[New Poll Q]Quarterly Hack Awards AND Monthly Hacker's Digest?!

[ghast]

maybe Bi-monthly?

[ErrantDShepherd]

It's a nice sentiment but simply won't work with the FE community. The Pokemon community is fine because their hacks are very simple. It's really, really not hard to make a game like pokemon or edit a game like pokemon. All it really takes is a bunch of art assets, level scaling, and maps. Dialogue is also easy to write. Seriously, even the best writing in a pokemon game isn't remotely top of the line or comparable to the character and plot dynamics in a fire emblem game. It takes way more time and energy to make a FE fangame than a pokemon fangame, simply put. Because of this, the 'monthly' awards would be pointless. We might be lucky to get one decent fangame a month, if that, which is something new that we haven't seen before. Otherwise it'll just be "Elibian Nights wins this month, and next, and next, and then bloodlines, then elibian nights again" etc etc.

The pokemon community has hundreds of 'good' quality fangames. We have maybe a couple dozen. Maybe when FEXNA comes out, it'll lower the entry bar and make things easier so something like this is feasible, but it's pointless speculating for now as we'll still have the issue of game complexity to tackle.

Here's a thought... as Hacks and game making in Fire Emblem type games are possibly more work to do than the usual Pokemon fangame(I dunno about that, but lest go with that assumption for the sake of argument) why not try something like bimonthly? Or every three months? ...Or quarterly, so every four months? ...I don't think that the idea is without merit... But I can see the argument that hacks do take a fair bit of time, so monthly may or may not result in much.

...what were your thoughts to how these awards would be distributed/decided Ghast? Community popular voting? Panel of Judges? Maybe a combination of both?

you could do an annual award

get more candidates that way

Annual, maybe, but in a community this tight-knit, it just amounts to a big circle-jerk. SF may have hundreds of daily visitors, but the number of actual hackers in the entire fandom currently is 100 or less, and the number of highly skilled are maybe 2 dozen at best.

are you implying that circle jerks are a bad thing?

Or we could just disallow winners from wining again like pokecomunity does. Plus, i think we get enough new hacks for yearly awards.

I think the idea of placing some limit on repeated winning has value... Perhaps no winner may win a certain amount in a row? ex. win two-three in a row, not eligible to win next award... cycle resets after next winner... as yeah, don't wanna see circle jerks for the sake of promoting new people/works... but at the same time, it makes no sense to exclude excellence or celebrate really good hackers just because they win a lot.(Just forces the rest of the community to up their game, at least that is what I see in the art community here)

I think the idea of bi/tri/quarter monthly awards is good.(whatever the community feels would work out best really) I think you could potentially have those along with an annual award as well. :D

Edited March 3, 2015 by TheErrantShepherd

[Primefusion]

Three to four month periods seem the most reasonable. Board activity coincides with whether or not school is in session. Summer and Winter breaks see a boost in activity. When school is in, the board slumps.
Another reason for longer periods is project progress in general. A lot of the threads in the concept board are just text right now. If a monthly or bi-monthly period were enforced, we'd see the same small handful of projects every time.

[Arch]

Every three months (four times a year) sounds optimal to me.

MVP (Most Valuable Participant) could be a general "who's been the most helpful/contributed most to the community this past month/X months."

MIP (Most Improved Project) would be like who had the coolest update this period.

Those are the two I can think of right off the bat. And then maybe have some more specialized awards to highlight certain things like innovative gameplay and whatnot.

[ghast]

great discussion guys! Keep suggesting possible awards! I was thinking quarterly on the way home from school. that seems like the best possible pattern

[Arch]

MPP (Most Promising Project) could be an award generally focused on highlighting up and coming new projects.

MIG (Most Innovative Gameplay).

MIA (Most Impressive Artistry) to highlight awesome graphics.

And then maybe the last one of the year could have more awards? Stuff like naming a "Hack of the Year," etc.

[ghast]

MPP (Most Promising Project) could be an award generally focused on highlighting up and coming new projects.

Yeah, with this i'm thinking like one award 'ceremony' for lack of a better term to rom hacks and another for concepts, except concepts would have different, more general awards.

Pokecomm's moderators pick 3 hacks a month, How do we want to do this?

3-4 hacks per quarter, randomly picked or?... 3-4 hacks nominated out of a handful?

[Lenh]

This is on a bit of a tangent, but I like the idea of a monthly digest/anyone'sHighlight type thing. Might be a miss but suggesting it anyways.

Knowing who/what project actually released something (be it a demo, teaser, or 'I'm alive and working on this still') for a given (bi)month (without having to sift through everything) would be great. Think it might also help people who just started a project and have something new to broadcast, as opposed to people who are showing off something that they've had for a much longer term and are looking to milk what they've already had.

[ghast]

Yeah! Maybe I can make a monthly hacking digest video. That's something I was also thinking about. With the hacker's permission, I'd talk about hack updates within the community. so kind of like... Hacking 'journalism' ahaha but yeah I wanted to do that too.

[Czar_Yoshi]

New question isn't letting me vote for some reason so saying yes here instead.

[ErrantDShepherd]

If you have voted in a previous poll you must delete your vote and re-enter it to also vote on the new poll question. Its frustrating, but I learned that is how the current system works.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Cool, thanks.

[ErrantDShepherd]

NP, at least the competitions has taught Mr some thing. ;)

This is on a bit of a tangent, but I like the idea of a monthly digest/anyone'sHighlight type thing. Might be a miss but suggesting it anyways.

Knowing who/what project actually released something (be it a demo, teaser, or 'I'm alive and working on this still') for a given (bi)month (without having to sift through everything) would be great. Think it might also help people who just started a project and have something new to broadcast, as opposed to people who are showing off something that they've had for a much longer term and are looking to milk what they've already had.

Yeah! Maybe I can make a monthly hacking digest video. That's something I was also thinking about. With the hacker's permission, I'd talk about hack updates within the community. so kind of like... Hacking 'journalism' ahaha but yeah I wanted to do that too.

That sounds like a great idea. I have enjoyed the FEE3 videos myself, so having more of these sort of updates/plays and stuff would be fantastic in my eyes, definitely some good promotion! :D Edited March 6, 2015 by TheErrantShepherd

[ghast]

Alright! The rules are set, I'll be posting up an entry thread tomorrow.