Project of the Month, May 2k11 Options

[Harryb412]

\\\Project of the Month///
\\\May///

||| CLOSED |||

\\\Rules:
- Games from Long Demos and Complete Games can be nominated only.
- The full project title with a link to the original project thread is required to nominate.
- You cannot nominate your own project.
- You can nominate a project from Long Demos and a project from Complete Games, but only one from each.
- The maximum amount of nominees is 10, 5 from Long Demos and 5 from Complete Games.
- Previous winners can not be nominated.

\\\Schedule:
- From the 1st to the 10th of the month nominations will be taken in, if all slots are filled voting begins.
- From the 11th to the 24th of the month the votes will be taken in. [done via two seperate polls, one for Long Demos and one for Complete Games, allowing users one vote for each category]
- 25th to the 28th the winner from Long Demos will go against the winner from Complete Games.
- 29th to the end of the month, the winner is announced.

\\\Nominees:
\\Long Demos:
- Twilight Dance - Tsutanai
- Reincarnations - Krosk
- Beneath - St3rnb0rn

\\Complete Games:
- Spellbinder -OriginalWij

\\\Previous Winners:
-Twice Upon a Hero
-Vacant Sky
-Leo & Leah
-The World Is Made Of Paper

\\\Prizes:
- Userbars for runners up and nominees.
- Userbars for winners, along with an automatic entry to Project of the Year.
- A forumwide announcement for the winner.

This post has been edited by Harryb412: May 15 2011, 08:57 AM

[Axerax]

In order to solve the lack of nominations, all that has to be done is to increase the scope of the award a little bit. Rename 'Project of the Month' to include something more broad, such as 'Indie Project of the Month' and instead of limiting nominations to projects only posted on RPG RPG Revolution, reach out a bit and include projects posted anywhere with any engine. However, the nominated project must not be established. This is to prevent nominations for games such as 'Braid' or 'World of Goo' to name two and instead focuses on a.) Newly released Indie games or b.) previously unknown games, then whoever is running IPOTM will contact the one who was nominated and inform them. This will open up hundreds of thousands of potential nominations. Indie flash games, indie commercial games, freeware, etcetc.

This has a few benefits for RRR. The first and most obvious is additional exposure outside of RPG Maker communities, which will bring in additional talented and more robust developers to this community. The second is RPG RPG Revolution will be talked about more outside of RM communities, give every winner and finalist/runner-up a a nicely designed medal image they can display on their site/topics. (Like in commercial games where it frequently lists awards the game has won) Lastly; although unlikely, is if a nominated game ever hits it big like 'Braid' or 'World of Goo' and RRR was involved in it's early success, its fair to assume the developer will hold a special place for RRR, which will increase the odds of them becoming a more long-term and contributing member. You may have noticed the common theme here is exposure.

After looking through the RM categories and reading through this topic, it's fair to assume that relying solely on RPG Maker games has become a bottleneck. Therefore the easiest solution would be to keep the foundation in place, but raise the roof. Turn PoTm into something which can bring in additional developers to the community, additional exposure and increased traffic.

My two cents.

This is a great idea in theory. But will RRR take the time to outsource and inform these websites that nominations are being taken for RRR's PotM by utilizing games from their website? The benefits are as you said, but the reality of such a IPotM like this coming into the light will not occur unless this website is prepared to take those extensive measures to cover their bases to make sure it is ran correctly.

I can agree, if they were invloved in the sucess even I would hold a special thanks for the site in the credits and my heart. Because who wants to forget their roots?

Yes they have become bottle necked, even if we have game maker games. Maybe we should outstretch RRR itself into an Indie Game Development website?

HarryB, I agree with you there. Your numbers will never be the same, it'll be one month (i.e. in the summer) 20 games developed and then another (i.e. in the winter) where you have 4 games developed. Now you've got uneven nomination lists. Good idea in theory, but poor in translation to reality.

[obsorber]

Why not try something new like the best promising game in construction of the month or something. This will be due to presentation of threads and promises in them which have to be proven through display of story, ideas, screenshots and videos that could promote projects in progress to show evidence. In all fairness it is getting rather boring seeing the same projects being nominated all the damn time. Vacant Sky is a prime example. We know it's a good game and one of the best in the community. But we know little about other projects that are in development. I know they are completed games but it can also give other developers WIP to gain some attention and shine too. Then they can either live up to the hype when they are released or fail miserably. This way more members are likely to want to come and join the community.

I truly agree with what Salerius said about its more difficult to release a full game than just to make promises of a good game. Why not just assess the projects in progress due to the amount of proof they have of their supposed quality which can be seen from screenshots, videos, the actual story and the way the thread is presented. This way the community will feel more like they are actual members and feel valued rather than just people constantly giving Kudos to the supposedly dominant projects that always get seem to get chosen.

Just remember something that is very important. A lot of the members may feel discriminated that they cannot rise up the hierarchy to show their skills as a developer because their projects never get the chance to shine so they put less effort into development and rush it just to get attention. I'm not taking sides but the games under construction actually gives the most feedback to players. It's also where most of the developers post their projects.

This post has been edited by obsorber: May 31 2011, 05:17 AM

[Rob_Riv]

In all fairness it is getting rather boring seeing the same projects being nominated all the damn time. Vacant Sky is a prime example. We know it's a good game and one of the best in the community. But we know little about other projects that are in development. I know they are completed games but it can also give other developers WIP to gain some attention and shine too.

Vacant Sky isn't getting nominated all the time. The issue is that projects that don't win that get renominated over and over. Good projects win awards at multiple sites, that's fair. It's not a good argument to say Vacant Sky shouldn't win Project of the Month here because it has won awards elsewhere.

This post has been edited by Rob_Riv: May 31 2011, 07:21 AM

[obsorber]

Vacant Sky HAS won a few times not once. Its just an example so don't go looking into it too much into it. Lets not try and change the subject please. I really don't want a debate over which projects get nominated or whatever I just think the rest of the community should be more open to project of the month.

[Rob_Riv]

Vacant Sky HAS won a few times not once. Its just an example so don't go looking into it too much into it. Lets not try and change the subject please. I really don't want a debate over which projects get nominated or whatever I just think the rest of the community should be more open to project of the month.

It hasn't though. If you're going to make that claim, at least have be specific in how many times Vacant Sky has been nominated or has won Project of the Month on this forum.

This post has been edited by Rob_Riv: May 31 2011, 10:08 AM