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Call for input: Standardizing on a rating rubric in Blades of Avernum
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Friday, November 16 2007 19:51 Profile Homepage #17
quote:
This button, when clicked, asks the player to relatively weight each rating category, and then uses those weights to calculate a weighted average to put in the Overall Rating.
That's a lot of input parameters for getting one single value. If the "calculate average" is optional anyhow, it would be enough to make it unweighted. If the reviewer doesn't like the unweighted average, they can adjust it directly without having to mess around with the weights until they get one they like.

Technical Innovations:

There is so far the possibility to reference a scenario in an article. It would be a useful feature to reverse this feature and list the referencing articles on the scenario page, too. As most technical innovations are documented by an article, this would also take the place of that feature.

quote:
Prefab Party / Any Party
Singleton Required / Any Party
Epic / Regular Length / Short
Linear / Open-Ended
Many Riddles / Few Riddles
Set in World of Avernum / Medieval / Modern / etc.
Combat / No Combat
Good point - though surely this is pretty objective stuff that the scenario designer can answer when creating the scenario. We don't need the reviewers' opinion on whether the scenario has a pre-fab party; it does or it doesn't.

---

By the way, note that I could place the tagging system that's already on Graphics and Scripts onto Scenarios too. This would allow any kind of flexibility with catgorizing scenarios with arbitrary labels.

Also, reviews would be rated at most with a single rating from 1-10, or in Slashdot's and Amazon's style with a "helpful / unhelpful, fair / unfair" binary. This is common practice, and allows a far better moderation than the idea of "choosing a couple of good reviewers who have access to the reviewing system". Seriously, I'll already have a problem getting people to want to contribute. Placing artificial barriers on who gets to do so would be counter-productive. It's not as if I'm giving away rewards for reviewing, so it cannot be portrayed as any kind of privilege. Jury duty?

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The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead.
Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo
Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.'
Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
ET got banned again? in General
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Friday, November 16 2007 11:22 Profile Homepage #6
Big surprise. You infiltrated the National Institute of Health once, if I remember correctly.

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The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead.
Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo
Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.'
Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
The next level in RP, personal thoughts. in General
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Friday, November 16 2007 10:49 Profile Homepage #4
quote:
why not have a new RP in the spiderweb forums itself.
That's what we've been doing for over 6 years.

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The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead.
Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo
Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.'
Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
BOOM in General
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Friday, November 16 2007 10:02 Profile Homepage #12
Thus:

IMAGE(http://stuff.ermarian.net/arancaytar/images/threadkiller/Kailua-Beach.jpg)

This isn't going anywhere worthwhile, anyhow.

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The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead.
Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo
Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.'
Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
BOOM in General
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Friday, November 16 2007 09:46 Profile Homepage #10
Serious = goatse.

quote:
Minor transgression:
Using vulgarity and/or obscenities in any language (whether it's in the open, masked, or abbreviated)


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The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead.
Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo
Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.'
Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
ET got banned again? in General
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Friday, November 16 2007 09:37 Profile Homepage #4
quote:
Originally written by Can you ever forget:

Also, I have reason to believe Alorael is a internet super-virus as every time I open this board on the internet then open one of my saved pages on My Documents his current post name automatically updates itself.
Internet super-virus is right, but it's IE.

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The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead.
Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo
Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.'
Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Golden Slumbers in General
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Friday, November 16 2007 02:50 Profile Homepage #19
I just slept around 14 hours. That's double my usual amount...

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The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead.
Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo
Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.'
Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Call for input: Standardizing on a rating rubric in Blades of Avernum
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Friday, November 16 2007 02:28 Profile Homepage #9
That is a very good notion.

Perhaps the score should consist of only ~3 separate rankings (and a subjective total ranking), but the review could still allow the reviewer to select from a list which aspects are strengths/weaknesses of the scenario, and which type of player the scenario would most/least appeal to.

This reduces the number of numerical scores the reviewer has to give, and reduces the number of decisions. Deciding if "Difficulty of combat" was a weakness or a strength (or neither) of the scenario is much easier than rating it from 1-10.

It doesn't significantly reduce the information the player wants - they won't be searching for a "scenario that ranks around 8/10 in plot on average", but rather a scenario "that around 80% of people think would attract players who care about plot".

And yes, meta-moderation will certainly be there. Whether a bad feedback is enough to unpublish a review is another question (personally I'd say leave it up but rank reviews by feedback, and calculate a weighted average score based on feedback). And whether reviewers have a karma - that is, whether feedback on one review can influence their other reviews - is still a different question.

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The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead.
Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo
Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.'
Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Call for input: Standardizing on a rating rubric in Blades of Avernum
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Thursday, November 15 2007 21:53 Profile Homepage #6
I think the form can get away with 8-10 select menus / text fields on which to enter a score - any more than that, and the reviewer is overwhelmed...

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The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead.
Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo
Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.'
Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Golden Slumbers in General
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Thursday, November 15 2007 20:59 Profile Homepage #13
6 hours, and programming.

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The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead.
Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo
Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.'
Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Call for input: Standardizing on a rating rubric in Blades of Avernum
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Thursday, November 15 2007 08:48 Profile Homepage #0
We have the Spiderweb tables which rate scenarios on a single score from 1 to 5, and the Lyceum CSR which rate between 1 to 10 (afaik).

I actually intend the Blades Forge review section to put more focus on the text of the review than the rating, since the former is far more informative to the undecided player or in fact the designer looking for feedback. But since the purpose of peer review is also to classify the scenarios as masterpieces or rubbish, and rank them, it's clear we need some kind of score to compare them.

The single score (preferably on the 1-10 scale, since it is a wider range, and the CSR is better maintained) has an appealing simplicity. But what if I want (this is hypothetical) hack and slash? Or what if I couldn't care less about plot or combat as long as there are lots of original riddles? It is with this in mind that I'm proposing a multi-score rubric that better rates specific aspects of scenarios.

However, I've released only a single scenario and actually reviewed perhaps 3-4 of the ones I've played. I'm no judge on this process.

Ideally, I would like the rubric to be sufficiently general to apply to both BoA and BoE with only minor differences in labels ("scripting / nodework", etc) as this would far reduce technical complexity.

Suggestions are quite welcome. :)

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The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead.
Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo
Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.'
Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Much Needed Update in Blades of Avernum
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Thursday, November 15 2007 00:33 Profile Homepage #6
quote:
Originally written by Ephesos:

quote:
Originally written by The Iffy Muffin who...does stuff...:

I wonder if Muffins n' Hell may be there eventually...
Maybe you should go make it, then.
There must be some kind of law against incitement to commit crimes against humanity. :P

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The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead.
Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo
Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.'
Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Photo Thread (with an abominable twist) in General
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Thursday, November 15 2007 00:27 Profile Homepage #59
Instable. It does not load for me, but when I click the -, open the URL directly, it opens. It is then cached and displayed when I navigate back.

You're probably hotlinking to a site that blocks off-site referrers to stop exactly what you're doing, ie leeching their traffic by linking to their pictures.

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The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead.
Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo
Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.'
Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
For all you physics gurus in General
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Wednesday, November 14 2007 21:05 Profile Homepage #10
Oh, I saw my second error. The slope is 40° from the ground, hence it is 50° from the vertical vector. I saw it as 40° from the vertical because I read the diagram wrong.

In practice, this either means I have to replace my value of theta s/40/50, or I have to exchange sine and cosine, which means the same thing.

My earlier result was 3.19, now I get 3.436, which is closer to what Kel got. The difference may be in the value for g, which I estimated as 9.81.

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The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead.
Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo
Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.'
Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
For all you physics gurus in General
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Wednesday, November 14 2007 20:08 Profile Homepage #8
Ouch. Indeed I forgot the factor 3, and it's a beginner error. I calculated the force exerted by the 2M mass, but forgot to factor in that this same force also has to act on the 2M mass itself.

However, this makes my answer off by more than just a factor 3 - and I suspect I've made another mistake in there.

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The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead.
Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo
Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.'
Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
For all you physics gurus in General
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Wednesday, November 14 2007 18:04 Profile Homepage #5
Well, since the pulley pulls in parallel to the slope, is the only normal force generated by the weight of mass M itself? (Sorry, it's been three years since I had physics...)

In that case, the vertical vector of M's weight can be split up into a vector cos(40°)*M*g parallel to the slope (and down the slope, of course), as well as a vector sin(40°)*M*g orthogonal (normal) to the slope.

The force of 2M's pulling on the pulley is (thanks to negligible pulley friction) equal to 2M*g. From this must be subtracted the vector cos(40°)*M*g, which pulls in the opposite direction. The frictional force is 0.4*sin(40°)*M*g, which is also subtracted.

You end up with a force of (2-0.4sin(40°)-cos(40°)) *M*g, which acts on a mass M to produce an acceleration of (2-0.4sin(40°)-cos(40°))*g.

I'm not sure if I calculated this correctly though, because it seems a bit strange that the acceleration would be independent of the value of M.

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The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead.
Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo
Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.'
Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Synergy? in General
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Wednesday, November 14 2007 17:50 Profile Homepage #29
quote:
Originally written by Najosz Thjsza Kjras:

quote:
Originally written by Arancaytar:

Yeah, but he's arguably not an idiot, and even those who would debate that point would agree he's not a redneck. :P
You could, technically, say that, but to argue he's not would more or less require one be an idiot as well.
Perhaps I've lowered my standards. In my eyes you only need to write in complete sentences without without overusing emoticons in order to lose the "idiot" descriptor.

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The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead.
Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo
Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.'
Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Why Mactintosh in General
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Wednesday, November 14 2007 17:36 Profile Homepage #4
You've spelled it twice and misspelled it differently each time. Come on; it's not even as tricky a word as Vanihattati.

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The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead.
Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo
Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.'
Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Synergy? in General
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Wednesday, November 14 2007 09:02 Profile Homepage #17
For truth.

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The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead.
Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo
Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.'
Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Synergy? in General
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Wednesday, November 14 2007 05:49 Profile Homepage #13
I'm sure we do, although they're not usually gun nuts (it's not easy to be one in a country with good gun control).

I looked redneck up in the dictionary and got weißer reaktionärer Hinterwäldler (white reactionary backwoods-dweller), which sounds technically accurate to a degree but which I don't know any shorter epithet for.

We do have much worse than rednecks in the rural parts of Saxony - but they're compared more accurately to the KKK.

[ Wednesday, November 14, 2007 05:51: Message edited by: Arancaytar ]

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The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead.
Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo
Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.'
Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Choosing a side has never been so tough in Geneforge 4: Rebellion
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Wednesday, November 14 2007 05:08 Profile Homepage #1
quote:
[essay on sociology]
-------
[xkcd quote]
[myst reference]
Welcome! By all applicable standards you radiate awesomeness. Please stay here! :)

[ Wednesday, November 14, 2007 05:09: Message edited by: Arancaytar ]

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The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead.
Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo
Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.'
Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00

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