What the fuck is going on at RPGdot?

[Avé]

You cant really moan about rpgdot using 80% as average, when most other review sites do the same.

Two sites I'll name that use 5, or at least 6 as average are:

Gamesdomain - best review site until it got sold to BT(british telecom) and then to Yahoo.

Here's gamerankings stats for it

Number of All Reviews: 2599
Number of All Other Articles: 2812
Site's Avg Score for All: 3.5
Site's Avg Ratio For All: 70.5%
GR Avg Ratio for All titles this site has reviewed: 74.3%
Difference: -3.8%
Number of All Reviews Higher than the Average: 467
Number of All Reviews Lower than the Average: 2132

Another thing I really liked about GD, was that if another staff member felt a review was bad, they could give a second opinion(and even a third at times).


The second site is one that was recently maligned here, Eurogamer.

umber of All Reviews: 1166
Number of All Other Articles: 759
Site's Avg Score for All: 6.9
Site's Avg Ratio For All: 68.9%
GR Avg Ratio for All titles this site has reviewed: 76.0%
Difference: -7.1%
Number of All Reviews Higher than the Average: 320
Number of All Reviews Lower than the Average: 846

 

[DarkSign]

Well consider my rankings comprehension reset.

< 50% = the bottom of the barrel

60%-75% = slightly suxXor

75% = average

75%-85%= better than average

85%> = great

But with a Bermuda Triangle in the 80-85% range for games that websites need advertising from so they give a decent score to.

Im converted Thanks for the insight Dh.

 

[Chefe]

I like my rating system the best:

1. Awesome
2. Wicked Cool
3. Tubular
4. Outrageous
5. Slick
6. EXCELLENT!

 

[DarkSign]

Sounds like you have a bright future in video-game journalism !

 

[Chefe]

I've been applying for a position at Gamespot.

FYI: "Tubular" is my middle-of-the-road.

 

[obediah]

If you think that you can actually ascertain how well someone knows something with 2-digit precision by use of a written test, you're kidding yourself. And the grade itself would not have to be directly based on "portion of questions answered correctly", either.

Well if you think it's viable to replace every written test with a 60 minute 2 on 1 oral exam, you're either kidding yourself of have hundreds of trillions of dollars to donate. I have taken college courses where no tests were given and homework wasn't graded and the entire grade depends on a one hour conversation with the prof at the end. I've also had courses with 3-4 exams with the average set in the 40-60% range. Both did a far better job of evaluation and comparing the knowledge of the students than the standard 70-100% written exams. As a student I like having some feedback through the semester to see how I stack up in the class.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

No, I'm not. Props to Exitium to finding a site that uses a different scale - I'd forgotten about AVault and they did indeed used to write some good reviews. However, if everyone accepted that as common sense, then Gamerankings (and every other site for that matter) would reflect that. When Average Joe votes at Gamerankings or GameSpot or wherever, he sure as hell uses 70-75% as average -- go take a look.

I have to agree with the 75% mark being around the average mark. Yes, I tend to base this on going through 15 years of being graded on such a scale from grade school through college. However, it makes sense that game would be treated the same way.

If a game is 50% "fun", how good of a game is it? If you're annoyed half the time playing it, or if it's like halfway interesting, I doubt it's that good of a game. If it's 75%, that seems more on par with an average game.

When Gamebanshee reviewed ToEE and gave it 6/10, there was a general outcry. Saint says "OUCH!", Exitium says Crap!" and "it's pretty harsh to give the game a 60%", VD says "it's a solid 80% minimum".

Bottom line - you guys know damn well that 60% is "Crap!". Where was the "60%? OK, so it's a bit above average? I'd rate it higher but that's fair".

Actually, percentages are different than "stars" ratings. I tend to think of 2.5 stars out of 5 as the average which follows with the statistical middle value. 2.5 stars would be a 50%, but we're really talking about a different "50%" than giving a percentile score.

No, it's not a crappy excuse to use 75% as average because that's the "public view". It makes sense because otherwise a review that's meant to read "just a little above average" gets an "OUCH!" response even from this site.

Well, I think he problem is that a lot of people think your scores, even with 75% being average, think the scores are WAY too high. Look at the score for Dungeon Siege 2 on RPGDot versus the mainstream sites. In the mainstream, it's an average game. However, a site that's focus is on CRPGs should probably look at it from a CRPG perspective and be a little more critical of the game rather than "Is it fun or not?" which is pretty much what the mainstream sites do.

They're not concerned with how the character system does or doesn't work in the mainstream. They're not concerned with the presentation of the world and how well the quests are designed in terms of balance, reward, and consequences. They're not concerned with the interaction between the player and his inventory and so forth. There's a reason they're comparing Dungeon Siege 2 with Baldur's Gate, because they're only looking at how fun it is.

It's like having an entertainment editor of the local newspaper cover the Superbowl. They might rave about the action of the game, the half time show, and the fancy camera techniques used to capture the event. A sports writer is going to look at the Superbowl in terms of the statistics and tactics of each team. The sports writer will analyse what plays worked, and what plays didn't. He'll look at how many turn overs there were for how many yards and so forth.

@Darksign, rather than asking us to protect you, why don't you lobby RPG Codex for some actual content?

Wait. We can do content here? Hmmm. There's a novel idea.

 

[Calis]

Well if you think it's viable to replace every written test with a 60 minute 2 on 1 oral exam, you're either kidding yourself of have hundreds of trillions of dollars to donate. I have taken college courses where no tests were given and homework wasn't graded and the entire grade depends on a one hour conversation with the prof at the end. I've also had courses with 3-4 exams with the average set in the 40-60% range. Both did a far better job of evaluation and comparing the knowledge of the students than the standard 70-100% written exams. As a student I like having some feedback through the semester to see how I stack up in the class.

I'm not against written tests. I'm just saying that if you're using written tests as a method to ascertain how well a student knows or understands a certain subject, it's not going to give you 2-digit accuracy in doing that. It's gonna give you two-digit accuracy on *how well the student did that particular test, at that particular time*. Including easier questions to set the "passing" mark at 55% or 60% isn't actually going to sacrifice your ability to effectively differentiate between student with insufficient grasp of the subject matter, barely sufficient grasp of the subject matter all up into the range of exceptional knowledge or understanding. I'm not even *against* harder written exams that would put the passing mark or average mark a bundle lower, I'm just against claiming that you'd necessarily sacrifice part of the test result range by setting the passing mark at 50%.

 

[crufty]

Aren't we more interested in how crappy a game is then how fun it is? I know when I go to gamefaqs, I go straight to the lowest reviews to see what irritated person A about game B.

 

[Dhruin]

Well, I think he problem is that a lot of people think your scores, even with 75% being average, think the scores are WAY too high. Look at the score for Dungeon Siege 2 on RPGDot versus the mainstream sites. In the mainstream, it's an average game. However, a site that's focus is on CRPGs should probably look at it from a CRPG perspective and be a little more critical of the game rather than "Is it fun or not?" which is pretty much what the mainstream sites do.

They're not concerned with how the character system does or doesn't work in the mainstream. They're not concerned with the presentation of the world and how well the quests are designed in terms of balance, reward, and consequences. They're not concerned with the interaction between the player and his inventory and so forth. There's a reason they're comparing Dungeon Siege 2 with Baldur's Gate, because they're only looking at how fun it is.

Sure. I accept most of that...and we'll see if we can improve it going forward. On Ds2 specifically I think you are underestimating the scores out there - it's averaging a "good" 80%. Anyway, my main point all along is not that RPGDot can't or shouldn't improve -- just that this 50% isn't realistic, and even some people that claim it is don't react that way when a game they like is scored on that scale.

 

[obediah]

I'm just against claiming that you'd necessarily sacrifice part of the test result range by setting the passing mark at 50%.

One of us is on the reefer, because I never intended to say that. Quite the opposite, I was saying that desiging the test so you expect the average student to get half right, lets you evaluate performance much better than a test designed for the average student to get between 75-85%. In particular, you lose just about all of your ability to find exceptional students.

Building on your precision comment, the standard model allots 3-4 shares for measuring each grade between A+ and D-, and 60 shares for F. Which is just all sorts of retarded.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Aren't we more interested in how crappy a game is then how fun it is? I know when I go to gamefaqs, I go straight to the lowest reviews to see what irritated person A about game B.

I usually hit amazon.com and find out what the retards say. You usually get some funny reviews that add to the drama too.

 

[ichpokhudezh]

Quite the opposite, I was saying that desiging the test so you expect the average student to get half right, lets you evaluate performance much better than a test designed for the average student to get between 75-85%. In particular, you lose just about all of your ability to find exceptional students.

Tests usually have two-fold usage: to evaluate students and to evaluate teachers and so are (mostly) designed to figure out proportion of 'retained' versus 'given' knowledge plus some part (usually small, i.e <=10% of total score) to estimate capability of advanced application/combination/extension of methods supposed to be known. That gives us 'full' score of 90%, with the rest being 'extra'. Now the second part - teacher's task has been to implant knowledge into certain group of students with certain expected performance level. The full efficiency (obviously) is all knowledge imbued, unsatisfactory performance - less than half knowledge can be actively used by the target group.
Thus mid-poind of 'acceptable' mentoring process performance is 75% of the given knowledge retained, which gives 67.5% of the test score for a 'middle-of-the-road' student.

 

[Whipporowill]

At least Dhruin delivered one of the most fair Fable reviews yet. I wonder what some of his colleagues would've scored it... :shock:

 

[DarkSign]

Dhruin's got me converted. I guess most people use the grade-school system. I'll read my reviews accordingly.

 

[bryce777]

I'm just against claiming that you'd necessarily sacrifice part of the test result range by setting the passing mark at 50%.

One of us is on the reefer, because I never intended to say that. Quite the opposite, I was saying that desiging the test so you expect the average student to get half right, lets you evaluate performance much better than a test designed for the average student to get between 75-85%. In particular, you lose just about all of your ability to find exceptional students.

Building on your precision comment, the standard model allots 3-4 shares for measuring each grade between A+ and D-, and 60 shares for F. Which is just all sorts of retarded.

If you have spent much time with teachers you have to realize 'all kinds of retarded' pretty much sums them up.

The whole percentage rating makes zero sense in the first place and is just too arbitrary. It is utterly meaningless, especially when reviewers all seem to be retarded in the first place, and are usually people who either a) normally dont play a game in that genre and dont play for more than a few hours, and are not qualified to make any judgements b) stupid faggot fanbois like corwin and kristophe (most people whose opinion I would care about would not have the interest to complete a game like morrowind in the first place) c) paid off by advertisers so bash the living shit out of independent/small games and suck the cock of any major games that come out no matter how bad or just blah they are d) morons who count graphics as 80% of their criteria and gameplay about 5% who should probably be watching a movie instead.

If you are going to use a school system (which is idiotic in its own right), just use A, A-, etc. etc. which is far more obvious than the stupid perncent thing which has no clear definition as is obvious from this thread. If you are only using the 60-100% range you may as well go to the 5 star system.

Personally I would rather have no ratings at all...if you can't sum up a game in a one line headline, then you are not a good enough writer that you should be making a review in the first place.

 

[Avé]

Games should be rated out of 3

1 bad
2 average
3 good


Use the review to find out more, and focus less on the score.

 

[DarkSign]

4. Really really Bad dont ever buy ever.

 

[crufty]

I usually hit amazon.com and find out what the retards say. You usually get some funny reviews that add to the drama too.

Haha, too true. Amazon can be real hit or miss. A game will have 3 five star reviews and then a 1 star "it crashed my computer it teh suck".

Also, game companies who put their PR reps to the task of writing glowing reviews on public sites, naughty naughty.

 

[Dhruin]

The whole percentage rating makes zero sense in the first place and is just too arbitrary. It is utterly meaningless, especially when reviewers all seem to be retarded in the first place, and are usually people who either a) normally dont play a game in that genre and dont play for more than a few hours, and are not qualified to make any judgements b) stupid faggot fanbois like corwin and kristophe (most people whose opinion I would care about would not have the interest to complete a game like morrowind in the first place) c) paid off by advertisers so bash the living shit out of independent/small games and suck the cock of any major games that come out no matter how bad or just blah they are d) morons who count graphics as 80% of their criteria and gameplay about 5% who should probably be watching a movie instead.

If you are going to use a school system (which is idiotic in its own right), just use A, A-, etc. etc. which is far more obvious than the stupid perncent thing which has no clear definition as is obvious from this thread. If you are only using the 60-100% range you may as well go to the 5 star system.

Personally I would rather have no ratings at all...if you can't sum up a game in a one line headline, then you are not a good enough writer that you should be making a review in the first place.

That's an entertaining rant but makes little sense. If the reviewer is so retarded, why does changing from a percentage to a grade system make it any better? And obvious to who? Not everyone uses that sort of grading system...perhaps it's universal in the US but my schools didn't use it, Germans use a 1 - 6 scale and so on.

And let me get this straight - a score is retarded, but you are advocating a one-line summary instead?

 

[DarkUnderlord]

And let me get this straight - a score is retarded, but you are advocating a one-line summary instead?

Diablo 2: 85%

- VS -

Diablo 2: RPG-Lite action click-fest with item hunting.

Hrm... Works for me!

 

[Grifman]

And let me get this straight - a score is retarded, but you are advocating a one-line summary instead?

Diablo 2: 85%

- VS -

Diablo 2: RPG-Lite action click-fest with item hunting.

Hrm... Works for me!

Not really, that summary says nothing about how good an RPG lite action clickfest it is. It could be a very good one, or a very bad one.

 

[Dark Elf]

100% = Diablo 2: OMG TEH WIN RPG-Lite action click-fest with item hunting R0xx0RS!!!11!1!

85% = OMG Diablo 2: RPG-Lite action click-fest with item hunting @lm0$t TEH WIN!111!!111.

75% = Diablo 2: RPG-Lite action click-fest with item hunting.

50% = TEH SUCK Diablo 2: RPG-Lite action click-fest with item hunting SuXx0rS!111!!!!11!!

 

[bryce777]

The whole percentage rating makes zero sense in the first place and is just too arbitrary. It is utterly meaningless, especially when reviewers all seem to be retarded in the first place, and are usually people who either a) normally dont play a game in that genre and dont play for more than a few hours, and are not qualified to make any judgements b) stupid faggot fanbois like corwin and kristophe (most people whose opinion I would care about would not have the interest to complete a game like morrowind in the first place) c) paid off by advertisers so bash the living shit out of independent/small games and suck the cock of any major games that come out no matter how bad or just blah they are d) morons who count graphics as 80% of their criteria and gameplay about 5% who should probably be watching a movie instead.

If you are going to use a school system (which is idiotic in its own right), just use A, A-, etc. etc. which is far more obvious than the stupid perncent thing which has no clear definition as is obvious from this thread. If you are only using the 60-100% range you may as well go to the 5 star system.

Personally I would rather have no ratings at all...if you can't sum up a game in a one line headline, then you are not a good enough writer that you should be making a review in the first place.

That's an entertaining rant but makes little sense. If the reviewer is so retarded, why does changing from a percentage to a grade system make it any better? And obvious to who? Not everyone uses that sort of grading system...perhaps it's universal in the US but my schools didn't use it, Germans use a 1 - 6 scale and so on.

And let me get this straight - a score is retarded, but you are advocating a one-line summary instead?

You are just pointing out more how ridiculous your ratings are. If you don't even use the same grading system then why would you possibly use something from it to review games?

Doesn't that seem more than a little foolish to you?

You may not use the A B C etc. scale, but then you are publishing in English, and English speakers will obviously know this scale even if they do not actually use it.

A one liner has the potential to be 100 times more descriptive than a simple rating. Is 80% good, bad, sort of good? What do other games rate? Sorry, but that is utterly meaningless as this thread has proved.

If you were to say "Morrowind: an amazing game with awesome graphics and wonderfull gameplay" then I would know from that time you were a Fucking Idiot if I'd played the game, and if not I would be leery because I can see that you seem to be concentrating on the graphics.

You could also say "TOEE: great combat, but lots of bugs and a lackluster story"

If you just throw out a raw score, it is not just meaningless but I have no justification for it until I read your article, which I am not likely to do unless you can somehow prove to me you are not an idiot in the first place...and a summary that made sense would help a lot in this regard. I personally think most of the reviews out there are basically unreadable, let alone the fact they are of little or no use.

 

[Dhruin]

Huh? I didn't say I did use a school system but if I did, a percentage makes perfect sense because that's what was used throughout my schooling.

This whole thing is dragging on but as I understand, many posters advocate no score because (in part) the whole of the review text should be taking into account. The score isn't just "tossed out" - there's a whole article that should support it. If you couldn't be bothered reading the review text in the first place, we're wasting our time discussing it.