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Let's Talk about the (M)CCC - Part 2

Sir ArmaMalum·11/25/2014, 12:38:51 AM·9 votes·2,249 views

######Hey guys, I'm currently getting thrown around the country due to thanksgiving holiday shenanigans, so apologies in advance for my lower-than-normal participation, but of course this is something that needs to get ironed out sooner rather than later so I'm dropping it off now while I can.

Okay so I gotta make this one quick, internet's a temporary luxury with flight times and the like.

So far from what I can tell we have two primary audiences for a concept competition. We have:

Challenge Focused people who are more interested at tackling a challenge and effectively creating an intricate key to fit an intricate lock. This is primarily MCCC veterans who are, from what I can tell, more interested in overcoming a challenge moreso than just tossing out any-old concept.

Showcase Focused people who are more interested in seeing unique ideas and concepts with very little boundaries to the possibilities. These conceptors desire more concepts in general moreso than being funneled into a certain area. This is primarily CCC veterans.

As I said before I don't mean to paint either of these views in a conflicting light. They both have their pros and cons towards what they eventually produce and what approaches they support. I aim to do my best to accommodate both groups in a way they both not only feel is fair, but that they can be excited about and look forward to. That's where you guys come in! Tell me what you think of these ideas and of course do not hesitate to propose your own as well.

######Note: As I was the one who ran the CCC, for me that's the most 'flexible' portion of these ideas. So most of these invole little to no change to the MCCC as it stands. If any MCCC hosts feel these can be improved with changes to the MCCC's approach, feel free to deliberate here as well ^_^

#Method A - Weekly Showcase, Monthly Challenge

CCC == WCS (Weekly Concept Showcase) where all full (lore+kit) concepts submitted over that week are taken into account. The judges then pick their favorite concepts (instead of complicated scoring, vote number dependent on number of entries) and the ones that rise to the top are highlighted in a weekly post.

MCCC = MCCC (Monthly Community Concept Challenge, don't even have to change the acronym!) same as it is now. The WCS will have a shout-out to the MCCC every week, keeping the MCCC main post regularly visible without having to re-post as well as giving the MCCC some (imho) much needed advertisement.

|-------------------Pros------------------- | -----------------------Cons------------------------| |- |;Keeps the WCS light and refreshed|;Puts more logistical pressure on WCS| |;Keeps the MCCC as THE Competition, to avoid confusion|;High pace of WCS makes regular dual entry difficult| |;Even lower barrier of entry for WCS|;High pace of WCS means constant judges, not volunteers|

#Method B - Remember, remember, the month of....October

Pretty much the same way as it was in October, albeit with better communication on both ends. The CCC and MCCC will run alongside one another and compliment one another. This leaves cool interactions like shared themes or challenges like the CCC: "give feedback on X amount of MCCC posts" and vice versa for the MCCC.

The CCC will, to the best of my ability, be more engaging during the "inactive" periods. The CCC will be taking the role of a 'Showcase' more than a 'Contest' as the CCC does not boast any real prizes, whereas the MCCC will (as it is already) take the role of a competition to make a grab for the prizes.

|-------------------Pros------------------- | -----------------------Cons------------------------| |- |;Both groups have very little change|;Keeps the MCCC and CCC inevitably fighting for space at the beginning of the month*| |;Allows for cool inter-contest shenanigans |;maintains a bit of confusion for newcomers| |;|;|

######*This is assuming either will start on the first week, it's quite easy for the CCC to start, say, in the middle of the month as was mentioned by (damn airport wi-fi won't let me load comments, I believe it was Zanryu)

As you've probably noticed by now, neither of these options include merging the two. The reason being is that I've racked my brain over the last month and I cannot think of a way to house these two fundamentally different ideas together seamlessly. Simply put, the CCC is after any and all concepts for the sake of making a concept and the MCCC is after a constrained and funneled approach to a concept to challenge the entrants' creativity and ingenuity.

The reason that there was merger this month was for three reasons:

  1. With the Boards transition a lot of people were lost, confused, angry and generally needed some familiar ground to tread on. Keeping the whole thing under one post (hopefully) made the transition a bit easier for the vBulleting concept community.
  2. I'm in college. I had tests, exams, apartment leasing, course requests, curriculum decisions and quite a few projects this month. So I won't lie it was also a selfish decision.
  3. I did not know how the MCCC did things, so I wanted to let the MCCC go about unhindered so I could watch how it operated normally and without undue interference. Of course, as I understand one cannot see how the MCCC operates in general through just one month, but unfortunately that was as much time as I had to work with.

All this being said, I'm nothing close to infallible, so if you see an easy way to merge the two that I simply do not see please tell me, i'll be checking in as often as I can (which will not be too often for the week DX).

So please discuss this topic as much as you can guys, and we'll see where we are by the time I finally get back. Oh and also, I don't normally beg for upvotes but I'm limited to this time of day for the numerously mentioned travel issues. So for the sake of getting all pertinent eyes to see this I'll swallow my pride and say: please upvote!

21 Comments

Sir ArmaMalum11/29/2014, 4:46:46 PM3 votes

Good feedback all, thank you!

So what I'm hearing is a weekly contest (Method A) is preferable but with concerns of visibility (more from the resultant increase in posts) and overall logistical difficulty on the WCS end. Completely understandable.

First thought that comes to mind as a good response to those is a bimonthly contest starting on weeks 2 and 4 of a month. This avoids entries during the MCCC initial post week ( the week 4 shouldn't be too much of an issue as most entries come at the beginning of a week.) This is only a rough idea mind you but maybe alternating like this:

Week1: MCCC initial post, Judging for WCS #2 Week2: WCS #1 Week3: Judging for WCS#1 Week4: WCS #2

From what I understand/seen the MCCC also usually picks up during the third week so I think this works out well. That and it also gives me and whoever wants to help me out a bit more time to pick a winner.

The Red Goat11/30/2014, 7:36:38 AM3 votes

And I thought I would never have a reason to come back.

Okay, skipping over the talk Elphiram and Vbunnie are having with each other, I personally want to point out what I see that may be mistaken about this thread.

The potential mistake in question is that a challenge focused competition is different from a showcase one.

Speaking from my experiences on the original forums, the showcasing of a champion concept is a one way street. It is a challenge for the person to make the creation, but it is not a challenge per say for someone to read about that concept and leave their judgments on it. It can be challenging to word things in a way that do not seem rude or ignorant, but that is not the same type of challenge the concept creator faces.

However a contest for making concept champions focused on specific challenges is a 2 way street as the ones leaving judgments do need to take time and observe whether or not a concept matches the proper boundaries set by the competition. And having to make that call when it comes to lore can be incredibly difficult for someone who isn't used to doing it or simply cannot say whether a given lore fits for the challenge it is tied to.

Personally, disregarding anything about time given to come up with a concept, the best example of a good concept champion creation contest (according to myself as I say this) is the Tarot card MCCC done way back in I think June or July of last year.

The reason being is that while it gave "specific" challenges to work with, it was still very large and flexible in what challenges were available to choose from. In a way it was like having the extreme of several concept creation contests going at once that were simply all under the same banner.

And I guess that is what I would like to see happen with the MCCC/CCC (I've never tried the latter so I don't know exactly what they are focused on doing) is that the contest or contests that are available to new creators allow them the freedom to create pretty much anything. Maybe given a few parameters as without them you might as well make the champion, post them on the boards and hope it gets attention.

In a way that is contradictory to my beginning statement the real difference I see between a showcase and challenge is that a showcase would just be putting the concept up to be seen and the challenge is putting the concept up to be compared to other peoples concepts.

Whatever is decided for the ones developing the December contests I wish you the best of luck in having a good set up for people to join in on, and hope those who enter have fun joining the concept creation community.

Here's hoping next month is worth taking part in.

P.S. - I would point out that if the CCC can have concept champs that have already been made I would be against having the contests alternate as then whatever you make for say the MCCC could then immediately be used in the next CCC (unless a rule in it states otherwise) and that would be a little too unfair to me to new people joining the CCC.

P.P.S. - Yes, I'm really back.

BigBenClockTower12/2/2014, 12:34:26 AM2 votes

SirArmaMalum. You have a good idea I think, but I'm going to say it wouldn't work, for a number of reasons, but I'm going to tackle the ones that apply to me the most first, since they directly determine if I'm going to participate in these things regularly (and you guys seemed like my concepts so far, rushed as they are).

To start this off, my first problem with it. The CCC becoming a "Weekly" thing, and the MCCC being the "Main Show".

I'll set up my reasoning with some facts here. My best Champion Concepts (those that I deem Contest Worthy) take me around 3 months to make (start to finish). For the contests I've been in so far, I've cropped it down to 1 month's worth of work, which ultimately left rushed results (evident in the concepts I've presented so far; Scarlet, the Infernal Blade is the best example of this). However, if I hustle my weekends and free time away, I can provide a passable result, I can barely make the 1 month deadline and have it be a 100% complete concept.

So, to make the CCC into a "Weekly" contest would hurt designers who are like me, designers who need a lot of time to create things and ensure the results are at their best. But that is for the CCC, I could just enter the MCCC, right? Well, the MCCC is my second biggest problem, coming primarily from the format itself, and more specifically, the "Challenges" part of it.

First off, half of the challenge isn't even revealed for one or two weeks of the month, so that's already a big issue for my pacing in good design (creating a rushed result, which as stated before, leads to bad showings or unfinished work at deadline). The second issue is the challenges themselves.

I liked the CCC's idea of "no boundaries" on creation. It was loose, and let me put my ideas I spend 3 months on to perfect work where proper. I could keep the design of the Champion consistent from inception to release on the boards, thus creating a fully centralized and complete character. The "Challenges" punch holes in that philosophy behind my designs, and do so by shoehorning me into a specific thing, mechanic, or theme. If I had a concept all set to enter into the MCCC, but it turns out it meets none of the challenges, I'm now hard-pressed to come up with something completely new in only 2 weeks, or completely abandon entering the contest (which sucks hardcore).

Of the 3 months I spend on Champions on average, 1 of those is devoted to character design, which directly leads to the abilities that occupy month 2, so if the character itself doesn't meet the challenge, or the abilities from that design don't, I have to scrap all of it and shelve it for later, no matter how much was done. This means I start at square one, and have to cram 3 months of work into 1 month tops, with 2 of those months being squeezed into 2 weeks. The MCCC (especially this last one) just feels WAY too restrictive to be a good monthly format for designers like me, who give 110% if allowed.

If MCCC is the new "judged competition" format, it will be hurting a LOT of potential designers. I know I'm not the only one who has a lot of designs that have tons of love and effort poured in as time (and life) permits. Which is the third thing, minor as it is. Weekly challenges to create a full concept will be impossible to pull off if you do factor people having work and school into play, since there isn't a way to make a complete design in a week without it being a rushed, janky, imbalanced and/or bland mess.

Also, for similar reasons regarding timing and work amount, having both contests side by side would be a nightmarish mess for everyone involved. As far as the whole "showcase" thing, I dislike that focus entirely, since I think it destroys what a perfect and ideal contest could be in every way, shape, and form. Method B is arguably worse than Method A by work amount of philosophy alone in my opinion.

Just my cents on the matter, and why I had to vote "None of these work." Thanks for asking the community for ideas though, and sorry for the text wall, but I've had a lot of feelings on this matter since trying to participate in this past MCCC. Any replies are appreciated and read.

Zanryu11/25/2014, 7:01:10 PM1 votes

Glad to see that CCC will return. I get the feeling that the MCCC is more distant to the people than the soon WCS. Although I would probably set an interval of two weeks rather than one to give judges and creators more time. But this is mostly dependent on everyones time.

Vbunnie11/25/2014, 3:13:02 AM1 votes

here is a simple idea why not have them switch each month one mccc one ccc simple.....also keep the grading system for both with one major change to the mccc that being a better system of grading the current one does not work and certain champions dont get the light they disserve

Elphrihaim11/25/2014, 7:58:00 PM1 votes

This is definitely critical-- entries for one contest can't be used for the other. I think the only time this happened was Ozu, the Spectral Knight. Who was awesome on all accounts.

(However, and I do feel it necessary to write, the MCCC entrants usually don't have completed concepts in the first week, so it would be the third week of a month that has the mirroring.)

Personally, I think you should go for the following:

Week 1: MCCC1 posted. WCS1-1 judges assigned. Week 2: WCS1-1 posted. WCS1-2 judges assigned. Week 3: WCS1-1 finished, WCS1-2 posted. WCS1-3 judges assigned. Week 4: WCS1-2 finished, WCS1-3 posted. Week 1, Month 2: WCS1-3 finished, MCCC2 posted. WCS2-1 judges assigned.

This makes the MCCC have fewer threads to compete with for visibility while also allowing the WCS to go through a good number of entries (You could cap it at a lower number since it's 3 times a month instead of only once, say 30).

While I'm not anywhere near the investment that I should have for the contests (school, which I'm already almost late for so bye)...

FuzzyPhatPanda11/25/2014, 1:22:48 PM1 votes

I think Method A would actually work out the best imo. This is because for the WCS you can post already created champion concepts, or post them as you finish them. And it also means that if you're currently working on an MCCC post and don't have any CCC champs ready to post, you can miss out that week and finish up to post in the next week's WCS. The weekly WCS along with the monthly MCCC would allow people to focus their attention to concepts completing challenges as well as posting original concepts they've thought of along the way. But again, that's just my opinion. The constant advertisement of the MCCC though would be a great thing and should definitely get more attention, but the MCCC could still offer advertisement for the WCS by just saying something along the lines of "If you have any concepts sitting around, go and post them in the WCS and who knows? Maybe you'll be one of the showcase winners!" I don't know, but overall Method A implementing the WCS along with the MCCC seems like the best overall way to begin taking these challenges. I think we'd see a lot more applicants overall, with new people getting to put up a new concept each week with the WCS as well as getting to focus on creating a specific champion for the MCCC. But once again, that's just me.

Fury and Emperor11/25/2014, 6:51:38 PM1 votes

Imo, the more important consideration is which option degrades gracefully when judges and organisers inevitably quit.

Option A could degrade when necessary by shuttering the WCS and putting all remaining resources into the MCCC; option B would skip every other month, which is much worse.

So I'd go with A with a slight modification: exclude MCCC submissions from the WCS. Otherwise the first WCS of a month would be a mirror of the MCCC, which isn't all that useful.