Project of the Month, May 2k11 Options

[Rob_Riv]

There would be no need for nominations, it's just a staff pick. When it's just about the end result and not the nominations, there's no need to try to find five every single month.

The issue with that is if developers are annoyed if they aren't nominated because they thought their project is better, or if users thought that different projects deserved the nomination.
Taking it to the userbase meant that we wouldn't have that issue.

I understand your concern, but if you're worried that people are going to think their projects aren't getting enough attention then I'm not sure there's much you can do about it. EVERYONE is ALWAYS going to think their project should win no matter what form the contest is taking, and I can say that from personal experience as a nominee. People are always going to be upset that they didn't win (I know I was), and making the other community members the deciding factor isn't going to change that, it makes the contest about popularity. It doesn't matter who it was that decided their project wasn't good enough, it's the act of judgement that's frustrating. If you're going to have a competition, someone's feelings are going to get hurt. The only way to avoid that is to axe the contest.

People don't all agree that the staff should be making the picks though. The people that are overlooked will likely want to know specific criteria they have to meet in order to get chosen. That's why having the community decide is often the easiest thing to do.

[Axerax]

I just thought I'd throw an idea out there: what if there was an "award", quote-unquote, for completed games and projects with a demo, but every month there would be a few "projects to keep your eye on" or something a little more eloquent. Basically it could offer support to projects in their early stages without the need to directly compare them to completed or further along projects. I feel like it would be hard to "grade" them like the other games without working demos, but in a list form we could still offer attention to up-and-coming developers while encouraging everyone to finish their games.

I like this idea- a "one to look out for" game- shows that it has been noticed and it may encourage a developer to continue.

I like it as well. The one who wins this contest would definitely get recognition, but at the same time the nominations who get picked to be voted upon will get attention as well =)

Rob, the main reason I believe using staff will work better is because take an this into consideration.

If the community picks the nominations, then they will also vote for the same nominations, you basically decide who has won with a good majority since those nominating will also vote for their nominations. Thus you've already rigged the system without knowing it. That's why it's best to let the staff pick them out. They will not be baised simply cause "it's a friend's game" or "it's just popular", but instead they take the time to analyze what game they really want to nominate and then it'll be a true surprise of the nominations.

Contests like most anticipated would work great with a community involvement to the end, because how can you know what everyone else is anticipating, it's an exception to the rule for staff judgement before voting.

Taking the easy route is not always the best route, because at times you need to put effort into making something the better route. Like baking a cake from scratch will always be the harder route as opposed to an out of the box cake mix, but the reward and satisfaction you get from the scratch cake will always outweigh the box cake mix.

I hope that makes sense.

[kaz]

The same issue remains though. If you have a few "projects to keep your eye on" each month, you will run out of active worthy projects.

My reasoning behind it is that people like to have their work bought to attention, this would encourage others to check the thread and maybe offer advice and feedback, This in turn would hopefully result in games reaching completion.

It gives fledgling games a goal to work towards,

We would only need 12 a year - and we have new projects being posted all the time. Maybe if word gets around that the people could get a mention even attract more topics.

[KD648]

People don't all agree that the staff should be making the picks though. The people that are overlooked will likely want to know specific criteria they have to meet in order to get chosen. That's why having the community decide is often the easiest thing to do.

But according to you there aren't enough quality projects to ALLOW a community decision. There appears to be an infinite circle of ideas that aren't going to work.

But, if I'm following your logic, you think staff picks should be avoided and there aren't enough quality projects for five nominations, so you'd prefer a community decision but with fewer nominations? If that's what you're looking for, do you have suggestions as to how to format it?

This post has been edited by KD648: Jun 2 2011, 09:44 AM

[Rob_Riv]

But, if I'm following your logic, you think staff picks should be avoided and there aren't enough quality projects for five nominations, so you'd prefer a community decision but with fewer nominations?

Even with fewer nominations, I would worry that there are not enough quality projects.

[literarygoth]

I really like the idea brought up by KD648, Axerax and others; I also really like the idea of a "project to keep a look out for" type of nomination.

Giving RRR staff control over which projects - for POTM as well as a potential GUC - may very well be a better route.
Allowing the community to choose nominees is a good thing, but not at the same time. As someone else who posted before me said, allowing the community to choose it then becomes a popularity contest. Having the staff choose which projects meet a certain amount of criteria and perceived quality lends more merit to those nominated.
You don't have to completely shut off community input either. You could have the staff select a certain amount of nominees for the month, debate amongst themselves as to which ones the staff really feel deserve to be there, whittle the list down to maybe 2 or 3, then make an announcement in which the community can comment and give feedback/opinions to which the staff can take into account when making the final decision.

I understand what people have said about a lack of quality in the GUC forum. However, most of the developers here are working solo, many are teenagers, working against personal disadvantages (some of us just can't art, some of us just can't script worth a damn). What the community perceives as 'low quality' and 'little effort' may very well be wrong. There are some games that the developer has actually put a lot of effort into personally, but their level of mapping may not be up to community standards and therefore are automatically cut from the list of hopefuls or honorable mentions.
Again, I understand the concerns of those that have said something along the lines of why nominate/reward projects that likely won't be completed. It's a reasonable argument, but on the other hand, why not? There's a lot of threads in GUC that get torn and slashed to bits before the developer can even really get their feet wet so to say. Why have we allowed that to become acceptable? Why can't we offer constructive criticism instead and support new, prospective developers and point them in the right direction? Yes, there's plenty of games in GUC that have terrible mapping, but a half decent story. In some ways, to me at least, we're preventing new developers from being successful by being overly harsh with criticism and that I don't feel is fair in any way.

I also like the idea of expanding nominations to projects posted on other sites. I know it means more work for staff members, but it'd garnish a lot more attention not just for RRR but within the RM community itself.

My 2 cents on the subject.

This post has been edited by literarygoth: Jun 2 2011, 11:52 AM

[KD648]

I suppose that's fair, although if you don't think we have more than one quality project a month we should start seriously considering the value of this site. I'll just put forward one final proposal and then I'll have said my piece.

While it is an incredibly valuable skill to pinpoint the flaws in an idea, no idea is ever perfect. That said, if no ideas were ever acted upon we'd all be sitting around a fire in a cave wearing leopard skins. If we don't eventually put forward something concrete and act upon it, this thread is going to be thirty pages long come December and we will have nothing but a thread about why everyone else is wrong. My suggestion is that we hold a "contest election". Basically, everyone in the community can offer their blueprint of how the contest should be formatted and run. Then at the end of a one or two week submission period, the staff (because they are the ones that will actually run the contest whether the contest itself is a community decision or not) will vote between the different proposals and decide which one is best for the community or if dropping the contest altogether is in the community's best interest. That way everyone has their say and the community will have a solid decision on how to move forward.

As both a suggestion as an example, my idea:

Project of the Month would be a community vote between two categories: three different completed games and three long demos. The projects would be nominated by the staff, and then voted on by the community to decide the winner. Any projects that deserve to be nominated but would be over the monthly limit would be put in a "project backlog" and would be put forward in the slower months where there were less projects. Projects that were nominated, but did not win, could be nominated again but ONLY if the backlog is empty. In addition to the winner of the two categories, a list of one to three under construction that deserve attention would be released in the same thread. Projects under Construction that were over the monthly limit would also be put into a similar backlog to preserve them for slower months. Any backlogged or nominated projects would be notified of their status and are welcome to share that status on their thread.

[Amy Pond]

Or just remove the need for nominations. My game has never been there because it's never been nominated >.> (I know that means it's not worthy, but you said there were lack of completed games to put forward so). You could just put all games released in x month into a poll.

That would be a good idea, but there might be too many projects in one month for a poll.
I'll try to keep a tally of how many new threads are made in one month and we could take it from there?

I thought the issue was that there aren't enough good projects though o.o;

If there are tons of projects, what's the problem? If there aren't enough, just put them all in a poll. If one is better than the rest that's not a problem - it's the project of the month.

[Rob_Riv]

Or just remove the need for nominations. My game has never been there because it's never been nominated >.> (I know that means it's not worthy, but you said there were lack of completed games to put forward so). You could just put all games released in x month into a poll.

That would be a good idea, but there might be too many projects in one month for a poll.
I'll try to keep a tally of how many new threads are made in one month and we could take it from there?

I thought the issue was that there aren't enough good projects though o.o;

If there are tons of projects, what's the problem? If there aren't enough, just put them all in a poll. If one is better than the rest that's not a problem - it's the project of the month.

Your suggestion didn't say good projects though, it said all projects.

This post has been edited by Rob_Riv: Jun 3 2011, 03:14 AM

[Amy Pond]

Indeed, but for project of the month you don't need several good projects, you just need one that is better than the others available. By definition, it is saying "we've looked at the projects available and x is the best".

This post has been edited by Amy Pond: Jun 3 2011, 03:25 AM

[Rob_Riv]

Indeed, but for project of the month you don't need several good projects, you just need one that is better than the others available. By definition, it is saying "we've looked at the projects available and x is the best".

Then that means in a slow month, a terrible project could be selected. You presumably would want all winners to be of a particular standard.

[amerk]

Anyway that you look at it, it'll be biased. If you allow the staff to pick, or the members, there will always be people wondering why they didn't get picked and think favorites are being played. However, monthly does seem quite often, and there are some months that nothing good comes out.

I have one idea, but not sure if it would work as well as it would seem. Instead of monthly, we could do this quarterly (March, June, September, and December), as this would give people more opportunity to fix up and provide quality games (we hope). Those who want to participate for a chance to such fame as having their project nominated must submit their game to the staff by the end of the designated month. The month following would then be used for members and staff to vote (and they can only vote once), and the results would be made known at the end of the month or beginning of next.

So as an example, the designer gets their game submitted for nomination by the end of March. Voting takes place in June. Results of the vote are revealed at the end of June, beginning of July.

Maybe also include some runner up awards as well (if not already included), so people see how close they were. Or post all the results to see who came in first and who came in last. Another thought, what about a raspberry award for worst project of the quarter?

[Brent Murray]

I was thinking about this again the other day and I thought I would try one more stab at throwing in a possible suggestion (even if it's probably been repeated many times by other members here):

What I think we should do is have one project nominated -- weither it be something to look out forward, shows the most improvement, a completed full version game, or a fantastic demo -- each month which is chosen by the staff members of the site which still will be called "Project Of The Month." The only guidelines should be:

* Full version games should generally be chosen over most projects (in most cases), considering that they ARE indeed finished pieces compared to other projects that aren't.

* A game cannot be nominated twice UNLESS the demo was nominated and then the full version game later onwards.

* People can voice their opinions, if they wish, to the site staff, but, in the end, they ultimately choose the final selection.

After the entire year is done, we should then vote for "Project Of The Year!" We should then take all the previous 12 (or less if the demo / full version of a game was chosen in the same year) and have the entire forum vote on that instead of having the staff select the winner.

--

Either way, I'm sure you guys will come up with something that should be fair and balanced. I really like a lot of the ideas that are down, so it really doesn't matter what method you guys decide to try. Either way, can we please bring this back in time for July? That would be cool.

Anyways, that's enough of my two cents on this matter. ^^