Keeping all three badges in the postbit like it is now has the advantage that it's the most transparent system. You can instantly see how often someone won, got 2nd and got into the top 5, without having to assemble points. Furthermore everyone can interpret the scores to their own standards without being tied to an arbitrary score system. The original impulse for introducing a change is as follows: someone who never won a competition has a clear goal: enter until you DO win gold. But what keeps someone interested who already won a couple of times besides increasing the number? I remember before we had this forum here, we only had badges that went up to "5+" and the result was those most talented people just stopped entering after they got 5 wins, so RII introduced the numbered badges and those people came back. But maybe I'm seeing things and the numbered badges are actually incentive enough to keep competing for most people, and we don't need additional "gold+" badges, although in my opinion they'd be a nice touch, with their inspiration being the submitter badge that also gradually fills up the more stuff you submit.

imo the way we have the comps set up now is fine. I'd be okay with having a bonus badge every 10 or so badges or something to promote participation ala the super submitter if such a badge were to exist. the problem I have with current comps are how they're themed. I'm only really in spriting comps so I'm gonna use them as a prime example. they should be structured around pushing people to try their hardest to win. having a loose theme that lets you use whatever style you'd like is alright once in a while, but that kind of comp revolves entirely on the opinion of the voters. however, having a theme that restricts participants to one style and give everyone the same task allows voters to clearly see who is the best spriter out of the bunch. this was apparent when I had everyone sprite in the 8-bit Mega Man style way back for comp 31 (I think), everyone got all pissy about having a restrictive theme, yet it was pretty obvious who was better than others. I think we can get some popularity with comps if we provide some sort of reward to the winner. maybe a code for a game on Club Nintendo? I don't think you can gift games from the eShop and send it out as a code, but that could be another way if it's ever possible. just some better form of incentive for comps would be good. also, I feel like gaming comps should be regular comps. they'd definitely be the easiest to set up, and we could also have some sort of incentive for winners with that. maybe for big tourneys, we could have some sort of gift card be the reward? obviously someone would have to be willing to donate, but it'd be cool either way.

The only competition I entered in recent memory here restricted the theme to a certain colour palette, and it was a great competition. Maybe competition themes should be taken away from whoever wins, and instead put on a schedule, eg: Sprite Comp 1: March - April - SMW Styled New Enemy Sprite Comp 1: April - May - 8-Bit Isometric using Palette And so on. You could possibly even get people to vote on the next competition idea. Just a random idea but possibly not feasible due to people pre-preparing a sprite.

Nice inputs, Mit and Kritter. The selection of themes needs to be more restrictive indeed. @Kritter: There's a schedule already, it just doesn't have the themes included. Next up is spriting competition, starting on this Saturday. And yes, voting on a theme wouldn't really work in our rather small community. At Ludum Dare it happens actually, but they have hundreds of people, so predicting which theme will win isn't really the easiest thing to do, so it works there. Here it's better that less people are involved with the theme idea, which is why the winner can always choose. We might also just have staff pick an idea, or we could create a pool of ideas with staff picks and community votes, out of which one is chosen randomly for each competition. But I think the chance to select a theme might be a good incentive to enter. I know it was for me.

What was the reason for such the large intervals in competitions? Why can't multiple competitions run simultaneously? Not everyone participates in all competition categories.

Oversaturation, nobody entered, and very few people voted. If interest picks up again, we can make the intervals smaller again, but for now we're trying this. That way each competition will get its deserved spotlight hopefully. It's explained in more detail in the [url=http://phpbb.mfgg.net/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=15629]other topic[/url]. As a reminder, the new Spriting Competition starts tomorrow!

I'm a little bit late, but I really like the new competition rules. Knowing the dates of the competitions in advance will be great for me since I often didn't have time to enter the competitions because of the short notice.

[quote]These competitions are focused on the art of spriting, not on what is commonly referred to as "pixel art".[/quote] Since spriting is a form of pixel art, I highly recommend you explain what is "commonly referred to as 'pixel art'".

Well with spriting and pixel art, you can either have sprites that aren't pixel art, ones that are, or have pixel art that aren't sprites since sprite are really just graphics used or could be used in a form of media aka games. Sprites don't technically have to be pixel art, but pixel art doesn't have to be a sprite either so what the comps are for making the pixelart forme of sprites.

[quote="[url=http://phpbb.mfgg.net/viewtopic.php?p=400443#p400443]Pedigree[/url]"]Since spriting is a form of pixel art, I highly recommend you explain what is "commonly referred to as 'pixel art'".[/quote] Thank you for pointing this out. The other rules state that the primary intention is to create graphics for use in games, so they should suffice. Therefore I removed that particular rule, since I suppose we could also have Spriting Competitions that are about backgrounds, mugshots or other large-scale pixel based artworks. If anyone has a better suggestion, please speak up.

Thank you because even graphics that are static with no animations or are large are used in video games all the time. See: HUDS and backgrounds as you mentioned.

sorry for the month long bump, but I just got an idea that could help make the time between major comps feel less long. basically, duels. these can be between two members, or maybe two groups of two members. they're unofficial(?), don't result in any real badges, and are called over PM, then are brought over to a topic once both parties have agreed. duels should be labelled in the topic name with [DUEL], or maybe we could have a topic icon for it. obviously the former would be easier. duels would last for about a week, and can be called in any of the major competition categories- spriting, drawing, music, and minigames. I know I said that they wouldn't result in any real badges, but maybe we could have duel specific badges? like, just a "duel winner" badge. or maybe we could have a profile field that has duel wins and losses listed. I dunno.

Sounds like a good idea. I'd participate in a duel if someone challenged me. I support adding a "duals wins and losses" profile field too but I couldn't care less about the badges.

That could be fun.

I'd love to see a duel-based competition on occasion, and perhaps take part in one if I ever reach a lull in my studies.

I have a question. Is pixel art allowed in Drawing Competitions?

I have an idea for a contest here. Who do I ask to see if the staff likes it and will think about using it?

[quote="CornFlakes"]I have an idea for a contest here. Who do I ask to see if the staff likes it and will think about using it?[/quote] Personally, I would just say what it is, and ask.

Here in this thread? I guess: [i]New Year's Bash Contest[/i] Well more of a January contest that would start on the 1st. Basicly the idea is this: You would team up with a partner of 2 (3 at max) and desgin [b]ONLY 1[/b] of 3 things you can do. This being: 1. A 1 level fangame that is Winter Themed or Sky Themed. 2. A Winter/Ice Tileset for Smw. This can not be a edited verion of any of the main tilesets in the game. 3. A Wintery themed song. So yeah, something for everyone. It's more deatialed then this but I wanted to give you a basic idea of what it is.

That sounds pretty fun!