Last Call: Arena Feedback (Updated Friday) !3

[Panagrammic]

Updated Friday December 12th @3:30pm
Based on feedback from this thread, we've pushed out some changes this week.

- We are now offering a "skip" option and randomizing the spotlight. The first phase of this was pushed out today, and we'll be tweaking it over the next week or two.
- avatar arena - should not show stars for in-progress contest
- Remove PM for user-deleted comment

More changes coming in the next week or two:
- An updated landing page that loads faster.
- Tweaking the tabs so that they are more random and don't fix on one particular page

Please keep the feedback coming, it is appreciated.

Updated Saturday December 6th @5:05pm
Some strong reactions in the thread. I just wanted to point out that the very reason that we posted this thread was to try and get your feedback about what needed to be done in arenas; this our attempt to be open and transparent about our plans. So, please keep the feedback coming, but if some of you could tone down the "omg you are so stupid" comments, it would be appreciated.

Some comments about issues raised:
- anyone want to point to an example of the "3.99" glitch?
- people are mixed on 5 star vs. 10 rating for entries, but to be honest I don't think we'll go back to a 10 point rating scale.
- lots of complaints about the current tabs in arenas. Previously, we had tabs that highlighted the highest rated entries -- and what we saw was that only popular entries were getting votes and there was a good deal of downvoting.

So, we changed the tabs, but it looks like the new scheme is making it possible for entries to fly through without many votes, which is even worse.

My inclination at this point is to go to one tab, and on the tab is either a a) totally random selection, or b) random selection biased for entries that haven't received many votes yet. Suggestions welcome.
- reporting feature, especially for the cosplay and original avatar arenas, seems to be needed
- the gold payout was disabled for a number of weeks after the new arenas rolled out... but we went back and paid out everyone that had won -- or, at least, I think we did, because I asked a couple of users directly, and they said that they had been paid.

So, for anyone that thinks they haven't received the reward from arenas, if you could please post in here with your winning entry, I will take a look at it. If we haven't been paying for a period of time I would greatly like to fix that.

Original
Hey, guys --

We're going to be moving the developers off arenas pretty soon, so we wanted to do one last call for feedback to see if there's anything else we should adding. Based on your feedback, we reworked a bunch of stuff, added some new contests (cosplay), so on and so forth, but we'd like to make sure that there's nothing else major that we should be doing before we move onto something else.

Also: if you used to use the old arenas but haven't really warmed to the new arenas, what is putting you off? Why don't you like the new arenas?

All feedback is welcome! Thanks very much.

This topic will be unstickied in a week or so.

[Raging Melody]

Thankyou for the Cosplay Avatar arena. It would be nice to see Fanart and Fanfiction sections in the Art and Writing arenas as well, but I don't know how big of a chore that would be...

As for the Avatar arenas, the main thing users would like to see if for them to be more random. When you vote on an entry, you should be taken to a random entry.
Have a spotlight, which shows off avatars with less votes. More like the old arenas, try and give everyone even coverage.

As a user of the old arenas, I adore these ones. The five-star rating system is love.
I really like the reference picture system for the Avatar arena. I used to see large pictures all too often, and I want to thank devs for the neat size limit.

Finally, nothing to do with the Arenas. I think you should post a link to this sticky in the Arena forums, maybe? Or announce it sitewide? Then it will get to the people who use the Arenas the most.

Thankies!

[FlexibleCottonSwabs]

It's not my fault if in God's plan...

I wish you'd fix up the problems there, such as the fact that some people manage to 'cheat' on arenas, that is to say make say 12 people vote a 5 on it and then win, like this week.

...He made the devil so much stronger than a man!

[MadamTarantula]

Could the developers please make it to where if a certain character in the cosplay arena wins one week, it can't win again for the next week or perhaps month? I don't want to see a bunch of Shonen Jump and Final Fantasy VII cosplays winning every week. It ruins it for others. confused

Edit: I forgot, I wanted to give a big thanks to the developers for splitting the avatar arenas in half! It was really needed. smile

[Vendz]

Hello,
I would just like to add,
Could there be a major event which Gaia can host every month or so,
in which Gaians can participate in creating a cos-play that has been chosen.
For example a cos-play for 'Naruto', and the Gaian could try and create the avatar.
The one with the most originality and character could win...

Edit: Yeah, Great idea breaking the avatar into 2. And is it suitable to keep the old avatar arena?

[Fairchilde]

The Arenas are an absolute mess.

We really don't need 10 spots for cosplay and 10 spots for original. We just get a bunch of junk in the end, why not try 5 for each?

Also, a LOT of people haven't gotten their gold. I know it sounds petty, but no one's said anything or even acknowledged the problem. I read, before I entered, that I might have to wait as long as 4-6 weeks. I can wait, but I have a sinking feeling that I'm not going to get the gold that I won for week 45. If you're going to promise a prize, it'd be nice if they were delivered.

Developers should fix all the glitches in the arena, give out all the prizes due before moving on to something else. This is the avatar arena,and avatars and forums are the basis of Gaia.

Please just make a note of gixing the prizes and give gold to the people who are owed money. I'm tired of Gaia not mentioning glitches (like those months when our inventories were screwed up and Gaia didn't say a thing.)

I don't mean to be nasty, but the lack of feedback and gold promised, especially when things are broken, isn't worth it. People pay good money for this site.

[Mario Kinnikuman]

I posted this on another thread in the Avatar Arena, but I feel it's appropriate for the topic at hand, given its severity.

Another issue, evident in the Original Arena winners of week 48, is that submissions are being concealed from the public. Entrants are being deprived the exhibition of their avatars they're entitled. Additionally, some people are abusing this error. Those avatars are able to maintain unusually high averages from a few votes and comments, and ultimately emerge victorious at the week's conclusion without first being thoroughly critiqued by the public.

I would request that this problem be addressed as soonest possible, please. It is an outright travesty when true effort expended on submissions is derailed by underhanded tactics exploiting glitches, such as this.


Edit: I think you should keep, add and remove the following features:

Keep:

5 Star Voting System - It is more general than 1-10, but more precise in categorizing the overall quality of an avatar into one of the below. For example: for those who feel an avatar teeters between the threshold of a seven or an eight, and vacillate indecisively.

One: Horrid, Two: Heavily flawed, Three: Average, Four: Exceptional, Five: Perfect

Top ten winners - Five is too little, ten is a perfect balance.

Add:

+ Longer character limit in both the description and title. 700 - 1000 Character Limit in descriptions and perhaps 100 to the title.

+ Redo a rate. Accidents happen, and sometimes users will vote a 4 when they meant a 5.

+ A report button - Too often are original avatars filed into the cosplay arenas, and contrariwise.

+ Additional background colors - It would be great to include more colors than three choices at present.

+ Bigger reference image size - 300px x 300px, or 250px x 250px, at least.

Remove:

- Voting gold.

- Voting averages viewable to others.

- PM notification of a deleted comment.

[ThomasAqua]

Well, It needs a 1-10 Ratings since 5 isn't a good number. Also a page in Arenas that says "New Uploads of Avatars" like when some user adds a Avatar to a place. It'll say it and the person would rate it.

[Mythril Dragonfly]

There should be a report button in each arena so people can alert mods to entries that shouldn't be in there. Like cosplays in the regular arenas or non-cosplays in the cosplay arenas.

[elf_star]

These our just my opinions, and i understand if not everybody agrees:

Honestly, the design of the new arena's bother me. The old arena seemed more like this quirky part of gaia that indulged the inner child in me, and the new arena seems like a sterile place.

The size of the avatar's still bother me. When you change the size of an avatar, the appearance drastically changes. And since most of us are use to looking at avatars in the size they appear in the forums, I really think you should scale down the avatar's.

Bring back the 1-10 rating. The 5 stars are just to general, and I have no idea why you changed it to 5 stars in the first place.

I didn't like the split in the arena's. I don't think it solved anything. However, if you must keep it, I think you must do what Fairchilde suggested, and split the amount of winners to 5 for both arena's.

The first place winner only got 12 votes....does that make any sense. You definitely need to make sure this doesn't happen again.

I see cosplays in the original arena, and vice versa. You need to clearly define what a cosplay is and what an "original" is so that there is no more confusion.

Lengthen the amount of characters you can put in your description, or at least tell us how much we are over.

Make it possible to edit the description without editing the avatar.

[StarieMichie]

Here's what puts me off about the new ones most:

The featured section. Period.

Please, please, make it random like the spotlight was in the old arena. It kind of unbalances things. It feels like a lot of good avatars are getting overlooked because they don't make it into the featured section right away. The amount of votes and comments that people in that section get is far, far higher than those that can't push their way in.

[Wolfram Ysud]

Get rid of any sort of tab that will hint at people getting a high score.

Do not show people's averages to other entrants or users.

Get rid of voting gold.

Enable one's right to redo a rate if they voted a 4 and meant to do a 5.



And blast it, PLEASE get it right more quickly. The manual restarts were despicable and showed a really HORRIBLE quality in your team.

[Aimerait]

DO NOT TAKE DEVELOPERS OFF OF THE ARENA
ALL OF THE PROBLEMS/BUGS/GLITCHES ARE NOT YET FIXED.
Please get rid of the widget that shows people who we vote on.
Please randomize the spotlight so another Week 48 never happens again.
(Now this is regarding the Avatar Arena Forum) WE NEED NEW/ACTIVE MODS! The place is a mess of people posting against the rules and spam threads are not being moved; I'd really like this issue to become noticed.
Please somehow add a report button so that we can report enteries that are in the wrong arena.
Please lengthen the amount of characters in that can be used in descriptions.
Please go back to the 1-10 rating, like elf said, 1-5 is just too general.
Please work out a starting and ending cycle that is CONSISTANT.
Please work on automatic gold granting.
And PLEASE keep developer(s) working on the arena to straighten all this crap out.
Thank you.

[Nekolover_8]

Just some suggestions:

1. 1-10 is a better rating system. There is confusion with 1-5.
2. Can we not have hidden entrants? That's why such icky stuff happened this past week.
3. You can keep the Top Ten for both arenas. It enables more users to win and each different category to be equal (since they are so different).
4. Don't show the average score to anyone except for the creator.
5. Randomize the tab system. Don't put in the highest placed avatars there. This causes downvoting.
6. Make the avatars the right size. No one wants to look at fuzzy pixels.
7. Lengthen descriptions. It's ridiculously short.
8. There needs to be a report button of the wrong avatar in the wrong arena. There are too many of these.

Thanks!

[[ R ]]

Different backgrounds. Plain, white-grey-black scale backgrounds are kind of dull. Give the option of simple gradients, at least.