RMN V4.5 (AND BEYOND) FEATURE IDEA LIST

Posts

For now, I'd simply say future proof the site as much as possible, and do whatever it takes to make it function better overall under the hood.

I'd also say widgets, but I'll save that request for post RMN 5... (yes, you read that right)
Someone may have said this already, but a while back the idea of indicating whether reviews are for demos or for full versions of a game was floated. I'd like that.
edchuy
You the practice of self-promotion
1624
I would be nice to have the Buzzing concept applied to Forum topics as well ...
Thanks for all of the input, I am going to compile a list of the suggestions and update the OP with the ideas and how likely we are to implement them (based on technical feasibility, time/skill limits, and whether or not they fit the site).
author=Liberty
MrChearlie, I'm pretty sure you can see thumbnails in your locker already. Unless you meant something else?


wow, a long while and I just notice that button. Then I have no trouble at all with rmn you can go nuts and do whatever you want and I won't complain.
Built in amazing voice acting text to speech system
Just a thought, but what about implementing extra
for users that have achieved a personal milestone, here, on RMN, such as, submitting a 10th, 50th Review; a 10,000th Post; a 100th Topic; 10 Games Submitted to the site; 5 Completed Games, etc.. Or, what about having somebody or a group of people earn some
for winning a Misao by the end of the year? Of course, if this idea was accepted, you would have to grandfather everything in.

Just throwin' it out there.
Here another one, How about a test page where CSS coder can make their css code and see if it work on a fake game profile. I don't want to use my other game as a test dummy for css without damage the original code.
I admit, the idea of a sort of star rate without a review was sort of my idea, which spun into existence on another topic where people mentioned they weren't getting any reviews and it was difficult to judge the value of their own game.

Seeing the points listed here, it doesn't seem as great of an option now, but neither is ignoring the problems that, as a developer, people want feedback.

Also, people are saying to leave the ratings with the reviews. The problem is, half the time that rating isn't even accurate. Or it's left off the review entirely, and the review gets submitted as 0 stars even though the review would qualify it as more of a 3/5 star game.

As an earlier poster stated, a 1/2 star rating will follow a game for eternity, even if the game has improved, and that's assuming the bad rate was given correctly to begin with. If no other review is given, or if a review is given favorably, but the reviewer decided to leave it at 0 stars, the game still looks bad.

Basically, categorizing a game based upon best scored reviews is no more efficient than allowing people to rate a game without a review.

My suggestions, to go along with other poster's comments, and would hopefully encourage more reviews and feedback without gaming the system:

1. Remove the star rating in reviews. The reviewer can choose to implement his scores into the review document, if he/she so chooses, but it would no longer be hard-coded into the site, and games would no longer be able to be grouped based upon a review score.

2. Add in a "Like/Dislike" System if you wish, but offer no meta-scoring for this. Require comments to be attached to the "Like/Dislike" System, and make it a requirment that it must contain a certain amount of characters to qualify.

3. Offer more incentives for reviews (as somebody suggested). While it's a developer site, there's also a lot of players. It takes a player to help a developer, and some prefer to play and review rather than develop. Increase the meta-score for reviews, offer bonus amounts for the milestones (5, 10, 15 reviews), reward the top reviewers at the end of the year.
benos
My mind is full of fuck.
624
www.youtube.com/user/RPGMakerNetwork/

why u no upload more on this channel?
author=jomarcenter
Here another one, How about a test page where CSS coder can make their css code and see if it work on a fake game profile. I don't want to use my other game as a test dummy for css without damage the original code.
How about copying the original code to a text file first??

@amerk: #3 is coming! Eventually! (when I implement it!)
Sailerius
did someone say angels
3214
I agree with completely getting rid of star ratings.
Solitayre
Circumstance penalty for being the bard.
18257
Star ratings used to cause a lot of drama around here, but it's been pretty quiet lately. There are a couple possible explanations for this.

1. The site now has a dedicated review editor (me) who is very particular about what gets put on the site.

2. The person most famous for controversial reviews (also me) doesn't do reviews so often anymore.

Star ratings have their issues but I don't think removing them completely is the answer. If you've been here long enough, it's easy to be jaded by the banality of user ratings, but if you're a new user, they're one of the best ways to tell, at a glance, what games are worth playing. Some of our front page content is fed based on star ratings. Makerscore is also based on it.

I don't currently think removing star ratings is necessary or advisable at this juncture.
the necessity of numerical ratings is an unfortunate side-effect of the whole review mindset. I like how Destructoid approaches it, though -- they don't like them either, so what they do is make damn sure they use the whole ten-point scale and include an explanation of the rating next to the number. if we encouraged people to summarize their thoughts when they give things their rating, it could make things slightly less pointless.

I've never agreed with the idea of taking these numbers out of the context of their review to point at and go HEY LOOK X NUMBER OF PEOPLE THOUGHT IT WAS RAD OR CRUMMY, though
Sailerius
did someone say angels
3214
author=Solitayre
Star ratings used to cause a lot of drama around here, but it's been pretty quiet lately. There are a couple possible explanations for this.

1. The site now has a dedicated review editor (me) who is very particular about what gets put on the site.

2. The person most famous for controversial reviews (also me) doesn't do reviews so often anymore.

Star ratings have their issues but I don't think removing them completely is the answer. If you've been here long enough, it's easy to be jaded by the banality of user ratings, but if you're a new user, they're one of the best ways to tell, at a glance, what games are worth playing. Some of our front page content is fed based on star ratings. Makerscore is also based on it.

I don't currently think removing star ratings is necessary or advisable at this juncture.

I personally feel that star ratings are counterproductive to a developer's environment but we could have that argument all day, so I'll approach it from a different direction.

Ratings are one of the biggest facets of a problem RMN has: stale reviews. On a site like this where games release new versions all the time, I can't even imagine how many games have accrued reviews which no longer reflect the version available for download. A game might get shredded for being too buggy, only for the developer to fix all the bugs, making all the reviews addressing those bugs incorrect - yet the casual person looking for a game to download would never know that, read those reviews, and be turned off from the game. For episodic and other long-running games, it's possible (even likely) to have reviews from versions of your game that are years outdated. Well, you might say that it's the reviewer's responsibility to keep their reviews up to date, but how do you enforce that? Especially when reviewers might have left the site since.

This is especially toxic when combined with star ratings because a flawed game might get 1- or 2-star reviews, causing the developer to take those into account and improve their game, but 1-star stigma will stay there and keep people from playing their game.
someone suggested tagging reviews with the game's current version, didn't they? separate the averages by what version they were given in and it should clean that up a bit.

I hadn't thought of things in the context of in-development games, though. kind of a weird problem that most review sources don't face. we can't just follow what other people are doing in this case, can we?
Does this site have a mobile version? Every now and then I check up here on my phone.
The solution to the first problem is simple enough : No star ratings on demos, unless it's so promising (like Homework Salesman) that 4-5 stars is indisputable.
As for "stale" reviews, have a way in which the gamedev can appeal to the staff (Soli) and request that an old, negative review be removed for reasons of . Problem solved.

Site traffic probably consists of at least 5 players to 1 gamedev. Removing star ratings altogether is incredibly short sighted.
author=Dyhalto
unless it's so promising (like Homework Salesman) that 4-5 stars is indisputable.


how would you implement and enforce this bit? it seems pointless and arbitrary to me.
Sailerius
did someone say angels
3214
author=Dyhalto
Site traffic probably consists of at least 5 players to 1 gamedev. Removing star ratings altogether is incredibly short sighted.

Site traffic probably consists of at least 5 players to 1 gamedev. Removing star ratings is incredibly not short sighted.