In other words, don't point out an error that you haven't seen on at least two items?
More like "generalities are better than specifics".
If only some of these people had realized there is a "preview" button...
Coridan, treat each pair as the only two items you're voting on. If you can clearly pick out one item as better than the other, then vote on it. You're not helping by hitting the "neither" button over and over again. Use it only if you cannot honestly say one item is better than another.
The voting system is not a simple one vote one value.....
It is how many times is item A better when compared to items B through Z.
So item A may win in 200 comparisons to other items and item B may win 50 times in comparison to the other items.
This tells us that item A is very popular and item B is no where near as good as A.
Along those lines, I had no idea that mastery of 'the paragraph' was such a rare skill...
I think the biggest thing is that a "word" linebreak appears to be two lines. So a single return will bring you a full line down, in addition to this line.
but when you copy into messageboard format, that extra break disappears. I'd bet many people don't even realize the change happens.
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If I dont think it is within one edit of being publishable I wont vote for it. Whether that "helps" or not.
Coridan, I don't understand why you are refusing to do what Vic, Gary and the other organisers of the competition have clearly and repeatedly asked for. Paizo are not asking you 'which of these two is fit to be Top 32?'. Paizo are asking you 'which of these two is better?'.
When you select 'neither' you give them no information at all, and are in effect completely wasting your time.
Contributor
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Star Voter Season 6
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Personally, I'm following a couple rules of thumb.
1st, as a freelance editor, I'm already aware that people can't spell.
2nd, they also can't format things correctly.
I'm voting for the more creative, less game-breaking, less confusing one, even if those two hits are against it. Being able to write lucidly, understand the rules, and be imaginative are more important than anything else.
This was a choice I made after viewing the first few entries. I already kinda knew this from being a teacher as well, but this contest has made it crystal clear.
As an editor, I can't add creativity or fix everything or ponder just what that meant for hours; I can easily fix the first two problems in a matter of a few seconds.
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When you select 'neither' you give them no information at all, and are in effect completely wasting your time.
This.
Anyway, as I've said in previous competitions: I can teach someone to follow a format, or spell-check their turnover. I can't teach them to be creative.
The voting system is not a simple one vote one value.....
It is how many times is item A better when compared to items B through Z.
So item A may win in 200 comparisons to other items and item B may win 50 times in comparison to the other items.
This tells us that item A is very popular and item B is no where near as good as A.
It's actually much more complicated than this.
It's actually much more complicated than this.The voting system is not a simple one vote one value.....
It is how many times is item A better when compared to items B through Z.
So item A may win in 200 comparisons to other items and item B may win 50 times in comparison to the other items.
This tells us that item A is very popular and item B is no where near as good as A.
Cool, you must have been doing a lot of extra work to create the system, it eliminates a lot of potential biases.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7
aka Draconas
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If you didn't have more respect for the judges before now, after this everyone should. They are beasts to tackle this stuff day in and day out for over a month in addition to their normal jobs/familial duties. My hat is off to you gentlemen.
I will say I'm immediately wary of any item that is very very close to the max word count.
That's like the writer wanted to build a complicated item but realized he was over word count and rather than consider trimming the item down just changed the phrasing very slightly.
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The judges actually had it a little easier. When an item didn't interest them, they could reject it and move on in seconds.
We're often in the position of deciding between two items we don't care for, which I believe is a harder task.
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Can't. Stop. Voting...
Been at it straight for almost 3 hours.
I want a write in box to explain exactly why I chose one item over another.
I want a direct line to the item designers so I can tell them what they did wrong and how to fix it.
I want to remind people that 300 words is a maximum threshold, not a goal they need to try to meet exactly.
I want people to remember their [expletive] punctuation!
I want people to realize that their item doesn't qualify for Advice Rule #27 and therefore falls into Advice Rules 1-26.
I also want to see more stuff from a number of the designers of items I've reviewed. For every 10 or so not-so-good items, there's one really great one.
I think that they wanted us all to get a feel of the process on their side of the fence lol
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Comment fields would be awesome, I have lots of things I want to say to the designers of some of these items.
It would probably be too much work to implement though.
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I think the worst part is the well-designed, properly formatted, balanced items that are simply thematically inappropriate.
If I dont think it is within one edit of being publishable I wont vote for it. Whether that "helps" or not.
So basically you're okay with sitting around all day doing nothing? Because that's what you're doing. Non-voting doesn't feed any information to the algorithm that is working in the background. Any vote provides information that places an item better than another is doing its job. All you're doing is hitting the "reset" button over and over again and contributing nothing to the overall outcome.
I respected you judges in years past. And not just a little bit, I had lots of respect for you. Just from the impressions I had regarding the sheer volume of entries I remember thinking, "Man, the amount of work done by these guys is just so impressive." Respect!
Well, as it turns out, I underestimated how much work you guys had to do. I also had no idea that what I am calling Item Evaluation Fatigue was a thing or that it can set in within a matter of minutes.
I am humbled by this voting process. Humbled and impressed.
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I'm noting an increasing number of items appearing that deal with hair. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing yet...
The hair items have been replaced. Now I'm awash in items that deal with swarms. Yet another trend. Some of them are rather clever though...
Maybe I've been lucky, but I've been voting on and off throughout the day and have seen mostly items that have merit. Many of them need improvement here and there, but I haven't seen too many that are total duds.
The hair items have been replaced. Now I'm awash in items that deal with swarms. Yet another trend. Some of them are rather clever though...
I am seeing a lot of self harm, bondage and Emo items....... That and the hair/swarm things... Oh item for next year Swarm of Hair or a Swarm of Hares.
The hair items have been replaced. Now I'm awash in items that deal with swarms. Yet another trend. Some of them are rather clever though...
The trends I've seen:
--Hair
--Swarms
--Using the body parts and/or skin and/or blood of slain creatures
--Blankets and shrouds not meant to be worn, but rather used in some other capacity
--Items that deal with manipulating hit points in unorthodox fashions
Hairs of swarm?
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Hairs of swarm?
There's a shampoo for that.
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The swarms have been replaced with antipoison items.
DMs... please stop poisoning your players so often.
The hair items have been replaced. Now I'm awash in items that deal with swarms. Yet another trend. Some of them are rather clever though...The trends I've seen:
--Hair
--Swarms
--Using the body parts and/or skin and/or blood of slain creatures
--Blankets and shrouds not meant to be worn, but rather used in some other capacity
--Items that deal with manipulating hit points in unorthodox fashions
I haven't stopped getting items made of monster skins, furs, bones, eyes, internal organs, you name it.
On the bright side, this might mean there's a good market for a 3PP book I'm writing in the near future, considering its theme.
The hair items have been replaced. Now I'm awash in items that deal with swarms. Yet another trend. Some of them are rather clever though...The trends I've seen:
--Hair
--Swarms
--Using the body parts and/or skin and/or blood of slain creatures
--Blankets and shrouds not meant to be worn, but rather used in some other capacity
--Items that deal with manipulating hit points in unorthodox fashionsI haven't stopped getting items made of monster skins, furs, bones, eyes, internal organs, you name it.
On the bright side, this might mean there's a good market for a 3PP book I'm writing in the near future, considering its theme.
Hackmaster bestiary had a line in each monster description about which part of each monster were usable as components, loot or food.
Hackmaster bestiary had a line in each monster description about which part of each monster were usable as components, loot or food.
That would be along the lines of what I'm going for, yes, along with a quick guide for balancing wealth levels when using monster parts as part of the treasure.
I'm a little disturbed by the sheer amounts of items I'm getting involving animal or human sacrifice. I'm not generally inclined to vote for them, but they tend to pop up next to each other.
I'm mostly inundated with quills, though. I keep thinking I'm seeing the same item over and over since most of them do the same thing, but they always have different names.
SO MANY quills.
so many quills.
*whimper*
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8
aka Jiggy
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I haven't been recording my experiences, but there's a particular function which multiple entries perform, and I *think* there are two such items that are the same slot and physical object.
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Speaking of inundation:
- two-way communication items
- The aforementioned quills
- three persistently recurring joke items
- items made of monster bits
- bad, bad names
- items that raise/resurrect the dead, but at a cost
- items that affect gravity
- items that cause weather effects
- items that manipulate time
- needles, or things with needles attached
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"Good grief, stop using your word count to explain things people already understand!"
(Hypothetical example: 'This item creates water. The water is wet and in liquid form. It will be of a temperature commensurate to the ambient temperature in which the water was created. If not created in a vessel, it will probably soak into the ground.')
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I've only gone through ten pairs of items, and I already need a break. How do you guys keep up the pace?I expect everyone to review ALL the items!
** spoiler omitted **
I call foul! :)
I would happily grind through a list of N-thousand magic items and order them. Sure, it would take time, but any that I was dead certain were pointless I'd never have to look at again.
With the current system, no matter how much I'm dead certain that a given item will not make my top 200 (never mind top 32), I have absolutely no control over whether I look at it again. And again, and again. Heck, as of right now, I've been through this process 240 times, seeing 358 unique items, 74 of them twice, and 8 of them 3 times.
Clearly the process as it now exists is better than having the judges spend weeks and weeks reviewing items; their time is far more valuable in terms of domain expertise - but my time is not of zero worth either, and as I see more and more items that I would really prefer to never see again, it's harder and harder to keep churning through the list.
After all, by my (probably grossly incorrect) estimates, I've seen perhaps 20% of the items, meaning I've likely run into only 5-6 of the items that will make it into the final 32, and that's a somewhat disheartening figure.
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"If you're going to blatantly turn a modern item into a magical one, could you at least pick a modern item that isn't boring?"
"If you're going to blatantly turn a modern item into a magical one, could you at least pick a modern item that isn't boring?"
And don't use modern terms in the name...