Zergling963

4 hours ago, Wolf Angelus said:

Since we are having friendly opinions/feedback, I'll leave mine, heavily based on logical and rational thinking:

Contests should be about contents, not entrants. Names should be removed from submissions during voting and may the best content win.

If people put a lot of devotion in and do pictures, and videos or building, that is their own choice/right, and their efforts shouldn't be downgraded for it. If people just want to do 1 thing, that is their own choice too. Maybe some put 15 hours/week of effort in for just pictures, and some put more effort in, say 30 hours/week, to build/video and do pictures. No one said that that any certain person can't attempt the other categories as well. Of course, there is no guarantee where what may win.

Basically, efforts shouldn't be discarded if the content is epic enough, as by definition of a contest - what is judged as the best content should win.

I myself enjoy seeing extremely creative things that wouldn't be your "every day encounter" on the game, like the Harry Potter freeform image, or the Mario Kart track Valoule made. Stuff that really stands out and says "Wow", and unlike anything ever been seen before.

Counter Debates:
Main issue - You run into problems when one or more entrant is in the running to win more than 1 category - What if 2 people enter a video and a picture for example, and they are equally amazing and both worry of being winners, you arrive at a decision of who do you award 200$ to for video, and who gets the lesser 100$ for picture (despite both entries from both entrants being equal).**The is where the solution below comes into play to solve this

-Another point would be that a set of "regulars" have kept things alive weekly. Many have come and gone, or some enter once in a blue moon. This wouldn't be much of a contest when 2-3 people end up entering only, at least without possibly downgrading the content of the contest (Using an extreme example: would one really be want to see a 3x3 thatch building anyone could put together?)
-Winning content may end up being far less exciting by eliminating "specialty" content as I will call it, and you end up with "generic" content that is more along the lines of what you see daily, and not something truly unique (Real Life example:  Eiffel Tower is a unique piece of architecture vs a persons house which generic and doesn't stand out)
-If you chose to actively put restrictions on categorical entries, personally speaking all my focus would go into building and that category would get locked down.
-PGMs should not be included in any restrictions, unless the prize is changed to cash value

 

What you could do is custom amounts based on what you wish to allocate per week, per category - combine the first prize and runner up pools you were willing to award that week, and split them among the content that you deem worthy of "winner & runner up". Using the current prize values, say you are willing to pay out 400$ for arkitect in that given week. You decide 3 builds to be impressive, you split the value of 400 among 3. Same for pictures, do you find 3-4 pictures worthy of freeform? Perhaps the content was impressive enough that you want to dedicate 200$.
This would tie in with what others have said to some extent, and offer up more people "winning" something (the amounts would be less of course), but it keeps things balanced and fair for those who also put a lot of effort in, while giving something as well to others. You would end up with a mix of regulars, and infrequent entrants winning, therefore balancing the cycle and nature of the contest. Hopefully that makes sense!

As one of the few who has been around the longest, that could be the best solution without hurting your most loyal and consistent of entrants, and also give running chances towards newer entrants. It is a bit more of an elaborate solution, but with a well kept Spreadsheet, it shouldn't be hard to manage.

 

You forget to mention sometimes people are loyal but they don't have the time to put into it every single week to enter even if they may wish to! Real life priorities comes over entering every week for me

36 minutes ago, Jat said:

That would be because we're still waiting for the UK retailer to finish setup. We're not retailers, we're developers - we work with others to get the game out there. Hopefully it'll be done soon! Chris should be posting when it's live as he handles getting it on playark.com

Feedback is noted regarding the contest, I have some of my own thoughts to certain things that I'd like to change too so I'll be talking to the guys about it sometime soon (once we're wrapped up with the 1.0 disc submission)! 

Thanks @Jat Interested to see what happens :0

2 hours ago, The Lime Inc. said:

Hi mate,

Just want to say, do not change anything when building as you seem to built what you want and what you like and that should be the focus of you entering, not just to win.

I would like a new rule which might help all players and entries: Just let one players win one or maybe even enter one competition a week. This will keep it fair and fun for everyone and will make it so that each week at least 6 players or fans of ARK can win something.

Just an idea for the devs

Thanks for this response and I agree with this idea! I would have been happy if I had lost fairly as you said but it does kinda seem rigged. It didn't even make the video into the fan feature and you probably know what it takes out of you to build, record and edit the darn thing. A lot of time that I feel was wasted cause it wasn't added to fan feature unlike the rest but maybe I missed some unknown deadline who knows.

I enjoy building etc but let's say it is disheartening when the same person wins multiple categories as you said it doesn't seem fair and seems rigged but thanks for your response

25 minutes ago, FataL1ty said:

I feel the same about the PGM contest as the last time I won was last year, despite trying almost every week but I still enjoy playing around with the settings and seeing what I can come up with.

But it's all for the fun of it I suppose if you don't enjoy entering, forget about it! You'll be all the happier for it.

I liked your entry as well as every other entry, great content as always.

Thanks and I do enjoy entering just feel a little disheartened and sometimes real life gets in the way of me entering! But will keep attempting it I guess Thanks

I know I don't enter regulary just due to time but honestly I am starting to wonder if there is a point to entering Since my ideas don't seem up to the standard of others. Any suggestions for ways to get them better or what?? As I am starting to feel disheartened cause I can't enter regulary and it seems like what I am proud of and think is good enough isn't.

Any suggestions please @Jat on ways to improve my builds/what you look for in the builds so I have an idea if I need to make it better??

Thanks

Seriously though huge congrats to all the winners! Amazing builds/maps etc

Very very interesting for a beginner map maker to read! Thanks so much

7 hours ago, Typh0n90 said:

Everything in the game should be enjoyable. It's a game. I'm yet to encounter anyone who actually breeds or wants to that thinks breeding should take as long as it does.

When you create a product with the intention of selling it to as many people as possible it's generally best to go along with what people want. Artistic flair is great but you guys aren't making a product with the intention of mounting it on your wall. You want to sell it. Your desire to shape the game the way *you* want comes second. Money should come first.

I am interested in breeding and getting mutations with colours etc but then I will admit I play singleplayer so really don't mind teh long breeding periods as I can just log off when I want and the game freezes and I log on again when I am next on! Honestly though there needs to be some effort required if people want super dinos. It can't all be easy to achieve. At least in my opinion

Congrats to all the winners and thanks for the Fan Feature! Appreciate it and am a big fan of this game.

Thanks for another awesome Community Crunch!

5 hours ago, AkiraMysticMoon said:

I feel sadden that it doesn't transfer ownership because that would give people that want to continue the mod without fading out of obscurity. But also hand all rights to party that keep it alive and going.

From what I have read once you sign up for the sponsorship program you are basically signing some of the rights to wildcard as they are paying you money to help finish it and may use it in an official capacity! They also need some of those rights to have the finished content in case you don't want to keep working on it once its finished/done so if they are using it in an official capacity so they can easily fix it! As they said once the map or mod is finished its your choice as to if you keep working on patches/fixes or decide not too. In which case they need to be able to fix it. Which makes sense to me then that they do own some of the rights to this hence why you wouldn't just be able to transfer ownership as part of the mod program does give some of that ownership to wildcard.

I heard one of the people who are sponsored say this on a shared stream on youtube whilst working on there map.

I think this is a fair enough coverage in my opinon as they are giving you a decent amount of money to help complete it and they need to cover there back in the process.

I can't speak for Wildcard personally but all I have read I can agree with what they are doing

17 hours ago, rororoxor said:

What are the specs for running the mod development kit? Do you need a more powerful computer than the base game requires?

I run it on the same specs as my pc!

My PC Specs are

intel i5 6500 3.2Ghz Quad Core

8GB Memory

Nvidia Gigabyte Gtx 960 4GB GDDR5 2x Windforce OC edition graphics card.

I mostly run custom settings in ark which are optimized through Nvidia Geforce Experience. hoping to save up for a new power core and an Nvidia Geforce 1080 ti 11GB graphics card.

Just be warned the Dev kit can be slow and can take awhile to load all shaders etc. Hope this helps

20 hours ago, PaleoJoe said:

I have great ideas about many things, especially gameplay. A few tweaks and additions and ARK would be perfect to suite that MMORPG style I so yearn for. Sadly I do not know how to mod or where to begin learning. 

I am in the same boat but I just downloaded the ark Dev Kit and Joined the Ark Modders Discord and they have all been very helpful with getting me started! Hope this helps

1 hour ago, AkiraMysticMoon said:

I still have a problem with paid mods because of a few reason.

1. Is the grantee of the quality of it being safe to be distribution. Who know what could be on their like a virus or incompatibility issue with other mods

2. Copyrighted material you see people recreation models of franchisees. Which would cause a legal issue because wild card would be taking a bit of the profit and allowing this to go on. 

3. Is knowing the dev of that mod alway working on the product and not letting it sit with outdated changes to a prior version of the game.

4. Who the one that gets payment for the mod. The reason why I ask this because I have seen this in Minecraft that mod devs stop supporting their mods and someone else asks for the code to revive it. Would they be a way to transfer ownership as well rights of payment to one that maintaining the mod itself?

These are a few reason of my head to why it might not be such a great idea to having a paid mods system.

One thing I read is that the Wildcard devs require access to the files in case the developer doesn't want to keep the mod up and working with fixes once its fully released as its there choice if they keep supporting it or not! If not Wildcard has all files etc of said map and hence if they send out a patch or fix that breaks said mod that they can fix it if the developer no longer is wanting too. Hence no need for another developer to take over it/get the money as if its done and wildcard have the files they can keep it fixed and up to date! Particulary if its official. I would say if this happens before its finished they no longer get the money and are dropped from the program hence the new developer wouldn't be taking up any money anyway unless wildcard decided to take them on with the sponsorship program again.

Also read if they aren't keeping up fixes and content whilst developing the mod that they can be dropped from the sponsorship program hence if you get lazy or slack or don't try to fix things up you loose your place and any sponsorship of your mod having a chance at becoming official. So in otherwords if you don't persist/fix issues then you loose your place.

Yes there is a guarantee of it not being compatible with other mods but that is where I would say the person creating the map/mod is supposed to step in and work on a fix with that map maker/mod maker and work out on whos side it is causing the issue.  As it may not be that persons fault for it not being coded compatible it could be the other map/mod maker whos is not compatible and hence needs a fix which is where you would need to work together with that mapmaker to sort out whos side the issue acctually is on.

As for copyrighted material from what I have seen wildcard is only selecting sponsored projects that don't have any association with other already copyrighted games/materials as there is too much of a risk there and ages ago they were sued for different reasons to do with another company and the game and I doubt they would want to go through that again so I would assume they would only select maps/mods that are original and relate to this game and would select nothing relating to other franschises like jurrassic park or monster hunter as then there is too much of a risk of being sued if they do add that stuff as official content.

I may only be very much a beginner to map making/learning but I did read up about this stuff through the community crunch/sponsored mod articles before I started and its all there. Others are also just general ideas/solutons to do with fixing up if the map or mod isn't compatible with others and working with the other map makers.

The reason I read this stuff is because I am attempting to make my first ever mod by doing  a large map so I have been interestingly following stuff to try and learn all I could and let it sink into my head just how much work you really need to do and learn to make an awesome map which is my goal even though I have a lot left to learn and a long way to go I am still going to keep attempting it

Hope this helps

Very nice even though I am a beginner modding very much interests me and things like this just help me to realise how much time and effort needs to go into making something amazing!

Thanks for this post appreciate it

1 hour ago, GP said:

Hey @Zergling963, i'm not speaking on behalf of Jat, but I believe your videos will definitely be allowed. The ARKVideo is open to any type of ARK video and therefore i'm sure your videos of map creation in the Dev kit will be allowed.

Also, i'd be happy if you share them in the Videos forum of the community forums as i'd be interested in following your progress as i've looked at map creation before but just never had time to learn it, let alone try it, so i'd certainly be interested in watching them myself.

Pretty certain I can do that GamerPerfection! Won't be able to enter something this week as heading away for Easter here in Australia and won't be back till next week! Tried playing with getting a Tek Base done so I could upload it this week when it was announced but unfortunately its nowhere near finished yet! Still have a long way to go! Speaking of which I forgot to check fertiliser on my gardens as was so busy raising 2 Equus Babies, 7 high level dragon babies and playing around with spawning in Tek gear to play with a Tek base in my singleplayer game Thanks probably a good thing to wait and see if Jat responds as well anyway I think it would be okay but just wanted to double check.

Thanks and will start making them when I am next able and share them in the video section! Bedtime now so will ttyl

@Jat can you tell me is it okay to enter video footage of ark dev kit maps l am working on creating? I am not far yet but am wanting to start up progress videos where I discuss what I am doing and where I am going with the map and was wondering if I was allowed to enter these in for ark video or not? 

I am very much a beginner to modding and have a ton to learn yet and thought doing a series of videos following my progress as I learn could be fun to do!

just wanted to ask if that would be allowed or not?

As I have decided I really want to focus time on my mod for a bit and learning everything since I am a beginner!

Thanks

8 hours ago, Casanova said:

Yet again some more amazing stuff submitted to the Crunch, great work guys and girls!

Thanks so much @Casanova

Grats everyone and thanks for the procedurally generated map win @Jat appreciate it

Just now, Whirlybird said:

as someone who plays on a private server with only friends and zero PVP, the bird nerf annoys the crap out of me but not nearly as much as the raft murdering fish. as soon as i found out this was a thing, i had to log in and move all my valuables out of my rafts and into a land base. i guess exploring the seas are a no go now

lol I have one of those spawn right at my base location I just started working on! Being singleplayer I had to put on god mode on my shark and take it out to destroy it! Lucky my raft is right in the shallow waters!

2 minutes ago, Daedros said:

Lol. I have boonies internet which downloads at 180kb/sec, so it's going to take me hours to download it

Thats what I used to have till a week ago when I upgraded to NBN and it got connected at my place here in australia. So I feel your pain!

Just now, Daedros said:

IT HAS BEGUN!

Yep mines finished downloading yay!

3 hours ago, ldb23 said:

yea this is a pretty crap thing about TEK stuff, i will never see it as i am a solo player

I pretty much spawned the bosses in since I play single player and killed them with Kill to get the tek tier parts and plan on building them just from scratch no spawning them in! Only way I figured I was going to be able to do and achieve the tek tier for myself

Love this but question how do we get those clear tek walls/floor as I don't have anything like them in my game! Or are they a mod?? In which case I can't use them or get them anyway as my PC doesn't like mods!

Thanks

2 hours ago, eco said:

I love the Nerd Out song! The plane with the little dinos inside is so creative and the tree house is just beautiful. I love that his exists! 

Thanks Eco! Wished I could have used your plant mod with it but sigh my pc wont allow me to use it For some reason my pc makes it cause issues with my game! As your mods would have been perfect! Am now on primitive plus though which mods can't be used with but still it would have been awesome for that base

Sigh I can only wish lol But if my PC (even though its only 2 months old) Complains and doesn't like them I can't do much about that unfortunately

Congrats to all the winners and thanks very much for the Runner up placing Ark Appreciate it! Even if my name was spelt Zergling939 But thanks all good

Thanks for the Honerable mention @Jat really appreciate it! Didn't even expect a mention as mine wasn't the best! Have now started fresh and it's time to build in the redwoods :)thanks again