Okay, I'm just wondering, what point is there to having ArmorPoints(pun intended)? I mean...it encourages people to spam, right? The merit system causes several people to start whining for merits, it creates unnecessary extra work for the mods, and all you get for it is a new icon on your profile and a couple new armatars. So, here's my question: Is it worth it? I was wondering why the site doesn't just take the whole idea of AP and toss it in the wastebucket. Here are some of the cons and pros I've managed to come up with for different ways to get merits.
1. Rating a game Positive: The idea is that people will be encouraged to give their opinion of a game. Negative: As it is the quickest and easiest way to get AP and it can't be counted as spam no matter what, I think that this could be abused as a way to get quick and easy AP, without having put any thought into it or even played the game in question.
2. Commenting on a Game Pros: It has been prophesied that someday, somewhere in the world, sometime in the future of Armorgames, someone will actually be smart enough, mature enough, and well-intentioned enough, to actually write a thoughtful comment using the commenting on a game system, intended to help the developer, and with no thought of a merit. However, until the prophesied Commenter of Justice arrives, we must deal with the cons... Negative: Obviously, it is a reward for spam, spam, and yet more spam! No one actually uses the comments system to comment on a game with an intelligent, well-thought out review, without their goal being to get a merit! Therefore, the comments are so clogged up with spam, that we can't even find a useful review(reviewer's intentions notwithstanding).
3. Forum Posts Positive: Obviously, rewarding people for forum posts is an alright idea, since most people spam it out in the game comments, being that they are worth more AP. However, people still use FPs as a way to get more APs, and the people who only care about actual, meaningful discussion in the forums, could care less about the points. Negative: Well, rewarding someone with AP for posting at all is possibly a good idea, but there's always the threat of spam looming around the corner, and I've gotten the impression that the mods are slightly more lenient around here. If there's one 5-7 word post, it's ignored. If there's multiple spam posts in one thread, the thread is locked. There's not really any punishment for it. Ever.
4. Game Designing Positive: This is an amazing idea. To reward someone for getting a game passed through is a good idea, and if you raise the bar for game standards, I think it's plausible that this could be the only way to get AP. Game designing is difficult and time consuming nearly all the time...so there's almost no way it can be abused. Negative: Error. File Game-designing-negative, not found.
5.Merits Positive: For those people who take the time to write out well-thought out reviews with the intention of helping the game designer improve the game, it is an excellent idea to reward them. Negative: Whining, and mods having to dig through garbage to find gold. Nuff said.
In my personal opinion, there are a few options which can be done to improve the AP system: A) Make it so that all thoughtful comments get a merit, regardless of which section they're in, however if you whine about the "merit" you're not getting, then you will be punished by losing all the merits you already have, and if you don't have a merit, then you can't get one for a certain amount of time. B) Make it so that only designing a game can get you AP, and raise the bar for games submitted. C) Remove the system in its entirety. D) Make your own option. This is just a thought I had, and there was a fatal combination going on; I was a nerd, I had an idea, and I was bored out of my mind. This is the finished product. So, this is just a few suggestions and reasons, everybody else, you're welcome to share your own and your thoughts on my ideas. Tally Ho!(and no, I have absolutely no clue what that means. I know it has something to do with hunting...I think).
Spam is a necessary evil in order to make Armorgames more than just a forum/flash site, AKA more fun. While some of the methods given are questionable, the founding fathers (and mother?) gave us these few options in order to enjoy this site and to stick with it. Provided with enough conclusive evidence, some methods can be changed and/or removed (referral, I'm looking at you).
the first two items you mentioned could have been easily summarized as:
1) AP helps to promote the proper use of this feature 2) AP also promotes the spamming of this feature.
regardless the problem with making Games submitted the only way to get AP is that the developers are probably the ones who care the least about getting rewarded with it, and its more of a way to track activity within the site anyways. The game comments are an issue I would say, but there are only so many games that can be commented(somewhere over 1700 at this point it would seem) and even then you can just ignore the threads about merits. Honestly I haven't really found this to be as much of an issue that people whine about as it used to be, but nowadays it would seem rare for them to ever give out merits to people anyways. Regardless of all of this I'm going to be honest in saying that even with all of the different suggestions you put at the end, I think they may have all already been submitted before(I'm guessing even the submit your own idea suggestion at that) I will honestly say that besides reforming the game and profile comments in some way, I honestly can't think of any ways to fix the problem that would make sense.
Although you suggested that the rating system is useless it does have its benefits because it makes it easy to find good games. Although there is quite a bit of spam you have to admit that it works out so that the best games are the highest rated. So it's not all bad.
Right now, the only thing I'm iffy about is the rating system. Giving AP for rating a game promotes the ratings of the games, yes. Is it as effective as people think? That's the question of the day. -- Since people know that you get AP for just rating a game, they will rate on a whim. I've caught myself doing this once or twice back in my laddie days, so I'm trying to catch myself. Hype for a popular game and all that. No biggie. A select few, however, disregard the purpose of why there is a rating scale in the first place. I'm looking at those that have joined in 09 and 10 with over a thousand rated games with no comments. This cannot be just coincidental, as these select few I'm talking about have relatively the same ratio. We rate games to give our opinion as to how good/bad we think the game turned out. Usually, that means playing the game first and maybe even commenting about it afterwards. hintity-hint-hint.
-- No one can see you rating a game. Besides the rate count on your score card, users can rate both on a whim and be inconspicuous about it as well. This can be "hidden" by a high number of comments, showing that you commented on the game as well as rating it. While this may not be as bad, some eyebrows may be raised if you have a 900:1 rate to post count.
-- There is no time restriction on rating. You can tab multiple games and click the rate action, and your points will increase as such. Raise your mouse if you know there's something fishy about this? Well? Start raisin' them!
-- Moderators cannot delete your ratings. There's an obvious reason for this, and that's your right to opinion. First Amendment ftw right? Mods cannot attack you for what rating you gave the game, but they can attack you if you're rating a substantial number of games while doing nothing else in a short period of time. Of course, since they cannot delete your ratings, they can only warn/temp-ban you.
I agree. It's irritating to to have my questions or constructive comments on games drowned in one-word comments, posted within minutes after mine. I also see comments that are critical but have no reason behind it, like "This game sucks a lot." Why would that be rewarded with points??
I don't understand the incentive for points, but I do understand that the majority of users really care about it. That being said, I know why it exists and that it's not going to be disestablished. There are, however, plenty of ways to make it more difficult to abuse the point system.
The biggest concern seems to be game ratings. Game ratings are important only if it's accurate opinions, which is why it creates a severely flawed rating system when points are handed out at all, imo. The following suggestions are regulations that I've seen on other sites with point systems that seem to help curve the abuse.
- Limit rating games to established users only (either registered for a certain number of days or after earning a certain number of points/merits)
- Limit the number of ratings allowed per 24-hour period, or even better, limit 1-2 hourly.
- Display users' ratings on their profile (perhaps not ALL, but "games rated today" would discourage high volumes of ratings for points, 1/10's or 10/10's for every vote, etc).
- Display ratings with each comment posted by the user (this can reduce the number of idiot comments as well).
- And, my personal favorite, do away with rewarding points for rating games altogether.
As for comments, there needs to be a system of checks and balances established. This would discourage all of the tards and tattle-tails from abusing the point system and flagging comments inaccurately.
- Other options for flagging besides spam is needed. Reporting a user who is posting repetitive comments, or the same post 5 times on one game is necessary to put an end to it. Other sites reward users who accurately report these things, and demerit the users who are flagged (as well as demerit users who report abuse inaccurately).
- Any and all of the suggestions for ratings can be applied to comments as well.
These issues should be addressed if Armor Games wants a higher volume on their site. Other sites using these ideas are some of the most visited and regularly used. Just throwing that out there.
we have talked this over. the sight likes AP beacuse more people stay on the site, and without them, many people would leave. Its here to bring people in. Its a game website, and there for it has to have some king of point system to make it fun for gamers.
I hate Ap, but you know. It hs to be here I guesse
I think most of the replies are agreeing with you, skater kid. We're focusing on improving it, which can be done and is being done by many other websites. I've been on and use plenty of other sites that are successful in moderating abuse with just as many moderators but with a better system of regulations.
You guys should check out anitwhale. They don't have a point system for say.
What they have is a post count, for forums like we do here, but it gives you no points. they hae a thing called barnacles which is kinda like street credit. Admins can give you barnacles for funny thgins you do or the like.
www.antiwhale.com
Do you guys mean make the sight more like that, without the ap?
Well this is a flash games website. Not just a forum, actually the forum doesn't even look like a major part of the site, it's so hidden away, this site is all about the games. The forums are just there for other, extra entertainment, it seems.
Maybe you should only be able to comment and rate every 5 min. instead of 30 seconds. This spamming those would be hard without actually playing the game.
A) Make it so that all thoughtful comments get a merit, regardless of which section they're in, however if you whine about the "merit" you're not getting, then you will be punished by losing all the merits you already have, and if you don't have a merit, then you can't get one for a certain amount of time.
It will just cause that user to spam even more to get those Armor Points back he just lost
B) Make it so that only designing a game can get you AP, and raise the bar for games submitted.
More than 95% of game designers just join to armor games to post their game and do not come back unless they have another game, Armor Points are nothing for them
C) Remove the system in its entirety.
Armor Points are there to attract poeple to join Armor Games, alot of poeple like to collect points on forums (same as you like to collect achievements while playing games) at first I joined just becaose of Armor Points (still didn't know AG forum exist back then)
Funny story, I didn't read up on points when signing up, and I had no clue what merits were/assumed it was different terminology for AP. I didn't figure it out until today when I read the "Getting merits is impossible" thread. The title blew my mind because I was thinking, "Don't you just have to rate a game for that crap?" Then I opened it and lol'd. Not because of my stupidity, I mourned that... I lol'd at the thread itself.
After reading that, I now understand why Armor Points and Merits exist... for people like that. The merits are awarded for anything that actually deserves points, where as the AP are simply participation points.
Perfect analogy: The Special Olympics. In order to accommodate the huge diversity of social, intellectual and emotional development, it's been determined that it doesn't matter if you come in 4th place in a race or if you ran the wrong way, trying to knock others down along the way (that happened one year when I volunteered, it was epic), either way every participant still gets a trophy and a ribbon. This way, everyone feels like a winner.
Unfortunately, there are always the winners who get upset when the winner who won 1st place is awarded a bigger trophy. Everyone won't always understand, and they'll feel cheated somehow. Oh well. I guess we'll just have to try to understand that they don't understand.
That being said, I still think there should be some more restrictions on rating and commenting. A mod-bot could restrict the amount of ratings/comments per hour, and it would help.
