@ Lucifer @ far First off say, my point has nothing to do with BotB.

Sure you can buy csc with sp but what about the one tribute item that will make your cosplay that is limited and not for sale? It's like, for example as I saw so many a while, some one owning the entire line of Loki tribute CWs and entering it into the contest. Meanwhile another user throws together a Loki HA with official items. Head to head, the CWs HA will win. And yes you can make fug HAs with CWs too, it's just you get an advantage using that exclusive tribute CW in the first place. Or putting it another another way without CWs; wearing the entire SBQ outfit and claiming you did the hard work matching everything when everything was made to go together. I'm one who sees using CWs as an easy way out when they're obvious tribute items. (Edit to add- also counting the NPC clothing sets we have as well. Those were made to go together and make cosplaying the NPC easy.)

Again not BotB related: I really wish we'd stop trying to make HA contests even work. Leave that shit to user run contests. Every freaking time there is going to be someone pissed off at something. I'm firmly in the "voting needs major improvement" camp. I hated seeing one or two of the same five HAs every single voting time. I gave up voting halfway through the first day because of that.

Now BotB related. What annoyed me over this event:

And dude, I totally thought that we were told that even just joining a band would help. Yeah, I don't think that even helped one bit. I tried playing that game and my highest score? A big fat 0! I had trouble not just playing it but for some reason that darn game was moving very jerkily making play hard (right up there with Cybill Sledding in the jerky movement and the making me motion sick department). The only reason I "supported a band" was because of an accidental click and there was no way to "unsupport" them.

Nothing else to help out other than chatting and what good did that do to increase the game scores being sent? If you couldn't play for either, couldn't play or the issue that you couldn't get the damn thing to even load, tough luck go and chat? This will all fade and be mostly forgotten anyway in a couple of months only to be dragged back out and kicked a few times for some reason.

Yes but having a CW section and a non-CW section is not working with the "problem" either. While on-site items contestant will be pleased, CW contestant will be angry if X user own the whole level of specs. So .. can we really work on it?

BotB wise, I don't think it was important? What interest me are their GUIDELINES. What were they judging, what were they considering "pleasant" to look at? Also, the game was not something for everyone. At best I scored like 70 which was my maximum. Maybe more choice would have been interesting. But you can't join a band just to get free prizes either, that's boring and unfair. So yeah, if you weren't able to do anything you were pretty much doomed. Just like battle war or plot with battles. No battle pet? Doomed. That's all I can see :/

I have no idea if or how it affected BotB, but I support the general principle of splitting CW and non-CW avatars in any event where HA judging plays a role.

I think one aspect is missing from the "why does everyone hate CWs" argument. The official site items have come from a multitude of different artists with different styles and different eras of colouring. Making a well matched HA can be a bit of a pain with site items, but if you're using a number of CWs created by the same CW artist...well...everything matches! They're cohesive sets.

I definitely agree on the cosplay analogy, and I think that is what my primary issue is. Either segregate the CWs from the non CWs, or do away with CWs for site contests period.

While the "should they be allowed" discussion is semi-worth having (personally I feel it's been had, part of why it was such a sticking point when CWs were first introduced) BUT I just want to be clear: Part of this thread is did staff even have it?

Was this remotely a conscious decision? Was it then a conscious decision to not take user input on it?

Or was it just forgotten, again?

I don't expect to get a totally honest answer (in part because I'm leaning towards it was just forgotten) but that's a big part of the question being asked.

While I think this is a question only staff can give a clear answer to, I'll have to come back and agree with the people who are complaining about the general lack of guideline rules.

(Here I'm considering "joining a band" as joining their supporters' group.)

This also bothered me a little. Whether or not "freeloaders" played a role in making a team lose has always been a huge discussion in the Altador Cup, and while I believe they didn't hurt anyone in BotB, I also didn't really expect to have non-gamers "help" a team in any way (how it would even be coded, I have no idea), but well, it has been said.

I thought I was going crazy, but after reading someone else mention it I went find the quote (from the comments part, around the middle of the page):

I wholeheartedly agree that having fun is all a festival is about, and the finalists made their threads REALLY fun to be around and hang out on, but it doesn't look like us (those of us who sucked at the game) being there counted any points for the team :/ The winner's post only mentioned total scores and that was it.

Totally sorry for sidetracking, but again, I'll have to agree more guidelines in general about the whole BotB competition would have been great.

Oh good. I was feeling bad that my accidentally joining a band didn't give them any help. Then felt even more bad that I couldn't "unsupport" them. I wasn't going to hop on their thread and chitchat with them or other fans. That's not my thing. I quickly got over that during the Nico vs Manwar restock war and saw how obsessed some were if you weren't up to their standards. I guess in some ways I am glad though that it was the band I would have willing helped if I could have played the game.

I really need to break my cat of jumping up on my desk and flicking her tail over my screen. Cat + touch screen monitor = ending up clicking links I didn't want to. She already got me once when I had shop search open. She bought an item that was more than I was willing to pay.

I actually really liked this event. Worst parts were that none of the male face cw items made it into the shop and the Tapper game became too hard too fast. (Also I was disappointed that there was not one "Peka-chu" pun. Seriously, all of those lip gloss items.. :ccc )

Even though I'm trying to save, I liked that stuff could be bought with sp because working and working at events like Epicon or the Reading Drive and having zero idea if it's ever enough or what the prize shop will even look like sucks.

And I personally feel like it was fine to not separate CW HAs from others in this because it didn't even seem like a true HA contest. This had so much more to do with the creativity and organization of your theme and the amount of effort that bands put into their boards. Someone having a slightly more attractive or accurate looking HA is not what would have made me work for them or really even vote for them. HnR all really worked to keep up with their board. At least one member was on vacation and she still posted and replied to people every day. Idk, I just thought it was really nice to have an event that attempted to be more social than "refresh on your buddy's link every couple of minutes".

I think CW included and excluded categories should have been made. I agree that the contest was mainly about theme and having all the band members be part of that theme, but surely people with CWs will be more able to execute that theme?

For instance, I think the Horns and Roses group really did benefit from their CWs, from the top of my head I can't think of many decent horn items etc. I'm not say they didn't deserve to win (they were an amazing group), but a group of people without CWs who wanted to do a similar theme would have been hard pressed to match them.

Your theme was whatever you made it though. You could come up with anything that played to the strengths of your wardrobe. You wouldn't even need to necessarily choose a theme that required much clothing at all.

The Granny Smiths is a perfect example. They didn't use any CWs and they came in a close second. They actually had almost 100 more supporters than Horns n Roses without using any custom wears- in fact I think one of them was wearing a Free Item wig. In the end what they were or weren't wearing mattered less than their board and how much effort their fans put into Street Team.

...sorry, haha, this turned out a lot longer than I initially planned o.O

That was also my idea when I read your comment! That we would either add points to their total or there would be some sort of multiplier effect*** but since the news post with the winning band only mentioned totals, I thought they were 100% game ones :c It's great to hear they were not, thank you for clarifying! ❤️

I suddenly feel better about the band I supported, haha. Sadly they didn't win or anything, but I did feel awful for just not being able to help them :x I kept seeing those people on the boards posting their 1,000+ scores and felt a bit discouraged to post and chat... "hi guys I'm sorry I suck real bad at this game but here have some moral support" which I felt was good for nothing LOL ^_^;

I know that was totally my problem there though (I saw lots of people just chatting and everyone was super welcomed by every team)! I just felt like it was a 'battle of giants' and my pitiful scores wouldn't make much of a difference, because in the end the big players would be the ones deciding things n_n A single one of their scores was more than all of mines combined! GOSH. /end of mini rant

(random disclaimer: picking a band was like the hardest thing ever, I loved way too many bands and have nothing against any! mine wasn't a winner nor a runner up, yet I have no issues with any of the winners at all.)

As a final note about BotB, the idea was original and interesting, but as people said before, more guidelines would've been nice! I know me and my friends were like "what are we supposed to do?" for the longest time, haha :x

I'm going to have to agree with those who don't have a problem with CWs being used. You could have picked anything you could think up to be your theme, if you picked something and then looked at your wardrobe and couldn't make it work well then you could have picked something else. I'm also not sure how much of this was really an HA contest, yes having a good look certainly helped, but I feel like that little blurb for each band was a huge factor as well. That was their chance to shine and really show off the bands personality.

I've also got to talk about the game and the way we made points for our bands. The original banner for Peka-Boo said games on it and we only got one game. I think it would have been nicer to have different types of games for people who are good at different things. Like maybe a memory/mind kind of game to offset Street Team which seemed more based in how quick your fingers were

I would definitely like it if CWs and non-CWs were two categories in future HA-based site events. It's two different styles of HA-making -- using CWs is based on art skill (or having money, lol) while non-CW is ingenuity.

And as Pistachio said above me, anything requiring games to play should have more options -- at least two games: one "arcade" (like Street Team) and something more sedate, like a card game or something. Some people have health concerns that keep them from playing fast-paced games, some people don't like them, some people are just plain bad at that style (I'm the latter).

That said, I think that a music festival was a really fun idea for an event (even if it was nothing like any festival I've been to, lol), and with a few tweaks (coughWishingShrubcough) I would be glad to have Peka-Boo become a regular event.

There was!! "Peka-choo"! I think it was on the VIP tissues item

In fact I don't care for CWs even a tiny bit, don't own a single of one them and really, I don't understand this complaint It made sense for Epicon for obvious reasons (you could draw a replica of a popular fandom main character's outfit and submit it and win instantly). The Morostide one (was it? I don't remember this one but I saw it mentioned) also made sense because Halloween Costume Contests end up being cosplay contests too, so same thing. But for this one? Not really All people had to do is look good and coordinate with the other members, nothing too specific

(and also I liked the event, the shrub felt like a chore but I loooved all the food, so pretty)

Ahh, I totally missed that! I feel a little happier now haha, thanks for pointing that out.

THIS! So much! I even sent a ticket asking why contestants were allowed to make people post the prove they've voted for their band before beeing allowed to entering the band lotteries/giveaways cause that just makes no sense at all to me... It's like you're buying votes, many people would pick the band with the best contest/giveaway instead of the one they prefer =( I felt really bad for the bands who couldn't offer CWs giveaways and pricey stuff, it kinda ruined the whole contest for me =_=