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Anniversary Competition

MattyPoltergeist

Professor
Minecraft IGN: MattyPoltergeist
Serpent Werewolf
#1
Hi, so, first I don't mean to offend anyone in particular who helped on the competition with this suggestion, just giving feedback.
For this years Anniversary Competition, (the writing and drawing), I think that the prompt was a bit weird. Now, I know that to be truly creative, you should be able to turn even the weirdest of prompts into something that will put someone on the edge of their seats, however I think this years prompt of "Why do you think players have enjoyed this server for all these years?" does limit some areas of how creative you can be as it is very caged in in terms of what you can do with it. First of all, the prompt seems heavily directed to a essay format rather than a story or a long poem: there is very little conflict or interest you can cause story-line wise for such a prompt. It does also not seem much of a fun prompt to have, as it is very factual and opinion based, this means that some players may have seen the prompt at first glance and not given it a second thought (I have talked to a few people who said the same). It also limits some players in the fact that newer students will not know of some of the older developments of the server and how it has changed over the years. Last year's prompt was simply 'Potterworld' which, in my opinion, may be too broad but still opens loads of different gates and possibilities that allows very diverse entries and competitors. This year's theme also seems very odd for the image as images are far less descriptive, in my opinion, than a writing piece and a factual, essay style question does not seem fitting for a simple screenshot of the server. The Categories also seem weird as "Creative" and "Best Interpretation" are very similar and interchangeable, especially due to the limits of the prompt. It would be easier for the students to have more definitive lines between the categories. It also seems sort of strange for this to be the competition that awards players the Droobledoll as it covers only one area of Potterworld, which is the writing and drawing side (which could be argued aren't even really server related) and doesn't let players who are talented in other areas (such as parkour, duelling, determination, quests-completing or flying) show their potential and ability.
I'd like to hear other ppls opinions and if anyone has any counter points I'd be up to see them
Obviously, this year's competition is set in stone but I was just suggesting for the future.
 
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FlatJambo

Graduate
Minecraft IGN: FlatJambo
Honeybadger Auralock
#2
I do agree that the prompt was a bit difficult, but I tried my best. I talked with a friend of mine and they agreed that "Creative" and "Best Interpretation" were too similar.
 

Sunnya

Professor
Minecraft IGN: Sunnya
Auralock Dark Follower Phoenix Serpent Vampire VIP Werewolf SPEW
#3
Apologies for not getting to this sooner & thank you for the feedback!

Looking back, I definitely agree that the prompt & categories were on the difficult side. This was the first time we hosted a competition through the WizNetworker Team and so this is one of those things that we've learned from and will try not to repeat.

The prompt was specifically chosen in a way that lends itself to either a simple "essay" response or a creative story. We did not want to require creative writing, as many players would not feel inclined to participate because of that (we wanted to encourage more people to participate). Also, those who really wanted to participate in this could still write a written piece regardless of their date of joining. I say this as there were multiple non-graduates that entered the competition. All in all, despite the challenges of the prompt we still received around the same number of submissions that all of our past competitions did.

We also specifically chose a competition to reward the Droobledoll as it gives more people the opportunity to get it. For the past couple of years, the only way people could get the Droobledoll was by doing a lot of difficult gameplay from the Anniversary Event. Most people did not like this. Having gameplay determine whether or not someone gets the hat is extremely unfair to the players who don't have good computers or simply aren't as good at doing "parkour, duelling, determination, quests-completing or flying." Plus that type of in-game challenge only appeals to a small group of players.

Again, thank you so much for the feedback. Since we're looking to make competitions more common & something for all players to participate in, this feedback is extremely helpful. :heart:
 

Bailey

Graduate
Minecraft IGN: viewful
Auralock Dark Follower Griffin Phoenix Vampire
#4
Hello!

Again, thank you so much for the feedback it was extremely helpful. Due to Sunnya’s message above, we will be moving this suggestion to On-Hold and will keep this in mind moving forward.

Thank you for the suggestion/feedback and have a nice day!
 

Tara Silvius

Librarian
Staff
Minecraft IGN: SLGTara
Auralock Dark Follower Staff Phoenix Serpent Vampire Werewolf Jr. Professor Class Design Sr. Game Designer
#5
Hiya @MattyPoltergeist!

Thank you again for sharing your feedback with us! We have taken it into consideration and will keep this in mind in the future. Therefore, this thread will be marked as completed. If you have any further feedback or other suggestions you would like to share, I highly encourage you to create another thread, and the Poltergeist team will bring it up!

Hope you have a wonderful day!