Graal Pixel Tournament Spring '07
 

As the entry date has now passed, and we sadly had to decline a few people from entering it's time to begin! The initial match ups have been decided at random, and all of the fine details are finalised, therefore I'm pleased to announce that the Graalian Pixel Tournament Spring '07 is finally starting. I'd just like to run through a few extra details to avoid confusion before we get started.


Competitors:

The match ups will be posted on the 25th of February, the day before the first stage submission deadline, you may or may not be paired up with someone who is tipped to win, but don't fret as you never know.

In order to keep things fair and allow everyone to have enough time to complete and submit their stage entries, I thought 5 days would be the perfect length to design the entry and flex your skills. When each new theme is released you will receive a PM (you can opt out from receiving this, but it is probably better if you don't) for notification, once the theme has been released you should start your work as soon as you like, as long as it is in before the deadline. You should submit your entries by PMing me, preferably sooner rather than later. Once the entries are in by the deadline, a poll will be made between yourself and your randomly selected opponent, which will run for another 5 days for the public to decide which is better, and for our panel of judges (;)) to get their votes in.

As stated in the Introduction Thread, each round will be assigned a "theme" to what the image should surround to provide a direction. In each stage of the competition, the themes will be released in this thread, between 5pm and 6pm EST on each of the dates listed below. Bear in mind that the theme is there just to provide a direction, use your own imaginations on how you would like to represent this theme as you like. Below will show the latest theme, the time and the deadlines, read over the Event Guidelines if you have not done so lately.

• 26th February to 3rd March¹ - Spring
  As the competition is after all, "Graalian Pixel Tournament Spring '07" I didn't see a more fitting first theme than "The Season of Spring". There are a lot of words associated with Spring, for example, rain, new life (both plant and animal), etc, so there shouldn't be any problems with inspiration.
  
  
• 10th March to 15th March - ???
  
  
• 22nd March to 28th March - ???
  
  
• 3rd April to 8th April - ???
  

Public:

Like I said in the introductory thread, even though you have not entered to win, your participation is still needed. Remember that the public vote counts for 60% of the final decision of each match - that's quite a big influence! The more votes they get, the more fair it will be.

The polls for voting will be posted in a special forum specifically for the competition here. To avoid any unnecessary posts in the threads posting in the forum has been disabled, you will only be allowed to vote on the polls. Any discussion of the entries should be posted here.

Oh and again, good luck :p


¹ Due to a 2 day delay beyond control, I have moved the dates forward by 3 days to make up for any loss of time.

I can't wait to see the entries.

Are animations allowed? I am curious because it counts as pixeling just a bit of animation in there. :o

I think it woud be best if no animations were created, to make it more fair.

Um... I thought people were going to be matched up?

Also "spring" is a very general theme... A little too general if you ask me.

Also... I'm moving around March 9th and I may or may not have internet until April... So I guess I'm kinda screwed out of this tournament.

Overall I'm disappointed that this is starting two days late and I'm disappointed that this isn't planned out better with better instructions... I mean are we supposed to draw something now? There is no size limit to these submissions? Can you animate them? You left out so many details that I can't seriously participate in this competition anyway.

edit: nevermind... you answered the animation question... even though it's still confusing.

Everyone was matched, but to solve the problems of everyone complaining we did'nt release them.

We did have a struggle choosing a theme, and Rufus thought it should relate to current events, so we made it Spring. Its a pretty open thing to follow.

Im sorry for the 2 day delay, but it is player ran and we have'nt really done this before.

And there are no sizes restrictions, we couldnt decide what was best, so we left it out.

Word

What fun is it if we don't get to see who we are matched up against until after the contest round is over? If anything it's leaving room for people to be suspicious of the matchups... I mean seriously, just post them up.

Like if you have 5 great pieces submitted and 5 not so great, none of the public is going to know if you change the matchups so that the 5 bad pieces are against the 5 great pieces... instead of maybe a great piece against a great piece or a bad piece against a bad one... It's really not fair in my opinion. I can't see how posting the matchups now is going to cause complaining... really.. "you matched me up against a great gfxer!" um I thought that was the point...

agreed. I think you should release who you are matched up against...It will tell you how much time you need to spend making something...Like If i were matched up against konidias I would know I would be screwed... so i better make something outstanding. Plus i think people should know so it causes more of a tournament how its supposed to be?

You're right, it is a general theme, but if you look at competitions of the past and competitions outside of the forums, topics such as seasons are very common. In my opinion, having a theme of this nature is much better then picking any old thing that comes into your head, just for the sake of comparing.

I'm sorry to hear that, really. However, I'm not sure how long you estimated the tournament would go on for, but judging by this it was pretty unrealistic.

You of all people should know that these things happen x_x

I would presume you should draw something soon judging by the starting and deadline for the first stage and no, there wasn't a size limit because while I was helping Tom we couldn't decide on one, and I would like to see an example of why this is a crucial requirement that is required so much that you can't seriously participate in the competition because of it, as it would appear that is the only detail that was missing from the Event Guidelines. Something was missing, oh shock horror, "Can you animate?" and guess what, instead of taking a hissy fit about it someone asked and got the answer straight away.

Sure we can pretend that this is a major professional competition and every single detail should be listed before release, but Graal as a whole isn't like that. You're actually acting like a child who's thrown his toys out of his push chair and it's pretty disappointing.

The match ups were selected at random, I numbered each persons name, then used a random integer generator to give an automated list. Initially the entries were going to be judged and paired up via the preliminary submissions, but it takes the whole point away. We want to see the best battling it out at the end, not at the very beginning and my generator actually worked out a great line up.

The whole concept of not-releasing the match ups now was for a number of reasons, some I figured would be pretty blatant such as popularity voting. I have also spoken to may of the contestants and know that some people didn't even bother entering for fear of being paired up with people and being the laughing stock of the competition.

I think it would be naive to say that because people may be rivalling those tipped to win, the quality of their work would improve because to be honest, if you're not entering the competition with the intentions of doing your best, I don't see the point. The competition is providing a bit of light relief with an added bonus on the end, ran by players, for players so I honestly do not see the need for this trivial nitpicking. The competition hasn't started fully yet and because it's two days late this thread probably didn't include everything it should have, but it's easily edited in.

If you don't want to take part Konidias, don't. There are a lot of people who wanted to join in, but couldn't because of the amount of people and the pairing up. I'd love to see what you would produce as I'm a fan of what you do, but it's not like you're being forced.

I know I'm not being forced and my posts were honestly not of me whining or throwing a hissy fit or anything of that nature. Maybe they came off to you as sounding that way, but it wasn't my intention at all. I was simply stating my disappointment as I was expecting something a little different from this. I'm sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear, but that's my opinion.

I'll still participate as much as I can, but I was just trying to point out some of the problems with the competition. I understand that this is ran by the players for the players, but I hardly see how you can throw that card up every time someone has a complaint about it. I appreciate that this contest is being held as I'm sure many others are, but that doesn't give you the right to call me a child for merely stating some of the things I think are flaws with this contest.

If you weren't going to publically release the matchups, why didn't you just have a free for all contest where you post the works of all the entries and have people vote for their favorites in a multiple choice poll. Then you just cut the half of the entries who get the lowest votes/score until you narrow it down to one in the final round. As I see no point for matching people up if you're not going to announce the matchups at the start.

That's all I'm saying... No need to get all defensive about it and tell me I'm being childish.

edit: as far as why the size of the art matters. I think it matters a lot. If one person doese a piece that is like a single pretty pixelated flower and another guy does a piece the size of a desktop wallpaper, of an entire scene of pixel art then it's not really an even contest. You're going to get a whole array of different submissions and it's going to be very difficult to judge them side by side this way. If you made the contest more specific like "draw a picture of a guy rowing a boat in a storm" then it would be a hell of a lot easier to judge everyone's work.

you're going to lose regardless koni its okay

not if stan has anything to say about it...:cool:

Requote: You're going to lose regardless koni if you're matched up against me

ur al going down!!

;)

i was bant during the set up times, so i didnt get a chance to enter, lol. D:

You're all sorely mistaken if you think you can beat me. I MAY BE A ROOKIE, BUT I WILL BE THE FIRST ROOKIE IN THE HISTORY OF GRAAL TO WIN THIS RENOWNED COMPETITION.

good luck door haha. :)

JUST LIKE ASH IN POKEMON!!!!1111111111111111

Hahaha you're pretty close to where she got that from.

Sasuke from Naruto haha.

lmao ROOKIE OF THE YEAR = ME

this saturday...?
oh shoot...

When do we find out who's judging this thing?

good luck to everyone

I missed the stupid registration date and nobody has even submitted anything yet. :[

I could've had a late entry like two days ago.

Tom man, you know Im Judge material. Im like the simen Caul or w/e of graal.

/me 4 judge, i'll paypal $0.01 to winner if memememe

Already got judges, Goboom was just being funny >_<

Should we post our entry in this thread or pm it to you Tom?

A QUOTE FOR A QUOTE

Woops, thanx ;D

I've gotta drop out of this contest. I just don't have the time I'd need to devote to this. Sorry guys. :( Good luck to whoever participates.

he was just scared cause he was matched up against me. You guys can thank me later for defeating the hardest of the competition :D

That was my excuse copy cat ;)

well he really doesnt...2k1 is going to be awfully lonesome for a little while :( he is moving like 2x or something and then going to school :(. Good Luck Koni, keep in touch

Well, there's mine sent in on the 5th for the deadline of the 6th. Congrats to anyone who is paired with me xD I only spent one day on it. x_x

Err... Today was the deadline? I thought everything needed to be in on Saturday. Maybe I could have gotten an entry in after all...

you probably still could cause this is going to go on until like april.

I'm afraid the tournament must be postponed indefinately on account of the recent work load Tom has been under.