Topic, Game "BLockoban"

  I agree I don't like blockoban 2 being called that either, I really do not like that game. And it does imply there is something needed in the original, but I am also grateful JP made this awesome game and its his by right so...

  or Slideoban :D But i think Blockoban 2 is okay :)

  or DropoBan :D

  To be fair I really don't think BB2 should be called BlockoBan. They are totally different games, different strategy and kind of misleads ppl thinking BB is out-of-date, old fashioned, which of course is not true. I would suggest something like POPoBAN.

P.S. Sorry you have to read all this oldmanrob. I am the one to blame (at least for most of it)...hehe

  After weeks spent on BB2 I'm back to the original and so surprised that the blocks don't pop.
PS lot to read here.

  Just out of curiosity guys for the rating system. Since smn's weighting power changes as he earns EXP pts, do the ratings - for each level that he has rated in the past - change along with his weighting power or does he have to go back to levels and rerate. My guess is that the second applies which ultimately means every now and then we have to visit old levels. And a chain reaction begins....
It may be trivial, not worth much discussion, but I was so worried you guys are so quiet today that I decided to give you some food for thought. That is if you are hungry...hehe

  Great comments, guys. Like you say, solving the puzzles is fun, but it's much more fun to optimize your solutions. That's where you really learn to play the game and it's what gives the most satisfaction (for me anyways) when you understand strategies that you can use to beat any of the levels.

  chris, let me echo ToughMan's remarks. Working a level, is just that. There are no fireworks to celebrate a completed level as in Super Mario. And even when completed the score can be way off. For me, that is where the fun starts. When you find a solution, or just know there is one, dig in and look for the lowest score. BB is like any sport. The more you work at it the better your moves are. Even the pros miss or fail at times. The more you play the more you will understand the blocks and groups and how they react. You don't just have 120 levels to go, you have finished 127. Myself, I still have levels to solve and continue to get beaten on my own designs. So to you, stay with us, we do need everyone of the players out there. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with next.

P.S. I still haven't been able to solve Never Give Up!!!!!

  chris, don't get disappointed. The fun in the game is that you need to work through a solution as if you were playing chess, stratego, pacman etc with unlimited lives and time. Once you find a good way to get it done [even if, at first, it takes longer than you originally believed and with multiple restarts] you may then try for a better solution. I would suggest strarting from the easier levels and once you get the feel of the game - trust me you will - you will be able to cope with harder levels and think ahead at least 5+ moves. Be patient, think ahead and give it a (many) shot(s). And i don't mean drinking shots...lol. However, IMO, the best way to understand blocks and how they move is to try it on a 'CREATE A LEVEL' board where you can actually play around with different formations. But in no case should you give up. We need all the players who eventually in their own way contribute to improving this game.

P.S. I also noticed you are very experienced player in the bonus level so I am sure most of the above are pretty familiar to you. Nevertheless, my one and only point/advice here is: Persistence. Just follow your own well designed creations named 'Think It Through'!!!! On my part i promise i dedicate a level to you called 'Never Give Up'.

  If one posts 'Fantastic! 5/5' on each level, you wouldn't soon even take him serious anymore, and just ignore it ;)

  I just rate every level I play based on the fun I had solving it, if one guy made a lot of terrible levels I probably gave him a lot of 1/5 but I did comment everytime, also if someone made a lot of good levels I gave 5/5 and generally commented also. I have no doubt you are right Toughman, this established some people as enemies and as friends which lowered my overall rating power, certainly this is just funny and not something to worry about. = ) I feel negative critiquing is just as important as positive.

  man 247 officials, i have 120 more lvls left, thats a lot; i'm about to give up too

oh and congrats murat, toughman, and oldmtnguy for all the great lvls, but i cannot solve either one of them. it would be nice to have a little hint to help me get started.

  Aw well, I guess we all have our ups and downs and at this moment i think Jyxz is definitely in his ups (unless he got hacked too by a Good Guy....lol).

  Shiro has lower RP than level too (lvl 40 but 28 rating power, due he got hacked once, and got rating power dimished).

I guess JP has dimished Jyxz RP manually when Jyxz came (as he were commenting all levels he played and very negative on some).

Who knows...

  No need to take this seriously Elizea. I was only kidding.

P.S. i guess though rating power is +-10/+-20 from our 'Level' as J and I have the same level (18) but differ on the power.

  Usually the rating power is +10/+20 from your 'level'.

  I agrre with Jyxz too!

PS, 1000th comment!

  Hey Jyxz, since you mentioned it, I've done some thinking and reached the conclusion that I am your friend!!! Rating power is determined by EXP points, registration date and a 'secret algorithm' determining whether you rate unfairly or boost friends. EXP points arise from msgs, creations, etc. Comparing the two of us we both have same EXP points (2179 vs 2138), you have more accepted levels, let alone 1 official, you are 6 months older than me as per the registration date and still your power is 10 vs 28 of mine. The only variable parameter here is the 'secret algorithm' and since I could never think you would be rating unfairly...I can only draw the conclusion that you just boost friends. In that sense thnx for considering me your friend....hehe. Don't get me wrong guys. I wasn't bragging and definitely i wasn't implying anything for Jyxz. I really repsect J (hope you know that by now) and appreciate his great contribution to the game. I am just in a good mood and wanted to be a bit humorous. After all you all know i don't care about rating. I just love playing BB. If by any chance msg is removed i'll understand.

  I agree with you, Jyxz. I fell a lot in the ranking of designers.

  All this talk of rating, I think we are asking too much off JP, it really is not a big deal... I mean I didn't realize it until recently, but I have one of the lowest rating powers of any blockoban user... doesn't matter. The only suggestion I think is rather cool is Toughman's that you can't rate a level unless you solve it. It does seem kinda weird someone who doesn't even play blockoban can just give someone else a 1/5 and have it count for 6x as many votes as someone who has solved every level = ).

  JP you could make it so that you can't rate low levels if you don't comment too (and for example set it show on comments how much he rated the level).

And this should be the same for rating high.

  Yeah, I would like to know how many rated a level 5 stars, how many 4 etc.
If they weren't anonymous, and you could see who rated, it would make user mod work easier (to see if same person rates all levels from an other user 1/5) for example.

About completing a level... I usually rate levels good if I find them fun, they have some cool new concept idea, or then they have extremely cool looking layout (and others who have completed it say it is good in comments).

At least don't rate because of category, as it might be MY own personal opinion about the difficulty.

JP you could make it so that you can't rate low levels if you don't comment too (and for example set it show on comments how much he rated the level). This would help also as no one wants to show that he is 1 rater on a extremely good level (for example he wants to set down the rating because he doesn't like the designer or something.

  First of all thanx for at least hearing me out. IMO any rating is acceptable in the sense that it is subjective (and every1 has the right to express its opinion). But it also has to be justified. I understand that players have a certain weight on rating and i respect that, but to be fair even a low rating by a new player (with not much weight) - if justified - can be of value and offer smt to the game. In this context my suggestion is to either force all players to rate (in order to have a more objective insight of the level) if they want their score to appear on screen or force ppl who rate i.e. 1 or 2 or even 3 to provide an explanation through a comment. In the first case ppl who do not usualy rate a level (most commonly are those liking it but forget to do so) will have to rate and in the second ppl who actually rate low can have the chance to provide a reasoning. This will be definitely appreciated by all of us (even we disagree).

In all cases, I am one of those who believe you should only rate a level when you solve it. By doing this you will avoid all low ratings based on the difficulty and you will value the votes which refer to skillful design, fun and challenging solution. If rating is actually based on how fun or interesting a level is, I don't get how someone votes without first solving it. I am sure I can get a very well designed, funny level etc, but (literaly or metaphoricaly) IMPOSSIBLE to solve. As it stands right now i could receive a 5/5 but would that mean anything? Thankfully Jxyz proved a point last week with his 'Stupid,but possible' level which was almost impossible to solve (ok it probably had only one solution in a millions of combination) but this level could have been rated 5/5. I believe we could get something good out of this and improve the game.

P.S. I pay my respects to all designers - good or bad doesn't make any difference to me - first for at least trying and second for actually succeeding in making my (our) time enjoyable and fun. I play every signle game (good-bad, rejected, accepted, etc) just ot be up to date. Frankly, some rejected levels have given me some ideas for new levels so I won't get tired saying this. Keep Drawing Guys!!

  Nice suggestion ToughMan and I also agree with oldmtnguy that ratings can be VERY frustrating. I might do something to encourage people post a feedback when they post a bad rating.

Many websites provides ratings, but so far I don't know one website that has solved the problem of unfair ratings, it's a very difficult one.

For the average rating of a level, you must know that each rater has a weight (depending on experience level and other many things). So if user with low wieght give 1/5 and another with heavy weight gives 5/5, the average will not be 3/5 but maybe 3.7/5 or something like that.


EDIT : by the way, 1500 approved levels today, congrats to all designers!

  Although I am not personally influenced by the rating (the reason is that only 3-4 players out of 20-30 solvers actually rate thus i respect more the comments, whichever they are, as ppl spend time and effort writing down their justification) I fully agree with oldmtnguy and I kindly ask all players (mainly those that give a bad rating) to at least explain why a certain level is not attractive to them. A well reasoned comment is highly valued and appreciated by the designer who will try to improve the quality of his levels and eventualy step up to the majority's expectations. This does not only apply to BB. It applies to all the games of the bonus level. As for the designers and for the time being, i hope you share my thoughts, pay a bit more attention to the comments and don't let any bad rating disappoint you. We definitely need each and every1 of you. Finally for the admins of the game, may i suggest (one of my many) showing in the 'More' section how many (not from who) voted 1, how many 2, etc just to have an idea and let the designer do the math.

  What do you think of my levels? I haven't made one since a month ago and i think it's time to make another one.

  oldmtnguy, unless specified otherwise on one of your levels, I think your levels are fantastic and currently the "meat" of the game, to be honest when I click a level to see who made it I am hoping for your name, (seeing a level made by Murat or Toughman is very nice but i know it means its time to stop what im doing and grab that thinking cap). I think Elizea held this roll before but you have taken up the reigns, so keep making levels damnit!

I try to remember to rate levels, because I know designers need the feedback, but lets be honest anyone can rate shouldnt look much into it, for instance I know for a fact people give levels 1/5 for them being "too hard" what kind of bad joke is that?

PS: I think we all can agree that you and murat especially have brought this game into a new era of excellence with just the shear quantity of very high qaulity levels you have made.

  It's a bad idea to post here, not everyone plays BB

  I am posting this here because it needs to be read by everyone. Referring to comments on Black Night as well as many others.
I agree with both Elizea and ToughMan, it is just annoying that people rate levels down with no reason. A rating or comment is the only feedback we have as designers. And constructive criticism is acceptable and appreciated, but a crappy rating to anyone without a reason chaps me off. If you don't like a level, at least have the guts to say why. Don't rate poorly just because you are frustrated or you can't solve it. Crappy ratings discourage designers, and that means fewer submissions, and eventually no game. So we need to work together if want to continue playing. If there is something you like or want, post it here. There are enough designers that I am sure someone will step up and fill your needs. This game and BonusLevel needs this to survive!

  Yes Jos. That's probably it. I now make that connection. It has appeared after i have tried a certain level. Thanks.