Avonlea

Thank you again so much for that wonderful sendoff. It was fun and crazy and unexpected--and yes, laggy--but my first thought was, "Holy cow, this reminds me *exactly* of the Rikti invasion on the last day of Beta before the game went live." That was an terrific bit of symmetry, and one that really helped give me some closure for a game--and community--that's come to mean more to me than I ever expected. It really meant a lot!

Theme: Villain Bosses

On the fifth day of CoX-mas, my true love gave to me:

5 Gold Bricker Boomers!
4 Dr. Aeon Clones Escaping
3 Fake Nems faking
2 Death Mages plotting
1 TV Show Down!

Oh and shameless plug...I was inspired by this thread to make a new MA arc, "The Joy of States-mas," where you have to help buy a Secret Santa gift for Statesman. Humor for the holidays...check it out!

(Giant Monster theme)

On the sixth day of CoX-mas my true love gave to me...

6 "Save Sally" posters
5 Accolades
4 Arachnos Fliers
3 concurrently spawned Paladins
2 reward merits
and a Giant Malta Titan.

Wow, thanks! This one was a nail-biter, but I guess it's not surprising considering how terrific all the entries were. It was a blast playing all of them. But honestly it was great just having the arc played and getting such awesome feedback!

Big thanks also to Bubbawheat for running this once again!

On the ninth day of CoX-mas, my true love gave to me

9 Malta scheming
8 Surviving Members
7 Forces Tasking
6 trolls a raving
Fiiiive Freedom Phaaaaalaaaanx Costuuuuuumes!
4 Posi battle drones
3 of Numina's spellbooks
2 Manticore Arrows
And a Statesman's mask

Wow, there are some great entries here...I had a tough time deciding!

Best Arc - Villainous or Rogue
1. Grunty McFisterson's Two Step Guide to Winning Respect #519044 by @Twoflower
2. Arena #456200 by @FredrikSvanberg

Best Arc - Heroic or Vigilante
2. A Mosaic of Shattered Dreams #497506 by @Avonlea (I'm not above shameless self-promotion!)

Best Arc - Comedy
1. Crime is Art and Art is Crime #517859 by @Twoflower
2. Dating Ms Liberty Isn't Easy #464550 by @Jinkobi

Best Lowbie Arc
1. The Blue Devils #468738 by @Flame Kitten (aka Coulomb2)
2. Cole in Your Stocking #474611 by @Venture

What an awesome idea!

Unfortunately I won't be able to make it this Sunday, but I'll definitely catch you next time. Have fun storming Architect Entertainment!

Congrats, S12--it was definitely well-earned! I'm loving going through everyone's arcs, but yours had a great twist with the newspaper articles. (Usually those mission clues are pretty tiresome, but I actually looked forward to these!) And your portrayal of the Hellions was really great as well...it was kinda spooky seeing them as having such depraved indifference to their victims, rather than just being gang members and a low-level nuisance.

Congrats again! Enjoy the win! :-)

See, now that's commitment!

And personally I love hearing what all goes into making these costumes, so thanks to both you and PokeKitten for sharing. There's a lot of hard work and ingenuity involved, so between that and the courage to then go traipsing around in public, well, let's just say that makes for one of my favorite holidays!

Wow, amazing work on those costumes...I'm sure the judges had a tough time, these are great! Congrats to the winners, as well as everyone else who entered...great jobs all around!

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wow. awesome costumes and great job of emoting!!

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Yeah, I love how people matched up the emotes! Of course now I'm sorry I didn't enter, since I can do a really good alakazamreact.

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Now tell us the secret...which one is really a dude?

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Sorry, can't help you there...I took this year off.

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Wow! This Monday it will be two months since this thread was started. Way to keep it alive gang!

I'm just sayin'...

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I feel like I should light a candle and hold a vigil or something?

I didn't enter this year, but my heart goes out to those that entered if they were anything like me and constantly hovering around waiting for any news. Keep the faith, guys--you're all winners! (So far as we know!)

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Well golly darn it! What the heck are they doin' out meetin' & greetin' when they've gots important costume judgin' bidness to attend to?

Oooh...maybe they are WAITING for the series 9 Nvidia cards so they can give one of those out instead!?

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They were probably waiting to see if anybody showed up for the meet & greet in costume to find out who the really rabi--um, "committed" fans were...

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Thanks a lot Lighthouse ^_^ You guys were killin me, but good to know now. My patience bar has officially been refilled.

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May bar is running back down. Time to pop another inspiration? I'm dying to see all the cool costumes!

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No kidding! This is the first year I wasn't able to participate, so now I'm having to experience this vicariously.

Amazing, dazzling and/or embarrassing costumes, please?

Great, thanks for the advice! (And I totally agree about your thoughts on break frees, as well. It felt funny having to start carrying them on my own scrapper, but we've all been in one of "those" fights...)

Looks like my friend will be off to the test server soon!

Okay, first, AWESOME guide, Gamemaster! I'm helping a friend with his dark/dark build and this is really insightful! In fact, it's given me a couple ideas for my Warshade, too...

Second, I have a question...the two things I'm a little worried about for my friend are knockback and immobilizes. He doesn't want superleap as a travel power for concept reasons, so we were thinking Hover to help mitigate the knockback, as you suggest. However, in the sample builds I don't see any immobilize protection apart from what's in Cloak of Darkness, unless I'm missing something...in your experience has that proven sufficient? Also, do you just use it "as needed" kind of thing or keep it running?

Thanks!

I do think public voting for some contests might be more fun, but keep in mind NCsoft would still have to remove unqualifed applicants. For instance, if someone puts on a Batgirl costume and submits it, she shouldn't be allowed to win no matter how the community votes. Of course then we're back where we started...we have to trust them to make good screening decisions.

But then really, it sounds like this is really a question of trust. It's totally fair for contestants in ANY contest to expect the judges are going to be fair and impartial, and in this contest they clearly made some mistakes. But then ALL judges make mistakes. So each of us has to ask: Do I trust that the judging wasn't intentionally biased or malicious? And if they do make a mistake, do I trust them to not make it again and/or take the proper corrective action?

Of course, because the judging process right now is a black box to us, it does strain the trust somewhat since we don't know why certain decisions were made. For instance, maybe the judges thought my character's costume or name was too close to some copyrighted heroine that I'm not familiar with, so I got disqualified and wasn't even considered. But then, to me that's part of the judging process...and I'll trust them to do the right thing, accept that they're human and make mistakes, and call them on it when they do.

And in openness, I think Cricket and Lighthouse still have their work cut out for them as community liaisons. It's not that I don't trust them or like them--I do--but that kind of trust needs to be built up over time, and they're still fairly new. The black-box judging of these contests may be a necessary evil, but that doesn't build trust, it tests it. And the mistakes made in this contest didn't help matters. But I trust them to do the right thing.

Though don't get me wrong...if ever I have the opportunity to meet Cricket face-to-face--not electronically and totally off the record--I'll still ask why I didn't win.

Jupe, those pictures are great! She definitely did a great job on both the costume and matching a tricky background. And I really like the silver skin...it looks fantastic and I've no idea how she managed to keep all those lines looking so clean and straight!

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Avonlea should have won something. Great costume recreation and location. And because he handles loss like a man instead of a sore loser.

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<.<
>.>
(Puts down sniper rifle)
Thanks!

I do believe that if you win, win graciously. And if you lose, lose with a smile....it really does make them easier to sucker-punch next time.


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Heck, I'm tempted to buy him a prize myself. You want that there BFG AGEIA PhysX 128MB GDDR3 PCI Physics Accelerator Card by AGEIA Technologies, Inc.?

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Yeah, and a pony! Yay, it's a Christmas miracle!

Those elves in Santa's workshop sure have come a long way from wooden hobby horses. I mean, even just programming the firmware on those cards is no small potatoes. I guess they took some extension courses at the North Pole Community College or something...

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It would simply be unrealistic to think that people being bothered by this.. and rightly so, was not predicted ahead of time. The only conclusion we can come to is that they simply didn't CARE. Is there any other possibility that I'm missing? I'd love to be wrong about this.

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Truthfully? I think they just made a dumb mistake. As the saying goes, even smart people make stupid mistakes. I mean, the first time *I* saw the costume, I missed the fact that it was a a Carnie and not her character, and I had a strong personal interest in the outcome and a lot of curiosity about how people made their costumes. It wasn't until my second pass through when I really looked to see how the costumes were made that the penny dropped for me!

Of course, we don't know who the judges are or what the process is. For all we know they might put up pictures in the NCSoft break room and people walking by vote as they get their morning coffee! My own guess is that the judges were well-meaning and naive, simply assuming that the in-game screenshot was the person's character. (Obviously a bad assumption.) They probably saw a well-done real-life costume they liked, saw that it matched the screenshot and that was that.

And remember this was clearly a rush job on their part. The announcement was a week late, right after Thanksgiving and Issue 8, and right BEFORE the winter event hit the test server. They'd already missed their deadline, Halloween was a rapidly fading memory so they couldn't wait *too* much longer, I imagine they *weren't* deeply interested in looking at the costume details, and then they also probably got distracted by the grunt work of cleaning up and posting all the pictures. So the judging process was probably a rush job and this just...fell through the cracks.

We'll probably never know the truth. (In fact, I think I'm happier NOT knowing!) That said, I really hope that they learned something from this, because however it happened, the judging process obviously messed up.

I imagine a lot of people are thinking "what's the big deal?", since really these contests are just meant to be lighthearted fun for the community to enjoy, and I think that's totally true! However--from a contestant's perspective--once you start putting time, energy and money into your entry, you'd certainly like to know that the judging will be done fairly. Otherwise, why bother with a contest at all?

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I personally, just think of it as the same as an in-game costume contest. <@_@> It merely transfers to the real world.

Though really in that case Cookie Girl should have won <,<


(What?! >,< <'x'> I keed)

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Well, sometimes it's about as easy. When I was first showing my costume to a female friend of mine, she suggested that my chest needed to be a little bigger. A little extra padding and it was kinda like nudging the "chest" slider bar to the right!

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The "hawt" centers of my brain were permanently burned out after the first costume contest where I commented on the "hawtness" of Avonlea and my wife looked over my shoulder and said "Uh, that's a guy..."

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ROFL! Ahem...sorry about that. Henceforth I promise to use my powers only for good and not evil.

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I'm also a bit more critical about these things because I've been annoyed by them in regular life as well. E.g., a woman friend of mine who went to a party dressed basically in overalls and "won" the costume contest over several more deserving people because she was the "hawt" girl and everyone there was a sex-starved BBS geek. (Yeah, this was back in the days of 1200 baud modems and the "internet" being an ivory tower thing that most people had only heard rumors about.)

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I know what you mean. I think it's fine and fair to allow for some level of the physicality to enter a contest like this, but that can't be the only thing. I mean--male or female--if someone has a great physique, they usually have to work at it. But too often people get blinded by that aspect and the flattery blinds them to the rest.

Which, come to think of it, would be kind of like going out with someone attractive, despite their obvious personality flaws. Not like that's ever happened.

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"Cookie Girl" is, I imagine, well aware of her physical attractiveness. I imagine that she would be more interested in how well her costume was received than in how many forumites would like to buy her dinner and drinks.

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Agreed. But the girl is wearing an 8 inch miniskirt...I think it's also fair to say that physical attractiveness was something she was definitely playing up as part of her costume.

I know what you mean. I mean, not to be sour grapes, but personally I feel that my Enchantrix costume was genuinely better than either of the winners for the "Costume / Public Location Combo" category. I think my costume was more intracate and involved, and that my backdrop is a great match and is really unique. But of course, that's my opinion. It could be that the judges saw things in the winners' costumes that I don't. (Or they didn't see things in my costume that I do!). Or they thought my entry was somehow Photoshopped. Or they didn't like the crossdressing. Or they just like witches and pirates better. Or it could be they just didn't want me to win three years in a row, so I was "disqualified" from the start through no fault of my own. (Which I think is at least partially true.)

But honestly, it's probably best we don't know. The categories and rules seem to be purposefully vague to encourage people to enter and follow the spirit of the contest. (Yes, you have to make your own costume; yes, you have to go out in pubic; no, you can't wear that sweet Hawkman costume you made for the comic convention five years ago....) If you notice, two years ago they had about 150 entries; this year and last year each had about 50. If they gave a list of judging criteria (for example, "...in addition to all matching the costume details, the entry will also be judged on matching the background, pose, lighting...") I think a lot of people--myself included--would say the heck with it. Personally I'd rather see more entries.

Of course, having more vaguely defined criteria puts a lot of faith in the judges and opens the door to a lot of personal bias. And this year quite honestly the judges screwed up, what with Nepharim's costume quite obviously not following the few rules they did set out. (Although hers is certainly one of the best costumes!) I guess we'll see what if anything they do.

But for my own part, I'm okay with the bias...though as you say, I'd definitely love to hear more about WHY they liked a costume. To say a costume "seems like it just walked out of the game" doesn't really say much.

Or maybe explain why a certain costume didn't win...

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[...]I'm kind of giving the posters the benefit of the doubt that they're not just talking about physical attractiveness[...]

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Hehe, well not to cast aspersions on anyone, but I think you miiiight be giving a skosh more credit than is due.

/em Edna Mode voice
Do you remember..... DIVA 7?!?


At the time, much was made about her costume (or lack thereof), and I think we can agree the fascination there had nothing to do with regards to her leet costume-making skills.

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Avonlea, come on down to Tampa next Halloween. Celebrate it the right way. With guavas. Join in the Mama Guava Stumble. See Y'bor transformed from party central-year round Mardi Gras to Guavaween when we get really wild.

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I have no idea what you just said, but your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

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'Tis a linky!

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/em gasp
All this and pirates, too? It's like heaven!

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Avonlea, come on down to Tampa next Halloween. Celebrate it the right way. With guavas. Join in the Mama Guava Stumble. See Y'bor transformed from party central-year round Mardi Gras to Guavaween when we get really wild.

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I have no idea what you just said, but your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

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Two things came to mind when I saw THIS.

1) First, I was slightly afraid.
2) Then a small voice in my head said, "Bring out the gimp..."

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Two things that came to mind when I saw that...

#1 - Ewww

#2 - That's a dude.....DOUBLE EWWW!

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Wait....I just assumed crossdressing on Halloween was a tradition? You know, like Easter egg hunts, lighting fireworks on Independence Day, or sacrificing a platypus to the pagan gods on your birthday. Isn't that how you guys do it?