PMC Discussion Thread: 3.0 Interest Check

[Captain Roh]

I couldnt find an appropriate thread to ask questions about non specific competitions, so I made one.

I also prefer to look through the various competition threads at photos rather than pages of text.

And finally I see threads open and close very quickly. So maybe a discussion about a proposed competition would help to find interested participants first, or seal its fate without cluttering up the sub forum.



On the subject of cluttered forums, here is the first point of discussion:

I find the GT5 Photomode Competition forum very confusing. I may be alone but when I come to view thread progression I cant easily navigate all the different threads. Would it be possible to create another sub forum for official GTP competitions? Leaving the forum here for user created ones? Also, would it be worth renaming certain competition threads as to better distinquish then from each other?

That is all

 

[sheferd]

One thing I always thought, since GT4, was how confusing it sometimes is sifting through the polls and the comps, maybe a separate sub for polls? and also a link to the polls in a sticky on the main photomode forum so maybe we can get more people to vote in them...

 

[SlipZtrEm]

Ahoy guys!

Captain - The reasoning behind locking previous weeks' threads is to try to minimize the confusion for members. By leaving them open, we sometimes get random users bumping an old thread up well past the deadline, and it can catch others out if they're not too careful. This way, by only having the current threads open, we can sort of funnel members to the appropriate threads. At least, that's my reasoning .

We fully expect more competitions to blossom up over time; I remember back in GT4 days, we had plenty: Drift, Photoshop (a free-for-all where 2.0 still has limitations), CCCL (Certain Car, Certain Location, to promote creativity when stuck with a single car/track combo), Muscle Car, Scenery, Magazine Cover... I imagine there's bound to be a lot of desire for at least one of these, or maybe even some new ones (Rally? Nascar?) to pop up. Maybe discussion could happen in here?

Agreed about the similar titles of threads; I've since modified 2.0 threads to better distinguish them from their PMC counterparts. As for a separate sub-sub-forum for these two, I'll bring it up with Jordan. Personally I feel one sub-forum for all comps should be enough, and separating any of them seems counter-productive, but you may be on to something. There are plans to tie the two into the front page News, by the way, but as you can imagine, we're still pretty loaded down with the rush of traffic from release, so it might take a bit more to be implemented. It will be coming, though 👍

Sheferd - Hmmm, I'll echo my comments about the idea of a separate sub-forum, for polls; it could definitely ease up clutter, but keeping polls and entry threads in different areas might cause a bit of confusion. Another I'll bring up with the team 👍. A sticky on the main Photomode mother-forum is a good idea though, I'll get that up there!

I could start stickying polls on a weekly basis, also, to keep them up at the top to ensure people who are coming to vote know where to look.

 

[sheferd]

Oh yea CCCL coming back would be a good one.

Sticky polls would be good also saves having a whole other forum for them.

 

[JTSnooks]

In addition to stickying polls, I'd suggest also stickying the current week's competitions. Granted it shouldn't be too hard to find them, but occasionally a week's competition can sneak down the list and may be forgotten about.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

I have stickied all current polls 👍
With previous week's polls and entry threads all being locked once they are closed, they will slide down the board, leaving the newest week's competition threads at the top of the un-stickied pile. This way we won't need to sticky the comp threads themselves, since they'll have a clear runway. Sound good?

I can't see a need to have the old polls/threads left open, anyways. Lemme know!

(Also, congrats on the win, JT!)

 

[0wnage]

Can you make topic with photo-winners of all weeks?
Thx.

 

[sheferd]

Can you make topic with photo-winners of all weeks?
Thx.

+1 I think that'd be cool, a single place for inspiration for your next entry (stickied) and locked maybe? Just update 1st post each week...
If it seems like extra work for someone qualified I'm sure you could find others willing to update it

 

[Northstar]

Would there be any way to have all the pics in polls to be the same size? It's rather easy to pass up small ones and they also make the poll look sort of crappy.

Can you make topic with photo-winners of all weeks?
Thx.

Like this?

 

[0wnage]

Like this?

Thanks. Simpy cant find all pics of winners.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

Would there be any way to have all the pics in polls to be the same size? It's rather easy to pass up small ones and they also make the poll look sort of crappy.

This is why we encourage people to use preview images (and have how-to's for Imageshack and Flickr). I personally don't think it should be the host's issue to deal with, but individual members should be able to take the extra minute or so it takes to create one for their own posts. Plus, I think you'll find that now that space in the polls is limited and judged weekly, this will be less of an issue.

Like this?

Yay, someone is looking at the stickies!

 

[AGNT009]

Not that Im a talented photoshopper, yet, but why not have a Free Style comp? Meaning the only rule is that the car has to come from GT5, but if you are good enough to place a game car into a real environment, and make it look good, why not. Limiting it to just GT5 photomode abilities seems, well, limiting, lol.

 

[Northstar]

Not that Im a talented photoshopper, yet, but why not have a Free Style comp? Meaning the only rule is that the car has to come from GT5, but if you are good enough to place a game car into a real environment, and make it look good, why not. Limiting it to just GT5 photomode abilities seems, well, limiting, lol.

Limitations force people to be more creative with what they have.

You can always start one though.

 

[Captain Roh]

I have stickied all current polls 👍
With previous week's polls and entry threads all being locked once they are closed, they will slide down the board, leaving the newest week's competition threads at the top of the un-stickied pile. This way we won't need to sticky the comp threads themselves, since they'll have a clear runway. Sound good?

I can't see a need to have the old polls/threads left open, anyways. Lemme know!

(Also, congrats on the win, JT!)

I'm sure over time the locked Polls will leave the front page making the place look less cluttered, but at the moment it all looks a bit messy. Nothing you can do about it unfortunately. Not sure you'd want to delete the threads completely? Merging them all and leaving it open and stickied might be an idea, although slightly confusing trying to read through.

Thanks for making the two competition titles slightly more distinguishable Slip, although once they're established i think Advanced 2.0 and GT5 Photomode would be even more clear. To be honest I dont see most competitions going the distance anyway. When the only two threads active are the two official GTP events the forum will be much clearer anyway

You can always start one though.

Yeah but,.. dont put 'GT5 Photomode Competition' in the title!

 

[AGNT009]

Maybe someday. Right now Im going to focus on mastering my paint skills for Nascar Racing 2003 stock car mods.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

So, I'm going to bump this, as we're now out of the holiday season and can get back to what's really important .

Nicknamealguem and I have been talking back-channel, about the return of previous competitions, or even new ones. We fully plan on keeping the two we've got running going, but for those people itching for competition in other venues, some more competitions would be fantastic. We're assuming traffic will pick up now that we're out of holidays, which is always a concern; a competition definitely needs a good amount of entries to really be fun.

With that in mind, I'll be posting weekly Competition updates on the main sites News feed in the near-future, which should also bring attention. Also, I thought I'd bring up a matter of opinion within the community; the Duplicating Issue. I know many are very threatened by the exploit (and the Marketplace is an utter mess to browse because of it), but how does everyone feel about it being used for the sake of prizes for the comps? As in, every week's winner (and perhaps even second-place) gets a prize? Chromatic9 got an X1 for winning last week's 2.0, and I personally think some kind of recognition for winning isn't a bad thing. Besides, as we all progress further in the game, cars that are hot tickets now, like the X1, will be more common, and I'll just start offering a "request a car" prize each week .

Anywho, about different comps - just a sampling of the ones we had before:

• Drift - Speaks for itself, really. The drift community is large and enthusiastic over in that sub-forum, I'm sure this would be an easy sell.
• Magazine Cover - This was a lot of fun, though it requires a bit more work than other comps. Not for novices, but some absolutely awesome work came from it.
• Artistic/Creative - Sort of in the same vein as what AGNT009 mentioned above, this allowed for a lot more freedom of editing, and wasn't constrained to "automotive photography", really. An effective Photoshop free-for-all, as long as some GT5 element was present.
• Photoshop Comp - Similar, yet different, to above. Carried more strict themes, but still required a good bit of PS knowledge. Popular themes? Cop chases, destruction derby, movie cars, race mods, car mashups, fun stuff like that .

There were others, that's just off the top of my head. We also had a knockout-style Tournament, though we're sitting on that for a little while until people progress further. So, thoughts, comments, volunteers?

 

[Revolution.]

I'd love to see a bit of expansion with new comps and the like, particularly in the Photoshop arena. I'm itching to get back to the old Photoshop comp, stuff like movie posters, cop cars, etcetera would be great fun. Also a good chance for us to stretch our photoshop legs a bit.
Magazine covers are good fun, something that could be folded into the PS comp, a recurring theme maybe?

 

[Moglet]

I fully support the idea of prize cars every week, there's no way I have the time to win a lot of them myself

 

[Nicknamealguem]

There are allot a good amount of competition that I would to see it reappear. Like Slip. said, competitions like the CCCL, Drift, Photoshop, Artistic/Creative, etc, and even some newly created competitions, joining old competitions to new formats or even joining two competitions in one, like what happen to the H2H, that is now part of a poll system for both 2.0 and PMC.

All of these are great additions for the competition section and it would bring more variety to the place, as long as we don't go overboard with it - to many competitions is not good as well.

Also, some ideas can, again, be taken from the GT4 Community Thread, when we started preparing for GT5 Photomode.

 

[tofudrifter]

how do i cast a vote in the polls ?

 

[SlipZtrEm]

Good news: Incase you may have missed it (since both open competitions this week have exploded with activity) - We're on the front page now. Fame! Glory! No supermodels to accompany you to hot events... but we're working on it.

I'd love to see a bit of expansion with new comps and the like, particularly in the Photoshop arena. I'm itching to get back to the old Photoshop comp, stuff like movie posters, cop cars, etcetera would be great fun. Also a good chance for us to stretch our photoshop legs a bit.
Magazine covers are good fun, something that could be folded into the PS comp, a recurring theme maybe?

Sort of like how H2H has been folded into the two main comps, Magazine covers could be, say, a monthly thing for Photoshop? That'd be a great idea, because reasonably, having a Magazine Cover competition running simultaneously beside a Photoshop one might stretch even the biggest PS fanatic a bit thin. The other option of course is to make more labour-intensive comps like these a bi-weekly affair to give people more time .

You certainly have my vote if you feel up to bringing it back, Rev 👍

I fully support the idea of prize cars every week, there's no way I have the time to win a lot of them myself

I figured most people would, and really, nothing wrong with a bit of incentive . For those who cry foul, they don't realize how hard it is to win a comp anyways .

My garage is sitting north of 300 cars, and I'm running at nearly 12 million credits, so I should be able to gift nearly anything to any winners. I'll be doing it for both PMC and 2.0 until Luis feels comfortable to do it for PMC.

The response from the front page article is already big, judging by the increased traffic this board has seen all day. The mention of being able to win a prize will only increase that

There are allot a good amount of competition that I would to see it reappear. Like Slip. said, competitions like the CCCL, Drift, Photoshop, Artistic/Creative, etc, and even some newly created competitions, joining old competitions to new formats or even joining two competitions in one, like what happen to the H2H, that is now part of a poll system for both 2.0 and PMC.

All of these are great additions for the competition section and it would bring more variety to the place, as long as we don't go overboard with it - to many competitions is not good as well.

Also, some ideas can, again, be taken from the GT4 Community Thread, when we started preparing for GT5 Photomode.

Doh, CCCL, an excellent, excellent competition format, deserves to be back. For those who weren't around for GT4, it stands for Certain Car, Certain Location. Everybody's limited to the same car, and same track (or Photo Travel location), meaning you really have to get creative to pull off the win instead of perhaps winning on account of a cool vehicle choice alone. A lot of fun!

how do i cast a vote in the polls ?

You need to have your first post approved by the staff before you can vote on polls (or enter chat). Now that your post is approved, you should be able to cast your vote pretty easily; just head into the thread you want, hit the little radio button beside the image you like, and click Vote!
________________________________________

The Current Poll Setup

So, with the small snafu in PMC this week, I want to address it here, with the community; we're going to try to further streamline the poll process, to ensure polls are full each week (to their respective comps' imposed limit, anyways), and there's no misunderstandings between judge and comp host. To ensure that the following happens (mostly copied from the PMC thread):

• Ignore any entries not labeled with a "Final Entry". We'll even be as specific as requiring the red text if need be
• Ignore any entries that are over the 500px limit for their in-thread representation.
• Ignore text-only entries. Sorry, I think this is fair given this is a Photomode competition. It doesn't take much to get a thumbnail up, and we provide the steps each week.
• Judges send us their choices in the form of post numbers. While this is more work for the Nick and I, it helps us find people who have entered more than once that week (yes, it's been attempted already), and let's us deal with the necessary PHP code. Actually, sending us your poll choices in the form of the links to the individual posts would be best: the little post number in the top right corner of every post. Right click -> Copy Link Location in Firefox does the trick

Also... I'm going to start using what's available to me as a mod; ineligible entries will be marked as such if they aren't fixed after a reasonable amount of time. It makes it simpler for the judge at the end of the week. I'll also be editing out full-size images completely by people who don't want to read the rules.

Thoughts? On all matters?

 

[[empty space]]

I'd personally like to see the tournaments return myself.

 

[Northstar]

I say the more competitions the better, granted I wouldn't be entering any of the proposed ones(at leat not yet as my skills aren't there for expensive photo editing, although perhaps the SCSL one depending on the restrictions), but it's always cool to see what people come up with.

 

[Revolution.]

Sort of like how H2H has been folded into the two main comps, Magazine covers could be, say, a monthly thing for Photoshop? That'd be a great idea, because reasonably, having a Magazine Cover competition running simultaneously beside a Photoshop one might stretch even the biggest PS fanatic a bit thin. The other option of course is to make more labour-intensive comps like these a bi-weekly affair to give people more time .

You certainly have my vote if you feel up to bringing it back, Rev 👍

Mmmmm, something like that would be great... I'm not sure if I'm up to hosting it.. I'll have a think about it and get back to you.

 

[GM]

Speaking from previous experience of hosting both comps in GT4 I can say that Drift and Rally (another previous competition) photo competitions are likley to die out and lose interest relativley quickly compared to other comps, although they should still last awhile as GT5 hasn't been out long, so if either of these are to go ahead I would say the sooner the better.. Also how about those Photomode 'Tournaments'? (cant remember actual name) Where people would go head to head against each other with each pairing having a different theme in a knockout style competition? If I remember correctly these were only held occasionally (a few a year) but I'd happily put myself forward to host this if it was to go ahead and someone was needed

 

[SlipZtrEm]

Nicknamealguem and I have discussed the return of the "PD Tournament" for a while; it definitely was a well-deserved favourite, and brings some utterly astounding shots each time. But, we figure give it a few more weeks, maybe even a month, before something like that is introduced again. The reason being is that while some of us are pretty far into the game (I've been sitting at 93% since around Christmas), others aren't, and there's definitely a need for a fairly fleshed-out garage when it comes to things like that.

I've been looking over the past ones just to get a refresher, and I really can't think of anything that needs changing. The idea of keeping it to just 32 entries, and having a qualification poll where people can have multiple votes to determine those who take part in the actual rounds, is fantastic. Broader themes, or the user-submitted route, either way, it's a lot of fun.

I think both of us have pretty full plates, so yeah George, I don't see a reason why you couldn't host

 

[j-cart]

Might be a bit much to ask, but a nice small blurb about the winner's picture would be nice. Post in the following week's topic, since they are the judge.

-thoughts on what they like/dislike about their picture
-what they were going after
-effects, camera information, or others that were used

I think it will not only inform everyone the author's intentions, but also help everyone else see what they need to do to improve their pictures.

Either way keep up the good work! As long as I got the time, I will always be trying to enter.

 

[Nicknamealguem]

Well, I’ll use my study break to voice my opinion about competitions and hosts.

But first, let me address the poll issue. As I’ve asked in the PMC poll thread, I’m really sorry about the mess. With the current Judge Poll choices P.M. I was and it’s being conducted, it was bound to happen, since I was asking the Judge to conduct a host-like position of checking entries legality as well as if it’s following the theme. This is no problem with “senior” members and hosts, since they are kind of used to the system, (and even then, they get confused at some point), but, I won’t say it’s problematic, but it’s kind of confused to new members or members not that used to the system. And this was what happen, I asked the Judge to as well as to choose the best 25 pictures (within theme or his preferences), I asked him to remember that pictures without a final entry or with previews bigger than 500px where not eligible to poll (something it is my duty to check), so it went from there. Still, once the error was spotted (and thanks GM for the concerns), me and SlipZtrEm tried to implement the best solution possible to still get some fairness into that competition week. It’s not ideal, but it is the best it could be arranged.

Since then and before I would discuss about this subject, I’ve been thinking out the best way to fix the poll issue, so that something like this never happens again – this will resume almost solely in the Host/Judge best to poll P.M., where the issue is located:

• 1st, before sending the P.M. asking the best entries to go into poll (and kind of how it’s being done), inform the thread/competition that entries are being accounted, so that any entry after that post may or may not be included into poll.
  
• 2nd, the host makes an account of entries that go against the rules (post number and entrant name).
  
• 3rd, a P.M. asking the Judge for the best entries to get into poll will be sent to the Judge. This P.M. will include a list with entries that go against the rules, so that the judge chooses from the ones rule abiding. – If after the account of illegal entries, the number of rule abiding entries is smaller than the one set to the poll, a P.M. will be sent to the Judge (still, with a list of illigal entries) asking if the remaining entries abide or not to the theme.

This way, Judge and Host functions will be separated and it will avoid any confusion.

______________________​

Now, about competitions, if anyone desires to host a competition, previously hosted in the GT4 days, I would advise – make it imperative – asking the last host of said competition - not quite a permission - but letting him know your intentions with the competition. I think it is the right thing to do with this kind of competitions.

G.M., about the Photomode Tournament, I advise that before taking over, it would be best to contact the last host (I believe it was MinoltaMan89) and tell him your intentions on hosting the competition. Also, like SlipZtrEm said, maybe waiting a bit more before lunching a tournament. Late February/early March are probably the best bet for it (giving some time as well for some new competitions to arise as well.

Edit: Also, I want to make clear that I'm OK if anyone wants to copy/paste PMC entry rules for their competitions, like I said here.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

Tying into what Nick just said... the only issue I see with that process is that there could be edits done between the host sending the list to the judge, and the judge picking the final poll entries. So if I sent a PM saying one user's entries wasn't eligible, and before the poll is closed, they fix it... they might still be left out.

I think I'll just have to start using the powers available to me, and just lock threads on Sundays, once I send away the PM asking for the poll. This also cuts the whole "under the wire" issue, where people post knowing that the judge has been asked, but hasn't actually picked yet - saves confusion, and potential disappointment .

In addition to not being able to post, posts already in the thread can't be edited. That way, problem solved; and if someone hasn't bothered to meet the rules with their entry by then, after the whole week, well... too bad.

j-cart - That's an excellent idea, and I'll move to incorporate that into this week's winners 👍

 

[GM]

When you say late Feb/early March start, do you mean for the actual competition or for the entry thread, and if we are limiting the number of people that can enter the knockout will this be 32 for PMC and 32 for 2.0? I was thinking about this a bit earlier and this is how I roughly planned it..

- Entry thread, anyone intrested in joining posts in the thread, along with which rules block they are wanting to enter in (PMC or 2.0 rules), each person can also submit a theme, which goes into the theme bank in the first post. This will run for between 5-7 days.

- If there is more than 32 entries for a rule block, a competition in the style of a regular PMC or 2.0 comp will be held, using a randomly picked theme from the theme bank. There will then be a mulitple choice poll where voters can pick their favourite 5 or so (strictly enforced) entries. The 32 pictures with the most votes make it through the the knockout. Again these competitions will last for around a week each, with a 3-5 day poll to give everyone that has entered a chance to submit an image and vote.

- People from each rule block will be randomly paired up (I'm sure theres a program on the internet somewhere that will do this) and each pair will be given a random theme from the theme bank, and given 'x' amount of days to PM me their picture or submit them into the thread (undecided which method would be better)

- There would then be a short poll of around 3 days to decide the winner of each pairing, with 1 day tie break polls taking place if needed. There would then be new pairings for the next round etc. until the final..

32 entries > 16 > 8 > 4 > 2


So as you can see, if this method is used, a tournament will take around 40 days to complete.