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Historical Interest Check Sticky

   
Historical Interest Check Sticky

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Message: Can we get a sticky on the Interest Check forum that just has all the systems and their typical application density. That way Dm's will know that it doesn't matter what restrictions they put on a pathfinder game they will always have more apps than they can handle. A lot of the threads there are just people wondering if there is a community here interested in that system and having a thread with an answer would make sense.

Here is a crazy idea. Combine this with this one: https://www.myth-weavers.com/showthread.php?t=419455

That is to say, have a system where we can prioritize and enable/disable viewing certain systems in the Games & Ads forum and than link that to an automated list of systems that tracks how many people opted into a certain system.

That way you could always have a clear view of how many people like which system that's easier to read than having to trawl through a thread and is far more accurate as it updates automatically every time someone changes their opinion.


Ideally the whole thing would be laid out as a table of systems with just a number next to each. And than the whole thing would be a link so that when you click the system in question you can get a second list showing exactly who those players are.

The issue there is data creation, I think. How do you determine "application density"? Every game/GM has their own method of applications, sometimes create your own thread, sometimes a post in one central thread, and so forth. How do you distinguish expressed interest from half-completed applications from fully-complete applications? I don't see any way to automate that data creation with the current system, since there's no centralized method for applying to games.

While there's not much correlation or a time dimension, there was a start on this with keeping track of popularity of various systems. https://www.myth-weavers.com/gameportal.php?sy=3
Quote:
Active Games Count: 119

HeadGMs: 94
Co-GMs: 31
Players: 385
Readers: 36

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rodrigo View Post
While there's not much correlation or a time dimension, there was a start on this with keeping track of popularity of various systems. https://www.myth-weavers.com/gameportal.php?sy=3
Thing is, that ignores people like me who spend most of our time looking for a game unable to find one in favor of those already playing. And that skews the results toward popular systems.

Quote:
Originally Posted by AtLastForgot View Post
The issue there is data creation, I think. How do you determine "application density"? Every game/GM has their own method of applications, sometimes create your own thread, sometimes a post in one central thread, and so forth. How do you distinguish expressed interest from half-completed applications from fully-complete applications? I don't see any way to automate that data creation with the current system, since there's no centralized method for applying to games.
Application density would indeed be difficult to figure out. But a simple system where you have something like this would go a long way toward being the next best thing.
Code:
System Name | Players who have applied to watch
D&D 3.5     | 135
Pathfinder  | 200
Freeform    | 3
....
It would tell you roughly how many players are looking for a game in that system at any given time.

Counting distinct users posting in the game announcements forum, grouped by system, and limited to active advertising threads might do that. Including archived threads, and grouping by year/month of the ads creation could give you a historical interest, as well.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Silverbane View Post
Counting distinct users posting in the game announcements forum, grouped by system, and limited to active advertising threads might do that. Including archived threads, and grouping by year/month of the ads creation could give you a historical interest, as well.
It would however make for a lot more overhead.

If it was a query that ran every time someone clicked it, sure, but if it ran, say once to populate the old data, and then once a month to update the history, it should be fine.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Silverbane View Post
If it was a query that ran every time someone clicked it, sure, but if it ran, say once to populate the old data, and then once a month to update the history, it should be fine.
It's still a very inefficient way to gather information because you have to keep track of all the various player activity that you ordinarily would not track and than compile it together and process it. And that increases both the bandwidth used and the size of your database to a very much so non trivial degree.

By contrast just having a system where players manually register is literally a single new table in the database with two integer sized columns. And updating the lineup on the thread would literally be a simple countif operation.

And the information would even be more accurate because it would eliminate out layers like me clicking on a D&D thread occasionally to get inspiration by reading peoples posts or people not clicking much at all because they are currently in a game and are busy and stuff like that.

I kind of have a problem with a historical interest check thing, and it's a pretty simple one.

You have a cool idea for something in a relatively obscure system. You query the interest checker, and find that only a few people play that system. Now, you might be awesome and say "Eh, screw it I'll try anyway," but most people who are going to query such a system would probably just say "Eh. Not worth the effort."

And now your cool idea has a 0% chance of coming to fruition, compared to a low-but-non-zero percent chance. I really do think just doing a thread in Game Planning is a better option for checking interest in an idea you have. Your cool idea might attract people who otherwise wouldn't give the system a second look. That's how I've gotten introduced to a ton of systems, myself.


It can also be misleading in the other direction, of course (the system having a lot of interest but not the concept you have), but that's less of an issue, just something I want to acknowledge.





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