These apis are brilliant. I'd in love with the winning one. Quality Spore drummed something home to me though, something I don't think I'd ever paid a great deal of attention to before: Downrating.

I was really, really surprised to see the tally of votes on some creations in real numbers. It raises one question for me: What purpose does downrating serve, other than an outlet for malicious behaviour? It's a topic for another thread, I realise that, but I'd like thank SniperMonkey for making an api that actually made me conscious of the issue. Why are creations not set a default figure of zero? It seems perfectly absurb that so many good creations currently hold ratings in negative numbers, while genuinely bad creations get the treatment they deserve - no rating up or down at all.

Anyway, sorry to detract. Thank you again SniperMonkey, you api is brilliant. I will use it regularly. Congrats all!

markiem32 wrote:Congrats to the winners, Aaron, SniperMonkey and JoeyBagOfDonuts! Very cool stuff.

I have a question about the Sporenament app... is it up and running in real life? It seems like it is currently recycling the same creations, and it's crashing when I try to "bye" in something. The website it refers you to seems to be incomplete at the moment, as well. I'm hoping this goes live -- I could see something like this replacing the MPN...

Hi markiem32. To answer your questions;
I would consider Sporenament to be in Beta, so I am not surprised that you have found some defects... I've been super busy at work lately, but plan on getting back to Sporenament soon.

The website is incomplete at the moment... Right now, the stuff you see there is just a placeholder for what will eventaully be replaced with Sporenament content.

When you say that it is recycling the same creations... Which level of Sporenament were you playing? (Level 1, 2 or 3?) I have noticed that sometimes in Level 1, the same creation is used more than once, but it is only one out of 16, and only occasionally shows up again.

If it is crashing when you Bye your character in, I need to have a look at that... I have not experienced that problem but Bying in your creations is a major feature, and I want to get it right. Please feel free to detail what you are doing when that happens.

Thanks for the reports... I think I'll start a thread of my own so as not to clog this one up.
http://forum.spore.com/jforum/posts/list/0/26878.page#732947

Congratulations to all the winners! These were the 3 i thought would win (for the uniqueness, great designs and depth), but all the others which did not win are very good applications, my favorites being SPOREWARS and Sporebadges.

I cannot wait for the more online aspect of the Sporenament to take off, as this has many future possibilities. Quality Spore is now more visited then the sporepedia (sorry Maxis ), it shows many creations in an easier to see many, and loads much quicker, and can easily go to sporepedia pages. And lastly Spore skeletons... This just uses the API xml code so well, creating a fantastic and unique Augmented Reality.

Thanks to all the amazing creators, and i can't wait to see what comes in the future!
http://www.spore.com/comm/developer/gallery

-SMLightning

I just wanted to say congrats to all the winners, there were a lot of great entries and it was tough picking the top three! I think our winners took varied approaches to using the API and each app used Spore data in a completely different and creative way. Nice job all!

-MaxisEditorDan

kiwi_tea wrote:These apis are brilliant. I'd in love with the winning one. Quality Spore drummed something home to me though, something I don't think I'd ever paid a great deal of attention to before: Downrating.

I was really, really surprised to see the tally of votes on some creations in real numbers. It raises one question for me: What purpose does downrating serve, other than an outlet for malicious behaviour? It's a topic for another thread, I realise that, but I'd like thank SniperMonkey for making an api that actually made me conscious of the issue. Why are creations not set a default figure of zero? It seems perfectly absurb that so many good creations currently hold ratings in negative numbers, while genuinely bad creations get the treatment they deserve - no rating up or down at all.

Anyway, sorry to detract. Thank you again SniperMonkey, you api is brilliant. I will use it regularly. Congrats all!

In the process of creating qualityspore.com I have noticed the rating system acting oddly. I have started a new thread with a full explanation. You can find it here:

http://forum.spore.com/jforum/posts/list/26905.page

Ratings are recalculated when a user clicks on a rating.

Since we also have ratings decay, it’s very possible that when a user rates a subject up, the recalculation will create a score that is lower than the current rating (again, because of decay).

We are discussing the frequency we refresh ratings vs. performance and we may readdress how often ratings are recalculated to improve the user experience.

-MC