My opinions are based on how I have seen it used.

Understand: I played it, at first. I believe I played it in the manner in which it was intended.

It grew into something else, something rather ugly. Watching phil try to talk down both sides in General Chat is what inspired my current feelings.

And ours are based on how we've seen it used and reported.

As with any system that involves player interaction, there are going to be strange areas it can be taken.

Are some people going to get up in arms about being 'griefed'? Sure. Are some people going to delight in 'griefing'? Also likely to happen.

It will also be used in other ways, ways that are good, interesting, and lead to more player interaction.

However, as with many things we need to look at it from a broader perspective to see both the good and bad uses of it. From there, we need to attempt to minimize the badness while emphasizing the goodness.

I think it's kinda funny too, but I know of at least 3 people that have asked for ratings to get them "neutral" and many more that want to be or are annoyed at not being neutral.
Not sure how you could make a tick-box to make that work, or how many people would use it though. I assume for the most part the "opt-out" people here want it to go away, not just not participate?

I want the high drama and angst to go away. I am simply pursuing the one option I see to get rid of that.

Even if my "crusade" as Gilbert calls it is not successful, I feel I have succeeded in drawing attention to just how very annoying and disruptive the Sky-ratings meta-game has become for some people. Good may come of this yet.

Now, I'm all for discussing potential tweaks to the system. Ignoring the good aspects of the Sky-rating system I feel is tossing out the baby with the bath water.

The Sky-ratings system is currently a kind of blend of two different systems.

The first is just a rating system (as in giving someone 0 to 5 stars). That system has a natural indicator of 'you rock!' and 'you suck!'

The second comes more from social networking sites where players have a small number of 'hearts' they can give per day. Here, the only negative is not getting any hearts whatsoever.

The Sky-rating system is interesting as rather than a clear 'you suck' and 'you rock', players mentally pick which of the two options (Infamy/Honor) is the one they want to strive for. Originally, we kind of thought this was interesting as it was appealing to think about players picking whether they wanted to be thought of as Infamous/Honorable.

Now, there have been a few things people have noted as occurring.

One, is people begging for ratings. The current solution to that is to /ignore these people or to just give them the opposite rating of what they want.

Two, is people getting rated in a direction they don't want accidentally (as in someone going for infamy, who instead gets some honor votes because they helped someone out).

Now, originally, we liked the push and pull of the Honor/Infamy continuum, and that moving towards one would move you away from the other. In practice, this has shown to open the door for a few things which may be problematic. It's interesting from a player interaction perspective, but in practice it may be a bit well...judgemental.

A potential solution is to separate honor and infamy onto two new continuums. There is an Infamy bar and an Honor bar. They exist independently of one another. When players rate someone as Honorable, the Honor bar increments. When they rate someone as Infamous, the Infamy bar increments.

Now, a danger here is just that the Infamy bar can again be thought of as a bar of 'you suck.' It could just be one bar of Honor, or some other concept, but that's a little sad. The idea of players picking what thing they focus on (Honor/Infamy) has a charm to it.

Now, another potential 'issue' with this is that these numbers would then just keep on going up and up and up and up, with no means of pulling them backwards. This could just be how it works though, and numbers keep going up (although we'd then need to remove the titles given). We could also add a daily decrement (such that each day, the amount of honor/infamy is multiplied by 0.9 or some such thing).

Rather than taking away people's toys, I'd rather they learned not to get too worked up about little popup animal heads. Seriously, folks.


/me gives Gil some honor for this statement.

I'm not ignoring them. I just don't see them, the rest of your post notwithstanding.

This is not a completely fair assessment. As with everything, the developers need to analyze the effects of a system and determine if the benefits it provides outweigh the pains.

Social systems in particular need to be looked at closely for this, as they can have the strongest effect.

I could say the very same thing about the influence meta-game. Or as I've seen the flight hours ranking. Or any ranking...or the dailies. Basically anything that involves comparing two people on any metric other than they explicitly agree on will always result in some people being unhappy.

Thing is, though, all rankings except the honor / infamy one are based on your own actions. The honor / infamy rankings are based on other people's actions, towards you.

I like to honor people who help others in chat, or who manage to be very entertaining, whether in chat or in RP, or who do something worthwhile for the skyrate community at large. (Ofcourse, If I know that said person prefers infamy, I'll remyface them instead.)

I don't see the system as wrong, or even flawed. I see people abusing it as using an exploit. I see spamming people Remyfaces when you know they prefer Gilberfaces (Or vice versa) as griefing. You know what the definition of griefing is ? "To use a game mechanic for the purpose of diminishing or removing another player's enjoyment of a game." .. Which is exactly what purposely rating people against what they enjoy, is.

Solution ? Ignore those people. Don't give them any ratings at all. If you know someone likes remyfaces, don't gilbert them. If you know someone likes Gilbertfaces, don't remy them. Nobody is forcing you to spend your ratings on those people, to begin with. Nobody but yourself.

Begging for ratings is childish. Rating them the opposite 'just because' is even MORE childish.

"What you don't want done to you, do not do to others."

You know what the definition of ridiculous is? Hinging your enjoyment of the game on the ratings you get.

So what about this: Let's say me and my wing-mates want to get on the honor leaderboard. We designate one of our members as our contender, and all vote for them once per day. What can we do with our other vote to help them get ahead? We can vote down the people who are currently on the leaderboard. That's not griefing - that's just competition. Why is it griefing to give infamy votes to Kitteh, but not griefing when I give infamy votes to anybody else? None of the things you are saying are consistent.

If you don't think that raters should be able to rate in a way that the ratee does not want, then there's no reason to involve more than one person in that exchange. Just let people rate themselves, and only themselves.

I'd probably care alot more about the ratings if I had any idea where I stood. As it is, my mark is just on the slightest side of infamy. Which is fine.

I will admit though, that seeing a little floating Gilbertface while playing does make me smile. But so does seeing the little floating Remyface.

This is wrong in the same way that in basket ball you try to play your best, you don't try to make the other team play worse-that's called cheating or fouls. You're not "getting ahead," you're pointlessly attacking someone else.

Then again, getting all together and intentionally pumping votes really isn't the spirit of the game either. Your example is basically arguing the morality of taking steroids v. giving the other team tranquilizers.

I imagine that if, in basketball, it became possible to remove your opponents' points, teams would do so as much as possible.

Also, LOL at trying to compare casting sky-rates as being like taking steroids and drugging people. Stay tuned to hear Kitteh say, "Giving me infamy is like Hitler killing Jews."

Thank you, Grant.

Thank you, Kitteh.

You are both doing an excellent job of making my case for me.

Woohoo! We have Godwin! Well done, Grant. Your prize is this lovely basket of hyperbole.

Another point of why it's griefing-Voting someone else down doesn't really help person X as much as just voting for person X. Voting up someone always helps them against all other people. Voting one person down only lowers that one person. You're clearly not doing to best give this person an advantage, but even so, collecting and deliberately voting people honor/infamy is making this much of of a competition, if not defeating the spirit of the game :/.

You're the one treating it like a team sport (it's not), you invited the unfair advantage/disadvantage angle. I honestly don't see anyone else treating this as a team sport, even the beggers.

EDIT:


That is the BEST basket of hyperbole I've ever seen, and no other will EVER come close.

Heh, trying to call Godwin on the other guy does not work if they have not broken it yet. Nice.

Read what I said again. I was saying that Kitteh's comparison was already reaching hyperbolic heights.



1. You can only vote for a person once per day, though, right? So why not use your other vote effectively.
2. Even if you can vote twice for the same person, listen to this: Let's say I make a deal with other wings to do a similar thing. We could all spend all our votes on our own wingmates and never make a dent. Or we could pool half of our votes, and really make a difference.
3. I do not care what your idea of the 'spirit' is, or what made-up rules you've decided that people should be playing by. You just don't want this to be a team sport because it means you might actually lose.
4. (Edit) Even if voting you down is less effective than voting somebody else up, that doesn't make it 'griefing.'

Grant, read what I posted above you. You mentioned Hitler first, thus, you fulfill Godwin.