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Mystic wrote:
For me, personally, OHR/SS swag is way cooler than a lot of other prizes that are possible, such as money or even a pizza. Not to discredit or make light of other things, but I feel like something that points more to what exactly we did as a memory in the future is more exciting.
Well, like I said, I'm waiting on Fenrir's response, but it has a lot to do with what you're suggesting.
TMC wrote:
I think that scoring games based on the average of all the scores that it actually receives is still a more fair way. Did the scoring work that way in previous contests? However replacing missing votes with 5's has a lot of benefits, like encouraging people to vote. It also makes 5 a reference value ("not bad, but not interesting enough to play") to help align voters. Fairness can be sacrificed.
Technically, it is definitely more fair, but the past has proven that it also favors the not-voted-for, as the game that received five out of twelve votes in 2010 (Vikings of Midgard) also earned second place for the contest, thus prompting my decision to split the categories in 2012. I think I'm gonna give the 5-average system a try this year, so that we can combine the categories again. We've got two contests behind us, so I think we can afford to experiment a little with the system. Eventually we'll lock in the system that works best for this kind of contest.
I'm also gonna demand that entrants who submit a rerelease make it clear to the voter, either through a note or a save file, what's new, or where the new content starts. I'm also gonna demand that voters make an effort to find out where the new content is found (by checking out the save file or reading the developer's notes or asking anyone who might know). I believe the lack of either is what caused Vikings of Midgard to receive only five votes out of twelve voters, and why the high average of those five votes placed it in second for the contest. This isn't to suggest that it wouldn't have taken second anyway--it's an awesome game--but it would've been more deserving of its position had it had at least two-thirds of the voters' support.
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Maybe even better would be to use a hybrid, the variant that the SS gamelist uses: give each game one dummy vote, say 5 (or even lower, 3 out of 10, perhaps) and then take the average of all votes. A low dummy vote penalises games no one wanted to play, and encourages people to play the game, especially if few others have, as their vote will move the average towards the "true" value.
No, this is only helpful after the voting average is made public, which this does not do until the results are in. Using the 5-average system steals away the authenticity of the votes, but using a dummy vote system will only serve to make it even more artificial. I want this year's entrants to earn what they deserve to the best of each voter's ability.
TMC wrote:
Hurray for HeartBugs!
In previous years James has single-handedly tackled most of the HeartBugs. That's not due to bounties. Largely I was pleased that he had motivation to work on them, so I did other things (also IIRC I happened to be quite busy). I'll probably be fairly busy this whole year, but aside from some HeartBugs help will try to work on major RPG-centric features that would be of benefit to people working on their entries, especially those which are too big to be HeartBug requests. I think it would be ideal if we released a stable engine release with some nice features for RPGs in the early stages of the contest. When will the deadline be?
In previous years James has single-handedly tackled most of the HeartBugs. That's not due to bounties. Largely I was pleased that he had motivation to work on them, so I did other things (also IIRC I happened to be quite busy). I'll probably be fairly busy this whole year, but aside from some HeartBugs help will try to work on major RPG-centric features that would be of benefit to people working on their entries, especially those which are too big to be HeartBug requests. I think it would be ideal if we released a stable engine release with some nice features for RPGs in the early stages of the contest. When will the deadline be?
The HeartBugs are my favorite part about the prize pool, so I'm glad to know that both of you will try your best to make this work again this year, even if it's gonna be harder than in years' past. I definitely think that when the time comes, you guys should be clear on what you can accomplish for the sake of meeting the entrants' requests and what the contestants shouldn't bother requesting.
The deadline for fulfilling HeartBugs before the bounty is due has always been December 31st, but I leave that more to James's decision because he's the one that agrees to pay up for missed bugs. I'm trying to talk him into being more conservative this year, but he knows his limits, so ultimately he'll decide how the HeartBugs will work this year and when requests should be met or bountied. I know that he could probably use the extra help in meeting the requests, though, if you've got the time and motivation. But no one's gonna complain if you keep working on RPG-centric updates too big for the HeartBug list instead. ;)
But that's why we want contestants to pick small, easy things this year, and why it'll be important for you guys to establish a guideline on what's reasonable and what's ridiculous this time. Requesting battle-scripting, arrays, or (gasp!) script multitasking would be considered too big, I'd think.
EDIT: In case you were referring to the contest's deadline, participants are required to have something posted by November 30th to be fully contest legitimate, though they are always given at least a week's grace period to fix bugs. I tend to allow anything released before the contest officially closes on December 7th or 14th (not sure which yet) to enter the voting stage, but those games released after November 30th aren't eligible for the entry prizes.
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