Kiddo, I just want to say, I appreciate all of your work with the livestream this year. Don't get upset at what I'm going to say.

(11-17-2012, 01:23 PM)KiddoCabbusses Wrote:

(11-17-2012, 12:46 PM)Kesha Wrote: Well, the more official resources a fan game uses, the less of a fan game it is- the fan component just isn't there anymore. It becomes just a mod essentially. I mean honestly I don't know if rom hacks are even considered fan games very often if at all.

SovietShark Wrote:I'm pretty sure judging isn't just based just on how a game plays. You have to think about the artwork, the level design, the work put into a game. (EDIT: Also, I'd like to mention how his engine is open-sourced. He's offering a great tool to the fangame community.)

For reference, do remember that we're talking about hacks which heavily modify the graphics, the sounds, the maps, the music, and in one case, the level structure and linearity (Which in turn requires an engine modification). These are not like some simple Lunar Magic Super Mario World level hack we're talking about here. In comparison, the Java game is basically nothing -but- it's engine. And it doesn't even feel like a Fire Emblem game because of the lack of proper RPG stats, it'd have been better off if it was based on Advance Wars. I won't go as far as to say that FEWC outright "sucks" like some people would, but it's really easy yo see why it was unpopular.

Besides, FEWC doesn't have any custom anything -besides- the engine.

Quite bluntly, it's easy to see why people would think the ROM hacks got snuffed just for being ROM hacks. As someone who's been attempting to bring more ROM hackers to NCFC, I'm disturbed by this.

The reason they were not included in the awards was because the judge's felt it would be difficult to compare it against the two other game that were entirely custom. They were left out of the judging. A lack of a subsequent special award to make up for this fact is the glaring omission in the awards this year. But the judges thought this would be OK because these awards are just picks that are supposed to be icing on the cake for the fangame creators that made them. Clearly the judges thought incorrectly. I personally would give a special award to Fire Emblem: Dream of Five now that we've gone through all this, but that doesn't matter as toes have already been stepped on. And while we're on the topic of judging, I'm going to say it here though I originally wasn't going to: the lack of extra judges hurt the judging process this year.

Quote:On another note, while I may have this perspective because the game ran really slow on my computer, I don't see how Purple Coin got best of show over the non-Mario "Bests" this year. While a good game in it's own right, it was competing against projects which were significantly grander in scope and technical accomplishments.

It's especially silly looking when the Mario fangames were not even as popular this year as the other entries. Last year the popular vote and the "best of show" at least had some correlation; this year, it's like the judges completely went and outright completely disregarded popular opinion this time.

Last year people were concerned about popular opinion overriding other fangames. That didn't really happen. This year there were a lack of booth reviews to get popular opinion from - and booth likes are a poor indicator as people were frequently telling their forum members to merely go out and like their game. But really, I don't see how you can say the likes were completely disregarded when PMU also got a top spot. No they weren't strongly correlated, but they were not equivalent to votes either.

I want to address a certain point the most though.

Quote:The problem with "Best of show" is quite obvious when it's not awarding the "Best of show". It appears your best chances of winning the "Best of show" is to make a "good" Mario fangame that's not a ROM Hack and hope there isn't one better than your's, but if you make anything that's not a Mario Fangame or is a ROM Hack, you've pretty much lost any chance of winning the "Best of show", and a ROM hack in general will never win best in it's category, even losing to a significantly lower-quality product. This looks like a bias. This is especially glaring in a NCFC that at best had a few "good' Mario games and lacked a "killer" Mario fangame like Psycho Waluigi, while in comparison "Pokemon Mystery Universe" is EASILY a "killer" Pokemon fangame.


I assume this is probably because of NCFC's roots as a MFGG-oriented event leading to a favouritism of "Mario fangames" inherent in the system. I suggest if you do judging next year you go out of your way to get non-Mario fangamers to judge.

This, quite frankly, is insulting. Let's look at the runnerups. Metroid Remix and PMU. Neither are Mario games. PMU has the most likes in the entire convention. Last year's overall awards were given to Project AM2R and Megaman Battle Network Chrono X. Neither are Mario games. Please don't say there's a bias in the judging because you disagree with the decisions when looking further will reveal there isn't.

Quote:

Quote:Finally, remember that this isn't supposed to be a competition. This is a fangame CONVENTION. The awards are just an icing on the cake; something to spotlight something that the convention heads think is special. You may not agree with them, but respect their decisions, and remember it really doesn't mean much in the long run.

The problem with this is quite obvious;
1) You call the awards "Best of show", which by it's nature fuels competitive ideas.
2) You don't have enough awards going around in general to award things which are "Special" (and then, you remove the "Most Promising" award from areas where you -could- give a well-deserved award. Good job. >.>)
3) The awards have been given out in this pattern both times I've been here, so it's quite apparent this has been how it's been for the past 6 events. It's hard to think what you award is "special" when it's clear there's a lack of breaking from the mold.

1) This is a problem. Judge's pick would be better. Maybe we'll get them renamed for this year since people have clearly gotten upset over it.
2) Yes, this was a glaring omission. I addressed this further up, but I'll say again, the judge's found it difficult to compare the ROM hacks and then left them out thinking the awards would not be taken as competitively as they are. Now that we see how seriously people are taking them, an award should have been given to one of them, and it probably would have been Dream of Fire.
3)I'm not sure what pattern you are referring to, unless you mean the aforementioned "mario bias."

Quote:If you want to can the "Best of show", perhaps that'd be for the best. All it seems to do anymore is cause post-event drama. I suggest next year we conclude with a pre-scripted Livestream event instead.

Personally? I'd be fine with getting rid of the awards, especially because this has blown up more than the one in 2010, which was what caused us to initially start the booth reviews. I find the competitiveness it brings about saddening, including the fact that people will advertise how their game is in NCFC but the only reason you should care is because you are a fan of their work and need to help them win that award!. This convention is supposed to be geared around letting people know about new games, getting word out, and having fun. The awards are clearly taking away from that for some people this year.