FLOWERTHIEF'S PROFILE

It's a strain to picture any of the protagonists of the GTA series helping old ladies across the street, but maybe that's because the game you envision hasn't been made yet!

I like the idea of long single battles instead of frequent strings of short battles. You just have to figure out what to do for a leveling system. Short frequent battles do facilitate grinding so it's easy to see why they're popular. If battles become optional, you essentially have the same issue to address. How much is the player expected/required to level up?

One thing I'm experimenting with in my current wip is leveling based on item pickups. The reasoning is that I don't want the player penalized by having a weak character for having overcome enemies through unconventional (read "non-violent") means. I originally intended there to be no combat at all, but got sucked into the combat trope after all. I support anyone trying to make a combat-less rpg; it requires some careful planning.

Okay, I got one. You probably already know of the Music Genome Project which powers Pandora Radio. It's a database of hundreds of traits found in music used to match listeners with music possessing traits in music they enjoy. For example, a random song might possess Melodic songwriting, Layered Electric Guitar Riffs, Heavy syncopation, and Minor key tonality. (the listeners themselves don't have to be conscious of what these traits are)

What if the idea were applied to games? For instance, some players don't like random enemy encounters. But some players do. So presence of random enemy encounters could be one trait in the database.

We could come up with a big list of these. Puzzle-solving, No puzzle-solving, Turn-based combat, Real-time combat, No combat, Linear story, Non-linear story, No story, Large cast, Small cast, Orchestral soundtrack, Rock soundtrack, Substantial hidden content, Unusual art style, Event CG, Mini-games, Online support, Story-telling through use of cutscenes, Checkpoint or auto-save system, Manual save system, No save system, etc.

I'm not saying it would be worth doing. It probably wouldn't. I'm sure it would be a hella pain to implement, and RMN's tags and filter options are advanced as it is. But I'm not aware of any game site having attempted a system like this; whoever does would probably be the first.

@kentona
I suspect that a big part of the ubiquity can be attributed to "people like scoring things". It's fun. I used to be the type to get involved in those kinds of sites, scoring movies, games, books, etc. Then I realized that what I had pretended I was doing for the sake of others I was mostly doing for myself.

I tend to think a lot of scoring systems exist to satisfy a masturbatory urge on the part of critics and wannabe critics. It may not be their stated purpose but....

@Darken
You're right that I didn't have RMN in mind. My hatred criticism ("hatred" is a strong word!) of the practice is general. Gametrailers is a good example; they do quality reviews which are helpful to me in picking games to play, but their scoring system is nonsensical. I'd like to see the industry move away from scoring to something more like recommendations tailored to specific tastes (or comparisons of similar games like Iddalai suggested).

But you have to keep in mind that this is the closest you can possibly get to merging subjectivity and objectivity. If you made it so that it was out of 3 stars or just plain thumbs down or thumbs up, the same general problems persist (or other problems come into play) because there is no completely perfect way to judge games on a concrete level.

Do free games need to be judged?

I hate to break it to you but, the rating system has a beneficial impact to how people find games they want to play.

But does it help them find games they should play? Meaning, of course, games that they would enjoy because it matches their tastes? Or does it just help them find whatever has mass appeal?

And i like sites like those because users can offer a HUGE contrast on the general opinion of a product is.

If you like them for the HUGE contrast, then how much does the aggregate score matter?

That's a start. But I want zombeeeeeez.

author=iddalai
Games in general should not be reviewed using scores, they should use comparisons with other games instead.
Chances are that even if a game get's awful reviews it will still be fun to play for someone.
That and every reviewer is indirectly biased by their preferences.

Yes. Absolutely. Positively. The scoring of games is a mostly useless practice that does little to serve what should be the goal of a review system--to match games with their target audiences.

A recommendation system should be considered instead. For instance, even that mediocre zombie survival game that most of us are sick of seeing can be "Recommended to hardcore zombie fans". This tells everyone what they need to know. Hardcore zombie fans know to play the game and the rest of us know to avoid it.

Rating systems are overrated. Especially the ubiquitous scale of 1 to 10 rating system. If I had to rate the scale of 1 to 10 system, I'd rate it a .5.