Contests / H2H Design or NE Olympics

A little experiment. 

 

edit: H2H design was the contest concept that the whole community thought up before the Olympics where announced.

...what?

I'd say the Olympics given the date... the contest is very experimental and as such hectic but I've been enjoying it as of late, especially considering the fact that many of the contests are non-park contests. Really looking forward to the landscape contest.

 

Also, I'd imagine/hope there'll be an H2H next year.

You never miss a chance to shit on the admins do you?

You never miss a chance to shit on the admins do you?

This has nothing to do with the improv round. I'm just wondering because It's pretty obvious that the quality of everything is not up to "normal," contest standards and maybe a draft would have brought out a better quality of submissions. 

In his defense though, most of the rounds haven't exactly been about building a quality park. It would be very difficult for someone to get an accolade from the vertical sprint or cross-country engineering. It's also unrealistic to expect very many H2H quality parks from the 50x50 improvising for obvious reasons.

So your saying that only parks can be high quality?

I think the "lack" of quality is more derivative of the shorter deadlines and round requirements than the map sizes or the benches.  People have made great stuff with bad objects by todays standards and there have been plenty of great small maps and micros over the years.

 

But when deadlines are a week apart and there is only a month buffer in between the first deadline and beginning of the contests its a bit tough to continually pump out quality work.  Especially when its more of a relaxed contest format that doesn't require participation in each round by the teams.

 

I think the basic ideas of the contest were cool and its an interesting experiment.  But the more relaxed nature of the contest combined with the deadlines put it in an odd position.  People aren't going to sell their souls to finish a map during the last week to ten days like in H2H because it if you don't finish, your team isn't really penalized.  Also, I think there were a few to many events in to small of a time.  You couldn't really settle in to a specific event and just focus on that for 2-3 months, instead you seemingly have something new pop up every week.

 

If this were to be done again... I would change a few things.

1. Get rid of all the "smaller" events (sprints, engineering etc...) and just have 3 or 4 rounds before a playoff or final round.

 

2. Get rid/reduce of the specific requirements for each round.  Just have a map size and one or two requirements.  Such as: no rides, only coasters, waterpark only etc...  Stuff that makes it feel less like completing objectives and gives the rounds a more open-ended feel that would make it a bit more approachable and worth while.

 

3. Tighten up the submission/participation rules.  Teams that enter should be forced to submit one entry per round, like H2H.  Otherwise, I feel the teams aren't really putting that much effort into the maps because there aren't any penalties for not submitting a map.

 

4. Voting, I don't know how this would be fixed but I don't like how you can vote for your own park if you really want to.  Its kind of in the hands of the voter to decide if its sportsmanlike to vote for your own entry, which I feel a bit iffy about.  This kind of undermines the competitive nature of the contest and again makes it feel a bit more relaxed.

 

5. Oh, and don't hype up the contest like its going to be some great amazing thing.  I don't have any problem with you guys doing this over the Design H2H, but the way you hyped it up was really weak.  Felt like a kid waving his arms trying to get attention when the rest of the group is collaborating on a idea.  

 

Kind of feel like the "slight" lack of "Admining" since the end of H2H has kind of contributed to this.  It took forever for the H2H awards to happen, it took forever for lots of parks to get released in the fall/winter, it took forever for the 2015 NE awards to happen, it took forever for you guys to spill the beans on this contest....

 

Again, I get it.  You guys all have 1000 better things to do with your life, that's fine.  But there is an active community of people who are willing to help when and where they can.  No need to be so secretive and at times distant from the community on decisions like this.

 

Sorry if this is a bit off topic but oh well...

You're Kumba without the spelling errors. 

I don't think NE was ready for a H2H contest this year. It's good to have a year with a less intensive contest in between two H2H seasons.

I agree with G Force

The points G Force makes about what is wrong with the contest are the exact reasons we didn't do them.

 

The point of the Olympics was to provide a different contest, based on an old contest format that no longer works for the site (Pro Tour). Everyone liked the prelims last time around, and everyone likes team contests, so we merged the two ideas to create this.

 

We tried to be as different from H2H as possible, because why would we want another contest exactly the same?

 

I also think we have had quality submissions for this contest. But regardless, that isn't the point of this contest, that is the point of H2H, to get the best RCT creations possible. This contest wasn't about that, this contest was about seeing how people build under imposed restrictions and guidelines and in a quick time frame.

 

Now, addressing some of the other points:

 

1) The H2H Awards. We actually didn't take forever with these. H2H6 awards took place in October/November. H2H7 awards took place in September. That's quicker, a whole 1 or 2 months quicker.

 

2) 2015 Awards voting took place 8th April. In comparison the previous years have been like this:

2014 - 9th February

2013 - 2nd March

2012 - 11th March

2011 - 7th March

2010 - 4th Feb

2009 - 21st Feb

So yes, we were a little bit later than normal. But only by 1 month, as the awards, on average, take place at the beginning of March.

 

3) The hype of this contest as if it is some great amazing thing is an unfair comment. We were excited about this contest, very much so, and we were excited to finally share it with you. How are we meant to know how the contest is going to go down or how excited people will be? What are we meant to do? Tell everyone we've got a contest but its going to be shit so don't bother getting excited about it? No. We think its going to be an amazing contest because we've put effort into trying to make it so. We don't know how its going to be, so all we can do is have hope and belief. But this is the first time we've done it, so there are going to be a lot of things wrong, and a lot of things that can be done better in the future, but for now, I see it as a success, there is a lot of participation, and we rightfully hyped it up.

 

4) Intensive contests, like H2H, burn people out. Contests like H2H are also not very inclusive. A lot of people felt burned out after H2H6 and after H2H7, its always the same, we can't run them all the time because it just isn't good for people. Also, the olympics was about being inclusive, anyone could join, from any skill level, H2H is quite restrictive, I know its not too bad down the lower end of the draft, but its still pretty exclusive. Look at this contest, what do we have? A team of relative NE and RCT newbies, doing extremely well. Do you get that in H2H style contests? No. Is it great to see? Yes.

 

6) There were more discussions than just the H2H Design idea that people were talking about, and we didn't shut any of them down, we allowed conversation and discussion, we never said don't do it, we simply said that we were working on a contest, because we are always working on contests, as soon as one finishes we are working on the next one. Also we said that if people wanted to go ahead with the community contest we would hold back on the official contest for the summer, it wasn't a threat, it was giving you all an opportunity. We are never against community contests, some can be very successful, a lot aren't, but we've never said no to them, we just didn't want to run a contest simultaneously, or straight after/before.

 

5) It isn't that we have 1000 better things to do, its that we all have jobs, degrees, businesses, relationships etc. I'd spend every moment of my time on the site and building RCT like I used to if I could, but I can't, so I devote as much of my free time (if not all of it) on doing things for the site. It's most likely that period through Winter/Fall was a period where we all had something difficult going on. I know I was out of action until March pretty much.

 

7)The lack of admin power is being addressed, it was being addressed before the contest, and after the contest it will go back to being addressed again. Most likely we'll recruit more staff members and rework the team, I'll probably step away from an active role and be advisory, like Posix is, but we are getting through the contest first.

1. Get rid of all the "smaller" events (sprints, engineering etc...) and just have 3 or 4 rounds before a playoff or final round.

You're describing a smaller H2H. If we're doing a new contest thing we're making it distinct. And any less events and making a ranking would be pointless.
 
 

2. Get rid/reduce of the specific requirements for each round.  Just have a map size and one or two requirements.  Such as: no rides, only coasters, waterpark only etc...  Stuff that makes it feel less like completing objectives and gives the rounds a more open-ended feel that would make it a bit more approachable and worth while.

Again, seems like you want H2H.
 
 

3. Tighten up the submission/participation rules.  Teams that enter should be forced to submit one entry per round, like H2H.  Otherwise, I feel the teams aren't really putting that much effort into the maps because there aren't any penalties for not submitting a map.

That's exactly how you get unfinished and low effort submissions.
 
 

4. Voting, I don't know how this would be fixed but I don't like how you can vote for your own park if you really want to.  Its kind of in the hands of the voter to decide if its sportsmanlike to vote for your own entry, which I feel a bit iffy about.  This kind of undermines the competitive nature of the contest and again makes it feel a bit more relaxed.

I have great trust in the majority of NE's public. And personally I just think that if you truly feel that your own entry is the best (or second best) of the bunch, you should be able to vote that way.
 
 

5. Oh, and don't hype up the contest like its going to be some great amazing thing.  I don't have any problem with you guys doing this over the Design H2H, but the way you hyped it up was really weak.  Felt like a kid waving his arms trying to get attention when the rest of the group is collaborating on a idea.

What a load of crap...
 
 

Kind of feel like the "slight" lack of "Admining" since the end of H2H has kind of contributed to this.  It took forever for the H2H awards to happen, it took forever for lots of parks to get released in the fall/winter, it took forever for the 2015 NE awards to happen, it took forever for you guys to spill the beans on this contest....

You're not wrong that we've been short on time this year but the site is still running. H2H awards were done in less than a month which is reasonable and faster than usual. A lot of parks got released in a matter of days. And even if they did get released after like two weeks that's still a lot faster than it used to be. And no of course we're not developing this contest out in the open. I still don't see how that's a normal request. It took us 'forever' to spill the beans because it takes a long time to develop a new contest with thought and care. Which it took. A lot of thought.
 
 

Again, I get it.  You guys all have 1000 better things to do with your life, that's fine.  But there is an active community of people who are willing to help when and where they can.  No need to be so secretive and at times distant from the community on decisions like this.

Decisions like what? I don't know which decision you're referring to but in general the community is a poor decision maker. edit: See my next post for clarification, apologies for the blunt generalisation.

In my opinion, this contest is great. Not every contest should be as big as h2h. All these small events with joke entries are so much fun.

I really like the concept of the Olympics. We'll get the chance for a proper design contest later on  

I agree with Chorkiel.. It's been great so far and feels fun and inclusive. H2H every year would be a joke.

Obviously the parks released in H2H are incredible, time in-between is needed, a little breathing room for sure. Ever second year to have something different is wise. I think it's great to have a contest for anyone to share in building, such as Olympics or Micro Madness. I would have enjoyed an H2H design contest, but perhaps that can be added into a round or two of H2H8 to ease up the schedule a bit. I think the admins do a great job of mixing things up, keeping the contests fresh and different.

 

Personally, I would have liked to share in the Olympics, but our team's motivation was flushed down the toilet, and I didn't want to build parks by myself. What's the fun of a team contest when you build parks alone? No hard feelings towards my teammates, it's just what happened. There were openings on other teams that I could have switched to, but I wasn't allowed. Kind of sucked, but I'm working on my solo projects instead.

There were openings on other teams that I could have switched to, but I wasn't allowed.

 

What's the point of a "fun contest" if this happens?

Yeah there are about 4-5 teams I'm pretty sure that just fell a part.

Yeah there are about 4-5 teams I'm pretty sure that just fell a part.

So what? There's still plenty of teams actively competing.