Goal System to replace engagement

engagement can be pretty unfair sometimes so this is my proposal to try and make it better.

so how this goal system would work is that a room would have to reach all of them to get into the top 10 goals could be things like this, these values would be different of course as they are just examples

Visits 0/750

Cheers 0/50

Favorites 0/75

Friends Made 0/25

And some more things but the rooms that reach these goals will be able to get judged in the top 10

It wouldn't be perfect

but it could be better than the system we have now

I'd have to say a revamp of each categories definition of what they should look like and how people should act with in the room itself. say you're making a game with killing it should then become a PVP, PVP stands for Player verses Player which invlolves any sort versus gameplay weather it's shooting each other or a chess game, they are still players versing each other, if it were a map where you are working out puzzles and going through mazes that is a game because it is an activity todo with out murdering your pairs.

Other categories such as art and hangout should be sorted out as if you are to hangout and chill and go around looking at items of interest such as very well built maps with a wonderful art style. Yes any map should be able to have sub rooms in them but I'd say restrict them amongst hangout because it should be a singular room (or two) that players can hangout in, the reason why I say this many rooms for hangout is because it's a room where players should be able to chill out and talk to other players instead of having to venture across all the subrooms just to find a single person and or group.

Game and quest/story also have controversy on what defines them, I'd say the best way to define their diferences would be having a story line from start to end, it would run like a narative such as you have your characters running into a issue, having to solve it and then the end, obviosuly everybody's quests/stories would be different and not along the line because there are differen variations of stories but that is the very very VERY basics of would it could be not what it should be.

Contests recently have been gaining more and more stressful because of other teams being highly rude to other teams and also disrupting building and test phases because they go through and ruin work and or spam comments in rooms because of a theory that the judges go through and read each comment to see if they are fixed, the people that do this hope that this strategy removes points from the room (another theory of judging) to help make them lose there position above the other team, I myself have expeirnced this sadly and where spammed with comments pointing out useless neceties inside of the room, to find these issues they were clearly looking for them. anyways enough of that nonsense.

Contests should be free building and a clear and consise defintion of each and indivduel category to help the teams see a clear line of seperation so that people are no longer confused about maps being miss categorised and complain how they won.

There are some aspects of the contests, like others, that have trouble figuring out the line of difference between #game, #hangout, and #art. These three categories need more specific context on what should be in them/what these type of rooms contain in order to be a valid type or that room. Lets say a #hangout room has a few mini-games in it to entertain people who got bored. Its a mini-game, so would it or it not be a #game room? Or would it still be classified as a #hangout room? Another example would be a #hangout room being mistaken as a #art room. This would be because the room looks like it would be an art room by the surroundings, but the intention of the room was #hangout. My examples may not be good, but my point is that there should be a clearer line of separation for these 3 rooms.

I want to add that if you look at IRL and other games competitions, you always see judges who know about the field. Please let people who know what it is to build in rec room judge. Not people who know nothing about it. If people don't know what they are talking about, it wouldn't make sense to judge about it.

The additional awards are also not farily distributed. It's almost like some rooms don't get the rewards they deserve because "they have already two of them". A contest is about who is better and if a room is better but don't get these rewards, it just seems like a lost effort and a waste of time.

An example would be Dark Souls: why did it not get best animation award? It's a whole experience that is based around animations. But a pvp room who has 5-6 looped animations gets it over a whole fighting sequence made with animation? (check ending of Dark Souls)

Thanks for taking the time to read and understand our point of view! We are just trying to help in some way fix certain flaws in building contests. It can improve a lot.

After the Roomies I looked at ^CattleEscapePVP, then at ^ArcaneArts, and I want to know what the deal is. ^CattleEscapePVP is a rising star room, but it got first place and animation? I don't think it deserves either, I want to know what the criteria was or at least what the motive was behind this judging because in my opinion, ^ArcaneArts deserved to place higher than third.

One question i always have is where is the line between #pvp and #game?

Last contest we saw a very large amount of rooms that i would consider to be more pvp oriented but still have a game elements in them leading to confusion on where that line is drawn. This can also be said for #game and #quest, #art and #hangout, or #art and #quest. At what point do we decide if the room is one or the other? The line isn't made very clear. It has lead to room entries being changed after being published and lots of pointless bickering saying a room is supposed to be in a different category.

What I'm asking is to have stricter guidelines on all the categories to lessen confusion and arguing. For instance, #pvp and #game question can be fixed by saying that if players are fighting against each other using weapons then it's a pvp by default. Everything else is a different category

I'd like to confirm that the feedback and requests that I am submitting below is in no way meant to call out negatively to anyone, but rather highlight a pain point that the building community would like to resolve with RR staff. In other words this is respectful commentary, and I hope that it's taken that way.

Currently the building community is experiencing a challenge with the way that contest rules are being communicated to us. One builder may reach out to a staff member to ask a question and another builder may reach out to a different staff member to ask the same question and both in some instances have received different responses. Also we have new builders joining the community frequently who are ready to participate in contests but the rule minutia is not available to them and they therefore need to either go off of rules that veterans confirm for them or they need to reach out to the community staff. Builders would rather have all the rules in written format upfront so that direction is unanimously being shared by RR to the larger building community and there is absolutely no question about where those rules stand. We are asking for this since builders submitting for contests put in almost a month's worth of time and energy to put forth their best for the RR community. Having clearer and more detailed guidelines can help us help you and also reduce the amount of angst that the building group is experiencing currently.

GENERAL

* It would be ideal if guidelines were written up in more detail for each category for all types of contestants - builders who are new to contests and builders who are veterans. Most builders are directed to existing rooms as a guideline but that can lead us to have more questions - simply put it's not enough.

* What is the max number of people who can work on a map? We know 6 can be added as award winners but is there any regulation over the total number of people who can build a room for a contest submission? The current contest guide doesn't explicitly state if there are any limitations here. Is there any point of disqualification here that we should know of?

HANGOUT CATEGORY

* Full definition of what a hangout should be - the description "rooms designed around social spaces" seems to leave most of the community confused about what this really means since it can be interpreted differently.

* What is the recommended number of rooms / subrooms for this category? What is the max number of subrooms?

* What is the expected experience for user transitions to and from subrooms? (i.e. use of auto-party do's and dont's).

* What are the rules of incorporating games into a Hangout room? At what point does incorporating a game into a hangout room blur the lines between #hangout category and #game category? What is your take on the use of leaderboards within a #hangout submission?

* What is RR Judges' unanimous decision on judging whether a space has become too #art vs. #Hangout?

* List of judging criteria that we are judged on.

* What is the RR Judging team's take on incorporating a credits room in the #hangout category?

I agree that every category needs a look over :) as I’ve been stating since wonderland we need better guidelines, and I think now that the contest currently concluded I do think heavily that RecRoom should take some feed back from not only the winners but the teams that placed top 5 to learn how they can improve these contests for the future!