

I hate your idea.

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just kidding

[jdude]

Do you mean a scoring of based on the public or an internal rating?

[Midnight]

It's not a bad idea (this has been done for fan missions in the past), however, I don't think it would necessarily be as useful as you suggest. I've also just finished all of the recent missions, but I liked all of them, so my score would have to reflect that (and therefore my personal preferences as to what I enjoy in a mission). This inevitably would create many situations where a mission that scored well wouldn't be to your liking (and the opposite is true as well), so ends up not being that useful.

 

I'd prefer a review system instead, since it gives you a little information about the plot, setting etc, as well as the quality of the mission. There are already reviews of each tdm mission by SneakyJack over at ttlg (and linked to here I believe). Perhaps these reviews (and others from different reviewers in future) could be aggregated and shown on the missions download page to be more accessible to new players who haven't visited the forums yet.

[SneaksieDave]

I favor reading (spoiler free!) p/reviews over numbered scoring as well. Reason being mainly that many Thief FM's I've played had mediocre ratings (~7) and yet I adored them for simple beauty or excellent gameplay, while others are top rated (9.5+) but which missed me completely (boring, frustrating, etc).

[STiFU]

I really like the scoring system of Garrettloader. There are soooo many thief FMs out there and it's really handy to just filter by score and play some great FMs. It is also neat if you want to replay an older mission and can't decide which one. You just lookup your own ratings and choose one of the high-rated. It helps you maintain a well sorted FM-database.

 

But I guess something like this getting integrated into the TDM-Missionloader is an utopia.

 

Personally, I don't like being spoiled, so I never read a review unless I've already played the mission myself. But even then, what do I care what someone else thinks about a FM? It's not like it'd redefine the fun I had with it... =)

[Serpentine]

I guess if you were building a more advanced launcher you would build in some kind of support for that to begin with, I'd guess some xml that can be fetched from a repo with names/authors/descrip/rating/download link(s) for direct and indirect downloads... It would pretty much be the secondary goal of a launcher after actually launching tdm

[chakkman]

I didnt mean to have it implemented in the TDM-Missionloader, i meant to have it on the TDM website on the FM's section. Of course it does not reflect the own opinion on the missions, but still... if 50 people rate it a crap then its gotta be a crap . Unless those guys are crap themselves hehe. As StiFu said, its useful to sort the missions if you like to have quality. Might not seem to be useful atm with only a double handful of missions on the TDM site, but imagine there d be plenty and you have no idea which to load.

 

Still only a suggestion, don't sneak up on me!

[stumpy]

Trouble with numbered ratings is they can be abused by the mission maker and his/her friends, so that a really crap mission can get rattings of 9.8 out of 10, and a good mission can get rattings of 1.2 out of 10.

[aidakeeley]

A well-adopted aggregate system should not be liable to fall prey to such methods. Unless the mission maker is such a popular guy or gal that divinity may be involved. And if such a person exists? And is bound to abuse their social standing to 'win' some kind of ratings war? Then I don't see how I could possibly object! To be that popular while being that trifling... that'd be an amazing spectacle!

 

When I said I hate the idea I really was kidding, being ironic.

 

The idea is actually a very good one in my estimation. Individual subjective reviews are great for reading after a play-through, but, as has been stated they are usually something to avoid if you don't want to get 'spoiled'. And you can find reviewers that you may find affinity with and then use those as a way of 'weighing' the aggregate score.

 

I don't know if the DL or GL ever fully implemented the system they (or one of them?) were meant to along the lines of 'score aggregation' but it does seem like it would be a very useful tool.

Edited January 8, 2010 by aidakeeley

[Crispy]

Using an aggregation method other than taking the mean can help to avoid people skewing the results - for example, a median. That wouldn't help the subjectivity aspect, of course. Full reviews are definitely better, and I think both could coexist peacefully.