Suggestions

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #25 on: Mar 29, 2015, 04:29 PM »
I think all of my comics had custom thumbs before the last change too. All it did was break my soul, so whatever.
Fun fact though, the present alignment restores those old ones to their former glory.
"I knew when I sighned up for Void years ago, Someday I'm going to prison for this site"  - Mister Kent, words to live by

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #26 on: Mar 29, 2015, 05:24 PM »
Until the next time the layout changes

Kittens wearins mittens

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #27 on: Jul 30, 2015, 10:22 AM »
Are playlists going to be taken out or something, cause we no longer have the option to add comics to playlists anymore it seems

and,

Any chance we can get comic details that show us the scores of both our comic and the opponent's of a battle? We've had it in the past i'm not sure how much trouble it'd be to add back in

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #28 on: Jul 31, 2015, 07:46 AM »
Firstly i'm on my phone so i apologize for any spelling mistakes/ autocorrect confusion.

Hey, OK, so this is definitely a major suggestion, but after reading some comments regarding void and how we're unintentionally (at least I don't think it's intentional) pandering to the existing members with characters running around on the site, maybe some changes are in order regarding character creation and acceptance (you can find the comment I'm talking about on roflqu's tumblr).

I know we don't have a lot of rules, but there are a few when it comes to character creation:

-willingness to learn/accept feedback
-submit a design of the character you are using
-show that you are at least willing to draw humans, hands, and feet instead of hiding them
-create an intro comic between 2-4 pages

What I'm suggesting is, keep the create an intro comic as an option, but don't force it as a requirement. Instead, make it so you can apply with a previously existing comic work, OR a newly created character intro.

My thoughts are, we're a comics community looking to create comics and get better in the process. I feel like it might be more beneficial for new members with prior comic experience to apply with their character design and recent comic work. If that is insufficient, an intro comic might be requested then.

With this style of entry/acceptance, newbies with comic experience can get started faster instead of burning out and leaving the site after just creating an intro comic. All of their excitement for making a comic could then go towards their first battle.

I feel like this wouldn't be much different than the current process where the acceptance committee checks the comic and gives feedback, if something needs expanding or they need to show something more, we can send that request and have them reapply through an intro comic or a single sample page including what we think are their pressure points.

Thoughts?
« Last Edit: Jul 31, 2015, 07:47 AM by Minteh »

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #29 on: Jul 31, 2015, 08:31 AM »
I'm just playing devil's advocate here to get a good discussion on this:

"With this style of entry/acceptance, newbies with comic experience can get started faster instead of burning out and leaving the site after just creating an intro comic. All of their excitement for making a comic could then go towards their first battle."

But if a 2-4 page intro comic is enough to burn them out, what would skipping that to get to their first battle accomplish if they may just burn out during that as well? Become a one-and-done battler?

Also, what about existing members who might be interested in battling a new artist but don't have any pages to go by to help them decide? There are artists who will look to a characters' pages to decide if they're work paying attention to.

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #30 on: Jul 31, 2015, 08:33 AM »


What I'm suggesting is, keep the create an intro comic as an option, but don't force it as a requirement. Instead, make it so you can apply with a previously existing comic work, OR a newly created character intro.

My thoughts are, we're a comics community looking to create comics and get better in the process. I feel like it might be more beneficial for new members with prior comic experience to apply with their character design and recent comic work. If that is insufficient, an intro comic might be requested then.

With this style of entry/acceptance, newbies with comic experience can get started faster instead of burning out and leaving the site after just creating an intro comic. All of their excitement for making a comic could then go towards their first battle.


I find myself sorta liking this idea. Some tweaking will be needed to make sure that people dont just submit ref sheet after ref sheet as a way to keep making characters (perhaps a newbie needs to have 3-5 completed battles under their belt to submit a 2nd refsheet or they need to make an intro comic for the second character, another 3-5 battles need to be completed to submit a third character refsheet etc)

The real pitfall i can see is getting an influx of characters with no intros and then artists just abandon the site. But maybe it can be an acceptable risk?

Idk! This idea does need some tweaking to work really well, and I can see it working well (when its not 1:30am). I know a few people who are all really gung-ho to submit a new character but find the intro comic incredibly time consuming, or battle immediately after making the intro comic and feel burnt out.

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #31 on: Jul 31, 2015, 08:38 AM »

Also, what about existing members who might be interested in battling a new artist but don't have any pages to go by to help them decide? There are artists who will look to a characters' pages to decide if they're work paying attention to.

I think that is where Mintley suggests that the new guys hand in a resume of sorts. People have done battles against characters who have no intro pages to go by (SDTs and Invitationals). If they don't have any prior comics experience then yeah, an intro comic is needed. If even those newbies can't do that then, nothing lost or gained!


Re: Suggestions
« Reply #32 on: Jul 31, 2015, 08:39 AM »
If you enjoy making comics I'm not sure how "make a comic" could be a bad thing or discourage people from entering. The intros also serve as a way to show people what your character is about, which is super helpful when they're doing their first battle and is a way to give your opponent a reference on their personality and such. I'm all for finding more ways to encourage people to join the site, but I don't really get why drawing 2 comic pages would be that big of a deal. If they're going to be burned out after 2 pages, they aren't going to last one battle.

I get that some people get stuck on what to do for an intro, and I think instead of removing them it would be better to communicate what an intro can contain. I feel like people tend to get stuck because they feel they have to show why the character entered Void City or whatever, which is pretty boring after seeing so many people do it. We should make it clearer that people can do whatever they want as their intro as long as it features their character, so it makes it more fun for the artist. It should be a comic people are having fun with and not just "so and so gets on a bus and goes into Void City comic #98273492".
Kittens wearins mittens

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #33 on: Jul 31, 2015, 09:02 AM »
As nice as the suggestion sounds, I think I have to agree with Pyras and Angie on this. Your character's intro comic should be your first comic match on the site. It's not an obstacle you have to cross before you get to participate; it's HOW YOU PARTICIPATE.

So while we could definitely get a good idea of someone's ability based on existing work, a 2-page comic isn't hard and shows both your character's personality/story AND that you're invested at least a little. I want more people participating on the site as much as anyone (maybe even more), but I'm a little suspicious that someone who's unwilling to create a 2-page comic to show off their own character would really participate all that much in the long run.

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #34 on: Jul 31, 2015, 09:04 AM »
Yeah yeah! I totally thought about those ideas, but I didn't want to make my post too long.

Pyras: my thoughts on it is we already have a pretty large number of "dine and dash" ERS who get a character in and never do anything else. I think if the first comic they ever do is against another real person, that's a totally different experience than submitting something for and by yourself (not to mention as a requirement). Many of the people who are here have that bloodlust that a one on one provides (or y'know, battle royales).

And like Sabs (YOUR ICONS I S2G) said, we had the invitationals and SDTs where completely new characters with nothing other than a ref sheet entered the ring, I don't foresee that as an issue, but it's a legit concern.

Angie: this was the biggest reason against the proposal I could think of, but then I thought (again) about the invitationals and new characters in SDTs, as both allowed completely new users with no characters sign up without any comics.  When I think about this being a step towards inclusion, I think the bottom line is "make more comics", and oddly enough the inhibiting factor for some is making a comic. But it's " making a comic to pass the bar" versus "making a comic for fun and learning".

Using my own characters as an example, Bartender's intro doesn't really give any information about the character that you couldn't already tell from his name. It was also a comic that I made for the sake of getting the character ter in as soon as possible. Cornelius on the other hand had a story I wanted to tell, and I was happy to do so. I think having two options (create a character intro, use existing comic history) will be beneficial to new members who have different approaches to comic creation.

Bobo: I can't digest that crit when we have had massive success without intros in the past (granted there was also failure). I just don't think it's a strong enough reason to say no, but ultimately it's not up to me!
« Last Edit: Jul 31, 2015, 09:18 AM by Minteh »

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #35 on: Jul 31, 2015, 09:10 AM »
Wutata said

Wutata?
WUTATA?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
I'll give you a sound thrashing, u commonwealth cockwaffle, I'll make you bleed with our battle.

The real Wutata would be INSULTED

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #36 on: Jul 31, 2015, 09:19 AM »
Lmao I saw the icon and I didn't read the name I FIXED IT NOW AND I'M STILL GONNA STOMP YOU

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #37 on: Jul 31, 2015, 09:26 AM »
Sorry, one more thing to add on-

Again this is proposing a two-option application. I don't expect every person who comes onto the site to have an existing comic or webcomic, meaning the only option available to them is to create a new intro comic. I am definitely not suggesting we do away with them entirely. If you have comic experience, show us a portfolio and if you don't, do your best and show us what you can do.

I felt it was necessary to reiterate on this page!

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #38 on: Jul 31, 2015, 09:37 AM »
Hey, I got a suggestion for new comic intros, too.

I dunno how well it could be coordinated, but it'd be sort of cool if you could have a battle intro, where you and another new person have a battle right out of the gate as the 'intro' comic. It'd be a nice way to have participation or to enter with a friend right off the bat if planned out and stuff. I suppose you'd have to know ahead of time, but if they're both in at the same time, you could see them based on their comic battles and have it go up as a battle intro.

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #39 on: Jul 31, 2015, 10:04 AM »
Ok, I'm actually really excited that you suggested that, because I had another idea but wasn't too sure about it.

On the site we have an achievement called "welcome wagon", what if we had a list of available battlers that new users could select. Like open challenges, but especially for new users signing up. The challenge could go through when they're approved.

I really like the idea of two newbies going head to head also, a la invitational style.

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #40 on: Jul 31, 2015, 10:19 AM »
@Rofl: You could always just agree with your friend to make your intros be a comic match or something like that. I could see it being an issue if they weren't both new characters, though, because then what do we do with the already-approved character's comic if the new applicant gets declined? Still a fun idea, potentially.

[member=1766]Minteh[/member]: Maybe we need to just gather the data and evaluate them objectively. I'm curious whether there's any statistical correlation between having an intro story and continued participation in the site. I think you hit the nail on the head with people needing to get into actual comic matches after their character gets approved or else they risk disappearing regardless of having an intro story.

Also, I love the idea of something built into the site that facilitates challenges between newcomers and other members. I'll have to work on that... sometime... when I'm done with my comic... >:I

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #41 on: Jul 31, 2015, 12:09 PM »
Yeah, you could always set up things with your friends to make your intros one kind of connected event! There are tons of ways you guys can make intros fun for yourself and we should find a way to encourage that.

And the thing about whether or not characters without intros is more successful...If I recall correctly, the very first invitational I think only 3-5 people stuck around vs the tons of entrants we had? I believe the second one had more success due to mods following up with people that time. People are more likely to stick around when they had to actually invest in getting their character in. That's not to say we haven't had those people that get in and never do anything, but that's a bit more rare vs. people that get in with no intros sticking around.

While it's true that allowing people in without intros causes a short burst of activity, it's not something that is sustainable for long. After people do that first battle, the majority tend to move on. Part of the problem is when we've done things without intros in the past that weren't SDT related, people just saw us as another OCT site similar to the OCTs on DA. Most people seem to view OCTs as something you do once and then move on. Which isn't something we want to encourage. We want our members to stick around and keep participating!
Kittens wearins mittens

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #42 on: Jul 31, 2015, 01:36 PM »
Part of the problem is when we've done things without intros in the past that weren't SDT related, people just saw us as another OCT site similar to the OCTs on DA. Most people seem to view OCTs as something you do once and then move on. Which isn't something we want to encourage. We want our members to stick around and keep participating!

This is something that I want us to avoid too~

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #43 on: Jul 31, 2015, 03:47 PM »
I think that we can avoid that at least partially by having current members challenge newcomers as soon as they're either out of the tournament or the tourney is over. I'm sure it wouldn't be sustainable to just constantly have tournaments even if we did get participants involved in regular battles immediately afterwards, since we'd still probably be more known for the tournaments than the regular, ongoing battles, but the bottom line is that whatever we do, we need to get newcomers battling ASAP, regardless of how their characters get into the roster.

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #44 on: Aug 06, 2015, 11:00 PM »
Hey, I'm trying to adjust my tags in the Speed Resurrection Tournament's Final Round, and it doesn't seem to work. Maybe something to do with 3 people in the fight?

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #45 on: Aug 07, 2015, 11:49 AM »
Tags are super broken. I thought Toast disabled them, but I guess they're not completely disabled. I'll try to look at them soonish, but for now just don't worry about it I guess? Sorry :\

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #46 on: Aug 13, 2015, 06:00 PM »
I was just thinking, we should have a * added to the Drawing Time if an Extension is used. It would be good for the viewers to confirm it happened and for a reference point later on when looking back on battles.

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #47 on: Aug 23, 2015, 02:47 PM »
I was thinking a bit on recent discussions regarding Invitational tournaments, and how the majority of newbies don't really stick around for more than a few comics, regardless of the reason.  I'm sure this has been brought up before, but what if we had some sort of mailing list or newsletter that was sent out whenever events were taking place.  I know e-mail are already sent from the site for certain things (like receiving a PM or being challenged) and there's also an 'opt out' in the user profile, "Allow Users to E-mail Me".

I'm thinking it's a good way to let people who care about the site and the experience it offers, but might forget to check in, to know about what's happening. It could be just as frequent or infrequent as our actual events (like only official events are sent out) or information on projects that we've had in the past - like the Black Stripe being published and available for purchase.

I'm also thinking this might especially hit home to members joining via an invitational who might treat the site as more of a one-off thing. Where we are personally telling them "hey, we like you, we like your comics, come back and make more comics with us" kind of thing.

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #48 on: Sep 23, 2015, 03:28 PM »
Is it possible we can get opt-in/opt-out notifications on comments for our battles like we do for PMs? It'd be super great to know when something happens instead of sitting around hitting refresh for comments or critiques when it's delivered to our email.

Re: Suggestions
« Reply #49 on: Sep 24, 2015, 12:20 PM »
Is it possible we can get opt-in/opt-out notifications on comments for our battles like we do for PMs? It'd be super great to know when something happens instead of sitting around hitting refresh for comments or critiques when it's delivered to our email.

I second this.  Like a lot of forums seem to have a "notify me when there's a reply" button so can't we have that for battles and maybe for news too?  I think it's a great way to remind people we're alive and keep people on their toes.  I remember seeing plenty of times in the past where people make the excuse "I thought the deadline for my battle was tomorrow!"  and this would be another great way to remind them. 

 

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