Lesson to all future DW-and-such-online-endeavors managers: be transparent and don't separate urself from the community.
I wonder had he done so and had "exposed" himself earlier, wouldn't have the community supported him sufficiently? I mean, seriously, if he had opened-up and said yo, its either we get some support or the whole thing goes down, I'm sure many (more) participants - and even onlookers - would have contributed.
I agree shotgun, I think that if he had done that he probably would have received the support he needs. However, hind sight is 20/20 and he didn't, but major props to him for that letter of his. That shows some good character on his part in my opinion. It takes a lot to admit a mistake was made and ask for an apology. Also, I couldn't imagine taking on projects so huge by myself, so good on him for what he's done and realizing its too much for him now and passing the torch. I hope the best for him.
I cannot wait to see some Polycounters threads for DW.
Lesson to all future DW-and-such-online-endeavors managers: be transparent and don't separate urself from the community.
I wonder had he done so and had "exposed" himself earlier, wouldn't have the community supported him sufficiently? I mean, seriously, if he had opened-up and said yo, its either we get some support or the whole thing goes down, I'm sure many (more) participants - and even onlookers - would have contributed.
He did at times when things like this cropped up in the past, and the community at large understood and backed him. But then he would shrink back into the darkness and everyone would start to speculate and question.
He's finally doing what he should of done in DW2-3.
If you ask around probably only a handful of crappy artists who had no shot at winning, where entering for the prizes. Its sad that they contributed so little and ruined so much.
I'm glad that they are now finally separate entities.
I hope... that they have some kind of board or democratic leadership system in place so the burden isn't put on one person or even one group of people. With the right structure members can come and go picking up and running pieces without any effect on how the contests are run or timed.
I agree with Per on his last point. DW and EC should be run by a committee of sorts. Kinda like Polycount. Not one person is solely in charge of everything and he doesn't have to carry all the burden.
Polycount needs to step in and help out with this. We are one of the biggest, most well known, and oldest game art communities in the world.
~ I personally think Kanye did the right thing by saying sorry, but a lotta people should be saying sorry for giving him such a hard time over a basic error of judgement.
Yea in an effort to rebirth DW and UC in a more transparent manor... I am resulting to my dark arts and opaque dealings to give DW and UC a never before seen level of transparency and clarity...
So basically no one knows what the hell is going on, not even Fred heh.
OR It's going to be run exactly the same but now without a whipping boy.
Awesome...
Again, I appreciate what DW used to be and the effort by all put into it - but - This seems like a pretty weak response for over a week of waiting. It doesn't really answer anything other than giving you a glimpse into the financial woes of a failed business attempt that no one but one person had interest in. I can't help but feel that, if this is an apology, it's coated with a thick layer of martyrdom. The burdens that one man had to bare to bring the community an epic contest(s) without acknowledging the efforts of all the other communities (even the evil ones...) and what they and their members have done to help the cause without seeing a dime. No one who matters asked for the competitions to get this big and anyone with any amount of industry experience will probably agree that bigger doesn't equal better ('cept for where it counts, am i right ladies?) Sometimes things are best left low key and personal. No participating members had a say in the expansion of the competitions and for a long time there has been rumblings of what was going wrong. Just a lot of "look at what I did - no one else would do this for you" that doesn't sit well with me.
It IS just a mistake and he's human. But still...I DO question GA Montreal (even though I'm apparently not supposed to...) All of the delays, disorganization, flip-flopping on judging and on and on. Like it was mentioned in the other thread, this one event is just the last straw on a huge pile of shit that's been building for a long time.
I miss what the competitions used to be and eagerly look forward a PC contest or a gentleman's duel between members.
It IS just a mistake and he's human. But still...I DO question GA Montreal (even though I'm apparently not supposed to...) All of the delays, disorganization, flip-flopping on judging and on and on. Like it was mentioned in the other thread, this one event is just the last straw on a huge pile of shit that's been building for a long time.
Yeah, I'm curious about this too. But honestly, when it comes to GA montreal, really at this point it should be a "who cares?" type of thing. Better to just forget about all that kind of stuff, as it's safely locked away in the past and won't matter anymore.
I miss what the competitions used to be and eagerly look forward a PC contest or a gentleman's duel between members.
All I want is a return of the MINI comps. Small competition, short time, low-key, NO PRIZES (except maybe an icon next to your avatar on the forum), and just pure fun.
Their variety is what made them awesome. Anyone remember the kick-ass Street Fighter sculpting mini? There were like 2 of those ever, and I would love to see more.
If anything, this is the one thing I hope someone picks up the torch on. PC maybe? *fingers crossed*
My feelings are a bit muted on the whole thing. Generally, it's just a failed business venture, and I'm sorry Fred didn't succeed there, but there's a lot of risk with any new business. I never really cared that he tried to make money off of the whole thing. The delays never bothered me because I'm not spending all my time being excited for the next time I can participate.
The only thing about the dominance war that I didn't like was that it was the exact same thing every year.
As a bit of an outsider to this whole thing, how the bloody hell did he think his business model was viable? If I'm reading these numbers right, the ratio of revenue-generating materials versus prizes and advertising costs are way off, and the marketing has to have been screwy.
What's going to be hard for people to accept, though, is the fact that they'll need a solid revenue stream (e.g. not merchandise), and it was the mismanaged attempt to establish one which caused all of this.
I've seen things like this take place before, with conflicts over funds and chain of command for Enduro Races (volunteer data entry guy, trail maintainance, check crew) and you need a good crew to keep it running smooth. I hope Fred manages to pass the torch to the right people.
copy + paste
Heavy stuff. Probably the right decision to make dom war its own thing. Any Idea who is stepping up to the plate for it?
I've often said the prizes are not what makes dominance war and I hope the 'cheated' prize winners take the news well. It's best for the competition orginizers not to have that unnecessary responsibility hanging over their heads and I wish Fred realised it sooner.
Welp.
I don't know if this is the right place to suggest this...
but when it comes to financing for these comps. (as it seems to be a big issue) why not have an entry fee of 30$ plus shipping upon submission (in case somone lives in some remote part of the world) for a dom war, or earthy challenge participant t-shirt.
then if the shirt is 20$ the contest gets 10$ to support it (and the sites that support/host it) and all the participants get something unique from entering. so even if you had no shot of winning you could take pride in supporting and wearing the paraphernalia of entering.
just throwing the thought out there... hopefully whomever should pick up hosting these contests won't find themselves in the same boat as fred in the future.
but when it comes to financing for these comps. (as it seems to be a big issue) why not have an entry fee of 30$ plus shipping upon submission (in case somone lives in some remote part of the world) for a dom war, or earthy challenge participant t-shirt.
sorry but that is a horrible idea.
people don't do these contests for the prizes which I think is the biggest problem. people do it for the competition, the challenge, the fun and the self growth they get from these type of events.
this also would discourage people (especially those inexperienced) from entering/submitting because there is an entiry fee and they will feel they dont have a shot at winning so why try/spend the money just to lose?
these comps should be free and if there was ever an entry fee tacked on that contest would quickly die off.
~ I personally think Kanye did the right thing by saying sorry, but a lotta people should be saying sorry for giving him such a hard time over a basic error of judgement.
people don't do these contests for the prizes which I think is the biggest problem. people do it for the competition, the challenge, the fun and the self growth they get from these type of events.
Exactly. Who enters these things for the purpose of winning prizes?
The first two between cgchat and polycount were a blast because of the fun of banding together and competing. For fun, not profit.
Competitions like this don't need financial backing or prizes, or complicated terms of service agreements. All they need are forum threads. You submit the forum thread to an e-mail address. Judges volunteer to judge. They judge the entries.
I thought it started as a fun interaction between between friendly rival art community's. I would like to see it returned to being about the forum interaction, hence the Dominance, not so much the focus on the individuals that want prizes for themselves. As game developers its key that we work effectively in teams and providing encouragement and constructive advice to your co-forum members should be just as import as actually making art for the competition. If everyone is out for personal victory that only disconnects the notion of forum v forum, which the competition started out to be.
As a former judge and contestant I can honestly state that without a clear criteria for judging we got a mixed bag of results anyway. I hope that if there are future competitions that the judegment requirements are clearly communicated to all and that there is actual discourse amongst the judges as they are asked to justify their decisions and not just provide lists... (much like organisations like BAFTA do).
Mark Dygert, Setting up a board and democrative leadership sounds good and all, but it's just the labour that's going to be tough. One of the ideas was to rotate it each year so that one forum is responsible for making it happen each year - Design stuff, organize judges, voting, taking care of entries and artists's frequent requests, programming, system maintanance, required web designs for each page, rule writting, announcements, prizes, finding sponsors, organizing events, giving content to each forum to use to promote the event, and much more stuff. I think one of the main things on the table would be to find a way to simplify things, but it's not going to be easy. Making a multi forum challenge in various languages is no easy tasks. Leaders are plenty. Critics are plenty. But finding a person or team to do it all for nothing, no compensation, is hard. However, there are forums involved that are very enthusiastic to help out. leewiArt, CGLand, the russian forums, and of course, GA. Will see how things work out. If any ideas on how to simplify things, I am here to listen. I'll relay anything that someone comes up with on this thread.
Gav - Why do you question GA Montreal? I don't understand.
people don't do these contests for the prizes which I think is the biggest problem. people do it for the competition, the challenge, the fun and the self growth they get from these type of events.
this also would discourage people (especially those inexperienced) from entering/submitting because there is an entiry fee and they will feel they dont have a shot at winning so why try/spend the money just to lose?
these comps should be free and if there was ever an entry fee tacked on that contest would quickly die off.
I completely understand, and identify with what your saying.
As my attitude would be "why would I pay someone else for an enormous amount of my time?! knowing I (personally) have not a chance in hell of winning!(and therefore wouldn't be competing for prizes anyways)"
But I would gladly pay for some kind of merchandising (be it a shirt or pin or something) messaging that I was a contestant/participant in the contest - irrelevant of where I place. (perhaps even showing which community I supported.)
I agree that most people don't enter for the prizes - my apologies as I was/am under the assumption that the prizes aren't what seems to be eating up all the costs of running these comps. Rather just operating the contests (with traffic and bandwidth etc) is what is creating financial woes (because these comps have gotten so popular and big). perhaps I was/am mistaken.
it would certainly have to be very organized as soon as $$ gets involved. But hopefully the next people taking this on will be a collective group of people that can divi up and stay on top of the organization aspect of these contests.
I dont think that rotating the DW behemoth each year between forums would be a good idea at all. It would simply spread the problems around, and wouldnt bring much solutions on the table.
I *think* the root of the problem is the scale. Sure, its cool to see a huge amount of entries across world wide forums. But if its not manageable or causes huge money loss, why doing it ? There are other ways to give people international exposure. First, they can get exposure all by themselves by posting on more than their native language forum (one needs to speak basic english to travel around for a job offer anyways, right ?)
Then, if its really all about the big judging and who scores first place in a worldwide contest, why not have every forum take car of their OWN internal art contest, then simply take each champion and pick a winner for the year ? That would be so much lighter to handle!
In short I'd say - its okay to trim the contest down. It got bigger and bigger sure, but no prizes and more of a pyramidal judging could work too. The final judging would simply be between the admins of all forums involved, and everything could fit one a mere webpage... No need for a crazy complex entry system or anything like that. We've been judging mini comps here for a while using the simple forum voting system.
I'm not sure about rotating either- what happens to all the experience learned by one compo team, when another team has to do it for the first time? sure the first team can pass on advice, but it's never the same as actually doing something yourself. And by the time it comes round again, the lessons might be a little to distant and un-reinforced to have sunken in
I dont think that rotating the DW behemoth each year between forums would be a good idea at all. It would simply spread the problems around, and wouldnt bring much solutions on the table.
I *think* the root of the problem is the scale. Sure, its cool to see a huge amount of entries across world wide forums. But if its not manageable or causes huge money loss, why doing it ? There are other ways to give people international exposure. First, they can get exposure all by themselves by posting on more than their native language forum (one need to speak basic english to travel around for a job offer anyways, right ?)
Then, if its really all about the big judging and who scores first place in a worldwide contest, why not have every forum take car of their OWN internal art contest, then simply take each champion and pick a winner for the year ? That would be so much lighter to handle!
In short I'd say - its okay to trim the contest down. It got bigger and bigger sure, but no prizes and more of a pyramidal judging could work too. The final judging would simply be between the admins of all forums involved, and everything could fit one a mere webpage...
Fred - Though I don't know the details behind it, I'm sure there's a lot going on there that would make my head spin, it just seems weird to me that if finances were an issue a risk wouldn't have been made to open the place up. I'm sure it's not as cut and dry, but I do question why you would make that choice if funding was a problem and how you've kept it going by making as little profit as you say. I'm not necessarily accusing you of anything, it just seems like a foggy area and some details would have been appreciated in your time of honest, personal information.
I'm totally up for reducing the scale, its one of the reasons I never really got started when I decided to enter for dom3 and 4, the scale, it was huge, taking in international art forums? friggin hell, "we can never win against the koreans man, they rock ass to hard!" and dont forget the hard as nails russians . I'd say, take it back to the dominance war 2 level.
Gav, there is 0 profit, there is only loss. GA Montreal was opened the same way DW and UC is run, on my families funds. We are not rich, so we can only maintain it for a certain amount of time. How I get it to work, it's left to question. Anyways, the main answer here is, there is nothing dodgy about it. There is no profit being made for either my online endouvers, or GAMontreal. I thought my in depth explanation of my online losses were enough to explain that I am in no way taking money from my online ventures to do something fancy like GA Montreal. Anyways, hopefully, this makes things a little more transparent, but I can't help to feel like I shouldn't need to explain all this...
Rooster, you are very right. Rotating the responsibility would be a disaster. I haven't thought about it like that. Back to the drawing board:(
Pior, the challenge you suggest sounds borring:p Sorry. The reason why.. correct me if I am wrong here, people enjoy a challenge like DW is specifically because of the view_entries system. If there was no system, people, both artists and employers, would not be able to easily find the progress of everyone's art. People would be confined to their own forums, limited exposure, zero interaction, and there would always be a big surprise ending as in, where in the world did that entry come from!! It would be Ninjas fighting on a whole new level. This is why, I believe, a view_entries system is absolutly needed. It's the eassential item that makes dw interactive and fun. However, the main problems are costs. These are split into 3 essential items, programming, content creation/maintanance, and prizes. Saddly, I kept messing up the programming side of things because I expanded each year, so first needed to add concept art, then teams for UC, then multiforum mini system, and now animation. The good news is, I won't be expending anymore because I believe I got all the categories that I needed in, so the next system I make on DW website, will be my final master's system:) So after this, programming will never be needed again. As for creation and maintanance, this is the one thing that can probably be handled by volunteers. A team of volunteers. So the last thing left is prizes. This is the tricky part. Giving money away is great for an international challenge, but it's tough to find sponsors and supporters. At this point, the one thing that can save the challenge altogether is to loose the prizes totally, and simply concentrate on running a kickass challenge and giving great exposure to the artists involved. If no prizes were involved, we could then create accessive rewards, like student highlights, large top 75 lists, best modeled character, best textured, best stuff etc. And we can make it each forum's responsibility to interview at least one of their artists. This interview would be hosted on the forum, but plugged on the dw site.
Anyways, just thinking out loud here. More ideas welcome.
So the last thing left is prizes. This is the tricky part. Giving money away is great for an international challenge, but it's tough to find sponsors and supporters.
I honestly don't think this is even necessary. Maybe in the future as an added bonus, but it's really overkill.
Just an icon on the forum should be enough bragging rights. Some small icon next to the person's Avatar. And leave it up to the individual forums to assign those.
Well yeah Fred but in that case thats kindof like an endless loop isnt it ? The last contests proved that a worldwide thing centralized on one site caused issues, and delays, so why keeping at it ? I personally don't believe that anyone needs the big huge DW entry site to get exposure. Its a cool webpage and all that, but its not necessary at all.
The DW page could simply be a hub pointing to the final entries pages of every subforum. No huge bandwith costs or anything - just a redirecting kind of thing. Why making it complex when it can be simple ?
Then when it comes to the "worldwide" feel of the contest : everybody is smart enough to go click on another forums index and browse from there, especially if individual forums take on themselves to organize their entries properly. Solved! (well maybe not in terms of bandwith for the individual forums haha)
I remember last years DW - we didnt need to browse other websites here on PC, we simply reported entries we saw coming up and shaping up nicely, in a common spying thread It trimmed down the fat and made it very easy for us to be aware of the other contestants.
And Ill say it again - the vast majority doesnt care for the prizes and sponsors. Recognition happens naturally as a consequence of great art, and great art doesnt happens thanks to sponsors and PS3s...
Fred - Fair enough, man. It just seemed weird to me to specifically say not to ask about it when, I think, it's something that a lot of people would be curious about. I'm not really suggesting that something dodgy is / was going on, I just think that if funds were an issue, you wouldn't want to go more in debt or take on even more responsibility. As you've hinted though, that's your own business - so maybe I shouldn't pry.
To add to the conversation about prizes and stuff - I honestly think the vast majority of people don't care about prizes. When you offer them, though, and don't follow through - it becomes a big deal. I think entertaining the idea of having them is putting you on the same path that has lead us here - you give people something (again, probably the minority actually wants a physical reward) and they expect more the next time. Keep it at recognition and comparing cock sizes.
It could work, but it would be tough. Waiting for 15 forums to organize artwork, judge, collect their champs, and pass it to a single entity to judge, would be too risky. If one or more forums fails to judge their art, or collect it in time, or if they run into problems, the entire community would suffer and their would be delays all around. Plus, there would be no history as entries would disapear one after an other as artists changes servers, cancelled domains, or deleted their work. I am trying to think of how making it simplified with threads, would work, but right now, I think this would only increase the workload.
yeah.....ummm....I never really understood the reason behind the GA Montreal thing. If the goal was exposure then wouldn't advertising the contest website to developers be a better idea?
My idea for a board would be more like a city council, a board of trustees or hell, even a gang of mobsters. Not everyone would rotate out but the structure would spread the work around and set it up so that people can leave without crippling the organization. Of course you would need a mayor, a boss or a board president to delegate work but I don't think the solution to your problems is to dump this in another persons lap. I'm sure you did the best you could and we could probably expect the same result from someone else if they try to go it alone.
As fun as it is to post work in your home forum I think it needs to be posted on the DW/UC forum site and be filed under a specific sub-forum. It just seems like its a hassle for everyone to try and coordinate their forums. If you think about it you train in your forums home town gym, you go off to the big arena to fight.
It would be easier to collect artwork if everything that was posted was uploaded to the site, there could be cost issues with that, but maybe mandate weekly progress, sort of a weekly check in, and only upload those to the site, so not every image is being passed through one place. That way people will post their best progress shots, and it would be easier to see who's making progress and who's not. Sometimes there are very active threads with lots of discussion but the person doesn't do jack and finally drops out. Weekly check-in's could keep a persons entry "active".
I also don't appreciate how you paint Polycount as unhelpful. I know a few people who would of liked to jump in and help out, but we've never seen the bat signal go up and you've been pretty tight lipped about issues or asking for help.
A clear about page so people know the structure, and a active effort to recruit help would go a long way in getting a board started. But there needs to be some organization in the organization which I think is the key problem all these years. If you can't trust people to deliver what they say they will, then you end up thinking you need to do it all yourself. You need to put trust in people and let them carry some of the weight. The reluctance to do this has often painted you as a control freak who wants to manically control teh profitz!! Which most of us that know you, know that's not the case.
If we (PC staff) are going to put in effort to maintain a contest or what have you, it will be for our own Contests held here at Polycount and not someone else's. People are welcome to volunteer wherever they please, but the PC team specifically will spend its time getting our Contests running like butter.
Replies
Anyway, its a shame it had to come to this. Hopefully both DW and UC can continue on as planned. Best wishes to Fred in his future endeavors.
I wonder had he done so and had "exposed" himself earlier, wouldn't have the community supported him sufficiently? I mean, seriously, if he had opened-up and said yo, its either we get some support or the whole thing goes down, I'm sure many (more) participants - and even onlookers - would have contributed.
I cannot wait to see some Polycounters threads for DW.
From reading the comments at the bottom maybe he should of emailed all of the forums admins before putting it into the submission system?
Still a shame though as it appears hes put so much into it all.
He's finally doing what he should of done in DW2-3.
If you ask around probably only a handful of crappy artists who had no shot at winning, where entering for the prizes. Its sad that they contributed so little and ruined so much.
I'm glad that they are now finally separate entities.
I hope... that they have some kind of board or democratic leadership system in place so the burden isn't put on one person or even one group of people. With the right structure members can come and go picking up and running pieces without any effect on how the contests are run or timed.
Polycount needs to step in and help out with this. We are one of the biggest, most well known, and oldest game art communities in the world.
~ lol. Read what is written on either side of "Join Now":
http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/events/4/viewprizes/index.php#sponsors
Its all jokes though, so less witch hunting this time maybe?
So basically no one knows what the hell is going on, not even Fred heh.
OR It's going to be run exactly the same but now without a whipping boy.
Awesome...
It IS just a mistake and he's human. But still...I DO question GA Montreal (even though I'm apparently not supposed to...) All of the delays, disorganization, flip-flopping on judging and on and on. Like it was mentioned in the other thread, this one event is just the last straw on a huge pile of shit that's been building for a long time.
I miss what the competitions used to be and eagerly look forward a PC contest or a gentleman's duel between members.
Curious about this:
So will those sites basically become another two forums that are devoted purely to DW/UC?
Yeah, I'm curious about this too. But honestly, when it comes to GA montreal, really at this point it should be a "who cares?" type of thing. Better to just forget about all that kind of stuff, as it's safely locked away in the past and won't matter anymore.
All I want is a return of the MINI comps. Small competition, short time, low-key, NO PRIZES (except maybe an icon next to your avatar on the forum), and just pure fun.
Their variety is what made them awesome. Anyone remember the kick-ass Street Fighter sculpting mini? There were like 2 of those ever, and I would love to see more.
If anything, this is the one thing I hope someone picks up the torch on. PC maybe? *fingers crossed*
The only thing about the dominance war that I didn't like was that it was the exact same thing every year.
What's going to be hard for people to accept, though, is the fact that they'll need a solid revenue stream (e.g. not merchandise), and it was the mismanaged attempt to establish one which caused all of this.
I've seen things like this take place before, with conflicts over funds and chain of command for Enduro Races (volunteer data entry guy, trail maintainance, check crew) and you need a good crew to keep it running smooth. I hope Fred manages to pass the torch to the right people.
Heavy stuff. Probably the right decision to make dom war its own thing. Any Idea who is stepping up to the plate for it?
I've often said the prizes are not what makes dominance war and I hope the 'cheated' prize winners take the news well. It's best for the competition orginizers not to have that unnecessary responsibility hanging over their heads and I wish Fred realised it sooner.
Welp.
but when it comes to financing for these comps. (as it seems to be a big issue) why not have an entry fee of 30$ plus shipping upon submission (in case somone lives in some remote part of the world) for a dom war, or earthy challenge participant t-shirt.
then if the shirt is 20$ the contest gets 10$ to support it (and the sites that support/host it) and all the participants get something unique from entering. so even if you had no shot of winning you could take pride in supporting and wearing the paraphernalia of entering.
just throwing the thought out there... hopefully whomever should pick up hosting these contests won't find themselves in the same boat as fred in the future.
QFT
sorry but that is a horrible idea.
people don't do these contests for the prizes which I think is the biggest problem. people do it for the competition, the challenge, the fun and the self growth they get from these type of events.
this also would discourage people (especially those inexperienced) from entering/submitting because there is an entiry fee and they will feel they dont have a shot at winning so why try/spend the money just to lose?
these comps should be free and if there was ever an entry fee tacked on that contest would quickly die off.
I missed something, who is Kanye?
Exactly. Who enters these things for the purpose of winning prizes?
The first two between cgchat and polycount were a blast because of the fun of banding together and competing. For fun, not profit.
Competitions like this don't need financial backing or prizes, or complicated terms of service agreements. All they need are forum threads. You submit the forum thread to an e-mail address. Judges volunteer to judge. They judge the entries.
As a former judge and contestant I can honestly state that without a clear criteria for judging we got a mixed bag of results anyway. I hope that if there are future competitions that the judegment requirements are clearly communicated to all and that there is actual discourse amongst the judges as they are asked to justify their decisions and not just provide lists... (much like organisations like BAFTA do).
Gav - Why do you question GA Montreal? I don't understand.
I completely understand, and identify with what your saying.
As my attitude would be "why would I pay someone else for an enormous amount of my time?! knowing I (personally) have not a chance in hell of winning!(and therefore wouldn't be competing for prizes anyways)"
But I would gladly pay for some kind of merchandising (be it a shirt or pin or something) messaging that I was a contestant/participant in the contest - irrelevant of where I place. (perhaps even showing which community I supported.)
I agree that most people don't enter for the prizes - my apologies as I was/am under the assumption that the prizes aren't what seems to be eating up all the costs of running these comps. Rather just operating the contests (with traffic and bandwidth etc) is what is creating financial woes (because these comps have gotten so popular and big). perhaps I was/am mistaken.
it would certainly have to be very organized as soon as $$ gets involved. But hopefully the next people taking this on will be a collective group of people that can divi up and stay on top of the organization aspect of these contests.
I *think* the root of the problem is the scale. Sure, its cool to see a huge amount of entries across world wide forums. But if its not manageable or causes huge money loss, why doing it ? There are other ways to give people international exposure. First, they can get exposure all by themselves by posting on more than their native language forum (one needs to speak basic english to travel around for a job offer anyways, right ?)
Then, if its really all about the big judging and who scores first place in a worldwide contest, why not have every forum take car of their OWN internal art contest, then simply take each champion and pick a winner for the year ? That would be so much lighter to handle!
In short I'd say - its okay to trim the contest down. It got bigger and bigger sure, but no prizes and more of a pyramidal judging could work too. The final judging would simply be between the admins of all forums involved, and everything could fit one a mere webpage... No need for a crazy complex entry system or anything like that. We've been judging mini comps here for a while using the simple forum voting system.
QFT :thumbup:
I guess we'll see what happens in a few months when DW5 actually starts.
Rooster, you are very right. Rotating the responsibility would be a disaster. I haven't thought about it like that. Back to the drawing board:(
Pior, the challenge you suggest sounds borring:p Sorry. The reason why.. correct me if I am wrong here, people enjoy a challenge like DW is specifically because of the view_entries system. If there was no system, people, both artists and employers, would not be able to easily find the progress of everyone's art. People would be confined to their own forums, limited exposure, zero interaction, and there would always be a big surprise ending as in, where in the world did that entry come from!! It would be Ninjas fighting on a whole new level. This is why, I believe, a view_entries system is absolutly needed. It's the eassential item that makes dw interactive and fun. However, the main problems are costs. These are split into 3 essential items, programming, content creation/maintanance, and prizes. Saddly, I kept messing up the programming side of things because I expanded each year, so first needed to add concept art, then teams for UC, then multiforum mini system, and now animation. The good news is, I won't be expending anymore because I believe I got all the categories that I needed in, so the next system I make on DW website, will be my final master's system:) So after this, programming will never be needed again. As for creation and maintanance, this is the one thing that can probably be handled by volunteers. A team of volunteers. So the last thing left is prizes. This is the tricky part. Giving money away is great for an international challenge, but it's tough to find sponsors and supporters. At this point, the one thing that can save the challenge altogether is to loose the prizes totally, and simply concentrate on running a kickass challenge and giving great exposure to the artists involved. If no prizes were involved, we could then create accessive rewards, like student highlights, large top 75 lists, best modeled character, best textured, best stuff etc. And we can make it each forum's responsibility to interview at least one of their artists. This interview would be hosted on the forum, but plugged on the dw site.
Anyways, just thinking out loud here. More ideas welcome.
That's what Unearthly Challenge is
I honestly don't think this is even necessary. Maybe in the future as an added bonus, but it's really overkill.
Just an icon on the forum should be enough bragging rights. Some small icon next to the person's Avatar. And leave it up to the individual forums to assign those.
The DW page could simply be a hub pointing to the final entries pages of every subforum. No huge bandwith costs or anything - just a redirecting kind of thing. Why making it complex when it can be simple ?
Then when it comes to the "worldwide" feel of the contest : everybody is smart enough to go click on another forums index and browse from there, especially if individual forums take on themselves to organize their entries properly. Solved! (well maybe not in terms of bandwith for the individual forums haha)
I remember last years DW - we didnt need to browse other websites here on PC, we simply reported entries we saw coming up and shaping up nicely, in a common spying thread
And Ill say it again - the vast majority doesnt care for the prizes and sponsors. Recognition happens naturally as a consequence of great art, and great art doesnt happens thanks to sponsors and PS3s...
Just my opinion!
To add to the conversation about prizes and stuff - I honestly think the vast majority of people don't care about prizes. When you offer them, though, and don't follow through - it becomes a big deal. I think entertaining the idea of having them is putting you on the same path that has lead us here - you give people something (again, probably the minority actually wants a physical reward) and they expect more the next time. Keep it at recognition and comparing cock sizes.
As fun as it is to post work in your home forum I think it needs to be posted on the DW/UC forum site and be filed under a specific sub-forum. It just seems like its a hassle for everyone to try and coordinate their forums. If you think about it you train in your forums home town gym, you go off to the big arena to fight.
It would be easier to collect artwork if everything that was posted was uploaded to the site, there could be cost issues with that, but maybe mandate weekly progress, sort of a weekly check in, and only upload those to the site, so not every image is being passed through one place. That way people will post their best progress shots, and it would be easier to see who's making progress and who's not. Sometimes there are very active threads with lots of discussion but the person doesn't do jack and finally drops out. Weekly check-in's could keep a persons entry "active".
I also don't appreciate how you paint Polycount as unhelpful. I know a few people who would of liked to jump in and help out, but we've never seen the bat signal go up and you've been pretty tight lipped about issues or asking for help.
A clear about page so people know the structure, and a active effort to recruit help would go a long way in getting a board started. But there needs to be some organization in the organization which I think is the key problem all these years. If you can't trust people to deliver what they say they will, then you end up thinking you need to do it all yourself. You need to put trust in people and let them carry some of the weight. The reluctance to do this has often painted you as a control freak who wants to manically control teh profitz!! Which most of us that know you, know that's not the case.
Can I be the Emperor?
Like butter.