With everest over..

[pokemon_master]

What did do you think of it? I didn't like being captain; too much nagging.. LOL

Staying in your room the whole time was kinda lame too; for people like me that is really hard to do.

The prizes were ok; glad they gave out safari rooms to the best teams. I am glad that the ZETA girls team got a good prize!!

Next time, I will supervise the team production and create the team, but I won't be team leader. Too Much work!!!

 

[Spongeblair]

Well really i thought it would be in april when the ride officially opens

 

[Carrieberry]

Next time? No next time for me! NEVER EVER EVER AGAIN! Though I am thrilled for Zeta, Cheese Its and the other winning teams. there is no way I will be competeing in another vmk event.

 

[TLinden16]

I think I would participate again if the event had much shorter hours. I thought they expected way too much of the teams to have us keep these rooms open for a total of 28 hours over three days. I can't imagine how teams with just six people did it.

Being the team leader was tough. I had to keep track of who had completed their rooms, and try to figure out who would cover which times in the base camp. I wound up staying way too much time in base camp--over 20 hours. I penciled myself in whenever I had an open time slot, and wound up staying in base camp most of the time I was online just because I felt bad that some were stuck there while others were off having fun.

 

[VirtuallyMe]

My thoughts...

The registration in the future should be in a format that is much easier for kids to complete- with blocks to be filled in- they can have the same information but make it absent minded proof lol

Maybe a little more lead in that all this would have to be done and completed- I don't know how some of the younger teams managed to get together just in VMK and create a team and ride. And I know a few submission errors were due to not knowing a team member was on more than one team (still amazed some did that when if they wanted to be on two teams could have used a mule to do the work) or didn't have complete names.

Rules- lots of complaints about vagueness to the rules and I agree they were a bit vague and way open to interpretation. The Zeta's threw around many ideas before we came up with the one we wanted and some were quite different from our end result- and I know had we done some of our original plans our entire ride would not have even been judged in its entirety. And the question of being more true to the real everest ride came up in our conversations as well. And I remembered a game we played in Girl Scouts where you are given a task to complete- first with really strict rules that must be adhered to and then the rules get more and more broad- and those that still tried to follow the stricter interpretation of the rules lost and those that realized they could do "whatever" as long as it didn't break the few rules that were imposed did fine and excelled in completing the task- it was an interesting game- and we bargained that we would go for our idea that stretched the interpretation a bit (at first we were stretching a lot and wheeled ourselves back a bit too lol).

Time of competition- I have to agree here that the hours were way too long- heck even the staff didn't keep their unmanned rooms open as long as we had to. So maybe 4 hours on Friday and 6 hours each for Saturday and Sunday- would help out a bit and make it a little more doable- and then the sanity of those who had self imposed exiles to our base camps would not come into question and red soldiers and tikis wouldn't hit on people lol-

More Awareness of how the judging would occur- well our team almost didn't get judged due to an oversite on their part so we were just happy to be judged- but we also had no idea how they would judge and after seeing all the rides I didn't envy them at all- so many good rides- I had no idea how they'd pick just one- I did get to ride several of the winning rides and also rode several others that were good and I was surprised not to see in the winner's list somewhere. Before the competition we did a lot of discussion too on judging and what they would or wouldn't do- we had question about the acceptance of river track in the ride and a few others- and we went to the ask a host nights to find a few more things out- and got most of our questions answered. But still really had no idea how they would judge- but to be honest in a subjective contests of any kind- there is always lots of open areas for the individual judges to interpret- Here I think of kids science and social studies fairs where the kid can do a so so project but present it great and win next to a great looking project that just isn't presented as well- and we have all watched American Idol and see how sometimes a good performer doesn't make it through because a judge is having a bad day- it does happen in any subjective competition-

Would I do this again- while spending way too many hours in our base camp- before even being judged most of us said we would do it again- we really did have a great time and we made some great friends- of course I didn't have to be a team leader either so I just had to show up and do my part- I didn't have the added stress of registration and management- but yeah I would definitely do it again.

Prizes- lol I'm the one who was joking that the prize was the yeti NPC pin and declared our team winners long before because I had one in my inventory already. I really didn't go into the competition for the prize. Would inferno have been nice?- you bet- that little pin remains absent from my inventory, Would I have loved that new Animal Kingdom room? of course- that has got to be the coolest room ever- but I'm guessing eventually there will be a way to get it without winning a contest (like inferno). I am getting the chair and the top ten pin- and I'm really happy about that- but did point out the problem of the chair is that it is cool looking from both sides that displaying it to its fullest potential will not be easy lol. And for those that didn't get those chairs- I'm sure soon enough there will be a way to get those as well- heck I'm going to have to find a way to get one for my dd eventually lol

So- was this the best ever event- don't know if I can really answer that- I hadn't participated in the pin exchange room event- since I wasn't playing then- I do know it is better than some- but not as good as others where I don't have to spend so much time- and when we were told "we don't have you on our list" my heart about fell out of my chest- But I had a great time getting to know my team mates and learned a lot about how to put a ride together and my next task will be to redo my river ride to make it more fun...

 

[CoolDisGirl]

By no means take this post as the ramblings of a sore loser because Im not sore at all. We tried our best and our ride I guess was just not good enough but.....

The categories that were judged for were in no way indicated anywhere in the contest rules. The rules stated build an Everest ride and led entrants to believe they were to make a ride similar to Expedition Everest in the Animal Kingdom or at least along the same theme. Now Im not sure any of us have ever visited this gorgeous yet frozen everest, but I can pretty much be positive that there is not much COLOR anywhere in the frozen mount. So how color played into the judging is just another example of VMK's inability to state their intentions.

best use of theme, sure that is something that should have been judged on. Best use of Yeti track, that too fits into the theme of the contest. I think what disappoints me most of all though is the color judging. The ride i rode that won in that category did an excellent job with color and as I was riding it I was telling my teammates about their use of color. And I do not take anything away from them at all for their beautifully designed rooms, they are gorgeous. But I will never figure out how that fits in with an Everest ride contest.

I also have a problem with how the rides were judged. All the rides were judged by different VMK staff so were they given a category and turned their vote in on just that category because that would not seem very fair. If you are going to have different judges and different categories then all judges should ride all rides. What if the person who judged our ride was to judge for color and not theme or use of track? We had a kick butt ride, and some pretty elaborate rooms with creative and unique things. But no color. So automatically that rules us out since our judge was only judging on color.

And its a shame that the winners did not receive inferno. Sure the room is cool, wicked cool, but the cost of time and credits on this event was higher than any in VMK history. They could have given a bit more, dont you think? I also think the Everest 3/5 pin isnt much of a consolation prize. Not considering the time, effort and credits put into it. They could have come up with something original. Im sure it will keep alot of people from entering again knowing that the prize for so much work is not worth it. Would I do again, no, not unless my team really wanted to do it. I was in it for the team and no pin or prize can take away the fun we had doing it.

I think VMK had a chance to truly show the community their committment to upholding their values and playing fair but they dropped the ball again.

But I do want to close with this, I rode alot of the winning rides and they were incredible. And congratulations to those that won. You deserved it. Heck we all did just for being in those rooms for so long over the weekend. LOL

 

[SimbaCub63]

Overall, yes I'd do it again. In many ways, this was one of VMK's better events. Yes, it took a LOT more work on our part and it was done on a much larger scale then any of the other events.

When all is said and done, we had a lot of fun. Yes, we all spent a lot of time in Base Camp, but most of the teams also laughed their butts off in there so it wasn't all for naught. We got to meet some cool new friends. We all stretched our own creativity regarding room design and, as much as I thought I knew, I learned a lot more from you all after riding your rides.

My chief complaint was with the prizes. This was a MUCH larger and more involved design competition than their previous room design events, and the prizes did not reflect that. A few weeks after I first joined VMK, they hosted their "Pin Trading Event" weekend. At the last minute, I decided to enter a room in the contest. I spent a few thousand and bought some furniture, put it in my room in about 15 minutes and wound up as an hourly winner (Which was sort of like "honorable mention" for that event.) And I got Inferno for it.

I thought the prizes would be something like: Everybody who enters gets the Everest chair. Honorable mentions get the chair and the AK Lodge room. First place gets the chair, the room and a magic pin (Either Inferno or the much-hyped, rarely-seen Magic Carpet). Oh well.

That said, I'm already making notes of where we could have improved and I'm looking forward to reassembling the team for another shot at it next time.

The Dead Will Rise Again!

 

[bopper]

I have participated in events before, but this was so much more work! As a team captain you had to make sure people did a room, it was in the theme of your ride, got teleporters exchanged, got more teleporters to the base camp room exchanged, tell people they can't participate because they haven't made a room, tell people they can't participate because it is too late, try to get people to sit in the base camp room for an ENTIRE WEEKEND....all for what? a pin I have?

Then there are the rules...VMK was very picky about room names, team membership, applications on time...but they say that you are supposed to reproduce the Everest ride. We interepreted that as being a realistic reproduction of the Everest ride. And Cheese and Great Movie Ride wins? Then the rule should say: Here are the categories we will be judging on, and as long as you use some everest track somewhere it counts.

So, I don't know VMK, why should i make YOUR event go well next time? You request so much but give so little.