CH4OT1C!
Member
|
Every year, I enjoy the Golden Developer Ticket and the designs put forward during the surfboard contest (a personal favourite is the Golden Whale board, and I still use it). However, I don't think combining them is necessarily the best choice. The idea would be well-received provided the resulting contest incorporated the best bits of each, but I don't think that's the case here. One of the major benefits of the surfboard contest was getting to see everyone's submissions, a community putting forward the weird and wonderful. Sometimes, those weird and wonderful designs even won (once again, I refer to the Golden Whale Kneeboard). This year, that can't happen because no submissions are necessary. Furthermore, it was one of the few regular contests where anyone had a decent chance to win. It isn't possible to, for example, buy hundreds of GGB to vastly increase your odds over the casual player. There are few contests across the year with a similar system (Specifically, the back-to-school gear), so to remove it makes the situation worse. Unfortunately, the Golden Developer Ticket doesn't escape unscathed either. A major benefit of that contest was being able to design whatever item you wanted. Granted, similar contests have offered reskins rather than full item designs and I respect that choice (for a number of reasons, one being preventing items from becoming incredibly overpowered). The combining of the contests means the prize is now heavily restricted to a surfboard design. Although it's clear that a number of people enjoy designing surfboards, not everyone wishes to do so (I believe traditional weapon types are usually preferred, though do correct me if I'm wrong). For that reason, the prize is nowhere near as appealing as it has been in previous years. Even when the item was a reskin, for example the Voidsplinter Sunderer, at least that lucky winner had a chance to completely redesign the appearance to his/her liking. One of the points that isn't explicitly clarified is whether or not the contest winner can choose the effects of the board they create. The wording implies that it's simply an art redesign but, in my opinion, it would be sensible to allow the winner to choose the effect as well. That would open up some room to manoeuvre, and make the contest more appealing as a result. Nevertheless, the old saying "If it isn't broken, don't fix it" really applies here; the separate contests were popular in their own right and never needed to be combined in the first place.
< Message edited by CH4OT1C! -- 6/9/2020 5:02:46 >
|