Nosferatiel wrote:
What would be "more than background and gameplay idea" that would have been against the stated rules? There's 2 or 3 entries also stating units and cities for Quest 2 and 3, explicitly, and I do believe people shouldn't have gone into detail on those, as that is clearly the subject of the next rounds, but there was no clause preventing them from doing so. Or any clause giving an upper limit on characters used.

I tried to delete that post because I didn't want to be petty, but I'll defend it because a mod has asked.



Most of the entries don't involve Minor Factions in background and gameplay, usually just tacking on a Minor Faction mechanic to meet the technical requirements of the contest. Toss out those entries with the entries that added short fiction or Quest 2 and 3 material to their entry instead of just providing what was asked for, and I think the voting would look different.



Heck, several entries leading in the polls literally have nothing to do with Minor Factions at all. That's hundreds of votes that would go to other Faction proposals.



I don't think it really matters anyway. I expect that the developers are going to ignore or radically change any proposal that don't meet their standards regardless of what the forum poll produces.

well while such posts could draw away people from more rule conforming entries, everyone has 10 votes so it might not be as big a difference as you think.

Wredniak2003 wrote:
I'm not sure as well if any response from devs would actually do any good atm. Sometimes it is better to wait for the dust to settle. I do hope they will reach some conclusions and use them in future but at this point any response on changes is bound to please some people and displease others. IMO whole situation could have been handled better and I'd like some clarification about some "technical" aspects of competition but those wouldn't really change anything unless they allowed everyone to recast their voices which I believe is not possible with this forum. Forcing people to vote again by for example resetting the vote could be as bad. Although I may wish things were different when there is a lot of bad options silence may be the best one.



We also shouldn't forget that this is THEIR game and their vision we were invited to be part of that to make it better not to take away their toys and tell them how their game should work Despite some disappointments I still believe EL will be great game. And If I really want the game to fit my vision perfectly I always can try becoming developer myself . However; even the creative director Romain have said he not always get to have final say as he works with a team of people as well ^^



In the end if you get really involved with a project like this some disappointments are unavoidable. We really should take step back and accept that. I may disagree with how this competition looks like but the fact is one of 8 factions will be co-created by community and that is pretty amazing.

^This.



Organizing a vote on this topic was destined to be an enormous undertaking given the enthusiastic response. I'd fully expect the dev team to take a more calibrated approach to the next competition. People should be happy that the devs solicit this sort of input and participation. Anyone who submitted an idea that isn't ultimately chosen (98 of 99 entries!) should hang on to that idea. It's perfectly reasonable to believe that a similar competition might come along in the future given the game's potential for expansions and other DLC.

Wredniak2003 wrote:
TBH In the future I'd restrict voting to people having 300 G2G points or maybe 2 week old accounts? Imo that would help reducing any potential abuse and would also negate need to discuss if the voting was manipulated.

But there's also people that owns the game and din't sing in the forums. They are in their right to vote, even if their forum account is less than a week old.

VieuxChat wrote:
But there's also people that owns the game and din't sing in the forums. They are in their right to vote, even if their forum account is less than a week old.

They would still probably have codes for points though so they can just use keys and get more than 300 points.

K__ wrote:
Most of the entries don't involve Minor Factions in background and gameplay, usually just tacking on a Minor Faction mechanic to meet the technical requirements of the contest. Toss out those entries with the entries that added short fiction or Quest 2 and 3 material to their entry instead of just providing what was asked for, and I think the voting would look different.

In terms of gameplay, minor factions aren't occuring at all in 15 polls. Yes, after you posted, yesterday, I went through all of them again and counted.

Having just s.th. like "assimilate 2 more factions" or any other mechanic that is just an alibi, would raise that number by roughly 10 more, but would be a highly subjective criterium, so using that would be very problematic.

Adding quest 2 or 3 happened up to 3 times in the whole competition, explicitly. There was no rule forbidding it, though I do agree that it is rather unfair, should any of these entries win. At least to other participants in quest 2 or 3.

And there surely was no rule against being detailed. Every participant could argue that the short fiction was part of the background description.

K__ wrote:
Heck, several entries leading in the polls literally have nothing to do with Minor Factions at all. That's hundreds of votes that would go to other Faction proposals.

Just throwing out these 15 entries would yield in less than 15% of all votes issued with almost 5 votes issued per person on average. There would be an impact, but the impact would be small.

Just a note on limiting new member's ability to vote:

Polls like this are a great way of getting fans who don't hang out on the official forum to get interested in this part of the community. Be they from the Steam forum or some 4X dedicated forum. It would be a shame to tell fans "Hey get involved... next time!"

melkathi wrote:
Just a note on limiting new member's ability to vote:

Polls like this are a great way of getting fans who don't hang out on the official forum to get interested in this part of the community. Be they from the Steam forum or some 4X dedicated forum. It would be a shame to tell fans "Hey get involved... next time!"

With that in mind I agree time limit is not a great way to do it. But point limit shouldn't be unimaginable then. Especially set in a way that even if you didn't own anything from amplitude you still could vote if you spent some time to read and post on forums.

melkathi wrote:
Just a note on limiting new member's ability to vote:

Polls like this are a great way of getting fans who don't hang out on the official forum to get interested in this part of the community. Be they from the Steam forum or some 4X dedicated forum. It would be a shame to tell fans "Hey get involved... next time!"

I disagree. I think that the most dedicated are the only ones who should vote.

DevildogFF wrote:
I disagree. I think that the most dedicated are the only ones who should vote.

You can't measure dedication though through participation in the official forum only.

For example I have 230 hours played on Anno 2070 and used to hang around a lot on the steam forum for the game. I never posted on their official forum. Does that make me less dedicated than someone with half my playtime but who registered on that forum?



Should your opinion count more or less than mine? You registered on this forum 2 months before me but have 200 fewer posts?



But there is an attempt to have "dedication: count: the G2G vote were one man != one vote.

So everyone gets to voice an opinion early on, but the final decission already does lie with the most dedicated.



That said, the game is not just being made for the vocal minority on the official forum.

You might as well suggest that only VIPs get to vote in the first selection - seeing how Amplitude already has that feedback system in place

Hmm, its hard issue... On other hand, it'd make new fans to feel welcome if they have voice in matter too, but on other hand it allows for potential abuse of trust and system... But I think it is possible to find a good middle ground.

There are a few calls of "unfair" and voting moans in here.



I would say that the only call of unfairness that can be made, is against anyone who knowing broke the rules with the aim to profit from it. With regards to the brief - The minimal guides are there to open the competition not starve it of original thought. This was a brainstorming event with entries forming the idea generation stage - where you don't say an idea can't happen in brainstorming, weak or otherwise.



Regarding the voting. It works. It's open. It does the job. And everyone understands it. Claims to weighting, barring or other censoring should always be challenged as it is counter intuitive and not democratic. Any who have created new user accounts for the purpose of voting are likely caught and the system is already in place to spot this.



What would be really unfair is if all the people who entered, especially those having never done anything like this in before, are omitted because they don't fit a criteria that an elite few have chosen.

Like... They've added extra text - They put in a quest - They only used the minor faction to boost there assimilation - etc.



Yes we can argue if certain faction designs are weak. Yes we can say that certain extra information was not required. However to deny the creativity on what is an idea generation format and not the final version of a faction is unfair in the extreme.

If you ask me, the scenario where breaking the rules is impossible is better than scenario where foolproof system of noticing those who break the rules exists.



Why? Because in latter scenario, if someone actually does break the rules, everyone is left feeling bad taste in mouth. The competition is supposed to be fun community effect that shows peoples creative potential, right?

Yeah, in case of voting like this I'll rather see preventative measure rather than trying to build fence after the cows broke loose...



And yes, I really feel that devs should check if there's any accounts that are made just for voting...

melkathi wrote:
You can't measure dedication though through participation in the official forum only.

For example I have 230 hours played on Anno 2070 and used to hang around a lot on the steam forum for the game. I never posted on their official forum. Does that make me less dedicated than someone with half my playtime but who registered on that forum?



Should your opinion count more or less than mine? You registered on this forum 2 months before me but have 200 fewer posts?



But there is an attempt to have "dedication: count: the G2G vote were one man != one vote.

So everyone gets to voice an opinion early on, but the final decission already does lie with the most dedicated.



That said, the game is not just being made for the vocal minority on the official forum.

You might as well suggest that only VIPs get to vote in the first selection - seeing how Amplitude already has that feedback system in place

Just maybe points above 300, or those that have registered the game in question...

Am i the only one who thought the vpting process went fine and is satisfied with the result? I mean, sure I would have liked to win, but apart from that (68 votes though! Woooh!) everything went awesomely! And the three winners were definitely among the coolest submissions IMO, I am very excited to see who finally wins and is added to the game!

EisenKreutzer wrote:
Am i the only one who thought the vpting process went fine and is satisfied with the result? I mean, sure I would have liked to win, but apart from that (68 votes though! Woooh!) everything went awesomely! And the three winners were definitely among the coolest submissions IMO, I am very excited to see who finally wins and is added to the game!

No. I think that many people are happy with the way the competition process worked. We can always learn lessons, but that shouldn't detract from the great chance the dev team gave us. In fact in my experience this is the most community minded game I've come across and should be congratulated for being so open.

Well, none of the three winning Factions followed the instructions for the contest. One has nothing to do with Minor Factions, one only has a few token mechanics and is otherwise not thematically about Minor Factions, and the last did all three parts of the contest in order to make a stronger entry than anyone else that just followed the rules.



The G2G vote is literally three perfect examples of the problems with the poll.



On the bright side, we now know that we never have to follow a contest's rules or requirements. That's something.

K__ wrote:
Well, none of the three winning Factions followed the instructions for the contest. One has nothing to do with Minor Factions, one only has a few token mechanics and is otherwise not thematically about Minor Factions, and the last did all three parts of the contest in order to make a stronger entry than anyone else that just followed the rules.



The G2G vote is literally three perfect examples of the problems with the poll.



On the bright side, we now know that we never have to follow a contest's rules or requirements. That's something.

Umm, I have no idea about what you mean. I mean, okay, Star Dreamers don't have minor faction mechanics, thats what I get. But Nereids have mechanic were minor faction villages spawn militia if they were peacefully assimilated and if you violently assimilate you can build slave dens to increase fids. Cultists on other hand have a lot of religion related minor factions features... And neither of two mentioned anything about units or heroes or logos or city design....

Lol everything about the Cult is minor factions.