I submitted a few talents / powers from a couple different pets the other day, and have thought about this project since. I think it's much needed - we have no idea what pet(s) are best to get and breed because we have no idea what they're capable of. I wouldn't buy a chihuahua hoping that I could train it to pull a beer wagon, or a clydesdale hoping I could train it to catch mosquitoes.
I hope that the results of this project will be made public, and in fact, I think that making the verified results so far public would be a benefit. Firstly, people would be able to see that this will be open, and people feel more compelled to help something that has already helped them. Secondly, right now, I have no idea if the talents / powers that I know about have already been reported; I don't know if I'm helping by submitting, or just taking up your time. Thirdly, if you had the contributors acknowledged by each talent / power as the first one to report it, you might get more people trying to get their name on the page. I know that you have plans for images (maybe add an image upload for captured screenshots of the pet page - that should help verification a bit as well) and other great presentation, but even providing simple HTML tables with known info is more usable than not having the info at all.
Sorry for the long message, I'll send in more talents / powers as I encounter them.
These were exactly the concerns and thoughts that were running through my mind: "What would be the most efficient and accurate way to do all this? How do we get more people?" Allow me to address each part of your contributory message, Friendly-style:
I hope that the results of this project will be made public, and in fact, I think that making the verified results so far public would be a benefit.
Firstly, people would be able to see that this will be open, and people feel more compelled to help something that has already helped them.
I have just sent a Private Message to Olivia and Jester of Central after reading your comment, Marcus, requesting their permission to allow us to expose their members to PP. I honestly will say that I'm not exactly a fan of forums in general, mainly because they feel like blog posts all lumped into something called a "thread." But, in this case where we need a large sample size to reach our goals, I must leave my bias aside and embrace the fact that, in the end, we have a great community between Bloggers, Forum Posters, Site Masters, and Artists.
Secondly, right now, I have no idea if the talents / powers that I know about have already been reported; I don't know if I'm helping by submitting, or just taking up your time.
Contrary to the characteristics of redundancy and pointlessness of "double posts" or "repetition," having multiple submissions from different players will benefit through assurance and correlation. Because the exact Talents and Derby Skills are arbitrary, or unseen and immeasurable, to us, we must rely on "blind" consensus for the best verification. Therefore, submitting information on every pet that you have is going to accelerate completion! To loosely quote one of my favorite movies (it's not even PG-13 rated, so I'm masking the expression): If you're called a "duck" once, ignore it. If you're called a "duck" again, confront that accuser. But if you're called a 'duck" once more, well, it's time to start finding some people on park benches.
Thirdly, if you had the contributors acknowledged by each talent / power as the first one to report it, you might get more people trying to get their name on the page.
I had given this some thought yesterday, as to what further incentive we could incorporate for more submissions. However, in respect to my response in the last paragraph, every submission is as important as the last. Rather than have people scatter around trying to be the "first" to raise a certain pet to Teen just to claim pioneer rights on discovering a trait, I would like to focus on the act of contributing as the mentionable quality. Thus, all contributors to each pet will be credited, but I will denote how many unique submissions that person has made towards that pet. The more submissions there are by one person for a single species, the more time that they have spent raising one or multiple clones (giving us more confirmation on an individual pet!) That deserves merit, right?
I know that you have plans for images (maybe add an image upload for captured screenshots of the pet page - that should help verification a bit as well) and other great presentation, but even providing simple HTML tables with known info is more usable than not having the info at all.
Again, going back to "blind consensus" in helping us out, providing bits and pieces off of one or two submissions before the Petnome is complete can cause confusion and lead to inaccuracy, especially if someone happens to mark in the wrong Slot (thereby slowing the process down as we try to re-confirm before we publish early results again). I believe it would be in everyone's best interest to give everyone the same experience in their efforts to complete the form. Heck, I'm not going to even look at the data so closely myself to figure out which pets I "can avoid"; I'll just go ahead and submit info in for every pet that I have regardless if there are 2,000 rows of data. BUT, because Talents and Derby Skills are separate sections, I will be posting pictures using Miguel Wildthorn's format whenever an entire column has been completed and checked. As for image uploads as a submission, the host we are using currently does not provide that, but we are looking around for other means.
Thanks for the feedback, Marcus! Don't be "sorry" it was "long"; I wouldn't have asked for different!
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On another note:
Everyone, great job again! We've hit 270 submissions and counting!
Sloan Shadowstaff - 31 submissions (5/31/10)
Happy hunting!
I think that pets get field talents depending on what there stats are.
ReplyDeleteKevin,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your response, I think you have some good points. It sounds like there has been much less repetion so far as I thought there might be, making my comments a little misdirected. You are certainly correct that all submissions are important, I was just thinking that publishing the first (and maybe the first verification?) submission would encourage people to submit more and sooner.
Rogue,
I've been wondering the same thing. Those stats don't seem to have a direct affect, but they say there is a relationship. If you're correct, I wonder why you can continue to improve those stats after the pet reaches epic? (That's what I've read on the net, anyway.) Hmmm, I need to find more targeted foods and get better at the gobbler and cannon games...
@ Marcus and Rogue: The stats-talent relationship is actually part of another study we'll be doing in junction with this, but it is a much easier path to journey down. The reason for the "variable" part of the form is a hint at this.
ReplyDeleteWhen you mouse-over your pets' Stat bars, you will find the characteristics they affect; for example, Strength affects Power Pip chance, resist, and damage. What that means is, if your pet has Pip o'Plenty, Add Balance, or other spells that are bonuses to your Wizards' power pip chance, resist, or damage, then increasing its Strength will eventually raise that Pip o'Plenty or Add Balance boost.
At Teen, your stats will be low, so you may find 1%-3% on those talents. At Ancient level, you may find yourself looking at 5-9% boosts, depending on the total of all relevant stats.
More will be covered on this in some later posts!
@Kevin: You're correct, I just had "Death-Giver" increase from 2% increase to 3% increase afer my round of mini games (did not increase age level). I'm still curious whether the stats your pet has when it does level influences the talent it gets.
ReplyDelete