Simtropolis Challenges Season 3 - General Discussion
The Return
We are pleased to announce the return of Simtropolis Challenges.
Season 3 will launch on June 13th with a series of brand new challenges!
Based upon feedback and suggestions from the community, including the Ideas Bank, we have organised a set of new, and some old challenges, along with a new seasonal leaderboard! Each week a new challenge will become available, and follow the same submission process as last season by challengers submitting images to an album and then in the following week the voting becomes available to all. Voting will again work by rating submissions inside each Challenge Album. In a slight change to this season, weekly challenges might run for multiple weeks, this is to encourage more entries for difficult challenges. Depending on the challenge, more than one submission per author may be allowed (like with the NAM Showcase). Monthly challenges will be returning too, except with a big change for this season. There will be a new challenge starting on the 1st and 15th of every month, and will run for 30 days. The general theme around these challenges is custom content creation, ranging from creating custom lots for Maxis buildings, to creating completely new buildings (BATs). While there is an overlap between two monthly challenges, no two challenge will ask you to do a similar thing at the same time, for instance there won't be two BAT challenges running at the same time. These entries will be featured on the STEX for the voting process, and will be prominently featured here while the voting is being conducted. Its a great opportunity for you to finish up those old BATs or LOTs you've had in the depths of your hard drive for years! The entire schedule of challenges will be available from day one, so you can get entries ready before the challenge even launches, check the calendar below for this schedule. Not all challenges are currently in the calendar yet, but this will be completed in due course. Make sure you subscribe to this calendar to always be notified and up to date with the upcoming challenges: Challenges Calendar Prizes Winners, like last season, will be earning a varied amount of reputation. We also hope to eventually have a more permanent showcase of your wins on your profile, but this might not be ready for the beginning of the season. Second and Third place will also be receiving reputation for each challenge. The amount of reputation, like last season, will grow as the number of entries grow. So the more entries, the bigger the prize pool. This season for selected challenges, the reputation band will be increased to the top 5. As a method of determining results, the BARS ranking system will be returning.
New Leaderboard System A brand new leaderboard system will be unveiled this season. This will arrange contestants based upon a variety of different categories, for instance any podium places you make, the amount of reputation you earn from challenges, the average rating of your entries, amongst others, so you have a chance to place on the leaderboard even without winning a challenge, but you have a higher chance if you do. This will be explained in more detail shortly in a separate topic.
Hall Of Fame The Hall Of Fame will also be making a return. It never really left, but all winning images will be featured within there once more. Joining the image Hall Of Fame will also be a STEX Hall Of Fame. This will feature the winning files from the custom content monthly challenges. All entries to the Hall Of Fame will be included in a recap at the end of the season. Speaking of which, in the next few days a topic featuring all new entries into the Hall Of Fame from last season will be featured in this forum before the launch of Season 3, along with a recap. Hopefully this will give you all some inspiration for what you might want to create this Season.
Best Picture Competition The Best Picture Competition is still running. Its had a reduction in the amount of interest and participation lately, and we'd love to hear how you would make it better. Use this topic to discuss those changes. Otherwise, it's business as usual in that competition. We hope that renewed interest in the challenges will bring new attention to the Best Picture Competition. Notifications Don't forget to follow this post to stay up to date with any other announcements for Season 3. And make sure you follow the challenges forum so you know when each challenge goes live. Also, subscribe to the calendar so you know what challenges are coming next! The first challenge, if you haven't looked at the calendar yet, is a Vanilla Only Challenge, where we only want to see images from SimCity 4 without any mods or alterations. It will be tough, but we can't wait to see what you can do!
We are really excited to bring you the return of Simtropolis Challenges, and we hope you have a fun Season 3! Also, we invite you to use this topic for discussing any subjects relating to this season. ~ The Challenges Team
Season 3 will launch on June 13th with a series of brand new challenges!
Based upon feedback and suggestions from the community, including the Ideas Bank, we have organised a set of new, and some old challenges, along with a new seasonal leaderboard! Each week a new challenge will become available, and follow the same submission process as last season by challengers submitting images to an album and then in the following week the voting becomes available to all. Voting will again work by rating submissions inside each Challenge Album. In a slight change to this season, weekly challenges might run for multiple weeks, this is to encourage more entries for difficult challenges. Depending on the challenge, more than one submission per author may be allowed (like with the NAM Showcase). Monthly challenges will be returning too, except with a big change for this season. There will be a new challenge starting on the 1st and 15th of every month, and will run for 30 days. The general theme around these challenges is custom content creation, ranging from creating custom lots for Maxis buildings, to creating completely new buildings (BATs). While there is an overlap between two monthly challenges, no two challenge will ask you to do a similar thing at the same time, for instance there won't be two BAT challenges running at the same time. These entries will be featured on the STEX for the voting process, and will be prominently featured here while the voting is being conducted. Its a great opportunity for you to finish up those old BATs or LOTs you've had in the depths of your hard drive for years! The entire schedule of challenges will be available from day one, so you can get entries ready before the challenge even launches, check the calendar below for this schedule. Not all challenges are currently in the calendar yet, but this will be completed in due course. Make sure you subscribe to this calendar to always be notified and up to date with the upcoming challenges: Challenges Calendar Prizes Winners, like last season, will be earning a varied amount of reputation. We also hope to eventually have a more permanent showcase of your wins on your profile, but this might not be ready for the beginning of the season. Second and Third place will also be receiving reputation for each challenge. The amount of reputation, like last season, will grow as the number of entries grow. So the more entries, the bigger the prize pool. This season for selected challenges, the reputation band will be increased to the top 5. As a method of determining results, the BARS ranking system will be returning.
New Leaderboard System A brand new leaderboard system will be unveiled this season. This will arrange contestants based upon a variety of different categories, for instance any podium places you make, the amount of reputation you earn from challenges, the average rating of your entries, amongst others, so you have a chance to place on the leaderboard even without winning a challenge, but you have a higher chance if you do. This will be explained in more detail shortly in a separate topic.
Hall Of Fame The Hall Of Fame will also be making a return. It never really left, but all winning images will be featured within there once more. Joining the image Hall Of Fame will also be a STEX Hall Of Fame. This will feature the winning files from the custom content monthly challenges. All entries to the Hall Of Fame will be included in a recap at the end of the season. Speaking of which, in the next few days a topic featuring all new entries into the Hall Of Fame from last season will be featured in this forum before the launch of Season 3, along with a recap. Hopefully this will give you all some inspiration for what you might want to create this Season.
Best Picture Competition The Best Picture Competition is still running. Its had a reduction in the amount of interest and participation lately, and we'd love to hear how you would make it better. Use this topic to discuss those changes. Otherwise, it's business as usual in that competition. We hope that renewed interest in the challenges will bring new attention to the Best Picture Competition. Notifications Don't forget to follow this post to stay up to date with any other announcements for Season 3. And make sure you follow the challenges forum so you know when each challenge goes live. Also, subscribe to the calendar so you know what challenges are coming next! The first challenge, if you haven't looked at the calendar yet, is a Vanilla Only Challenge, where we only want to see images from SimCity 4 without any mods or alterations. It will be tough, but we can't wait to see what you can do!
We are really excited to bring you the return of Simtropolis Challenges, and we hope you have a fun Season 3! Also, we invite you to use this topic for discussing any subjects relating to this season. ~ The Challenges Team
Thanks everyone for the feedback on the reputation.
Currently the system is the same used as last year, which gives multipliers for the challenge type, the number of entries, and the overall average rating. The only difference is the addition of the content challenges, that set the highest rep reward.
These challenges aren't meant to be focussed on gaining reputation. Instead they're more about having fun, being creative, and using these city-building games in a competitive environment. Really, the idea behind the 'high' amounts was to give more incentive for taking part. Therefore to encourage participation, and make each event more meaningful. At the moment, this is the only actual method of recognition, so it was really to make them more meaningful. Originally award badges could be shown on your profiles, but the site upgrade last year broke this, with it no longer compatible. If all goes according to plan, we do hope to implement an even better awards system later this year, which can again be used for challenge winners.
In any given challenge, it isn't easy to win or reach the podium. To gain reputation in Urban Features, there was only a 13.6% chance, and that's only from the statistical odds. This makes consistently reaching the prize ranks difficult, let alone reaching 1st place.
Since it wasn't brought up in the feedback topic, we assumed people were OK with the set prize amounts. However, we're always open to feedback, and appreciate any concerns shared. We want all challenges to be fun, fair, and work how you'd like them to. I'm so glad this has been brought up early on. It can now be promptly addressed and results recalculated, as it would otherwise create all sorts of chaos with the leaderboards, where basically everything would be invalid.
Based on this, the amounts will be reduced, making them more proportional to other site areas. This can be done for the two previous challenges, and all ones in future. It's as easy change as swapping a few numbers over. I completely agree there needs to be a balance here. Not too much to make other site areas less important -- this is not the idea behind these rep prizes. The contributions in the forums, STEX and CJs are always valued, and we'd love to find a way to give more back to those people. However, the rep prizes should still be significant enough as a reward, to encourage people to share their creations and enter them.
In Urban Features, it was really a perfect storm. There were 22 entries (tied 2nd amount since the ranking system), it was also an Extended event, and the average rating was quite high (more bonus). Compare this to the Vanilla challenge, and the figures are much less (190, 114, 76, even though this may still be too much).
I'll get back with a few proposals, and we can take it from there.
Maybe we can even hold a poll, as we'd like the best possible outcome for everyone.
Thanks again.
