Sweet baby savior of your choice, but the formatting on so many of these entries is just not there. At all.
I hate to say it, but unless the other item just stinks, it automatically gets the nod when paired up with an unformatted item. Maybe it's harsh, but dang, people-- they gave you the formatting for the entries.
-Ben.
Yeah, if the formatting issues are equally bad is the only way to ensure a pass. Small errors OK, but there should at least have been an attempt.
Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Marathon Voter Season 9
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I have been very forgiving of missed italics in the description or missed brackets that don't format, or just formatting in the title.
Something that is not OP or boring is likely to get an up vote. And if close i will vote for the one you can openly walk into town with.
caster items are hard mode though as they lean on OP usually or the horrible fake penalties that are really buffs.
edit! marathon! woooot!
edit: still have not seen my item :/
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While I tend to be a harsh voter if formatting is really bad (or completely nonexistent), there is an upside:
The amount of unformatted entries indicates there's a lot of new contestants. More people being drawn to Paizo and to design is a good thing.
The amount of unformatted entries indicates there's a lot of new contestants. More people being drawn to Paizo and to design is a good thing.
That is an awesome way to think about it. Thank you!
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The amount of unformatted entries indicates there's a lot of new contestants. More people being drawn to Paizo and to design is a good thing.That is an awesome way to think about it. Thank you!
If you continue to contribute positive comments like this, Wilfred Brimley and I are going to petition to have your scowly avatar revoked.
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If you continue to contribute positive comments like this, Wilfred Brimley and I are going to petition to have your scowly avatar revoked.The amount of unformatted entries indicates there's a lot of new contestants. More people being drawn to Paizo and to design is a good thing.That is an awesome way to think about it. Thank you!
She's not scowling, she just has a bad case of resting b*@#@ face.
(And you're welcome, quibblemuch. :) )
Yep some items lack formatting. Some have formatting errors. I'm sure some people were not aware of the page with formatting available.
Perhaps putting the template on the Submission page would help.
Though that would delimit the amount of auto-down-votes from the grumpy-pants-pedants faction. (More a stab at those that really are grumpy than you Ben...)
Gotta be said. Again. You can teach formatting. Creativity is different. Sometimes poor formatting and boring go hand in hand, just like some perfectly formatted items are maddeningly inane.
I agree with DeathQuaker that this may point to an increase in submissions, though here doesn't seem to be a spike in items - perhaps previous entrants have dropped out.
Also want to note that not everyone submitting an item truly see this competition as a "job application/interview" and to only see this exercise trough that lens definitely colors some voters. Though obviously every voter is colored by some/various bias/biases.
On a personal level, the past two years I've seen a couple handful items each year that made me go wow, though those items rarely made it to the Top 32, usually in the top 100/89 whatever it was.
Not this year. Maybe a couple of items. But nothing like the two previous years.
While you can teach formatting--the problem is it points to people who don't bother to read the rules. This also means they might be the kind of person who ignores style guides/design parameters, and you can't have that in a freelancer. Creativity is crucial, yes, but is only one of many things that makes a good designer, such as attention to detail. You can be beautifully imaginative and still not be suited to certain kinds of work that involve creativity.
Certainly, I hope some folks who missed the details the first time might pick up on them and why they're important next time.
Maybe not everybody enters the contest to get the job, but the judges are still ultimately going to pick the people they think might be worthy of it, and we're supposed to be voting to help them out.
I didn't say the number of submissions have increased per se (although I thought there actually were slightly fewer items last year based on people's informal counts?) but that new people appear to be trying the contest. Purely speculation, but these people may also be new to Pathfinder or these boards, or never knew about Superstar before, and these are all good things. Sure we probably also lost some contestants--due to their perhaps not being able to shift gears from a wondrous item or just deciding they didn't have time or that the contest isn't for them after all (I wasn't going to enter until I saw that Round 1 had changed--the change intrigued me). Overall the contest feels new and exciting for many reason, and I really hope people who are new stick around (and that some of them make it to the next rounds!).
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Creativity is crucial, yes, but is only one of many things that makes a good designer, such as attention to detail. You can be beautifully imaginative and still not be suited to certain kinds of work that involve creativity.
This is exceptionally true. Wes Schneider has frequently indicated that creativity mismatched with an inability to follow directions and sloppy attention to detail ultimately makes the jobs of the developers and editors harder. And they don't want that. No one does. Instead, they'd much rather work with freelancers who bring creativity AND professional workmanship to the table. And that means taking care to follow the appropriate templates, style guides, and so on, in your submissions (whether for RPG Superstar or an actual turnover on a freelance assignment).
Small mistakes here and there can be corrected, coached, or flat-out taught. That's why you often see at least a few Top 32 make it through with a small formatting error here or there. But complete disregard for instructions, guidelines, or the rules of design are quite different...and usually an indication of a lazy, inattentive designer regardless of how creative they may or may not be.
Bottom line, it's very difficult to view that kind of person as a Superstar-level talent. So, even if they get up-voted by the public, it's almost a certainty that the primary judges will eliminate them from consideration as a candidate for Top 32. In essence, those individuals just aren't ready yet. As a result, it's better to leave them out of the competition and give them another year or two to learn the ropes instead.
But that's just my two cents,
--Neil