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STANDARDS!
Posts
Decky
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CloseEvery now and then we like to get a gauge on things. How do you feel our inclusion standards are for games, reviews, and so forth? Are we being too tough on newbie games? Putting too much emphasis on competent mapping? Not enough emphasis on things? What about reviews? Articles?
Let's have a discussion on this!
Let's have a discussion on this!
I can't really say for sure, but there seems to be a pretty good standard of quality for games around here nowadays. As for articles and reviews, I definitely couldn't say. I don't really keep up on those things.
If I was going to criticize anything then I guess I'd say that sometimes I feel like lower grade stuff sneaks through every now and then? It feels wrong to do that, though, one reason being that I think I'm finger pointing, and another being that I know the people in charge of the submission queue are already worked pretty hard.
What I mean is that every now and then I see a game with terribly basic mistakes, like barely readable text or poor graphical composition. I don't know what you'd do to combat this though, and for the most part it's okay since the site is partially centered around learning and skill development.
If I was going to criticize anything then I guess I'd say that sometimes I feel like lower grade stuff sneaks through every now and then? It feels wrong to do that, though, one reason being that I think I'm finger pointing, and another being that I know the people in charge of the submission queue are already worked pretty hard.
What I mean is that every now and then I see a game with terribly basic mistakes, like barely readable text or poor graphical composition. I don't know what you'd do to combat this though, and for the most part it's okay since the site is partially centered around learning and skill development.
Impose an age limit for the site and I guarantee you we won't be having discussions like these anymore.
Otherwise, the current policies are perfectly just. Personally I think they're a bit lenient, if quality is a priority here.
Otherwise, the current policies are perfectly just. Personally I think they're a bit lenient, if quality is a priority here.
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Milennin
2060
I don't know exactly what the standards are for having a game accepted as I don't see the games that don't get accepted. My first ever game got accepted on here, and that wasn't exactly a masterpiece to say the least, so I guess the standards aren't all that bad.
Darken
3952
Whatever goes through the gate of this site should be tangible enough to be analysed and improved. If it's just a fart of a game rolling in where it's clear the person did not like, read the help file of the engine or w/e. Then yeah, better luck next time. I feel like we already addressed the showcase site vs feedback site dissuasion years ago. The more we lean on showcasing, the less shit gets in, the more we lean on improvement and feedback the more stuff comes in. There's a balance I think.
As for reviews I still don't see the damn problem. I think the most extreme review drama ever got was http://rpgmaker.net/games/650/reviews/1364/ where it came off as spiteful and just really charged. But uh, I still think the writing itself had merit to consider and take away from.
I feel the star system is a little mentally damaging for some people because I swear to god if everything was magically N/A there'd be a lot less uproar. But the stars have a place in the grand scheme of "okay what do people strongly recommend on this site?" I myself take rotten tomatoes with a grain of salt, but it's still useful.
edit: I also found out that ebert's law is actually a misnomer, and refers to something else completely. But can we all collectively outright ignore comments that go with http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LetsSeeYouDoBetter ?
As for reviews I still don't see the damn problem. I think the most extreme review drama ever got was http://rpgmaker.net/games/650/reviews/1364/ where it came off as spiteful and just really charged. But uh, I still think the writing itself had merit to consider and take away from.
I feel the star system is a little mentally damaging for some people because I swear to god if everything was magically N/A there'd be a lot less uproar. But the stars have a place in the grand scheme of "okay what do people strongly recommend on this site?" I myself take rotten tomatoes with a grain of salt, but it's still useful.
edit: I also found out that ebert's law is actually a misnomer, and refers to something else completely. But can we all collectively outright ignore comments that go with http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LetsSeeYouDoBetter ?
Personally, I'd like to see better writing all around. Not that I expect everybody to be an English major. But at least some sort of semblance of effort ought to be visible. It's a shame that a topic such as this one is barely taken advantage of.
Some stats regarding the causes of why things have been rejected and who is being rejected would be helpful to make this discussion based on facts. Without those, I feel we are reducing it to each person's "gut feeling" or "anecdotal evidence".
I would say that Deckiller has the hardest job of them all since judging a game's worth on a description and 3 screenshots doesn't really provide a fair sampling of what the game actually is or will be. Still, if as he mentioned in his interview that 2/3 of the games submitted to him get rejected, I trust he has seen enough evidence in the submissions to reach that conclusion.
Some stats regarding the causes of why things have been rejected and who is being rejected would be helpful to make this discussion based on facts. Without those, I feel we are reducing it to each person's "gut feeling" or "anecdotal evidence".
I would say that Deckiller has the hardest job of them all since judging a game's worth on a description and 3 screenshots doesn't really provide a fair sampling of what the game actually is or will be. Still, if as he mentioned in his interview that 2/3 of the games submitted to him get rejected, I trust he has seen enough evidence in the submissions to reach that conclusion.
Maybe I'll compile some stats one day.
On the subject, yes, most submissions to RMN are shit. Submission queue mgmt is the shittiest job on RMN.
On the subject, yes, most submissions to RMN are shit. Submission queue mgmt is the shittiest job on RMN.
author=kentona
Submission queue mgmt is the shittiest job on RMN.
Yeah, enforcing standards is hard since NOBODY really wants to the responsibility. Plus everybody seems to ignore the fact that there's a queue involving the concept of First come, first served.
I had some stats for this at some point regarding review submissions. Last year I would say I denied between 25% and 33% of all reviews. It feels higher than that lately. Maybe closer to 40%. A lot of what I deny ends up being one liner reviews or other submissions that are flagrantly not acceptable, so the stats are skewed.
As for upholding standards, it's not that hard. I wrote common sense guidelines for reviews here a few months ago.
http://rpgmaker.net/articles/783/
If it meets those standards, it's acceptable. If it doesn't, it's not. Not complicated.
Some people would probably say they want higher standards, but this is a site for amateurs. I am not intending to hold this site to any kind of professional standard. I feel like that would be inhibiting to the process of what we do here, which is making games and giving feedback. I don't expect anyone to be a professional writer but I do expect you to be able to make a point clearly and support that point when necessary.
As for upholding standards, it's not that hard. I wrote common sense guidelines for reviews here a few months ago.
http://rpgmaker.net/articles/783/
If it meets those standards, it's acceptable. If it doesn't, it's not. Not complicated.
Some people would probably say they want higher standards, but this is a site for amateurs. I am not intending to hold this site to any kind of professional standard. I feel like that would be inhibiting to the process of what we do here, which is making games and giving feedback. I don't expect anyone to be a professional writer but I do expect you to be able to make a point clearly and support that point when necessary.
I didn't mean to imply that you guys don't do a great job of upholding the standards. I meant that being consistent all the time is something that requires a certain dedication and a good vision of what the goal is that most people don't have.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Man, if I were in charge of the submissions queue, RMN would practically just not allow any games. I feel your pain though because I know you have to allow some of it through and I'm sure you get bitched out over every single denied submission.
Have to be honest and say I would be okay if we raised the standards so that any submission that was officially accepted - game, review or otherwise - had to be high enough quality that you couldn't really tell whether it was professional or amateur. And the novices simply had to use comments, forums posts, and other websites. The site would then have a bunch of stuff from both novices and experts, but the stuff from the experts would be officially accepted, and so people could immediately tell the difference. So like, probably only about 10% of our current games would get game pages, for example. This would not only help the site look more legit to players, but also help the novice users have a goal to strive for.
But I realize the site has been very much moving in the opposite direction from that for a long time, trying to make everything have official ways of being submitted so that no one has to use forum posts or comments for anything. Oh well! I understand the logic behind not having that wall between novice and expert games too. Because if people have their stuff flagged as "good enough" then they get full of themselves and stop improving. Lowe's: Never Stop Improving.
[/rambling]
author=Soliayre
Some people would probably say they want higher standards, but this is a site for amateurs. I am not intending to hold this site to any kind of professional standard. I feel like that would be inhibiting to the process of what we do here, which is making games and giving feedback. I don't expect anyone to be a professional writer but I do expect you to be able to make a point clearly and support that point when necessary.
Have to be honest and say I would be okay if we raised the standards so that any submission that was officially accepted - game, review or otherwise - had to be high enough quality that you couldn't really tell whether it was professional or amateur. And the novices simply had to use comments, forums posts, and other websites. The site would then have a bunch of stuff from both novices and experts, but the stuff from the experts would be officially accepted, and so people could immediately tell the difference. So like, probably only about 10% of our current games would get game pages, for example. This would not only help the site look more legit to players, but also help the novice users have a goal to strive for.
But I realize the site has been very much moving in the opposite direction from that for a long time, trying to make everything have official ways of being submitted so that no one has to use forum posts or comments for anything. Oh well! I understand the logic behind not having that wall between novice and expert games too. Because if people have their stuff flagged as "good enough" then they get full of themselves and stop improving. Lowe's: Never Stop Improving.
[/rambling]
LockeZ
Man, if I were in charge of the submissions queue, RMN would practically just not allow any games. I feel your pain though because I know you have to allow some of it through and I'm sure you get bitched out over every single denied submission.
author=Soliayre
Some people would probably say they want higher standards, but this is a site for amateurs. I am not intending to hold this site to any kind of professional standard. I feel like that would be inhibiting to the process of what we do here, which is making games and giving feedback. I don't expect anyone to be a professional writer but I do expect you to be able to make a point clearly and support that point when necessary.
Have to be honest and say I would be okay if we raised the standards so that any submission that was officially accepted - game, review or otherwise - had to be high enough quality that you couldn't really tell whether it was professional or amateur. And the novices simply had to use comments, forums posts, and other websites. The site would then have a bunch of stuff from both novices and experts, but the stuff from the experts would be officially accepted, and so people could immediately tell the difference. So like, probably only about 10% of our current games would get game pages, for example. This would not only help the site look more legit to players, but also help the novice users have a goal to strive for.
But I realize the site has been very much moving in the opposite direction from that for a long time, trying to make everything have official ways of being submitted so that no one has to use forum posts or comments for anything. Oh well! I understand the logic behind not having that wall between novice and expert games too. Because if people have their stuff flagged as "good enough" then they get full of themselves and stop improving. Lowe's: Never Stop Improving.
[/rambling]
yeah uh
^^^^^ that. glad you wrote it out for me
RMN would lose a userbase if we have that ridiculously high of a standard.
A lot of people go to RMN for Game Pages rather than the community itself?
A lot of people go to RMN for Game Pages rather than the community itself?
author=Solitayre
Would you guys really prefer if we just denied 90% of everything? Is that what RMN is/should be?
I personally wouldn't. Otherwise we would have a walled-garden (see Apple's app store). I think users are smart enough (hopefully) to figure things out on their own and not need hand-holding or a "genius" tell them what to do.
author=Archeia_Nessiah
A lot of people go to RMN for Game Pages rather than the community itself?
Sad, but true ...
