Would you like to do a community chest?
polycounter lvl 10
As shock said
So if you're interested label that you're interested, if there's something wrong with this idea, lets discuss it.
Even though this is a good idea, I feel like this is just postponing the problem. This idea is a good idea and should be practiced but the fact is that many solo artists (not affiliated with polycount) would still receive the short end of the stick. If we implement this, we should also try to express the openess of this project the best we can.
It is also possible that people who work for the workshop full time may not be able to join this project due to its length. Do you guys think it's too long and we should shorten the length? The only other thing that I can think of is that full time workshop artists can still participate by giving advice,etc and towards the end of the 3 months they can submit.
What do you guys think?
P.S: Please don't vote "No" unless you discuss the reason why that way we can figure out what to do. If its a problem with the system, bring it up.
i think that creative and constructive positive thinking for a solution is more useful in our situation.
thats why i took a bit time to go more into detail about my idea:
the current Polycount Monthly Community Competition:
over the last months more and more people have been unhappy with the polycount contest.
reasons for that have been:
- the not anymore existing single item chests!
- leck of communication and criticism during the running months
- last day submissions
- delayed price judging
- ...
allover that contest doesnt seem to fit anymore into the current situation.
my idea would be to rebuild the contest to fit into the current workshop situation:
the NEW Polycount Community Chest Series #1 :
(or any other possible name, i know there have been a polycount chest before)
the goal would be to have a chest with 10 sets inside (maybe +1 2 more so valve can choose if they dont like something) and 2 specials (rare drop - very rare drop) that could be either set, ward or courier.
the period of former one month is not enough time for many of us to create something big like a set. and it is also not needed to use such a hard deadline. i could imagine we could try it with quarters (3 months per chest / 4x chests a year). so we could even use season themed stuff: spring-, summer-, autumn- and winterchest. ofc its not a must, i could also think of actual changing themes. we can be creative here. i mean we are the fucking artists^^ if we can not come up with great and unique ideas... who can?
ive thought long about the next point:
the pool of artists inside a chest should be mixed. in my first idea there were 2 chests, like one chest made from veterans, and another from newcomers, but i think that would create more borders then helping anyone.
first of all because the veteran chest would be mostlikly the "good" one that people would want to buy and the newcomer chest would end up unused.
by mixing, the lead (theme, chest artwork, common layouts, deadlines,..) could be taken by veterans. its also alot easier for someone new to get into something like that if u do not have think about everything but can just focus on the own part. so at the end/start of each quarter there could be created a new thread with a list and people could sign in if they like to take part. they should write what they can deliver like *concept artist* *modeler* *animation*... and build teams (either the teams are build by the veterans who lead the project, or the teams are build by the signing people itself). and then the work starts. people use the thread the next 3months to give each other feedback and at the end of the quater the whole polycount community can vote for which submissions they want to see in the chest (or some polycount guys like thiago, anuxi,... choose it). ofc it should be a combination of veteran submissions as well as newcommer submissions.
finally when the quarter is over and the chest is chosen, it should be submitted to the workshop and promoted by polycount and also on reddit and other social media. so the whole thing becomes a real public event, and less something that happens behind closed doors (like the current competition, nearly nobody of the dota community even knows about it).
and the cycle starts again.
lets be a real community and work together instead of against.
So if you're interested label that you're interested, if there's something wrong with this idea, lets discuss it.
Even though this is a good idea, I feel like this is just postponing the problem. This idea is a good idea and should be practiced but the fact is that many solo artists (not affiliated with polycount) would still receive the short end of the stick. If we implement this, we should also try to express the openess of this project the best we can.
It is also possible that people who work for the workshop full time may not be able to join this project due to its length. Do you guys think it's too long and we should shorten the length? The only other thing that I can think of is that full time workshop artists can still participate by giving advice,etc and towards the end of the 3 months they can submit.
What do you guys think?
P.S: Please don't vote "No" unless you discuss the reason why that way we can figure out what to do. If its a problem with the system, bring it up.
Replies
Creating something TOGETHER.
With proper cooperation and feedback, here all the items can get to a technically acceptable point before being submitted too.
However I'm not quite sure about the selection process.
@Shock - I like the positive position you've taken in all of this, it does get disheartening to see so much negativity.
To be honost I couldn't really put myself to work anymore because it's so time consuming, with this idea everyone can learn something from eachother and makes everything les time consuming because u will be working in a team. People will have plenty of time to work on their own stuff as well if they want!
Also this might lead to new workshop teams or friendships in the future, were u might like or rather not like to work with in the future.
I mentioned it to Shock allready, maybe it's an idea that in the first weeks we can all post some ideas of sets, and ppl can let eachother know what they like or not like. That way people that would be interested in making a certain set/concept could form a team.
- in the current polycount contest only 1 can win.
+ in the polycount chest with teams working on it there will be about 12 "winning" submissions (so if we think of teams (2-3people) there are 24-36 people "winning something)
- instead of creating a single item that valve will mostlikly not add, cause they dont add single items anymore (more or less)
+ we create a full finished product, even with marketing artwork - so from a companys view: valve will has less administration and allover work with our chest. (they save the whole time of making meetings and discussions to pull content together for a chest)
The workshop community is something that is very important to me and I don't think I'm alone in feeling like it's been fading away recently. Count me in!
My only word of advice about such a community chest would simply be to avoid any kind of labeling, like "veterans" taking care of a certain aspect of the chest, for the simple reason that it's always best to not expect anyone to do a job for you in the first place. What I mean by that is that if anyone, today, wants to start some kind of community group effort, there is no reason to wait for any "vet" to validate the idea. It's just a matter of actually starting to work on it (pitching the concept, collection relevant imagery, creating concept art) right now ! If it's interesting and people have the time available for it, it will get traction - it's as simple as that.
The same applies to judging. The main appeal of workshop work is to not have to deal with any kind of hierarchy / idea people / producers telling artists what to do. My opinion is that if an entry is not satisfactory, it should be honestly discussed by everyone involved in order to make it better and rework it until it clicks - that way there is no "winners" or "losers". Of course it takes a lot of humility and integrity to do so, but it can be worth it. Judging and voting work well when a third party or sponsor is involved (like with the currently running Riot art contest) but for a fully community-driven effort I don't think it is necessary.
TLDR : I think that such a community effort doesn't require as much organization as it may seam. The only thing that it really needs is agreed upon delivery date ; everything else can just organically organize itself around that.
I hope this makes sense !
With 3 winners each month, this will basically ensure a steady stream of Polycount workshop presence with a community chest being potentially submitted every 3 or 4 months. And keeping the current monthly contest format would ensure that people stick to firm deadlines, which is always a good thing.
The prospect of winning entries being ultimately bundled into such community chests would also be a good way to revive interest in the monthly contest in the first place. Win/win !
A polycount set treasure is a great idea - a natural extension of the emerald chest we've had previously (I was actually hoping the second PC chest would be the first 'set only' chest.. but then valve put one in shortly after those plans came around. Damn you volvo!) But who 'decides' what gets in a PC chest? and I'm not even talking about valve, I'm talking about us. For me, I see it as mostly:
decide deadline > decide potential "theme" > wait for deadline > assemble 'chest(s)' / do chest artwork > submit
based on how many met the deadline. I think that's simple enough, but my concern comes in with.. what if we get 18 sets? I mean, fuck, that'd be incredible. Would we put it in three polycount 'chest/treasures' ? how do we decide what sets go in what treasure? who does the chest art? (I would hope we get some volunteers, though if there is a strong desire to do them then maybe we have a vote? something like that). Obviously none of it may matter and valve can just cherry pick from the submitted, but regardless.
These are all hypothetical I'm just throwing out there, we are no where at that point yet but I wanted to mention in advance some things that might come up. I think the important thing to note here is that if communities like DC/BTS can put in their official chest, there is no good reason polycount shouldnt have a annual or semi-annual chest to celebrate the community. I would say even to the point where we just bundle stuff we have waiting (which is no different from what BTS did). It would be nice however to have it be all brand new content (like DC). On a slightly more pessimistic note, here's hoping that Valve would actually respond/communicate with us on some level to help put this thing together once it's nearing completion.
but to end on a less pessimistic note, you guys are fuckin' awesome.
No theme. Create the best set you can. (the theme of the update is already PolyCount so adding something else will only distract and confuse players/buyers. Maybe we could have SPECIFIC HEROES like the Nexon contest. Also Valve should create the list of heroes. That way artists will not be able push heroes into the list for which they already are making/have items. Also, it increases the chances for the PolyCount event to happen when Valve decides the heroes for which to release sets, because they know what will sell best.
So my proposal is this:
The PolyCount Update/Patch:
- 5th August - 19th September deadline.
- Create a set for one of these heroes: (?) Valve should decide the list.
- No limit on how much submissions you can have. Post as much items/sets as you want.
- Let Valve be the judge.
- Only artists stuff. No Tournaments, No 3rd party Organizations are allowed to participate.
This is in the end a PolyCount Update - From the artists.
Having a thread with the submissions and an option to vote on each doesn't do much, when votes can be manipulated and abused. Also the mere fact that there will be a lot of competition between the artists makes it a little inadequate to let the competitors vote on your stuff. Letting Valve be the judge here is the solution I think.
What do you think?
The community should be the judge
Which community? The Dota2 community?
Also, your plan is cool DNA, but lol how we get Valve involved into this right from the beginning?
Then the rest WE do. We market the contest, we setup the votes on the heroes, voting on the winners, judging ect.
Then all valve has to is implement what we give them.
We don't need any more of valve help other than MAYBE mention it in a blog post and bundle it all up when it's done.
We've got to do it as a community and help each other out. Do our best to make a package that will impress Valve and HOPE they will take a liking to it.
At most we could ask them for a couple judges for a contest, which would help items THEY are more likely to put in it to win. Which would make the chest as a whole have more of a chance.
But I haven't been a part of past contest/chest items so not really sure what the behind the scenes details consisted of.
As far as I know the TF2 update was just people that got together, worked on something big. Presented it to Valve and crossed fingers. Valve is pretty receptive to that stuff, but I think the initiative needs to be there and pretty much done before they see it.
The question is how are the 10 top sets judged? Going from the community on the workshop will most likely result 10 sets from the most popular people with fans to vote for them. However picking Judge's from the Polycount community will mean those Judges will miss out on submitting their own items to the chest. Would be awesome if we could find either Judges willing to not submit or professionals outside of the Dota Polycount community.
-Toasty
It's really not that much of a commitment on their part to have a few people look at some items and vote (with a clause that votes don't mean entry into game, simply nothing more than voting on the contest at polycount... which they have been affiliated with in the past [still are-workshop revenues/artists])
Who else would be good artists/devs in the game industry outside polycount to vote?
This is basically like the tf2 community update. So we shouldn't need cut people off from it when the deadline finishes. The only items we cut, are the sets that aren't done well.
The idea is essentially a compilation of items about a general theme. Given the number of people willing to participate as well as the duration of this project, I think we should try to put as many chests out as possible. For instance, if there are 23 entries, we should aim getting 4 chests out and just choose from the worst 3 to get out. That way more people can actually be in the project.
We can also use Polycount's news tab for voting. We can display all the submissions and the entire community can vote on the best from the bunch.
I guess standard contest rules will have apply since it'll be easier for people to give feedback. For example, low/high poly models as well as textures.
The dota 2 community can be in on this too, we could always gain some valuable information on what sets they like and what sets they don't like, but we shouldn't use them as a final judge because a majority of them don't know a well made set from an average one.
So I think the judging should be (in order) Valve > Polycount (all of them) > Dota 2 community.
I also think we should start during/after the new bloom update until TI5 qualifiers (around April or May). Source 2 would have to come out by then. Right?
1. we let everyone take part and ship the chest with every single content that has been done by us. this means either the number of submissions could be too much for a chest, as well as we have no indiviual quality control. but let then valve decide which of the submissions they want to add. so its more like an event, and less like a contest - we just work and submit, alltogether.
2. since we know that itemquality is important to valve, we can create a first quality control ourself. that means we just "accept" those submissions to the chest that are technicly good. besides that quality check - we would accept unlimited sets (but maybe only like 1 from each team) and then let volvo again decide which one they want.
3. we do not only do a quality control but also a quantity control and just accept 12submissions for the chest, that means we have 3 possible ways to get that done.
at the end of the workperiod there must be a vote to determine which sets go in.
possible system:
- judge vote
- polycount community vote
- or a public reddit vote
- I would be careful with calling this effort a "contest", or thinking of it like one. Here is an example to illustrate why. Let's imagine that someone registers on Polycount today and puts all his/her heart and soul into working on a single item or a set, asking and receiving great constructive feedback along the way. This would be the perfect example of community involvement, as everyone would benefit from it (the artist creating the item, the commentators articulating their thoughts on it, and the viewers benefiting from seeing the work in progress.).
But now lets imagine that two months later there is a "contest" like the one some are talking about here, for a PC community chest. The work of the artist mentioned above would obviously not qualify as an entry for such chest because his/her item is done already, probably even submitted to the workshop. This I think is a big problem ! It would go against the great idea of long term community involvement, effectively hindering the individual artists who gathered the willpower, optimism and time to work on their own designs and sharing them along the way here on Polycount.
- It's good to not just think about the future, but also about the past - that is to say, we should work with what we have already ! As mentioned earlier there is already a great number of fantastic items which have been created for the monthly sponsored contest (winners, and non-winners !) as well as a lot of great finished sets, each with their own progress threads here on PC, which might have gone unnoticed in the workshop. Now of course there is no way to know how Valve is handling those (maybe most of these great sets are actually already scheduled for release ?), but there would be no harm in trying to figure out a way to bundle them together as collections/chests, and submitting them as a workshop bundles. Such curating would be much more straightforward to do than trying to organize a contest with judging and voting.
- I think that the monthly sponsored contest for singles is a great format ; it just needs a little bit of streamlining (finding the past wining entries is a bit complicated) and also more visibility. For instance, the results could be hosted on an easy to read blog page as opposed to just being scattered around multiple threads. I also think that assuming that Valve "does not not want single items chest" is a dangerous misconception. The fact that there are currently item bundles/chest proposals lost in workshop limbo does *not* mean that the idea of single items chests is flawed in itself.
- I am not exactly sure if the sponsored contest format could even be adapted to sets, even if it was turned into a 2months or 3months thing, as sets require a very different approach and design mindset than items.
- At the end of the day I think one simple, out of the box idea would be to attempt a "call to arms" run by forum moderators, asking if anyone is interested in participating in a group bundle effort made of existing, recently submitted sets ; after all, the DC chest was pretty much made that way, even including a set added after the fact. There would obviously be some logistics to figure out (as in, what would be the criteria for a set to be part of such bundle ? How recent a set should be for it to be considered ? What if this goes against the Valve plans of publishing a given set to the store ?) but I think that such a "non-contest" approach to things is worth thinking about.
also for me personaly this chest event idea is so nice because it means we can work together on something. we have a chance to meet new people, work with them - maybe become friends. there have been alot of polycounters telling me that they stopped doing dota2 items because alone they coudnt provide anymore what is needed to do a full set. now with this they see the chance to work together and get back. its just a huge difference if u work on something all alone, or in a team.
if we make a chest of already existing stuff. that "working together" thing would fall off. as well as we would take away peoples chance to get in, because they have not been able to do a set alone in the past time.
Also,"working together" could also mean posting more WIPs in progress threads in general, for more open constructive feedback. A lot of great things can come out of this !
On this :
I don't understand that either. Why don't these artists simply ask for help in their respective threads ? It is just a matter of posting previous work, and openly asking for feedback ... From there connections can be made, and fruitful collaborations can follow !
Yet i don't understand a couple of things...
-Why this should be done in a form of contest and not more like the ward chest, but adding a deadline (cause that one ended up taking 6 months to be ready :P)
-Why there should be a limited pool of heroes to chose from, wouldn't that limit a lot everyone and ultimately, make the chest less interesting?
-In don't understand exaclty what is intended as "group effort" or "working together"...is it referred to many people working on a chest(singularly or in teams), or, teams of more people working on the sets that will compose the chest? and who and how would decide these teams?
OFF TOPIC:
I agree with Pior on this...the possibility of "working together" has always been there, this new chest idea can be an incentive to it, but if people wanted to finish sets that they couldn't finish alone, the "work together" option has always been there since the beginning of the workshop.
Also, beside the recent "particles fashion", the skills required to do a set are the same required to make a single item, the only difference is time, but luckily the workshop doesn't have deadlines, except special events like New Bloom
2. I agree
3.I think by group effort people are referring to getting organized to A, hold the contest, B, work out what goes in it, C create Chest art and any other art (comic's etc) that Valve can use to promote the Chest on their blog.
I see the real motivation for polycount to organize a chest is to bring our artist's up to the same even playing field that tournament or youtube channels have with acceptance rates and hopefully communication with Valve.
-Toasty
This in itself is an issue to me. We cannot do something purely community driven, relying on enthusiastic artists helping each other, while at the same time talking about culling things out. Again, it works perfectly fine when a contest is sponsored/judged by a third party giving prizes of any shape or form (like New Bloom, Chivalry, or the monthly contests here sponsored by Marmoset and Polycount donations to print out the trophies), but as a community effort this would really leave a bitter aftertaste.
As a community we aim to have 6-10 sets + 2 couriers + 2 huds in the bundle. Set the deadline firm and fast <1-3 months, and it will weed out the non-serious teams. Also removed the need for more harsh culling.
-Toasty
Its still in discussion but I think having it as a contest is a really bad idea. Mainly because then it singles people out.
As for a limited hero pool instead lets do general theme like "Chinese New Years" but that's already the call to arms. Maybe "Preparing for the battle".
What I understood from it was that everybody just uses the same thread, posts WIP and gets feedback until the deadline. When we reach the deadline, then we compile all the submissions into a chest (The only people who get revenue for a set are the people who worked on it, instead of all the participants of the project)
On the threads that I look at, there aren't that many people that give feedback and if you do get feed back its usually 1 or 2 people. (from my experience)
I was in favor of culling the worst submissions (if need be) Like submissions that basically have no chance of getting in. (But if we give feedback for those people to improve, they may be able to make something acceptable, then we add it to the list). However, there is also no need to cull if we just group up all submissions at once (option 1).
We could always just put them together at once like shock said. We should explore which options would be best for our current situation.
Number 1 seems the most like community driven content
--In my opinion this seems like the best option, although if there are too many sets we can always try to release early.
Number 2 seems like a competition
--It should only get to this if there are actual prizes but since there isn't I think we should stay away from this option
Number 3 seems like a small community driven content
--It should be aimed if there are a small amount of people working on multiple sets for this project.
also i guess ur right aber the second term, we should not limit our self with anything but allowing all heroes.
ok people have a look, and tell me what u think about those terms:
event start 20.january (cause until then new bloom stuff has to be published already)
event deadline 20.april (so we have exactly 3months time)
goal is to produce hero sets, ward or courier in a friendly and supportive atmosphere
there wont be a limit on the number of people who will be allowed to join this event,
as well as every project that is finished in time will be added to the workshop chest collection.
if valve likes to add our polycount chest, they can decide which submission they wana take in.
as soon as we open the event, we will create a new thread.
in that thread u can sign in to take part. u should write what u can do
(concept, modeling, texture, animation, particles, whatever) and give a link to ur workshop
and /or ur personal polycount thread. so its easier for everyone to find a team.
teams can be one or more persons, i know there are several people out there who are able to produce
a set all alone - u can do that, but it would be nice if u would still team up with anyone
that would push a bit the learning from each other effect. also use the chance and do not team up someone u allways team up^^
use the chance and team up with someone new, maybe someone who u allways wanted to work with - but never had the chance to.
as well as one team should (not must) only focus one project and try to make that as good as possible.
the % revenue share should be choosen inside the team individual to how the work split is. we wont set up anything fix here.
the theme is free.we can still think about a anything,
if u want to. u can build either a set, a ward or a courier.
(maybe u should not pick chen slardar or kotl, since i heard valve doesnt like
to add sets for those heroes atm since they are going get a touchup)
feedback and criticism: i think we should use the thread to show wips (same as it is currently done in the monthly polycount competition).
but we can also use skype groupchat - or google hangout.
if u give feedback to something, plz keep in mind the other guy is also a human with feelings.
try to avoid things like "looks allover shit" but try to give constructive feedback.
what do u think? did i miss stomething? should we add anything other?
This is not going to work. The Deadline is not suitable with Valve's calendar. The date's I proposed are more suitable, believe me.
Also, reading from your feedback here are the updates of my proposal:
- 5th August - 19th September (date remains the same...Believe me with this.)
- Create an item/set/ward/(HUD?) (I don't think there should be a limitation to the creativity level of the event.)
- 6 sets per chest. Wards/Couriers go for the Rare/Extremely-Rare slots. HUDs are all bundled together in 1 chest.
The more we produce the better. Only the bad items are excluded. There is no point in doing a 3 month deadline cuz there are people who can literally flood this thing with sets and there will be artists' team chests, believe me;)
about the huds, sure why not. everyone who wana make a hud can do it
about the limitation of chest, i think it would be better for everyone if we do not produce 2 3 4 5 chests, but one big and then let valve decide. they can take one into game, or split it into 2. or whatever. we are not limiting them.
Right after New Bloom is not going to work.
I'm ok with the one big chest, but not ok with the 1 set per artist/team. This feels stupid. The fact that you cannot compete with some of the other artists should not be hindering their work.
To make this work properly with a deadline so far in the future is to set a theme or a list of heroes. So artists don't work before the working dates start.
Work together and learn from each other? - this is what we already do on this forum.
About voting and judging - we have that system and its called "Steam Workshop" i dont see any reason to look for something different.
From here i see to ways:
1. Something similar to New Bloom: Call a theme, call deadline. Everybody can participate.
2. Create together something massive and unique. Community-driven update as someone called previously. For example i remember Pior showed us concept of Slithereen mega-creeps. Based on thise we can come out with something like "Rise of Slithereens update" with custom mega-creeps, custom base, weather effects, arcana for one of Slithereen-heroes and bunch of sea-themed sets.
Hope this make sense.
I like this idea very much. The update/content should be absolutely professional, no amateur stuff. Sorry, but this is our best chance to get Valve's attention. Having a short deadline will help filter the professionals, too.
I agree with shock, the date is way too long, a lot can happen in a year and people will forget about this.
6 sets per chest might post a problem on who's set goes where.
If there is 12+ sets, it should be split into two, if there are 18+ there should be 3. It'll all depend on the amount of content produced. Having 20 sets in one chest seems a little much.
The difference is that nobody takes revenue from the artist's share other than the parties involved (And if you do want to give something to polycount there's always the 5% that Valve gives.) Also everybody can join (its open, and we should try to bring as many people into this as possible)
I also said that before, this is only a temporary solution since this doesn't really fix the situation it only postpone it
Yeah, I think this is the better option.
i think the rule lets it open that after u have finished a set with ur team u could form a new team with other people and then do another project.
but if u think about it, we are so many polycount artists - the chest should be collection of those different artists. showing each unique facette. and not end up with (i gona use random numbers and names now^^) containing 15sets from different polycount artists and 10sets from "team DNA", only because u may be able to work hell fast. it should be fair. also ofc u are not forced to do only 1 set and then doing nothing for another 3month until the next chest event starts. u can still do ur own *non-chest* stuff besides^^
@theme, i think its about us
we can gather up some theme ideas, and then make a vote themeA vs themeB vs ... vs no theme