Idea - Fame & Glory!

[Deleted member 157129]

I'll explain the concept, but first a little about the motivation to do so. The skin section of this site is dead. There's roughly eight skins approved per month. I have not bothered to count in other sections, but eight acceptable submissions per month is far too few. I want to do mine to help change that, but I can't really see myself doing more than contest submissions for the time being - one skin every other month. So I thought it would perhaps increase people's motivation to keep up activity if there's a little fame and glory to be achieved.

It is quite simple, at the end of each month, all approved skins are put into a public poll that lasts for a week. The most popular skin is the skin of the month. It'd be a hall of fame kind of thing. I want to know if people are interested in this, and then I'll try to arrange for it the next few months and see if it actually has an effect. If not, I'll just drop the whole idea. Feel free to shoot in other ideas to motivate texturers to up their productivity and new texturers to get up to an acceptable level. I really don't want to lower the standards of the section for better activity.

.. and while I have your attention, do take a look here - come with ideas or express your opinion on other ideas. I intend to keep the texturing contest rolling with as few stops as possible.

So, yeah, opinions.

 

[AL0NE]

The poll for 'most popular skin' is quite a good idea. I'm just afraid it'll seem weird since there is a 'most downloaded skin' on the homepage already. But with 2 top spots to achieve (most popular and most downloaded) , I'm sure there will be more users to attempt on skinning. Maybe there should also be a hall of fame for most approved skins from a skinner? like a much long-term kinda contest. I'm sure many people wanna be the top one.

Another idea i have is maybe making a specific section for skinning discussion. not just thread. but more into a Chat oriented or maybe a group of it will suffice. The texturing section's is kinda quiet, even a thread few months ago is still on the 1st page. By my own experience, and i'm not talking about skinning only but every aspects in this world, there are many talented people and people that wants to do a certain thing. They just lack guidance. So, this Chat/Group/Discussion should be a field for both experts and beginners to discuss about their WIP skins on the spot. The beginners will gain more knowledge with the guide of experts. Experts may also seek some help from beginners, giving the beginners more confidence because the experts are counting on them, so they'll strive to improve.

Anyway, contests really should be continued as you said. Everybody likes to get awards.

other than that, how about paired texture contest like the paired mapping contest. imagine 2 experts combining their work... I'm drooling already.

Kinda lack of ideas already. I'll see what i can think of. That's all for now. =)

 

[Deleted member 157129]

We do have a chat: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/apps.php?p=gochat
Use it for what it's worth.

Thanks for the input and the ideas.

 

[chr2]

I dig the idea. I believe it'd help motivation wise, seeing as people tend to get a lot more active, once awards or rewards are given. I mean, just look at the texturing contests in comparison to the skin section. Despite not that many people join them, they are still more active than the skin section. The rewards are possibly the reason for that, I think. So yeah. You should definitely go for it!

 

[Nasrudin]

I see dozens of "help me I'm new" threads being regularly ignored around here. It's rare to come across one with more than 3 replies, and even more rare to see a well constructed or informative post among them.
If this doesn't change I can't imagine the art section picking up again. Like it or not, the userbase nowadays is mostly composed by new and young people, and activity can only come through them.

 

[Deleted member 157129]

Wow, Nasrudin, you're alive.

And as far as I reckon, the "new and young" were never as bad back when I starting coming here (2004) as they are now. These ones still have years before they'll make anything acceptable. I need to make the decent artists more active - this is no art school.

 

[Edhel-dur]

It's a great idea.

However the award shouldn't be graphically represented in your profile, like those of "donor" or "contest winner" are. You want to give people fame which only lasts a while so they will come back next time too. I think once every month is an acceptable time frame, the News page of the site should include a new section titled "Skin of the month" and this section should be added above "newest resources" for better advertisement.

Perhaps the winner could get awarded a small amount of reputation, such as 20.

 

[Deleted member 157129]

There would not be an award icon, I agree, and I'm not sure the reputation reward is necessary. As for getting it advertised - the most readily available would be putting it into the monthly news batch that Vengeancekael has started making.

 

[Edhel-dur]

Well yeah but the news batch is a long post which will at one point overshadowed in less than a month by other kind of news. But it would be the best way to advertise at start, since it's easier to accomplish.

As for rep, it's not necessary but it would serve as an incentive, although being advertised will bring some extra rep too because people would see it and they will rep the maker, but rep could serve as an initial incentive.
Everyone wants to get their gems/cup cakes.

 

[Nasrudin]

Yes Shiik, this is not an art school nor it's supposed to be, nobody is claiming otherwise. Yet I don't think it's a good reason to ignore people or be patronizing with them, especially in times of low activity. Elitism is what killed Wc3campaigns, can this site really afford to do the same?

The lack of feedback is hurting the veterans just as bad, and imho it's the first thing that has to change. One can spend hours on a piece of work, and get only a couple of one-liners as a reply. It can be really disheartening, and in general, gives the impression nobody really gives a fuck about this section/site/game.
Not only that, people tend to criticize in detail only what they see as "bad work", mostly of new users. Who is already regarded as a good artist rarely receives anything but (short) praises. If he or she makes something of relatively poor quality, people generally don't comment on that, unless it's really, really horrible.

Your idea of mini-contests it's certainly worth a try (actually, what are you waiting for? get one going already!) but that would be only a start. It may spark some activity and even bring some veteran back, but to maintain that activity it's imperative that everyone start to be more vocal about their opinions, to confront, share, observe, and even argue more. It won't be done overnight, but I don't see any other way to get things right.

On the subject of contest themes, I can't really think of anything, but I'd like to mention that most people are probably sick and tired of drawing on the same awkward Blizzard UVmaps over and over; on the other hand, there are a lot of nice custom models who never received much attention in the 2d department, and I'm sure they are a lot more easier to texture than Blizzard models.

 

[Deleted member 157129]

Hm, perhaps you're right, but how does one encourage people to give proper feedback? Even I tend to be rather brief in my comments.

Oh, and as for starting one, you might've misread, or I might've misunderstood, but this is a monthly thing, so the first one would be in the beginning of January - voting over the skins approved in December.

Beyond that I'll just keep the actual texturing contest rolling, like it has for the past half year at least.

 

[Blood Raven]

hmm, thats a good idea, i think it may help (even if the first month it don't have effect, dont give up). Also, i think the hive should ahve more challenges, not only skin challenegs, but all other too - terrain, modelling, icon, map, etc. I find the contest also nice. they are making the ppl texture and then submit thier skins in the skin selecton.
But im agreed that's a great idea, shiik, i haven't thinked about it before.
I think that will make me continue my scarlet crusade units (even if they aren't that good and if you reject them xD)