The next part of the contest will probably feature an e-mail submission system so we get your submissions and then publish them at the same time. However, due to the platform's limitation, it will still have a "posted first" kind of issue insofar as some will always appear before others in a list, even if posted by the same user in quick succession. We might be able to skirt this limitation depending on the number of submissions we receive, but until we get there, let's focus on what we have ahead of us.

Some of you made great points regarding the number of entries, so where we'd usually have three finalists this time we'll open up to a bunch more, which will reduce the slant of the top submissions (even if not quite overcoming it).

Frogsquadron wrote:

The next part of the contest will probably feature an e-mail submission system so we get your submissions and then publish them at the same time. However, due to the platform's limitation, it will still have a "posted first" kind of issue insofar as some will always appear before others in a list, even if posted by the same user in quick succession. We might be able to skirt this limitation depending on the number of submissions we receive, but until we get there, let's focus on what we have ahead of us.

Some of you made great points regarding the number of entries, so where we'd usually have three finalists this time we'll open up to a bunch more, which will reduce the slant of the top submissions (even if not quite overcoming it).

Thank you for taking into account what we proposed : we are perfectly aware of the current limitations of the new platform (hence the ALPHA on G2G logo) and the solutions we proposed were, as I said on the rule thread, certainly "too optimistic".

I hope that you weren't too exhausted or stressed because of this thread (which arrived just before your return from Gamescom) and that everybody in the Amplicrew is aware of our strong support (this thread was, I think, its best demonstration : I proves we care a lot ).

Have a good day !

Frogsquadron wrote:

 However, due to the platform's limitation, it will still have a "posted first" kind of issue insofar as some will always appear before others in a list, even if posted by the same user in quick succession.

Still an improvement in my eyes. Thank you.

Frogsquadron wrote:

Some of you made great points regarding the number of entries, so where we'd usually have three finalists this time we'll open up to a bunch more, which will reduce the slant of the top submissions (even if not quite overcoming it).

The issue I see with this is that it will split the vote among too many choices and thus leave too many people unsatisfied. I'd recommend using Instant-Runoff Voting in tandem, where voters number their choices from most preferred to least. If their first choice earns the least amount of votes, it is eliminated and their vote goes to their next choice. The process repeats until their are two choices.

That's the plan we have for the long term, but our current voting system cannot be modified at the moment. We had long discussions back in the day on our preferred and fairest ways of selecting winners, and that's pretty much what we'd landed on.

We're still far from being able to implement it yet, unfortunately.

Thank you Amplitude for having accepted to change some elements to this contest : I'm very happy to see so much people participating to the "voting time" !

Although, there is one tiny egocentric problem : I was 13th  on the list... But I must accept my fate : this is the Olympic spirit !

Good luck to everyone and thank you so much for participating to this thread until the end !  

Hinin wrote:

Thank you Amplitude for having accepted to change some elements to this contest : I'm very happy to see so much people participating to the "voting time" !

Although, there is one tiny egocentric problem : I was 13th  on the list... But I must accept my fate : this is the Olympic spirit !

Good luck to everyone and thank you so much for participating to this thread until the end !  

Alright mate, good luck on the next competition (If there ever is a new one) to you too. 

I have been absentee on here for a while as my time and schedule have not allowed me to be as active as I might like but I saw this post and wanted to drop a line. This community remains singular in it's logic, I've been a part of many other game forums and the fact that everyone has maintained a primarily professional attitude here is as always impressive. Frogsquadron did an excellent job of explaining Amplitude's side of this situation and everyone seems to have responded in kind. The fact that this issue was presented as it was and responded to as it was is what makes this platform so extremely successful. On that note I just want to say thank you to everyone involved who has kept their cool and handled this so well. This community remains an example to me of what a community can look like when the developers and the consumers maintain a strong relationship.

TL;DR

Keep setting the bar higher for communication, Much <3 all

I agree with what has been said above and in the other pages, I tried my best to look through all pages and read the submissions which names got my attention but it is a bit sad that there are some really good ideas burried down at the last pages. 

I think we can all agree that changing the G2G website and allowing early voting were the two biggest blunders to happen before the most important contest for ES2.  Moving forward, I hope some of these suggestions made by many of us will be put into effect for the next contest forums:

- Hidden Vote Totals

- Separating Entry and Voting times

- Remove ability to bump posts

- Randomize list

Another suggestion I'd like to add, if votes are hidden during the contest, maybe release who voted for what after the contest, for transparency.  It would be interesting to see who the devs voted for, and also check for any voter fraud.  I'm sure it could be possible for someone to create 1000s of new accounts for a vote boost.

Interesting, from the rules it states: "For impartiality reasons and to avoid fraud, the number of votes for each round and will be kept secret until completion of the voting process. "  So at least a voter count will be released.

I think I have to say that I couldn't agree more.

No warning before the contest starting bothered me a lot, no separation of creation deadlines and voting stage, the advantage of being early and rushing in with a submission and most of all; sitting on the front page, at the top of the page most of the time. Will account for unfairness in the submissions because some people just don't have the time to go through the initial sea of threads.

Now me? I spent hours thinking before I even started with my own creation, before I sat down and started to write, to feel out my race I was creating. Even then, I went back and edited it multiple times before I was happy with it! As of now, I am trying to get some drawing done in my spare time but Ive got the start of a HNC coming up at the end of the month to semi get prepared for.

I have seen people bumping themselves in shameful ways, I seen someone using a dot, to bump themselves. Some people like myself replied to other folk or I made a reasonable change to their main post and you wanted people to go and look at it again.

On another note, I appreciate EndlessCrashes exposing the system through the imagery... of clouds, in other words, colourful bumping. I myself have been watching The Unfallen's stats each day while sorting the forum through filters and I was sitting here thinking "Gosh, its near the top nearly every day and has 5 to 6 times more views than anybody else and has 3 times the score of everyone else and has THE MOST comments.

The second highest scoring and SECOND MOST commented (mostly clouds) is EndlessCrashes Weatherkin. Which has half as many comments and about half as many vote points currently. Its... mathmatical...

Talross lays out issues very nicely as well in this thread and I sort of agree with his speculations for sorting through the 170+ submissions but I don't really know what they could do right now.

But I know one thing, narrowing it down to 3 right now is unfair, it would be simply unfair to take the 3 highest voted ones right now and disregard the rest because of the way the voting system in this phase turned out.

I am going to link back here in my own thread to support this as well.

Dear Amplitude Studios,

                                         Let me start off by saying I am a massive fan of your work and I can't wait to see what you guys do in the future. I also appreciate the fact that you started this Games2Gether scheme, something that most other game developers don't even consider, and that you take the time to listen and cooperate with your fans to make such great games. However, due to recent events I must come forth to express my disdain with the way the Endless Space 2 Major Faction Contest was held. Allow me to start by telling you my experience with the contest and then I will express how I think this can be solved.

I had initially heard about the contest via steam and decided that I would take part. At this point I did not have a Games2Gether account and was not familiar with the way contests were done. Once I had read the guidelines, I began my entry on a word document and it took me around 6 days to complete. I then created a Games2Gether account and submitted my entry on the 20th August 2016. At first I was not aware about the G2G up-voting system but after reading some threads I soon realized that the people who had submitted their entries first would have the highest G2G score and therefore enter the last voting stage for just showing up first. I believe that this makes it unfair for those that had worked very hard on their entries but will receive no recognition simply because they submitted late.

To address the points I have made above, I believe the following changes should be made to the way in which contests are held:

1. Announce a contest and deadline for entries but disable up-voting.
2. Once the deadline is reached enable up-voting and set another deadline for the end of up-voting (no new entries can be entered during this time) and randomize the posts on the front page at regular intervals 
3. send the top 3 up-voted entries to the final voting stage

I believe that by simply adding a dedicated up-voting time it would make the contest much more fair for those that enter their entries late. I am also aware that this may have been the older system used when it came to holding contests. If so I believe that it would be most beneficial to the community if you reverted back to the older system.

Thank you for your time,

                                          Aqil Ghani

I said it in the main thread and I'll say it again here, a simple 1 person 1 vote system after a top 10 is chosen by the Amplicrew is simple and effective and fair. The main drawback of course is that the team must do the legwork of reading submissions but an advantage is that they can weed out factions that do not fit the theme or are not feasible.

160+ threads to vote on, I've checked a few, made one and voted on one, not super effective and the idea of being fair drains my energy. I even chose a few based on wanting to see what was doing well which once more is exemplary of an issue with this method. I have seen the problems this creates before and while an option is chosen and complaints die down in time, it can be good for future polls to get this issue dealt with sooner rather than put up with such complaints every time.

That said I look forward to the game and hundred more hours lost :)

I agree with previous messages. Probably main problem is lack of time to read and vote, because ones who started earlier and took some effort for bumping have more chances than ones who started later. Give us at least week between deadline of faction submission and deadline of upvoting to read carefully and choose best. Idea to randomise first page is not bad, but don't do it too often, because it's a problem if you rigorously try to read all submissions and suddenly everything gets messy, maybe change every 12 hours is enough.

I agree with the concerns that have been brought forth.

I participated in the last few contests (both on the old site and on the new site) - I will use the most recent contest as the example.

The last contest was the "Quest Creation Contest" - it only had 14 submissions. It was easy for users to read through them, make comments, and vote on them. There was less of a rush to get your submission in, so users had time to not only write quality quests, but those reading them had the time to fully digest and vote as they seem fit.

However, this is a MAJOR contest, and the rules needed to be different.

First off, it came as a surprise. There was no warning, and no announcement that the contest would be ANY different than the other ones. Although I was fortunate to win one of the contests (and yet another thank you to those that voted), it would have been nice to have been informed that something like this was upcoming.

I did not enter this current contest (to give someone else the opportunity to win is only fair and the right thing to do) - but it would have been nice to know "Hey, you can enter these MINOR contests, but if you win you wont be eligible for this super secret MAJOR contest coming up." It's a VERY minor gripe, but one nonetheless.

With a contest such as this one, there should have been more prep going in. Amplitude, you should have known that there was going to be a HUGE influx of people wanting to submit, ESPECIALLY since there is a travel prize involved. One could easily surmise that there would be tons of people making accounts (some of who may not even be fans/supporters) just to try to get in on the action.

Within a day, there were already pages of submissions. Within a week, there were too many to read in one sitting.

As others have pointed out, this creates a bottleneck. If you're not on the first two pages, there is a high probability that your submission is going to be largely ignored. It's a sad fact, but a true one, as some of the later submissions are truly great. 

Perhaps some kind of restriction needed to be in place for eligibility? For example, active accounts need to have the first "survivor" badge (survived 1 week) before being eligible?

Or, as others have suggested, randomize the entries and/or prevent voting until the submission date has ended.

All that being said - You guys here at Amplitude are one of my favorite small publishers. Just the fact that you even HAVE these kind of contests adds so much to the character and quality of your company. Please don't stop giving us little guys the chance to have our ideas heard and realized! Thanks again for everything. Hopefully taking into consideration these kind of comments will make your future contests stronger!

Thanks to everyone who have contributed to this thread so far. It is certainly relieving to know that we are not the only ones who feel this way.