the following discussion took place in count to 100 just after i made this post:
camy999: 11. I kinda wish that I'd participated more [when the AP system was around]. I only ever got to Gold Serf rank. Also I just realized that my profiles sixth birthday passed by without my notice
armorplayergc: ne::two12) another thing, besides joining AG earlier, I wish I had also bought Minecraft earlier, I only started in 2012, I wish I had started like 3 years earlier, then I could be better on it too
Chryosten: 13. My laziness when it came to gaming is why I only managed to reach Gold Knight. There was the contributing factor of constantly posting in FG.
SirLegendary: 14. Wish I could be here more often, I'm trying.
as far as i understand from this, it was more fun to be active on ag when there were armor points. would this be a reason for bringing them back?
@SirLegendary Yes, automatic would be the goal. We won't be pushing for posts earning stars, but part of being active should be being a regular fixture in the forums.
@akshobhya Getting points for ranking is an interesting idea, It just feels a bit circular. You're already trying to rank.
@Doombreed The system isn't completely worked out, but I would want it to value substance. That's what we need in the forums. That being said, as @nichodemus says some forum games have substance.
@helpo1 Times can change. Merits used to be given out quite a lot in the very early days, then we drew them back in - mainly because of resources. It could be that instead of Merits for writing a guide, you get a Quest which gives you more points than a Merit. An automated system wouldn't simply be about posting a lot, it would be many factors - that frankly could be tweaked and updated as we go.
It could also be setup so that if you had a comment marked frequently as spam, or removed by a moderator, it could remove your ability to get a Activity Merit for the month.
@Ferret Knights page too (I know it's not important, but still!)
Also, if the plan isn't to reward posting, what will keep users coming back to the community, or what will get newbies to join the community? There should be rewards for participating here too! AG's community doesn't seem to be a big part of this place, but it sure is an important part!
for writing a guide, you get a Quest which gives you more points than a Merit.
@Ferret I am probably missing something awfully obvious here, but does that mean infinite "quests" for writing guides? Because if someone who already has the quest writes a second great guide for a different game, and he is to be rewarded again, how will that happen?
Speaking of which, if you could also set this system up to give points directly as well instead of just Merits it could solve a lot of problems, like the one about consequent game walkthroughs You could reward that user for a second time without for example resorting to a new quest (if I am getting this right that is). Also, no need to resort to activity Merits. Their value can remain the same
@SirLegendary If we can find a way to reward them, without creating a spam craze, we will. That's always been the challenge.
@Doombreed I see the point, in the current situation Merits would provide another way to reward the player who made another guide. Your idea of a point gifting system isn't bad, but it does make the programming strange. Instead of having concrete things that have point values, you have this nebulous point "Gift" that hangs out there. It may be easier to grant them Merits.
It could be the Activity Merit is actually quite difficult to get. If you have ideas on requirements for the merit, we'll listen to them - but we can't tell you for sure, since we want it to be hidden in secrecy. That way no gaming of the system.
@Ferret, a post with five to ten words rewards a star, and a post with more than ten words rewards two? Give out stars based on the amount of content a post has. However little the reward may be, they accumulate anyways. Make the reward so stupidly small, it would be stupid to spam posts.
That being said, as @nichodemus says some forum games have substance.
I agree - like Nicho said, there are games which require a lot of attention from the host/players, but also (for example) there is often a small difference between some threads in the Tavern and the Count. And one shouldn't forget that some of the FGs really help to keep this community alive, too. Though I also agree that FG forum would be the first one to get flooded.
It may be easier to grant them Merits.
What about dividing it into two separate stats ("Normal merits" and "Activity merits" or whatever) and leaving the original ones the way they are now? It shouldn't be that hard to implement and it could solve the problem. Normal merits would still be hard to get and handed out manually, while the Activity ones would be automated and easier to obtain (and maybe of a bit smaller value).
Make the reward so stupidly small, it would be stupid to spam posts.
That partially destroys the purpose. There'll be users who'll say "What? Two stars is all I get for that brilliant comment of mine? Are you kidding me? Oh, ... it then. Not worth my time." I can imagine some people would even think it's worse than no stars for comments/posts at all. (Also, ninja'd by Ferret.)
That partially destroys the purpose. There'll be users who'll say "What? Two stars is all I get for that brilliant comment of mine? Are you kidding me? Oh, ... it then. Not worth my time." I can imagine some people would even think it's worse than no stars for comments/posts at all. (Also, ninja'd by Ferret.)
I didn't really go deep into detail with what I meant. But what I meant to say was to reward posts based on their content. I never mentioned capping the reward. But for example, someone did write something like a hundred words, that certain post should only be rewarded by ten stars. aka stupidly small. In fact, I'd like to even make it less than that. Why? Because it's possible for someone to earn more than 20k stars in a year just through posting. I'm not trying to belittle forum activity though, I'm only trying to balance it out. Though I do believe activity in the forums should be rewarded nevertheless.
@SirLegendary
Well, I can already see people just unnecessarily prolonging their posts by, for example, mindlessly quoting previous posts. :P
You're most definitely right in one thing - a person could easily get even 100+ points a day by posting, while it's almost impossible to earn two merits a day (and sometimes quite difficult to even get two hard quests). But I agree with Ferret that points should never be directly tied to posting. That could be effective in discouraging people to spam for points. There can be a border of how much do you have to post to get an Activity merit, but directly rewarding posting/commenting will always be a Russian roulette between activity and spamming.
I've updated many Quest point values (non-game) as well as the legacy quests. We'll need to refresh the database of games in order for that to take effect, so you'll likely see some changes to your points here soon. We may continue to tweak these values as we go.
Instead of rewarding stars for each post, I feel giving maybe 10 or 25 for the 100th, 500th, 1000th post and every 500th(or 1000th) post after that can be a good motivation for the users. @Ferret, Can there be a system for rewarding stars directly, by mods? (I have no specific intention in mind for this but I think it might come in handy)
