for the next competition please consider

[Drakkart]

ending them at 23:59 of the day. i am looking through the community content and i really feel sorry for the people which ofc you could argue are "to dumb to read" but i would wish this next time being ended when the day ends. i know you got way enough submissions and everything... but still there is a lot of positive energy not going to get recognized and that in itself is a sad thing. for those people did their fleets for they love the game you make for you free to use just for the acknowledgement. so please next time end the submissions when the day ends. - note to self i should do the same to prevent this happening with my competitions...

thanks for reading

 

[jstenholt]

I'm going to go in the opposite direction. The contests should be harder to understand, with more vague rules.

Also, without our knowledge every third submission just doesn't get entered. And lastly, all voting should be random to further reflect the erratic nature of the human condition.

 

[DukeofRealms]

ending them at 23:59 of the day. i am looking through the community content and i really feel sorry for the people which ofc you could argue are "to dumb to read" but i would wish this next time being ended when the day ends. i know you got way enough submissions and everything... but still there is a lot of positive energy not going to get recognized and that in itself is a sad thing. for those people did their fleets for they love the game you make for you free to use just for the acknowledgement. so please next time end the submissions when the day ends. - note to self i should do the same to prevent this happening with my competitions...

thanks for reading

End of the day where? :P

It did close at the end of the day, plus one hour for leeway. It was in UTC, no matter when we set the end time, there will always be people who miss the deadline.

 

[Drakkart]

End of the day where? :P

It did close at the end of the day, plus one hour for leeway. It was in UTC, no matter when we set the end time, there will always be people who miss the deadline.

i know but i think people would have been able to submit their fleets in time if you'd set it without the one hour leeway for then they would have rememberd to submit them at the 20th.
because humans tend to remember the day you know. or look at the timezone and go like ok 20th 6 hours back ... it is a suggestion.

 

[DukeofRealms]

submit them at the 20th.

The 20th where exactly? Unless they were in UTC, this would not have made sense. We always have deadlines at UTC, if you don't make it, you don't make it. The end of the day in one location is not the end of the day in another. I can tell you our competition ended at the end of the day somewhere, and that would be Cape Verde.

I disagree, I doubt it would have changed anything.

EDIT: Also, I doubt a late submission would prevent an amazing fleet getting into the game.

 

[therimmer96]

i know but i think people would have been able to submit their fleets in time if you'd set it without the one hour leeway for then they would have rememberd to submit them at the 20th.
because humans tend to remember the day you know. or look at the timezone and go like ok 20th 6 hours back ... it is a suggestion.

What are you on about? They said it would close at 1AM UTC, and then actually closed it at 2AM. If you miss it that much, it's your own daft fault.

 

[Madman198237]

Giving people extra time is a nice thought. That said, it's the appeasement mentality. For example:
At a school, the cutoff for an A is 99%. Anything below that is an A-, until 90%, where it becomes a B+ (Harsh school). Let's say somebody gets a 98.99%. Do you round up and give them an A? Let's say you do. Then somebody comes in with a 98.98% and says "That person got an A", so you repeat the pattern. All the way until somebody gets a 89% and you say "Well, the last kid had an 89.5% and we gave him an A instead of an A- or a B+".

My point? The mentality of allowing the rules to be bent eventually allows the rules to be bent around until they stab you in the back. There has to be a cutoff time. Sometimes it seems fairly cruel, but there has to be one.

 

[jayman38]

This is why everybody should be taught that when the deadline is one day, the REAL deadline is the day before. (Likewise, if it's a matter of hours, the real deadline is the hour prior to the deadline. If it's a matter of minutes, submit a minute early.)

It can be especially frustrating if you wait until the last minute, only to realize that the deadline is based on a clock that is wrong. You can't just tell the boss his clock is off; therefore your late work should still count. It doesn't. A miss is a miss.

 

[Drakkart]

i didn't miss the deadline i am just saying that a date and timezone is easier to remember than date timezone and hour. when you read 21st your brain remembers 21st. or tries to and often fails to remember exact point in time. Technically it is a given fact that any point in time on earth could be described at any timezone and thus any hour. That is not the point, point is psychology, humans store information better when easily processable. And the amount of submissions being late proove this point. If you read 21st you go like yeah gonna wait till 21st and then see how much time is left for details before i have to submit it. Not saying this is the correct way to approach it, just saying humans in general tend to be lazy and that is how our brain tries to take shortcuts as well. energy conservation, anyone?
I am just making a suggestion for a better solution. If you do not see the difference between any and a good well thought out solution is like not admiting, there is a difference between linux and apple.

 

[FatCobra]

I have no sympathy for anyone that didn't get the submission on time. This has been going on for months. If you have to wait for last second to submit you are either procrastinating or waiting for shock value. Either way if you miss you miss.

 

[Goblin]

The only thing I can think of as an imporvement is to put there a link to a utc clock to get even the laziest satisfied (so me for example).

But in any other aspect im with the other guys: UTC is UTC and as exact as it can be. You can figure that out by typing "UTC clock" in google.
It's not something vage or misunderstandable.
Any other notation would have been.

And when it comes to deadlines: Precizeness is key.
So even if i would be the guy missing the date, i would rather miss it because i missed a precize date then some vage date where i COULD have been in - Just because the second one seems unfair - and unfair is something strongly notated negativ.

If you can't rember the time you will most likely blame yourself.
If you think it was unfair you will blame the guys doing it - and with it all the stuff they did.

 

[Lukwan]

One of the most difficult things about building something original is knowing when to stop. This is a discussion unto itself. The definition of a Masterpiece (according to my Art teacher) is a painting where the addition or removal of a single brush-stroke would diminish the painting.

Most of us think our creations are cool so...more is better right...just keep adding right? My builds are done when they are done. If I was waiting for a deadline to tell me when to stop I would probably not be doing my builds any favors. It is important to know ahead of time what constitutes success so you will recognize it when you have achieved it.

 

[Ghent96]

I have no sympathy for anyone that didn't get the submission on time. This has been going on for months. If you have to wait for last second to submit you are either procrastinating or waiting for shock value. Either way if you miss you miss.

or... maybe you just have a real life that is the priority like it should be, kids, job, spouse and all, and you put June 21 on your calendar, then you come on to the forums that night after a long day at work, ready to upload, and enjoy some gaming before sleep, and ... poof, oops, what they ACTUALLY meant is more like June 20th just after midnight. What a nice pissy way to end your day -_-

Duke's attitude above makes it pretty clear how Schine feels about this contest and their players - "we don't care and we'll go 1 step further and argue with you to put you down farther". I agree with Drakkart, but it sounds like those of us that would make PEOPLE & a happy community a priority are in the minority, versus those that prioritize random deadlines selected to irritate people (Americans?) on purpose.

...and wtf is UTC anyways, and when did people start using it instead of GMT? :P

 

[DukeofRealms]

or... maybe you just have a real life that is the priority like it should be, kids, job, spouse and all, and you put June 21 on your calendar, then you come on to the forums that night after a long day at work, ready to upload, and enjoy some gaming before sleep, and ... poof, oops, what they ACTUALLY meant is more like June 20th just after midnight. What a nice pissy way to end your day -_-

Duke's attitude above makes it pretty clear how Schine feels about this contest and their players - "we don't care and we'll go 1 step further and argue with you to put you down farther". I agree with Drakkart, but it sounds like those of us that would make PEOPLE & a happy community a priority are in the minority, versus those that prioritize random deadlines selected to irritate people (Americans?) on purpose.

...and wtf is UTC anyways, and when did people start using it instead of GMT? :p

This contest will end June 21st, 1:00 AM UTC time. Part way through the contest we will evaluate whether we need to extend the deadline for submissions, depending on what the community response is.

Originally the deadline was a month earlier, after a number of community members asked for an extension and gave valid reasons why we agreed and moved it forward. We were very clear on when the deadline was, we've put all our deadlines in UTC near the same time and have had no issues before.

You could have sent a direct message to one of us explaining why you were late for submission and I can guarantee we would have accepted it (as has been done with a number of late submissions).

To further enhance clarity, instead of changing the times to the end of the day in the US, UK or wherever, a deadline countdown clock can be used. We've used this method before and I am certain it would be far more useful than simply changing the times.

EDIT: Also, listing the time in 3 or 4 major timezones (along with UTC). We have done this before as well, and as far as I'm aware, it worked well.

 

[jstenholt]

As an aviation major: is there a time that isn't UTC? How do you people live!?

 

[Criss]

We asked for no more than five quality built ships. They could have been small, and all of them were to be under 140 meters. We have submissions that remained under 100 and were very well built. The minimum requirement was two builds. That's it. Two ships and you could enter. I have to agree with fatcobra. I have little sympathy if you cannot built two decent ships in two months time. We can't keep the contest going. Two months was apple time. We have accepted ~50 of the 180 submissions so far. It's not as if two months was cutting it close.

 

[StormWing0]

Well why not use the End Of Day time of the last timezone it is that day in? Only logical choice if you want the end of that day, just pick the end of that day outright worldwide.

 

[DukeofRealms]

Two months was apple time.

Apple time eh?

Well why not use the End Of Day time of the last timezone it is that day in? Only logical choice if you want the end of that day, just pick the end of that day outright worldwide.

I did that once actually :P Can't remember how it went, I think a countdown clock will do well. Most of the time our competitions are scheduled to end when we're around to manage it.

 

[TheWurm]

We asked for no more than five quality built ships. They could have been small, and all of them were to be under 140 meters. We have submissions that remained under 100 and were very well built. The minimum requirement was two builds. That's it. Two ships and you could enter. I have to agree with fatcobra. I have little sympathy if you cannot built two decent ships in two months time. We can't keep the contest going. Two months was apple time. We have accepted ~50 of the 180 submissions so far. It's not as if two months was cutting it close.

Since everyone else is too polite to ask, I will. Are you announcing those all at once, or is there a running list available to see?

 

[Criss]

Since everyone else is too polite to ask, I will. Are you announcing those all at once, or is there a running list available to see?

We will announce them at once. There are a lot of "maybe's" to sort through.