I was clicking arround at Sos’ Ludum Dare Rescue Rangers page, when I saw “Boring Tanks” by Toast.
It was rated 3 times, but there isn’t any download link at all, because Toast hadn’t enough time to complete it. So those votes aren’t valid.
This is not just this game, but also other games, also games that are perfectly playable.
Another example: In my LD 28, some people actually rated audio higher than one star, but I had not implemented any sound whatsoever.
So how can we fix this?
What you can do about this:
- Rate more games! More valid ratings, the less the false ratings count.
If you want to be clever, there could be fake “honeypot” games that don’t work, or that work but say “this is not a game, this is a honeypot, don’t rate it and sorry for the inconvenience”. If someone rates it, flag those users as rate-spammers.
It probably has its downsides, including that it creates friction for the “law-abiding” people, and that it would take time to implement.
That’s a good idea, but yes it has downsides. But I think it can work if it’s implemented correctly.
The thing is, if no one vote on this (for exemple, with one star or n/a), they will keep showing at the rescure ranger, thus, the page itself encourages you to vote on them.
I don’t really understand what you mean, could you explain?
I always add a comment whenever I rate any games. Not only do I think it is deserved, to say something about what you thought about the game if you’re going to rate it anyway. It’s almost like judging someone behind their back, haha.
Hurried and ‘abusive’ raters are hard to get rid of completely. But if we could implement something along the lines of having to enter a comment on every rating you give, it would add to the viability of the rating, I think.
+1 to obligatory comment on ratings
I agree with that, that’s why I always comment too. If you comment, the developer knows what could be improved, and they feel better about their game.(at least I do)
I thought of a small coolness boost when commenting, but that would lead to “Nice game” and “Awesome”.
I believe the plan is to let people +1 comments they read… pity that wasn’t already implemented.
Commenting comments would be great !
I’ve seen some jammers just running through the entries, copy-pasting “Cool game, check mine [link]” sort of stuff into comment section.
Again the problem is that there’s a system which encourages a small number of people to rate games, not a system to encourage lots of people to actually play and rate games.
You have to question whether you want to go down that rabbit hole for the sake of policing & pedantry. Sure, someone might get screwed, but not badly and I don’t think that terrible or incomplete games are going to win any merits. If it becomes abused to the point where the quality of the competition is hurt, then you have to do something. You do, however have to strike a careful balance or you end up with something like a lot of today’s popular subreddits, where so many rules have been put into place you can’t even post content that the sub was originally designed to host.
True. LD isn’t really about winning at all, and the winners will win, even thought there are abusive people.
Yeah I agree with the “rules” thinggy. I know where you end up, and that’s not fun.
Well that explains a lot. Thanks!
I’m pretty sure there are a bunch of people leaving quick comments and stars. The number speak for themselves: There were people who had rated 100+ games in the first day. Now, come *on*. How’s that even realistic? What kind of value could those plays and rates have gotten anyone?
There are definitely people who drop useless comments “Nice game!” and “Great”. The question is whether short comments and violators whose pattern of abuse are picked up. I’d like to think so.
I hate when I see that kind of stuff. I always leave decent criticism/comments. It goes against the spirit of LD to not do that.
I agree with you. There might also be a problem with comments…
Does it mean a better rating systems would be a blind voting system, ie one without comments and other pseudo-coolness factors DURING VOTING, say for a week or two.
Indeed, after that time, everything would be made public.
“In my LD 28, some people actually rated audio higher than one star, but I had not implemented any sound whatsoever.”
Maybe they thought that the silence suits the game well? ;D