AGS Game Ratings Drive

Radiant · Tue 09/04/2013 18:41:29

Quote from: AGA on Sat 06/04/2013 14:11:27
Okay, done. Each game's page now has a link to a list of all the games by an author. I also structured the credits list to be more clearly separated.

Thank you!

In a random other idea: would people find it useful if, besides AGS Award winners and Pick Of The Month, people could browse MAGS winners in a similar way?

DoorKnobHandle · Tue 09/04/2013 18:49:37

YES! :p

AGA · Tue 09/04/2013 18:50:32

The main trouble with that is that (AFAIK), MAGS voting doesn't require games to be in the games database the way the Awards do. So while some of the winners may be available, any 'view MAGS winners' list is going to be fairly incomplete.

Radiant · Tue 09/04/2013 18:55:09

Quote from: AGA on Tue 09/04/2013 18:50:32
The main trouble with that is that (AFAIK), MAGS voting doesn't require games to be in the games database the way the Awards do. So while some of the winners may be available, any 'view MAGS winners' list is going to be fairly incomplete.

Some random checking suggests to me that most of them are in the database. That said, I would find an incomplete list still better than no list.

DoorKnobHandle · Tue 09/04/2013 18:57:35

Or just start the list a year ago or up until the point in time where we have the first game missing (and the author unavailable) even? And a new rule to MAGS that the game needs to be uploaded to the AGS games database, I don't see any harm in that either!

I definitely think MAGS games need some place to go - now that there's not even an MAGS game category on the site anymore.

AGA · Tue 09/04/2013 19:07:14

I'll look into it, once my hand is back to coding form.

There is still a MAGS category on the site though... I think the search function is a bit broken and isn't returning them.

MAGS has been going for 12 years by the way, almost certainly a majority of games aren't in the database. There are 136 games in the database, of probably 400+ games overall.

DoorKnobHandle · Tue 09/04/2013 19:16:18

Quote from: AGA on Tue 09/04/2013 19:07:14
There is still a MAGS category on the site though...

Huh, I certainly can't find it when adding a game. I only see genre, setting and story as categories, no more short game, medium game, joke game etc. Am I not looking in the right place?

Tabata · Tue 09/04/2013 19:30:39

@AGA

AGA · Tue 09/04/2013 19:36:27

Quote from: DoorKnobHandle on Tue 09/04/2013 19:16:18
Quote from: AGA on Tue 09/04/2013 19:07:14
There is still a MAGS category on the site though...

Huh, I certainly can't find it when adding a game. I only see genre, setting and story as categories, no more short game, medium game, joke game etc. Am I not looking in the right place?

Apparently users no longer set the category themselves. It's just 'uncategorised' by default. The category is set by the Rating Panel when they get around to it. I should probably change that, because it's a bit of a pointless bit of admin.

Radiant · Tue 09/04/2013 19:48:51

Quote from: AGA on Tue 09/04/2013 19:07:14
MAGS has been going for 12 years by the way, almost certainly a majority of games aren't in the database. There are 136 games in the database, of probably 400+ games overall.

It is my impression that most MAGS winners are in the database, not most MAGS games in general. Of course, I haven't been here for twelve years and this is just my experience based upon random benchmarks.

Quote from: AGA on Tue 09/04/2013 19:36:27
Apparently users no longer set the category themselves. It's just 'uncategorised' by default. The category is set by the Rating Panel when they get around to it. I should probably change that, because it's a bit of a pointless bit of admin.

Well, yeah. Surely a game author knows whether he's written a full-length game, MAGS game, or non-adventure game?

cat · Tue 09/04/2013 20:36:44

I think MAGS should not be a category but an additional tag. A MAGS game can be short or medium length or even a non-adventure game. This should be just a checkbox.

Ghost · Tue 09/04/2013 20:44:29

Quote from: cat on Tue 09/04/2013 20:36:44
I think MAGS should not be a category but an additional tag. A MAGS game can be short or medium length or even a non-adventure game. This should be just a checkbox.

+1, especially since quite a lot of MAGS games get an after-MAGS overhaul.

AGA · Wed 10/04/2013 22:51:12

Okay, I'm mostly able to code again. Various things are in progress, and should be ready tomorrowish.

Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens · Wed 10/04/2013 23:24:38

I don't mind that mags games have a unique designation since they are part of a specific ags competition that has been going on almost as long as ags has been around. It's a fair point that mags games can continue after the competition, but is it really important that they are no longer designated as mags games? Now, if doing something like a checkbox to add on information to games would make organization easier or more efficient I would say fine, do it, but if it requires considerable re-working of the code for the database then I can't imagine why it would be worth the trouble.

AGA · Wed 10/04/2013 23:50:01

The coding isn't complicated, it's just going to require a lot of human effort to actually set all the MAGS games as such. I've half worked something out that should do at least some of the work automagically though.

Ponch · Thu 11/04/2013 03:11:28

Cool. Thanks for all the hard work, AGA. But don't overwork your hand. You don't want to go through life with a hook do you?

AGA · Thu 11/04/2013 19:08:19

Okay, so I'm getting somewhere. With some PHP and MySQL trickery I've managed to convert the crazy flat file data storage of the official MAGS site in a proper database. Where possible I've tapped into the forums and games databases, to pick out the authors' and games' IDs, but it hasn't always been possible.

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/mags.php. The vast majority of the authors are registered forum members, and I've put a link to their profile where I could find it. If someone can work out who the other handful of people are, I'll add that info too. About half the games have a link to the relevant game's page, but a lot of them are either stored in the database under a different name, or aren't in the database at all. Again, if someone can add any of this info, I'll update it.

I think in future it would be a good idea to have MAGS voting tied into the games database the way the AGS Awards are. It would be a lot less effort for the people running MAGS to update the site if all the information was fed from one source. More easily updated too.

Radiant · Sat 13/04/2013 12:44:29

"Indiana Rodent" is this game, http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1513/
"Blue Blue World Domination" is this, http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1561/
"HUBRIS" is this one, http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1541/
and "2034 A.C." is here, http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1646/

And yes, I think doing MAGS voting in the same system would be helpful.

DoorKnobHandle · Sat 13/04/2013 12:54:43

My March 2013 MAGS game KTX-1 has a game page: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1668/

Thanks for the great work, AGA!

AGA · Sat 13/04/2013 13:17:37

Thanks, guys. I'm beavering away, converting the current MAGS pages to be database driven. This will hopefully make things a bit easier to administrate, but will essentially look identical to the public.