Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and say aloud directly here what others have been saying in chat and PMs.
This contest needed to be seriously thought through before implementation.
I understand that the devs and judges were on a time constraint given the posted schedule (a schedule which was, frankly, quite ambitious, to put it mildly), but I believe they grossly underestimated how many people would want to enter, and honestly, alloting an hour of time to switch between instances and look at fifty costumes per instance was not a good sample of proper time management.
To invite everyone to a costume contest and then not have the ability or infrastructure in place to at least take a cursory look at all the costumes in play feels like a waste of time on everyone's part. Leaving people out is not the way to foster a sense of community.
To take it into a real world perspective: Imagine a high school science fair. You take the time to put together a project, do the research, run the experiment, create the display, practice your speech, and all the other prep work involved. The stated prize for winning the science fair is a blue ribbon and the chance to continue on to the next level.
So the big day arrives. You dress up nice, get there, get assigned a spot in one of the five display halls, get everything set up properly, and are sure that you are going to wow the judges.
Only the judges never show up. Instead, they decided to only check out and choose their winners from a couple of the display halls because they wanted to be out of the fair by a certain hour.
How do you think you would feel about that? Would it encourage you to try harder for the next fair? No. It discourages you. Seriously, would you honestly want to participate in an event when you can't even count on the judges showing up to give you a fair shot? I know I wouldn't.
Just food for thought, guys. Think this through better for next time.
Space Barbie Extraordinaire. Got a question about Space Barbie? Just ask.
Things I want in STO:
1) More character customization options such as more clothing options, letting the toon complexion affect the entire body, not just the head. Also a true RGB color picker applied to all costume and appearance options, which would allow for true appearance customization and homogenous colors instead of "this same exact color looks vastly different on two different pieces."
2) Bridge customization, not bridge packs. Let us pick a general layout and adjust the color palette, console appearance, and chair types, as well as more ready room layout options.
3) Customizable ground weapons, i.e. The aesthetic look of phaser dual pistols but they shoot antiproton bolts. For obvious reasons this would only apply to standard ground weapons.
4) For the love of Q please revamp Plasma Ground Weapons. They look like demented Supersoakers right now.
5) True Vanity Impulse and Deflector effects similar to Vanity Shields.
6) A greater payout for hitting T6 Reputations. Currently it takes more time and resources to get from T5 to T6 than it does to get from nothing to T5. Make that grind really pay out at the end.
7) Mirrorverse Refugee event similar to AoY/Delta/Gamma, complete with new Mirrorverse recruits for all factions.
8) Independent Faction, because yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me!
GG to you Cryptic, for the worst event ever, the worst organized of the history of this game. You should publicly apologize for this lack of professionality. You promised to run the event on three zones and instead you looked only at one. What's that? Consider how many people, let's say, bought a costume just for this event and it runs only at 1/3 at the possibilities. We knew we couldn't participate if the instances were full, but a person would not run any of yours events at all if these are the conditions you organize things.
Just think about your way to handle this game, it should deserve a better treatment imho.
GG to you Cryptic, for the worst event ever, the worst organized of the history of this game. You should publicly apologize for this lack of professionality. You promised to run the event on three zones and instead you looked only at one. What's that? Consider how many people, let's say, bought a costume just for this event and it runs only at 1/3 at the possibilities. We knew we couldn't participate if the instances were full, but a person would not run any of yours events at all if these are the conditions you organize things.
Just think about your way to handle this game, it should deserve a better treatment imho.
Okay, I think you got your facts wrong. According to the blog post:
"3pm PT: Ambassador Kael will appear on the Risa dance floor on PC, and the judging will begin! We’ll head to three different instances to make sure we get the most people we can involved, which means there will be three different winners."
They did indeed visit three different instances (#1, #4, and #7 if I'm not mistaken), and in fact lived up to the promise they made. Do not judge them on that.
The issue is that there were seven instances total in play, and that they should have planned better to go out and see everyone's costumes across all instances.
Do not condemn them for doing exactly what they promised.
Space Barbie Extraordinaire. Got a question about Space Barbie? Just ask.
Things I want in STO:
1) More character customization options such as more clothing options, letting the toon complexion affect the entire body, not just the head. Also a true RGB color picker applied to all costume and appearance options, which would allow for true appearance customization and homogenous colors instead of "this same exact color looks vastly different on two different pieces."
2) Bridge customization, not bridge packs. Let us pick a general layout and adjust the color palette, console appearance, and chair types, as well as more ready room layout options.
3) Customizable ground weapons, i.e. The aesthetic look of phaser dual pistols but they shoot antiproton bolts. For obvious reasons this would only apply to standard ground weapons.
4) For the love of Q please revamp Plasma Ground Weapons. They look like demented Supersoakers right now.
5) True Vanity Impulse and Deflector effects similar to Vanity Shields.
6) A greater payout for hitting T6 Reputations. Currently it takes more time and resources to get from T5 to T6 than it does to get from nothing to T5. Make that grind really pay out at the end.
7) Mirrorverse Refugee event similar to AoY/Delta/Gamma, complete with new Mirrorverse recruits for all factions.
8) Independent Faction, because yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me!
GG to you Cryptic, for the worst event ever, the worst organized of the history of this game. You should publicly apologize for this lack of professionality. You promised to run the event on three zones and instead you looked only at one. What's that? Consider how many people, let's say, bought a costume just for this event and it runs only at 1/3 at the possibilities. We knew we couldn't participate if the instances were full, but a person would not run any of yours events at all if these are the conditions you organize things.
Just think about your way to handle this game, it should deserve a better treatment imho.
Okay, I think you got your facts wrong. According to the blog post:
"3pm PT: Ambassador Kael will appear on the Risa dance floor on PC, and the judging will begin! We’ll head to three different instances to make sure we get the most people we can involved, which means there will be three different winners."
They did indeed visit three different instances (#1, #4, and #7 if I'm not mistaken), and in fact lived up to the promise they made. Do not judge them on that.
The issue is that there were seven instances total in play, and that they should have planned better to go out and see everyone's costumes across all instances.
Do not condemn them for doing exactly what they promised.
Man, even in livestreaming people were saying that, and we were there, in instance #7, they didn't arrive, so... just lack of commitment imho. Anyway who cares, it's only a pity they always have to do things at 50% of their possibilities. This game should deserve more imho.
Edit: i just re-watched the live, they indeed looked at #7, maybe i was in another instance in that moment ( i was also switching to catch them tbh ). Anyway yes, at this point, they could look into more instances, with so many people... meh... or at least they could write in the dev blog the instances' numbers they would eventually check. This confirms the lack of professionality imho
They visited 3 instances, I know as I was in the last one. And though not everyone got looked at there were some spectacular costumes and it was greet for ideas and inspiration. Truly great attempts by all those who took part. ‘‘Twas just a bit of fun so I’m not bothered I didn’t win.
The issue is that there were seven instances total in play, and that they should have planned better to go out and see everyone's costumes across all instances.
Fitting PS4 and Xbox in on the same night made that time prohibitive (for the judges as human beings too.) But, splitting the two platform groups off into separate days would have spoiled the fun of this being on Halloween. Having multiple devs judging different instances simultaneously might be the way to handle the volume of entries in one livestream, but at the cost of not being able to show most entries to the stream audience (unless they treated instance winners on PC as entrants to a final round [maybe two from each zone judged], which main stream sees.)
What Cryptic might do instead for Halloween is a screenshot contest (also encouraging costume-focused entries), leaving live costume contests to normal ten forward weeklies (one platform and typically smaller scale crowds.)
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
I understand why you guys are upset, especially if you waited around for a while hoping that someone would stop by your specific instance. Unfortunately, as many people have pointed out, there were time constraints in place, and certainly not enough prizes to go around. We announced at the beginning that we would stop by three instances, and just doing that took the entire hour we had allotted. Getting Ian to take three hours out of his schedule to stop by to judge this was enough, I couldn't ask him to step out for a whole day so that we could see every single person who stopped by.
Again, I apologize if you felt frustrated and I understand, but we limited time, a limited amount of prizes, and this was still a really fun event for a lot of people. Thank you to everyone who participated, we loved your creativity.
I didn't have a costume per se. I just grabbed my Gorn and went in with his duty uniform.
So sassy...
Unfortunately I was in instance #2...
Space Barbie Extraordinaire. Got a question about Space Barbie? Just ask.
Things I want in STO:
1) More character customization options such as more clothing options, letting the toon complexion affect the entire body, not just the head. Also a true RGB color picker applied to all costume and appearance options, which would allow for true appearance customization and homogenous colors instead of "this same exact color looks vastly different on two different pieces."
2) Bridge customization, not bridge packs. Let us pick a general layout and adjust the color palette, console appearance, and chair types, as well as more ready room layout options.
3) Customizable ground weapons, i.e. The aesthetic look of phaser dual pistols but they shoot antiproton bolts. For obvious reasons this would only apply to standard ground weapons.
4) For the love of Q please revamp Plasma Ground Weapons. They look like demented Supersoakers right now.
5) True Vanity Impulse and Deflector effects similar to Vanity Shields.
6) A greater payout for hitting T6 Reputations. Currently it takes more time and resources to get from T5 to T6 than it does to get from nothing to T5. Make that grind really pay out at the end.
7) Mirrorverse Refugee event similar to AoY/Delta/Gamma, complete with new Mirrorverse recruits for all factions.
8) Independent Faction, because yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me!
Here's Sailor Ham Sammich (from first round). Nod to Mooncrystalpower for the inspiration (I definitely wasn't competing with this Ten Forward Weekly in-joke. )
Also for lols: One Punch Sammich.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Yes a really good idea is to get people to post their pictures on this forum or on social media websites directly connected to STO official, and have Ian look them over in his own time between his job and set a date for when the winners are announced. With all Respect to Kael, this event could of been planned better. I hope in future events its different and it would be a shame to see events like this come to an end because of the way this event turned out.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
I understand why you guys are upset, especially if you waited around for a while hoping that someone would stop by your specific instance. Unfortunately, as many people have pointed out, there were time constraints in place, and certainly not enough prizes to go around. We announced at the beginning that we would stop by three instances, and just doing that took the entire hour we had allotted. Getting Ian to take three hours out of his schedule to stop by to judge this was enough, I couldn't ask him to step out for a whole day so that we could see every single person who stopped by.
Again, I apologize if you felt frustrated and I understand, but we limited time, a limited amount of prizes, and this was still a really fun event for a lot of people. Thank you to everyone who participated, we loved your creativity.
Personally, I just had fun seeing all the cool costumes. I hope this becomes an annual shindig, maybe somewhere spookier than Risa.
Comments
And best of luck to you too, Sailor Moon
This contest needed to be seriously thought through before implementation.
I understand that the devs and judges were on a time constraint given the posted schedule (a schedule which was, frankly, quite ambitious, to put it mildly), but I believe they grossly underestimated how many people would want to enter, and honestly, alloting an hour of time to switch between instances and look at fifty costumes per instance was not a good sample of proper time management.
To invite everyone to a costume contest and then not have the ability or infrastructure in place to at least take a cursory look at all the costumes in play feels like a waste of time on everyone's part. Leaving people out is not the way to foster a sense of community.
To take it into a real world perspective: Imagine a high school science fair. You take the time to put together a project, do the research, run the experiment, create the display, practice your speech, and all the other prep work involved. The stated prize for winning the science fair is a blue ribbon and the chance to continue on to the next level.
So the big day arrives. You dress up nice, get there, get assigned a spot in one of the five display halls, get everything set up properly, and are sure that you are going to wow the judges.
Only the judges never show up. Instead, they decided to only check out and choose their winners from a couple of the display halls because they wanted to be out of the fair by a certain hour.
How do you think you would feel about that? Would it encourage you to try harder for the next fair? No. It discourages you. Seriously, would you honestly want to participate in an event when you can't even count on the judges showing up to give you a fair shot? I know I wouldn't.
Just food for thought, guys. Think this through better for next time.
Things I want in STO:
1) More character customization options such as more clothing options, letting the toon complexion affect the entire body, not just the head. Also a true RGB color picker applied to all costume and appearance options, which would allow for true appearance customization and homogenous colors instead of "this same exact color looks vastly different on two different pieces."
2) Bridge customization, not bridge packs. Let us pick a general layout and adjust the color palette, console appearance, and chair types, as well as more ready room layout options.
3) Customizable ground weapons, i.e. The aesthetic look of phaser dual pistols but they shoot antiproton bolts. For obvious reasons this would only apply to standard ground weapons.
4) For the love of Q please revamp Plasma Ground Weapons. They look like demented Supersoakers right now.
5) True Vanity Impulse and Deflector effects similar to Vanity Shields.
6) A greater payout for hitting T6 Reputations. Currently it takes more time and resources to get from T5 to T6 than it does to get from nothing to T5. Make that grind really pay out at the end.
7) Mirrorverse Refugee event similar to AoY/Delta/Gamma, complete with new Mirrorverse recruits for all factions.
8) Independent Faction, because yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me!
Just think about your way to handle this game, it should deserve a better treatment imho.
Okay, I think you got your facts wrong. According to the blog post:
"3pm PT: Ambassador Kael will appear on the Risa dance floor on PC, and the judging will begin! We’ll head to three different instances to make sure we get the most people we can involved, which means there will be three different winners."
They did indeed visit three different instances (#1, #4, and #7 if I'm not mistaken), and in fact lived up to the promise they made. Do not judge them on that.
The issue is that there were seven instances total in play, and that they should have planned better to go out and see everyone's costumes across all instances.
Do not condemn them for doing exactly what they promised.
Things I want in STO:
1) More character customization options such as more clothing options, letting the toon complexion affect the entire body, not just the head. Also a true RGB color picker applied to all costume and appearance options, which would allow for true appearance customization and homogenous colors instead of "this same exact color looks vastly different on two different pieces."
2) Bridge customization, not bridge packs. Let us pick a general layout and adjust the color palette, console appearance, and chair types, as well as more ready room layout options.
3) Customizable ground weapons, i.e. The aesthetic look of phaser dual pistols but they shoot antiproton bolts. For obvious reasons this would only apply to standard ground weapons.
4) For the love of Q please revamp Plasma Ground Weapons. They look like demented Supersoakers right now.
5) True Vanity Impulse and Deflector effects similar to Vanity Shields.
6) A greater payout for hitting T6 Reputations. Currently it takes more time and resources to get from T5 to T6 than it does to get from nothing to T5. Make that grind really pay out at the end.
7) Mirrorverse Refugee event similar to AoY/Delta/Gamma, complete with new Mirrorverse recruits for all factions.
8) Independent Faction, because yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me!
Man, even in livestreaming people were saying that, and we were there, in instance #7, they didn't arrive, so... just lack of commitment imho. Anyway who cares, it's only a pity they always have to do things at 50% of their possibilities. This game should deserve more imho.
Edit: i just re-watched the live, they indeed looked at #7, maybe i was in another instance in that moment ( i was also switching to catch them tbh ). Anyway yes, at this point, they could look into more instances, with so many people... meh... or at least they could write in the dev blog the instances' numbers they would eventually check. This confirms the lack of professionality imho
These are the voyages of the U.S.S. Pioneer...
Truly great attempts by all those who took part. ‘‘Twas just a bit of fun so I’m not bothered I didn’t win.
Fitting PS4 and Xbox in on the same night made that time prohibitive (for the judges as human beings too.) But, splitting the two platform groups off into separate days would have spoiled the fun of this being on Halloween. Having multiple devs judging different instances simultaneously might be the way to handle the volume of entries in one livestream, but at the cost of not being able to show most entries to the stream audience (unless they treated instance winners on PC as entrants to a final round [maybe two from each zone judged], which main stream sees.)
What Cryptic might do instead for Halloween is a screenshot contest (also encouraging costume-focused entries), leaving live costume contests to normal ten forward weeklies (one platform and typically smaller scale crowds.)
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Again, I apologize if you felt frustrated and I understand, but we limited time, a limited amount of prizes, and this was still a really fun event for a lot of people. Thank you to everyone who participated, we loved your creativity.
So sassy...
Unfortunately I was in instance #2...
Things I want in STO:
1) More character customization options such as more clothing options, letting the toon complexion affect the entire body, not just the head. Also a true RGB color picker applied to all costume and appearance options, which would allow for true appearance customization and homogenous colors instead of "this same exact color looks vastly different on two different pieces."
2) Bridge customization, not bridge packs. Let us pick a general layout and adjust the color palette, console appearance, and chair types, as well as more ready room layout options.
3) Customizable ground weapons, i.e. The aesthetic look of phaser dual pistols but they shoot antiproton bolts. For obvious reasons this would only apply to standard ground weapons.
4) For the love of Q please revamp Plasma Ground Weapons. They look like demented Supersoakers right now.
5) True Vanity Impulse and Deflector effects similar to Vanity Shields.
6) A greater payout for hitting T6 Reputations. Currently it takes more time and resources to get from T5 to T6 than it does to get from nothing to T5. Make that grind really pay out at the end.
7) Mirrorverse Refugee event similar to AoY/Delta/Gamma, complete with new Mirrorverse recruits for all factions.
8) Independent Faction, because yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me!
Also for lols: One Punch Sammich.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
~fluffs your pillow and leaves a glass of water on the night stand~ Night.
I just found it funny one of the winners in the PC contests was just a chunky guy in yellow shorts. o.O
I saw them too.
Personally, I just had fun seeing all the cool costumes. I hope this becomes an annual shindig, maybe somewhere spookier than Risa.
This might help.