There will be a change coming to the reviews showcased on the Smoldering Mods Bar, and I’d like to discuss a few things and detail the reasons why.

I am removing ratings from reviews altogether. I’ve come to believe that putting an arbitrary number on the end of a review is counterintuitive to the goals that I wish to achieve with this project — I wish to encourage modders to continue their work, and for players to try out new things. This is an extremely subjective artform, and this website contains very subjective reviews; putting something so definitive as a number rating at the end of a review does a disservice to both the mod and the review itself.

Furthermore, the reasons for a mod being rated higher or lower than another can be nebulous, especially to those who don’t live inside my brain-space (i.e. everyone other than me). As the scope of this project has advanced beyond reviewing only NPC mods, I cannot continue the formula for my reviews that I’ve been using for over a year now.

Don’t think that this means that I won’t be as critical anymore. I am, at heart, a true nitpicker and pedant who hates to have fun. So if anything, I will have to do my best to communicate my feelings in a more transparent way, rather than relying on a number to do it for me. I’ve removed scores from all old reviews.

On the topic of old reviews, the other change to the Smoldering Mods Bar is a slight revision of all the reviews I have written thus far, which have all been reformatted to fit the new standard for the site. Furthermore, here are a list of reviews that have had several edits:

• The Cost of One Girl’s Soul Review [Combined the reviews of Skie and Eddard Silvershield
• Xzelë Melaenitt Review [Title changed to ‘In Love, Undeath Review’. Appears as such under relevant menus]

I hope to release some new reviews very soon, so stay tuned.