Bring Back The Old Review System From JKFiles

[DarthDementous]

I don't know about you guys but the thing that made browsing through mods (even an onslaught of lightsaber models) that much more interesting was the inclusion of a review done by someone other than the author. The 5 star rating system has been given as much attention to it as the old thumbs up/thumbs down system and if possible (not sure how many willing members there could be) a team of critics could be organised and each assigned to review something. It just made the modding aspect of the site that much more engaging and whats not to love about Averus Retruthan's near psychotic reviews .

 

I undeerstand there's probably some huge flaw in implementing this system that I'm missing but I'm curious to hear your thoughts on it.

[Futuza]

 

 

I undeerstand there's probably some huge flaw in implementing this system that I'm missing

[therfiles]

It's definitely an idea that we've tossed around since JKHub's birth. We wanted the reviews to be more community based, rather than staff based. Members, or groups of critics, are free to go and write reviews, and maybe the author can include it in the description. But as for the staff reviewing each file, it's just not quite feasible.

 

If you'd like to start a team of critics, that'd be awesome, and I'd love to join.

[Link]

A team of critics would be awesome From being a staff on both JKFiles/JKHub, the staff here usually have more work to do and critiquing files properly takes time and effort. Something I applaud JKFiles for, because in my opinion they've had some great reviewers e.g. Nozy, Inyri etc.

[Circa]

Reviewing files is encouraged. Most people use the review section for simple comments, but in depth reviews are most welcome.

[therfiles]

Agreed. PM me if you are interesting in pursuing a "critics group"-like idea.

 

Here are some reviews I've written in the past:

 

 

 

1. SW Galaxy Skyline Menu by Sentra, Zionter

4/5

This is probably one of the most beautiful mods ever created. The magnitude of work and the amount of detail pumped into this menu mod is simply overwhelming. Overwhelming, in a good way. As soon as the player opens up Multiplayer, they are greeted with a stunning, menu. Every part seems to be animated, pulsing, glowing, moving, you name it. The whole thing is in, what the author calls, '2.5D', which I agree with. Elements of the menu seem to be in 3D, but then they suddenly look 2D. I've never seen anything like it. The classic lightsaber is revamped and awesome, just like every aspect of this menu. One of the things I appreciated is the blur effect. When a menu opened on top of another menu, the background blurred, which I though was just a really, really cool effect. This effect is utilized many times throughout the menu. What I love about this menu is that it is themed like a hologram, and acts like one. The opening of a menu is animated like a hologram...basically all of the menu's elements have that 'hologramish' feel, which really amplifies the Star Wars experience. While every menu has been redone in this mod, some of my favorites include the Demo menu, the Controls menu, and the Credits. All of these have really unique moving elements and are just visually glamourus. The profile menu was also very well done, however I did think the icon for the character creator was a bit odd, but that's just my opinion. The character creation menu was also enhanced, so totally check that one out. So thats basically the main menu, lets move into the ingame menus. First off, one thing I didn't like was the generic map loading screen. It just didn't capture the mod's grandour and was rather boring. But it's not that big. The loading bar for the game is also really awesome. However, another thing I just really didn't like was the included levelshots for the base JA maps. They just seemed too contrasted and weird, and I really don't know why they were put in there. Moving on, the ingame menu toolbar was very well done. The subtle transparency and hologramish mini menus were just visually delicious. Well done! The mod also upgraded some of the weapon and force icons, which really looked good. The blue energy coming out of them was a really nice touch. One thing that struck me as odd was the ingame profile menu. Some of the desciptions for some of the buttons clashed with some of the toolbar buttons, which just looked bad. Also, one thing I noticed about both profile menus is that the model doesn't update when a new model is chosen, which is really not cool. The icons chosen for the player's force, saber, and custom character configurations was just wierd. They didn't really fit there and they looked out of place. But that is really a minor gripe. Overall, this mod is a no brainer for someone looking to spruce up the game. Great job SW Galaxy team!

2. Shadowtrooper by Scerendo

4.5/5

Scerendo has crafted an elegant shadowtrooper skin for us. While this file is old, it is still a good one nonetheless. One of things that really caught my eye was the animated icon for the skin, which is a rare thing for a modder to do, but when done properly, it looks really good. This is one of those times. It really sells the skin. On to the skin itself. Simply amazing glow shaders have been added, producing an amazing effect. The entire armor has been reworked, with artistic streaks of glowing light and awesome subtle designs. Another thing that was done was add reflective shaders, which made it look grungy and metallic. While a simple thing to do, it took the skin to the next level. Many different colors were included with this release: blue, red, cyan, and green. Red was my favorite, it really looked stunning. And red is my favorite color, so no bias there...Anyway, bot support was also included, which is always a plus. Some other features the mod boasts is JK2 support, which is a nice extra for the author to include. One thing that suprised me a little is that it has no sounds at all. I mean, new sounds really aren't neccisary, linking it to the old shadowtrooper sounds or even the stormtrooper sounds would have been fine. Unfortunatly, all we get are the annoying generic male sounds. Not that big, though. The author recommends enabling dynamicGlow to get the best appearence of the skin, which is deffinitly a good idea for this skin. Using "r_dynamicglow 1" or the setup menu option will greatly improve the 'glowiness'. Overall, a very well made skin that looks simply amazing.

3. The Matrix Unleased Lobby by Szico VII

4.5/5

Inspired by the classic movie series, this map's likeness is amazing. The detail poured into the map is extrordanary! But let's start from the beginning. One thing I noticed right off the bat was the lack of an arena file. This file adds the map to the map list when creating a game. Instead, the player has to use the console to /map the map, which is a minor inconvience, but the fix would have been extremely simple. The first thing I noticed upon map startup was the reflections on the floor. The mirror-sheen they had was just awesome, and it was pulled of really really well. Even the windows has a distorted enviornments placed upon them, creating an atmosphere around the outside of the map. Immidieatly, the first thing I did was to try to smash the lobby's pillars, which get shot up in the movie. To my delight, you can smash the heck out of those things, until only a little rock and dirt remain. This effect was pulled of very well, and added a really cool bonus to the map. Imagine if you are fighting with guns a stray bullet slams into the wall and shatters the marble. Awesome. Moving on, the security check points, furniture, and doors were just stupendisly moulded and custom textured. One thing that pleased me was how many custom textures there were, and not just a constant recycling of base JA ones. The lighting was also superb, and the author took advantage of the glowing, bright atmosphere of the matrix, sureal enviornments. Overall, the lobby was magnificent, but the fun doesn't end there. The author also scripted (rather beautifully, I might add) an elevator that lets the player visit two additional floors of the building. One is an office, which is plaster with the matrix posters and swinging doors. This area is very cool, and there are lots of elements that were added, like a telephone, desk, and furniture that really detailed the room and sold the location. The next level available to the player is the roof. The first thing I noticed was an amazing skybox, which was so well done, infact I just stared at it for several moments in awe. The roof itself was superb, it even had a helicopter with a mounted gun, like the movie! Once again, hats off to the excellent mapping here. There are so much details and nooks for the player to explore, that you just have to download and play it to truly get a feel about what I am talking about. It was difficult to find any flaws for the map, but a couple I did find was that the player can jump off the roof without falling to their death. I think that a trigger could have been made kills the player after falling for a certain amount of time, because when you reach the bottom, you can look up into the map's caulked areas. But generally, this map passed with flying colors. The gamemodes included are FFA and TFFA, and unfortunalty there is no bot support for the map. The author also included the source files for the map, which is always a cool thing for them to do. I highly recommend this map, you will enjoy it very much. Well done, Szico!

4. Base Customisation Compltete

4/5

Wow. Only word can describe Mug's new Base customization pack. I've dabbled with making SP species and I know it is simply a ton of work! Basically every model is available to tweak and customize! The blood, sweat, and tears that must have gone into this really overwhelms me. Good job Mug! I think there are very few improvements to be made, but there are some. The author did a great job trying to make every model as customizable as possible. He made it so you could even turn off the life support tubes for the Tie Pilot model. I really liked that. The shoulder pad for Kyle, the Jetpack and 'cape' Boba was easily toggled. There was so many options, there is no way you can't be impressed with this. You can get some really neat combos with this. I think the author included two new torso textures, they were just regular shirts but they were so cool looking on every model. Now here is what I would like to see change. Most every SP species mod forgets to add this. The author did not modify the species title, you know "Human Female", "Rodian Male". This would have really helped the user navigate through all the options. All the user sees is a blank text field that glows. Not bad, but could be fixed. Overall, totally superb. This is a welcome addition to anyone's base folder. I love this. Keep up the good work Mug!

 

 

 

[Zappa_0]

I think if the website crew would do reviews it was give jkhub more of a face. Kinda think of it as a radio disjockey. People sometimes like reading the reviews plus gives the crew more things to do then just approving a file. Or even doing a blog to review files would be cool.

[minilogoguy18]

I don't like staff reviews or a panel of critics, it makes for biased reviews, people should just rate files more.

[Circa]

I think if the website crew would do reviews it was give jkhub more of a face. Kinda think of it as a radio disjockey. People sometimes like reading the reviews plus gives the crew more things to do then just approving a file. Or even doing a blog to review files would be cool.

We do a lot more than just approve files as staff.

 

I usually leave a review after approving a file if I'm interested enough to fully test it. But I did this even before becoming staff.

[Zappa_0]

well I know that just saying it would give an added touch to the files thats uploaded. 

[therfiles]

I don't like staff reviews or a panel of critics, it makes for biased reviews, people should just rate files more.

 

That's certainly true, but in-depth reviews just aren't being written. And sure: would there be a bias? Yep. Do all members here have a bias? Absolutely. And, it's not like this group we're proposing would replace all the user-reviews, nothing at all like that. It's just a group of members who are committing to review files in an orderly, thought out way.

[minilogoguy18]

Well another downside to it is what happened at jk3files.com was files were taking a long time to get hosted because staff members got burnt out on reviewing every file since that means playing with it for a proper amount of time, looking for any bugs then writing a paragraph, sometimes 3 about the mod.

 

I just think it's a waste of time for everyone. I like how much faster everything is uploaded here, sure at first things wouldn't take much longer but eventually the people assigned to the job will get burnt out, I guarantee it.

 

Then once everyone starts slowing down then things really get into a bottleneck and it takes weeks for a simple mod to get hosted.

[therfiles]

We're not (at least I'm not) suggesting that a file has to be reviewed before It gets uploaded. It's just an extra we'd tack on later. And since it'll be made of users, the staff won't get burnt-out, unless they decide to participate extensively.

 

So, in essence, it's just a group of people who love to review mods. That's it. It's up to the author if they want to tack it on to their description. It's not anything essential, just a commitment to quality reviews.

[Circa]

If this group gets formed, it should just set out to leave in depth reviews in the review section. Adding a review to the mod description seems a bit silly to me, since there is a review section.

[DarthDementous]

Hardly anyone reads or actively participates in the comment section though :\.

[therfiles]

Definitely, @@Circa. We'd write our reviews in the comments section. We're not gonna get any special privelages. But, if the author chooses, they can tack the review on to their description. I've seen that done a couple times.

[Circa]

Hardly anyone reads or actively participates in the comment section though :\.

This is not true. Many people do, if they feel the mod deserves a review. The "comment section" is technically the review section. Most people just treat it as a comment section.

 

One idea I've had is to limit the review section to real reviews by people, and let the staff approve them, instead of how it is now, where anyone can write anything.

 

[eezstreet]

I disagree, the comments section is fine and I've never really come across anything that's off-topic.

[Link]

Comments section is actually quite popular, and I think a review system would be great as long as it was an extra as @@therfiles said, not a requirement before a file went up.

 

And of course reviews are biased, that's a big part of it they're playing it from the perspective of a first time user based on their own experience rather than a collective experience.

 

Quite honestly though, this doesn't require anything official or any site changes so any one could write a review and post it in the comments section. This is what @@Caelum aimed for the comments section to be in the first place afterall XD this was discussed at length back then.

[minilogoguy18]

Well then, whoever wants to do it needs no formal permission, just start going through all the files on the site and do it.

[Merek]

I solely create files for them to be reviewed by the community but it would be far more effective if the staff actually reviewed our files before they are published like they did originally on JK3Files. Nothing against the current system but it would paint a far superior picture of what it was like back when JKA was more active, please consider this staff.

[eezstreet]

No thanks.

[minilogoguy18]

Staff reviews are so biased because everyone is going to have a different opinion.

 

You should also not be modding for others but because you enjoy it.

[Omicron]

Perhaps there could be a group of people who (if enough are interested in doing this) could review files when they get uploaded, and so when the file gets approved and made "public", there would be the review along with it. But this would depend on having a group of people who have the time to do it whenever a file goes up.

[CaptainCrazy]

I always try to leave reviews on content that i download from her.  Yes i know sometimes my reviews can be what the author doesn't want to hear but truth makes talent stronger.