[Feedback] New avatar arena contest setup and rules

Do you like the new proposal?

Yes	58.8%	[ 30 ]
No	23.5%	[ 12 ]
I'm okay either way	17.6%	[ 9 ]
Total Votes:			[ 51 ]

This poll closed on July 19, 2010.
No longer accepting new votes.

[Felix Jude Virgo]

okay, NOW i can see why people are saying no. i like the concept, but it's a very broken execution being seen. wish i could change my vote.

[S1mbo]

Sounds exciting.

In theory there would be less downvoting in the qualifying arena because everyone who scores above 3.5 wins a ticket. You're not competing against anyone at this stage, just with the arena itself. All types of voting would exist in the avatar contest (upvoting and downvoting) but there is little you can do about that. Perhaps an arena pass to be able to vote?

By awarding a ticket, you're just saying this person is capable of making a good avatar. But it doesn't mean that they'll use it to submit a good avatar into the avatar arena.

But changes are needed, the avatar arena has outgrown its current format.

[Felix Jude Virgo]

i'd rather like that the ticket saves a unique code for the entry that can't be easily obtained by another user and used to cheat. but that's a clumsy concept.

[Wizzleteats]

I just want them to fix what is broken in this arena before saying well we are going to do a whole new arena now.... It did not work for arena 2.0 it won't work with the new one you guys want to do now.

I miss my old arena. :-: And long for those days.

[Felix Jude Virgo]

i want the rating system back to out of 10.
i want the spotlight algorithm fixed.
i want the all tab removed.

however, i do want a qualifier contest, but not a ticket for entry. It'd be automatically entered into the actual contest.

[0-DCB]

If there's some way to make it so the ticket applies only to the qualified avatar and not to the account in general, I'd say do that.

[Felix Jude Virgo]

knowing gaia, that won't happen, 0.

[Colorless111]

Felix Jude Virgo

Mookie Cookie

I a bit confused on the whole ticket thing.
So we have to get a rank of 3.5 or higher after 50 votes to get a ticket to enter into a weekly thing?

i think so.

if it is a ticket thing i wish for that one ticket last a whole entire gaian lifetime.

but before that i would like to see the spotlight algorithm fixed and the all tab removed.

[Sher!ock]

Felix Jude Virgo

Lanzer's wording really isn't that great. i'll edit in a clarification

BASICALLY, guys -
You pay a fee to enter the qualifying round. After a week of advertising and getting votes, you need at least an average of 3.5 stars to qualify for a higher-tier contest. Your prize in the first part is a soul-bound ticket, and the prize in the second is likely to be higher than the current.

I don't think the qualifying arena is on a timeline.
I think it's just whenever you get 50 votes, if you takes you an hour or a year.
'Cause he said it's not a weekly contest.
But he is pretty vague.


Anyway, I do like the ticket idea,
if it applies to just the avatar that earns it.
That way you can choose which week you want to enter,
so if you happen to be a part of a group entry,
you can enter with the others in your group,
instead of being automatically entered and getting separated
if you earn your 3.5+ sooner or later than the others.
(Or for any other reason you may wanna choose your week.)

[Deazy]

Before putting forth any opinions I want to know if this will be based on the architecture of the current Arena. If so, then no way. The current Arena is in need of fixing before being used for anything else

100 votes is something you can get by advertising, a lot of entries barely scratch 50 - if that. Weird how in the old incarnation of the Arena, you got 200 votes without even trying. The randomization of the spotlight is terrible - the All Tab needs to go

The Arena is woefully utilized and advertised on Gaia - once the winners got pride of place and now nada. The prominent placement of the winners brought in voters y'know.

Also - why isn't this in the Avatar Arena forum? I know I had a b***h about weird announcements being placed in the AvA forum but this is really one that should be in there xd

[illumi zaoldyek]

This idea is interesting and it might work in making a kind of "natural selection" of the best avatars for the final round of the contest. But it doesn't seem to tackle what I think has always been the arenas' biggest problem, which is down-voting.

I believe the only effective way to circumvent down-voting is to make votes public. This is not a political vote, nobody will be persecuted for rating avatars, so why hide?
Secret votes just create the ideal environment for down-voters. But if votes start showing as a feed/notice for the contestant, sooner or later it will become easy to see patterns and spot those people committed to down-voting every week.
Personally I'm comfortable with my ratings being public. I don't have skeletons in my closet because I never down-vote anyone (in fact when I see an avatar that I think is worth a 1 or a 2, I simply skip it, and vote only on better ones).
I honestly think the arenas would be a lot more fun, and the results fair, if the votes were out in the open.

I never liked the new arenas because there seems to be a problem with avatar exposure, if the number of votes is any indicator. I think the old arenas were better in that regard, and in my opinion they would do just fine if only votes were public. When it comes to the problem of down-voting, I think "public vs secret" really is the key.

[Lanzer]

Thank you everyone for sharing your comments.

Just realized that I posted in the wrong forum, so I've moved the thread now. Thanks for letting me know.

As for the spotlighting and how uneven entries are being voted, that is a problem with the current arenas, and all these problems are slated to be fixed. That's actually what drove us to re-write arenas in the first place. We outsourced the project and it went really wrong. This time we're doing it with our own team which will do things right.

Questions to the specifics of things like "50 ratings" with "3.5 stars" are rules that can be adjusted. If we have a lot people voting then the rate count might go up, and same thing with the score count.

One big toss-up is whether or not the author receives a ticket for the contest or the avatar automatically enters the contest:

Having a ticket system means the author get to improve the avatar based on feedback and make a better avatar, and it also justifies for voting to start from a score of zero. If the exact same avatar is automatically submitted into the contest, then that means there's almost no need to start the voting contest again. We might as well pick the best rated avatars of the week and give out prizes, do away with a contest all together. Kind of like a talent contest or a beauty pageant, if the contestant must wear the same dress or sing the same song, between qualifying and final round then the show become kind of dull. Hope that makes sense.

Down-voting is an activity that the system should be able to detect and minimize in terms of damage. The old arenas did that but not the current one, I'm confident that the new arenas should have something similar.

[Sher!ock]

So they could use the ticket then
to enter an entirely different avatar altogether?

Seems kinda fishy.
I understand why, but I don't think I like it.
I always thought people enter the Arena with their perfected avatar,
after going to the AT or something to ask for suggestions.
I've never thought of the Arena as a place to go
to figure out how you need to improve your avatar.
Plus, it just seems counter-intuitive to make people earn the ticket
by submitting an avatar that scores decently
but then let them submit anything they want,
even something that wouldn't've earned that ticket.

[InsanityBecomesHer]

I like the idea of having a qualifying round before being able to enter the big contest. It could potentially bring back a lot of the quality of avatar arena entries and winners.

I also like the idea of having the ticket be both a way to enter the second part of the contest, and as a way to improve your entry before moving on. What I am wondering though is how long (after you get the ticket) would a user have before they would need to enter the contest again? Do the tickets expire? I mean I think it would be a bit odd to have it never expire. Theoretically someone could then gain multiples of tickets and enter a horde of "qualifying" avatars into the contest. Potentially dominating things. confused

I am very curious as to what you guys are planning about doing for down-voting, but I am happy to see that there is something that is going to be done about it.

Overall I like the ideas that you guys have going on, and I'm glad to see that there are plans in motion. I just think that there are a few areas that could use a bit of clarification.

[Trixsy]

Mookie Cookie

I guess it makes sense =) So no more crappy wins?

I honestly don't see how this would stop the people who get a bunch of friends or a guild to upvote them enough to get them past the qualifying round. It would just make it harder for users that don't get as much exposure. :/ I like the idea of a qualifying round but I'm not sure if it's the answer.