SkunkY says:

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).

I could back this up with my whole speech about how a 'good' or 'bad' track is completely relative and you should ignore what others think to make your own decisions, but I think it's getting a little old.
I agree, anyway. Guys, if you like a track, try and award it. I understand if you're busy and can't get to it but deciding against it because you think it has 'too many' already doesn't make much sense.

I didn't say a track could never be appreciated enough, it's just that compared to other tracks, some people might say it is overrated, or over-appreciated.

But you can't disagree with the fact that underrated tracks exist, since they don't get enough appreciation.

Hey, I've been reading parts of (not all, SO MANY PAGES ) and I'd just like to add a few things to the discussion. (please forgive me if some of these things have already been said a thousand times. With this length of a discussion almost everything has been said anyway) Also, sorry It's so long but I didn't have the time to shorten it (love that quote), anyway, lets get started.

1. I'm going to be honest here and say that if a rating system was implemented I would probably abuse it (if I think it deserved 4 but is rated 3 atm I would click on 5 to increase the average) I know I shouldn't but I also know I would, call me whatever bad word you want but I'm that kind of person and a lot of others probably are too, maybe not the one's on the forum.

2. Some people play this game for more than just sharing and caring and being all-'round nice. I am very competitive by nature and a lot of the reason I love TM so much is because of the rankings systems in place. It gives me a purpose in the game. The awards system (to me) is no different and although you guys gripe and groan and tell people that awards aren't meant for to be for that kind of thing I consider it a measure of how much you have achieved as a builder.

Most if not all people (Don't tell me I can't speak for everyone as I know that %100 of generalisations are true ) want to know how they measure up as a builder (on TMX/MX anyway) and because no other system is in place to do this people treat the awards system as the way to measure skill. To some (Like I would be if I was decent at making tracks) it is a competition as to how many awards you get and until/if a new system is in place that's how it will be.

Some of you think that making it competitive is wrong and that it's just about enjoying making tracks and appreciating good works etc etc but I think you should see that some people love TM BECAUSE of the competition. If there was no ranking system in united, no ladder points system in TMX etc etc I would never have bought Canyon. It's possible that that's only racers who are like that and trackers all do it just to be creative and appreciate their own work but I hope there are others like me out there and I didn't write all that for nothing

If I have been making stupid incorrect generalisations please correct me because I'm making a fairly big assumption here, yes I realise that. I believe my assumption is accurate but I am prepared to be proved wrong.

3. I believe that giving a negative rating is perfectly ok and I don't understand why people are so against it. Someone (I think eyebo) said that if someone got negative ratings and didn't know why they might go to the forums and ask people about it. I believe would probably do this as I want to improve as a builder. If nobody informs people that they're doing badly then they assume they are doing well and I think that is contributing to the masses of unpopular (I won't say bad because that's subjectory) tracks that. Most are too lazy to leave a comment telling people where they need to improve, don't try to stop people from being lazy, that's never going to work (ok not never but it's much harder).

Much easier to give people an easy way to simply say "I didn't enjoy this track and I think you need to improve you building ability." And for the people who worry about those builders getting offended and leaving, if they cannot take criticism then they were either going to keep making unpopular tracks that make people scared of choosing random tracks, or leave and stop building. If they could not understand that they aren't doing it right then they are never going to improve.

4. My idea for extra rating system is a way of sorting tracks in a downloads/awards ratio. Think about it, I think the reason a lot of people are complaining is because a track gets lots of awards and fame simply because it gets lots of downloads and exposure. Well, if this was implemented then it would disadvantage tracks at the top of the list as they may have 100+ awards but also 3000 (idk how many) downloads. That would mean that 1 in every 30 liked the track (ok not everyone who likes it awards it but you know what I mean) If a track had 25 awards but only 100 downloads then it would should really be considered a better track as 1 in 4 people like it.

As soon as you get to the top of the list then you would get many more downloads but probably not as many more awards so you would go further down the list and you'd be constantly getting different tracks on the list to play. I think this is much better than 1 track having the most awards in mx for pretty much it's whole life as seems to have been the case in TMUX, at least for as long as I remember The Trump Card II was the top of the awards list and it kept getting more and more. I mean, sure it was a good track but I think that it had been exposed enough and another needed a turn (yeah that's what showcases, BoTW etc are for but I just want more )

While I'm on that topic I will say that I stopped trying to build tracks when I first discovered TTC2 as I knew I could never do what Crusard did. People think that a track like that works to motivate people but it really didn't for me (although I was an absolutely appalling builder anyway, but that's kinda irrelevant ) This added on to (don't tell Crusard ) the fact I didn't particularly like the track anyway, more of a gimmick than anything and not something that really kept you playing for hours which is what I enjoyed. I always felt like it had had it's run and another should take it's place as there are more tracks out there that deserve some fame.


I can probably think of more I have to say another time but it's 4 o'clock in the morning in Australia and I spent way too long writing that. If there are any obvious mistakes please correct me, It says it's too long to preview so I can't check paragraphs etc and I'm too tired anyway. Also I'm only 14 so I hope you'll cut me a bit of slack on the punctuation/grammar side of things. Be as mean as you want on the content though
As I like to sleep in.... a lot... I won't answer any replies for a fair while (say 10 hours-ish) but I'll try to reply 1st thing tomorrow afternoon. Maybe in the morning if it's 11 or something
I just realised that if I spent this much time on school work I'd probably get a better mark than I currently get hahaha

Just my 2 cents, more like 50 but oh well,

Themaniac2

1. This is one of the reasons I want to get rid of numbers, and instead just have stars as symbols, because it makes it harder for people to connect the number of stars to the actual rating. When one might see three stars, one might not automatically think 3/5. I also think that this kind of abuse is unavoidable either way, but if everyone abuses the system in one way or another, it might become integrated into each rating, so it wouldn't really matter anyway.

2. Awards isn't meant as a rating, even if some people believe that is the case. It's just means "I like this track". Nothing more, nothing less. Some people misunderstood this, and thinks this is some sort of rating.

3. With the possibility of negative rating, you'll get some "I dislike this track"-feedback, which isn't really nice if you're a newcomer. T/MX should always be a place that welcomes newer players, and make it easy for them to feel accepted.

4. While it might sound as a good idea, I don't think it is. It might have worked if more people used the awards as a *point*-system, but it's not a *point*-system, so you'll never get an accurate rating from that.

eie says:

3. With the possibility of negative rating, you'll get some "I dislike this track"-feedback, which isn't really nice if you're a newcomer. T/MX should always be a place that welcomes newer players, and make it easy for them to feel accepted.

On top of that, a "-1"-type of comment does not help anyone. It doesn't tell what the author is doing wrong, it leaves him frustrated and confused. If we'd allow people to rate a track negatively, we would also discourage people from giving actual feedback to tracks that they don't like.

What a nicely written post for your first one on MX Themaniac2.
Not that I agree with all of it... but you state your opinions clearly.

Themaniac2 you've pointed out your thoughts and oppinion pretty well and there's not much to argue about. Even though I don't agree with everything you said.

The download-award-ration system is an interesting idea. It could work. Although along with such a system it might eventually be necessary to allow downloads from registered users only.
Still it's not gonna happen.
MrA has made it clear, the system won't be changed. Additional positive rating will come.

If there was an award/download rating, how would you prevent people from downloading a track hundreds of times to make its rating decrease?

In that situation, you would have to be logged in to download. Each user could not be responsible for more than 1 download, despite the number of times he clicks the button. Forcing users to be logged in to download creates a problem for servers, and therefore will not be used. This undermines the basis of a download-dependent rating.

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