I know a lot of people on this site like to design pets for festivals, in the hopes that their design will be chosen to come to life. I enjoy it, too.

A lot of people...a whole lot of people...participate. Some people have had their designs chosen more than once.

I propose that people only be allowed one design, once a year, to be chosen for a festival. For some people to have 5 designs(or whatever)that have come to life under their belts, while others don't even have one doesn't seem right to me.

It's not like there's a shortage of designs or people that would be absolutely thrilled if their design got chosen.

I can only imagine it's a major thrill to see a design you created come to life on the game. It would be nice if more people got to experience it.

Everyone having a shot to win once a year seems fair to me.

Thing is, everyone does have a shot. It's just a matter of what the admins like the best. Some people (like those that have 5 designs chosen) just design pets that the admins really like. Everyone has a fair shot, but some people just design pets that the admins and/or artists like better than others' designs.

I have to strongly disagree with this one.


While some people (such as myself) can have multiple victories for themed pets, this is partly because they put more effort into it. I aim to design at least one for every species and usually, I spend 30 minutes to an hour to perfect each design. Sometimes even longer, if I find a trait combination that doesn't work out or if I feel the need to tweak my design days, even weeks later.

And not everyone puts in the same amount of time and effort. Some people may submit only design one entirely, or design three or four designs for only one species. Some people may just throw a few together in minutes and call it done. There are many who also forget or ignore the rules, which would mean their entry is automatically disqualified.

I don't see why someone's designs should be stifled just because they've already won. In fact, this would be WORSE. Basically you're saying "let's exclude the winners and ban them from entering, just because they won!!" Honestly, I'm offended by this. I would be sincerely hurt if I wasn't able to enter any designs, especially since I've already set up countless themed submissions just on the chance that they allow players to submit their designs again.

And while you may not see it as "right," some designs are simply better than others. The decision is based on which design best suits the festival's theme, and which would have the most appeal for the players. If they were to put such a strong limit on choosing the best designs, then eventually once all the top designers are BANNED for winning they would end up having to find the best of the WORST to add to the festival. Which would put a major impact on the festival itself. If it's a poorly designed theme that has to be chosen, fewer people will want it. If unpopular themes start running amuck because there are no good entries allowed, then chances are the festivals will lose a lot of their popularity.


For me, themed pets are the reason I play. Throughout the festivals I hunt for themed pets to sell or trade to players who are struggling to find them. I take the themes I like, and I breed them up to 6-vis offspring (and trust me on this one, not all themed pets and themed pet submissions have the potential to make a good 6-vis.) I prepare for upcoming festivals by designing pets suited for the theme, usually right after each festival ends if I know what's coming up next. And lately, I've even had a few people who show me the designs they plan on submitting, just to get my opinion on it. (And for many I sincerely hope that their submissions win, even against my own designs. But I'm not going to drop one of my designs to make it so, or tell someone that someone else has a better design in the works. If there is to be a winning design, it should be won FAIRLY. Not won by a handicap because a better design wasn't allowed.)


And you know what? For countless of my themed designs that don't win, I have people ask me if I plan to use essences to make them into a project because they want one. I always have to tell them no, since I'm still breeding 20-something themed pet types and can't manage the time and space to do so, but I usually say they're free to use my design for their own projects if they so choose.

And that option remains open to anyone else whose design doesn't make it.

Even if your design isn't made into an official theme, there are essences in the diamond shop and on the trade broker that will allow anyone to make whatever pet design they so desire. There's also a forum section for Breeding Discussion where you can set up a forum to show your project design to all of Sylestia. If people like it, they will probably let you know that they want it.



The themed pet design submission IS fair; just because it doesn't allow everyone to win doesn't mean it's not. The judging is based on the DESIGN, not the DESIGNER, and like I said above: some designs work better than others. Now if they chose only one PERSON for designing ALL of the pets despite the other submissions, that would be unfair.


Just my thoughts on the matter, since I'm one of the people that you would apparently like to exclude from themed pet designing.

And being excluded is a thousand times more unfair than not being a winner.

I essentially agree with everything Xavion said.

And the point about the effort different player puts into designing a themed pet is so true. When I first designed for my first festival, I still didn't know that much of the game, and just spent minutes on designing a theme where I slapped some colours together that fits the theme I was going for. I don't spend hours, or come back to my design days later, like I know some other players do, to tweak the design, and test every gene and mutation to see if the overall theme will look nice regardless of what gene or mutation is visible.

So when I saw the designs picked, and hear what the winning players did when designing, I don't feel like they should only have one winning design so that I can have a "fair chance of winning". Instead, I feel inspired by them to work harder, and put more effort into making a themed design. I want to make something that even if it doesn't get picked, I would love to make it all the same, and know that there are people who would want to buy it.

Restricting the winners would result in a decrease in interest in festivals, and most likely affect the quality of submissions, and thus the quality of themed pet chosen and released, causing the festival quality itself to decrease. =/

And while you may not see it as "right," some designs are simply better than others.

In other words, what you're really saying is that your designs are better than others, correct?

No offense intended, but I beg to differ.

And no, I don't see it as right at all that one person has several designs come to life already and others have nothing. I see something that smacks of favoritism and frankly, to me, that sucks, whether it's intended or not.

No, imho, it certainly isn't right for one person's designs to win consistantly over and over again. I've seen plenty of stunning, gorgeous designs that people obviously put quite a bit of effort into that are every bit as beautiful, if not more so, than designs that won. Just because someone throws 100 designs into the mix doesn't mean they should automatically win because of the 'effort' that went into that. That's your choice to do that, it shouldn't equal automatic win. Someone else might have put just as much thought and effort into ONE great design.

And if the same people win, over and over and over,what's the point of anyone else bothering? I have no intention of putting a design in this time. I mean, really, what's the point? And that will become everyone's view eventually if the pattern I'm seeing so far continues. There are PLENTY other people that have created damn good designs equal to anything that's won so far and it surely doesn't seem to me like they just 'slapped them together'.


You can talk till armegeddon gets here and convince yourself about how 'fair' it is for one person, or several, to win consistently, again and again and again, but you might as well be talking to the walls saying it to me. It's not fair. It's not right. Sell that to someone who's buying. It's real easy to have your attitude when you're the one walking away with one design win after another.

And if the admins like the designs from the same people over and over again, then hire them to do them all and be done with it. Don't put a contest out there for 'everyone' if the same people are going to be the ones winning it. Count me out of the ones that see that as 'fair'.

On most other pets sites I've played if your design wins a contest once, then you can't win again for 6 months to a year, to give the other hundreds and/or thousands of people a shot. Yeah, to me, that's the only way it's really fair.


If they were to put such a strong limit on choosing the best designs, then eventually once all the top designers are BANNED for winning they would end up having to find the best of the WORST to add to the festival.

In other words, your designs, and you as the designer, are among the 'best' and the rest of us are among the 'worst'? I don't freaking think so. That's pretty insulting to everyone else wouldn't you say so? And the fact that you could say that, and that attitude has become your mindset, that you're somehow 'superior' in design ability, already tells me that winning more than once a year isn't a good idea for anybody. >_<

If unpopular themes start running amuck because there are no good entries allowed, then chances are the festivals will lose a lot of their popularity.

They've already lost popularity with me personally. And who says other people's designs would be 'unpopular'? I saw a ton of submissions...besides your own...that I would have loved to have won. And I'm not the only one.

And exactly what are you saying when you say no 'good' entries allowed? That if your personal entries weren't allowed in, there would be nothing but crap left? That sounds like what you're implying. Seriously? lol

Yeah, I definitely think it's time for some other people to win the design contests. Past time actually.

Ping!

The difference between the design contest and other contests (like say, Franken Pet) is that the themed design contest is a way for the players to help us add content to the game - not a competition of some sorts.

There is zero binding for us to pick designs. It may be that a hundred designs are submitted and we don't choose a single one of them because we don't think they fit the theme or fit the desired looks. And in that case, nobody would have their design chosen and we would just create our own.

Additionally, when we pick designs, we don't even look at the names... We just scroll through the many pages and look at the images. If one catches our eye, we take a closer look. If upon taking a closer look we feel it's a good fit, we'll copy it down to a list. After going through the entire thread and listing ones that we like, we then go through the list and narrow down to the one we like the best. Also, most of the time, we will change a few colors - it's very rare for us to use every color someone chose for a design.

The only time we look at the name is after the design has been chosen so we can track it for the sake of the participation/selected prize - as a thanks to whomever spent the time creating the design and saving our time from having to do it ourselves.


The Major Point

So just purely for the sake of the good of the site, we would never limit these "contests". The design contests are purely for the playerbase to help us to create the best themed pets possible. By limiting it, we would be limiting everyone because we wouldn't be picking what we feel are the best themed pets. Also, by limiting it, we'd now be increasing the time we have to spend "grading" the contest because we'd have to keep a list of winners, tell people they can't participate, and make sure those that we pick haven't been picked before. All in all, it would be entirely detrimental to the purpose of having the contest in the first place.

While I'm sorry that you feel it may be unfair, there is absolutely 0 bias occurring when we select designs. We pick designs that we feel fit the current theme and look good. Then when we have a list, we pick the one that we like the most - no names attached.

I hear what you're saying, Krin. You may say that this whole thing is unbiased, but a handful of players consistently getting their designs chosen to come to life here, over and over again, doesn't seem unbiased at all. The same handful of players having their designs chosen again and again, above, as you say, hundreds of designs, seems more like favoritism than sheer chance from where I'm sitting. I mean, what are the odds?

That's a rhetorical question.

Ok. That's that.

What I'm saying is that we don't choose designs because of who made it.

We choose designs because of the design.

Some players may just spend more time than others (meaning, they spend more time making sure the colors all flow together), or have an idea for themed pets that we just, for whatever reason, really sync with. Or they just submit a lot of designs that we end up using a few of whereas another user only submits 2 or 3. But it has nothing to do with the name attached to the design.

I was going to avoid responding to this reply of yours until I calmed down, but since you've decided to PING me? Well... I won't let such accusations go without defending myself.

"In other words, what you're really saying is that your designs are better than others, correct?"

Wrong. I am not stating that my designs are the ONLY good ones. I've made some excellent looking themes, and I've made some very regrettably bad ones. I've also seen countless other gorgeous ones made by plenty of other players, many of which I have been surprised to see that they didn't make it through because I thought they were really good. But you know what? Those were MY opinions on them. Some (not made by me) I was seriously hoping would be made into themes. And more often than not, they do not make it. That decision wasn't mine to make, it was up to the admins, and I respect their decisions on which pets should be made into themes.

Am I mad? No. Am I upset? No. Why on earth would I be? Each individual design had an equal chance to be made into a theme, regardless of who made it, and that's how it should be. The festival pet designs are just that, FESTIVAL PET DESIGNS. It isn't meant to be a contest of who's the best designer - it's about the PET. It's a way for the community to get involved with the festival, and to give the admins one less thing to worry about while they tend to other matters on the site.

So what if the pets I make don't all make the cut? So what if the ones I like made by others don't make the cut? May the best theme design win to make the festival as grand as it can possibly be! Whether it's my theme or not? I don't mind. It's an honor to have one chosen, yes, and it's wonderful when others express their likings of the design, but I'm just as quick to give mention of the ones I like. Entropy's Cave Dweller Faelora, for example, I liked enough to turn into one of my themed pet projects. And once I breed them to 6-vis, Entropy is going to get one, absolutely free of charge.


As for you, you'er putting all of your focus is on the PERSON, not on the designs. Perhaps that's why you're taking everything so personally.


"Just because someone throws 100 designs into the mix doesn't mean they should automatically win because of the 'effort' that went into that."

Automatic win? That would be horrible. Like I said above, I've made some good themed pet submissions, and I've made some bad ones. The main reason I've had so many victories though, is because I raise my chances by submitting a theme for each species. Submit only one design for one species, and unless it's the absolute best of the best of that species, it will lose. Statistically it would be impossible for one person to design the best of the best on their own; I simply try my hand at all species in hopes that I'll manage to get the best of the best for something. And even if I were to fail on them all, I wouldn't complain. So long as the admins continue to pick out what they feel is the best, based entirely on the design itself, then there is no reason to feel hurt.

So no, I don't think I'm entitled to an automatic win for putting up so many designs - that would be foolish. My point with that statement is that statistically, you're more likely to succeed if you have more chances to do so.


"And if the same people win, over and over and over,what's the point of anyone else bothering?"

The designs that win do not win because the one who designed it has won in the past. All themed pet submissions are equally judged based entirely on the pet itself. So just because you didn't win last time, that doesn't mean you can't win next time. The admins aren't going to go "Oh, I didn't like her blah blah Nixi last time. Let's not use any of her themed submissions this time." Nor will they consider anyone else's to be 'higher' just because they did something extraordinary on the previous festival.

So what's the point? To give it a shot! If you don't even try to enter, then you will never win. If you try, at least there's a chance.


"In other words, your designs, and you as the designer, are among the 'best' and the rest of us are among the 'worst'? I don't freaking think so. That's pretty insulting to everyone else wouldn't you say so? And the fact that you could say that, and that attitude has become your mindset, that you're somehow 'superior' in design ability, already tells me that winning more than once a year isn't a good idea for anybody. >_<"

"And exactly what are you saying when you say no 'good' entries allowed? That if your personal entries weren't allowed in, there would be nothing but crap left? That sounds like what you're implying. Seriously? lol"

Now you're making this personal. Like I've said before, I've made some good themed submissions, and I've made some bad ones. I've also seen many designs made from others that I've loved, some that made it to themes, and some that didn't. And while I'm not too modest to say that I have a knack at designing themed pets, I'm not too arrogant to say that I'm among the absolute best and that everyone else sucks. That would be truly pitiful.

I wasn't talking about myself when it comes to the designs that are good, and those that are lacking. I was considering everything that I had seen for themed pet submissions. In fact, on a general discussion thread from the previous festival I expressed a lot of interest and love for multiple themed pet designs made by other players. Some themes made it, others did not.

Hopefully, that will be enough to show you that I am not the sort of megalomaniac who's too self-obsessed to even consider the talent of others that you're trying so hard to paint me as.


Now I would advise against pinging people when all you intend to do is bash them - it makes you seem like a very unfriendly person.