What's your opinion on the subject?
to much text, just hope i picked the right thing srry :S
i can't be the only one btw
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he has some pretty good ideas on how to change it; i would read it
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In before people who don't care and/or don't want their explots fixed come in this thread and start telling you to give it a rest, it's fine as is.
Solution 1, split private/group and public CV is the best imo. I've suggested it before too. Unfortunately no one cares. Count how many replies you get in this thread about "spirit of giving is what's important" and "cv not mattering". Yet it exists.
In the meantime, I can't recall how many reports I've filed in the past cross linking Steam accounts with people regifting from here on to Gameminer, and sometimes other sites like Gala.
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I actually think all 4 ideas are reasonably well thought out, and with some tweaking or combining, I am sure cg could try some things and see how it works out.
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There will always be people bending the rules to their limit looking to gain an advantage, it's up to people who make those rules to fine tune them as much as possible to prevent it...
Thanks for your input, keep fighting the good fight! :)
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In before people who don't care and/or don't want their explots fixed come in this thread and start telling you to give it a rest, it's fine as is.
+1, I'll just bookmark this topic and prepare my popcorn
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I'm ready and I already got my popcorn
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I think that there's great power in simplicity (as it is now).
Our governments are already complicating simple things in every new law. We shouldn't go that way :p.
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I'm for variations of (2). I asked several times before for a condition on number of wins. Giveaways and giveaway groups for people with less than a certain number of wins or a sent/won ratio. Formalising it would be helpful.
As for "contributing to the community", that's highly subjective and depends on your perspective of SG's goals. In an age where games have turned for many people into collectible more than a consumable items, I'm starting to question my judgement of what SG should be.
Originally I looked at SG as a place for charitable game giving, that is, those who have more games or money can give those who don't. But that's not what SG is really about. CV, in any form, defines SG as what I call a "random trading game". That is, people who have money, instead of using that money to buy games for their collection, use that to buy games for others and in return get other games to add to their collection. That's what CV is about, rewarding those with money to spare with a higher chance to convert that money into games.
Most arguments about CV come from the mistaken notion that charitable giving is what SG is about. If you look at it realistically as a game exchange site, then whether people gift each other in a small group, or in a larger context, they are contributing the same to this game of gift exchange. CV by definition is the antithesis of charitable giving. When you try to incentivise people to do something, you directly reduce the willingness to do it from the good of their heart (or sense of duty, or whatever). That's been shown in psychological experiments many times. So the idea of "fixing CV" is by itself wrong. CV is what defines this site as what it is, a gift exchange site. People who feel charitable will give away regardless of the system. People who want to gain more than they give will be able to do it regardless of the system.
The only measure of how "good" CV is, is how much it increases giveaway volume and "quality giveaway" percentage. That's what it's there for, not some notion of social justice.
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While pretty much 100% of what you said is something I could agree with, I think it's important to empower those who want to create giveaways for "social justice" if they choose to do so by broadening their options. With that in mind, yeah, option 2 (adding a new method to filter who can enter while keeping the current system untouched) is the best I could come up with.
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I had a brain fart and thought this thread was going to be about writing resumes based on the title.
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I have to make a video CV for next Monday, so yeah, I could use a topic about that too :P
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What made me think the author.
I don't give much here but began to make some private board giveaways 2 months ago to try to make happy someone random in the board (because people here seem nice). And I just realize my last wins are mostly from public GA. I feel unthankful. So my next 4 giveaways will be public.
About the cv itself, i don't care how it's counted. People who want to give will always give. People who don't want to give will never give whatever you do. It's a matter of personal mentality more than cv. I just care about received/non received because i would be sad for a gift marked as non-received, it would be like a jam spot. (And here level 0 public is russian roulette because many reasons.)
About group, i'm in a group but not on steamgifts. So my "cv" is already divided between steamgifts public-private / non-steamgifts-group. So if it's divided here, i will see no change. When i come to steamgifts, i know it's "at a loss". (Least recently i confess.) And i confess too my giveaways are mostly far less good on steamgifts than in private extra-group.
(From a personal point of view, if there were not the problems that we all know, i would gift all in public level 0 to increase probability of a really poor player.)
Here before fire. XD
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I agree with the basic problem. And the sad fact is that I rarely do open giveaways anymore. Even at my current level, Lvl3, most of the entries are by leechers. That is just not cool. And doing restricted giveaways all the time seems wrong. I do like ideas 2 and 4. Especially 2 is a nice way of ensuring that people have an interest in contributing.
At the end of the day, though, people should realize that if they exploit the gifting system, read: leech!, the basic idea will be perverted and the goodwill of many may die. Almost everyone can spend a buck a week on the Humble deal and share those with the community. It might not be the highest quality of games, but it IS a contribution and in the spirit of the community.
Just saying...
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"Leech" is only relevant if you see SG as a game trading system. Otherwise it's not in the least relevant.
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Whether it is relevant depends on the understanding of what Steamgifts is. If you perceive Steamgifts as a platform for sharing games, then active participation by giving and by taking is the notion on which the functionality of the whole system hinges.
Like two sides of one coin.
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It depends on how you define "sharing games". If by that you mean "game exchange", i.e., people give games and get games in return (with a random element), then of course it makes sense that people who get more should give more. If on the other hand you see SG as a platform for gifting, then someone with 500 games given and 100 won is not more deserving than someone with 0 games given and 100 won, and may in fact be considered less deserving, because the person who gifted 500 games certainly has the means to buy the 100 games, while the person who gave away 0 may not be able to afford that.
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Agreed. Thankfully, we do not have salary control on this site, yet. ;o)
Regarding the "sharing games", I would define it as a system of mutual benevolence.
One thing I enjoy about this thread is that it makes me question my attitudes about the site.
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Disregarding contribution or games owned, I think that the people most deserving of winning are those who play the games they win. The larger the percent of their won games that they installed and at least tried, the more deserving they are of winning more games.
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I'm glad to read that last sentence. You rarely see thought inspiring conversations on the Internet anymore, if I managed to create one today, I did my right deed of the week :P
Just to clarify, none of those possible attitudes about the site are inherently right or wrong, my feeling is just that the definition of CV is a bit far away of what CV is actually used for. Tweaking the system a bit so users can control if their GAs go to poor lads without a cent to spare, natural gifters or natural traders would be a nice thing overall, no matter the system used to achieve it, and with no disrespect for any of those types of users.
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This is very well written "essay", and very true.
SG should be about good intentions, about "giving to the poor", to put it simply. But instead, it's mostly a trading site for people with lots of money to spare. Which doesn't paint a pretty picture about our "wonderful" modern society.
In my opinion, it's all those people who are creating non-restricted (or level 1) giveaways for everyone to enter who are the true spirit of the community, regardless of their level or their CV <3
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My comments for your proposed solutions:
Ad 1 If you consider invite only as closed you are hurting some of the best contributors (forum puzzle guys), if not you create an easy workaround for the rule (share the link in group instead of creating it as group only)
Ad 2 I guess this could work
Ad 3 Extremely complicated, as how do you decide openness of your giveaway? Is lvl 8 public giveaway more open than invite only giveaway posted on the forums in some train?
Ad 4 While it could work, I dont like this idea.
In general I dont think there is a need for changes - you are just treating it way to seriously. For me SG is mainly a site to drop my extra games from bundles and other sources to someone that may have some fun with them. Sometimes I get some game I want to play (but I'm not willing to spend on the bundle it comes from) and thats a plus.
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About 1, yeah, the anti-abuse method can indeed be abused, but you don't usually consider every little nook and cranny when brainstorming, I just wanted to spark some debate and check how the community perceived the "problem" or absence thereof, neither 1, 2, 3 nor 4 are final suggestions written in stone for admins to read :P
About 3: with a level 8 public GA I think SG could easily retrieve the data about the percentage of users level 8 and higher. If it's invite only , you get a minimum baseline CV, let's say 70% of normal CV, but yeah, kinda hard.
There's nothing wrong with discussing a possible "problem" (quoted again because it's a problem for some and nothing for others) without fighting and in a relaxed environment. Taking it seriously? Maybe, but for me it's not "too seriously". Football fans who fight each other at the end of every match are taking it too seriously, while none of us will lose sleep over this "issue" yet it can't hurt to talk about it.
You use SG with that purpose - and that's fine. Others would like to target a more specific type of user when gifting because they care, and that's fine too! It's not about completely changing how the site works, it's just about adding more options for those who want to use them.
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I think by OP's own reasoning, which for the most part i get, regardless of suggestions to address it, i actually think 2 is more problematic than 1. My reasoning, in 2 bits, about part 1 and 2:
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Point 1 would be less problematic (ever so slightly), assuming point 1 does not consider private GAs as group GAs, that is. I mean, they're technically not one or the other, and unless i missed it, OP didn't point a stance on those. Which i totally agree with you, btw, it's a complicated territory, because of puzzle GAs, i'd really hate seeing those take a hit, it wouldn't personally discourage me from making them, but i totally see it discouraging a lot of people and that would be sad. Then again, i already see a sad exploit if private GAs were factored into the public CV, which i'm not sure i should mention, not because i'd want to exploit it, but would hate to give exploiters ideas, if such a system were to be implemented with separate CVs.
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For all that was mentioned by OP (even on point 1), the fact that OP believes there are users whose CV (or CV ratio for that matter) does not reflect their actual CV (and OP's not wrong considering some cases, sadly), point 2 would only make perfect sense if people either believe current system is perfect as is, or that point 1 would have to be implemented and it would have no exploits, and then point 2 would be based off the new CV deriving from what emerged from point 1.
As for point 3, depending on the way you go about it, i think this could be the least problematic of all. If you add several layers of percentages, i don't think it would hurt users enough to discourage them from certain forms of gifting (i.e. puzzle GAs) and would not reward trading game groups.
As for 4, i totally disagree with it, it might actually backfire and have the reversed effect intended by OP.
I don't consider anyone a leecher based solely on their ratio.
One's financial status today may take a total turn for the worse tomorrow or vice-versa. While this, being the internet and all, will never allow you to guarantee that one does not gift because one can't, the opposite can't be guaranteed as well. I do consider some users leechers, not because they don't gift or gift a lot less than they win, but because they have either clearly stated or demonstrated that they try to exploit the system to their benefit as much as possible. That is true leecher behaviour, to me at least.
And i've seen countless users that have had a huge ratio of nearly only wins, start gifting and gifting, precisely because they didn't feel forced / compelled to do it by the CV rules, but out of their own accord.
As an example, off the top of my head, there is at least 1 user on my whitelist that ended up there for reasons that have mostly to do with said user's attitude towards everyone in general, (how helpful, polite, etc.), and not because of having gifted this or that much. In fact, i remember said user had given like 1 bundled game (or similar to that) and won like 10-15 games already (at that point in time). I clicked said user the other day (months after i whitelisted said user), because of an avatar change and said user has already won several games more, BUT given a lot more, most of them quite recently actually. One could argue it would be detrimental to give the user less CV because of a simple thing like "which came first, gifting or receiving?"... One could even argue that might encourage certain users to rack up CV for a while, then sit on their laurels, never give again as form of investment for the future. Certainly not what OP would like, imo.
TL;DR:
- 3 in general would be fine, imo, depending on the specifics, which are definitely key, i would only agree if the percentages were fair;
- 4 is a big no no, as far as i'm concerned... for reasons explained above, i think it's self-defeating;
- 1 and 2 are tricky, especially 2, that is (imo) dependent of how 1 stays, and 1 has room for exploits, so...
In short, sadly, there well never be a perfect system (which is not to say people shouldn't strive to make it as fair as humanly possible).
But i for one, try to perfect it a bit more by blacklisting clear exploiters. As in users who clearly play by the rules but only because they saw a way to exploit them.
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I actually meant considering private = public, not private = group. That was my point. ;)
And even then there would be a not so easy to come up with exploit, but too easy to implement after someone thinks about it.
Then there's the point you mentioned, for which Charitable Losers would be one of the perfect examples of why it would be wrong to cut back on their CV.
But that is also why i said i didn't think 1 was feasible either. ;)
As for 3, like i said, it would heavily depend on the layering.
If you think about it, you already have not only like you mentioned, 0 CV for less than 5 entries, but also 0.15 CV (or 15%) for bundle games. I would agree (even knowing this would affect me and my contributions heavily) with some further layering up to a max of say 50 or 100 entries at most, but wouldn't want it to be too much layering either, not to over-complicate things for both users and the staff.
I don't even know if i'd be willing to suggest exact figures that would sound fair. And by layering i mean only a small reduction of the CV, not a total removal of it.
And yes, it would still have some impact (however small) on puzzlers, etc. which might still discourage people from doing them as often at least, which would be sad.
But considering leaving 1 alone and living with it as is, i wouldn't see any harm in 2 either. Like i said, i feel they're co-dependent.
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Yeah... sadly it is possible to leech. There are people with over 1000 games on Steam, with 50+ wins here and 0 games given. Those are legitimate leeches, who aren't even willing to spend $1 in a bundle as a gesture of good will while they spend a lot in their own collection.
But at the same time, those guys you mention, the ones who can't give away, are being punished for it, as you pointed out so well. Because CV doesn't distinguish between the level 1 guy with absolutely no money and the level 1 guy who doesn't want to spend his money on anyone but himself. So when people bitching about leeches create a level 2+ GA, both guys get the same punishment.
Aaaaand that takes us to the initial point of my post: CV isn't an accurate representation of Contributor Value. Thanks for your input and keep on gifting! :)
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Adding a "maximum number of games won" condition (possibly over a period, such as max 10 games over the last year) would at least help weed out those who win a lot.
It's also possible to add a condition on number of games owned, although that might result in a lot of people using a secondary account to register on SG. (Then again, the minimum requirements mean that it's not trivial to do.)
Really, I'd rather have more conditions than change CV.
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Every 4 points are nice ideas...probably some can´t be realized balanced enough.
But here are my thoughts, 1..would be ok, could probably drop my public Level to 1, but i don´t care so much about it....my reward for doing GAs here is a bath in my sadism...oops now everyone knows.
Otherwise i see sometimes people that do many to only GAs in micro-groups....and others that do GA for S.gift group (thats inb my eyes like public G) so 1+3 need to me merged...no easy....
But I have an Idea for Option 4.....it would make more sense to track frequent wins different, than via CV or Level. So let everone have a win-factor of 1, if you won a Giveaway this drops to 0.x and increases slowly, by...not winning over time, or if someone wons anything from you.
So this is maybe Option 5 or 7 or 12464.....
frog has spoken (rubbish as usual) ribbit
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Removing CV/Levels altogether would fix the majority of problems.
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Can you elaborate on the train of thought that lead you to that conclusion? I'm curious :P
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Simple. CV is a number, a result of calculation based on a set of rules. CV is exploitable. No matter what you do, no matter how complex the next set of rules you come up with becomes, someone will find a way to break them and exploit the new version of the CV system.
Remove CV and you remove the core of the problem. No more contributor giveaways, only publics, privates, whitelists and groups. Those who want to give away games in public or in groups are free to do so. Those who want to give away games in forum trains are free to do so. Nothing to exploit, nothing to complain about. The desire to get on people's whitelists is the new CV, the new incentive. And this new system is not dependent on complex calculations and numbers, it's entirely human-driven.
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If you are serious...you can guess even that it doesn't come without it's downsides..I have seen such threads.." you whitelist me & I'll whitelist you" I felt those were easily exploitable (I'll join , win big game & leech..easy to do it as it's just starting up)
also it was kind of trade..falling under morally gray..
If we do remove CV completely..how will it work....sites core is in give..donate mentality not in quid quo pro
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"you whitelist me & I'll whitelist you" - where's the problem in that? Two people whitelist each other and basically "trade" games to each other, isolated from the rest of the world. The rest of the community is not affected.
The site was working just fine before CV was introduced. It will work just as fine after we remove it.
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oh..there was a time when there was No CV.. (never knew, i'm new..)
Cynical me finds it hard to believe there are enough people to please 8000 or so daily users to keep going on without any kind of incentive.
irrelevant query
will it reduce server load if users who haven't logged in for over a year are removed from system?
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it was working just fine. if you remain a leecher and not give anything back - you will simply be forced to forever leech out of public only GAs - and with no levels each has thousands of entries. If you want to get into whitelist or GA group - person whitelisting you or group admin will look at your profile and valuate it himself. Incentive to make more GAs in this case is wanting to get access to GAs with better win chances. And it has one big upside over any CV system. System is automatical, hence it can be exploited. Real person deciding if he should add user to his whitelist or invite to his group will easily spot such an exploits, so no exploiter/cheater will be getting any reward.
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that...that might work..
power to people..public giveaways will become sparse..but we have community voted giveaways for that..
...what was the argument that tilted it all in the CV/level systems favor again?
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cg's decision - it's his site, so he can do whatever he feels like with it after all :D:
The reason to switch from CV to no-CV and later on to level system was based on 3 factors: CV could be exploited, ppl complained about not getting CV and about it being flawed/broken etc on the forums all the time, and ppl not understanding system would flood support making response times even longer. But now it starts to look the same with level system as well - we have complains on level decreasing (because price decreased or sth got added to bundle list), ppl complaining about not getting enoughlevel and pl complaining on forums that it is flawed and each person with his own opinion what changes should be introduced. It slowly begins to look the same as it did with CV system, which is another argument behind getting rid of it. No CV/levels = no complaining, SPAM, missunderstandings etc.
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ah..surely there are less people complaining abt level than CV? only thread I have seen recently was a mistake made by real CV calculator one..even if someone complaints there are people around who generally point out what went wrong without intervention of support
My only concern is that of incentive..& CV/level serves its purpose..like..It does feel little good to achieve the imaginary higher level. some sense of virtual accomplishment.
bdw love this :D:
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there are and always will be ppl complaining ;) as for community answering them, it's not so good as you may believe ;) In CV system community was answering them as well, but keep in mind that not everyone will post their concers on the forum. For every person creating a forum topic there may be 1 or 2 users who will file a Support ticket instead, believing they're encountering some kind of error and that's the right thing to do when you encounter a bug ;)
Ofc - it's nice to get acomplishment by getting imaginary levels and achievments, but at the same time it allows other to cheat their way to the same level/rank you got and get unfair benefits. And with no CV system - you may still get your imaginary numbers! Your Sent/Won values may still be visible on your profile page, you'd just not be automatically getting any kind of special treatment / rewards based on them ;)
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Public giveaways won't become sparse. In order to get into good groups or on someone's whitelist you'd have to make public/forum giveaways - because that's how you attract attention to yourself and show that you're a good member of the community. That's how the new incentive would work.
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It will work just as fine after we remove it.
The "will" leads me to believe that it's being seriously taken under consideration/ already on your to do list?
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in first version of SGv2 beta the CV was completely removed - no CV, no levels, only value on profile that was just informative - you couldn't make contributor/level GAs, just private/group/whitelist/public ones. The reasoning behind it was exactly what Sleepy told before. Levels were added much later on.
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Oh I understand the reasoning behind it and I do agree with it, I'm just wondering if it's already in the works?
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Not that I know of. After the beta cg decided to stick with the CV system, at least for now.
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I have not seen the statistics for the current situation, but I recall cg stating that the number of giveaways rose rapidly when CV giveaways were introduced. Thus the reasoning, and support, for them is that even if they cause problems, they works as a great incentive. One may argue is that fair or good reason but at least it is one.
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For one, I'm curious to see how the system would work without all that group grinding in order to gain access to the higher level public GAs. Groups would still be made, but their goal wouldn't be to take advantage of the rest of non-group users and they would keep their business to themselves. Whitelists would be "I'm giving to the people I like" instead of "I can gain many levels by only giving to people I like". SG would work as a simple middleman who rolls the dice, and that's a nice concept.
You have my total support on this, sometimes the best answer is the easiest too. Thanks for popping up here!
Edit: you would probably want to implement harsher punishments to regifters/fake GAs/non-activators and so on so people don't start using the "I won't make public GAs since most non-contributors are the scum of the earth" argument.
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I agree. I've been for the removal for CV for some time now, since it's been added in vanilla SG it's just been more of a pain then anything else
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It's been discussed when moving to SGv2. Dropping CV is not going to happen. I think what we have now is better than what we had before. I do agree that CV does more damage than good, but it's not going to go away.
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I liked how the system got an overhaul for SG 2.0, but I still don't like that the value of your contributions constantly drops because it's calculated using the current Steam price and not stored with the value when you gave it away.
From your points I agree the most with the group/private giveaways not counting towards the public giveaway level. Seems like people once they join a group stop making public giveaways (at least the majority does), but still happily enter them. It's a bit odd that the CV gained from closed giveaway groups carries over into the 'community pool'.
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For someone who agrees with you on the only point I ever got into an argument about I find this weird:
"... you've been blacklisted by the giveaway creator."
If you can't remember or don't want to tell me why it's ok. I'm just curious a bit... :)
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Oh, this one's easy.
Because I dislike the way CV works, I made a social experiment with my current FFVII GA that you probably took part in. I asked people to guess my favourite game and pick a minimum level requirement for it. It was all just a trap, since the GA was going to be level 0 anyway. But those people who asked for the exact same level they are just to increase their chances instead of being reasonable (I'm level 3, making a level 4 GA isn't exactly "giving opportunities", it's elitism) were blacklisted, since those people struck me as selfish in their behaviour.
Of course it's only momentary, as I'll clear my whole BL after that particular GA ends, and the point of it was to get a message across about the "spirit of gifting", even if it's a silly notion. But if you want to take a chance at FFVII, I'll remove you right away, after all, you took the time to read a massive wall of text :)
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We posted at the same time :)
I just read your reply to Luxy and guess, the same counts for me as I asked in my post below this.
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Both of you are off the list. No reason to keep you on it after enduring my endless rant about the issues with CV :P
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That's a nice move, thank you. And yeah, I can recall that topic vaguely too. In my case you were totally right, the reason why I picked a higher level was because of higher winning odds. Although what Luxy says is true too, gifting to lower level users often causes hassles. Though I must say I had a very unfriendly level 6 thanksbotter insulting me in my giveaway just yesterday, so higher level requirements do not always spare you encounters with not so nice people too.
I can totally understand your point. I was thinking about the spirit of gifting recentyl myself and created a train for my birthday that had lots of low level gibs in it. The result was tons of leechers winning that weren't even thanking for the gifts. I have a heart for people with small wallets, mine is not very big either, but I really can't stand exploiters and unfriendly people.
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Hahahha, no, it's fine.
I do remember that thread, though very vaguely. Also, if you haven't tried The Longest Journey (I'm pretty sure I said that as I always shove it into people's faces xD ) you should. Since it's my fav game I hope you do see that I wasn't being selfish as I already have it so couldn't participate in the gibs :D
And why did I say lvl 4? Ehhhh... Honestly... I've found that that's the level at which most problems stop. And I am saying most, not all. One cannot generalize based on levels.
I no longer make lvl 0-2 giveaways as it's just a lot of hassle since many of those users are new and don't get how the system works and haven't bothered to read the FAQ and Guidelines.
All I want is for the person who wins one of the games I'm giving away to activate it and, some day, at least try it out.
I know, I know... I'm being hypocritical about the levels. I too was once a lvl 0 and I took the time to figure out how the site works so why do I assume most of them don't...
It's just too much risk.
At least I try to make 99% public gibs. That counts for something, right? I need some approval here, my conscience is pressing hard at me now xD
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You didn't know what the "experiment" was about, and had your reasons to say level 4, I respect that and you don't need to question your morality for being in a single person's blacklist for a week, I'm sure you're in a lot of whitelists for other reasons, you should focus on the positive, always :P
I beat The Longest Journey when it first came out! The good old era when my PC could barely run it, but I still wanted to know what happened to April Ryan :P Dreamfall was a bit disappointing (haven't finished it) and haven't played Chapters yet... should I?
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Chapters are way better than Dreamfall, but still much weaker than TLJ.
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Ooooh now I want to play them even more! If they're better than Dreamfall (and I too was disappointed with it) they have to be worth the time.
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they seemed to be - watched a big chunk of friend playing it and it seems very good, but simply not as magical as TLJ was (or maybe it's just a nostalgia plus the fact that since playing TLJ I played hundreds of other games and experienced many epic stories, so I am no longer as easily amused :D:).
I am personally waiting with purchasing/playing it myself till everything is released as I tend to do with most episodic titles.
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Hahahha, I've just said this to Hezur : I might be of this opinion because I'm really emotionally tied to The Longest Journey and no game will ever beat it in my eyes.
I was in my early teens when I first played it and it helped me get through a rough time so I've grown really attached to it.
Not to mention the point you've made about playing many games since- we're just getting harder and harder to impress :D
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Indeed she is (at least she's on mine ;) ). And if you loved The Longest Journey how can you have not finished Dreamfall? It continues this awesome saga fantastically. As for Chapters - I backed this thing with $ 75 on Kickstarter, about the highest amount I ever spent on a videogame, because I wanted it to happen so badly. It's not fully released yet so I haven't played it, but I am convinced, the awesomeness can only increase, because the author Ragnar Tornquist aged and got wiser as we all did over the years.
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Awwww, you know you're on mine too <3
I wanted to back it too but I was too late. I haven't even joined Steam yet and haven't been in the loop about any games. I'm bummed beyond belief that I missed backing it :(
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I didn't really like how Dreamfall felt, so I dropped it not even halfway through. It's on my "pick up again sometime" list, but you know the issue with backlogs...
I'll play the entire saga from the start when I have a loong vacation available, also preferably when Chapters is fully released :P
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Oh the morality issue isn't about being on the blacklist, you just got me thinking on how I don't make any gibs under lvl 3 anymore and I feel a bit bad about it. I'm gonna have to give it some more thought.
I haven't played Chapters either, can't afford it right now but I'll definitely give them a chance when they go on a big enough sale.
Have you played Dreamfall up to the point where you meet some of April's friends? I cried so hard when I saw someone :)
But yeah, it's just not as good as the first one. I was especially disappointed at what they did to a certain character's character.
On the other hand, I might be of this opinion because I'm really emotionally tied to The Longest Journey and no game will ever beat it in my eyes.
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This thread is getting a little bit too philosophical... but that's nice, questioning what you do is the way to realizing you could do it a bit better, and the first step to actually doing it better :P this applies to almost everything, not only GAs
Maybe I'm not afraid of horror stories or I've been lucky with my experiences, but no level 0 giftée has ever given me any problems. For me, having to send a support ticket every now and then if a level 0 messes up and doesn't activate the key, has no clue about how this works etc isn't too big of a problem. Go out to the wilderness a bit more! :D
That gray box is staying gray! >< I don't remember many details about Dreamfall so... I'll share my final, informed review with you when I finally go through it :P
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Oh be sure to share! I love talking about adventure games and sharing views on the stories and characters, and as you could easily guess- my fav topic is anything related to TLJ :D
Since you haven't read the spoilers I'm gonna remove them to remove any and all temptation to you and others xD
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I am on the OPs blacklist as well. I can't even recall ever having talked to hezur6 before. So, please OP, if you don't mind, I'd be curious too of what brought me there.
I read my way through your wall of text and must say, I found some of your mentioned points pretty much on the spot, especially the one with the closed potato giveaway groups, but I'm also finding, implementing those changes would make the level system even more complicated and hard to understand for new users than they already are. So I'm a bit torn about this and curious, what the others are going to say about it.
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I mostly like the ratio idea. But I probably would say that. Given my ratio.
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You gave Secret of the Magic Crystals. Nothing more needs to be said. If there were Bad Rats and Barbie on your list you might be voted (along with some other exceptional individuals like Student) the coolest person on SG :)
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I did gift Bad Rats. I haven't gifted Barbie - but I have won it!
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O.o
If you've won Barbie then your win ratio is over 9000! xD
But, I'll admit it, you do deserve such luck for Magic Crystals alone ;)
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Alas, poor Fortix. I knew it when it was the cool kid on the block.
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A godly ratio worthy of the true Gift Warriors. I bow to you sir.
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Well , i kinda like the idea bout the open / private GAs .
Its srsly TLDR material , like i just skip trough it and hope i picked on the points you made.
However i dont really see that passing trough ... as that has been the system since long time ( i think ) and most people seems to be fine with it .
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actually levels system is quite new to the site - it only got introduced after transition to SGv2 few months ago, before that we had a monetary CV system with possibility of bundle games giving you 0% value as well as 100% value depending on how many non-bundle games you gave away and before that we had bundle games totally prohibited and before that there was no CV at all ;)
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Uhum.... well flat out banning bundle games is kinda excessive , since almost everything gets bundled nowadays .
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I'm just saying how it was back then ;) keep in mind that few years before bundles were rather rare thing - basically there was only Humble Bundle happening every few months and that's all ;) So back then it made sense to ban few games a month just so ppl don't exploit them to get value, but bundle-list with reduced value turned out to be a better idea later on - exactly for the reason you said ;) banning 5-6 games every few months was not harming a site, but now with tens of games bundled every month it's different climate, so there's different rules ;)
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For the record though, despite my lengthier post above, i think for the most part, the system is hardly that imperfect, and certainly A LOT BETTER than most GA sites out there.
Also there is one thing such as what would be completely ideal and a totally different one such as what would be feasible. They don't always come hand in hand and i think SG's staff already has plenty on their hands and in order to make certain things feasible, that would burden SG's staff more than i feel would be fair.
Regardless of what system you implement, there will always (sadly) be people trying to exploit it, and that is just human nature.
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You should constantly update your CV and tailor it specifically each time you apply for a job.
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I used to give games on private groups only, but it felt wrong so I stopped doing it. Now I make forum giveaways only, with a level restriction.
Level restriction helps to get rid of multi-accounts users, regifters, and many others. The bad thing about it is that it also gets rid of the people who legitimately want to win games, and don't have money to buy them.
And this is when your thread makes sense to me: my lastest giveaways have been private (posted on this forum), level 4+. Most of the entries are users who gift games on small groups, which is in some way, cheating the system. How do I get rid of them? by blacklisting them? that would take a loooong time, plus I would get blacklisted too.
The separated CV sounds like a good idea, I could gift games to those who contribute outside those micro-groups, AND use a smaller level restriction (level 2 or 3). It would also kill my CV, since I never do public giveaways, but I can live with that :P
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Props to you for explaining the issue in 10 lines where I needed at least 200! :P
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Split CV into Public CV and Group CV
Maybe.
Create a Ratio value and add it to the filter options available when creating a giveaway
Seems okay.
The lower the proportion of the userbase able to enter it, the lower the CV you get.
Just, no. What about puzzles, trains, forum giveaways, this will kill all those.
Make won gifts decrease CV
u wot m8
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Think about the last one: CV shifts from being a global indicator of how much you give and becomes an indicator of how much you give compared to what you win. So people who are actually giving a lot selflessly get the highest levels and they get chances at more GAs for their effort (if GA creators deem it appropiate) until they're a bit luckier, win more and stop being the highest level. Neutral people who are giving some, winning some remain at a medium level where some interesting GAs exist, but not that many. You need to change the meaning current CV has in your head and then you'll understand what I was trying to do with #4, even if it's not the best idea after all.
Agreed about #3 destroying forum invite-only GAs, though.
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So what you mean by #4 is, scrap CV, put a Ratio system in its place. Since that is will be, a give/win ratio.
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Yep, it could be a reworded #2. Looked like a beast idea at 5 in the morning :D
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the problem with your #4 is that the core base of SG since the beggining is that every entrant has exactly the same chance of winning the game they enter. Having different chances may seem unfair, plus it may very well kill bundle groups, bundle trains if not bundle GAs at all - because think about it - why would I enter GA for this bundle leftover if in case I win it it will mean that I lower my chances to win this sweet GTA V giveaway?
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People complain a lot about gift receivers not playing the games they're given, and if you think about it that way, if the loss of a little bit of CV (bundle leftovers are almost insignificant when it comes to earned CV, it would work the same with lost CV) makes you not want to enter a giveaway, you didn't really want that game.
Or maybe it would encourage you to make a bundle train of your own, so you get back those points and the Gifting Wars start, where poor people who wouldn't get the level for that GTA V anyway benefit the most since they have a wider array of cheap games to enter so they can at least be entertained for a while.
Number 4 probably isn't an idea Einstein would be okay with, but it would be amusing to see it implemented!
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but it would be amusing to see it implemented!
Amusing? It would be a waste of time and energy. This *ratio* system - doesn't it remind you of closed ratio groups? How would the whole of SG be then different from those groups?
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I'd like you to go back and review my OP so you get exactly what my complaint is.
Closed ratio groups take advantage of the rest of the community not participating in them. Imagine you, me and around 10 other friends create a private group and start gifting between us. We all get to level 8/9 by having basically won every game we've gifted, since what I'm gifting today will be gifted by you tomorrow and my chances to win it are pretty high. You have given nothing to the community, yet you have one of the best community contributor levels.
This hurts people who create high level public GAs and people who obtained their CV legitimately without expecting equivalent GAs to be made in return. Creators of public high level GAs are asking for that level because they want contributors to enter, yet when the swarm of private gifters comes, a significant percentage of the entries belong to people who haven't really contributed anything. People with a legitimately high level have their chances of winning nice gifts lowered by those who are exploiting the system.
So, to address your question: global ratio requirements would solve the problem with some gifters wanting actual contributors to enter their GAs. It would be different from just groups playing that game because... well, you wouldn't be able to farm ratio in closed groups (unless you're not asking the other members to contribute), so when you tried to join public high-ratio GAs, you would need to actually be a giver, not just a guy with a fat wallet who got together with other rich guys and started gifting amongst themselves, which many people with high CV are.
I've never claimed to be a modern Robin Hood asking for more games to the poor, I'm indifferent to that and my opinions revolve around how many games meant to be given to good community contributors reach the hands of private CV farmers.
Also, I detected a hint of flame and condescendence in your message. The whole thread has been civil so far, so let's keep it like that. In one of my Communication classes this year, a very big truth was said: "dismissing other people's ideas as a waste of time, stupid or useless in a brainstorming session ultimately leads to the proposer losing their confidence and to other people in the brainstorming group being afraid of providing their own ideas because of the possible backlash."
We're here to add to the topic and discuss, not substract from it and dismiss. Let's keep doing just that.
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Oh boy, it's that time of the year, the time for debate!
I'll start with my opinion; the reason why I decided to create this topic. The way CV works right now isn't an exact representation of what it's meant to represent (Contributor Value), and it can be abused and exploited to no end.
Let's refer to the FAQ for more information:
What are levels, and how can I increase my level?
Levels represent a user's contributions to the community.
We don't really need to read further. CV is supposed to measure how well a user has contributed to the community, but what it really does is represent the ability of a user to push the "Create Giveaway" button, regardless of your win/give ratio, how many people had the chance to participate in your GAs, or any other factors that could measure "contributions to the community" with more precision.
There are a couple of design flaws which I'll try to explain, and I hope the point gets across since it's a bit late, and my English isn't in the best of shape.
First, you can exploit your way to a high level without being particularly generous. Do a few quick giveaways of bundled games to get a nice starting win/given ratio, then look for one (or a couple) of those private GA groups. "Potato GAs of the Potato!", they call themselves. With every characteristic element every private GA group has: a member limit and mandatory giveaways every X days if you get into it.
Then you just need to play along: start creating GAs and the other members of the Potato GAs of the Potato will create some too, and that little Secret Santa of yours will net you Contributor Value while, at the same time, you'll most likely win a lot of Potato games by the other members, so you won't really "lose" anything in the process. Your CV rose but did you contribute anything to the community? The answer is no. The same results could have been achieved by making the GA group in Steam, using a random number generator to determine winners, but why should they do that if they can use the SG platform and rake in CV in the process?
Then we need to introduce the biggest losers of this scheme: people who make public, level-restricted GAs. In their good will of rewarding people who contribute to the community -or at least that's their intention- they set a bar which low levels who are actually contributing, even if limited a bit by their wallet, can't cross; while people who have traded gifts with only 20 other people and received the same amount they've given in return are free to enter.
In short: Giving the opportunity to win $100 worth of games to 10 people is worth the same as giving the entire userbase that same opportunity. Also you can play a game of "giving to my friends, taking from everyone", and that isn't healthy for anyone.
The first and easiest solution people have found to combat this system is pretty easy to spot: there are tons of "adding to my whitelist" topics here in Discussions. Having individual control of who actually has a good ratio for a better indication of contributing level is the only way you'll make sure your game gets to the people you want to. But we shouldn't need to use that if the system was designed with the goal of rewarding contribution in mind.
For this, I have thought of several possible solutions, and you're free to suggest more in the comments section.
Split CV into Public CV and Group CV: This is pretty straight forward. You measure how many of the user's GAs have been created for everyone and how many of them have been for groups/whitelist. For example, if you're level 8 a possible split would be level 7 public CV and level 7 group CV (I think the result would be that based in its exponential nature but feel free to correct me), in which case you don't really have a problem, but, most importantly, it would allow givers to restrict level 0 public CV/level 8 group CV users from their giveaways if they don't want people who have been gaming the system in their GAs.
Create a Ratio value and add it to the filter options available when creating a giveaway: this solves the problem of weeding out "leechers" that drives some people to create high level GAs and forget about non-leechers who don't have a fat wallet. If you set the Ratio requirement to 1, the guy who has given $100 and won $90 is on the same playing field than the guy who has given $1000 and won $900. If you still want to reward the $1000 guy, use normal CV as a filter and you're all set.
Make CV gain proportional to how "open" your GA was: Straightforward too. If your GA was visible to 100% of the community, you get 100% of its CV value. The lower the proportion of the userbase able to enter it, the lower the CV you get.
Make won gifts decrease CV: this would encourage people who have been winning a lot to start giving more for a while. You could start at level 3, with levels 2, 1 and 0 representing people who win more and 4 to 10 representing people who have been giving more.
And... that's pretty much it, some final considerations:
Thanks for reading, leave your comments, and have a nice day!
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