What's Nature again?

A few things need to change for Ascension to work this year.

1) Beauty designs HAVE to be filtered with the strictest and absolute meticulous care. In other words, they should undergo the exact same scrutiny that all Charity designs go through, but kicked up about 10 notches. People put weeks, sometimes months into the beauty designs, and last year was a debacle of epic statue. Very few of the entries would have made it through Charities -without revisions-. Beauty Seal should look for only the choicest designs crafted with care... not slopped together in 10min (I recall hearing that one or two of last year's winners bragged about throwing together their design at the last minute.) Let's keep Lusternia's standards high, please.

2) Chaos event needs to be changed somehow. The way it's set up is that if someone's holding onto it for a long time, and then lost it at the LAST possible second, they essentially lose the event, no matter if they invested a ton into it. Someone who logged in at the last minute of the event could win it due to how insanity works, and how the event is judged. it's not fair, I believe, and it could use some looking at.

3) The Ascension Trial needs to NOT be Players vs. Game. Last year there were countless deaths to numerous Kethuru mobs of astounding power. No one without conglute could have fun at all... tons of people burnt out simply because of this one event which many agree was simply a clusterfuzz. Hyping up insanity made it worse. So we couldn't enter any commands while dealing with 1s webbings, knockdown, 20s stackable blackout, etc. It's not fun, no one wants to log in and walk into a deathtrap like this because of some silly event. Tone it down, possibly, or do away with the Kethuru/insanity alltogether and introduce some other challenging Ascension mechanic.

That's all I can think of really.

Chaos speaks for itself, really.

Beauty tears are delicious forum drama.

What was so wrong with the ones from last year? I don't remember them. From the way you all are going on, there must've been crazy misspellings and weird commas all over or something.

You would be correct

Anyone have a link or can paste one of them? I wanna see the awful.

Shiri posted it above

Well, I only checked the first one, but it completely passed Word's spelling and grammar check. So, for that one, at least, the only thing I can imagine that's so wrong with it is that you don't like it. That's a subjective opinion. The judges liked it though, and they're the ones who count in art contests.

Watch this Nature competition involve one of the various new areas, and he lose.

I think the first one was fine. But some of the others had spelling mistakes and grammar mistakes.

Estarra, I don't think all of the complaints are sour grapes. Some of the designs just were not up to par to what the charities expect out of a normal design. It just isn't fair for someone to be given a award for a design when it is not up to par for the everyday standards. I think all people are asking is that a sharper eye is used this year. If a design has spelling errors or grammar errors then it should not be awarded, even if the idea behind the design is very nice or creative.

I will very happily and with exuberant glee that shall be heard around the world lock this thread if it turns into a continuation of last year's beauty rant.

The contest went smoothly, despite the griping of some people who put their own work on a pedestal.

Did I?

EDIT: Ah, it was Xenthos...close enough...

The Beauty debacle had understandable objections, which, unfortunately, was tainted by the pointer-outters' raging sourness and bad sportsmanship.

Chaos is fine, last minute or not, this is where teamwork comes in. In fact, the biggest thing that screwed over last event (maze) has since been more or less fixed.

Ascension event is also fine, I believe the point of the Kethuru mobs was to highlight the urgency of the 'event' and give medallion users something to do.

Sorry Eventru, but this statement isn't true at all. Just because YOU think it is, doesn't mean it's fact. It's continuously disappointing to see that no one ever owns up to having made mistakes. Alot of people agree that it was a huge mistaken (even if they don't post it), some others don't. If it went "smoothly", you wouldn't have had last year's rant. The FIRST Ascension Beauty Seal went smoothly. Every design earned what it got. Last year wasn't so. We all agree that the Admin work hard, and they bust their balls doing what they can for the players. However that doesn't make every decision you agree to in the Havens appropriate or correct. It's human nature to bungle up, even in a congregation of like-minds. You have to learn to own up to your mistakes and not get defensive when some people call you out on it. You're human... mistakes happen. Just admit it, learn from them, and move on.

All we're asking for is a sharper eye, and that's not a hard thing to do. Let's see a repeat of the First Ascension Beauty Seal, not last year's

You know Revan, just because you think it didn't go smoothly, doesn't mean it didn't, either. As I remember it (having been there), the event went very smoothly. We were presented with a very large list of choices, a lot of effort was taken to ensure only one person knew who made them, and everyone but that person voted. And in the end, we had a clear set of winners.

Decisions were made, fair decisions to ensure every submission given was allowed an equal chance to participate. I really don't see what was wrong with that. Simple spelling mistakes can be fixed later - there isn't time to reject last minute submissions that have been sitting on the queue for spelling corrections.

I would hope, were it your design that had a very minor mistake, you would be thankful we gave it due consideration anyways, versus making you wait a year for the next Beauty Challenge.

One must admit that Nariah doesn't usually freak out. I recall her freaking out during the last beauty contest.

If this is the best defense you can put up, without even acknowledging there were mistakes made, and stubbornly adhering to the thought that last year's contest went perfect... well, I worry very much about this year's contest and I am sure others will as well. But that's cool. Again, I'm simply disappointed that all the Admin are doing is vehemently defending themselves, when all we're asking is for you to improve upon things so that they're better. Again, Eventru, mistakes happen. Last year was a big one, whether or not you see it. Threads like the Beauty Seal one last year don't pop up for no reason, -especially- considering the people involved with the complaining. These are people who are KNOWn for their skill at designing, and who are generally known to be unbiased, of sound mind, etc. To refuse to even consider the possibility that "hey, maybe we did make a mistake, let's take another look at things" is irresponsible on an Administrative level. I know for a fact that in any other company, if customers made such complaints, you would bet your bottoms that a thorough review of how things are done would be made. No employee or volunteer would be as defensive and stubborn as the posts I am seeing are. So, all I am saying is -consider- it, and have an open mind about the possibility of error! No one is accusing you guys of being some evil oligarchy bent on our misery. We all simply wish this year to be fun and to truly exhibit the raw, advanced talent Lusternia's playerbase has.

Glaring spelling errors, but, doing something like, using the wrong english form for a word, and using that as a hang up to disqualify an otherwise creative design seems against the spirit of the thing.

Maybe if we have a bureaucracy seal or something.

As for the method used, blind judging without knowing who did what was a sound way to do it. I know some people don't agree with the results for various reasons, but the method itself is sound.

I blame the Charites. If they weren't such grammar Nazis, everyone wouldn't be all fired up about a tiny mistake here and there!