Recent posts by wattro on Kongregate

Topic: Kongregate / how accurate are the predictive ratings?

Thanks, the theory makes sense. That doesn’t really answer the question, though. I wouldn’t mind hearing a summary of experiential data.

It’s interesting, because the predictive rating for me is generally just (Rating minus 0.5 to 1). I haven’t seen anything where it’s stayed close to the actual rating (I haven’t looked too hard, mind you). Not that that’s expected, but if it works on types of games and doesn’t work on quality of games, then it’s not a very good predictor. (ie: quality games tend to transcend genre)

The subjectivity of it is what I don’t like. And I’d personally rather kong not make subjective calls for me. I hate the feeling of being marginalized “we know your opinion before you do”. If the information was presented as “you typically rate games like this as x.xx” then I’d be happier with it.

Topic: Kongregate / how accurate are the predictive ratings?

how accurate are the predictive ratings?

Topic: Kongregate / Find Your Kongregate User ID

Originally posted by NicolBolas:

46448

noobs

and you even need spyware to even know your id

i’d post 26613 and call you a noob, but then someone will just do the same thing to me…

Topic: Kongregate / What can we do against trolls

Originally posted by schizophoenix:

Originally posted by wattro:
It also means new users see the uglier side of kong

The relevant measure of the exposure of users to trolls is really: troll activity per minute per chat room. My proposal does nothing to change that metric. Also, there will be plenty of upstanding users who choose not to exclusively use this tag, or who have been blackmarked due to some youthful indiscretions, or who simply aren’t active enough yet to qualify. I think you vastly overestimate the number of users who will be in these chatrooms – or if not, you have in mind a scheme far more lenient than mine.

yeah, i think i do – i suggested a proposal a few posts up. just raising the barrier for troll entry. it also has the added benefit of not having to add any user data that is used in any performance impacting way (in your solution, a user’s post has to be processed for every other user to see if the message should show up)

“I think you vastly overestimate the number of users who will be in these chatrooms”… my only response to this would simply be: when a persistent troll shows up to my room, one of the regs would say, “let’s go to the no-troll room” and a bunch of regs would follow… and then we’d find it nice, and other regs from my room would also follow. i can see that kind of migration happening. hard to say how widespread it would be. i can see a lot of rooms simply requesting to get a no-troll tag. this is almost how RP and Remnants rooms operate now – they don’t get random users in their rooms (since Remants used to be a game room) and RP, well you don’t put new random users in RP rooms

Topic: Kongregate / What can we do against trolls

Originally posted by schizophoenix:

Look, if Kongregate were serious about limiting our interactions with trolls, this is what they would do.

1) All accounts, after a month of existence, and at least a couple of hundred lines of chat with no ban/silence, get a “not-troll” tag.
2) All users get the option to disable any interactions on their profile by users without the tag.
3) Special chatrooms, forums, that only users with the tag can use.
4) You lose the tag with any ban/silence. You can appeal, but if confirmed, there are no second chances.

Yeah, I’ve thought of similar things. The problem with this approach is that it leaves fairly new accounts susceptible to trolls, since non-trolls would likely head to the safe haven chat rooms. Of course, the save heavens could be mostly unmoderated and then Kong could focus mods actively towards the new user/troll (read: non-safe haven) rooms. That’s not ideal either, since new users would likely not be experienced at dealing with trolls and might tend to react with trollish behavior themselves. It also means new users see the uglier side of kong rather than the finer side of kong that non-troll accounts see.

also, @ 123aaa789: what it does though is improves things considerably over what is now. a troll can already plan ahead and make multiple accounts. what I proposed doesn’t create any sort of new problem, it only limits the accessibility of trolling. and in any study that covers similar approaches (regardless of medium), you’ll see that increasing the bar to entry greatly reduces the activity. … and in your example of the legitimate new user wanting to chat, having to wait a bit is pretty easy to do. if the user is daunted by the one hour wait, then there is not much chance of them leaving (because they are already in and already playing a game) and i would argue that they are not a legitimate user that intends to chat sociably in a contributive way.

Topic: Kongregate / New Kongregate Version: Swapping below the game columns on game pages

the thing i don’t like is that now the instructions/description is down on the right, and possibly buried underneath the badges.

if you ask me, the instructions are the most important information on the page, aside from the game itself. if a user is confused, they are going to look for instructions/help first. instructions should be easily visible and findable without the user having to hunt for them.

Topic: Kongregate / What can we do against trolls

ignoring them is the best way, but trying to get users who are more susceptible to trolls to ignore them can be impossible. whether you like it or not, it’s pretty easy for a persistent troll to disrupt a room.

feeding into their behavior is usually not a good route, because it gives them what they want and condones their behavior.

Topic: Kongregate / What can we do against trolls

personally, i’d like to see new accounts not be able to chat for an hour within account creation. if any account is going to be a meaningful member of the site, they won’t mind waiting. and no brand new user absolutely needs to chat in the first hour. (could probably make it 15-30 minutes instead of an hour). this alone would raise the barrier to persistent trolling significantly enough to reduce persistent trolling as described by the OP quite a lot.

further, you could require the account be level 2 or level 3… both of which are attainable quickly and require a tiny bit of account activity (sure, that could be loading games they already have met badge requirements for).

think of this concept as the same concept that youtube uses to count whether views are valid or not. just because the user loads a video on youtube, it doesn’t necessarily count as a view. kong should take the same principals into consideration to count whether an account is a valid account – ie: created to be a meaningful account.

kong could use this ‘meaningful account validation’ time period to restrict other features, as well, if desired – no shouts, PMs, forum posts (except tech forum), etc.

ps: but yes, having game-hovers is way more valuable than ensuring integrity of your users’ experiences…

Topic: Kongregate / Can Kongregate officially support Epic Battle Fantasy 4 for Greenlight?

$10 is too much.

With the counterpoint game, I’m curious if it/they made enough money to be ‘worth it’ to the developer. I’ve seen some financial breakdowns on steam games, and it’s not usually financially viable.

Topic: Kongregate / Is there a way to disable this?

personally, i hate the game hovers.

kong should make it so a user can disable game and profile hovers. you want to speed up the site? get rid of stupid hovers that i have to deal with (they take time to pop up, and they take time to go away) – they make the site behave unpredictably… oh i click this, dammit the hover popped up because i didn’t immediately click my mouse when i moved it over the “oh i think he wants a hover”.

they say that it can’t be done, but honestly… it can, and it can be done fairly easily.

Topic: Kongregate / Can Kongregate officially support Epic Battle Fantasy 4 for Greenlight?

EBF4 is a good, solid game… but I don’t think it’s steam worthy. It’s really just old school FF with a decent flare for humor. To be honest, I think I enjoyed EBF3’s nostalgia more than I enjoyed EBF4’s

Topic: Kongregate / is the nightmode script broken?

no worry :)

Topic: Kongregate / is the nightmode script broken?

that’s the one, 123. definitely not kong made, but zalbee is the next best thing :)

Topic: Kongregate / is the nightmode script broken?

sounds like a fair guess. for some reason, i thought kongregate made it… but i’ve probably made that up. oh well, i rarely use it… just saw it wasn’t working properly.

cinematic mode is stupid (imho) because 1) it covers up chat and 2) the games here largely aren’t worthy of cinematic mode. i’d guess that guests and non-chatters might use it.

Topic: Kongregate / is the nightmode script broken?

or did i just miss the update that had the fix?

Topic: Kongregate / offtopic: seems familiar, right? :D

the question of 100 duck sized horses or 1 horse sized duck was around before the kong game. jtmb just capitalized on making a game of it (a not very good game behind a cool concept, to be fair).

Topic: Kongregate / New badge discussion

i don’t even like ninja slash… i’m not sure what the appeal it has is.

Topic: Kongregate / New Kongregate Version: Fixing Kongai deck creation, minor tweaks to game hover and breadcrumbs on game browser pages

thanks, i can read… i’m tempted to dig up the third thread just to see if you’ll go there, too

i still don’t like it, and i don’t really believe joe :) the only “it’s not possible” is because he doesn’t want to look into it. and as i mentioned in the other thread, he politely ignored my request to consider this for future features.

regardless, my complaining may instigate them to consider their design further… so posting and complaining is a good thing, whether you like it or not. :D

Topic: Kongregate / Game pop-up menus

yep, but i think if they tried, they could find a way… something like (excuse my pseudocode)… if userprofile.gamehoversetting = false, then don’t do this. i find it very difficult to believe that it’s not possible.

also, i asked Joe in the other thread if they’d consider making this an option for future features and he politely ignored my question, so i figure i can be annoying aboot it :)

Topic: Kongregate / New Kongregate Version: Fixing Kongai deck creation, minor tweaks to game hover and breadcrumbs on game browser pages

the game hover still sucks… please allow me to disable it or make it so that clicking on the preview starts the game. if there are multiple images in the preview, then just make the arrows clickable to scroll images.

Topic: Kongregate / Game pop-up menus

yes! someone else agrees! i hate the game hover…

at the very freaking least, make it load the game when i click on the game preview rather than change images. if there’s multiple pictures, make just the side arrows change images…

Topic: Kongregate / Is there a reward for reaching certain levels?

Originally posted by AllStarDominatio:

Originally posted by wattro:

when you reach 65, you no longer concern yourself with petty things such as levels. that’s for the mortals to worry their little lives aboot.

All you care for is the badges when you reach that level 65.

I think you still want badges, but your more willing to not get them for shitty games that get badged. Possibly over time that wanes also, I haven’t reached that point. I have always played games on the site, and that’s what it’s always primarily aboot for me. Even though I’ve made some pretty good friends here, I come for the games.

Topic: Kongregate / New badge discussion

Originally posted by rawismojo:

Can anyone who had issues with either game and don’t have badges yet turn off addons/scripts/extensions/etc and try again? Did any of the people who had their progress stop tracking on Magnetized install any new scripts/etc between the sessions when their progress stopped tracking?

I don’t run any scripts on Chrome. I never had any problems with Magnetized, but I did with the I-Wish-Everyone-Would-Die game. I had previously beaten NOHTD.

fwiw

Topic: Kongregate / Is there a reward for reaching certain levels?

when you reach 65, you no longer concern yourself with petty things such as levels. that’s for the mortals to worry their little lives aboot.

Topic: Kongregate / I dont want to earn badges/lvl up anymore

Originally posted by Haruhi:

So I like my lvl number and I don’t want to earn badges or points for that matter because I really don’t want to lvl up, 24 is my favorite number and earning badges for badges sake takes all the fun in actually casual gaming. I really want a way for me to stop leveling up and stay on this level forever while being able to actually play games, because I am avoiding all games that gives badges and playing the others while being offline or in another webpage. Its just insane how easily you can earn badges and how almost every games has it so no matter what for just loading the game now I get 10 points and I am sick of it. So please, all I want is to be able to play games that require online activity here without having to go offline or be able to use the chat screen while playing without worrying to get a badge or something. Don’t make me go to armorgames or FWG or Newgrounds.

get over yourself… just go level up so you don’t have to worry aboot it anymore. :)

also, just leave your account logged in, but play games on a different account/website… your problem isn’t that big of a deal that kongregate needs to deal with it