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Hero Contest #8 - Poll

NOTICE: This is a Multi (3) Vote Poll; Vote carefully & Post explaining your Vote!


  • Total voters
    21
  • Poll closed .
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Not open for further replies.

Kyrbi0

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Contest Theme: Neutral/Tavern
Contest Style: Joint ~ Custom (Team-made) Resources

What a Contest! Joint Contests are always twice as prone to issues of accidents, hard-drive failures, and the like, so when we had 6 out of 7 total Teams finish, I considered ourselves pretty lucky. Moreover this is perhaps the most successful Joint Contest in recent history. It's looking to be a pretty even fight; lots of good Hero design & creativity! Kudos to all who pulled through and finished, and to those who could not, better luck next time! Our finished Teams are as follows:


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CockroachesInYourPants (HappyCockroach & Quilnez) - Swashbuckler

Dat-S? (Hayate & Dat-C3) - Murloc Fisherman

Proxby-Oh (PROXY & Kyrbi0) - Windlord

Special Ops (A.R. & Tank-Commander) - Silithid Devourer

The Flaming Skull of Waddles (Direfury & KILLCIDE) - Mur'gul Warlock

This is not a Team (Freddyk & Cokemonkey11) - Sea Druid

Download all entries here or below.​


- Download the entries in the attached .Zip below.
- Voting is a Privilege, Not a Right. Please respect the entrants' work.
- On that note, if your ranked Vote does not contain sufficient explanation, it can be removed.


Happy voting!

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DESIGN JUDGE
KamDone! (10.05)

ART JUDGE
MiniMageDone! (12.08)

CODE JUDGE
AGD & PurgeandfireAGD Done! (11.26), Purgeandfire working on it


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Contests at the Hive Workshop are meant to be executed legitimately and equitably. As such they are subject to stringent anti-cheating measures. Any of the following:
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are considered cheating. If you are suspected of cheating, the Staff will get involved. If they are satisfied that you have you cheated, you may be given NEGATIVE REPUTATION, be DISQUALIFIED, be BANNED from future Contests, and perhaps will even get SITE INFRACTIONS.

So please, be respectful & Vote appropriately.


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This Poll ends in approximately Three (3) Weeks from it's official inception & promulgation, ending around Tuesday, November 29th.

Old Poll || Contest || Proposition

(Just recently noticed that I totally spaced on picking a cool splash image for the Contest. Shame on me, lawl.)

(Thanks for your patience everyone. Unfortunately, despite publicly voting on it prior to the Contest, the Staff has decided that we are to abandon the preferential voting style & instead utilize the site's native polling system. I apologize that this took so long to work out, and look forward to some serious voting regardless. : P)
 

Attachments

  • [HC8] Entries.zip
    2.3 MB · Views: 562
Last edited:

Kyrbi0

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Here is a list of all the entrants' Design WIPs posted in the original thread (compiled thanks to KILLCIDE); ooh & ahh over the beautiful BBCode!

Team NameTeam MatesEntry
Special OpsA.R. & Tank CommanderClick
The Flamming Skull of WaddlesDirefury & KILLCIDEClick
This is Not a TeamFreddyk & Cokemonkey11Click
CockroachesInYourPantsHappyCockroach & QuilnezClick
Dat-S?Hayate & Dat-CClick
Proxby-OhPROXY & Kyrbi0Click

~~~

Here are some templates you are free to use in Voting; simply Quote this post and delete the extra stuff, filling in with your Vote.

TABLE

NAME
SUPPORT

NAME
SUPPORT

NAME
SUPPORT

LIST
  • NAME - SUPPORT
  • NAME - SUPPORT
  • NAME - SUPPORT
~~~

If you already voted (or were going to), please just copy & paste to (re)post it here now. If you have any other questions, please let me know! Happy Voting~!​
 
Last edited:

Kyrbi0

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How to vote if you are a contestant?
When you proposed ranked voting, you said our own entry is automatically ranked first.
What about now? are we supposed to vote for our entry + 2 others?
Voting as a Contestant is the same as Voting as anyone else, except for one thing: like all other FPTP (single/multi-vote) polls, it's bad form to put a Vote down for yourself. Unfortunately, unlike with preferential voting, there really isn't a mechanism for not shooting yourself in the foot by Voting (though since you've only given 1 point to up to 3 entries, it's not as bad).

I would just vote as you did (well, after testing PROXY & I's entry, the Windlord, if that makes a difference : D), and when you get the chance, copy/paste your vote (or just re-write it) into this thread. I will be doing the same here soon.
 
Level 37
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Hmm is there anyway you can also link the submissions directly from their posts? It would be a shame to see the BB code work some of the contestants did go to waste.

[IMG]http://www.hiveworkshop.com/gfx/arenabanners/entries.png[/IMG]

[INDENT][table]Team Name[c]Team Mates[c]Entry
[r][B]Special Ops[/B][c]A.R. & Tank Commander[c][URL='http://www.hiveworkshop.com/threads/hero-contest-8-joint-artist-coder.286487/page-7#post-3089524'][B]Click[/B][/URL]
[r][B]The Flamming Skull of Waddles[/B][c]Direfury & KILLCIDE[c][URL='http://www.hiveworkshop.com/threads/hero-contest-8-joint-artist-coder.286487/page-7#post-3089577'][B]Click[/B][/URL]
[r][B]This is Not a Team[/B][c]Freddyk & Cokemonkey11[c][URL='http://www.hiveworkshop.com/threads/hero-contest-8-joint-artist-coder.286487/page-6#post-3088881'][B]Click[/B][/URL]
[r][B]CockroachesInYourPants[/B][c]HappyCockroach & Quilnez[c][URL='http://www.hiveworkshop.com/threads/hero-contest-8-joint-artist-coder.286487/page-8#post-3089677'][B]Click[/B][/URL]
[r][B]Dat-S?[/B][c]Hayate & Dat-C[c][URL='http://www.hiveworkshop.com/threads/hero-contest-8-joint-artist-coder.286487/page-8#post-3089822'][B]Click[/B][/URL]
[r][B]Proxby-Oh[/B][c]PROXY & Kyrbi0[c][URL='http://www.hiveworkshop.com/threads/hero-contest-8-joint-artist-coder.286487/page-8#post-3089821'][B]Click[/B][/URL][/table][/INDENT]
 
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234
I voted, here are a few thoughts about other contestants entries:


1. Favourites (the ones i voted for)

Murgul Warlock:
  • Easy to play, spells are simple.
  • Model is nice and fitting in wc3.
  • Special effects are too similar (especially they are all green coloured), i think it would be better if Ignite looks more like fire (orange) and if mana orbs are blue (common colour for mana).
Swashbuckler:
  • Spells are fun and original, altough i would have liked one more offensive spell.
  • Model is very nice, but could be improved to fit more in wc3.

2. Less favourites (they have things i dislike)

Windlord:
  • Special effects are cool, but spells are too similar in my opinion.
  • I don't really like the model, but that's probably just personal taste.
Silithid:
  • Model is impressive.
  • I don't really like the spells, ultimate is disappointing.

3. Needs more work (feels unfinished and not as polished as other entries)

Murloc Fisherman:
  • Model is okay but texture needs more work (too much plain colour).
  • Sometimes he changes colour when attacking.
  • Spells with hook are not very "fluid".
  • I'm not fond of the spells, but i admit they fit the model very well.
 
Murloc Fisherman:
  • Abilities are implemented a bit buggy and not very finished (tooltips for example).
  • Model, for example the hat, looks good.

Murgul Warlock
  • Solid spells overall, and nice synergy.
  • Model looks good.
  • Some tooltip might look cool when Mana is restored.

Sea Druid
  • The fountain looks sometimes a little bit too small for me.
  • The "Scald" confuses me a bit of how long the duration is. (effect/buff/tooltip are not convergent)
  • The Ultimative spell is really great.
  • No code to look at. That's really bad. I'm sorry for Freddyk.

Silithid Devourer
  • Models looks okay.
  • Spell ideas were fine actually, but I somehow didn't really enjoy all of them.
    The 3rd one was not really passive, it was actually a good active one, too.
    The ultinamate was for me personaly not really matching for an ultimate.
    Others were fine, but not too spectacular.

Swashbuckler
  • Trap should have no collision.
  • Really fantasic hero, I love it.

Windlord
  • Hero looks good for me.
  • I'm a bit confused why the Vortex can be killed.
  • Spells are okay. Some visuals could be better I guess, for example the "unit target" spell has visuals of an AoE spell.
    The Ultimative can get really tricky for the enemy. Maybe even a bit too much. But it's creative.
  • Code could be improved a bit.

====

Many spells are not preloaded and lag on first usage.
I'm not sure why there existed a limitation so not all could do custom icons. I would have prefered it I guess.

My vote goes to The Flaming Skull of Waddles (Murgul Warlock) and CockroachesInYourPants (Swashbuckler).
I would have even considered the Sea Giant eventualy, but being unable to look at code is a no go for me.
 
Level 37
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Wow this contest had amazing entries. This is going to be a good battle :D


Murloc Fisherman

  • The Hero concept is sort of funny to me (in a good way). The giant hook and fishing pole, the hat, and the tiny little clam on his leg really gave it that fisherman and murloc feel. All though, I still feel the texture is a little bland given the very few colors that are very visible on the model itself. Also, the animations ingame do not look all that smooth. Hopefully, the animation problem is because of incorrect Object Editor value data. I personally had trouble with getting the right values on my entry
  • The spell tooltips are extremely lacking, some of them do not even look finished
  • Back on the animation thing, the spell animations did not look right at all. For example, when you cast "Grapple Hook," the caster seems to disappear and reapper quickly and then suddenly appears in the air. Not sure if this was on the coding end or the model end
  • Spell ideas fit the theme of the Hero well, but seemed very buggy. I'm unsure if this was on the model's end or the code

Swashbuckler
  • The model is fantastic. Amazing textures and the animations were on point. All though, with that in mind, I personally didn't think it would fit well in a WC3 tavern
  • The spell ideas and effects fit the pirate / swashbuckler theme almost perfectly. Turmoil has to be hands down one of the best custom spells I have ever seen
  • Overall, great job to both Quil and HappyCockroach. You two know how to work together (;

Silithid Devourer
  • I'm really loving the texture work on this model. Despite it being extremely clean and sharp, it still manages to fit into WC3 quite well. I also really love the spell animations. Leech life has to be my favorite. However, the model itself looks a little weird to me ingame. I'm not entirely sure why, but it might have to do with the fact it looks so low to the ground despite it being so big
  • Everything except Corpse Crusher fit the Hero's theme quite nicely. I wasn't a big fan of Corpse Crusher's effects and overall concept

Sea Druid

  • I had high expectations for a model coming from Freddyk, and I was not disappointed. When I first saw the concept, I thought to myself "How is this going to feel new if it's base model is extremely similar to something already in WC3?" Not sure how you did it, but you nailed it. The eyes of the octopus and ult animation are my favorite things about this model. Great job!
  • The spell fit the theme of the Hero perfectly. Most of the effects for the spells were well chosen. I wasn't a big fan of "Ink"
  • Scald's tooltip seemed pretty lacking to me. The buff also had Red Text, so that confused me for a little bit :p

Windlord
  • Forcing me to use cheats so I can get a Hero and have enough gold + 2nd tier to test out the hero ;_; That was of course until I realized there were quests that told me the commands. You should have just went with the simple route :p
  • I liked the Hero theme and concept. I figured making the Hero look like "wind" would be hard, but I think it looks fine. I really like the touch you did on the walk animation how he puts his hands together :D the Maelstorm animation is also really epic with the Monsoon sound effects
  • The spell concepts are nice, and are indeed very "windy" ;D great job on that. I had some trouble getting to like Fell Gale since affected units instantly teleported to the center. That really killed it for me :/
 

Kyrbi0

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Good to see some thoughtful Voting here, guys! If you haven't already, please don't forget to post a bit about it before the Poll closes, so your Vote can be counted!

Before I start responding/Voting, one quick thing:
Sea Druid
  • No code to look at. That's really bad. I'm sorry for Freddyk.
Is anyone else having this problem?? GhostThruster mentioned something to me about it, but I was waiting for confirmation, since I just attached the one for the previous Poll & I coulda sworn it worked for me then... But then again that was a while ago. :<

======================================

Hmm is there anyway you can also link the submissions directly from their posts? It would be a shame to see the BB code work some of the contestants did go to waste.
It is a shame, but it wasn't a requirement of the Contest, and since the goal of this (& ideally every) Contest is to contest the specifically Contest-related skills, things like 'what the map looks like', 'presentation of the hero', 'ability to test', 'format', 'map-name', and the like were all controlled variables.

I appreciate you going to the trouble of gathering the links, though. : )

I voted, here are a few thoughts about other contestants entries:

Windlord:
  • Special effects are cool, but spells are too similar in my opinion.
  • I don't really like the model, but that's probably just personal taste.
- Thanks, I pretty much did the SFX solo, and while it wasn't my best work (lol 'this is mai 1st model!1'), it got the job done. Mostly.
- 'Too similar'? Like in how they looked, or how they acted?
- Maybe, but I'm just super-jazzed to FINALLY have a fittingly-Heroic wind elemental model. It's been, like, a decade since the Firelord came out, and at least half as long since jigrael made the Tidal Lord.
Don't get me wrong, there are several things I'd like to work with PROXY to see changed about it myself. And hey, you are a pretty decent modeler (lol), so if you get bored & wanna take a whack at it... ; P

IcemanBo said:
Windlord
  • Hero looks good for me.
  • I'm a bit confused why the Vortex can be killed.
  • Spells are okay. Some visuals could be better I guess, for example the "unit target" spell has visuals of an AoE spell.
    The Ultimative can get really tricky for the enemy. Maybe even a bit too much. But it's creative.
  • Code could be improved a bit.

====

Many spells are not preloaded and lag on first usage.
I'm not sure why there existed a limitation so not all could do custom icons. I would have prefered it I guess.
- Killable Vortex? Ah dannae, balance. It's basically a mini-ward-version of the Naga Sea Witch's Tornado, so while it's weird to 'hit & kill air' I figured it was more like a little pseudo-sapient 'air elemental' & that it could be disrupted.
- Targeting Visual? Yeah, I had a fun time figuring that one out; it was an AoE-affecting spell (i.e. sucking in nearby units) but supposed to be unit-targeting (i.e. turn one of their own dudes into a focal point). At first I was either gonna be stuck with one or the other, but then I found that Channel actually let me create the perfect combination; a Unit-Target with an AoE graphic.
I do get how it might've been confusing, though.
- Yeah, the Ultimate was tricky. I'm interested to see what the Judges think about it; I'm very certain it is difficult to balance at the least. Thanks. : )
- Custom Icons? For the same reason there was a limitation on having a custom model, texture, animations, SFX... To provide some powerful constraints & even the playing field for the Artists of the team.
Everyone could make a custom Hero icon, but otherwise yeah. Also I don't know that I communicated this really well, but recolors & other such 'simple' custom icons were perfectly acceptable (though a good hand-drawn one would probably get you more points in the Art department).

Wow this contest had amazing entries. This is going to be a good battle :D
INORITE?

KILLCIDE said:
Windlord
  • Forcing me to use cheats so I can get a Hero and have enough gold + 2nd tier to test out the hero ;_; That was of course until I realized there were quests that told me the commands. You should have just went with the simple route :p
  • I liked the Hero theme and concept. I figured making the Hero look like "wind" would be hard, but I think it looks fine. I really like the touch you did on the walk animation how he puts his hands together :D the Maelstorm animation is also really epic with the Monsoon sound effects
  • The spell concepts are nice, and are indeed very "windy" ;D great job on that. I had some trouble getting to like Fell Gale since affected units instantly teleported to the center. That really killed it for me :/
- What's the 'simpler route'? I always thought most people did the whole "quests log" for the essential info, & many-but-not-everyone does the 'hero testing item' thingie (I've just found it to be really convenient)
- Thanks. Yeah, it was a little tough. The walk animation was my idea, and expertly fashioned by PROXY. TEAMWORK!!!
And I'm glad you liked the Maelstrom animations. Dreadlord anims ended up working really well (thanks PROXY) & I spent waaaay too long trying to get them to play right with the spells he cast (grr), so I'm glad it was worth it.
- Thanks again. About Fell Gale... Meh. I understand the frustration, but it's how the OE works.
 

Kyrbi0

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MY VOTE
Man, some schweet competition in this Contest. Basically just looked at Art and Design, since I don't know Coding & don't really care as much about it anyway. Thus I will divide my thoughts into those categories, with '+', '~', and '-'.

This Contest surprised me; with Neutral Tavern I was expecting more Naga, Goblin, Pandaren, Forsaken, Elementals, etc. But hey, different people; different thoughts. It was quite interesting.
Also in this Contest: a lot of improvements over the previous Contest in terms of 'mistakes not made'. I noticed only a few things:


AoS-ness: This was a Contest to create Heroes for the melee game. This distinction is not always 100% clear; there's some bleed in either direction. However, it was important to this whole endeavor & it informed my vote. There are some elements to a Hero that make it more "AoS-y" or not; tooltips, Proper Name(s), and the like all make a difference, but the biggest one is perhaps:

Comboes vs. Synergies: To be succinct; Breath of Fire & Drunken Haze are comboes. Holy Light & Divine Shield are synergies.
Regardless of whether or not we think one is better than the other, the fact is that Warcraft is pretty strongly a game of synergies and not comboes (which are much more prevalent in AoS's). In fact, in all of Warcraft there are only 2 Heroes that have abilities that reference/combo with other abilities specifically (Pandaren Brewmaster with BoF/DH, and the Tinker with EU). That's less than 10% (of 24 total Heroes).

So while it's clear that there's a precedent (and it can even be argued that, with both "combo" heroes as Tavern heroes the singular best place for a similar Hero is in the Tavern), I looked a bit askance at the following entries:
- Mur'gul Warlock: This was perhaps the lesser offender; it was basically the BoF/DH interaction but done twice (both the fireball & the meteor could ignite the clouds). In a way that makes it both better & worse; the others did more (bad) but at least they did more interesting interactions (good).
- Sea Druid: This was second-worst in my estimation. While Scald was fascinating & creative (an active, one-time-use Engineering Upgrade if you will), it was basically that; affecting all the other abilities (& his attack) in a very "combo-esque" style.
- Silithid Devourer: This was perhaps the worst offender. Not only did each of the abilities benefit from hitting a (previously Stabbed) Bleeder, but the Ultimate buffed them all up like an activated Engineering Upgrade! And one skill was both a passive "consume corpse for mana" combined with an active "throw corpse to damage & AoE slow". Just... So much.

Now I should be clear I'm not saying any of this was "bad hero design"; simply that it was really more fitting to an AoS than the standard melee, and that that was the point of the Contest. Some really creative ground was furrowed here; some of the above would do amazingly well, methinks, in a game like Dota or LoL.

Buff Stacking: A few of you used existing in-game abilities to accomplish the effects of your spells; that's all well & good, except that custom (non-Aura) buffs on abilities do not stack with their originals. :< Stinks.

Complete Hero Glow: This is to you Artists; many of you got the basic "origin" Hero Glow, but not many of you remembered the also-important "chest" and "weapon" Hero Glows; subtle, but they help lend that 'heroic air' to the model as a sort of passive TC 'aura'.


Now onto the stuff.


NAME
ARTDESIGNTHOUGHTS

Sea Druid
22

ART
+OCTOPUS! Just about my favorite animal right there. Great usage of the Unbroken texture; you even did the little 'w' pupil from the Forgotten One! Noice!
+Sea Giant base & In-game textures = Totally fits in-game.
+Nice alternate clothes on the Sea Giant; very regal
+Nice octopus animations; liked how it 'helped' attack and then waved it's arms around during Channel
+LOVE these SFX. From the simple & effective PsyWave to the beautiful Scald, all did more than get the job done; they impressed.
+A little touch, but I loved the little spinning lightning bits around his hand during Stand Ready
+BTNScald was just great; the other in-game icons fit very well.

~The only SFX that confused me was the little ghosts for Psy-beam. Ghosts? He's not stealing their soul, just their brain(waves)...?
~^That, and SpiritOfVengeance.mdx for a Sea Giant Druid? I don't get having red lightning balls for the attack.
~I would've enjoyed seeing some more antics from the Octopus. Not just funny Stand - 3/4/5 anims, but even just slowly blinking one at a time, or squirting some ink behind him...

DESIGN
+Sea Giant... Wasn't expecting that. But it fits; definitely Neutral (for a world that's mostly water, Azeroth's Neutral Taverns sure do have a dearth of Sea Heroes (poor Naga Sea Witch, all on her lonesome). I'd consider Sea Giants too dumb to be Heroes, but the freaky masterminding cephalopod gives it credence.
+Some nice Proper Names; good stuff.
+Spell names were succinct and effective. Poetry.
+Spells were a good mix between magicky-water (Sea Giant) and magicky-Octopus (Octopus). Perfect.
+An activated, one-time Engineering Upgrade (Scald) is quite interesting.
+Not a lot of "moving other units" *looks at own entry* spells, so Geyser was cool; not as crazy as true knockback, but still effective.
+It was neat that there were so many ways to play the Hero; abilities often had multiple modes, further diversified by Scald

~It felt like there was an awful lot of Slowing effects; like, almost everything has a slowing effect associated with it.
~While I lauded the spell names earlier, I can admit to a certain longing for a bit more of a cadence; the first 3 are all one-word, and some two-word spells would've sounded good too (e.g. "Ink Spray" or "Squirt Ink" or "Blinding Ink" or somesuch). Also "Mastermind"... :<

-Despite how interesting Scald was, it facilitated a certain AoS-ness (see above).
-You have (primarily through your tooltips) flaunted once again the Blizzard standards in hero design. Regardless of your personal feelings on the matter, the Contest was specifically designed & explicitly written to feature & promote the Blizzard standard. The fact that this entry was made thus in what was almost certainly an intentional move definitely doesn't win you any points.
-You used Curse for one of your effects; however, custom buffs don't stack.



Mur'gul Warlock
34

ART
+Pretty cool; while I had some strange issue overall, each of the constituent elements was just great. A primitive truncheon, a shell-shield, a Gul'dan-inspired back-spine-rack (with non-human skulls, noice), a cool Lure and a giant toothy maw.
+The animations were where this guy really shined. The "vomit", the "lure", the epic Channeling, the expressive Death, the gaseous Dissipate; good stuff.
+The SFX were also very cool; I didn't notice til I opened them up in Magos but the Noxious Cloud & Conflagrate fireball both have creepy eyes/faces on them. The re-worked Incinerate was nice, and the Cloud was dense & seeming 'choking'. FelwoodRocks.blp for the meteor was neat. The 2nd best was the spinning souls on the Meteor-Channel.
+The style was pretty fitting to the game; in-game textures really helped that.
+The (in-game) icons chosen for this were PERFECT, all the more because they were (3/4) unused as ability icons. Loved it.
+WhirlpoolMissile.mdx was probably my favorite. Having him barf up a sea-ball was just great.

~I had some weird sort of issue with the model as a whole. Not sure what it was. Weird bipedal Mur'gul (except they're mutants anyway...)? Weird loping run? Stiff cape? Unsure.
~There was an awful lot of green on this guy's SFX, and not much else.

DESIGN
+A Mur'gul... Well, it's like another Naga guy, so OK. Like a little brother to the Naga Sea Witch.
+An excellent set of Proper Names; the most of the 5 of you, in fact. : ) +1
+Spell names were solid & interesting. Special mention to "Noxious", "Conflagrate", and "Respite".
+Spells were all reasonably creative; new enough for Warcraft (which is what matters)
+Special mention goes to Dark Respite; quite interesting & well-implemented.

~I just sorta have a hard time seeing a Mur'gul becoming a Warlock.

-In the previous Contest, a big issue was all the Heroes with too many/too simple Direct-Damage (DD) abilities. While this guy was a lot more well-put-together, in the end he has 4 skills: DoT, DD(+DD), passive, DD(+DD). That's simply too much, even if they all act differently.
-The AoS-ness with this one, while tied for "best", was still an issue (see above).



Silithid Devourer
13

ART
+Wow. Just, wow. This was hands-down the best model of the whole Contest (ours included (sorry PROXY)). Just, nearly everything about it. The mesh, the texture, the Portrait... The plethora of normal & spell & Portrait animations (so expressive)... The glut of attachment points for ever conceivable purpose
+Dat hero icon. Best of the Contest, hands-down.
+Dat animated texture! Nothing took this entry from "cool" to "WOW" like seeing that bulging, veinous abdomen pulsating away for the Leech Life ability.
+The icons fit well (a shame you could only find Finger Of Death as "new"). All fit their ability well (Blood Boil could perhaps have been different, unsure)
+Those SFX were solid too; while there was a lot of blood (makes sense, but it's still a lot), the swirly purple thing for Corpse Crusher was hecka siiiiick (even if it didn't make a lot of sense).

~I can barely make a complaint, but if I were to, it might just be a tiny niggling 'eh' about the color-choice. I looked Silithids up, and they can be this garish shade of pinkish-red... But are often a more sanguine (ha) shade of green-ish blue or yellow-ish green or even a nice scarab-y blue-black-green. I just love cool colors. I recognize my bias.

DESIGN
+A pretty interesting set of abilities. Melee-Shadow-Strike, Melee-Heroized-Aerial-Shackles, Passive-Mana-Cannibalize/~Acid Bomb, and a super-Heroized-self-Bloodlust/Unholy Rage. Nothing completely new, but then that's not the point of melee Heroes; often there are spells that mirror or are similar to existing spells (hero-versions of unit spells, of item spells, combinations of them, etc). So in that, you done a great job in my book.
+All the abilities really feel like stuff this guy would do; stabbing things, eating things (alive & dead), coughing up corpses, etc.
+You really created an intriguing style of gameplay with all the interwoven complexity to the abilities.
+A half-passive/half-active ability? Quite unique.

~While I enjoyed the interesting Proper Names, all the '3-word' ones were off; the last word should be capitalized as well (i.e. "Vourg the Ruthless").
~All that mana-regain, while incredibly useful for an otherwise Crypt-Lord-esque hero, seems a bit out of place. I could see him gaining HP or other stats from eating stuff, but mana?

-This was one of the worst for AoS-ness (see above), unfortunately. Soooo much interwoven complexity...
-Speaking of the last bullet in the '~' section: How does hitting a bleeding person with a vomited corpse regain you half the cost of mana for vomiting the corpse in the first place?? A mechanically-sound but aesthetically-unintuitive ability, IMO.



Murloc Fisherman
55

ART
+I really liked the giant fish-hook/fishing rod aesthetic for this guy, along with the hat; both were cool & very Warcraft (GIANT HOOK!!).
+You really went all out, animation-amount-wise; a normal set, a 'steroid' set, and then both sets with 'swimming' versions! Lotta work.
+The "yanked" animations were fun to watch.

~The hero icon has some solid artwork behind it, even if it isn't quite Wc3-y to me. It's positioned just right & is very colorful, but is missing a lot of the hard/sharp edges & contrasts.

-Unfortunately, there's not much more positive I can say about the model. I'm not sure what it is but it just really doesn't feel like a finished Wc3-fitting model to me. Little things like the lack of weapon-hero-glow, or the lack of eyes (makes him seem like a soulless unit rather than a unique hero), the lack of any other adornments (bone necklace? straps of seaweed? Fish basket on his back? Loin-cloth? (ok just saw the seashell on his thigh; more of that!))... But then even big things. The spikes are just, like, huge spikes (seem unnatural, even for a Murloc). The texture is impressive enough being hand-drawn, but I'm not convinced your custom texturing style is a great fit for Wc3 just yet. Practice & study make perfect, of course.

DESIGN
+I liked that you tried to consider all the elements of fishing (trolling the line, reeling in, getting pulled forward, eating your catch) into the Hero's design.
+While the animation got a little buggy for it, I thought the "what did I catch" concept was neat.
+Your team & our team both did a kind of "enemy/ally position manipulation" thing; despite what the tooltips said, both of his 'movement' abilities could be used on enemy or ally, letting me yoink allies closer (or pull me towards them), or yoink enemies into my army (or pull me into theirs). Cool.

~Eat a fish => Go crazy & wreck buildings. Huh?

-This was just not finished. At least when it came to the tooltips, there was just about nothing. I think a line or two per ability? I had no idea what was going on until I clicked buttons & tried things out.
-Worse, some of the information there was was wrong; both the "pull-to" Hook and the "pull-from" Hook could target enemies & allies.
-Speaking of which, while I earlier talked about how interesting it was that he could pull things back & forth (himself & others), I feel like that was... kinda it. The hat-trick was cool enough (gotta have some basic 'dealing (direct) damage', just about every Hero does), but the ultimate was just a weaker/weirder Metamorphosis? Both aestheticallY (purple w/ red spikes & black clouds?) and mechanically (siege damage??).

If you were going to keep the dual "fishing" abilities as they were, I'd have to suggest a few changes:
- "Hat Trick" (make this the 1st ability, like most other DD abilities)
- "Grapple Hook" (make this only target allies, letting him pull himself away to escape)
- "Fresh Bait" (make this only target enemies, letting him yoink a baddie into his own army/melee-range.
= ... Something else. No clue; this guy really needs to have his "Function" (Role, game play, style) nailed down.

And beyond that, making the two 'hook' abilities different enough (perhaps Grapple Hook makes him susceptible to falling damage, or Fresh Bait slowly dragging in the target enemy/dealing damage/slowing (ooh, slowly drag them , letting them move to try & break the catch)...)



Swashbuckler
41

ART
+I liked all the parts you brought together to really amp up the "sellsword" vibe; dashing feathered hat, single-belted-pauldron, buckler, wide sleeves, cool sword, bandana, open shirt, baggy pants... Very cool.
+Most of the animations were great. While perhaps the tiniest bit simple (a swordsman like this I hope for a bit of 'flourish' and grace to his motions), my wife commented on how even the form was correct for his fencing-esque attacks. He felt pretty alive.
+Death anim had him lookin' so surprised... : ) "I... died??"
+I gotta say, dose SFX really made the show. Snare Trap was simple & useful, Persecute (despite the '~' below) was pretty neat & took long enough to 'die' that it actually did show me where the target was, Riposte (on the model, the little circles) was subtle, and Turmoil... Turmoil was just solid awexome.

~The Spell animations were a tad lacking, IMO. They just seemed sorta staid and/or robotic.
~No hero glow on weapon or chest?
~Since Persecute was talking all about 'paint' (even the icon showed a cool paint trail over footprints), I was surprised the SFX was just a reddish powdery cloud. :<

-I feel this doesn't really fit in-game, and the two main reasons are 1) the head & 2) the rest.
-1) The head looks like you just pulled it right out of WoW. Being a custom model, this is then both praise for being an excellent modeler, and anti-praise for this particular setting (a 'made-for-Wc3' Contest).
I get the whole "built-in-Portrait" thing, but somehow other models are able to accomplish that & still have faces that look fine in-game, distance & everything. Ah dannae, maybe it's just me, but it's just glaringly 'off'.
-2) This is a lot less definite/objective, but something about the rest of the model seems... 'off', either for Warcraft, or a Hero, or both. Somehow he just seems too... "Realistic" to me? Ah dannae (again), this is less certain; but in my mind, when you talked about a "rogue Human mercenary", my mind jumped immediately to this piece of work, and trading the guns for a rapier, I was all on board.
He's got some nurnies (enumerated above), but it all looks so... 'Real'. Sorry I can't be more specific. :<
-The custom icons were all fine in terms of artwork, but not in terms of "warcraftiness". Persecute was closest IMO (very cool, I can almost see the paint's liquid shimmer), but Riposte & Turmoil have a weird white line thing.

DESIGN
+Simply put, this was some of the best hero design for this Contest. I use the word 'for' intentionally; while others may have had more comboes, or more "interesting/unique" abilities, or more complex abilities, you created a skillset that epitomizes what this Contest is about: "additions to the standard game"
+^Specifically: None of your spells 'combo' with each other, but nearly all of them 'synergize' with one another. Moreover, each of them was actually pretty unique to Warcraft; while it's more than acceptable to mix-and-match in-game abilities (e.g. what is Drunken Brawler but Evasion & Critical Strike?), you guys took an extra step & really came up with some elegant, creative abilities. With the possible exception of Snare Trap (If I stretch, it could be seen as a Stasis Trap but instead of stuns it gives -MS & miss chance (Tornado + Curse); and then the "cast on units = immediately bound" part too), all of your abilities are new (to Warcraft). You've really opened my mind; I can't wait to try to get those to work in OE/GUI for me in future projects.
+And in addition to that, they aren't just new for the sake of being new; they accomplish his Function (Role). Persecute/Riposte let him properly 'duel' (focus-fire on a high-priority target), and Snare Trap/Persecute let him manipulate combat. Turmoil does the latter, and though it gums up his own Snare Trap/Persecute (at least, trying to cast more), Riposte should work within it & Persecute a priori would really mess dudes up.
+"Swashbuckler" was a solid name. If he was even the tiniest bit pirate-y, I might've also suggested "Corsair" or "Buccaneer". "Sellsword" maybe. But "Swashbuckler" was great, very vivid.
+Loved the Proper Names. All of them were great.

~I kinda feel like 5 seconds for an Ultimate is a little underwhelming. But hey, balance; it's a numbers game. Testing will tell.
~Although I've talked it up, I kinda feel iffy on Snare Trap; mostly from an aesthetic perspective. It's not 100% weird (which is why this is a '~' rather than a '-'), but it feels like he's a real bar-room brawler/duelist hero, and then Snare Trap is all "lolwut WoW Hunter". I'm not quite sure what could go there; would have to give it more thought.
~While he doesn't have any Direct Damage ability (and more than 75%-90% of in-game Heroes do), there are a select few (e.g. Shadow Hunter) that don't. This guy makes up for it.

-You used Curse, Soul Burn, and Slow; unfortunately custom buffs do not stack.


I did these in reverse-alphabetical order of the Team Name, so I could do my best to be impartial. And so, with all that being said, that leaves my current vote looking something like:


1
Sea Druid

2
Swashbuckler

3
Silithid Devourer


4
Mur'gul Warlock

5
Murloc Fisherman

I plan to do some more testing, and reserve the right to change my vote around before the end as necessary. However, I'm not sure I will change much; when I ranked each entry on it's Art & Design separately (1-5 pts) and then weighted them (30%/70% respectively, 'cuz Design is all that & a bag of chips), this is what I came up with & it seems pretty accurate to my feelings.



... this was my "quick vote" :<...
Dudes/Dudettes, this is not an example of how much you have to write (lol).
 
Level 22
Joined
Sep 7, 2013
Messages
234
Before I start responding/Voting, one quick thing:
Sea Druid
No code to look at. That's really bad. I'm sorry for Freddyk.
Is anyone else having this problem?? GhostThruster mentioned something to me about it, but I was waiting for confirmation, since I just attached the one for the previous Poll & I coulda sworn it worked for me then... But then again that was a while ago. :<
That is because Cokemonkey used an external tool named wurst to make his code.
So you don't have anything to look at in trigger editor, since the map contains only the compiled code.
If you know wurst, Kyrbi0 and I have the source files.
 
If you know wurst, Kyrbi0 and I have the source files.
The issue for me is that providing the compiled code is not sufficient at all. The source file was attached at his entry, but it was protected.
There is/was a password, which was never shared publicly though, so noone had even chance to properly judge code. For me, this was a big criterium when voting.
 

Cokemonkey11

Code Reviewer
Level 29
Joined
May 9, 2006
Messages
3,515
  • No code to look at. That's really bad. I'm sorry for Freddyk.
I would have even considered the Sea Giant eventualy, but being unable to look at code is a no go for me.

Is anyone else having this problem?? GhostThruster mentioned something to me about it, but I was waiting for confirmation, since I just attached the one for the previous Poll & I coulda sworn it worked for me then... But then again that was a while ago. :<

Hello all,

First of all, huge apologies for not having this communicated better, sooner. I was away on holiday, then started work, moved home, went on another holiday, and only now have internet set back up. I would be lying if I said even now that I'm actually back.

The code for Sea Giant has been public since the contest's close:

Cokemonkey11 / hc8-sea-druid / source / — Bitbucket

Here you can also find a detailed, time-stamped history of all changes to our entry:

Cokemonkey11 / hc8-sea-druid / Commits — Bitbucket

If anyone has any issues accessing this I'm happy to make it available on GitHub as well.

The passphrase for the original archive's submission was also meant to be publicized:

JASS:
doubtful antelope

I apologize that it wasn't!

Regarding the following, @IcemanBo :

The issue for me is that providing the compiled code is not sufficient at all. The source file was attached at his entry, but it was protected.
There is/was a password, which was never shared publicly though, so noone had even chance to properly judge code. For me, this was a big criterium when voting.

Just want to clarify that although the map contains a compiled war3map.j (pure jass) script, it isn't protected. Rather, the wurst code that implements the hero was never in the map (during or after implementation) in wurst form.


-----

On the Entries:

I feel compelled to point out that every entry in this contest was rather impressive. This has probably been one of the highest quality contests, in terms of submissions, that thw has ever had.

In the interest of time, my opinions on each submission will just be a set of "goods", "bads", and "overall". For submissions with lots of issues, I try to highlight my main concerns. For submissions of very high quality the goods might focus on the harder to achieve, and the bads on more nitpicks. In other words, please don't let the number of goods/bads highlighted discourage you!

In no particular order:

Murgul Warlock:

good:

sentry ward as weapon is cute, creative, and consistent.

mostly healthy, straightforward abilities with easy optimise patterns

bad:

black and white anti-pattern for ult. acceptable in wc3 in my opinion

not the best visual/audible feedback for passive, nor for the qw bonus effect

bonus effect of ult isnt particularly valuable, basically just a forced interaction

passive is ridiculously hard to balance at high level of play

overall:

Nice hero, does a good job of keeping simple and this helps to avoid traps/anti-patterns. the few mistakes are acceptable in the context of wc3. design is a little tired, and a niche is not really filled.

3/5 (Good)

Fisherman:

good:

unique theme

E boomerang hat is a thematically good design

bad:

flickery/awkward animations

terrible tooltips that dont give me a sense of balance or design

QW abilities are cute but pretty much worthless for me to spend time thinking about

Ult's changed attack type is unhealthy/optimisation mismatch; there exists much better options

overall:
still requires 3-4 iterations of refinement. bait is really quite overpowered at a design level. needs refinement.

2/5 (Poor)

Silithid:

good:

beautiful model which was almost flawless

individually, interesting abilities with character, use cases, and thematic interest

implementation appears pretty flawless

bad:

model profile animation flashes red/pink skin tones during ultimate

during ultimate, weird in-game sound plays periodically (arrow release?)

some of the ability interactions are quite arbitrary, and unfortunately doesn't really feel like it leaves the hero to fill a particular design niche

The ultimate is a nice start but severely lacks refinement. It makes a burst fighter more bursty, but use cases dont really match gameplay

There are many more nits related to abilities and ability interactions

overall:

raises the bar for this contest, both in terms of art and implementation. design is above average. Needs some refinement to find its gameplay style but the only thing left in this category is the difficult stuff. I have trouble reviewing this because I know there are massive high-level issues, and yet you've really taken care of the small things, so I appreciate the work here.

4/5 (Great)

Windlord:

good:

lovely, unique ability concepts, and as always from kyrbi0, risky.

very nice model and use of effects, if a little incoherent.

lovely E ability both in design and in implementation

bad:

very underpowered ult. you could have done so much here, in particular with ability synergy... I think I might have missed something here, because the tooltip seems more fancy than what's actually happening?

buggy/glitchy looking implementation on q

wrong target-image used for q

w ability is basically just sea witch's ult. I feel that, given your only constraint was "wind", you could have done so much more here - even with your (arbitrary) "no-combos" constraint.

overall:

I really think you could have gone back to the drawing board for the W ability. The ability implementations lack refinement, I guess because you're still using GUI. Ult really needed some additional interaction (combos arent bad! combos are a design tool that fits in the umbrella of synergy. simple combos are sometimes better than none at all). But overall your reputation has preceded you on design uniqueness. Never change that!

3/5 (Good)

swashbuckler:

good:

gorgeous model

icons are appropriate in wc3

Snare and persecute aren't overdone concepts and are implemented nicely

bad:

model is better than average, but not great, in terms of wc3 styling

snare is overpowred - a level 1 swashbuckler can easily solo green creep camps with minimal micro

persecute's implementation, although works very nicely, suffers from awkward gameplay control due to implementation

riposte is totally overpowered in dueling against other duelists. good design doesn't fight fire with both napalm and a fire extinguisher at the same time

ultimate lacks refinement. it's a cool idea in the context of wc3 but needs healthier counters and more reliable behavior.

A sword-wielding duelist really is not a needed concept in wc3

overall:

My bad list is much longer than my good list, but actually this hero does loads of things right, and I appreciate that you were risky with the design.

3/5 (Good)

-----

@Kyrbi0 can you please clarify how I'm meant to vote? Should I just leave 1 tick for my own hero, or are we (participants) meant to cast 3 votes for others?
 

Kyrbi0

Arena Moderator
Level 44
Joined
Jul 29, 2008
Messages
9,477
so noone had even chance to properly judge code. For me, this was a big criterium when voting.
Well if we're talking Judges, I don't recall any of them having an issue; I think I might have given them

Cokemonkey11 said:
@Kyrbi0 can you please clarify how I'm meant to vote? Should I just leave 1 tick for my own hero, or are we (participants) meant to cast 3 votes for others?
Quoted below from here:
Kyrbi0 said:
Voting as a Contestant is the same as Voting as anyone else, except for one thing: like all other FPTP (single/multi-vote) polls, it's bad form to put a Vote down for yourself. Unfortunately, unlike with preferential voting, there really isn't a mechanism for not shooting yourself in the foot by Voting (though since you've only given 1 point to up to 3 entries, it's not as bad).
...

~~~

On the Entries:

I feel compelled to point out that every entry in this contest was rather impressive. This has probably been one of the highest quality contests, in terms of submissions, that thw has ever had.
I'm glad to hear it. This was a pretty good Contest turnout.

Cokemonkey11 said:
Windlord:
Ooh, I've been waiting for this. : )

Cokemonkey11 said:
lovely, unique ability concepts, and as always from kyrbi0, risky.
...
But overall your reputation has preceded you on design uniqueness. Never change that!
Lol, I'm flattered & a bit surprised. I didn't know I had a reputation for 'risky uniqueness'. Or are you just straining to put a good spin on it? ;P Either way, thanks.

Cokemonkey11 said:
lovely E ability both in design and in implementation
Thanks. My original design had that as the ultimate, but then I replaced it with the (hopefully cooler) "nydus canal storm". I was going to discard it but after bouncing ideas around, the thought came up: "why not Zoidberg both?"

It was tricky to balance; I wanted something powerful enough to warrant changing, but removing his attack was (to some) not a big enough loss to warrant the invulnerability (to ranged). It was also hard not to keep adding things (ooh, he could move fast LIKE THE WIND, and have better mana regen LIKE THE WIND, and redirect projectiles LIKE THE WIND! etc)

Cokemonkey11 said:
very underpowered ult. you could have done so much here, in particular with ability synergy... I think I might have missed something here, because the tooltip seems more fancy than what's actually happening?
...
Ult really needed some additional interaction
AUGH! My nemesis... Underpowered ultimates. :<

I knew this was a problem I've had, going in, so I actively worked against that. Shucks. So wait, insta-twitchfast-across-the-map Teleporting (with an anti-ranged aura & lightning (<- against my better judgement)) isn't overpowered? Hm.

Hm, synergy... Well there was meant to be a strong synergy with Stormform (E) (in a way, Stormform is a ranged-denier for himself personally, while Maelstrom is a ranged-denier for 'everyone else' in an area; enabling Stormform & then activating Maelstrom makes for universal ranged-denial), but I can see how there might be less synergy with the others.

Tooltip? It's been too long, I've forgotten what I wrote. Whatever it was, I'm sure it was the pinnacle of modern English literature. ;P

Cokemonkey11 said:
buggy/glitchy looking implementation on q
Talking about the 'instantaneous' motion? Yeah, like I was telling KILLCIDE, just an artifact of the OE. I would have next-to-no idea how to actually code that, lol.

Cokemonkey11 said:
wrong target-image used for q
Yeah, like I was telling IcemanBo, I had a fun time figuring that one out; it was an AoE-affecting spell (i.e. sucking in nearby units) but supposed to be unit-targeting (i.e. turn one of their own dudes into a focal point). At first I was either gonna be stuck with one or the other, but then I found that Channel actually let me create the 'perfect' combination; a Unit-Target with an AoE graphic.
I do get how it might've been confusing, though.

Cokemonkey11 said:
w ability is basically just sea witch's ult. I feel that, given your only constraint was "wind", you could have done so much more here - even with your (arbitrary) "no-combos" constraint.
...
I really think you could have gone back to the drawing board for the W ability. The ability implementations lack refinement, I guess because you're still using GUI.
Hm. I was going for simplicity & strict uniqueness, but I can see that it might've been too simple. Thoughts?

(didn't even use GUI for Vortex (W); it's straight-up Object Editor goodness. Mmmm)

Cokemonkey11 said:
I feel that, given your only constraint was "wind", you could have done so much more here - even with your (arbitrary) "no-combos" constraint.
It's an interesting point. You are correct that "wind" was the foundational concept. I tried to do what I usually do (& what you counselled others in the last Contest) & feature two separate 'characteristics' to make a more complete/robust design.

I ended up focusing on "wind" as a moving agent (i.e. both 'wind moves things' and 'wind is itself mobility') & "wind" as a ranged disrupter (i.e. knocking projectiles out of the air, etc). Hence came the abilities:
-Fell Gale: mobility (enemies)
-Vortex: mobility (enemies)
-Stormform: anti-ranged (for self) & mobility (for self)
=Maelstrom: anti-ranged (others) & mobility (allies)

Looking back, I may have over-emphasized mobility... Though to be fair, I was already worried I was over-doing the 'ranged disruption' for the standard melee setting (even granted that's what became his "thing"). Food for thought.

Cokemonkey11 said:
(combos arent bad! combos are a design tool that fits in the umbrella of synergy. simple combos are sometimes better than none at all).
Well, good thing I never said combos are bad. : )
Kyrbi0 said:
AoS-ness (Comboes vs. Synergies): To be succinct; Breath of Fire & Drunken Haze are comboes. Holy Light & Divine Shield are synergies.
Regardless of whether or not we think one is better than the other, the fact is that Warcraft is pretty strongly a game of synergies and not comboes (which are much more prevalent in AoS's). In fact, in all of Warcraft there are only 2 Heroes that have abilities that reference/combo with other abilities specifically (Pandaren Brewmaster with BoF/DH, and the Tinker with EU). That's less than 10% (of 24 total Heroes).

So while it's clear that there's a precedent (and it can even be argued that, with both "combo" heroes as Tavern heroes the singular best place for a similar Hero is in the Tavern), I looked a bit askance at the following entries:
...

Now I should be clear I'm not saying any of this was "bad hero design"; simply that it was really more fitting to an AoS than the standard melee, and that that was the point of the Contest.
...
Ah dannae. It might just be a point of difference between us, but while a Tavern hero is probably the most likely place for this kind of thing, I just don't feel the 'combo-love' in Warcraft 3 (not to mention they are a bit more difficult to do without hand-coding the abilities). I'll admit I don't have the highest view of combos; to me they are a bit of a heavy-handed way to accomplish a sense of synergy in the ability-set. It's not bad, just... ham-fisted. Inelegant.

Synergies are like poetry, or parables; outwardly straightforward but inwardly nuanced, with characteristics & interactions that only reveal themselves with further study & usage.

Combos are barbarians; Synergies like ballerinas.

~~~

Cokemonkey11 said:
A sword-wielding duelist really is not a needed concept in wc3
Waaaat? I mean sure the Demon Hunter & Blademaster kinda do that, but the former is a demonically-empowered elf with warglaives and the latter a samurai-inspired orc with a giant katana. Boiled down to brass tacks they are essentially the same, but thematically & aesthetically they're worlds apart.

Ah dannae, I thought it was high time Warcraft get a "rogue-ish Human swordsman" type.

Cokemonkey11 said:
...(Mur'gul Warlock)
black and white anti-pattern for ult. acceptable in wc3 in my opinion
...(Silithid Devourer)
some of the ability interactions are quite arbitrary, and unfortunately doesn't really feel like it leaves the hero to fill a particular design niche

The ultimate is a nice start but severely lacks refinement. It makes a burst fighter more bursty, but use cases dont really match gameplay
...(Swashbuckler)
riposte is totally overpowered in dueling against other duelists. good design doesn't fight fire with both napalm and a fire extinguisher at the same time
I wouldn't mind hearing more about what you meant here, too; if you have time.
 

Cokemonkey11

Code Reviewer
Level 29
Joined
May 9, 2006
Messages
3,515
@Kyrbi0

I knew this was a problem I've had, going in, so I actively worked against that. Shucks. So wait, insta-twitchfast-across-the-map Teleporting (with an anti-ranged aura & lightning (<- against my better judgement)) isn't overpowered? Hm.

Hm, synergy... Well there was meant to be a strong synergy with Stormform (E) (in a way, Stormform is a ranged-denier for himself personally, while Maelstrom is a ranged-denier for 'everyone else' in an area; enabling Stormform & then activating Maelstrom makes for universal ranged-denial), but I can see how there might be less synergy with the others.

Okay, I fiddled with this ult for about 30 minutes before I figured out what it
actually does. I see now that those active abilities on the maelstrom are for
using dark summoning to/from the caster. The reason why this isn't "overpowered
insta-twitchfast-across-the-map teleporting" is because:

* It only works on allied units, which the tooltip doesn't specify
* The caster has to channel the ability, meaning that you can't change the
waypoints more dynamically after casting
* The caster has only like 700 range on the maelstrom ability, and quite small
range for the aoe as well. This leaves you with really very limited use cases
* The anti-ranged isn't synergy, it's more or less just "dumb". He already has a
powerful anti-ranged ability, and ranged units aren't even overpowered. Instead
of providing the hero with useful defensive characteristics that react to his
environment, you just give him two point and click abilities that nuke a third
of the units in the game. I realize you were trying to be thematic here.
* Lightning damage is severely limited compared to abilities like starfall.

When I suggest adding more synergy with other abilities, I'm more or less saying
that you could have done more. Here are a couple example ideas:

* Make the maelstrom convey work on enemy units. Then you have an interesting
combo of using Q on units to push them into the maelstrom/caster, then using
convey. You'd have to make the ult non-channeling first.
* Give the ult more range, and make it have only forward-direction convey. This
removes the weird use case where you pull allied units out of battle to a hero
that's not fighting, and adds the use case where you launch a surprise attack
* Make the convey ability move between the W and R tornadoes instead of the
hero. This naturally adds more range to the convey, and make the target more
dynamic since the W tornado can move.

Talking about the 'instantaneous' motion? Yeah, like I was telling KILLCIDE, just an artifact of the OE. I would have next-to-no idea how to actually code that, lol.

I dunno, better just not do it then. As you can see from the rest of your
abilities, you can make good looking stuff with OE only. Stick to that stuff or
learn how to code.

Hm. I was going for simplicity & strict uniqueness, but I can see that it might've been too simple. Thoughts?

I don't really feel like the W ability adds much to his kit at present. The
problem is that the CC is unreliable. I think you could have fiddled with the OE
to make this more interesting - for example making the CC more reliable.

I ended up focusing on "wind" as a moving agent (i.e. both 'wind moves things' and 'wind is itself mobility') & "wind" as a ranged disrupter (i.e. knocking projectiles out of the air, etc). Hence came the abilities:
-Fell Gale: mobility (enemies)
-Vortex: mobility (enemies)
-Stormform: anti-ranged (for self) & mobility (for self)
=Maelstrom: anti-ranged (others) & mobility (allies)

This is a fair point, and the thematic consistency is pretty apparent. A few
thoughts:

* When mobility is not the primary interactive effect (i.e. it's passive or
aoe over time and almost passive), you expect the value of the more active
component (i.e. hard CC) to be either the primary use case or the more apparent/
fun one. W and R struggled here while Q and E were more explicit.
* Anti-ranged isn't a healthy ability theme around which to base a hero. Such a
balance-limited thing should be either a secondary effect or a skill/timing
based effect - in other words, don't make your hero say "fuck everything around
me that's not melee" because that's not really viable in melee wc3.
* I realize you really want to be unique, but sometimes just "wind damage" is a
more fun central theme than something like anti-ranged.

while a Tavern hero is probably the most likely place for this kind of thing, I just don't feel the 'combo-love' in Warcraft 3 (not to mention they are a bit more difficult to do without hand-coding the abilities). I'll admit I don't have the highest view of combos; to me they are a bit of a heavy-handed way to accomplish a sense of synergy in the ability-set. It's not bad, just... ham-fisted. Inelegant.

Did it never strike you as odd that the newest heroes (tavern) have the most
combo love? :) Blizzard wasn't always the perfect beast in terms of design. See:
Blademaster.

I totally understand your feeling that Combos are ham-fisted. The design goal is
to make them feel *not* ham-fisted. My example above of making R effect enemy
units is a more natural combo with Q, rather than an explicit combo ("If you use
Q ability, all units near the maelstrom are affected by convey" would be a
ham-fisted approach). Food for thought.

Waaaat? I mean sure the Demon Hunter & Blademaster kinda do that, but the former is a demonically-empowered elf with warglaives and the latter a samurai-inspired orc with a giant katana. Boiled down to brass tacks they are essentially the same, but thematically & aesthetically they're worlds apart.

Ah dannae, I thought it was high time Warcraft get a "rogue-ish Human swordsman" type.

I don't mind him that much, but I think admiral proudmore/arthas are swordsmen.
I also think that wc3 tends to prefer more unusual designs (an orcish samurai?)
rather than classic LotR/DnD style characters (a bard). If I was that team I
would have pushed for a bandit hero, maybe with a spear or pike, but that's just
me.

I wouldn't mind hearing more about what you meant here, too; if you have time.

Really quick version because I don't have time :p

...(Mur'gul Warlock)
black and white anti-pattern for ult. acceptable in wc3 in my opinion

Ult either hits hard or fails completely, which means that necessarily either
the user is frustrated or the target is frustrated. For the skillshot part it's
okay because there are techniques both players can use to prevent/focus the
skillshot. For the interrupt component, not so much. Getting stunned/hexed every
time you use your ult will be painful and hard to make fun. Bottomline: there
might be other ways to improve it.

...(Silithid Devourer)
some of the ability interactions are quite arbitrary, and unfortunately doesn't really feel like it leaves the hero to fill a particular design niche

This one really needs a lot of talking so I should probably come back to it. I
see a lot of potential niches/combos the hero could do, for example big ranged
slow followed by chasedown + hard CC. But I see redundancy in that the two hard
CC components (QW) are otherwise a bit awkward to use in parallel. Imagine if
mountain king had 2 storm bolts - that's similar. I also see that the ult breaks
this nice use-case because you never have time to ult before casting slow and
performing your chasedown - ult has a cast animation. I also see him as a
bruiser - a tanky fighter that lasts longer as he sticks to his opponent. In
other words, the hero tries to last longer by sacrificnig hp/second, in return
using more abilities (including hard cc) and ideally dealing more damage. The
issue I see is that the effects of his ult make his abilities stronger/have more
impetus - but that's not his issue. He already has overpowered levels of CC.
What he needed was healthier bruiser properties (lifesteal, armor, magic
immunity, that sort of thing).

In other words, I think he interesting components but they're branching in
different directions and he needs refinement - but the stuff that's left is the
hard stuff so I empathize with the designers.

The ultimate is a nice start but severely lacks refinement. It makes a burst fighter more bursty, but use cases dont really match gameplay
...(Swashbuckler)
riposte is totally overpowered in dueling against other duelists. good design doesn't fight fire with both napalm and a fire extinguisher at the same time

Ult doesn't really work properly against AI. Riposte stuns (punishes) people for
attacking him. Better ult design could take legion commander ult from dota as
reference. Better riposte design could take fiora riposte design for reference.

(Sorry, I've run out of time)
 

Kyrbi0

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FYI

Thanks to KILLCIDE's tireless work, we now have a Coding Judge(s). With a full complement of Judges, we are all set to receive their input (hopefully) by the end of the Poll. Let's all wish AGD & Purgeandfire luck. : )

~~~

*see Cokemonkey's post*
*cracks knuckles again*
 

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~EDIT~
Please feel free to ignore the essence of this Post. The Staff has requested that there not be a posting/explanation requirement to Voting, and I am in no position to argue. Please feel free to Vote and to post; I would definitely encourage it. As Host, it's good to see traffic & discussion, & as a Contestant I love to know what you thought of my hero, how it matched up (good & bad) against the others. Thanks again!

~~~

POLL STUFF


So hey ya'll. It's about the 2/3rds mark of this Poll; one more week left. I am double-posting because it has come to my attention that there is a decent discrepancy between the number of Voters & the number of Voter posts.

As seen clearly at the top of the thread:
NOTICE: This is a Multi (3) Vote Poll; Vote carefully & Post explaining your Vote!
and also in the first post:
- Voting is a Privilege, Not a Right. Please respect the entrants' work.
- On that note, if your ranked Vote does not contain sufficient explanation, it can be removed.
It's important that every Voter provide some bare minimum of support for their Vote.

~~~

Currently, only @Hayate, @Freddyk, @IcemanBo, and myself have done so
(@KILLCIDE & @Cokemonkey11 have posted, but surprisingly haven't Voted??... You went to all that work to review; don't forget the actual Voting! : D)... Looking at the current Votes for people who have also posted:


rapier wit:
3

fishy mchatterson:
0

wooshy blowhard:
1

sir buggy eatsalot:
2

fishy fireface:
2

octobrain:
2

~~~

So this is the
for the rest of you!
@Emm-A-
@Lord_Earthfire
@Sin'dorei300
@istvan921
@Sylvie
@General Frank
@Quilnez
@Callahan
@stein123
@Aleister
@Recklessness
@dell
Please find the time to Post! We look forward to your thoughts. : )
 
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Kazeon

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Kyrbi0

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Well he asked you how to vote :)
Sure... And the very next post is mine, where at the top I said:

Cokemonkey11 said:
@Kyrbi0 can you please clarify how I'm meant to vote? Should I just leave 1 tick for my own hero, or are we (participants) meant to cast 3 votes for others?
Quoted below from here:
Kyrbi0 said:
Voting as a Contestant is the same as Voting as anyone else, except for one thing: like all other FPTP (single/multi-vote) polls, it's bad form to put a Vote down for yourself. Unfortunately, unlike with preferential voting, there really isn't a mechanism for not shooting yourself in the foot by Voting (though since you've only given 1 point to up to 3 entries, it's not as bad).
...

Quilnez said:
I'm a week away from final exams so I don't have the time to vote & review all these stuffs.
Hey, similar boat here (~2 weeks), which is why I tried to get it done early. So, what, did you just Vote on how they looked or something?
 

Kazeon

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I didn't remember I voted xd

Fine then! Well, actually I did a quick look on every entry and I have small thoughts for them that's why I can vote. But I'm not sure it's sufficient. And again, this is only based on quick look I did when the contest was over.

- Silithid Devourer: not so melee-ish, the hero requires too much attention from player, which makes it harder to micro-manage the other units. The animation is superb tho!

- Wind Lord: (believe me I also suggested my teammate to do this hero before xd) Even tho the model is total badass, (maybe I'm wrong bcs I'm not a lore nerd) but your hero isn't well fitting in Wc3 lore. I mean, what faction/race is it from? I mean, swagbuckler -> bandits, sea druid -> sea giants, etc. But I'm not sure about yours. And the skillset is too thematic: wind, wind, wind, wind, aka clumsy. Which doesn't fit melee maps that well.

- Murgul Warlock: the skillset is very interesting but the icons chosen are too similar (in color) which isn't very melee-ish, not a big deal tho.

- Sea Druid: I like this hero the most out of all other entries. The spells are simple, very well varied, and not clumsy at all: totally melee-ish. Except, for the ulti tho. The concept feels a bit awkward because I can't feel the synergies between brain-sapping, slowing target, and empowering allies :/

- Murloc Fisherman: very murloc-ish and the model is nice. Too bad the skill set is a bit buggy.

My votes only go to Murgul Warlock and Sea Druid actually, because those two are the most melee-ish. But I thought voting 3 entries is a must, so I have to choose between Wind Lord and Silithid Devourer. I chose Wind Lord because, well, the devourer doesn't feel melee-ish at all to me.
 

Kyrbi0

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That's great; thanks!

~~~

But I thought voting 3 entries is a must, so I have to choose between Wind Lord and Silithid Devourer. I chose Wind Lord because, well, the devourer doesn't feel melee-ish at all to me.
Well, you didn't need to vote for 3, but why not? So many good entries; personally it was hard to decide. : )

Quilnez said:
- Wind Lord: (believe me I also suggested my teammate to do this hero before xd) Even tho the model is total badass, (maybe I'm wrong bcs I'm not a lore nerd) but your hero isn't well fitting in Wc3 lore. I mean, what faction/race is it from? I mean, swagbuckler -> bandits, sea druid -> sea giants, etc.
...
Yeah, it's not like Blizzard ever added any kind of Elemental Lords to their Tavern roster...
firelord.gif

*cough*

Wait, you aren't sure how it fits in the Lore but you were going to suggest it to your team-mate too??

Quilnez said:
But I'm not sure about yours. And the skillset is too thematic: wind, wind, wind, wind, aka clumsy. Which doesn't fit melee maps that well.
Huh. Fire, Fire, Fire, Fire?

~~~

Lol. Anyway, thanks for your thoughts.
 
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- Sea Druid: I like this hero the most out of all other entries. The spells are simple, very well varied, and not clumsy at all: totally melee-ish. Except, for the ulti tho. The concept feels a bit awkward because I can't feel the synergies between brain-sapping, slowing target, and empowering allies :/
Well, that was hard to write a tooltip for such a complex spell, not too long, with all gamedata numbers and at the same time a description that sounds good...
What I had in mind when designing this ultimate spell with Cokemonkey, is that the Sea Druid steals the combat skills of enemies (which makes enemies worse warriors for some time) and then redistribute this knowledge to allies (which makes allies better warriors for some time).
 
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hey guys,

so the thing is, I wanted to participate in the voting but then it was very hard to decide, and I did not have any elaborated feedback explaining my choice, despite that I checked out everything, even looked into the code.

well, in the end, my voting was really simple: I liked the Swashbuckler the best, because of this "brawl" model so much. I excluded the murloc fisherman, because tool-tips were lacking and the sea druid because I could not look at the code in the editor. The Silithid Devourer was too close to the wc3 spiders, so at this point I thought, well we got 3 heroes left, and that is how I voted. The 3 remaining heroes, I actually liked them better (I thought the whole design was polished more) than the excluded 3 ones, and if it would have been single vote, I would have chosen the Swashbuckler. Sry, if that is not elaborated enough, feel free to remove my vote ...
 

Kyrbi0

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hey guys,

so the thing is, I wanted to participate in the voting but then it was very hard to decide, and I did not have any elaborated feedback explaining my choice, despite that I checked out everything, even looked into the code.

well, in the end, my voting was really simple: I liked the Swashbuckler the best, because of this "brawl" model so much. I excluded the murloc fisherman, because tool-tips were lacking and the sea druid because I could not look at the code in the editor. The Silithid Devourer was too close to the wc3 spiders, so at this point I thought, well we got 3 heroes left, and that is how I voted. The 3 remaining heroes, I actually liked them better (I thought the whole design was polished more) than the excluded 3 ones, and if it would have been single vote, I would have chosen the Swashbuckler. Sry, if that is not elaborated enough, feel free to remove my vote ...
No, that's great! The 'explanation' thing wasn't meant to be a true barrier to entry; just one way to ensure people were giving even an ounce of time to check out the entries, rather than grading on looks or social pressure or whatever. : )
 

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Well, that was hard to write a tooltip for such a complex spell, not too long, with all gamedata numbers and at the same time a description that sounds good...
What I had in mind when designing this ultimate spell with Cokemonkey, is that the Sea Druid steals the combat skills of enemies (which makes enemies worse warriors for some time) and then redistribute this knowledge to allies (which makes allies better warriors for some time).
Man, tell me about it! A little trick I have found to be useful when that happens is to break the tooltip into 2 'sections', where the first 'section' sorta describes it in general/lore terms, and the second 'section' has all the numbers. Ala:

"The Sea Druid channels a potent mind-warping spell, generating a psychic wave which temporarily steals the combat skills of nearby enemies and then can redistribute them to nearby allies.

Progressively reduces move speed and attack rate by X%, which is only regained after the channeling ceases. If channeling is completed, gives all nearby allies 100% bonus attack rate.

A lot of the stuff in your tooltip was useful info but not necessarily necessary (at least in comparison to Blizzard tooltips). Then again I know Cokemonkey's stance on that so you may not have had much choice. : P

Honestly, I barely remember we have fire lord in the tavern, I only thought fire lord thing is only available in footman frenzy maps. :/
o_O
I have to stop myself & remember sometimes that the world is full of different people.

The Firelord is perhaps my absolute favorite hero in the game, bar none. Ever since he was released, I've just been a massive fan of him; how he looks, what he does, his voice lines, gaaaaaah. I could never forget him. And ever since then I've been waiting (first for Blizzard & then for modders) to come up with the other 3 Elemental Lords (water, air, earth). Lol.
 

Kazeon

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@Kyrbi0
~Since Persecute was talking all about 'paint' (even the icon showed a cool paint trail over footprints), I was surprised the SFX was just a reddish powdery cloud. :<
Yeah, I was quite disappointed we didn't have enough time to add paint trail effect. We needed to work more on balance and it's more important than a small visual improvement.

+Loved the Proper Names. All of them were great.
Yeah, thanks to the name generator

~I kinda feel like 5 seconds for an Ultimate is a little underwhelming. But hey, balance; it's a numbers game. Testing will tell.
Forcing enemy troops to stay in battle as well as giving allies all the advantages (attack speed, damage bonus,
and evasion) are already very powerful. 5 seconds are more than enough, depends on how well you use it. The more units are affected the more destructive it would be.

@KILLCIDE
The model is fantastic. Amazing textures and the animations were on point. All though, with that in mind, I personally didn't think it would fit well in a WC3 tavern
Do you mind to explain why our hero is less fitting than the others?

@Cokemonkey11
snare is overpowred - a level 1 swashbuckler can easily solo green creep camps with minimal micro
Minimal micro (not solo)? or solo? Which one? Shadow Shaman's healing wave is much more efficient for creeping anyway so I wouldn't say snare trap is op.

persecute's implementation, although works very nicely, suffers from awkward gameplay control due to implementation
I don't quite understand that "awkward gameplay control due to implementation" part.

riposte is totally overpowered in dueling against other duelists. good design doesn't fight fire with both napalm and a fire extinguisher at the same time
Well, given that the condition the swagbuckler must be in a duel with its attacker (means the swagbuckler must also be attacking its attacker) in order to trigger the counter attack, making the trigger chance lower will make the ability almost completely useless. In a melee game a duel is very rare occasion. That was why we hardly decided to raise the chance that high. Was a tough decision.

ultimate lacks refinement. it's a cool idea in the context of wc3 but needs healthier counters and more reliable behavior.
It was very tough to script-ify the concept: every brawl participant must only be in a duel. But it wont be cool if one participant will stay idle due to no contender can be matched (or waiting for other contender). So I had to create certain matching behavior which looks clumsy but it's totally reliable and balance.
 

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@Kyrbi0

Yeah, I was quite disappointed we didn't have enough time to add paint trail effect. We needed to work more on balance and it's more important than a small visual improvement.
Oh geez, I feel you there. I was rather underwhelmed, disappointed even, with what I ended up with for the Fell Gale ability. But no time to work on SFX when the hero itself needs to be made, lol. : )

Quilnez said:
Forcing enemy troops to stay in battle as well as giving allies all the advantages (attack speed, damage bonus,
and evasion) are already very powerful. 5 seconds are more than enough, depends on how well you use it. The more units are affected the more destructive it would be.
Could be. Changing the AoE & other fields are a part of the balance, yeah.

Quilnez said:
... Shadow Shaman's healing wave ...
Lol, DotA neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerd. It's the Shadow Hunter. xD

Quilnez said:
It was very tough to script-ify the concept: every brawl participant must only be in a duel. But it wont be cool if one participant will stay idle due to no contender can be matched (or waiting for other contender). So I had to create certain matching behavior which looks clumsy but it's totally reliable and balance.
Interesting... I'm glad you got it to work reliably & in a balanced way, and I rather liked it. However, I'm not sure I wouldn't constrained myself to have the "duel" concept to begin with. Just messing with all the values (making them melee, changing stats) & then forcing them to attack the nearest affected person would be enough, IMO.

Still one of the coolest/most unique ultimates, though. I've always wanted to code up a "chaos cloud" like that.
 

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Lol, DotA neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerd. It's the Shadow Hunter. xD
Right. Anyway I play dota more than melee maps but I'm not a dota nerd.

Interesting... I'm glad you got it to work reliably & in a balanced way, and I rather liked it. However, I'm not sure I wouldn't constrained myself to have the "duel" concept to begin with. Just messing with all the values (making them melee, changing stats) & then forcing them to attack the nearest affected person would be enough, IMO.
Well, he also wants the fighters to be well spread and well distributed inside the turmoil area. Without duel constrain, all affected units will clump into a single spot instead in the end (tested).

@KILLCIDE
The texture is way too good and the overall shape for the model is too realistic compared to the other human models ingame.
You mean the model is too detailed? Maybe it's my fault, the model was not that detailed but I wasn't satisfied because the proportion didn't look well. So I suggested him to improve it.
 
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~UPDATE~
Two bits of news, everyone.

#1, as seen Edited into this post, the requirement to post/explain your Vote is repealed. Please don't let that stop you from posting, but you need not feel obligated to do so.

#2, as seen in the first post, AGD has finished Judging the Code. This is good news, especially in light of recent events in various Contests having difficulty with the time between Polling & Judging Results. Now all we are waiting for is MiniMage & Purgeandfire. Go go Gadget Patience! : )

Already the Voting has been rather interesting. Looking forward to these last few days.
 

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The Staff has requested that there not be a posting/explanation requirement to Voting...
@Kyrbi0: Hey, I still don't get it. What's their reason for requesting such change all the sudden?
It will only make the public polling much less reliable and the change improves nothing (we didn't even get significant amount of votes after the change). And it obviously kills all kind of quality reviews and discussions in this thread :<.

Personally, I prefer to only join your contests because I like the restricted public polling rule (and some other factors too). Because, we all know, without such rule, how public polling will work in any contest. I think it's way too late for such a drastic change, we were already at the veeery end of the contest. If only I knew it will happen, I surely wouldn't join this contest from the first place.

I know this is not the place for such discussion, just let me know what's their reason?
 
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@Quilnez keyword was requirement in his sentence. The original voting rules stated that if their reasoning behind voting wasn't sufficient, it would be removed. Refer to this post:

#1, as seen Edited into this post, the requirement to post/explain your Vote is repealed. Please don't let that stop you from posting, but you need not feel obligated to do so.
 

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@Kyrbi0: Hey, I still don't get it. What's their reason for requesting such change all the sudden?
...

I know this is not the place for such discussion, just let me know what's their reason?
I will give @KILLCIDE first dibs on that one, as a representative of the Staff.

Quilnez said:
It will only make the public polling much less reliable and the change improves nothing (we didn't even get significant amount of votes after the change). And it obviously kills all kind of quality reviews and discussions in this thread :<.
Well, yes.

I might argue it improved the number of Votes, at least somewhat. We had a little over 15 I think? Better than 4 from the last (MBC) one, but otherwise ah dannae.

I don't know about "killing all quality review/discussions", but yes, it did stifle it a great deal.

Quilnez said:
Personally, I prefer to only join your contests because I like the restricted public polling rule (and some other factors too). Because, we all know, without such rule, how public polling will work in any contest.
<3

Quilnez said:
I think it's way too late for such a drastic change, we were already at the veeery end of the contest. If only I knew it will happen, I surely wouldn't join this contest from the first place.
Well, it isn't my Site. The person who owns it (& by extension the people that person appoints) make the decisions; we are all beneficiaries of their time (& in some cases, money) to even be here.

That doesn't make me feel much better about the decision. But whether or not we consider it fair or 'too late', it's not our Site.

I hope you will join future Contests regardless of who runs them & how. I've enjoyed matching wits with you the past two times, and have handfuls of Hero ideas that are sure to beat the pants offa yours. ; P
 

Kazeon

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@Quilnez keyword was requirement in his sentence. The original voting rules stated that if their reasoning behind voting wasn't sufficient, it would be removed. Refer to this post:
Oh, I thought now we are allowed not to explain our vote at all and it will count no matter what.
Well, I'm glad to hear it :) Sorry for being sarcastic in the previous post ;p

I hope you will join future Contests regardless of who runs them & how. I've enjoyed matching wits with you the past two times, and have handfuls of Hero ideas that are sure to beat the pants offa yours. ; P
Well, it also depends on my spare time. Next year I have to work part time so I won't have much times like this year.
I also enjoyed your contests and all the competitions ^^
 

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Oh, I thought now we are allowed not to explain our vote at all and it will count no matter what.
Well, I'm glad to hear it :) Sorry for being sarcastic in the previous post ;p
No... You had it right the first time. The Rule stating that 'every Vote must be accompanied by a Post, with a sufficient level of explanation for the Vote' has been repealed. In it's place is the generic "Vote, and Post if you like".


Quilnez said:
Well, it also depends on my spare time. Next year I have to work part time so I won't have much times like this year.
I also enjoyed your contests and all the competitions ^^
Yeah, I feel ya man. Life has been ramping up for me & I gotta get my head on straight when it comes to these Contests. Timing is everything.

Many thanks. : )
 

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--UPDATE--

We are nearly done, guys! All four of the Judges have, essentially, finished. I am waiting for one last Judge to finalize his Judgement according to the Criteria, but the calculation spreadsheet is all cooked up & this baby is nearly done.

Thanks for your patience.
 
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