Rating the games.

Maz · Post by **Maz** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 20:29

Hi dee Ho peeps.

As a belated X-mas present for CWF I wrote engine for user votings. (I mean rating of the games). The outlook or functionality is not yet fixed to top notch simply because I did not consider it necessary. After all, I hope I (or someone else) will soon finalize the design of the site, so we can get all pieces to their places in a more bretty way...

However, it would be nice if we had some votes from people who have played these games. (others but just Game Hunters too...) So in case it won't be too big a request, please go and vote for the games you know. With this simplish way you can help us to

1. Find & fix the bugs in the engine. (malfunctions in registering votes or wrong stats or...)
2. Help users who browse the site to decide to register & download a game or two...
(But please, be fair with your votes. If you say some game is excellent, and user DLs it & sees it's shitty, we will propably never see him again... Although this site does not host shitty games, right ?

Anyways, feel free to vote =)

(Oh, and even though the outlook and functionality may change, your votes will stay. At least as long as we use MySQL database. (And ATM it seems we use MySQL forever

)

Post by **Zyx** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 8:51

Giving 7-Zip 5 stars worked fine, but then I tried to add advanced voting, which lead to nice little message telling me "Database Corruption!".

Maz · Post by **Maz** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 15:48

Gnark... That means there were 2 votes from you for 7-zip. (Presumably for overall rating, if you at first tried the 'simple voting'... I need to look at it some day...)

Maz · Post by **Maz** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 0:00

Thanks Zyxxer! Bug is now located and fixed. If someone gets 'database corruption' error message, please tell me what game it was. There may still be some errors left in the database, but the code fix I did should prevent more errors to be created

Maz · Post by **Maz** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 12:29

Oh, and in case it was unclear, 'accurate voting' should be working too. (I just forgot the text 'This is not yet working' there

)

Post by **Zyx** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 12:33

Hey, when all these things are good and running and we have lots of people coming here and lots of games can a the little decision science major in me do a little experiment on game-rating... Because 0-10 (and similar style) scaling is really just for fun.

It just needs to be a little box that asks "This game vs. (some other game). Which one is better and how much? (1 = just as good, 2 = a little bit better, 3 = better, 4 = lots better, 5 = really, really really better than the other). This way we end up with a nice little matrix of numbers and we can settle once and for all which game is really the best with scientifically-sound method! I mean, how cool is that?

sorry... i'm just having new year enthusiasm still left... =)

Post by **Chroelle** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 12:56

Oh... That feature would really be (excuse my eighties slang hanging on) THE BOMB!
Feel free to look into that. Also it would be a feature that would get people voting... Could be really great to see in action.

Maz · Post by **Maz** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 13:47

just two things thing...

I really need a damn

so I'll go to the smoking room and

while I am walking....

Zyx, feel free to do it

Post by **Chroelle** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 6:47

It would also work if we simply asked:
Which of these two is the better game? That also leaves a matrix that could really break someones head if they tried to figure it out themselves. This leaves out the number, and we could simply make a list of games according to a ladder. Battle of Wesnoth might be number 1 and Nick Bounty might be number 15, so they get that number written and the amount the ladder is on. If we have 50 games in Database then it should be:

Rank position:
Nick Bounty: 15/50 (The lower the better.)

Post by **Zyx** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 19:05

Oh yeah, we could do that way too. But Analytical Hierachy Process gives "truer" estimate of "goodness" of the game overall, even if all users don't do all comparisons...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_Hierarchy_Process

Post by **Chroelle** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 19:46

I think you are right. We should compare like you said. And it is a GREAT feature to have. Its not the least common, which once again gives us an edge in the "fight" with other sites. (Fight was used because I really did not have a better word...)

Pater Alf · Post by **Pater Alf** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 0:51

I like the idea of a user voting. I tried it and technically it´s well made and I couldn´t find any bugs.But there is one negative point I can see: A certain number of stars in the user voting doesn´t mean the same thing as the same number of stars in the game hunters voting.

For example: 3 stars in the game hunters voting mean an average of 5 points in the rating thread. So this is a very good game in my eyes. But 3 stars in the user voting mean this is an average game and there are many betters. This might be confusing for users who are not familiar with the rating system of the game hunters...

No big problem and I don´t think there will be any negative consequences (except confusion), but there might be a way to change or improve the system (in fact I have no idea how it could be made)?

Maz · Post by **Maz** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 7:56

You're right peter. But i have no idea how to change it. Chroelle mentioned me about the wery similar problem when i planned ratings. If anyone gets a good solution, bring it on!

Post by **Chroelle** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 8:41

I think we should let a new window open up when you are voting and in that window the meaning of the stars should be explained. Such as:

1: Means you found the game to be faulty
2: Means you found the game to work but not entertaining or "functional".
3: Means the game is ok, and could work if the developer had done some more to get it to be better.
4: Means you think this game is good and should be represented on this site.
5: Means this game is great and should be represented on this site.
6: Means this game is perfect (or very close to) and should be represented on this site.

I am in a hurry sorry.

Post by **Chroelle** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 22:10

More or less done. I need input on the last matter.

eMTe · Post by **eMTe** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 22:48

Well, we're sorry too that you're in a hurry. Umm... Oh! Dang.

Of course there must be explanation, it always makes voting easier. Afair there was Chiller's post somewhere (now probably hidden deeply in last page of gh forum) explaining how ghs should rate the games. There was something like "good game, but nothing special" and such. We can use it or write new descriptions.

Now where it was...