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UPDATED: Player Deco Contest! GO!!!!

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by Chris, Apr 15, 2019.

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  1. Datendrache

    Datendrache Avatar

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    Hey folks...

    First, here's the log of the entire Livestream's voting and comments and whatnot. So, for people that seek answers, here they be:

    https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vMbtL5auidtEUfC0a660l97n1ADRtPTP Warning: in JSON format.

    Second, I thought I was being voted as "1" very frequently. Turns out, it was only 3 times and that basically would have scrolled off with the statistical cuts. I guess its rather difficult to sort the "shocking" votes from the cascade of other votes flying past to see the whole reality.

    [Edit: Removed some stuff from another thread that probably should just be dropped..]

    Although I had a glitch in my file that chopped some results off, my spreadsheet shows:

    1) 46 players received at least one "1" vote
    2) The "Top 10 Most '1' Voted" accounted for 129 votes.
    3) 5 Players that received "1" votes were also in the Finals (Top 10)
    4) It does look like some of the more well known players received "1"s more frequently, for serious entries the total count by player was in a range between 1 and 5 "1" votes.

    Third, after reviewing these votes.. AND presenting the data collected courtesy of the ReChat application at GitHub where you can go if you don't trust my file (https://github.com/jdpurcell/RechatTool) I'm feeling faithful in the system and will endorse it as a good base. At least, what appears to be going on doesn't appear to be impacting the 25% high/low cut. Although if people want to dig deeper on the voting, they are welcome to investigate.

    Sincerely,

    Engineer
     
    Last edited: May 5, 2019
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  2. parallelogram

    parallelogram Avatar

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    They voted me and others in the 1-5 range, not just 1. A 4 does more damage than a 1.
     
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  3. Antrax Artek

    Antrax Artek Avatar

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    Interesting, btw voting someone for "1" wasn't a big spite with the current ruleset. Those who spammed "3-4" against popular players were decisive, the premeditation was obvious on that.

    To be honest i wasn't even aware of the rule of 25%/25% cut, in this way many of the top liked voted who received tons of "10" have been sunk.
    At the same time I am pleased that none of the various haters (from both sides) is in the Top 10, see it as a punishment for the bad behavior.

    However disappointed, i'm happy that most popular people have been rejected in favor of the average players, cause of course with the current ruleset who got votes in the middle ground has had a great advantage.
     
  4. Redhammer

    Redhammer Avatar

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    I am going to look at this as a GM made module, I did what I wanted to do, I was not looking to win the best deco home, I wanted to make a statement and show off all the cool items we can craft in this game…I had a few items from quests, some from game vendors and most of my items I crafted myself…I now have virtually all the carpentry and smelting recipes in the game…


    It was fun, the voting was intense (I likely spelled a bunch of names wrong…) and it is now almost done, we need to vote on the final 10 entrants…All are worthy of being finalists.


    In truth anyone who took time and actually participated is a winner in my book…not a participant winner but a true finisher and winner! Well done and keep up the good work…when can we do this again!!
     
  5. Mugly Wumple

    Mugly Wumple Avatar

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    I think the best way to combat attempts to spike the vote is to increase the number of players who vote. Personally, I was unable to attend the live stream even though I toured Mount Midir and watched live for much of the run-up to the contest.
     
  6. majoria70

    majoria70 Avatar

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    Congratulations also and I do hope this was a big lesson to us that we are not equipped to do this type of voting for an event yet. Please @Devs implement some basics for us for next time. Such as a voting system that allows you to click on lot stone stone lot signs, entrances to player dungeons etc to vote for them and that allows the game to track this and tally the votes for us.

    Also needed too still are the raid system that allows us to group up into raids and allows us to heal and take care of our groups for competitions, music groups and more.

    Also still needed as a basic for this game are event timers that show on screen of how much time is allowed and left for short competitions or longer competitions. Absolutely needed for player content and game content are horns or whistles that can go off to start the event timer or competition with an on-screen timer that displays it. Consider doing this before the next big Dev contest please. @DarkStarr. To me this contest was frustrating to say the least because of not having this ability and for more reasons of course. I don't say the effort was not appreciated. Of Course it was an awesome first try for something like this but we need to have learned from how terrifically missing in necessary features it was. Timers should be in game showing on the screen. Any event we hold or the devs hold should show time it in game and have systems for those for all players not just for those who visit or use twitch/discord or any other outside of the game 3rd party. We are leaving out our in game players who will not use these but want to participate. This includes the forums. So for me I'm speaking of logging in and being frustrated by this. I was on a time limit for the voting due to real life reasons. I am very supportive of this game but we still have frustrations that need dealt with. For example give us timer on a board or stand that we can place. When I click on it A horn or whistle sounds for all to hear to know to go. also a ranking system so we can vote in game. Like ready set go.

    [​IMG][​IMG][​IMG][​IMG][​IMG][​IMG][​IMG][​IMG][​IMG]
     
    Last edited: May 5, 2019
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  7. Gorthyn

    Gorthyn Avatar

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    The Sims Community ? And there was I thinking SOTA was a story rich RPG and the spiritual successor to the Ultima Games/Ultima Online .:confused::(
     
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  8. majoria70

    majoria70 Avatar

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    Check out episode 2 for now the mmo world is developing and lots of QOA in that regards. Hopefully EP 2 will enhance the story and journal system in such a way to finally show that aspect of the game off. Nothing happening atm much about this except what Sannio can do for us.
     
  9. liz_the_wiz

    liz_the_wiz Avatar

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    There is a good story behind SOTA, but, also many POT and house owners put a lot of time and effort into making their stuff look epic. Whether its to tell a story, to show off your pvp status by filling your lot with the bones of your enemies, or, just because you like pretties.. Its nothing like sims other than we can spend a lot of time and effort making everything just the way we want it
     
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  10. Vladamir Begemot

    Vladamir Begemot Avatar

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    I don't know how to reply to this, what does it have to do with anything?

    Are you suggesting that maybe the next judge of a major deco contest should be a top The Witcher streamer?

    How is that going to create any sort of synergy?

    I get that there is a group of people that are down on deco, but it's here and popular. People who deco in other games might very well be interested in SotA when they see what they can do with a house. It's not going to hurt the story fans at all.
     
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  11. liz_the_wiz

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    I spent another 3-4 hours today adding deco to my town.. the number of hours on that is quite a lot.. Its unfortunate most of you may never have even seen it.

    My only concern with the deco comp being done by players is that the first prize is epic (overland pot) and any guild who can land that who either dont currently have one or need an expansion could easily have persuaded members to come vote for someones plot and given 8-10s and everyone elses 1-3 and secured themselves a pot. However, there is no easy answer. If port pick it, people will claim rigged. If the people pick it, people claim rigged.

    I think its important to remember that for all of those who put in time and effort they arent losers, by any means, they spent hours on that and the rest of us didnt. If it hadnt coincided with some work stuff, Id probably have tried, but, I just didnt have the time. Atos did say on stream he was hoping to get all entrants a "i competed" item if nothing else. I hope that happens.

    I will confess, having watched it, I feel I would waste my gold entering as I am not exactly an out there popular person, heck, I spend most of my sota life soloing away doing my own thing. As a result, I would find myself short of people I could rely on to vote for me, it does kinda put me off, even though id have loved to get an overworld access for my pot, and other than moving in EP2 to somewhere there.. I aint gonna get overworld any other way.
     
  12. Hemswal The Descended

    Hemswal The Descended Avatar

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    @Chris Thank you for holding that contest for us. Personally, I had a lot of fun participating.

    I'm sure there is plenty to learn from this event to improve future events. As long as we stay constructive, I firmly believe the game and community will do nothing other than improve!
     
  13. redfish

    redfish Avatar

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    I ran into a lot of deco placement issues to report, and also have a few complaints about crafting reqs that I was surprised didn't change since prerelease, when I last did crafting.

    By the way, Chris mentioned an item for contest participants. Why not a title? There was an early prerelease contest where I was granted the title Royal Crier for creating a promotional video. Royal Decorator?
     
  14. Dartan Obscuro

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    I somehow managed to get in the top 10. Thanks to Chris for putting it together and everyone who participated and voted. If you didn't get in the top 10 don't pull your lot. At least as I read it, I think you can be chosen for another category by the devs. There were several entries that I thought would make the top 10 that didn't. I hope they get recognized.

    As an aside, my lot was all crafted / found / NPC obtained. That doesn't seem to be on Chris's spreadsheet.

    Here are my two cents for future contests...

    1) I ran into deco sizing issues with the new release. It was very helpful new feature but frustrating until the bugs got fixed. It would better to start a contest a week after a release and end it before the next release.

    2) Instead of a map with the houses all over, a simple grid would be made it much easier to in game visit each lot. (or some kind of teleporters)

    3) Instead of one long voting stream, it would have been better if Chris took ownership of all the lots so no one could make changes and then did an hour or two daily stream visiting them for a week

    4) In game voting would be much cooler. I'm thinking something like every account that was active and over X level prior to the contest start (to keep the alt accounts down) would get a bundle of 10 tokens to drop into chests placed in front of their picks.

    Thanks again! I hope this was fun and positive enough for everyone involved to spur Chris and the devs to keep doing contests.
     
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  15. majoria70

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    @Chris @DarkStarr @Lord British
    We definitely need an in -game voting system for the future. This contest was great and wonderful to think about for the future but still very frustrating without in -game systems to support it. I would love to see these implemented asap as well as the raid system.

    [​IMG]

    This is the system that Everquest 2 has.
     
    Last edited: May 15, 2019
  16. Lars vonDrachental

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    I liked the contest too even if I just had the time to search resources to decorate my own lot and take from time to time a short peek at the neighboring lot of Flinderke Van'tMeeden. ;)
    Searching resources and usable loot was a lot of fun, even if I’m still not happy with the large rear wall of the log cabin…not much crafted/found items I could place there.
    Also the decoration limit was an interesting challenge as creating a fence out of swords and a path of roses took most of the possible outdoor decorations of the village lot.

    Some additional ingame voting would be also my suggestion and if possible as a solution that is usable also outside of dev events.
    If there are categories they maybe should have separated votings to shorten the stream as multiple hours of streaming is sapping for both sides.
    If there are enough participating avatars it might be even a good idea to create (nested) PoTs for each sub category.
    As I wrote in another thread maybe there should be created ghosts that automatically fly in eternal loops through the houses on a preset course. Either automatically or by dev button clicking we are switching between the currently visible ghosts. This way Chris could concentrate on the stream, explain the voting or answer questions instead of trying to find the best way through the house live on stream. Setting the course of the ghosts could be made the days before the voting while visiting in some kind of sneak preview the nearly finished lots.

    Anyway congrats to all the participants who made it to round 2.
     
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  17. Gwendolyn Obscuro

    Gwendolyn Obscuro Bug Hunter

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    I had a great time wandering around the town looking at all of the entries. There were so many amazing lots! Three of my favorites that did not get recognized on the stream on Friday were the joust (Pfauenauge), the fairy tale lot (Yolo Solive I think) and the cult of the shattered moon (Shimizu). Of course the ones that were recognized were wonderful too- I don't think I could pick a personal top 10, there would be at least 15 entries in it!

    I think there were lessons to learn here though it was a strong first contest attempt and Chris obviously put in a lot of work. For future contests I would suggest private voting, either less entries or split into multiple days for viewing, rules/updates better laid out in the forums and a bit more rigid way of showing the lots (some entries were given more time than others, some lots had signs and decorative notes read while others did not, but it is very difficult to be consistent over so many showings)

    Again congrats to everyone who entered and thank you for all the time consuming deco work! And thank you to Chris for putting on this contest!
     
  18. DarkStarr

    DarkStarr Executive Producer SOTA Developer

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    The Mount Midir Deco Contest Finals last week was incredible! There were so many creative entries! Here are the final standings:
    • Overall:
      • First Place: Flinderke Van'tmeeden
        • New Overworld located Player Owned Town
        • Tax Free Town Lot Deed
        • Gold Chair Trophy (full size)
      • Second Place: Engineer
        • Tax Free Town Lot Deed
        • Silver Chair Trophy (full size)
      • Third Place: Dartan Obscuro
        • Tax Free Village Lot Deed
        • Bronze Chair Trophy (full size)
    • Top 10 Finalists: Top 10 Finalists will all receive 5000 Crowns & Desktop Gold Chair Trophy
      • Alioth
      • Dartan Obscuro
      • Elryin Silvertree
      • Engineer
      • Fetid Sirdidy
      • Flinderke Van'tmeeden
      • Mia Sway
      • Skye Azure
      • Stryker Sparhawk
      • Wench
    • Themed Winners: Themed Winners will receive 5000 Crowns & Desktop Gold Chair Trophy
      • Top Non-top 10 Crafted winner: Hemswal Genis
      • Overall crafted winner: Dartan Obscuro
      • Lord British: Michael Berg
      • Chaos: Zexarium Dragonheart
      • Maxine: Emmory Watsyn
    • All Entries: Everyone who entered the contest will receive a Desktop Silver Chair Trophy!
    • Lazzie (for the worst lot): Jack SinAssist
    [​IMG]

    Here is the livestream from our YouTube channel in case you missed it
     
    Last edited: May 15, 2019
  19. Lord Andernut

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    Congrats to all entrants and winners!
     
  20. Jack SinAssist

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    Glaring omission @DarkStarr. Where's the Lazzie?! :p
     
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