Formatting seemed like a major hurdle this year IMO in the first round of voting. Kind of like a reality show. The judges will probably review all submissions for a Golden Ticket Diamond in the Rough or Two IMO but probably concentrate on the top 10 - 25% since it is Paizo's bread and butter working their way top down from what has been voted up. Judges only have to look at a item once or twice to put it in their own keep file and see which make the Top 25+ Consensus or equivalent. :)
The Actual Top 32 after the judges are done evaluating along with the Actual Top 16 advancing to the next round after public voting will probably be the actual standard for 2014.
What did those 16 items do better than All the other items you saw voting? One of the best reasons to vote this year. To see lots of actual submissions.
Fine line appealing to the public and the judges?
From the items I saw before and after the cull an item seemed to need some kind of mojo that resonated with large numbers of the public with correct formatting or overcoming minor formatting flaws.
Major mojo with formatting problems probably got some items voted down on formatting since it was a voting criteria and not many survived the first cull.
Expensive items tend to have more initial Wow factor since they usually utilize more expensive and more powerful spell effects.
Most names are middle of the road. A Good Name seems to help an item more than a bad name hurts an item since both make an item stand out from the pack.
Wow items seemed to have an initial edge making the first hurdle if properly formatted but get tougher looks after the first cull with pricing becoming much more of a factor especially if way off.
This includes rule breaking and game breaking infinite wealth items. I'll be really curious to see if the judges advance any of those items.
My standard for those items is "Do you want the BBEGs to possess those items but not the PCs in a game?"
The first 50 - 100 votes are probably the harshest while everyone gets a feel for the submission quality.
Cost is a factor in many but not all games. From the posts in general the minor niche items had utility to price using the default wealth by level. More than a few would you craft it or keep it for the price or sell it for half price.
Not everyone is equally familiar and knowledgeable of the setting so that actually seems to be a strike from some of the posts I have read. Correctly citing PF campaign material still reads like home gibberish to people not familiar with that campaign aspect.
Although there seem to be exceptions. In general items that possess one or two clearly understood core item powers that do not make the game more difficult for the GM or Players seem to be faring better.
Basically can you read it once and get a good handle on what the item does?
The more complex or needlessly complex an item was the more it seemed to be a negative strike or vote down from a lot of the posting.
Brevity just one to three sentences of fluff describing item and item operation seemed to do the trick. Most back story seemed to be more of a negative strike against an item than a positive from the posting.
SIAC almost every magic item in the game is a Spell In a Can IMO. Everyone has a slightly different standard for what constitutes a SIAC.
Fine line but Items that do something just a little different from a standard spell seem to be faring best.
Interesting I have seen numerous items that have items doing things that have nothing remotely connected to the spells used to create the item effect when numerous other spells exist along that theme. Probably costs a few votes to some degree which just seems like a SIAC dodge.
