33 replies to this topic

[Marauder281]

Murano, on 14 March 2012 - 02:44 PM, said:

Marauder, I explained above two of the reasons we think the Kudos system got out of hand.


And Kudos is definitely a feature which will be gone in v8. It's not built in at all so a discussion whether to keep it or not is pretty pointless since we have a new reward system anyway.

....and I explained what the problem is.

TSR invented Kudos. TSR wrote the Kudos score table. TSR can adjust the Kudos score table anytime they want. TSR even stated, in RED font, that "Abuse of the Kudos system through copy/pasted comments will be noticed and removed". I merely pointed out that TSR is NOT doing this.

I haven't copy/pasted ANYTHING and my Kudos are getting removed. Most of us play by the rules. All of us are losing Kudos.

I certainly agree that the site is getting spammed by low quality downloads for the purpose of gaining Kudos...but again, it wasn't me. Even so, it looks like everyone is getting punished simply because TSR can't (or won't) enforce their own rules.

You seem pretty knowledgable about V8. In what ways are those folks that have ligitimately amassed large quantitys of Kudos points going to be compensated for their loss? Currently, I have a total of 360 hours (15 days) of free subscriber time owed to me. I don't want to lose that because a few people are abusing the Kudos system or because TSR doesn't like the way TSR wrote the Kudos rules/points.

[SteveB]

Just stepping in to try and explain a couple of things here.

Kudos is not only being removed because a few people abused it. We are aware that some users were but it was never a huge issue for us which is why, as some have pointed out, we didn’t always step in. This did result in some people getting more than they should but again, it’s not why Kudos was not included in Version 8.

Version 8 has been designed from the ground up to incorporate new technologies that were not available to us years ago when we designed version 7. It’s also about moving to the cloud and making TSR faster and more economical/efficient to both operate and use. Kudos was quite a resource drain in that respect.

Finally, Kudos was most certainly not removed just to annoy people that had accrued lots of them.


As Cedric pointed out earlier, when we designed Version 7 and incorporated Kudos we wanted ways to encourage activity on the site (before Facebook, Twitter etc. was mainstream), and for that, Kudos was very successful. But it’s an old feature and we thought we could aim for something a bit more modern (as we have with the rest of the site), like reward systems that you see in console communities, Steam and Apple Game Centre products to name but a few. Badges/Awards/Achievements are very popular with players as a means of identifying and showing off their achievements or participation in something.

In fact, Badges were known as Achievements originally in Version 8 but we just changed it recently as EA used the same term for the new system that comes with the Showtime EP, which is another example of this kind of activity encouragement.

So I hope that you will understand that we are replacing Kudos with Badges only as a means of refreshing our website and community. The Today Only feature will be very popular I’m sure, and is our way of replacing the free day to some extent. That's a new way for everyone to get some premium content right from their first visit, which is new to TSR.

You will still be able to spend your Kudos for as long as the Version 7 site is still live. This public BETA will run for a couple of weeks at least, then we will switch over to Version 8 as the default on www.thesimsresource.com, but Version 7 will remain available for another week at least after that in case we have problems switching over. Throughout this time you will be able to spend Kudos on free days in the v7 Kudos Store.


I hope this goes some way to settling the issue. I appreciate that some people will feel they are missing out on something they get good use from right now but I hope to see everyone jump onboard with modernising and refreshing our community soon.

/Steve

[Marauder281]

SteveB, on 16 March 2012 - 04:29 PM, said:

Just stepping in to try and explain a couple of things here.

Kudos is not only being removed because a few people abused it. We are aware that some users were but it was never a huge issue for us which is why, as some have pointed out, we didn’t always step in. This did result in some people getting more than they should but again, it’s not why Kudos was not included in Version 8.

Glad to know I was right about this.

Version 8 has been designed from the ground up to incorporate new technologies that were not available to us years ago when we designed version 7. It’s also about moving to the cloud and making TSR faster and more economical/efficient to both operate and use. Kudos was quite a resource drain in that respect.

Finally, Kudos was most certainly not removed just to annoy people that had accrued lots of them.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened. I earned those Kudos by submitting quality content to TSR. I put in the time and effort and ligitimately earned those free days. Now I'm in the same "Today only" boat as everyone else?


As Cedric pointed out earlier, when we designed Version 7 and incorporated Kudos we wanted ways to encourage activity on the site (before Facebook, Twitter etc. was mainstream), and for that, Kudos was very successful. But it’s an old feature and we thought we could aim for something a bit more modern (as we have with the rest of the site), like reward systems that you see in console communities, Steam and Apple Game Centre products to name but a few. Badges/Awards/Achievements are very popular with players as a means of identifying and showing off their achievements or participation in something.

Kudos was also a way to show off accomplishments. Even the absolute worst comment copy/paste Kudos abuser never got near my level of Kudos. My TS3 lots averaged 1538 downloads each. My TS2 lots averaged 1178 downloads. My "Thanks" averaged 80 for TS3 and 44 for TS2. That didn't happen by accident. What did I earn through all this hard work and attention to detail? Free days (like I was promised at the time)? Nope. Badges. Why does this have the look of a classic 'bait and switch' scam? It's like when a car dealers ad promises cars from $500 but when you arrive at the dealership, that $500 car has just been "sold"....but they have plenty of other, more expensive cars for sale.

In fact, Badges were known as Achievements originally in Version 8 but we just changed it recently as EA used the same term for the new system that comes with the Showtime EP, which is another example of this kind of activity encouragement.

So I hope that you will understand that we are replacing Kudos with Badges only as a means of refreshing our website and community. The Today Only feature will be very popular I’m sure, and is our way of replacing the free day to some extent. That's a new way for everyone to get some premium content right from their first visit, which is new to TSR.

Free days were earned. "Today Only" is not. They are not the same. They don't have the same value.

You will still be able to spend your Kudos for as long as the Version 7 site is still live. This public BETA will run for a couple of weeks at least, then we will switch over to Version 8 as the default on www.thesimsresource.com, but Version 7 will remain available for another week at least after that in case we have problems switching over. Throughout this time you will be able to spend Kudos on free days in the v7 Kudos Store.

I respectfully disagree here. I will never be able to use my Kudos. According to the v7 system, I only get two free subscriber days/month. So unless V8 is held up for 8 months, it's mathematic impossiblity that I can use them for free days. I have 15 free days here. How much does a 1 month subscription cost again? I think it's fair to say Kudos have a dollar value no different than "Sim Points". Now I have lost them.


I hope this goes some way to settling the issue. I appreciate that some people will feel they are missing out on something they get good use from right now but I hope to see everyone jump onboard with modernising and refreshing our community soon.

/Steve

Thanks for the response. So the difference between submitting here and submitting someplace else is Badges? That's the incentive? Can we trade Badges for free days?

[Murano]

Marauder, as Steve explained, there won't be Free Days anymore. We feel that with Today Only (and not to forget our Facebook Lottery) we offer a fair alternative right from the start for everyone.

v8 was rethought from the ground up and after all these years, putting some stuff to rest and introducing new things is a logical step to do. Other web services do this all the time. And after all it's TSR's decision which features it wants to continue and which not. To look at Kudos as if they have a Dollar value is by the way completely wrong. You cannot buy Kudos with Dollars, nor can you withdraw Kudos to Dollars.

I understand that you feel upset and cannot make full use of your remaining Kudos, but it somewhat shows, that it's very easy to accumulate Kudos with good creations (I myself have thousands of Kudos earned this way). But in the end if Kudos are systematically used to bypass the subscription service it's not a good thing for TSR.

[Marauder281]

Murano, on 17 March 2012 - 11:06 AM, said:

Marauder, as Steve explained, there won't be Free Days anymore. We feel that with Today Only (and not to forget our Facebook Lottery) we offer a fair alternative right from the start for everyone.

v8 was rethought from the ground up and after all these years, putting some stuff to rest and introducing new things is a logical step to do. Other web services do this all the time. And after all it's TSR's decision which features it wants to continue and which not. To look at Kudos as if they have a Dollar value is by the way completely wrong. You cannot buy Kudos with Dollars, nor can you withdraw Kudos to Dollars.

I earned Kudos when I subscribed to the site. In fact, two 6 month subscriptions paid out more Kudos than a single 12 month subscription. Check my stats. You'll see that is the option always took when subscribing. That option cost extra. In essense, I DID buy Kudos.

To replace the subscriber days I ligitimately earned, (that you've just stolen from me), it will cost real dollars. How are Kudos NOT like Sim points? They sound identical to me. Tell you what, I'll send you one of these for every 100 Sim Points you send me. Sound good to you? Perhaps you prefer "badges" instead?

I understand that you feel upset and cannot make full use of your remaining Kudos, but it somewhat shows, that it's very easy to accumulate Kudos with good creations (I myself have thousands of Kudos earned this way). But in the end if Kudos are systematically used to bypass the subscription service it's not a good thing for TSR.

You actually want me to submit a bunch to work to try and earn back what you just stole from me? Seriously? People have actually sent me notes saying that my work was the reason they came to TSR. Tell me again what it was I did that was so unfair to TSR.

Also, did you just say good creations are easy to make? Really? That's news to me!

How have I "systematically bypassed the subscription service"? I brought people here by providing them with great content. In exchange, TSR gave me Kudos for doing this. That was the deal. I earned those days fair and square. I followed the rules TSR set. I held up MY end of the bargain. TSR should do the same.

If TSR does not like the Kudos system, stealing rightfully earned days from it's artists is NOT the way to go.

[Thomas|TSR]

Marauder281, on 15 March 2012 - 07:48 PM, said:

Currently, I have a total of 360 hours (15 days) of free subscriber time owed to me.

From what I can see in our backend you have a total of 64654 kudos points, which equals 8.5 free subscriber days.

We will keep v7 open for at least a month to allow people to spend their kudos during the transition. After that it will be gone for good.

[greyredroses]

So when is the definitive cutoff date for this feature? I didn't even know about these upcoming versions and what not.

[Marauder281]

Thomas|TSR, on 17 March 2012 - 05:50 PM, said:

From what I can see in our backend you have a total of 64654 kudos points, which equals 8.5 free subscriber days.

We will keep v7 open for at least a month to allow people to spend their kudos during the transition. After that it will be gone for good.

One month and it'll be gone for good? Great. At least my Kudos won't be lonely. When you throw the switch and destroy what you rightfully owe me and ALL your hard working artists, they'll be sitting right next to TSR's reputation.

And yes, I do know how many Kudos days I have left. I threw in those 7 free days you credited people during one of the last V changes. I'm glad I was able to get you to check it out. Care to tell us how many 100's or 1,000's of free days you're throwing out with this new change?

I'm sure the new TS1 style "Today Only" system will be just as trouble free as it was the last time you tried it. I was here then too...different screen name though. Feel free to check that out as well.

BTW care to suggest a good site that wants some great new houses?

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[sheridanhoughton]

Murano, on 17 March 2012 - 11:06 AM, said:

Marauder, as Steve explained, there won't be Free Days anymore. We feel that with Today Only (and not to forget our Facebook Lottery) we offer a fair alternative right from the start for everyone.

I understand that you feel upset and cannot make full use of your remaining Kudos, but it somewhat shows, that it's very easy to accumulate Kudos with good creations (I myself have thousands of Kudos earned this way). But in the end if Kudos are systematically used to bypass the subscription service it's not a good thing for TSR.

I think that in the case of someone who has donated a lot of good quality CC to TSR, it would be a good thing for TSR to let them bypass the subscription service. How many places in this world do retailers get their goods for nothing? I know that a lot of your content is free, but I think that it would be more fair to give subscriptions or free days to those who freely provide you with good quality CC, than those like me who don't. Particularly, when originally that was what had been promised.

[Thomas|TSR]

We will raise the limit to more then just two days to give everyone with large amounts of kudos a chance to buy some extra free days before they are gone.

[AnoeskaB]

sheridanhoughton, on 18 March 2012 - 12:17 AM, said:

I know that a lot of your content is free, but I think that it would be more fair to give subscriptions or free days to those who freely provide you with good quality CC

This is actually also happens. Whenever someone becomes SA or FA, they will get a free subscription. Regularly uploading high quality CC that shows originality and creativity will give the uploaders a good chance of getting a free subscription


Marauder, it's sad to see you are so upset that the kudos (and specially the free kudos days) will be gone, but to be honest I'm not sure why you are so upset about this. The last time you earned kudos for your downloads is almost 2 years ago. And all these years you never made use of even one free day. There will surely be people who regularly used the free days they earned, and I can understand they will regret that they will be gone. But why being so upset about a feature being removed when you never used it for 4 years?

I would say start enjoying all the new stuff that v8 will bring. It's time to move on to the future

[Marauder281]

AnoeskaB, on 18 March 2012 - 03:38 PM, said:

This is actually also happens. Whenever someone becomes SA or FA, they will get a free subscription. Regularly uploading high quality CC that shows originality and creativity will give the uploaders a good chance of getting a free subscription


Marauder, it's sad to see you are so upset that the kudos (and specially the free kudos days) will be gone, but to be honest I'm not sure why you are so upset about this. The last time you earned kudos for your downloads is almost 2 years ago. And all these years you never made use of even one free day. There will surely be people who regularly used the free days they earned, and I can understand they will regret that they will be gone. But why being so upset about a feature being removed when you never used it for 4 years?

I would say start enjoying all the new stuff that v8 will bring. It's time to move on to the future

I earn Kudos daily. My Base Game TS2 lot still receives lots of downloads.

I stopped submitting here (and deleted my TS3 lots) when people started reading my Private Messages without my permission. There are two people here that know what happened. This is between me and them. I'm not going to discuss it any further, publicly or privately between anyone other than the two people responsable. The people that did this know I will begin submitting again once I receive an appology for it. However, if "push comes to shove", I'll be more than glad to completely wallpaper every square inch of the internet with their PM's. These PM's prove I am right. So far neither one of these people wishes to appologize. Maybe it's time to do this? Hmmm...

I am upset because my friends here at TSR are loosing their Kudos. I am upset because TSR still has not officially announced the end of the Kudos system, despite knowing full-well in advance that they were going away. I am upset because it appears that TSR is trying to 'pull a fast one' on us. We only know about it because of this thread! Not another single word has been mentioned of it 'til now.

Holding onto my Kudos days just makes sense. The longer I wait, the more stuff there is to download. Besides that, I earned them. I provided content to TSR that was good enough for subscribers to download....obviously. I only score Kudos when subscribers download it. It's hard to say I'm submitting low quality work just to score Kudos when you have to be a subscriber to download it, right? Subscribers don't download junk, do they?

Right now the only people that have no issue with the loss for rightfully earned, free days are the people that have no use for them. Isn't that odd? SA's, FA's and management all have access to free downloads.

I am glad you can appreciate the fact that people who used these on regular basis will be upset.

[sim_man123]

Marauder281, on 18 March 2012 - 06:40 PM, said:

I earn Kudos daily. My Base Game TS2 lot still receives lots of downloads.

I stopped submitting here (and deleted my TS3 lots) when people started reading my Private Messages without my permission. There are two people here that know what happened. This is between me and them. I'm not going to discuss it any further, publicly or privately between anyone other than the two people responsable. The people that did this know I will begin submitting again once I receive an appology for it. However, if "push comes to shove", I'll be more than glad to completely wallpaper every square inch of the internet with their PM's. These PM's prove I am right. So far neither one of these people wishes to appologize. Maybe it's time to do this? Hmmm...

I am upset because my friends here at TSR are loosing their Kudos. I am upset because TSR still has not officially announced the end of the Kudos system, despite knowing full-well in advance that they were going away. I am upset because it appears that TSR is trying to 'pull a fast one' on us. We only know about it because of this thread! Not another single word has been mentioned of it 'til now.

Holding onto my Kudos days just makes sense. The longer I wait, the more stuff there is to download. Besides that, I earned them. I provided content to TSR that was good enough for subscribers to download....obviously. I only score Kudos when subscribers download it. It's hard to say I'm submitting low quality work just to score Kudos when you have to be a subscriber to download it, right? Subscribers don't download junk, do they?

Right now the only people that have no issue with the loss for rightfully earned, free days are the people that have no use for them. Isn't that odd? SA's, FA's and management all have access to free downloads.

I am glad you can appreciate the fact that people who used these on regular basis will be upset.

I highly doubt that one lot - or one anything, for that matter (other than one "set") - regardless of who it was created by, will return any noticeably significant numbers (downloads, kudos, incentives, whatever) in such an abbreviated amount of time that you're citing as "daily." If you look back over a couple of years, then okay, there will be some decent numbers.

I understand that Private Message issue would be quite infuriating. By no longer submitting, I interpret that as your "symbolic withdrawal of support" for TSR, by no longer offering your downloads, and thus reducing the downloader base that you brought to TSR. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but the way I'm piecing this together is that TSR wronged you, thus you try to hurt the site to get back at them. Despite that you're apparently not supporting TSR until you get an apology from whoever, you now expect TSR to support you?

Not once throughout the entirety of either thread have I seen you talking about these "friends" that you now claim you're fighting for. It's been "I" in everything that I've read.

Waiting to cash in your free days does make sense. To an extent. You are WAY beyond that extent. Four years? By all means, continue to wait until the cows come home... but unfortunately, the cows don't know how to use the internet. If you had only had the free days for a couple of months and they were being taking away (which I understand will be happening to some people) then I would say that your issue is valid. Four years is slightly excessive, since, as you said, you are still earning them daily... there is no need to safeguard the future that much, as surely you would have just earned more?

Lastly, I hereby regret to inform you that it HAS been announced in the recent news post. Oh - wait, you already knew that, seeing as you vented all over the comments there as well.

[Audrey May]

Marauder, you have been given ample space in this thread to express your displeasure at the future removal of kudos. You certainly have the right to your opinion.

However, this discussion is going around and around in circles at this point and nothing more can be gained from it. Therefore, I am closing this thread.