Arenas 2.0 Feedback Goes Here

[emeraldprincess12]

OH EM GEE TIGER12! YOU MADES IT YESHES!...

[Salice IAI]

Hey there, I've been messing with the Art Arena. It's so snazzy looking, and fun to navigate.

Weird, though. I posted up my entry titled "Cutting Rays" about 1pm, and in about 10 minutes and 5 votes later... it took the number one in most popular?! I laughed my guts out at the time, but now it's 8PM and WTF, the picture still is number one. [Not that I'm complaining ahaha.]

Basically, it's weird how my picture got/is getting past the highly rated pictures with hundreds of votes. Maybe you should consider keeping a picture out of the popular section until it has a certain number of votes? Since a picture with 4 votes doesn't seem popular, and I saw some terrible images hold the top spots for a while.[Even if they were pretty promptly bumped down.]

Also, when I submitted the image with a size of 578x639, it was resized and got incredibley pixelly. I saw this on the preview submitted it anyway, figuring it might change and I could probably go back and edit the image later but alas! I cannot. This was resized to this.

Not desireable. Perhaps there could be a warning about resizing, or maybe my computer is strange? I tried another picture of 390x605, and that didn't get resized, so I don't know what's going on. /shrug

[at the Heart]

I like it, but it loads real slow.

[KamiKuraLuv]

cool stuffs

[Mia-Nyan]

the avatar arenas should be less money.

[Szinriia]

I liked being able to see my point score and rank in the old avatar arena, which we don't have now.

I'm undecided on the blown up avatars... and the black background is a problem with avatars with a lot of black.

I like the feature of the thumbnail reference, but I wish it wouldn't squash or stretch the image.

[Szinriia]

miacat9

the avatar arenas should be less money.

I think the avatar arena should cost more. surprised

[Natty-Bo]

Awesome design, but it doesn't let me do anything. I can't click on pictures' thumbnails (well, it doesn't take me).

[Innocent_Havok]

I Think It Looks Great, Though The Navigation Is A Little Odd Tew Me. Maybe It's Because It's New. Just Figured I'd Mention.

heart heart heart heart heart heart

[r_s_boston]

Overall the new arenas are very nice-- everything is much more streamlined and unified and it's easier to get from one arena to another. Awesome. xd There are a few things that could stand to be improved/changed about the new Avatar Arena though in my opinion:

1. I love how we now get to see a preview of our entry before it's submitted. It would be nice, though, to be able to edit it after submission as well, just in case it needs it for whatever reason (like typos, clarification about certain points, etc.)

2. It's also great that we now get a specific space to post a reference photo. (Whoo!) However, you should give a warning that all reference images above blank dimensions will be shrunk down to such-and-such size to accommodate server space (or whatever the real reason is. I assume it's something to do with load times/servers anyway. sweatdrop ) And/or post what the size limit is, too.

3. The 500 characters max. is a little tight for an Avatar Description. I understand the need for a limit, but raising it just a bit (to 700 or 800 characters for example) doesn't seem too unreasonable. Otherwise this part has been dramatically improved and maybe people will actually start reading the descriptions for a change.

4. Being able to give half stars, while not necessary, is another thing you might want to consider. Unless the end result is the same in which case don't bother changing it. (As they say: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.)

5. Personally I think it's nice to see how a person rates after you vote for them, but as you yourselves point out in the submissions part of the old Avatar Arena this may cause people to unfairly "downvote" the entries that are doing well.

6. You may or may not want to think about shrinking the avatars down to normal size when displayed and putting them against a white background. Personally I don't think it matters but other users might want it changed.


Hope my critique is at least somewhat helpful. Cheers! biggrin

[Yuji Ikaido]

-sigh- I really don't understand why this is here... The Q&A is a place for people to ask questions about Gaia's features... and here's a sticky for users to give feedback on a new feature. I highly doubt this sticky will serve any good here since it answers absolutely nothing about the arenas and certainly isn't the forum users will go to with feedback... I'm pretty sure there was another forum for that... Oh yeah! The Site Feedback! Anyway... That is completely besides the point.. I'm here to rant about the avatar arena.

The first and by far most important problem I have with it is how the avatars are twice the size and are on a black background. Avatars and items DO NOT look the same when they are blown up twice the size. Very often I make an avatar in my dress up page and think it looks great... only to see it looks terrible when my avatar is scaled down and vice versa. Some combinations look horrible when in the customize me page, but then when it's shrunk it looks fantastic. Then the background... I don't even understand why you made it black... Please make it white. Avatars are supposed to be viewed over a white background. Items like the Cloud look terrible with a black background. This is a very big problem for people that care enough about avatars to submit them into the arena. I want people to rate my avatar how it's supposed to look. How it looks in forums. Not some blown up pixelated crap.

Next not being able to edit your submission after it's public for voting. Again I don't see why this makes any sense... Sometimes people end up misenterpreting the description or the owner wants to change it. Maybe there's a typo... but there is no way to change any of that once it's public. I really hate that. You can edit your description in the old arena when it was up for voting and that was never a problem. Please make it that way for the new arena as well.

Now the rating system... I really don't like being limited with five stars... That seems way too vague. If you've ever paid a visit to the avatar talk forum you'd notice when people rate avatars they always do it out of ten. Very rarely if ever people rate out of 5. Avatar fanatics are not so vague in their ratings. There are a lot of picky details that make all the difference between a nine and a ten... but now we're left with vague ratings and are unable to give detailed rates. I understand most of the internet is done with five stars... but are we really conformists here? Do we want to be like everyone else or do we want to be better than the rest of the internet? If you want to do five stars then fine, but please let us give people half a star. So instead of just 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, We can give a .5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5 etc... Moving on... After you vote for someone you see their average rating... this is a very horrible idea. Downvoting should be a crime and you just helped everyone that wants to do it. Now people's ratings are public. Even if you can only see the five star rating and not the detailed one we all know who the four and five star people are now and that is exactly what people that will do anything to win want to know. Please make the rating hidden. You stressed everyone to keep their average rating to themselves before and now you just show it to everyone. This absolutely needs to be changed. Also you seem to have changed the only so many votes being allowed from the same IP. Before I think it was three and now you either got rid of it or raised it very high... I can't say whether or not this is good or bad... On one hand it's fair to people that have a family that all likes to get on gaia and participate in the arena... on the other hand it also helps people with a lot of mules. I understand even if you have 20 mules that doesn't make a huge difference to 1,000 votes... if you rate for yourself, but 20 low ratings will take someone out of the top ten in an instant. A single one is catastrophic to someone with a high average rating. Again I don't know how much of a difference that will make and even with a limit people can just get on proxies.

Other than that the arenas look great. I love the watchlist and the gallery. Keep up the good work and hopefully at least some of these problems will be fixed.

[venuscutie]

Tumzkie

[sonotthereason]

how to be the first commenter isn't clear...