The recommendations are only as good as their dataset, unfortunately. To improve them you can say not to use certain games for your recommendations (when you go to "Why?" on the recommended game's page) or that you're not interested in a game. Ultimately I'd love an Amazon-style rating system so we weight games both positively and negatively. For me the recommendations are pretty good overall, so I think it's feasible to bring them more in line with your tastes. Heck, even Amazon kept recommending the Beatles to me for the longest time until it knew more about my musical tastes.

We'll keep taking feedback on this stuff though. Some people seem to really like the recommended game box, some less so.
Lummox JR wrote:
The recommendations are only as good as their dataset, unfortunately. To improve them you can say not to use certain games for your recommendations (when you go to "Why?" on the recommended game's page) or that you're not interested in a game.

SuperAntX wrote:
I've actually spent a lot of time working with the recommendations, marking what I like and don't like


LummoxJR wrote:
Ultimately I'd love an Amazon-style rating system so we weight games both positively and negatively.

a rating system like that has worked very successfully for pretty much every other gaming site out there, so yeah. of course, BYOND games would get flooded with "5-star my game and get GM!!1" but there's no stopping that. we shouldn't let it keep us from implementing a system that would ultimately improve the good-game-finding experience

Some people seem to really like the recommended game box

who? i'd like to knock some sense into them
You removed boxes from around the buttons eh? *Looks to the left of the text, sees Download Now button, inside a pointless box*

.> <.<
No, we removed borders from around the boxes.
Lummox JR wrote:
The recommendations are only as good as their dataset, unfortunately. To improve them you can say not to use certain games for your recommendations (when you go to "Why?" on the recommended game's page) or that you're not interested in a game.

Like I said, I've been using the system since it came out and I'm still getting seemingly random suggestions. Simply logging into a game once seems to have as much weight as favoriting another game I actually like.

Ultimately I'd love an Amazon-style rating system so we weight games both positively and negatively.

This would be a lot better than the current setup. It would be easier to suggest a game based on how many people favored it while cross-checking what they don't like. You could even go as far as introducing the user to other BYONDers with similar tastes.

For now I would much prefer seeing featured games only. It's more stable and guild leaders have much more control over which games will show up.

Also, just a thought on "featuring" a game. Most sites feature a piece of content for a week, or at the very least a full day. It's featured so people are actually funneled into that particular entry, boosting its view count. BYOND only features games for an hour or so, directing just one or two players toward the game, if any at all.

Maybe instead of the current scattershot model, BYOND could feature one game from each guild for a full week.
everything SAx said there is very correct and should be taken into account, and i'm not just saying that because i'm carrying his child

in particular, the "featured game" thing is silly and useless in its current state. having a certain game be featured for a day/week/etc would give it a surge of players, most likely causing there to be enough players for that game to actually be played
I agree with SuperAntx.
What I don't get is how this is a "new look for a new decade". If you were going for something like that, I would have said that a complete site overhaul from top to bottom is in order. If you're just moving things around, I'd call it a new look, but it's nothing all that amazing to show a new decade.
It's just a title.
Recommended games are now off the sidebar until we improve the system. We'll look into implementing a longer-lasting featured game system, as SuperAntx suggested.
A proof on concept demo could simply be forced over to the correct place, but anyways, I got reccomended a DBZ game the other day when I never play DBZ games, cause generally they suck, but this ONE DBZ game was actually pretty good, and I hate DBZ games, so I think the featured games thing is just fine how it is. You might get suprised and like something in which you've hated every other one you've ever played in your life.
Could we get a newer look? Something that attracts people to the site when they see it? Make Byond look more like a gaming site?
I'd like a new look as well. Or maybe some kind of options to change the way the BYOND site looks like kind of like skins on forums.
Page: 1 2 3 4