Heartache 101 ~Sour into Sweet~

I don't think it'll be hard to add that feature. And while I'm at it I'd probably go ahead and make it possible to set affection to a specific state, which is something else that has been asked for on occasion.

Won't be able to get around to this soon, though. I'm gonna be away from my computer for the next few weeks. If you don't see me online much, that's why.

Yeah and I'm gonna have to leave that one alone, too, while out of town for family stuff, which chafes me 'cause I'm so close to finishing.
Anyway, you guys hold the fort while I'm gone :)

Forgoing what kind of voting/rating system we would even use, I'm thinking that would be a piece of information that would be part of the character description. Simple example:

Masako
Author: Marrend
Referring post
Content types included: story, profile, tachie, music.
User rating: 2 votes

Alternatively:

Masako
Author: Marrend
Referring post
Content types included: story, profile, tachie, music.
Average User Rating: 80% (16 / 20; 2 total votes)

Or, you can tell us how the heck this is supposed to work, and we can base how best to relate that information on that!

More to Marrend's point, we don't want inept newbies and trolls ruin the results. Let's keep it low profile. No strangers.

Since LordNight asked for it, let's extablish the rules. Let me know if you have other ideas.

1. All votes are made unanonymously, right here in the forum. Links at the top of the page will point to every such post.

2. Anyone with who can be considered a part of our community may ask for right to vote. Either me, flowerthief or Marrend may approve of you.

3. Routes are rated in the following qualities:
a. Story. The story has to be interesting. That goes without saying. What makes a story interesting is not ever the same, but you can easily come up with a reason in the case it's not. This also includes grammar and consistency; we need stories that make sense in context and are typo-free enough to not knock you out of the feel.

b. Characters. Now, I'm not saying you have to like the heroine, or anyone else. I dislike Masako greatly, but that isn't because she's badly written. In that regard, she's rather awesome. This isn't a matter of our personal preference. That leads only to flamewars, and doesn't actually say anything. Instead, we should praise originality and depth, or penalize the lack of those.

c. Experience. Let's face it, people aren't going to respect the effort you put into your work. They want to have fun when they play a game, and when we fail to deliver that, they delete the folder with a frown. It doesn't matter how catchy the story/character is when the gameplay is boring or frustrating, and the game mechanics have just enough of that as it is. That's necessary. In what we create, it isn't.

d. Content. Quality>quantity, but if you barely spare a good storyline a cameo's screentime, you either don't grab the attention of the audience or leave them craving for more. Either way, it means you're fucked. The story should be long enough to keep you busy for at the very least one and a half hour, tied in with other stories, and come with date and phone events if applicable, to live up to the built-ins - maybe even suprass them.

4. Each of the above is rated from 0 to 5. After that's done, the average of every rating in each quality will be the rating in that aspect of the route. The results are then summed up, and the average of that will be the overall rating.

5. You can only rate Experience if you've played, and until that's done, your vote won't count to the end result.

6. No matter what, every rating has to be backed up with reason and example. If anyone would give any rating on anything without a decent explanation, I won't take notice.

7. Anyone with a reasonable amount of self-judgement may rate his own work(I'm right out of the window, sadly), but only after rating another, and the work being rated by another.

8. Any route with an overall rating of 19 or more after at least 4 votes, and no lower rated story among it's requirements is essentially on par with the built-in stories. I'd go as far to say they're canon-worthy. I wish I could speak in place of flowerthief, but I don't want to find out how he acts when he's pissed, so we'll see what he has to say about that.