voting games in Hol
 

First, thanks for the good work with HOL.
I like to find pictures and infos for my favourite games without browsing through the whole net.

Currently I am working on a similiar DB for Sega Mega CD.

I have included features like voting and comment wirting (like the legacy).

Each user can vote for a game. After a lot of votings, a newsticker displays the top 5 or so.

and users can find all best voted games for example.

We've decided that user ratings and reviews are not a good idea. RCK states why in this thread.

We plan to include magazine reviews rather than user reviews in HOL in the future, however.

I was reading the thread.

yeah, people have different opinions. But, if enough people vote for one game, the opinion of the majority is reflected.

For example: 100 people can vote between 1 - 5.

And the average of all votings is 1,5.

If user 101 hate the game and votes with a 5. The average of 1.5 will hardly change.

But if only 5 users have voted for a game, a sixth user can drastically change the average.

The propability of the majoritiy opinion increases with voting count.

Hopefully my english wasn't too bad and you see what I mean.

In theory, it would work, but in reality, it'll never, because the only ratings (on a 1-10 scale) people would give are 1,2,9 and 10.

and 7, check IMDB.com many movies score 7...

you are right 10 is too much. Nobody is able to decide between 7 or 8. And numbers alone are not enough.

In my page you can find following voting possibilities.

0--lousy
1--no fun
2--average
3--good/ok
4--very good
5--unique

Dizzy: Ok, ok, add 7 to my little list ;)

PiCiJi: That's not that point. What I'm saying is that people will only vote if they either love or hate a game, because otherwise, they don't care enough to even vote at all.

is absolutly not true, look at Cherry Roms.

Most of retro gamers are no kids, who can only decide between good and evil.

and a non voting is an issue as well.

I think Mr Creosote is right people only vote for games they love or hate or mayby a few in between (That where the score 7 comes in). I own more than 1000 games for my amiga, I don't have time to vote for every game I ever played, then I would choose to vote for the games I love and some of the games I hate. This way I would not give any real impression of all the games I played.. If these community had 1 million users it would not be a problem (like IMDB), but this community is not so big, so it would give a false impression of the games... Fx a more obscure game wich I mayby like and another mayby dont, if only we where 2 voting s it could get a good score, even if it's sux. Some people love to vote high score on sucky games just to be "funny"...

I think when they implement the score from the magazine, then it would give a better impression of the game.

I personally would vote for games with scores of 4,5,6 etc. etc.

I'm just worried that now days (especially in the gaming press) the score of 7 seems to be an average. Games that get 8s, 9s (and even 10s) just don't deserve them.

I'm really trying to think of an obvious example, but I've gone completely bank.

You could always make it so that a game score does not show up until it has had 10 votes. That way there could not be one person that makes (that much) difference to the score.

In my opinion it's more interesting to search after high voted games(even its not perfect) than for music or graphic artists.

The opinion of majority is refelcted even a game is voted only with good or bad. It's a matter of people amount.

The amount of votes for a game is an issue like games affect players. For me its interesting to see, how known the game is, doesn't matter if the game is good or bad voted.
So the voting system shows in numbers like the people feel about.

ok, each has his opinion. I understand yours.

ups I have to edit my cruel english :-)

Nowadays? Of all the gaming magazines I read since the mid-80s, I can count the ones which actually didn't 'overrate' games with one or two fingers. The percentage-scale is the most common here. Normally, a rating below 70 means total crap, below 80 is 'just for fans of the genre', below 90 is good, above 90 is very good. It might be different in other countries, but from what I've seen of British Amiga magazines for example (admittedly only very few issues), it didn't look like it.

True creasote. very true.

It's been like that for years, with very few magazines ever grading games properly.

In the UK, from what I've seen EDGE magazine is the only mag that gives games decent scores.

In Australia we have HYPER magazine its multi format and generally gives balanced reviews which rarely over rate games.
It also doesn't take itself too seriously much like C+VG magazine which i enjoyed.

Ratings
 

This would work: There are only 2 ratings "+" or "-" A games overall rating is based on overall number of ratings. If a "+" is voted its total goes up, if a "-" is voted it moves down. Therefore a game with no votes would be rated higher than a game with more "-" than "+" votes. Comprende?

There's also no practical way to stop people voting multiple times. I think HOL should remain the way it is - an encyclopedia of games available for the Amiga without muddying it up with user reviews. Magazine reviews are ok though because they are on the public record, are generally much more balanced and are part of Amiga history.

Kim Lemon will be using the rating system in his own "database". Anyone insisting on voting can do it there. As for the link, use google.

I'm not entirely sure we need another database :nuts

I could understand if it was just for voting purposes but with a community so small what would be the point in setting up another miggy db?

Hol is progressing marvelously and I really don't understand the need for replicated data all over the net (because we know that all the databases would eventually hold extremely similar data about each game - for whatever reason)

If we could all just pull in the same direction then maybe, just maybe we'll get this thing to reach 88mph

It's always like that. Copycats appear, not because we need them. As far as I know it's 1/3 the size of hol anyway. I'm not trying to start a lemon vs. hol war but I don't want to keep my reaction to myself. Lemon database is unnecessary, a wasted effort and a stupid attempt to start with and this is the only place I can say it without being assaulted by amigaone or c64 fanatics.

I don't think that there needs to be conflict - as I understand it Lemon Amiga is geared towards more of an interactive experience, with the likes of user reviews and ratings.

And it hasn't even been released yet, so let's not start an 'us versus them' war before it even exists online!