Some people might jet.

But if awarding the map first is required (and it will be), then most people will recognize it's a new facet to the award process. The fact you're awarding the map in the first place indicates you liked the map. The rating shows "how much" you liked it.

I seriously doubt most people will award a track just to rate it down. Those who do may have some kind advice given to them by the moderators.

I can't believe someone would increase a track's award count just to lower it's rating. It's counter-productive when the awards will still be what matters most. They'll only be serving to make the track more popular.

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In retrospect, even on TMX some people would include ratings with their awards. Sometimes they'd rate different aspects of the design, sometimes the overall thing. It seems different people had different scales to rate a track in their award.

So this is nothing new. It was always something to add some extra information in your award for the author, and maybe even to others who read the award to get someone's take on the track.

MrA has layed my fears to rest sufficiently. I think it can be a nice addition to the site.

... says:
We might allow 'rating' to appear in the custom search critera, but that is yet to be confirmed.

i hope for that option Mr A

And about rating are we sure that people rating a track after rating level. "i know i dont" imo, no track is overrated and i vote what i think its worth, i am not giving it a rating of 1 just becouse it got to high rating. lol. if i like a track i award it and give it my rating. And it won´t make a big diffrent if 2 try to vote my track up or down. And one thing is sure no matter what, you will get an extra award per vote ^^ and get a new chans in the latest award windows to get even more award.
The rating will give new builder a chance to get known, but the old one that build fantastic track will always be a "michael jackson" ,we cant change that, they will always have an advantage becouse they are feamous builder and alot of people love there work and they are good obviously so they will get 100 award and are worth it as many unknown builder are. But no one see them and maybe this system will find all

last question
what is an overrated track ? 20 award 100 award 1000 award ?

Tell me i don´t know, do you ?

edit: . I think it can be a nice addition to the site. agree eyebo

Btw Mr A: how much work is left 1 month 2

SPIDER says:
last question
what is an overrated track ? 20 award 100 award 1000 award ?

Awards are simply a visual representation of the number of people who liked the track. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Overrate means...
- to rate or appraise too highly

Something being "overrated" has nothing to do with the number of awards it has.

What you actually think of a map might mean you overrate it, especially if you are totally biased towards the author, the style, or some other aspect of the map. Perhaps it's just nostalgic to you and reminds you of the first time you played TrackMania. If looked at objectively, perhaps you wouldn't think as much of the map as you actually do. Thus, you overrate it. And that's not necessarily bad.

Maps can be overrated by individuals, but not by a group.

People throw around the word overrated because it sounds like the track is getting more awards than they think it deserves. Maps do feed off their own popularity. The more popular the track gets, the more exposure it gets, and the more likely someone will try it who likes it... thus increasing it's possibility to receive yet another award.

So popular maps benefit from their own popularity. But it doesn't mean the map is "overrated", as we learned the term doesn't apply to this scenario. It only means that the map has benefited from maximum exposure.

Those who think a track has too many awards fail to understand that the number of awards a track has gives a very incomplete picture about the content of the map itself, except to say that it's a very good general purpose map that had a broad appeal.

Maps that fit a more niche style are less likely to have the broad appeal, even though they may be regarded on a technical level by some players as designed better, especially for that niche. Because they fit that niche... only those who appreciate the niche will award the map. Maps of these types will generally receive far less awards. But the map is still getting it's due, because it has pleased those players from that niche.

Obviously the type mentioned in the previous paragraph are never regarded as "overrated" because they receive so few awards. Instead, some label them as "underrated". Let's look at that word.

Underrate...
- to rate too low

A closely related word is undervalue...
- to value, rate, or estimate below the real worth
- to treat as having little value

Neither of these words necessarily apply to this niche map. Chances are, there are some users who played and appreciated the map.

In summary:

Any map can be underrated by a player.
Any map can be overrated by a player.

No maps are overrated or underrated by the group.
Although some maps can be completely ignored or missed by everyone, or by even the majority of a niche. But that's another issue.

The real "issue" with number of awards lies, not in how individuals rate a map, but in the exposure a track gets... and whether it has broad appeal or if its only catering to the specific skills and tastes of a niche group of drivers.

I'm actually quite glad not all maps have broad appeal. I enjoy many niche maps, and I hope many users continue to create them.

In case you're wondering, niche (in the sense I'm using it) means...
- having specific appeal

wow, not really what i tought. I tought what you explaine in your comment,
that a overrated track has to many award and a underrated got to few,
but now i have a wider perspective."big thx" eyebo.

This is exactly what I mean with the "total number of stars" concept: If a track has 100 votes with one point, or one star, this means to me that 100 people liked the map enough to give it a rating. And this is better than 0 votes.
And this is why I like the system exposed by Mr.A.

I think when rating is enabled the number of awards will increase: Until now you just could award the same an awesome map, and a just fun map that IN YOUR OPINION is not "the great" map, but was fun to play.
Most people "reserves" the awards for the best maps, while there's lots of fun maps wich maybe not deserves an award (when awards means "high score") compared to the best maps, but deserves some kind of approval. Now you can do it: Award with a low rate: This means, is not a crap but it could be better because "whatever". And this will encourage people to give some words to explain their opinion: Something like I liked (so you have my award) but (example) is not a nice map for online, or scenery is poor, or it has a misscalculated part but the rest was fine.... something like that.
So our concept or award will changue with this feature: Now a decent map will recive some feedback (I think give an award or a score is a kind of feedback), and we will still find easily the most popular maps...

I think rating searching must be in. Is our choice to use awards or rating to list maps.

Some pepople will be "scared" because this changue... But I think most people will get used to it soon. Adapt or die XD.

I apreciate a lot the big effort of developers to improve the site with this feature. Hope this works (I'm sure)

Time will judge. We always can do a step back if all this stuff becames in a hell... we can spend all life talking about it without knowing for real what we are talking about, or we can try. If it don't works I will be the first to complain.

Jet777 says:


good---------------------------awesome!

This is actually a good way to install the voting system. Like this there is no doubt that any voting means 'good' at least.

eyebo says:
and.. lol, thanks for distilling everything I said into 1 sentence.

I should learn to be more concise.

lol

By the way, will it be obligatory to give a rating within your award or will you be able to choose whether you give a rating or not?

SkunkY says:
Seriously, how much effort does it take to 'scan' over awards with just a smiley or award symbol? This is kinda funny.
When you're interested in awards on your tracks then you'll have a look at your track page whenever you see there are new awards. If then you see a new smiley or just a new number is exactly the same effort for you. Either there is a new smiley or there is nothing. Look you have to anyway.

Look, I'm lazy.

My personal preference tells me that I'd rather want an empty award than one saying "COOL TRACK ". And it would look cleaner I think.

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Overrating tracks have always been about tracks too much appreciated, people are just using the wrong word. Same goes for underrated tracks, being too little appreciated.

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@Sriver: I think MrA mentioned rating would be optional...

eie says:

Overrating tracks have always been about tracks too much appreciated, people are just using the wrong word. Same goes for underrated tracks, being too little appreciated.

And here we are again. A track cannot be too much appreciated. When a track has 300 awards it simply means 300 people enjoyed it (most likely more people, but 300 gave an award).
It is really stupid to withhold an award because it has a certain number of awards already.
The same guy who does this would have given the award if he was one of the first who tried the track.
It just makes no sense not to do so when the track has 100 awards already.

Just because other great tracks have not been seen, played, recognized by more players doesn't make the top awarded track any less enjoyable.

That been said, an additional rating can cause a track to get more recognition than it might have gotten without rating.. if the rating remains high.