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The future of MFFA CotM (and why it might be discontinued)


RicePigeon

MFFA CotM  

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Alright, so this post is mainly to get user's opinions on MFFA's CotM. Long story short, there have been a few factors leading to a possible discontinuation;

 

  1. Lack of turnout. April 2016's CotM had a depressingly low turnout, with only 5 candidates. Prior CotM voting stages have also had a rather low voter turnout, barely passing 20 votes in the past few months. We had similar issues in the past when we had more restrictive requirements for candidates, which have been lowered to the current 3 nominations to combat this problem. This was initially successful, but obviously didn't do much in the long term. I understand that MFFA has a comparatively small userbase compared to other forums, which may also be a contributing factor.
  2. Comparisons to MFG: There's been some criticism lately that MFFA is slowly becoming a carbon copy of MFG, some of which cited CotM as an example of this. MFG isnt the only forum to have CotM, with RandomSelect and even MMV having their own. However, I can see where such criticism is coming from, as many of MFFA's CotM rules were indeed based on the the rules for MFG's version, but with added safeguards implemented in order to combat what was seen as criticism of MFG's CotM threads at the time (one of which being the aforementioned 4 nomination rule, which was later lowered to 3). Discontinuing MFFA's CotM will hopefully put people's minds at ease by nipping the problem in the bud, but only if people honestly don't want CotM anymore in its current form.

 

I've also included a poll which will also help influence our decision as to whether or not CotM will continue or not. Any feedback or suggestions on this issue are appreciated.

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There isn't one forum that hasn't copied the other, heck when I worked on MMV I specifically copied every forum I could think of. It's not about the brand name in my opinion but about providing a free service for your peers and fellow hobbyist with all the stuff they should always have to enhance their mugen experience.

 

Go ahead and copy whatever, it's for all of us anyway. Mugen itself at its core is nothing more than one big piracy freeware F U to paying companies to play their product no matter how you look at it. Last I checked to MFFA is a warehouse :P A damn good one to ;)

 

 

I'm personally not a fan of voting though I do like to see what others think through their votings.

 

Maybe keep it but don't treat it as a high priority. If 4 users vote total then lets appreciate those results and call it a day.

 

It's nice that a forum can have some variety because it keeps it alive and interesting during its slow periods and as long as MFFA doesn't abandon the warehouse angle then I'll be as sound as a pound.

 

the only thing I don't like about voting is that it can become an ego thing for some which i despise and even worse when they purposely leave out others because of personal reasons. I'm referring to a forum war in the past (it shall go unnamed) where one wouldn't acknowledge the other because of its association. Long unpleasant story but it put me off of voting for years to come.

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I never cared for CotM.

It's nice to praise people, and its cool knowing you could get a little image thingy as a reward for your hard work.

but for someone like me who makes a character and only checks for feedback on errors, I could care less on the tiny rewards.

 

 

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11 hours ago, Ryon said:

I could care less on the tiny rewards.

So you still care, even if it's just a little bit?

 

Knowing what a community's favourite releases for a specific month are is a really cool thing, even if it's just to see how the result differs from that of other forums' CotM competitions, but there's not much point to the whole thing if people aren't participating. I'd love for it to continue, but only if more people take part.

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5 hours ago, GarchompMatt said:

Knowing what a community's favourite releases for a specific month are is a really cool thing, even if it's just to see how the result differs from that of other forums' CotM competitions, but there's not much point to the whole thing if people aren't participating. I'd love for it to continue, but only if more people take part.

 

I'll keep the poll open for a few more days just to get a broader perspective on other people's opinions on this matter. As for that last part, I agree. Any suggestions you have for what might attract more people?

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Also another possibility to the lack of interest might be that the current characters this month just aren't that great making interest in the polling process weaker than usual. Maybe Next month, if more interesting content comes around, will the participation re-surge itself. You can't expect every month to be a great month for characters; it's probably just a slow month or even year depending on what others are sharing or finishing.

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Hmm.. I can only say this. even though we have people who still make things for mugen however alot of anticipation is lagging upon folks now a days. :-P

 

My only suggestions Rice is you might want to do more than just focus on well made characters we have people like Ryoucchi, Alice ,Toaster, and others who makes awesome stages which I say can make difference on showing appreciation for their works.

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2 hours ago, Ryoucchi said:

Guild had SotQ (Stage of the Quarter) thingy, and it ended up not so well. I'm afraid it'll be the same case here /:

...... I see well I guess that won't be a good idea for MFFA then. -_-

 

1 hour ago, Ricepigeon said:

Stage of the month? :troll:

LOL! XD

I still say be cool to do so..

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COTM is dumb. IDC which forum does it. It just suggests to the aspiring creator that they should do something much like that creation. It wouldn't be such a bad thing if, you know, everyone knew what they were doing. That leads into an entirely different topic so i'll cut off about that here.

 

The other issue is that it becomes a ego/popularity contest. Or can, I should say.

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Regardless of the characters being good or bad, it is still just a popularity contest, the winner is chosen only by how many people liked the character,.....plus the buddies/friends you have. 

Among a group of "good" characters, what defines which one should get the character of the month after all?

which basically:

On 27/5/2016 at 4:18 PM, Demitri said:

It just suggests to the aspiring creator that they should do something much like that creation

 

Of course doing so depends of each creator, and there's no doubt that among the voters exist highly critical people, but that's not the majority right?, 

however, that's another topic.

 

Not like I'm against it (don't really care about it), I hardly bother checking mugen releases anymore, much less voting, it also would be kinda delusional wanting to have the characters judged (I think it was attempted once but it wasn't very successful ) being incentives is nice and all, but yes, it happens everywhere, Gen is right.

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4 minutes ago, Aℓίcℯ said:

plus the buddies/friends you have.

I meant to mention that as well. I've literally been part of  the "hey vote for this creation so that creation doesnt win" or the "you should vote for me because" thing

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Indeed, it doesn't matter the quantity of downloads the char receives, since you can bet that over 90% of the downloads is made by lurkers, and lurkers don't have interest in voting. Hence I believe the entire process barely deserves any credibility, seeing that from the already small fanbase, a diminute part of it is an actually active fanbase.

 

The entire process of CotM is basically the opinion of the same people every month, an ammount of people that probably doesn't reach the 3-digit number.

 

As for me in particular, I don't give a fuck for voting.

 

Most of the chars who have technical quality and solid coding lack flavor in the gameplay. All of them feel soulless.

 

In the other hand, the chars who do have potential to be graphically impressive and show many signs of creative design unfortunately end up failing on the gameplay aspect. The flaws are too noticeable to ignore, and unfortunately, style over substance is a trend in Mugen.

 

There are indeed some chars who manage to bypass both barriers and make me feel interested in helping to their improvement. For these ones, and only for these ones, instead of giving compliments, I usually point features inside the coding that can be improved so that the already good experience can become even more enjoyable.

 

But, no. No vote for CotM from me. I really dislike this concept.

 

I know how arrogant, elitist, and probably even delusonal I'm sounding, but unfortunately this is my legitimate opinion. I really consider myself an asshole, but you guys can clearly see that indeed I have a point.

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Looking at the results of the poll, I see that a 70% majority want to keep CotM around. Though I can't guarantee that CotM isn't over, it's enough to convince me to give it one more try for this month. Expect May's CotM thread to go up shortly.

 

Edit; Its up

http://mugenfreeforall.com/index.php?/topic/28525-mffas-character-of-the-month-may-2016-nominations/

 

 

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On 28/5/2016 at 8:35 PM, Aℓίcℯ said:

Regardless of the characters being good or bad, it is still just a popularity contest, the winner is chosen only by how many people liked the character,.....plus the buddies/friends you have. 

Nope, I'm not the most popular guy on Guild ever, and still I won a COTM with my Scott Pilgrim years ago. So I don't think it has to be who's the guy who has more buddies out there, all depends of the character and the reaction the public has.

I recently discovered here has a COTM too, maybe the lack of news about this could be the reason why this votations aren't so enough. or maybe this forum isn't focused to make things like this, I don't know Also, remember Mugen Infantry started this, Guild later copied it and adapted it to what it is today, but even in MI itself this contest was outdated few time before its closure

Maybe changing the rules and adapting it about what is doing here, could have better results, IMO

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You didn't get the point.

6 hours ago, Basara-kun said:

all depends of the character and the reaction the public has

Yes, ultimately, just a popularity contest like I said. I wasn't referring just to author popularity, but to character's popularity & style popularity as well.

Also, I didn't say the one with more friends wins, but it contributes, hence the "plus". not generalizing saying "always" but yes, it happens.

Being a popular mugen creator doesn't necessarily means you have a lot of friends either, or vice versa.

 

Whole point is that I, (or should I say some people), don't see much point in having a character of the month based solely on popular opinion.

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4 hours ago, Aℓίcℯ said:

You didn't get the point.

Yes, ultimately, just a popularity contest like I said. I wasn't referring just to author popularity, but to character's popularity & style popularity as well.

Also, I didn't say the one with more friends wins, but it contributes, hence the "plus". not generalizing saying "always" but yes, it happens.

Being a popular mugen creator doesn't necessarily means you have a lot of friends either, or vice versa.

 

Whole point is that I, (or should I say some people), don't see much point in having a character of the month based solely on popular opinion.

 

 

Yes, in truth it seems to be a flaw in voting (for anything really) in general. Also it's hard to control what the voting is going to depend on. For instance, is the voting for best coded? Newly custom made quality? or which one is your personal favorite despite everything else based on whether you like/hate the brand it's coming from? A voting user will likely vote in any of these mindsets or all and it could be a very different result depending how a character was voted for. It's just not too clear sometimes but in the end maybe it's just not meant to be taken this (it's mugen after-all) seriously.

 

I think it was said somewhere earlier in this thread that the voting is really just to get a general idea what most people like the best. I don't think that's a wrong answer at all.

 

 

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Along side the issues already pointed out with COTM, another one is self-nominations. I don't think anyone should have the privilege to do this as it is unfair for the other participants. If self-nomination isn't prohibited, it needs to be limited somehow. Being able to self-nominate 4 creations every single month is downright outrageous, especially when it can lead to the person in question's creations becoming 50% of the voting candidates. Yes, this has happened before. If the option to self-nomination really has to stay, only one per month should be allowed, at the very most. Otherwise, remove it entirely.

 

Just my two cents.

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18 minutes ago, Sir Ghostler said:

Along side the issues already pointed out with COTM, another one is self-nominations. I don't think anyone should have the privilege to do this as it is unfair for the other participants. If self-nomination isn't prohibited, it needs to be limited somehow. Being able to self-nominate 4 creations every single month is downright outrageous, especially when it can lead to the person in question's creations becoming 50% of the voting candidates. Yes, this has happened before. If the option to self-nomination really has to stay, only one per month should be allowed, at the very most. Otherwise, remove it entirely.

 

Just my two cents.

 

Another problem that just came to me is that some creators in the past have made extra phoney accounts to up-vote their own characters in the past. I remember someone mentioning this on another forum a few years ago. Apparently all voting users had the same I.P. address :P

 

Now with proxy servers this kind of thing will be impossible to detect.

 

LOL

 

Even mugen voting can't be totally legit nowadays XD Just like real voting :P

 

Though we can still hope everyone is playing fair but no one will know for sure.

 

I remember one forum tried to solve this issue though by only allowing veteran voter users to vote while forbidding new users through the voting week from participating. Maybe a post history was also reviewed. I'm not too sure about that though? Honestly all this stuff is too much of a headache to take seriously.

 

Either do it or don't IMO and take the results however you like. We're all probably just over-thinking this too much.

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7 hours ago, Sir Ghostler said:

Along side the issues already pointed out with COTM, another one is self-nominations. I don't think anyone should have the privilege to do this as it is unfair for the other participants.

I've never understood why people feel the need to nominate their own stuff, then vote for it during the voting phase; if people liked the character, then surely there's no need to give it that extra push.

 

Perhaps it's just me being modest, but I don't see the honour in voting for your own stuff.

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