Would have been nice to know before the competition

[Kingsfoil]

Hi, My team and I, as well as everyone elses team didn't know what we were being judged on. We just thought something like: 1st place, 2nd place, 3rd place, honorable mention. We all just went and did our own thing, making sure we were not breaking the stated rules.

Compared notes with each other and everything just flowed together.
A team effort, someone had a problem we all went and fixed it.
Which since we all were not on, and in the game at the same time proved to be quite some difficult juggling.

We just entered to have some fun and we had a blast!
We were not even aware of the catagories, no one was. I was as shocked as every one else.

They might have done that so there would be more winners than four teams.
I also believe it was a very close competition since there were so many great rides and they needed some way to break all the ties.

Thanks, kings-


(The q might be silent . . .but you sure are not ruthie lol)

 

[celine12]

maybe but at least make some real categories like "most thrilling" and "most drops" something that is random that we had a chance at. not colors and themes? the theme is EVEREST! I dont know how or why great movie ride won that is NOT an original idea. that like vmk saying make space mountain ride like from disneyland but someone makes a splash mountain ride from wdw? come on? how?

 

[The Wolf]

First off let me say well done to those that won and what follows is in no way directed at you.

I have to say that VMK yet again prove that when it comes to organising an event they still have no idea.

They release a new magic pin on the day that everyone is going to try and make their rooms run smoothly . So well done there, any more brainwaves?

They create a competition with hidden catergories which as another poster said smacks way too much of let's make the categories fit the winners.

They make people spend many hours over the weekend fighting disconnects and crashes just to get judged.

After people have spent so much time and credits getting their rides right what are they rewarded with for all their hard work and spending? A pin that has already been available, not a new one, not a special edition everest competition entrant and not even maybe a yeti chair but a damn lame pin that most of us will throw into our inventory and probably never even look at again.

Well thanks VMK for what I consider an insult. To give us nothing at all would have been better for all the time we spent on this event, rather than palming us off what is obviously a piece meal offering just to keep the rabble happy.

I don't know about you but my pin is being sold and exchanged for something worthless such as a crate (if it is even worth that much) this crate will then be placed in one of my rooms on it's own as a warning to me. Should I ever be foolish enough to even think of entering another 'non-event' I can visit the room as a reminder of just how worthless VMK thinks its players are.

I know people are going to be reading this thinking the usual 'it's a free game' 'what do you want for nothing?' I would like to say to those people, it is not a free game (unless you are getting free internet connection). And no I don't want something for nothing, but when they make you jump through hoops like they did for this event a bit of recognition other than a lame pin would be nice to show us they actually appreciate us as players taking the time to attend this event.

We spent many hours and credits on this event and it was not like other events where you could build a room out of existing furniture etc you had, they made us go out and buy track specifically for the event.

I honestly think that it's about time the events where done away with, having been here since Beta I have seen every event and I have not seen one yet that has run smoothly and it is always the same problems with judging etc, with this event being a pre-register thing I thought that maybe at last they had got it right, stupid me.

I for one will not be participating in another event as I now see them as just a way for VMK and it's staff to take a weekend off and make the players relaise just how pointless the events are.

Disagree with me, attack me, do what you want but this is one player who has had their eyes opened to just how little VMK thinks of its players.

 

[celine12]

I couldnt agree with you more, Wolf! dont forget we had a few more hurdles, team registration and working on a big scale with other players. your team was only as strong as its weakest link . I dont like the hidden categories and I hate the pin. they definately applied the categories to match the winners and they also snubbed some of the best teams in vmk and probably because of people that complain all the time. it's a slap in the face for all of this work. The ride pieces dont come cheap and you could easy drop 15,000 in one room if done right. I like your crate idea and will do the same. Like a memorial room to remind me never do another event again! I agree with you 100% and am very discouraged by it. another vmk even down the tubes. this as just a week notice, one room it was a huge event that lasted a month. vmk worked us to death and i feel used abused and cheated. i never played so myn games in my life of pirates and fireworks fighting just to get in a game for 1 ice when i needed like 300. dont get me started with that damn bat pin because it crashed me all the time. i feel bad for the teams that had people using bat magic and crashed their rooms. and load times were very bad and vmk kept shutting down so it was a struggle to even stay open at base camp and wait 36 hours of your time for some random staff to enter your room and then disspear..never knowing if they finished your ride crashed or left.

why did they ask us for room titles? that doesnt make sense. and why could they tell us a time when we get judged like "your team will be judged between 1-4 pm on sun" so i knew and we could enjoy vmk. i feel bad for you all that were stuck. i just give up and am sick of the same old crap on vmk. i am soo over this

 

[Barbday62]

I was on the team that won the grand prize. Our team re-created Everest by having a story and you were looking for the Yeti. I was sad the prize wasnt inferno , lol but I giess the room we get will be cool.

Barb
Or Princessconfused

 

[*TrixieBella*]

Regardless of who won, what they received or what the participants received, I will say for all of us DIS who were not on a team that you all deserve the Grand Prize. I was amazed at how much time and effort each team devoted to this competition. Your rooms were amazing!!

 

[NotAZoo]

Let me first start by saying congrats to all of the winners out there! Most of the rides I went on were excellent and there were definitely more out there who were just as deserving. I guess when you have a contest not everyone can win, but knowing how much time and effort people put into it, it is a shame we can't live in a perfect world or even more a perfect virtual world.

So without it seeming like sour grapes on my part, I just want to say I fully concur with most of the sentiment posted above regarding the judging categories and not knowing what they were ahead of time. I think by not knowing the categories (Aside from best overall room), the contest becomes a crap shoot, where your chances of winning or more based on random luck in hopes you happen to fall into a category that will be judged. For instance one of the great rides of the weekend was the Great Movie Ride. Here is a team that thought of a concept and ran with it, with full commitment. However if the judges didn't care about color or use of ride pieces and decided to focus on something else, they possibly could not have won a thing. In that alone I think it is wrong as this was a good ride that deserved something.

I just think going forward VMK needs to learn from its past mistakes and provide a little more direction. To be clear I am not saying this because our team didn't win anything, but more so because there are some kids out there who didn't win anything. Here I am a guy around 30 who was not devistated but dissapointed none the less. All that went through my mind though was what it must be like for a little kid to not see their team name on the list. How horrible that may be. Granted winning and losing is a way of life, but at least give these kids a chance by providing a little guidance.

Oh well enough venting from me as I am sure the hot air of this thread alone is enough to supply a balloon festival.

Regardless of the gripes, the winners were winners who were deserving and my hats are off to them.

 

[Tampa]

i am surprised you are agreeing with bev when you are also a "usual suspect" winner

First, I only have 2 awards, not 3

Second, My last one recieved was in November.

Third, I've created mazes, rivers, and more virtual rides since then that all have gone to the top to where staff even rides or checks them out. So you're right, I am one of the ones who is pushed aside to make way for new players. I'm bothered by this, because I've done a better job than any of their events by means of populating their server, and keeping it populated. It's why they've even invented awards.

And that is what this thread boils down to, VMK officials have one priority and it's what they get paid for, to keep the server populated. With that said, guest (can't say customer now can we) satisfaction and appreciation is the least of their concerns, and the pin in our pockets is painful proof of that fact.

I'm with you Wolf, I plan on selling the worthless, "Hey thanks for spending 20+ hours on the server", joke of a pin.

 

[Belle1997]

Okay this is how I see it. They rode our rooms and stuck our names in a pile of where we best fit; since there were a lot of good rooms to choose from and we were all winner and drew out names.

Viola there you have the VMK lottery that only cost you 30 hours of base camp time countless hour of playing games to get ice and credits to build your room. and from what I am reading a lot of rooms were at least 1/2 million in credits to make this ride and I would guess Team The Yeti Experience spent or made a one million dollar ride.

But the friends we made Priceless. (sounds like a master card commerical)

No I will never do this again I am cured of my VMK addiction nor will I encourage any one else to do it.

It is really time for VMK to get a person in there that is not just good at building games but they need a "people person" who knows how to handle the PR part of VMK. This is a great game and it will be the lack of people skills that staff who run it have that will distroy this game. How can we promote something that is constantly hurting kids feelings hoping it will get better.

That is not what Disney is about.

 

[bopper]

I know people are going to be reading this thinking the usual 'it's a free game' 'what do you want for nothing?' I would like to say to those people, it is not a free game (unless you are getting free internet connection). And no I don't want something for nothing, but when they make you jump through hoops like they did for this event a bit of recognition other than a lame pin would be nice to show us they actually appreciate us as players taking the time to attend this event.

We spent many hours and credits on this event and it was not like other events where you could build a room out of existing furniture etc you had, they made us go out and buy track specifically for the event.

I agree with the Wolf. VMK can do whatever they want. But will so many people want to participate in their next Event? They want us to invest much time sitting around, gaining credits, building a room so they have a nice event. Many people will not see the payoff and won't bother participating next time.

 

[Kingsfoil]

By all means i am not complaining, but a few things upset me as well.
Not just me but all the teams had to go out and buy track.
Then they give out said-same tracks at the ride-a-thon which most of the teams had already bought and had to miss because they were busy working on their ride entry to.

I spent three solid days alone working on the infamous cave in/escape.
Turning, stacking, turning each rock dozens of times to get its best effect and hiding all the things beneath them.

Then guess what happens?
They go and change the size of the crates. Every thing ruined. Three days down the drain, wasted, it took me six days as i had to tear down and start over from scratch.

Yes the prizes are nice. They are rare right now but as with the PP room prize how long will it take for everyone to get them? Same with the chair.

As wolf stated, a crate. In a few months time no one will even remember any of the winning teams. Nothing special, because later on you can win the room and chair some other way.

Belle that is correct. I would also have to say. How many bat magics sacrificed just to build one room alone? I can easily win over 15,000 credits a day at pirates. That is over 1 1/2 or more per day. Over 10 bat magics a week times how many weeks? Sacrificed for the good of VMK?

Then another three days waiting to be judged when i could have been earning those credits.

Anyone have a calculater? Multiply all these lost credits by all the teams, multiply this by each member on a team. Most of us didnt do this for ourselves, we did it to progress the future of VMK.

And it wasnt even worth an inferno? I could have been standing in line trying to win an inferno, i had heard there were a few lucky winners. I could have been selfish and saved my credits bought bat magic and traded them for an inferno, I had heard going price was 15 or so bat magics. I would have had over three times that many bat magics. I might even had, had enough to score some green flips.

But no, i just didnt build my ride for myself.
Nor did I just build my ride for my team. I built it for all of VMK to enjoy.
Trying to show just what is possible to do in this great game. At any rate i still managed to get my 5-star bat magic as well as three 1-star bat magic spare, so no worrys there

 

[TLinden16]

When I created Team Boogies, I started it with the intention of just getting a group of people together to participate in the event and just have fun. I really wanted to create a team where there would be no pressure, and just gave everyone the opportunity to participate. With the exception of a couple of people who asked to be on our team shortly before registration for the event, I did not turn down anyone for our team because I really felt that people should be able to participate in the event if they wanted to, especially the kids.

While many people on our team just outfitted existing rooms with the Everest Track, others spent hours designing and creating rooms that had twists, turns, and drops using lots of ice and track. We used quite a bit of ice in many of our rooms, and did our best to tell our story as our riders made their way to the top of Boogie Mountain.

I think everyone on our team was quite proud of how our ride came together. I thought we did a really great job for a team that didn’t put much effort into planning the ride, or stressing about it. As I said, Team Boogies was created to be no pressure, and just have some fun. Of course we are all partial to our own rides, but I have to say that there weren’t many rides that I road on that I thought were better than our ride. I thought our ride had more of a thrill value to it than most other rides (there were many rides where I felt that they were just trying to show off what items they had--and yes, we had some rooms like that, but that wasn’t our entire ride like some of the rides--including some of the winners). We obviously didn’t have what the judges were looking for (not that any of us knew what that was in advance).

I do think one of our downfalls was that we were judged so early in the competition. We were judged on Friday night, and while I had been relieved to get the judging over with, I think it also gave the judges a chance to forget our ride after seeing the other rides.

I tried to be a good team leader. I can’t even take a guess as to how many hours I spent playing games so I could win ice for our team, and earn credits so I could help by what they needed for their rooms. I probably spent between 40,000-50,000 credits on items for my teams room, expecting and wanting nothing in return--I felt an obligation to my team to make sure they had what the needed to complete their share of the room. I spent another chunk of time encouraging and supporting my team, especially the kids. I wanted to make sure that they knew how much I appreciated the hard work they put into the event. Everyone spent a lot of credits on their rooms (credits they could have used to buy additional bat magic). Myself, and some of the other adults on my team have gifted the kids on the team so that at least they got something decent for their efforts.

I do agree with others who say that for the time, effort, and expense we put into this event, they could have made the prizes better for all levels. Most people seem to have at least one of the 3/5 Everest Pin. It would have been nice if they had done an exclusive Everest competition pin or something that wasn’t available to someone who had not participated in the event. Not something many of us had earned earlier in the month. I do not think any of the prizes were worth the time, expense, and commitment we had to make to the event. The prize didn’t really matter so much to me, but I feel bad for my team, especially the kids who put so much time and effort into making great rooms, and were so excited and proud about their contribution to the team. It would have been nice if they had gotten something more than what is a widely circulated pin they probably already have.

So, yes, this event did leave a lot to be desired, like most other events. For all the rules they had with this event, they could have given us more of an idea of what they were looking for if they were going to be that specific.

I’m not trying to be a sore loser or anything. I am happy for those who won--I know they put a lot of time and effort into their rides. I didn’t do this to win a prize because in the scheme of things, a silly virtual prize doesn’t really matter in my life. I just think that VMK could have done things different so that they didn’t cause so much disappointment, and take away from so much in people’s weekends.

 

[Califgirl]

Jellyrolls, you were a great team leader and I think you accomplished exactly what you set out to do. We had a team that was fun. There was no pressure and everyone did as much as they could for their rooms and for helping out. You were there the entire time and were really supportive to all of us. We couldn't have asked for a better captain!

Prizes, schmizes! I really enjoyed being part of your team. It was the best 'prize' I could have had. (Aengus's prize was a concussion, I think)

And I just happen to know that Jellyrolls was very aware of all the time and credits it took to put the rooms together and gifted the kids each a bat magic. WOOT! Way to go Jellyrolls! You truly are the best team leader. It is so refreshing to know she looked out for our team and hosted a good time in her base camp room! I am really glad to have made such good friends and to know all the quality people that were on our team.

Boogie On!

 

[bevgray]

One comment I have to make in my defense. I never said that I am glad the "better design" teams lost to make room for "less skilled" designers. Frankly, I think all the teams did a very good job. A lot of the teams were comprised of very young members, small team numbers, members without a lot of resources and yet, from what I saw in my ride about, there were some fantastic concepts and executions out there. I was with a team that had several past "room winners" so that is just silly to imply I meant that they should never win again. I know everyone is upset but don't put words in other guests' mouths to make your points.

In previous room competitions, there has been the constant cry that the "favored few" or the "popular friends of staff" always win. In fact, there was a long thread on this very board about the "suspicious number of winners from that OTHER forum". The last pin room event, there were complaints that staff was spending vast amounts of times in those rooms and only "popped in" to other rooms so they weren't "judged fairly". This event, they do seem to have at least tried to spend time in these other rooms. In fact, a number of teams were ridden by staff more than once. So, that in itself is an improvement over previous events.

Secondly, the complaint about the pin...well, it is too bad it is a pin that was released in other ways. But, this is the first time non-winning competitors have received anything. The prize may not be to your liking but I'm sure there are quite a few guests that did not get to participate at all that would have liked receiving the pin.

Could the event have been better? Definitely. Was it better than previous events...qualified maybe. Will I enter another room competition...at the moment no but...in two months, I may decide differently because, in spite of everything, I did have a very good time with my team in creating the ride and running it and, realistically, that is what the majority of participants could take out of this. If I want to waste my time and efforts in something that is, no matter how well run, subjective in it's decision making...on my head be it.

Again, for those top of the line room designers who somehow got the impression I was happy at their loss, that is not what I said and it was not my intention.

 

[Irishhockey]

I guess this has been the first vmk event to really "erck" me. I've been a good sport in the past... you have all seen my threads and posts on that subject. But this time, vmk crossed the line with me...

I can honestly say that I am laughing about this, yet again I find myself feeling dupped by the "big white glove."

Could our "hard core everest event" be nothing more then a generic Server Capacity Test? Prizes even reflect that possibility...

I can make a creative game/guest room, open it for a few nights, and potentially win. Prize? A Haunted Mansion/Tent room, a pin, and 2000 credits...

OR

I can make a 26 room ride with my best friends and blow through 50k on my two rooms alone, not counting rooms I helped with. Prize? A room code, a chair, and a pin...

WHAT?

Oh but wait a minute... we didn't win grand prize... but ITS OK though! I got this awesome, wicked cool, super duper fantabulous 3 of 5 pin!! Thanks vmk! Thanks for the pin that I already have after blowing 2 afternoons trying to get weeks ago! Really thanks!!

But beyong the prizes, or the posibility of it all being for a server test... VMK made some major errors. There is a difference between a RIDE event... and an EVEREST RIDE event...
Dont give me "color" and "theme" as a winner categories...
- EE was not designed, nor created, nor decorated by The Wiggles and therefore shows very little color...
- EE is themed to be a mountain with a yeti... how much more creative can you get with that...

NOW... I personally loved all the rides that have won... but you may notice.. most didnt even follow the actual EE "theme"... none the less awesome and extremely creative RIDES...

Final Thoughts?

I could give them but they dont follow the vmk values, cough cough, boo ya!

 

[TwirlerGirl]

Well here is my two cents:

The VMK staff are ordinary people who have not been trained in how to run a contest. They are novice at it and will learn as they go. I enjoyed this event, designing a ride, getting to know my team mates, sharing ideas and items for the rooms and helping one another was worth the many hours and millions of credits spent by the teams for their designs. If you went into this competition with the idea of winning big and not enjoying the process then this is something you need to deal with.

Did you think about asking what the judges would be looking for? Did you put any time into trying to find out? Anyone involved in dance, ice skating, cheer, gymnastic, music or twirl type competition knows you design to the score sheet to earn the most points. You target the easy points, make sure you cover the requirements and look for a area to score big. So with this in mind, I started asking VMK staff questions.

I was finally directed to Hula for the answers. Hula answered my questions for the most part, how important were the rooms descriptions, would they take time to read them, what about photos, can we mix track and river pieces? I asked her directly, what would the judges be looking for? She said there was a list but gave no additional information. I wanted to know if they would be using a score sheet and what was on it. Apparently they had decided early not to give out that information. Why? IDK. Did it affect how much I enjoyed the event, not really. Being one of the last rooms to be judged had a greater affect on me. Can you say - over tried. Would I do this type of event again? In a heart beat, I had a great time thanks to my team mates. I won new friends, the joy of sharing and am amazed at how creative we all are.

I'm ready for the next event.

 

[NotAZoo]

In keeping with the thread title.....Would have been nice to know before the competition.....I think it would have been nice to know what the prizes were. I think one place VMK went right is giving out pretty lame prizes compared to the magnitude of time, credits, and effort spent. So you may ask how did they go right with that.....for one I don't feel so bad about losing which I guess is a good thing when thinking about it. On the contrary if the prizes were IPOD Nanos, Inferno or Magic Carpet Pins, then I would be pretty bummed about the loss. However, all I am bummed about is the time I spent for an event that didn't result in something worth the effort put in. In all seriousness I don't think even half of us on this thread have a legitimate reason to complain.....if you ask me I actually think those who won should have had the biggest gripe with VMK at the moment. If I read the list yesterday and saw my team there, and then saw the prizes which were paid out.....I would be furious. "All that for this!" is what my immediate reaction would be as I am sure was the same for most. So in summary if I knew what was at stake before this whole thing started....I would have never have bothered and had my weekend back.

 

[RicksCafe]

You will participate in another VMK event regardless of how many "memorial crate" rooms you set up to remind yourself not to.

Want to bet? I'll bet you an Everest 3/5 pin.

 

[NotAZoo]

I'm not sure why I'm posting here because even I don't care what I think.

Yes and we don't either......ok I am kidding, but figured I would stir things up before the non-needed bashing occurs. I obviously don't mean that as I am trying to use a little scarcasm to lighten the mood.

I agree with Rick for the most part in how it all comes across, but do disagree to some extent and that is on behalf of the kids who play VMK. To us adults it is easy to be bitter and gripe and criticize VMK, yet as Jellyrolls put it best earlier, to a kid it has an entirely different point of view. I just think it is pretty lame that kids who take this a little more personally didn't have something to go on based on what and how things would be judged.

It is easy for us adults to pick apart and make jokes at the VMK staff behalf, but for those little one's who are just sad because they have no bat magic because of all their credits spent on the ride is a little tough to take.

 

[Adventuredaz]

You just keep begging for me to post here. Everyone has valid points, we should have known better than to have high expectations...but I got to tell you we felt we followed the theme they layed out and had a heck of a ride. I did not ride many rides but several team members did and felt we had a good shot, I had a friend on the winning team and did ride it and felt they had many good designs in the rooms and don't wish to take anything away from them or anyone else, but felt we kept with the theme and should have been in the top. The only feed back that was negative that was recieved on any of the good rides were that they were a little too long...this again was set up by the ride criteria established by vmk.

I have two big comments to add or alaborate on so we are not just mowing the same stuff over, as several of my team have already posted here. First this is a kids game target is 8-15 i think right? They make this stuff far to complicated for them to understand the lack of instructions and the mid contest changes, the hours of sitting with no judging and the undifined prizes. They have given better prizes in the past have they not? The other thing to add that relates to our team and responds specificly to comments. We in fact did join this competition to do something different and have a good time, we had guessed wrong on the way it would be conducted. We had i think two team members who had participated in past projects and warned that they may not even ride. So did they do better I guess a little.

The thing is our team most of us all ready have plenty of fun together playing together and hanging out at the Mansion on the steps. We did have fun, so much our prize is probably that we did not all get banned. The thing is if we had a better Idea of how it was going to take place and be judged and the prizes, we would have probably had less participants and would have made a different ride and spent less time in base camp. Instead we gave up our normal fun and proceeds from it and yes as you add it up I am sure our ride is valued at a million credits but we did not track it that close. I can tell you some team members are now flat broke and could only get 1 bat magic. So yeah, our bad for not knowing better but still VMK should do better.

By the way our team has voted to turn lose our yeti on vmk so look out.