Contest Feedback, Suggestions and Ideas

[messdnys]

I'd like to see a contest for a modern house, and mediterranean style house.

[norenegonc]

I am one of those that doesn’t own many store items, just some hairstyles and some of the holiday stuff. I wouldn’t mind the contests allowing store items. One way to make that fair might be to allow the use of custom items. Not mods but custom built items. There are some really beautiful furnishings out there, I would argue a lot of it is better than the store stuff. I understand that these items are not allowed for normal builds, but since the contest is mostly for show, who knows.

I also agree about smaller lots. I do enjoy the larger ones from time to time, but they take so long lol, on the santa house, I am struggling to figure out what to do with some of the extra room outside.

I don’t know if someone mentioned this but maybe a contest where you are not allowed to recolor. That way you could see the skill of builders at the core. So no items, floors or walls would be recolored then. On the other hand, you could do as others mentioned, something where you create the full shell and the contest is to recolor and furnish. That way you could see the skill of the interior designers.

As a quick aside, those of you that might be interested in a mini city on a 64 by 64 should join the Builder’s Summit <.< The first creation is such a build in castle form, although only Agneza has joined so far

Anyway, lame advertisement aside lol, I think the contests are fun, so even if you don’t change a thing, it’s all good Cheers

[samoht04]

If you mean Third Party Custom Content then that will never happen. That is against the rules of the forum and the contest. By allowing them in Contests that would be promoting something that is against the rules of the forum.

[norenegonc]

I forgot to mention, another cool idea might be a contest for a recreation. You could find images of some real building you guys like, and the contest could be for the best recreation. You could choose something you know is going to be difficult and see the creative methods the contestants utilize to recreate the building given the limitations of the game. Ok, that’s all sorry for the double message

[norenegonc]

If you mean Third Party Custom Content then that will never happen. That is against the rules of the forum and the contest. By allowing them in Contests that would be promoting something that is against the rules of the forum.

Ah that’s okay lol. I don’t really mind, I just figured it was worth suggesting since many are in favor of using store content. In any case, while it does widen the creative field, I think your argument against store items and CC is sound. It being a contest and all, fairness must be considered. Although, running a second contest that does allow anything once in a while side by side with the main contest could be a way to satisfy everyone. You could even make it a rule that those entering the second contest would have to enter the main one, that way you do not get more entries into the anything goes contest but at the same time everyone is allowed to use all their wonderful store items.

[Agneza]

Hi everybody!

I'm glad we got so many great ideas here. Hovever, I'd like to give a little contribution on this topic.
I'm not quite satisfied with the way we vote on the building contest. I find this way don't really represent the right relationship in quality between the houses, because one have to give one point to the house one like the most, and the same one point one has to give to the house that is sometimes not that good, but one has to give one point anyway. Sometimes the differences between the best house and the next one is minimal by points, but much greater in quality.
I'd like to suggest a much fairly way of voting, that is to give the best house three points, the next house two points and finally one point to the third house in order of likeness. This way I think the voting would be much more fair, and the differences between houses would be more pronounced.

I also suggest that would be nice to encourage and inform all the members on the forum to write comments after the contest finished, not only to the partecipants to the contest. Maybe this way would be more interested members for the next content, and also I have the filing that the partecipant becomes somehow a closed group congratulating each others.

I would like to suggest to vote not only based on the photos but to download the houses to evaluate them before voting. Some people are not so talented in making pictures. We all know how the picture can alter the reality. Sometimes the best house can look poor on the photo, and viceversa. This way one could judge the houses objectively.

I'd like to invite all to express their suggestions, cause this way we all can make this site more attractive and interesting

Kind regards

Agneza

[xFezIsAFreakx]

I'm not quite satisfied with the way we vote on the building contest. I find this way don't really represent the right relationship in quality between the houses, because one have to give one point to the house one like the most, and the same one point one has to give to the house that is sometimes not that good, but one has to give one point anyway. Sometimes the differences between the best house and the next one is minimal by points, but much greater in quality.
I'd like to suggest a much fairly way of voting, that is to give the best house three points, the next house two points and finally one point to the third house in order of likeness. This way I think the voting would be much more fair, and the differences between houses would be more pronounced.

Wouldn't the result of who wins just be the same? People would still be voting for what house they liked to have the three points. And I really promise I don't mean to sound rude, but why does there need to be a difference between the houses? That will just make people feel bad, in my opinion. It would make me feel bad if I was to come second or third but the points given for my build had a huge difference with the points for the builds above mine.

I also suggest that would be nice to encourage and inform all the members on the forum to write comments after the contest finished, not only to the partecipants to the contest. Maybe this way would be more interested members for the next content, and also I have the filing that the partecipant becomes somehow a closed group congratulating each others.

I don't know about other people, but I did used to offer comments once the contests had ended, and I hadn't entered myself because I didn't have the time. I stopped because I felt like it kind of wasn't my place to offer comments to builders when I've only ever built one house from scratch in all my time of playing TS3. (and trust me, that house wasn't very good. xD)

I would like to suggest to vote not only based on the photos but to download the houses to evaluate them before voting. Some people are not so talented in making pictures. We all know how the picture can alter the reality. Sometimes the best house can look poor on the photo, and viceversa. This way one could judge the houses objectively.

Again, I don't mean to sound rude, but I think this would be really unfair on those who have not-very-good laptops and computers. This includes myself. My laptop only just meets the requirements for TS3 and it doesn't have a lot of memory, if I was to download all the builds from each contest and try them all out, my laptop would probably just refuse to load the game up at all. I need to be really selective in what I choose to download into my game, based on if I'll really use it a lot or not.

I'm really sorry if any of that sounded rude, Agneza, I tend to be quite wary of contradicting people's opinions and very paranoid about how what I say sounds. 

[Sportsfan]

I'm pretty sure it's not even possible to do the poll so first choice is worth 3 and so on.
About comments mostly the people that have something to comment are the ones that entered, the ones that didn't either didn't have time or didn't want to.
About downloading: not everybody has the same EPs and SPs. So then a house would be unfairly represented to someone who didn't have the necessary EPs or SPs so judging by downloading has to be optional.

[Anushka]

Just a few ideas/comments from me too:)

I miss the option to comment lots before all is done. It's just that week or two (or even 3 weeks) after the house is posted, I kind of lose the inspiration to comment, and am thinking of new contest that is currently open. When it was rundown starter contest, I was laughing, and there were several details I wanted to point out and prase, but 2-3 weeks later it was all calmed down, and moment was lost. I did had great laughs looking at that tread, and often came back to it;)

I do agree with Agneza to download the house before voting for it, to take a better look at it, and see if building is functional as well as pretty in pictures. Of course, not everyone have all EP's and SP's, and not much space on their PC/laptop, etc but those that do, might want to do it.

[Agneza]

I don't quite understand everything xFezIsAFreakx wrote about voting as a comment on my post, but I have to say that there is a possibility I misunderstood the voting procedure because of my poor english. I always vote the way I give one point three time to three different builds. Is there a possibility to distribute the points so that one give more than one point to the same build? If so, than my idea about new disposition of points by voting  is unnecessary.
The other observations (from Sportsman too) are also absolutelly correct. I don't say my ideas are perfect, but the intention was to improve few things on this site I found could be better. I want from all my heart this site to be as good as possible, to fullfill us all, and I proposed this suggestion open minded. So, every comment is welcome. At least we'll see how many people really participate in such a discussion how to improve the site we all love. I really would like us to become a big community. We should enjoy all this, have fun, understanding to each other, make things together, be it a fantasy world, a modern world or something else.

[Twinmum]

I have a few thoughts.
As for voting time, maybe reduce it a little, but not too much. For me, deciding who to vote for includes downloading the houses and playing them. As a rule, I try to download them as they are uploaded here, but sometimes I don't have the chance and have to grab them all at the last minute. I still want to be able to walk through them all before I have to decide.

@Agneza you are right when you say you have to give identical votes to three houses, but if you feel so strongly about your first choice, why not just vote for that one build. It says you can vote for three, but you can just use one vote if you want.

I too, would like to see more people involved for each contest, either as builders or in the voting stage. Perhaps we need a contest promoter to make a posting in the general discussion thread (a new posting each time) when a contest starts with an invitation for members to join in (and a note that they can enter in as few or as many building contests as they like) and then another post to invite people to vote with emphasis on the fact that they didn't have to be in the contest to vote. Maybe even a third posting announcing the winners of contests (with a pic) That way more members might become aware of the contests and enter.

I like the idea of a renovating contest. Have a starter house that needs to be done up and improved in value. There are a number of ways you could restrict improvements. Allow only building up or down and not altering the original outside walls. You could allow any extensions and specify that this one bedroom house has to be upgraded to house for a family of four (and have a budget to keep within)

[samoht04]

Hi everybody!

I'm glad we got so many great ideas here. Hovever, I'd like to give a little contribution on this topic.
I'm not quite satisfied with the way we vote on the building contest. I find this way don't really represent the right relationship in quality between the houses, because one have to give one point to the house one like the most, and the same one point one has to give to the house that is sometimes not that good, but one has to give one point anyway. Sometimes the differences between the best house and the next one is minimal by points, but much greater in quality.
I'd like to suggest a much fairly way of voting, that is to give the best house three points, the next house two points and finally one point to the third house in order of likeness. This way I think the voting would be much more fair, and the differences between houses would be more pronounced.

Although your idea is a good idea and would be a possibility it is now however possible to do this with the Poll Tool available to us on the Forum. As Twinmum has said if you don't want to vote for three people then don't. I normally do because I can't decide sometimes. I don't use all of my votes all of the time though.

I also suggest that would be nice to encourage and inform all the members on the forum to write comments after the contest finished, not only to the partecipants to the contest. Maybe this way would be more interested members for the next content, and also I have the filing that the partecipant becomes somehow a closed group congratulating each others.

I agree it does seem quite closed up. It really is open to everyone. I know Pam does some Facebook things for the Contests maybe I can ask her to add in that anyone is welcome to comment.

I would like to suggest to vote not only based on the photos but to download the houses to evaluate them before voting. Some people are not so talented in making pictures. We all know how the picture can alter the reality. Sometimes the best house can look poor on the photo, and viceversa. This way one could judge the houses objectively.

It won't be a rule that you must download, we can't moderate that and it's not practical or fair to do it, however those who are able and would like to do it then we have asked for Download Links as a way for them to do so without having to ask for the link. I know that sometimes pictures let down a house but I will be working on another tutorial on what to include and what not to include in Images etc. just to add some more help to those who are not experienced with screenshots.

Just a few ideas/comments from me too:)

I miss the option to comment lots before all is done. It's just that week or two (or even 3 weeks) after the house is posted, I kind of lose the inspiration to comment, and am thinking of new contest that is currently open. When it was rundown starter contest, I was laughing, and there were several details I wanted to point out and prase, but 2-3 weeks later it was all calmed down, and moment was lost. I did had great laughs looking at that tread, and often came back to it;)

I do agree with Agneza to download the house before voting for it, to take a better look at it, and see if building is functional as well as pretty in pictures. Of course, not everyone have all EP's and SP's, and not much space on their PC/laptop, etc but those that do, might want to do it.

This is a good point, however we don't want anyone getting feedback that could help another contestant however. Which is always an issue.

@ Twinmum, I will ask Carl about getting a thread in the announcement thread for stuff like you have described.

Thanks again for all of the great ideas!

Merry Christmas! 

[Agneza]

Merry Christmas to all...

[Seabody]

Wellcam once mentioned Trait Houses - building houses to suit traits. "Build a house to suit an angler" and "Build a house to suit a bookworm", for instance.

[ZapKid]

Wellcam once mentioned Trait Houses - building houses to suit traits. "Build a house to suit an angler" and "Build a house to suit a bookworm", for instance.

That would be fun!
And I still am hoping for a modern mansion. Not to pressure you though.