PLEASE READ - Thoughts On Recent Design An Armor Contest

[Phill - Immortal GM]

This is definitely an ideal solution! However since it requires engineering and development from the Game Developers, this will be difficult to implement, as there are many higher priority bugs/fixes and gameplay ideas that need to be addressed/implemented first. We will definitely suggest it to the Developers, however it is likely that it will not be implemented in the near future.

It's good to set priorities. I guess, the next DF contest will be a bit out, right?
Of course it will take effort, all great changes do. It is something worthwhile investing time in, however.

Imagine if the time spent on this would eliminate the time spent for you/others on fixing up the drama the current system caused.

I'm sure you will find something that works. Cheers

[Clementine]

+1

By moving voting to the game, the voting will most likely represent the community's choice (the persons who actually are playing the game) without having any obvious bias like now. And I bet that a lot of KnD players don't know about the contest even if it was advertised in the notices. Perhaps it will be easier to reach out to them this way too.

Definitely a long term goal, but just remember we are at the whim of the Developers and they may not have the opportunity to add this into the game for quite awhile. In the meantime, for future contests, I do like the idea of us choosing 25-50, allowing the Community to select the ten finalists, and then us choosing the winner. And perhaps the one that gets the most vote from the community can be a second winner.

On another note, I want to share some thoughts regarding the whole idea of the design contests. In my opinion, it's a really good chance for players to present concepts to the developers and for the developers to be inspired. I don't think that a lot of harm will be done if the developers pick some concepts they like from time to time without them necessarily holding a contest each time. Again, it's my opinion, but I feel that the point of player-made concepts is to get variety. What's the point of asking a player to design a armor in the same vein as the already existing armors? I think that it'd be a waste to not get inspiration from the huge amount of entries - a lot of them being really different from the armors in-game.

Definitely a good idea! We do want to make sure if a player design inspires an idea, that the players get recognition (I know some folks would be very angry if their idea inspired an armor in game and they didn't get credit). Since we received so many amazing entries and can't implement them all, we do plan to feature some of the amazing work across our multiple channels!

[Clementine]

It's good to set priorities. I guess, the next DF contest will be a bit out, right?
Of course it will take effort, all great changes do. It is something worthwhile investing time in, however.

Imagine if the time spent on this would eliminate the time spent for you/others on fixing up the drama the current system caused.

I'm sure you will find something that works. Cheers

The next contest wont be too far out! We are thinking June for the next one! We wont have the system implemented in the game by then, however we don't want to put these awesome and fun events on hold while that functionality is developed, particularly since it may not be put on the schedule for a very long time. The Developers have a huge queue of things to work on and plan months and months in advance!

Also, don't forget that we, the Community Management team, don't actually code anything in the game. You really don't want us touching the code, we would break it!

[katduCouteau]

Clementine you said:
Definitely a long term goal, but just remember we are at the whim of the Developers and they may not have the opportunity to add this into the game for quite awhile. In the meantime, for future contests, I do like the idea of us choosing 25-50, allowing the Community to select the ten finalists, and then us choosing the winner. And perhaps the one that gets the most vote from the community can be a second winner.

I love this idea ~!!! ^

And if someone's work was to inspire a future armor, would they be credited that inspired armor or no?

[Phill - Immortal GM]

Also, don't forget that we, the Community Management team, don't actually code anything in the game. You really don't want us touching the code, we would break it!

Yeah, please don't :P
What I meant is that after all you are one team, one company. Meaning time saved on one front is essentially time saved on another one, too.

June is pretty far out in terms of adding something like this, but I do understand there are more important things to be fixed and looking at the current game I totally agree.

[Clementine]

And if someone's work was to inspire a future armor, would they be credited that inspired armor or no?

That is the golden question and something that we would have to figure out! I want to give recognition when necessary, of course, but not sure if that means a shout out by name, Gems, or the armor itself.

[Clementine]

June is pretty far out in terms of adding something like this, but I do understand there are more important things to be fixed and looking at the current game I totally agree.

June is pretty far out for us, but for Developers who have the plan mapped out for the next 3-6 months, June is right around the corner!

[Anarchos]

Since there are couples who play this game, and roommates will play it too, I would limit it to 4 or 5 votes per IP address ( and consult devices/OS info as well). Anything beyond that would be pushing it.

On a side note: I'm a developer at my job for a different company and for every new feature which gets added to anything there are a whole list of things which needs done (checking to make sure bugs weren't introduced, making sure developer X's code plays nice with Developer Y's code, updating or changing database tables, checking performance levels, checking game balance, etc. etc. ad nauseum). So kudos to the whole KnD team!

[roookey1]

I didn't follow the contest stuff very closely, but extremely nice to hear some 'official' Gree feedback on questions asked by the customers, thanks for taking the time Clementine!