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I don't know where this goes, but it doesn't seem to qualify for advanced editor question.

So how is the length calculated? Length of the pages, number of pages, something else, a combination? Follow up question, when does it reach 8/8 length?

I imagine it'd go by number of words. End's games don't have as many pages compared to some of the script-heavy stuff, yet he gets a 7-8 rating, so yeah. 

From what I remember , It is a combination of no of pages, no of links, no of words and items and variables.

Length is calculated by a formula.  

3j was always deliberately vague on exactly what was taken into account when calculating story lengths.

About seven months ago, the formula was reworked to make it much harder to achieve 8/8. See italicized notes from the update below:

So, length calculations have changed to provide higher resolution in the higher ratings. Now, a 5 is a decently long game, a 6 is a long game, a 7 is a VERY VERY long game and an 8 is extremely long. There are only 9 length 8 games now.

If two storygames have the same lengths in a category, there's no tiebreaker. It's just random which one is higher.

The way lengths are calculated has changed AND in general, lengths have been decreased. There are many more storygames rated 4 and 3 than before. What hasn't changed is that if two storygames have the same rating, they are the same length. The one that is higher up in the category when you sort by length, is random. If you sort by rating and then sort by length, the one with the higher rating will be higher, if you sort by name and then by length, the one with the earlier alphabetical name will be first.

 

The Nine Games with 8/8 Length

Dead Man Walking (so far higher than the second longest story, it's not even a little funny)
Eternal
Ground Zero
MyVacation
3 of the Homo Perfecti
Dungeon Stompage
A Game of Life and Death

Darn, my first game was so close. I guess if I ever add the rest of the planned things to it then it will hit 8...

Wondering what my contest entry will be now, guessing a 6/8... maybe 7? nt sure

alexp 9 years ago -

It's been a long while, but I've finally
updated the game length calculation.
This is a fairly involved process, as it
involves analyzing all 320+ published
games and figuring out how long they
are in comparison.
The new length forumula takes into
account four factors:
1. Total Number of Pages
2. Total Number of Links
3. Median Number of Links Per Page
4. Median Length of the text on each
Page
The factors are "weighted" and
"boxed". Weighted means that some
factors are taken into more
consideration than others (#Pages is
more counted more than #
LinksPerPage). Boxed means that no
single factor can outweigh the others;
you have to be even across the board
in order to have a high length.
This change effected all games and
modified the length of most games.
Things are now within a nice
statistical average.

9 years ago -

JJJ-thebanisher and I have worked
together on tweaking the storygame
length formula. The big difference in
the new version is that it weighs the
number of "small" and "large" pages in
the story, instead of just using an
average.
Lengths have been recalcuated
throughout the site. Hopefully this will
more accurately represent the length.



I guess they just shifted so it was basically harder to get a higher length without disturbing the formula.

oh shit where are the line breaks? *sad face*