It's all about the makerscore, baby

author=Ratty524
What is it about Maker Score that is so attractive? Like, you can't get any bonuses from it or anything, yet there is still some sort of drive to accumulate them...

It's meant to be a sign of how much experience you have in general - how much you've made.

It should really be called "Participation Score" these days, but that isn't nearly as catchy and I guess you do, uh, "make" reviews. Making games is the worst and most unreliable form of MakerScore gaining available, IRONY! : )

Fomar0153
In my defence one of them was around six hours long...

I HAVE NO IDEA HOW IT HAPPENED IT WAS MEANT TO BE AN HOUR

author=kentona

author=Anaryu

author=Ratty524
What is it about Maker Score that is so attractive? Like, you can't get any bonuses from it or anything, yet there is still some sort of drive to accumulate them...

It's meant to be a sign of how much experience you have in general - how much you've made.

It should really be called "Participation Score" these days, but that isn't nearly as catchy and I guess you do, uh, "make" reviews. Making games is the worst and most unreliable form of MakerScore gaining available, IRONY! : )

like 80% of my makerscore comes from games.

You're right, those group games where you build a level are still viable, but those are more like participation wouldn't you say?

You know the math behind this.

You could guess that a finished game, like an RPG, takes how many hours? A simple one at least 150-250? (small contest entry) Versus maybe 10-20 for participation in those group games? And you're likely to get more for the group than the other.

If you get a 5-star on that ~200 hours, that's... 600 points? Let's assume an average of 500 points (4 to 4.5 stars?)

That's about 2 points per hour of work, and it depends on having someone else review your game, and that your game is reviewed really well. (No review is about 150 MS? So less than 1 point per hour of work.)

For one of those Mario or Befuddle, let's say 20 hours are spent making a level. (About right?) That's worth (assuming 500/100) 25 or 5 MS per hour. At least 5 times as efficient, at times almost 10x!

How many points for a review? Most RPG games on the site (since we're averaging to the contest length) are about 7 hours to play and review I'd say, most likely less. I'm not sure how many points it's worth, but would like to see that.

Numerical balancing is something we all do constantly in RPGs, and rates are one of the most useful pieces of information. Making solo or group games for a contest or such is the slowest form I'm aware of barring your feedback on the review rate above.

author=kentona
So we should make games worth a fixed higher rate, and then perhaps apply a bonus for reviews?

Here is the makerscore breakdown, by the way: http://rpgmaker.net/articles/455/

Let's say you have a completed game (unreviewed), so that means you have a gameprofile (15), say, 10 blog posts (40), a download (15), 12 images (12), a few pages (6), and a media (15) == 103 makerscore (with obviously some variability). What should we do to raise the basescore of a game? The gameprofile of a completed game? Should we bump that up to 100? 250? 500? Or perhaps we should make the "main" download worth 150 (and additional downloads 15)? Should there be different amounts based on role? Leads get the full 100%, developers 80%, testers 25%? Or should it be a game is worth 103 makerscore/# of devs = your portion?

What do you think we should do?

author=kentona
So we should make games worth a fixed higher rate, and then perhaps apply a bonus for reviews?

Here is the makerscore breakdown, by the way: http://rpgmaker.net/articles/455/

Let's say you have a completed game (unreviewed), so that means you have a gameprofile (15), say, 10 blog posts (40), a download (15), 12 images (12), a few pages (6), and a media (15) == 103 makerscore (with obviously some variability). What should we do to raise the basescore of a game? The gameprofile of a completed game? Should we bump that up to 100? 250? 500? Or perhaps we should make the "main" download worth 150 (and additional downloads 15)? Should there be different amounts based on role? Leads get the full 100%, developers 80%, testers 25%? Or should it be a game is worth 103 makerscore/# of devs = your portion?

What do you think we should do?

It's not an easy question to answer, one reason I've never really complained much before. How do you judge a game like Master of the Wind and it's 20+ hours versus a short shooter that's an hour? How do you even judge the level of effort that went into each?

And if you made the content like blogs/images worth more people would spam them - which would mean more moderation on the poor admin team already trying to keep up.

I think base games without a review (but completed with a download) should get a lot more points, and then maybe each review gives the game maker more (more reviews means it was more interesting, even if it's lots of low score reviews.)

Might be worth marking "group" games with an option in the Game management, so if it's not a small team but instead a participation kind of game, it splits the MS up between the developer users on those and giving the lead the full points. (I like how all members on a normal game still get full points, encourages people to make accounts and participate in the site even if they weren't before.)

Probably not the best place to carry on such a conversation. : )

I am going to post on that article, if anyone wants to join the makerscore conversation there. http://rpgmaker.net/articles/455/

I have 5 games to give away via Steam: 2 copies of Final Fantasy VII, 2 copies of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition and Torchlight II. I will be holding a raffle to raffle them off in late November. To be entered into this raffle you must either review or submit a Let's Play of a game made for the All Hallows' Event 2013. You only get one entry no matter how many reviews or LPs you submit. You will need a Steam account and to friend me (kentonagbone) on there to receive your prize if you win. You can only win 1 game max. The deadline is Noon on November 20th, 2013 (Saskatchewan time (UTC -6)).

Let's play some games!

author=kentona

I have 5 games to give away via Steam: 2 copies of Final Fantasy VII, 2 copies of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition and Torchlight II. I will be holding a raffle to raffle them off in late November. To be entered into this raffle you must either review or submit a Let's Play of a game made for the All Hallows' Event 2013. You only get one entry no matter how many reviews or LPs you submit. You will need a Steam account and to friend me (kentonagbone) on there to receive your prize if you win. You can only win 1 game max. The deadline is Noon on November 20th, 2013 (Saskatchewan time (UTC -6)).

Let's play some games!

Lawl, I already downloaded all of them with the intent to either review or (maybe) LP (or at least splice LP).

author=Ocean
Our team (Team Cheesecake) is crossed off the submissions list but we did submit Lunacity! That's not going to count against us is it?

Well you have to add the entry here.