I like this idea o.o/

Sort of support(ish.)

Time for me to be negative and ruin everything. /o/

The only part of the main suggestion I support is possibly giving out a small prize to players ranked 5-10. I don't have any problem with them not getting anything (this coming from someone who will quite possibly finish in the 5-10 spot on one board.) But something less rare as a little prize for making it into the top ten? Eh, sure.

No support for spot 2 getting a three vis, it should be exclusive to the top finisher.

No support for the suggestion of returning it to something like a mojo contest, I prefer this infinitely to the mojo contests, gives a lot more wiggle room on a day to day basis. The only tweak I might say yes to tweaking is if we had two rounds of this instead of just one, but even then it's only a maybe.

Some support for the anonymous boards, but I think that if any of our members are being rude/resentful of other players because of the board then that is really its OWN issue which should be dealt with with the same way any harassment is. I like the friendly competitive edge that knowing who you're competing with offers. But if it becomes a BIG problem I could see making it anonymous.

So basically the only real support I give to any of this suggestion is a prize for finishers 5-10 and would still be okay with no prize for them to keep things more rare. Besides that a couple of things have a nugget of my support. But for the most part I really LIKE the leader board set up, with its length, prizes, and non anonymity. :)

I support this idea as well.

It's true that giving out an exclusive pet to all ten spots in each contest would defeat the point of the pets being exclusive (ironic that I should say this, since I'm around 7th on a very competitive leaderboard). But I think it's fair to offer some sort of consolation prize to those in spaces 5-10, and premium seed pouches seem to have a low enough chance of actually giving a fabled seed that it wouldn't really cause overpopulation issues (at least in my experience; I've opened quite a few and never gotten any fabled seeds).

Alternatively, shorter contests could work, although I would prefer that the same user couldn't win the same contest twice (of course, they could participate in any other contest). I know that holding their spot in the top four of whichever contest for the entire festival has been really stressful to some users, while for others it means they don't have a chance at all if they simply don't have time due to school or work (I fit into this category). It would make more sense to only give out four prizes for each contest if there was more than one chance per festival.

As for the number of 3vis prizes, I really don't mind much either way. I'm personally quite happy with 2vis pets, and to me 3vis is just a bonus. But I do feel that 3vis pets are common enough (at least this festival, with the gardening and exceptional fertilizer) that giving out two wouldn't really unbalance anything.

Just my two cents. ^^

Edit: And one more thing. I've seen some discussion on whether or not the leaderboards should be public and I wanna talk about that too. Some are arguing that the tension created by people competing for the same spot is negatively impacting the community.

Let me preface this by saying that I don't actually care if I can see who's winning or not. However, the tension between friends who have become rivals is real.

Would hiding the names of the frontrunners fix this? Maybe, to some extent. But if we do that, I think we'd be fixing the wrong problem. Mistreating others just isn't okay, for any reason. No contest is an excuse for us to treat each other poorly. For that reason, I'd actually rather see a penalty placed on any player found to be harassing others (losing points, for example, or being disqualified entirely for particularly egregious offenses).

I know it wouldn't be a perfect system (and you'd need to be careful to keep it from turning into a witch hunt, where players report others for simply disagreeing with them, or other remarks that do not qualify as harssment), but the threat of being disqualified would be a huge deterrent to negative behavior (you might not even actually have to disqualify anyone for it to work). I think it's more important to reinforce that Sylestia's community is one that does not tolerate harassment than it is to cover up the problem by hiding the names.

We already plan on handing out some type of prize for 5-10. We just haven't decided on what the prize will be.

It will not be a themed pet, though.