24 replies to this topic

[Thuley]

This time we had 14 entries. I chose to be a bit lenient in the cases where the rules weren't quite followed. I will make the rules yet more clear in the October competition.

I edited all images by resizing them to 940 pixels wide (which turned out just a bit too wide since I didn't consider the poll indenting it a bit, but I won't redo them at this point) and however tall they would become. Then I saved the edited images as JPEG with 94% quality.

If you click on any of the images you will be taken to the original image that was submitted.

I decided that I will not vote in the competition unless after the poll closes a tiebreaker is needed. In that case I will cast one vote after the poll closed.

For this time around I decided to have the poll be anonymous, meaning that you cannot tell who voted for which screenshot. If we decide that it would be better to see who voted for which screenshot then we can perhaps set it up like that for future competitions.

Feel free to discuss the competition in this thread but please do not announce who took which screenshot even if you know.

Well then, here they are, posted in the order in which they were received:

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Happy voting and may the best screenshot artist win!

[Kraytus]

Ok I just tried to vote and got told I'm not allowed to... what did I do!

[Imagine]

Soooo... yeah. Forum says I don't have permission to vote.

[Thuley]

To make the voting more fair in a sense that folks can't just register and vote right away I created a new user group which currently requires folks to have at least five posts and have been registered with the forum for seven days in order to be eligible to vote.  The script that figures out whether a user has met those requirements runs every 30 minutes.  You two probably tried to vote just after I posted but before you were sorted into the correct user group.  You should now be able to vote.

It was also brought to my attention that a screenshot that was submitted according to the rules was not included in the list.  It was stuck in my spam mail folder and I just now randomly inserted it to the listing.  I appropriately reallocated the existing votes since the order of screenshots is now different.  In the future there will be a different way to submit screenshots so that the spam mail issue won't happen again.

[Thuley]

Sigh, even though I reallocated the existing votes it didn't properly move the "who's voted for what" (which can only be seen by me at this time) to the image the person had voted for.  As such I decided that it would be best to simply restart the poll as opposed to continue to monkey with it.  If you have voted already please vote again as this is a new poll.

[Thuley]

It gets better, the voting had to be reset once more.
Moving to the new forum software did transfer the exisiting votes but it didn't transfer who voted allowing folks who previously voted to vote again.

So once more please, cast your vote.

[Jillabee]

Well at least we're getting all the hiccups out of the way now! Next month should go a lot smoother lol

[TheAngryLuddite]

Oh man, I like a lot of these.

Nice work everyone!

The hobby photographer in me just loves the heck out of screenshotting this game.

[Thuley]

14 submissions but only 12 votes thus far, nevermind the 350+ registered users.  I admit that I find this a bit mindboggling.
I must be doing something wrong.  WTB marketing expert.

[Xilla]

Eh, not many people bother to continue logging in for some reason.

[Thuley]

Xilla, on 25 September 2012 - 12:14 PM, said:

Eh, not many people bother to continue logging in for some reason.

I know why, I just don't know how much more I can do to fix this.

This site is in competition with not just other sites (i.e. gw2guru) but also with work (although some are lucky enough to multi-task), the game (you are in game when gaming, not on here), and any other activity that you may be doing while you are not on here.  This is an issue every service is facing, ehmry.com competes for what little there is of your time against everything else you are doing the same way GW2 competes with everything else you are or could be doing instead of playing GW2.

With forums participation is king.  Once there is a certain level of participation (new threads, new posts) there is enough of a momentum that makes people want to come and check the forum to see what's new.

This site is a hobbyist effort, not a commercial operation, so there is no marketing budget, there is no ArenaNet support that commercial "fan sites" get, all expenses are paid out of pocket.  It's really a paradox, gw2guru isn't a fan site, it's a site that is operated by a corporation for the specific purpose to make a boatload of money, it's purely incidental that they do provide good content in the process but that content is user generated.  Essentially every time someone posts at gw2guru Curse makes money while the poster potentially gets knowledge in return.

I did contact ArenaNet and asked for some community support in terms of promo items to give away.  I didn't even receive a reply, though I am not that surprised as many game companies just don't care about the little fan sites and focus on the commercial operations instead because those make them money.  That's the way of the world and I am cool with that.  But that also does mean that this community is on its own when it comes to how useful members find it to be.

The more people contribute content (new threads and posts) the more popular the site will be and/or become.

I think that 350 registered users in the first 30 days is a truly outstanding result as many other server forums really struggle to even have users sign up.  Now we need to work on the participation levels.

[Heylo]

I might end up saving some of these to add to my background folder....if i can get a big enough image from it. These are awesome guys! I hope enough people participate to make next months worth it. I can't wait to find out the theme!

[Kraytus]

Well Thuley let me show you how good a job you've done. I have never  been a fan of forums. Maybe I have poked around a few but never for long. I've always left and done my own thing. The fact that I'm one of the most established members on  here should be enough to show you how well you have done. These forums feel like a guild to me like a big family which right throughout my MMORPG experience has been a major thing for me. I've always had to have that family feeling or I just get depressed. So overall Thuley  you have done a great job and even "Tamed the beast", from here on should just be a bonus. =)

[Grav]

Voted 6, although 12 is hilarious.

[Thuley]

Kraytus, on 25 September 2012 - 08:13 PM, said:

Well Thuley let me show you how good a job you've done.

Well, honestly I just provide the venue, it's the members that make the forum.  So the praise to making you welcome really goes to all the active members of the forum.

[Kraytus]

Thuley, on 25 September 2012 - 10:17 PM, said:

Well, honestly I just provide the venue, it's the members that make the forum.  So the praise to making you welcome really goes to all the active members of the forum.

It takes a hive to make a nest but it takes a queen to make a hive =)

[Brawls For Soup]

Everything is going fine. : )
This site has a core, now we just need to build around it.
I promote it from time to time, and the info is in my guild message.
-Funny though... I'd say at least 1/3 of my guild is actually from this site. Don't know if other recruitment posts have had as much success as I've had or not -I dont read your stuff. But I get messages in game all the time.

Thuley you're doing a great job. We have a core. Of course not everyone on here will stay. We need to give them a reason to.
Listing of Events on the Calender, Builds / Guides and so on. Things people can come to this site for, and get information they normally wouldnt be able to get else where. -And while they are here perhaps they comment about it, or check something else out.

[Heylo]

I have a meeting with some guildies in my alt guild on friday, I'll promote it then. It's also in my guild message, but there's only three of us that log on in my guild haha. Everyone else is in alt guilds.

[Kraytus]

I had it in BHKs message but now that I'm HC I may need to kick Snype in the butt and get him promoting it XD

[TheAngryLuddite]

Thuley, on 25 September 2012 - 12:33 PM, said:

I know why, I just don't know how much more I can do to fix this.

This site is in competition with not just other sites (i.e. gw2guru) but also with work (although some are lucky enough to multi-task), the game (you are in game when gaming, not on here), and any other activity that you may be doing while you are not on here.  This is an issue every service is facing, ehmry.com competes for what little there is of your time against everything else you are doing the same way GW2 competes with everything else you are or could be doing instead of playing GW2.

With forums participation is king.  Once there is a certain level of participation (new threads, new posts) there is enough of a momentum that makes people want to come and check the forum to see what's new.

This site is a hobbyist effort, not a commercial operation, so there is no marketing budget, there is no ArenaNet support that commercial "fan sites" get, all expenses are paid out of pocket.  It's really a paradox, gw2guru isn't a fan site, it's a site that is operated by a corporation for the specific purpose to make a boatload of money, it's purely incidental that they do provide good content in the process but that content is user generated.  Essentially every time someone posts at gw2guru Curse makes money while the poster potentially gets knowledge in return.

I did contact ArenaNet and asked for some community support in terms of promo items to give away.  I didn't even receive a reply, though I am not that surprised as many game companies just don't care about the little fan sites and focus on the commercial operations instead because those make them money.  That's the way of the world and I am cool with that.  But that also does mean that this community is on its own when it comes to how useful members find it to be.

The more people contribute content (new threads and posts) the more popular the site will be and/or become.

I think that 350 registered users in the first 30 days is a truly outstanding result as many other server forums really struggle to even have users sign up.  Now we need to work on the participation levels.

This forum's really doing quite well for being a budding effort, honestly. Kotaku's 'fan' board back in the day wasn't all that much bigger than this, but it went on for years, and eventually became its own entity.

I'd say keep it up, and keep garnering community - it's off to a really good start, and the forum skins just look slick as hell. With any luck, this could become the premier destination for Ehmry Bay community out of game, eventually, particularly as all the passing players filter off.