IWT8 Ratings Thread

[Vesnic]

Personally, I think Infernal Gate is a sleeper hit. I might have won the contest that year, but I know a real work of genius when I see it.

All hail the Mudkip!

[mizal]

People do, they know I'm the serious guy. But again, whats so bad about my story?

Jesus dude, go back and read the words that I wrote. Very slowly, and out loud, if that helps.

And TRIPLE MEGA SHAME sounds like it might be pretty bad.

So I guess I won't withdraw, but I'd still like to post the rest ASAP because the like four people and one hundred and forty spambots that have clicked it so far are probably really confused right now.

e: I need to read this Infernal Gate, maybe it will make me feel better about this whole situation. (bed first though because I get to go in at 4:30AM tomorrow wheee!)

[End Master]

Contest newb question time. The PM ratings we send to Usoki, do we just give the numbers or both the numbers AND a little write up explaining why we rated the story the way we did?

Put the ratings and the comments in the same PM. Some people like to separate their comments on each category, but others like to just write the comments after their ratings.

I've never been fanatical about making or receiving comments, but everyone else is, so if you want to avoid SCORN then you should probably put in the effort to make comments of substance.

[donteatpoop]

Zac: You can see past tournament submissions, and results; on the main site. Just hover over "contests" and click the bottom option.

Also, three very important things.

1) stop taking yourself so seriously.

2) stop taking everyone else so seriously.

3) never accept candy treats from ChubbyTeletubby.

[KazeYami]

I have possibly a stupid dumb very slow in the head question! :0
Are we required to read the whole story, or until you get to an end, or something? Or, just until you feel you can make an educated rating of their work?

[Cat2000]

Personally, even if I don't read all of the paths, I read a good portion so as to be able to make a decision by looking over the whole story. If you can, you should try and read all or most of it.

[End Master]

What Cat said.

In the past the stories weren't that long so there really wasn't any reason for not reading the entire thing, but given that we got 3 entries this year with triple digit pages, I'd imagine some of the pages for those entries are going to be skipped. Who knows though maybe the story is really captivating and you'll end up reading it all anyway.

If we deleted the 25 pre-contest pages and pages written by others, Zac's story is 377 pages long. That's the longest story we've ever had in these things. Of course I don't know how many words he has on each page, so maybe it isn't as long as it appears.

Kaze comes in 2nd with 226 pages, and then Cat with 145 pages.

Even Bat and Usoki have larger than average stories since most of the time people do just a little over twenty pages.

[Vesnic]

I have possibly a stupid dumb very slow in the head question! :0

Your question is dumb only because it was already answered by Usoki in this very same thread.

You are strongly encouraged to read the entire story, all paths. If you cannot bring yourself to do that- the story is too bad, or too massive- make sure you mention that in your critique.

[Usoki]

Yeah, what Ves said.

It's also worth pointing out that there's a difference between rooms, and rooms with unique content. I can't speak for anyone else, but around 20 of my rooms are straight up repeats, which have copied and pasted the original room so that they appear to be the exact same, except for the room number. These rooms exist only to track your decisions like variables, to determine whether or not you qualify for the secret ending.

The easiest way to have a story grow exponentially in size is to have multiple rooms with tons of choices. If those choices don't seem to affect the story in any meaningful way, then it's cruel to expect a voter to read every possible variation of the same story. Take Zac's story- after about five rooms, you usually get the choice of "Force Powers" or "Lightsaber", followed by "Show off" or "Don't show off". This seems to happen regardless of which of the five places you were born. It is unreasonable to expect you to closely read these rooms every time they appear. Granted, that first choice does matter- you don't always meet Master Zaroff, and you can tell he's tracking that choice based on the room nicknames. But on the whole, it's a minor cosmetic difference, and there's little reason to worry about it.

Just say what you did or didn't read in your critique, and then move on. Or, get bored, have a ton of free time, and read everything. Whatever. There is no one right way to vote. As long as you mean well, and write good critiques, I'm sure that you'll be fine. (On that same note, there are also multiple ways to vote wrong. All of them lead to SCORN.)

[donteatpoop]

Yeah, everyone votes their own way. Just make sure you rate all four categories and put a star next to the one you think is most important. Then try to include some tangible statement about what you read. That's it.

[zac6251]

If you want to see more rooms in my story then just go to the Dromund Kaas choice. Also my lil bro made up that name Zaroff, stupid yes, but I needed a name. I did try to get all my rooms to have nicknames, but I just got lazy. Hopefully I won't get last place.

[donteatpoop]

2 rated, 5 to go.

Don't forget to rate the stories. From my experience, you should get them out of the way early on. You do NOT want to cram a bunch of reading into one night. They'll all run together and you'll start to get sick of it.

[End Master]

Or ultimately you guys could save yourself a lot of time and hassle and just do what I do:

1. Don't actually read anything
2. Arbitrarily assign ratings
3. Make up some general comments.
4. ?????
5. PROFIT!

[Cat2000]

I've already read, rated and sent.

And now I've started yet another IS that I'll probably eventually lose interest in.

[donteatpoop]

Yay for unfinished projects!