Not a lot of ratings?
pinback99 posted on September 8th, 2018
Is there a different place where there is more action with regard to ratings/feedback? I think that would be fun.
I doubt it. I think the reason there were a lot more ratings back in the NL1 days is because of there having once been a rule about having to rate one out of every X tracks you download.
pinback99 posted on September 8th, 2018
DON'T RATE THIS. :) )
You can trust us 100% completely, I promise.
If you would like feedback on something, it does help to ask for it. People here are very helpful and happy to make suggestions on how to improve. It's useful to 1) mention that you are looking for some feedback to improve and 2) what you are trying to accomplish. We'll help you figure out how to get there.
-Ride_Op
Part of it is due to the rating requirement, but that doesn't tell the whole story. Even during the late NLE days, mandated rating didn't really help all that much. People just stopped downloading, or put in very brief, albeit decent/good ratings. We looked at ways to require ratings, but decided against it. I had some ideas going in on how to encourage people to rate, but not all of them were implemented, and they may not fit the theme/style of the site. Lots of these are just design things, like putting bigger emphasis on Weekly Rankings, or highlighting influential critics over time. Community type things.
Personal opinion time:
I think forum use in this day and age has just dwindled in activity. More activity is happening on social media or chat rooms like Discord. For instance, the NL2 Discord — there's a lot of people posting progress pics and asking questions in there. Forums often serve as an advertising/showcase thread but not much more. Less back and forth discussion than in the old days. Of course, these things still happen but it's less frequent than it used to be looking back.
We're also on a brand new forum. Even though people had some prior notice, it still takes a while to rebuild a community. NLE got nuked, and lots of members, resources, and info were wiped. Same goes for CoasterSims. I can only imagine how big the community would be now if CoasterSims was continuously running up to this day. (Provided they kept updating the site.)
If we can keep NLC going strong for the next decade, we could see numbers returning. Hopefully that'll mean ratings too! If you're interested, there is a hidden stats page where you can see how we're doing in terms of numbers. At the moment, there's about a 2:1 park-to-rating ratio.
^ It's not hidden, it's just in the footer lol (so I guess it may as well be).
I don't think forums are necessarily dying, they're just different environments compared to something like discord. Discord is better for real time, I need something now scenarios (in terms of say, help), but overall I think a forum fits the community well, as a place for information, feedback, etc. Obviously discord is also great, forums are just a bit more centralized ;)
I also don't think the numbers have really left / changed. I'm almost certain that NLC is just as active as when NLE died, and as active the first year it was up, if not more. NLC is about to hit 750,000 page views (and could potentially hit 1 million in a year, which is something NLE did not do), has already hit 500,000 unique page views, and averages about 20,000 page views a week, so I definitely don't think there's any shortage of people using it. In terms of activity, I think it's fairly active as well with an average of 25 posts a day.
As for the ratings, I think that just comes with a overall shift in the members throughout the communities life. NoLimits 2 is way more accessible and less niche than NL1, a majority of the ratings on here, and I would assume else where are casual 2-4 sentence ratings. There are a few more that are a bit longer in explanation / feedback, but the reality is no one really wants to write huge paragraphs for ratings, or even rate at all without the ease of a casual rating system. And like you've already pointed out, I think 2:1 ratio is pretty good, idk.
The important thing is NLC is active and can adapt to change, so yeah, just share your creations, if you want people to notice, make a post about it, spread it around a discord, etc c:
I am so happy to have found this place, and the stuff people are posting is so great that it has inspired me to get back into this, even so far as to go ahead and build the worst coaster of all time (link at the bottom!)
However, I've noticed that not a lot of rides get ratings. Back in my NL1 days, there was a place where people would post stuff, and everything would get lots of ratings and feedback and stuff, and it was a lot of fun. Here, though that possibility exists, it seems not many are taking advantage of it.
Is there a different place where there is more action with regard to ratings/feedback? I think that would be fun.
And now, the worst coaster of all-- it's not that bad, I'm just learning how to do things again. I watched CodeMaster's old Steel Element video last night (where he sneezes and blows out the audio), and him saying that corkscrews are really hard inspired me to just try to build a little ride with a half-decent corkscrew. Anyway, it was fun. DON'T RATE THIS. :) )
Thanks, everyone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edOdhvVod0s