OFFICIAL Fantasy Emag Contest Q&A!!!!!

[Defalcot]

When and where?

Hello,

When and where is the art going to be on display? I know that the 30th is the last day for entries. Do they have until midnight? Or was it midnight 29th?
The suspense is killing me! I can't wait till I get to see all the cool art.

Defalcot

[shartley]

Defalcot
Your question:

When and where is the art going to be on display?

The answer: It will be on display in its own gallery on the main AO site. You will be notified via the main site as well as here on the forums as to where the gallery actually is, and how to vote. AS for how long it will take for the AO Staff to set it up, that all depends on how busy they are. It may be set up by Monday, or it may take a week. Again it depends on how busy they are.

And as for entry deadlines, that was pretty clear in the Official Rules...

Contest Dates will be November 04, 2001 - November 30, 2001!
Entries will not be collected until AFTER November 12, 2001.
( Deadline for entries will be Midnight PST USA, November 30, 2001. All entries will then be gathered and placed in a Gallery for final vote by AO Members. When the Gallery is completed, all AO Members will be notified VIA the Forums and given voting instructions.)

Hope this helps.

[Defalcot]

Yes

Thank you.

[synreal]

quick question, is it legal/ethical to have your friends who are not currently AO members join to vote on your entry? or can only existing members (pre Nov 30) vote?

i understand that some people may abuse this and open 30 accounts to cast votes from, but this is what IP tracking is for.

however, i think that if friendX really likes my design, he should be able to join and vote accordingly. is this correct/

i just want to get ALL the rules straight so we can play fair/nice.

best luck to all who entered, can't wait to see the designs.

[shartley]

synreal
That is an interesting question. I could write all day about that one alone... but will not.

Answer:

Legal... yes, but a bit borderline to say the least.
Ethical... NO, and not by a LONG shot.

I hope that is clear enough.

(I wonder why it even surprised me that it was asked?)

[synreal]

ok, let me rephrase this to make sure that i am clear with your meaning, in your mind it is unethical to tell a friend (who may or may not be a fellow player) to come, join the site, and vote for my entry?

i am NOT talking about spamming boards across the web to hoard votes, just word of mouth.

[shartley]

synreal
Wow.. I was hoping I would not have to go into it. Are you serious, or are you just wanting to cause a problem? Either way, it speaks volumes.

I wrote about 5 replies to your last post...... but ended up deleting them before posting, and made THIS one....

NO. You can not use word of mouth to tell friends to join so that they can vote for your design. If you thought AO was such a great place for them, you would have told them to join already.

I hope this is clear enough for you. Please don't make me get into any further.

[synreal]

thank you for your timely response, and no i am NOT trying to start problems, but if you truly believe that people entering this contest will purely sit back and 'let the best man win" i believe you may be mistaken. anytime a prize of value is up for grabs people will do anything in their power to go for it.

i truly want to have a fair shot in this contest, and would be very disappointed to find out at the last moment that i got DQed for asking a teammate to lend his vote to my cause.

[shartley]

synreal

but if you truly believe that people entering this contest will purely sit back and 'let the best man win" i believe you may be mistaken

Let me respond to that with the following:

If you think I have never run a contest and am not aware of what SOME people will do to win, you ARE mistaken. I am fully aware of all the tricks and other things people do to win. And you can trust that any improprieties will be handled accordingly, as they were with the last contest.

What I was trying to avoid is a long conversation about how RULES and ETHICS are two different things. You asked me, and I told you, short and sweet.

I will not make a rule that will prohibit new members who may join this weekend or next week (for normal reasons), but BEFORE the voting begins or ends, from voting, simply because some members don't have any ethics, or have poor ones at best.

Again, I was trying to avoid this conversation. I don't have the time to explain ethics to you, nor should I have to... maybe another member can. A little common sense will go a long way.

i truly want to have a fair shot in this contest, and would be very disappointed to find out at the last moment that i got DQed for asking a teammate to lend his vote to my cause.

There are over 3000 AO Members, are you THAT worried that it will come down to ONE vote? I can not believe this to be the case... However if it was, maybe less time should have been spent worrying about the ethics of this process and more time on the entry itself?

I am truly trying NOT to be offensive, but please let this issue drop. I did not avoid answering your question, and in fact did so three times now. I think it has been more than adequately answered now and any further questions about it will be considered disruptive. If you are still confused, keep this in mind.... If you think it may not be right, it probably isn't.... SO DON'T DO IT! :)

This issue is now officially ended.

[deded]

I think it would be funny if....

Everybody entered and we all got one vote!



I can't wait to see what people came up with!

[FiTiRPiLiT]

whew, that was close

i just entered my image with 3 minutes to spare! i hope it went through okay! i can't wait to see what everyone came up with, this is exciting!

[Vegeta]

BIG PROBLEM!

Oh no.. oh no oh no oh no...

See... like many people, i put more than 1 pic of my gun (more than 1 camera angle) and so the picture became quite big.. i worked up until almost hte deadline to get it done... had computer problems for a week till the 30th.. and so it was late and when i put these pics together, i didnt realize it at hte time, but hte pic became quite large... try about 1200 x 825. I just HAD to put in those other angles to give the whole story.. but.. im afraid your people will think thats too big and disqualify me...

Its past hte deadline so its not like i can cut some off and resubmit.. will that big size be a problem? the actual file size if small.. only around 55kb's...

please PLEASE tell me if there wil be a problem with my pic.. its a great gun and I was hoping I might come close to actually winning!



Edit: 1 more thing.. I think we all need to give shartley here a hand.. look how hard hes been working on this, trying to answer all of our questions in a calm, ethical way while still being sincere. He has really worked hard on this, and he wont even be able to submit an entry! (I do belive I read no one involved with the contest could enter right?)

So again, Thanks shartley, and thanks to Tom for funding this whole thing.. this is money out of the companies pocket im sure.. right? But of corse.. they will get to see some really cool new ideas with it...

[shartley]

Vegeta
First I would like to say thank you for your comments.

Now..... I hope you DID still enter. I gave rough guidelines, and tried to make sure it was clear that some leeway was going to be used. This is so that as many entries could be gotten as possible. And even at the size you stated I am sure if it is a bit too wide, it can be reduced with no problems here on our end. I don't think we will totally disqualify an entry for being a bit larger than we wanted or can use easily... we will either resize it, or if it is not that much larger, run it as is.

Think of it like a speed limit sign.... if the sign says 65 people will be doing 75 or more. If the sign was to say 75? LOL So if I had not said to try to keep them at 600-700 wide, and said "Sure make them as large as you like.", you can imagine what we would be getting in.

Again, I wanted to keep as much freedom as I could without losing all control. :)

And you are correct, I can not submit an entry. But that does not bother me. :)

[Hexis]

I did my entry using a 3d cad package. Can I post some other concepts that I have using some of the parts, but that are far different from my contest entry?

[shartley]

Hexis
I would ask that you hold off until AFTER the contest is over and the winner is picked. Posting anything now would take away from the contest. I hope you understand.