Any news when winners are announced?

[catchthefloaty]

Didn't deckiller say anybody who updates that link would be auto disqualified?

 

[Cinnamon]

Didn't deckiller say anybody who updates that link would be auto disqualified?

By "updating the link" I assume you mean changing the download / file to which the contest links? There's really not an easy way to check that if it's hosted privately. That's why they downloaded all the games right after the deadline.

As a side-note, I wonder if Deckiller was / is the judge with health problems. That might explain why I never received a reply to my inquiry about the prelims.

 

[NickMakesGames]

By "updating the link" I assume you mean changing the download / file to which the contest links? There's really not an easy way to check that if it's hosted privately. That's why they downloaded all the games right after the deadline.

As a side-note, I wonder if Deckiller was / is the judge with health problems. That might explain why I never received a reply to my inquiry about the prelims.

Crap, can anybody confirm this? My contest page links to a box.net download which could potentially appear a little bit sketchy. I often like to update links on box.net so that new builds of the same project don't end up with different URLs, leading to confusion and frustration. As a result, the box.net link has a "v2" next to it, although it also has a time stamp that proves the updates were all made before the deadline. I doubt I could get DQ'ed for something like that, right?

While I'm on the subject of DQ paranoia and some of the judges are being kind enough to be vocal in the forums, can anybody say if an entry would be filtered out of the competition based on a spelling error? The name of my game is an intentional misspelling of the word "Specter," but the intentional spelling might not be immediately obvious and could perhaps be seen as a sign of unprofessional-ism? I know that if a typo shows up on something like a resume, the resume gets thrown out immediately. I hope none of the judges were so strict about screening entries?

 

[Cinnamon]

Crap, can anybody confirm this? My contest page links to a box.net download which could potentially appear a little bit sketchy. I often like to update links on box.net so that new builds of the same project don't end up with different URLs, leading to confusion and frustration. As a result, the box.net link has a "v2" next to it, although it also has a time stamp that proves the updates were all made before the deadline. I doubt I could get DQ'ed for something like that, right?

While I'm on the subject of DQ paranoia and some of the judges are being kind enough to be vocal in the forums, can anybody say if an entry would be filtered out of the competition based on a spelling error? The name of my game is an intentional misspelling of the word "Specter," but the intentional spelling might not be immediately obvious and could perhaps be seen as a sign of unprofessional-ism? I know that if a typo shows up on something like a resume, the resume gets thrown out immediately. I hope none of the judges were so strict about screening entries?

No worries, as far as I know you can't be disqualified based on what download host you used. That's why they downloaded everything right after the deadline and had to get all the original files from the sick judge. That's how I see it anyway.

 

[Archeia]

The issue is when after the preliminary screening, we don't download the game until we have the list. After that, we will download the games ourselves, the problem is that those entries who passed the screening and updated their DL links and we can't grab it and have to wait. Another is download hosts don't allow us to download their games and sometimes, Ksi and I reup our working copies for each other. That's one of the biggest cause of the delays actually.

Spelling errors can't get you DQ'd, no worries son.

 

[NickMakesGames]

The issue is when after the preliminary screening, we don't download the game until we have the list. After that, we will download the games ourselves, the problem is that those entries who passed the screening and updated their DL links and we can't grab it and have to wait. Another is download hosts don't allow us to download their games and sometimes, Ksi and I reup our working copies for each other. That's one of the biggest cause of the delays actually.

Spelling errors can't get you DQ'd, no worries son.

*Phew* Best news I've gotten in awhile. The possibility of being screwed by the mere title of my game has been weighing on me all week. This contest is proving to be a real emotional roller coaster.

 

[Cinnamon]

The issue is when after the preliminary screening, we don't download the game until we have the list. After that, we will download the games ourselves, the problem is that those entries who passed the screening and updated their DL links and we can't grab it and have to wait. Another is download hosts don't allow us to download their games and sometimes, Ksi and I reup our working copies for each other. That's one of the biggest cause of the delays actually.

Spelling errors can't get you DQ'd, no worries son.

That's interesting. I would've thought you guys downloaded everything right after the deadline and shared them on a private Dropbox / Google Drive folder or private server. 

 

[Archeia]

If I remember correctly, all 140 games are around 4 Gigs~ There's 700 games, that's why a list was needed for preliminary round.

dropbox only allows you 2 gigs unless you went free crazy. The private server technically would be the contest site.

Any game that was uploaded in google drive for me kept getting cut off that I had to redownload a few games :/

 

[Touchfuzzy]

The Non-RPG side was done a bit different. I did the prelim screenings on all of those, and I uploaded every single one that passed separately from the versions I played from my prelim downloads so that the other Non-RPG judges could download it that way.

Which was a ton of work on its own.

Trust me, I wish this contest was over as much as anyone. I'm honestly so tired of seeing it. Playing that many games in a row and then trying to quantify them no matter how good they are is draining and takes a lot of fun out of playing games.

Right after my judging was over, I spent two days doing nothing but playing Knights of the Old Republic II just to play 1 game for a ridiculously long time and go my own pace rather than trying to see everything the game had to offer within an hour so I could get to another just so that I could clear my head.

 

[GIRakaCHEEZER]

Actually, I never (and I think most of us) were upset about the delays themselves. It's the lack of communication with the contestants that has generated the negative buzz. Here on the forums the staff is very helpful and communicative, but most contestants don't check here. A quick 5 minute update of the main site would go a long way.

I would like to reiterate this point that Cinnamon made, since I'd say it's largely the reason for most of the "backlash" against the delays. Not the fact that judging itself was delayed, but that there was never any notification given to the developers or the public about the delays outside of a few posts in these forums and the rpgmaker newsletter, which not everyone who was in the contest received (and that contest page *still* says the results are coming in late-August).

 

[Ksi]

For the record, mediafile was a good choice for hosting - it was stable and showed the updated dates so we knew instantly whether or not we'd have to ask for a link to the contest version.  Mega... we weren't fond of mega. Having to download a file twice is obnoxious and gives double the chance for a mess up in the download. And yeah... google drive was a cruel mistress.

There were some downloads we had to try multiple times just to get a working version which was, understandably, a bit of a bother. ^.^;

Thankfully, we did manage to get through and play the games. The write-ups took a little longer that we initially thought, too. It was hard to put the words in order after playing so many games - you couldn't just leave the writing for later in case you got the games confused in your head (and boy, was there some confusion when it came to games that had the same name or feel XD ) but sometimes it was a case of not being able to string two words together. I remember one game I just sat and stared at the blank notepad for about an hour trying to get my head back on straight and figure out what I wanted to say. XD (I ended up taking a break and when I came back I just couldn't shut up about what to write - I think that was the longest write-up I did of the lot >.<; )

But yeah, I guess there wasn't just one thing that delayed - it was a bunch of stuff that wasn't considered or planned. ^.^;

 

[Touchfuzzy]

I've seriously thought about restricting what upload sites are allowed next time we do a contest. Some work great (I had no problems with Drive by the way, what issues did you have there), others were awful (MEGA).

 

[zDS]

Personally, this thread has put a wave of ease over me about the delays. I feel like I can forgive them now knowing they existed for a legitimate effort at properly judging these games. I did not even know (some?) judges were writing feedback for a certain amount of games as well.

Next time, I would love for a good guideline for what sites to use while uploading. I just used dropbox without knowing if it is the best option or not. Thankfully I do not seem to be seeing judges having trouble with that method.

I hope it is not long now for the butterflies to finally be free from my stomach, haha.

Also, if this happens again, do not be afraid to be a bit vocal about what is going on. The lack of communication is also what bothered me the most. Just a few words eased me immensely.

 

[Ardaz]

I've seriously thought about restricting what upload sites are allowed next time we do a contest. Some work great (I had no problems with Drive by the way, what issues did you have there), others were awful (MEGA).

Why was MEGA awful? We used it, so sorry about that I thought it worked quite well and this is the first time I've heard of someone having trouble downloading it... We decided to use it over others like Mediafire because the ads on these sites are really annoying, but I'm sorry it ended up being a pain.

It's great to here from the judges, by the way. I agree with the other contestants, the delay is fine, it was the lack of information that made it look bad. I can imagine how tough it must have been for the judges to play through so many games!

 

[Cinnamon]

I'm surprised you guys did actual write-ups for the entries that passed the prelims. That's pretty cool. I would've expected you to just use a quick 20 point scale to get to the top ~20.

And like the other contestants said it's been great hearing from you guys. Seems like the organization behind the contest was a bit confusing? I guess that'll be because of the unexpected large amount of entries.

Anyway, totally fine with any delays now. Just wanted to know what was up & if the contest was actually going to get conclude. Thanks for clearing stuff up! 

 

[whitesphere]

While I'm on the subject of DQ paranoia and some of the judges are being kind enough to be vocal in the forums, can anybody say if an entry would be filtered out of the competition based on a spelling error? The name of my game is an intentional misspelling of the word "Specter," but the intentional spelling might not be immediately obvious and could perhaps be seen as a sign of unprofessional-ism? I know that if a typo shows up on something like a resume, the resume gets thrown out immediately. I hope none of the judges were so strict about screening entries?

If you're talking about game titles, I wouldn't worry in the slightest.  A lot of companies deliberately misspell their product names so they can get a trademark on the name.  This is why Intel went with the phrase Pentium for their chips, rather than following the *86 moniker --- you can't trademark a number.

 

[Ksi]

MEGA made us download the file twice which is just obnoxious, especially as some of the judges had not great internet so downloading a file twice... It also doubles the chance of messing up - I, personally, had a few files consistently messing up: I think it was something like four of five downloads kept breaking and another two or three games file were corrupted after download? I persevered and eventually got working downloads, but yeah, it shouldn't be so hard to download a file.

Honestly though? Making you download a file twice (and slowly, in browser the first time) is just ugh in and of itself, even without the other issues. Just use ad-blocker and there's no issue with mediafire.

As for Drive, I had to reload a couple of pages a few times to trigger the download to start but nessy had a lot of trouble with it - so much so that I had to upload files elsewhere for her to grab them. ^.^; At least they never corrupted the files, though.

@Cinnamon: There's actually mention of what we were expected to do with the write-ups on the guidelines page of the site. It actually went into fairly decent detail as to the judging process - including how the games were split and how the games would be judged.

 

[Touchfuzzy]

Dropbox was almost always the best downloads.

The other ones that I didn't have much issue with was Google Drive and Microsoft's OneDrive. Though apparently Liberty and Archeia had problems with Google Drive.

 

[Cinnamon]

@Ksi: Yup, I'm familiar with that page. Read through it a couple of times (actually made the game with that in mind). I don't think it specifically mentions writing short paragraphs on each game that passed the prelims (just the ~20 point scoring system), so that's a pleasant surprise.  It'll be fun to read through the little notes on RMN after the contest is over.

 

[Ksi]

Well, they're more like rough notes at the moment. XD But yeah, I just realised that page makes no mention of notes. We were told to take them behind the scenes - as part of the feedback process after the judging was done. Besides it'll help with the podcast. ^.^