Our ReVolt Pub

Arto or Zach,please take a tad look on this:

Posted by miromiro on 5th Jul 09
I put bigger grades.
Now the main grades are better.

I rest my case

What's wrong if I put my own grades ?
My grades are 9.5 all I hate when one of my tracks has
smaller grade wherever than 4 , 0. That's the reason .
Very weird. We all can what ever we want whit our cars and tracks.

if you grade your track higher than other people think, then other people will download the track thinking that it is better than it is and will be dissapointed because they are expecting better a track.

also u should take into consideration why people are grading tracks lower than you think, and try to improve, and maybe look at tracks that have the grades that you are giving yourself and think, is my track this good?

please see this as constructive critisism

The whole point of grades is to show how you improve over time. Generally, a person would have low grades at the beginning (lego tracks) and gradually the grades would go up from one track to another. If you aren't going to grade your own tracks fairly, don't vote at all.

Well sometimes that's the idea to win more downloads.
But some of the guys from the Re-Volt Community put
joke grades what mean they put small grades. Howrver
I changed my grades to : 9.5 , 9.4 , 8.7 , 5.3.
PS : we spoke about this problem in the topic called "Problem Whit Our Awesome Sites" , click on name and check all the topic .

Zack wrote:The whole point of grades is to show how you improve over time. Generally, a person would have low grades at the beginning (lego tracks) and gradually the grades would go up from one track to another. If you aren't going to grade your own tracks fairly, don't vote at all.

I changed the grades. Check and please don't delete them.

I Ignor the grades as it is just another way for people who have no skills to dig at people's work looking at the way the track order is over at RVZT proves my point.

Well yes some of the guys simple ignore the work of the authors.
They think the track or car is bad. They're bad.

Most guys who ingores the tracks is too lazy to put grades. Joke grades doesnt come often and when they come its usually 10 10 10 10 or 1 1 1 1.

I realy do not want to be disrespectfull of anyones work but when you have tracks like Playa+ and frostbite graded above Reville you know the grading system should be scrapped.

Mate,I have raced ALL of the custom tracks,believe me,I know when a track is good or bad

For example,Skitch2 tracks

Botanical Garden 3,a must-have
Chilled to the bone,IMO,one of the top 5 best tracks
Feeling Yard,great track
Feeling Yard Ex,the same
Fools Mate 1,kick bottom
Fools Mate 2,one of the most challenging tracks
Hull Breach 1 and 3,Must haves
Hull Breach 2,I dislike it
Images of Giza,must have again
Medieval Mayhem,nice track
Nhood Grimm...I don't like it,simply put
Rooftoops 2,kick bottom
The Mines of Alderon,my first custom track,top 10 for sure
Toon GP...I don't like it,just like I don't like Nhood Grimm
Toy World Ex,nice one,but it kinda bugs with me(I never knew why)
Toy World Aquatica,nice again,but damn that shark!!!
Zero Degrees,while easy,great track

The worst graded skitch track is 8.1,the best is 9,5

Do you really think your lego is better than Skitch's best track?

I changed my grades to : 9.5 , 9.4 , 8.7 , 5.3.

Hey,I never won a cup,though I was 2nd place a dozen times,I even tried to do a track once,it was not too bad...

My grades on your track were:

Graphics 4,5
Flow 5,5
Difficulty:2,0
Overall: 4,0

I'll explain them...step by step,as I have some criteria...

Graphics:
1-Do I feel like racing an environment,or am I obviously on a set course(Value:1 point)
2-Do I get amazed at the graphics or just pass by them like "Oh,whatever,just let's get this done with"(Value 3 points)
3-Was the environment of the track put some effort,or some time to make the track visually appealing? (Value 3 points)
4-Is it extreme? (Value 1 point)
5-Are there Instances?(Value 1 point)
6-Does the graphics alter the racing flow? (1 point if it's good,0,5 if it's normal and 0 if it's crappy)

Your track:
1-NO (0 points)
2-Just pass,but I'll give 1,0 anyway(1 point)
3-NO,but i'll give 1,0 anyway(1 point)
4-No(0 points)
5-No(0 Points)
6-Yes,in some parts the black mix,and you don't know where the track starts and where it ends,but not too much..(0,5 point)

The real graphic grade I would give would be 2,5,but it's one of your new tracks,i'll give a 2 point bonus,4,5

Flow Criteria:
1-Are there annoying places? Not hard ones,annoying,like "Where the hell do I turn?" (1 point)
2-Invisible walls? (1 point)
3-Repo Bugs(1 point)
4-Does it makes me want to drive it more?? (3 points)
5-Does it challenge me? (2 points)
6-Is the flow composed of interesting turns or only straights and 90º turns? (1 point)
7-Is the overall track idea in sintony with the racing line? (1 point)

Your track:
1-Nah,1 point
2-Nah,1 point
3-Nah,1 point
4-Nah,0 points
5-In only one place,0,5 points
6-Interesting cross-overs and stuff,1 point
7-Yeah...I suppose,1 point

Grade:5,5

Difficulty Criteria:
1-How Many laps it took me to race two cleans laps in a row? (Ranging from 1 to infinite)
2-Did I have to brake? (1 point)
3-Even when I did a clean lap,Was I very close to making one mistake? (3 points)
4-Are there places where you can gain speed by taking risks? (1,5 points)

Your track:
1-One...1,0
2-No,0,0
3-No,0,0
4-Kinda,1,0

Difficulty Grade:2,0

Overall grade, 4,0

So no,I don't put joke grades

Whats up Skitch!?!? Dissing my track?!?! lol. I know it really wasn't that great. None of my tracks really are. Winter Park had potential, but I was pushing to release it and didn't bother to fully fix all the bugs. I am, however working on a mod that uses a much improved Winter Park, but that's getting off-topic. I think this topic is something that has needed to happen for a while. So good idea. But I hope people like you, miro, now understand what is going on around here and how to make it work. It isn't meant to promote something, merely to help the author understand what makes a track better. Too many people today expect to instantly be praised for some work they did. It's sad how the newer generations are unwilling to accept criticism and consequences. Oh well, that's enough of my venting for now. Any other comments?

I have word to say : STRANGE

What is Strange mate?

If it is the grades your tracks are receiving,I think they are totally in accordance to what the track deserves

Cheers

Aylown @ Jul 5 2009, 11:15 PM wrote:Hey,I never won a cup,though I was 2nd place a dozen times,I even tried to do a track once,it was not too bad...


2-Did I have to brake? (1 point)

Now I understand why you never won a cup

If you don't brake on Domestic Disturbance or Floating World,you are my hero

Let's schedule a race,you,me,arto and co. for old times

offtopic !
we don't speak here about chapionships on RV House.
And sure I want to play with you guys .

Skitch2 @ Jul 5 2009, 10:12 PM wrote: I realy do not want to be disrespectfull of anyones work but when you have tracks like Playa+ and frostbite graded above Reville you know the grading system should be scrapped.

Scrapping the grading system by a couple of examples would be a bit drastic.

Of course the grading must be taken with a grain of salt. It would work a lot better if there were dozens of people voting on each track. But that's not really the size of Re-Volt demographic.

The grading gives a rough estimate. Not a good comparison between two tracks.

But were you compare the tracks with the lowest grades with the tracks with the highest grades, I think you can see that mostly the good tracks come on top and the bad ones at the bottom.

When comparing individual tracks the grading system just doesn't work that well with such a small community as Re-Volt is. However I think it does give some good pointers to people what is considered as a good track and what as a bad track. There are exceptions to every rule, and especially in these grades. But if you stop looking at exceptions and consider the bigger picture I think you agree.

How to improve the sorting of tracks and grading are of course a good topic to discuss, but I honestly don't believe scrapping the grading altogether is any solution to a problem you named.

Just to make it clear once again: any author should not take the gradings as an absolute truth about the greatness of his/her track. The comments give much a better view of an individual track. The grades are a blunt overview which many times misses its mark, depending on who has bothered to vote on the track.

Yes we don't need grades to cars too.

Grading systems like 1-10 and then averaged out tend to be inherently flawed because, the more grades a track gets, the more the scores are going to progress toward an average value of 5. A crappy track that gets rated 9 once will have a better score than a track which receives seven 10s and a 1.

I see how we grade on RVZT as you see below on the images:

(10 and 1 is placed in the middle, because theese grades is used rarely by graders who try be objective. Mostly used by people who don't understand the grading system well)

Yeah exactly so is like urnemanden wrote ,
thank you urne .

nice conversation guys.

as maestro arto said, the more the number of voters the more reliable the grades. any grading system needs voters, as obvious as revolt engine needs a face lift, hahaha.
what is the average number of grade votes per track in the top 20 arto? i mean how many users have cast votes per tracks in average?

i like ayl's refined voting methods

miro, long time ago when i voted for some classics like petrovolt, i was thinking for long about going for 9.6 or 9.7 or 9.8 the way i did it was taking a comparison on all the tracks known by me, so i compared it to other tracks , good or bad. i tried to decide, if there was an order to make, where would i place the track and where would other tracks be. i understand that you care of your track and would like to get it accepted by the community, but as you see ayl has his own selfmade grading chart and i think his criterias are correct. he votes based on criterias, i vote based on comparison. both methods need a considerable time and effort to take.

Well sure in some parts I agree you but you can't compare a Lego track weth the best extreme and classic track like PetroVolt. These guys who like to give small grades should know is very hard to make a track. Whatever type of track. Sure when I puted big grades fot my tracks I knew there were other more smaller grades puted by other guys. I mean compare my track with whichever lego track made in 2000 and tell me which one is better. I mean some old lego tracks have bigger joke grades than the tracks what are I and the other Lego track maker make now. Hope now you understand more.

if someone gives track a low grade maybe that is the grade it deserves? maybe they arent "jokes" and might be what people actually think it deserves. I think people should take into account the grades they are being given.

MOH @ Jul 8 2009, 01:29 PM wrote: if someone gives track a low grade maybe that is the grade it deserves? maybe they arent "jokes" and might be what people actually think it deserves. I think people should take into account the grades they are being given.

Well someone gives all 1's to for example PetroVolt, there is no way it can be anything but a joke grade. The graphics are some of the best in Re-Volt so how could a graphics grade of 1 be anything but a joke grade?

human @ Jul 8 2009, 01:05 PM wrote: what is the average number of grade votes per track in the top 20 arto? i mean how many users have cast votes per tracks in average?

I'll take a look soon and let you know.

arto @ Jul 8 2009, 05:17 PM wrote:

MOH @ Jul 8 2009, 01:29 PM wrote: if someone gives  track a low grade maybe that is the grade it deserves? maybe they arent "jokes" and might be what people actually think it deserves. I think people should take into account the grades they are being given.

Well someone gives all 1's to for example PetroVolt, there is no way it can be anything but a joke grade. The graphics are some of the best in Re-Volt so how could a graphics grade of 1 be anything but a joke grade?

Well that I wanted to say. Some jokers give small grades. I think you should delete them.

miromiro @ Jul 8 2009, 05:44 PM wrote:

arto @ Jul 8 2009, 05:17 PM wrote:

MOH @ Jul 8 2009, 01:29 PM wrote: if someone gives  track a low grade maybe that is the grade it deserves? maybe they arent "jokes" and might be what people actually think it deserves. I think people should take into account the grades they are being given.

Well someone gives all 1's to for example PetroVolt, there is no way it can be anything but a joke grade. The graphics are some of the best in Re-Volt so how could a graphics grade of 1 be anything but a joke grade?

Well that I wanted to say. Some jokers give small grades. I think you should delete them.

I've just graded two tracks like this:

Overall:1,5
Graphics:3,5
Flow:1,0
Difficulty:1,5

and

Overall:2
Graphics:4
Flow:1
Difficulty:4(The only hardships are invisiwalls and the farce field)

Do you consider it a joke grade?

human @ Jul 8 2009, 01:05 PM wrote: what is the average number of grade votes per track in the top 20 arto? i mean how many users have cast votes per tracks in average?

I sampled the top 3 tracks. They had 13, 25 and over 50 votes per track. Generally the older the track, the more votes.

It is my gut feeling that usually a track has just a few votes. Around 5 is quite common.

i meant, for example Aylown's vote may be seen as a joke, however that is their opinion of the track.

MOH @ Jul 8 2009, 09:22 PM wrote: i meant, for example Aylown's vote may be seen as a joke, however that is their opinion of the track.

Explain how Aylown's vote could be seen as a joke?

You could make the tracks all have a much simpler voting method. Since number ratings are very subjective in the first place and very from person to person (or their moods), you can just skip the whole 1-10 scale and go strait for a thumbs up/thumbs down scale. Have I suggested this before? I just got strange feeling of deja vu, but maybe that was for something else.

Anyhow, everyone gets to vote:

You like the graphics? Yes or No.
You like the flow? Yes or No.
Was it difficult? Yes or No.
Did you like the track overall? Yes or No.

Then you can just list how many said yes and how many said no for each category. So instead of trying to decide whether the track you like deserves an 8 or a 9, you just give it a Yes because its a track you like! Then if a track shows that 37 people liked it and 5 didn't, it's probably a good track.

I also haven't read the majority of this thread, in case I'm infringing on someone else's suggestions...

What if, instead of statistics being shown, an average is determined. If the average is above 50%, then a thumbs up is displayed. Below 50%, a thumbs down. If this idea is ever actually put into place.

Because as I mentioned earlier, averages will inherently lower the scores for a popular tracks, while tracks with one or two good scores will get high rankings.

If you just use thumbs up and thumbs down, and you also display how many people have voted for each, then it will be very obvious whether the ratings are legitimate or not. If there is 1 thumb up for everything, it doesn't mean much. If there are 100 thumbs up, that means a lot of people liked it so its probably a good track.

Displaying how many people have rated it is a good way to determine whether ratings are legitimate or not.

As for search functions, those could search for averages. However, I would filter out search results that don't have at least a certain number of ratings (maybe 5) and place them at the bottom. That way new tracks which have warped high scores don't appear above all the proven good tracks.

Aylown @ Jul 8 2009, 06:47 PM wrote:

miromiro @ Jul 8 2009, 05:44 PM wrote:

arto @ Jul 8 2009, 05:17 PM wrote: Well someone gives all 1's to for example PetroVolt, there is no way it can be anything but a joke grade. The graphics are some of the best in Re-Volt so how could a graphics grade of 1 be anything but a joke grade?

Well that I wanted to say. Some jokers give small grades. I think you should delete them.

I've just graded two tracks like this:

Overall:1,5
Graphics:3,5
Flow:1,0
Difficulty:1,5

and

Overall:2
Graphics:4
Flow:1
Difficulty:4(The only hardships are invisiwalls and the farce field)

Do you consider it a joke grade?

I don't think it's a joke grade at all. I always put big grades on all tracks.
I always give grades which are +3. However.

yep... 10/10 on a simple Lego track

cost your votes, you all (all except the track creator), that's the way to make a real and fair grading

how i always say a lego track can be better than an extreme track , why not ?

miromiro  Posted on Jul 9 2009, 10:31 AM
  how i always say a lego track can be better than an extreme track , why not ?

Because an lego track IMO always scores 1 both for graphics and difficulty. They all look the same to me. So there is no way an lego track can be better than an extreme track. But dont worry miro, i usualy only put grades on tracks I do like, because I dont like to offend the authors.

Here is a guy who is really cool , Sjampo - thank you man :)
(I will send you an extreme track soon , hope ) - sorry for going offtopic.

arto @ Jul 8 2009, 07:32 PM wrote: I sampled the top 3 tracks. They had 13, 25 and over 50 votes per track. Generally the older the track, the more votes.

It is my gut feeling that usually a track has just a few votes. Around 5 is quite common.

thanks arto for the details.
displaying the number of votes could be a beneficial thing, it could indicate how trustworthy the current grade is, and also a lower number could inspire people to vote and the tracks having less votes could catch up with the ones with many votes. not sure though how easy and quick it is to program it, apologies if i am suggesting something that is hard to achieve.

human @ Jul 10 2009, 01:11 AM wrote:

arto @ Jul 8 2009, 07:32 PM wrote: I sampled the top 3 tracks. They had 13, 25 and over 50 votes per track. Generally the older the track, the more votes.

It is my gut feeling that usually a track has just a few votes. Around 5 is quite common.

thanks arto for the details.
displaying the number of votes could be a beneficial thing, it could indicate how trustworthy the current grade is, and also a lower number could inspire people to vote and the tracks having less votes could catch up with the ones with many votes. not sure though how easy and quick it is to program it, apologies if i am suggesting something that is hard to achieve.

I've thought about including that information often. So yeah, maybe it is appropriate to include it.

Indeed that could be a good information to view. Then the track authors can decide themselves how seriously they should take the grade.

i think voting for your own track is like being in a beauty contests jury when your own daughter is competing... its usually a no-no...

Good analogy.

TheMeandMe @ Jul 11 2009, 03:09 PM wrote: i think voting for your own track is like being in a beauty contests jury when your own daughter is competing... its usually a no-no...

Also,what is the use of being in the jury if you can't be "tempted" by the contestants to give higher grades?

It's usually a pretty crappy sittuation...

Cheers!

Aeon @ Jul 9 2009, 01:32 AM wrote: You could make the tracks all have a much simpler voting method. Since number ratings are very subjective in the first place and very from person to person (or their moods), you can just skip the whole 1-10 scale and go strait for a thumbs up/thumbs down scale. Have I suggested this before? I just got strange feeling of deja vu, but maybe that was for something else.

You suggested a system like this in regard of comments.

I'm wary of this working well with tracks. It is too coarse. But I'm not sure. What I am sure of is that it would be too much work at the moment and I wouldn't dare to throw away the grades so it would have to become adjacent to grades. An alternate way to vote.

One thing that could be good about the thumbs up/down system is that possibly people would vote more as it would be easier.

arto @ Jul 10 2009, 08:05 AM wrote:

human @ Jul 10 2009, 01:11 AM wrote:

arto @ Jul 8 2009, 07:32 PM wrote: I sampled the top 3 tracks. They had 13, 25 and over 50 votes per track. Generally the older the track, the more votes.

It is my gut feeling that usually a track has just a few votes. Around 5 is quite common.

thanks arto for the details.
displaying the number of votes could be a beneficial thing, it could indicate how trustworthy the current grade is, and also a lower number could inspire people to vote and the tracks having less votes could catch up with the ones with many votes. not sure though how easy and quick it is to program it, apologies if i am suggesting something that is hard to achieve.

I've thought about including that information often. So yeah, maybe it is appropriate to include it.

The number of votes cast (as spells) is now displayed when you view the track.

It was a bit more work than I initially anticipated, so there might be related bugs. Let me know if you run into any.

EDIT: if this feature causes more problems than good, then I'll just remove it. With more problems I mean constant bickering about who cast "some and some vote" in comments. Sometimes it's ok to raise a concern, but if it's all the time then it's just too much work.

Nice function indeed. It will help me alot when commenting because I can see how much I am able to change the grade if I decide to vote.

guys.......

this topic started when I put my grades on Night Race . I won't be rude but all what are you speaking there I think is off topic. But like urne always say : im not an admin or moderator so ...