NEWS Let Voting Commence!

[Petra Fyde]

WP-Polls 2.63 downloaded 1,175,938 times
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I did what I was asked to do, create a poll allowing the players to vote. I spent a little time tweaking the look of the basic poll to make it more festive. I spent a lot of time answering emails, collating and uploading all the pictures and even on a couple logging into the shard to find the co-ordinates. If you could have done better, please tell me how.

 

[Gheed]

I spent a little time tweaking the look of the basic poll to make it more festive. I spent a lot of time answering emails, collating and uploading all the pictures and even on a couple logging into the shard to find the co-ordinates.

Thank you Petra!

I had fun putting my entry together and working with another person on my shard putting hers together. Regarding the results, before the poll results got shifted from top down, I think I was tied for 48th place. Ater looking at the other entries, tied for 48th was a heck of alot better than I thought I would do.

I hope that other events like this happen from time to time. I was motivated to enter the contest for the prize, which seems to make sense. But the other BIG motivator was the snow tiles. They are awesome! Devs please consider adding other custom house bits like the in the future. You got my vote water tiles or other new holiday themed floor tiles. *crosses fingers they stack*

I have always wanted to turn my house to a snow theme @xmas time. The snow tiles saved me many hours of redesign. They are very much apreciated!

 

[Tangled Metal]

Yes, Petra, you did an amazing job! Thank you for everything you did here and all that you do. What could have been done better was not something that you could have done. Cheaters gonna cheat. They always seem to find away around the legitimate rules to gain an unfair advantage. That isn't something that can be avoided.

I think we all owe Petra a huge round of applause for her work on the contest and Stratics in general.

 

[Herman]

I hope all negative feedback from this contest do not stop stratics/uo team from hosting another one soon I did not have time to complete my house and would love to get another chance at one.
The problem with this contest the way I see it is the items handed out by now the devs should know how far people are willing to go to get special items.

If you host another contest maybe change a few things the poll was a good idea but

A : NO prices handed out
B: Prices but have a lottery that determine who get them

 

[NuSair]

I did what I was asked to do, create a poll allowing the players to vote. I spent a little time tweaking the look of the basic poll to make it more festive. I spent a lot of time answering emails, collating and uploading all the pictures and even on a couple logging into the shard to find the co-ordinates. If you could have done better, please tell me how.

First off- I don't wish to discount the amount of work you did put into it. But, at the same time- there has to be given some thought as to how can this be exploited. The current voting results need to be thrown out.

Secondly- Why should I say how? Oh, I am going to give a few ideas/pointers. But, really, why should I? Many times I have posted ideas for UO that have made it into the game. I've done that in lots of games, granted mostly CCGs like MtG and L5R (where I have dozens of cards that have been printed)- So I think to myself, why do I want to keep doing something like that for free, when there are people who get paid for that? Why do I keep doing that when I don't get the least bit, even just a little of recognition? Then I find something I am truly passionate about, spend a couple of weeks working up a document on materials balancing out plate, chain, leather, cloth armor and all the materials associated with them (yes, making cloth armor for human/elves and giving stats/abilities to special cloth which can be spun from the webbing of large magical spiders.... ) to offer it up multiple times and not even get a response of no thank you.... after all the ideas I've posted that have been taken into the game. Yeah, that's being a little selfish and grandstanding, but damn.

Third- the poll- I am not sure what you personally could have done. I don't know your level of access- and admittedly I don't know this board software well enough to know what plugins they have available. If it was vBulletin, I would have set up a poll that required the person to be logged in and to have had an account for at least X days and made X post. It would have to of been a stratics account and not logging in with a facebook or other kind of account. Yeah, you might keep out some legit votes, but you would have kept out most, if not all the scripters/hackers.

It would need to have been something that controlled access to voting that could be reasonably verified.

Again, I am not sure if it was something you personally could have done, but it is something that should have been done and resolved before something giving away something that is going to be as valuable as this prize is. It's an unfortunate truth, but in something like this you have to heavily consider what slime is going to do.

 

[Varrius]

Petra, Thank you for all of your hard work. Sorry that some people are complaining, that'll always happen regardless of how things turn out. Don't let that get you down. The majority here appreciates everything you've done, not only with this contest but for everything else you've done for this community in the past.

 

[NuSair]

Just because someone complains does not mean they do not appreciate someone's hard work or effort. How about taking a step back and looking at what has happened instead of brushing it off like it was nothing more than random discontentment.

 

[Varrius]

Just because someone complains does not mean they do not appreciate someone's hard work or effort. How about taking a step back and looking at what has happened instead of brushing it off like it was nothing more than random discontentment.

How about you calm down there, big guy.

 

[Kimora Alixana]

Just because someone complains does not mean they do not appreciate someone's hard work or effort. How about taking a step back and looking at what has happened instead of brushing it off like it was nothing more than random discontentment.

Way to be rude NuSair.

 

[NuSair]

Yeah.... I'm the rude one....

Sorry that some people are complaining, that'll always happen regardless of how things turn out. Don't let that get you down. The majority here appreciates everything you've done, not only with this contest but for everything else you've done for this community in the past.

-- yeah, I am just complaining, not like there is a valid reason- and I don't appreciate anything----

yep... I'm the rude one.

 

[MalagAste]

Petra, Thank you for all of your hard work. Sorry that some people are complaining, that'll always happen regardless of how things turn out. Don't let that get you down. The majority here appreciates everything you've done, not only with this contest but for everything else you've done for this community in the past.

It's not that folk don't appreciate what Stratics or Petra does.... It's that many of us are rather disappointed to learn that the voting is more based on how many facebook friends someone has rather than the skill or greatness of their design and deco ability or the thought of having that house as a nice Mini. Honestly I'd rather it was based on talent and true appeal. But maybe that's just me.

And maybe I'm alone in my belief that Facebook is the devils tool.... but maybe stuff like this just proves that it is something that has RUINED so many things and has totally poisoned society. Honestly I'd have preferred to have the DEV's chose a winner.

 

[lineman]

I think the top ten are pretty decent, there are only a couple that are not in the top ten that I think should be. You can decorate a castle to death but its still gonna be a castle deed if it won. I think the people who designed houses did great.

 

[Lord Gareth]

Secondly- Why should I say how? Oh, I am going to give a few ideas/pointers. But, really, why should I? Many times I have posted ideas for UO that have made it into the game. I've done that in lots of games, granted mostly CCGs like MtG and L5R (where I have dozens of cards that have been printed)- So I think to myself, why do I want to keep doing something like that for free, when there are people who get paid for that? Why do I keep doing that when I don't get the least bit, even just a little of recognition?

Honestly when I started reading this paragraph I thought to myself, "what an mule" but as I took the time to re-read and sit on your side I see you weren't trying to be a mule. Just that old saying, "its not what you say but how you say it" Now I've seen your posts offering up ideas and I feel I've had the feelings you're having about giving all my ideas away for nothing, But I learned that recognition doesn't matter.

It's when you see a someone really enjoy something you proposed, or you hear players talking about how excited and addicted they are to the new addition that was made to the game. Something you sent in and proposed and the team to create and make function as part of the game after they were done with the meetings, programing it, debugging, debugging some more, and more, over, and over, and over (you get the picture) until they pulled out all their hair etc. etc.

Your name may not show up on the credits for proposing the idea but you helped bring excitement and enjoyment to a ton of players and/or information to help them play the enjoy the game. It's not something many people get the chance to do for the players, so recognize that you were involved in that and own that part of it for yourself

 

[Merus]

The solution is so easy... American Idol voting system... 2.99 per vote!

 

[Varrius]

And we have our winners.

 

[Goodmann]

Just because someone complains does not mean they do not appreciate someone's hard work or effort. How about taking a step back and looking at what has happened instead of brushing it off like it was nothing more than random discontentment.

Just a basic fact is that some people are bad at there job. They will do the assigned work and that's it.
I use to be an air traffic controller but I flew a plane into a mountain BUT I was doing my job........................

 

[lineman]

Just a basic fact is that some people are bad at there job. They will do the assigned work and that's it.
I use to be an air traffic controller but I flew a plane into a mountain BUT I was doing my job........................

 

[Viper09]

Just a basic fact is that some people are bad at there job. They will do the assigned work and that's it.
I use to be an air traffic controller but I flew a plane into a mountain BUT I was doing my job........................

How about at least acknowledge that Petra volunteered her own time to try and make it a fun event. Yes it wasn't perfect, but as far as we know there may still be a remedy to the situation coming. At least NuSair offered some tips onto how to improve the system next time...

 

[KLOMP]

If you could have done better, please tell me how.

Require forum registration in order to vote. Your board software is modded to reject registrations from proxy servers based on port number. Presumably it would still be possible for people to register multiple accounts via a legitimate IP and use each one to vote, but you should already have anti-spam mechanisms in place to detect mass registrations from duplicate IP addresses.

Do not show a vote count. Do not announce the winner until a week after voting has ceased. Use the interim week to audit the voting and remove suspect votes without causing a public scandal.

This solution isn't flawless since someone sufficiently familiar with the system could still vote more than once using proxies with nonstandard ports, but it's a lot more work, it's slower going, and there are just plain a lot fewer proxies with nonstandard ports to cast votes from in the first place. There are also other methods, but they all require a lot more technical knowledge on the part of the cheater.

In any case it's certainly a lot better than just tossing a poll up there naked on the web and letting any random IP address come by and cast a vote, so that the first doofus to boot up the Tor browser can just vote himself the winner while he cycles through every proxy in the network.

You're welcome.

 

[Lord Gareth]

Sorely tempted to just post a list of proxy resources and let anyone and everyone try to play catchup for the last couple days of voting. lol

Anyone working in the IT field knows there is no such thing as Safe and Secure, everything has a weakness you just try your best to take preemptive measures and if thats fails minimize the damage that can be done. People can play Mr Rogers Makebelieve if they want and think they are undetectable but most of the time you dont have to do much work to catch Thiefs and Cheaters because for example...they dont increase their checking account balance from $30.00 to $33.00 adding $3 to their accounts a few times a day. They make the $30.00 balance into a $3,000.00 balance within 20-30mins
But More Often Then Not They Instantly Change It To $30,000.00 balance
Like no ones going to notice that! *Picard Face Palm*

/And Scene

 

[KLOMP]

There's no such thing as flawless security, but that's no excuse to run with no security at all.

 

[Lord Gareth]

There's no such thing as flawless security, but that's no excuse to run with no security at all.

I live in the United States of America I will find a way to make it an excuse, even if I have to drive to Chicago and buy myself a Judge to do it! *grins*

 

[Lady Michelle]

WP-Polls 2.63 downloaded 1,175,938 times
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-polls/
http://tomuse.com/wordpress-poll-plugin/
Sites using the same poll plug in:
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I did what I was asked to do, create a poll allowing the players to vote. I spent a little time tweaking the look of the basic poll to make it more festive. I spent a lot of time answering emails, collating and uploading all the pictures and even on a couple logging into the shard to find the co-ordinates. If you could have done better, please tell me how.

My mom broke her foot so I didnt have time to re decorate one of my other places. All I had was my castle which is mainly decorated like that to begin with a hour a day Id log on fixed stuff,and place xmas deco. Then Id watch one niece 7am 3 years old let her on pc, other niece over after school she get on pc for a few hours. watch movies with both. then Id have my mom, and my worked to do after they left.I was way to tired to get back on.
The point is you can only do so much, try to do the best you can, and just listen to suggestions.
good laugh for ya
I tried to be off the game before my 3 year old niece gets her in the mornings yesterday she got her early.
niece: what you playing.
me: my game
I showed her my character told her shes a tamer, showed her most of her pets had them chomp on cows etc. I looked at her, and asked her what do you want the skree to chomp on next. She points at my character says her. i say thats my character? her face lights up, big ass grin to go with it, and she says I know. Yes it is true they are evil at the age of 3. lol

 

[MadMartyr]

The amount of votes cast in the last 24 hours is simply amazing. My design didn't make the top 10, and I'm quite disappointed since it was in 3rd at one point. All-in-all, though, a lot of amazing designs. Thank you Petra and Stratics for hosting this contest, and congratulations to all of the winners.

 

[startle]

..... Thank you Petra and Stratics for hosting this contest, and congratulations to all of the winners.

^^^^^ pretty much sums it up for me ^^^^^

 

[outcry]

Congrats to all the winners, Personally though I think Mesanna should pick the design that would look best for the mini house deed

 

[KLOMP]

So are they really going to hand out prizes in the First Annual Proxy Voting Contest? I mean I didn't even enter so whatever, but seriously, if they do another contest this way I will be entering, and I will proxy my way to victory.

EDIT: Actually, come to think of it, I'll just post all the resources anyone would need to proxy their way to victory on day one, then sit back and watch the show.

 

[NuSair]

I agree.... Actually, as tempting as it is to make a show of it- it's just something I could never lower myself to do.

If the prizes are awarded based off this voting... disgusting is the word that comes to mind..

 

[Lord Gareth]

So are they really going to hand out prizes in the First Annual Proxy Voting Contest? I mean I didn't even enter so whatever, but seriously, if they do another contest this way I will be entering, and I will proxy my way to victory.

EDIT: Actually, come to think of it, I'll just post all the resources anyone would need to proxy their way to victory on day one, then sit back and watch the show.

I'm not sure how much time and resources it would take to implement a voting system in game, But I was thinking maybe have a Contest Gump that shows up on accounts in game that have been active for 45 days or longer that lists the entries for the contest and has a website link to the page with the pictures on it (Or) you could have it per Master Account.

*******
Having a contest where the Players Vote or Preselected Panel Vote decides who wins will be called Unfair and Bias no matter what.

Here are my suggestions that I've used in the past
-Try to figure out which of the two methods above works best and gets less negative feedback
-Tell the players their attitudes and behavior is not worth your time, effort and resources to create and host a contest for them
-Reject player entries for a contest if they have been negative and destructive during a previous contest
-Ask players not to enter a contest if they can't handle loosing because they think no one else has their level of talent and/or know they are a sore loser
-Print out all the entry pictures, give them to your 8 year old niece who has never heard of Ultima Online and ask her to select the prettiest one
-Put all the Rares Festive Raffle numbers in a hat, shake the hat and draw the winning numbers

*******

I didn't enter because I didn't want to put all my effort into creating something just to end up resenting my work and UO because of the way people treated me for being one of the Memorable Moment winners on Chesapeake if my design was good enough to place in top 10 or win the grand prize. After the Memorable Moments I stopped writing News Reports and storylines because I hate it now and I don't want to hate designing houses in UO.

 

[Angel Dust]

I wont say which house is mine (Some of you will know anyway due to knowing my in game actions), but I worked hard to build my place and make it festive. I also busted my rear to get votes. ICQ, stratics, FB, Text, etc. had friends look at entries and decide if I was good enough to vote for, some did and some voted elsewhere. I did not recieve everyones vote I directed to the site. So whit that said, I think most of the top 10 are deserving. Yes, the few that where gaining votes like crazy daily from the start are kinda fishy, but the one that did end up in first is rather good, second place is ok, third place is just rediculous ( that is a suspect entry getting that many votes, I dont care what anyone says), fourth thru tenth are rather good and deserved the win. Yes a ton of other houses should be winners also, but unlike what the Liberal Society wants you to believe, not everyone is a winner in life and there are always losers in every competition. Cheers to all the entries and congrats to the winners.

 

[Voluptuous]

I didn't enter because I didn't want to put all my effort into creating something just to end up resenting my work and UO because of the way people treated me for being one of the Memorable Moment winners on Chesapeake. After that I stopped writing News Reports and storylines because I hate it now and I don't want to hate designing houses in UO.[/quote]

Too late for me. After years of learning how to ignore the third party programs, place scripting script looting and duping....just to be able to play and not feel sick playing such a corrupt game- to see the deco contest too is corrupt...ugh there went my last beloved thing about UO. It's not worth it. Bye and thanks for all the fish.

 

[Andrasta]

I didn't enter because I didn't want to put all my effort into creating something just to end up resenting my work and UO because of the way people treated me for being one of the Memorable Moment winners on Chesapeake. After that I stopped writing News Reports and storylines because I hate it now and I don't want to hate designing houses in UO.

Too late for me. After years of learning how to ignore the third party programs, place scripting script looting and duping....just to be able to play and not feel sick playing such a corrupt game- to see the deco contest too is corrupt...ugh there went my last beloved thing about UO. It's not worth it. Bye and thanks for all the fish.

I'm almost sure Petra and Mesanna will come up with a way to salvage this contest. I still have some optimism and hope.

You two however need to remember why we are all still here despite the bugs, cheating, poor customer service and the numerous fiascos over the years and that would be the friends we have made here who make it worthwhile to stick around.

To those people in my virtual life I say to you that I treasure our time together and look forward to hopefully many more fun times.

 

[Lord Gareth]

You two however need to remember why we are all still here despite the bugs, cheating, poor customer service and the numerous fiascos over the years and that would be the friends we have made here who make it worthwhile to stick around.

I love UO and there are 4 reasons I stick around
1. House designing and decorating
2. Township and its community
3. The Stratics team
4. Mesanna

#4 Use to be Mesanna, Draconi and Wilki

 

[Lord Gareth]

I love UO and there are 4 reasons I stick around
1. House designing and decorating
2. Township and its community
3. The Stratics team
4. Mesanna

#4 Use to be Mesanna, Draconi and Wilki

EDIT Make that 5 reasons
#5 Chesapeake EMs and Former

 

[MissEcho]

Sorry but the amount of votes that happened in the last day is ridiculous, people who had 0-40 votes suddenly jumped up to 50-60-70-80 + after it was made quite clear that proxy voting was how the others were cheating. Looking at the entries after the 15th there are close to 2000 votes made. (I lost track after counting up 1879), someone else can do the full total. In any case, if anyone is rewarded with any prize for this competition it is pretty disgusting, as NuSair said.

Unless they can remove every cheat vote, nothing should be awarded. Either that or all entries should be given a 'token' prize for the effort of entering.

I never thought making the main prize a mini house deed was fair given that a lot of people have classic houses. It was stated a number of times in this thread and others that people never voting for castles and keeps etc as they wouldn't make a 'mini house' out of them. Even though it was SUPPOSED to be a deco comp, in reality they were voting for a house building comp and didn't care what the deco was like if in their opinion it wouldn't make a mini house.

A totally bias competition towards custom houses, which already had the deco advantage with being able to customise for snow, to make 'boxes' and all the other manner of house building that can be done with a custom to 'make' various illusions etc.

So have 'winners' been announced or do we assume the top ten on the stratics site is it? Is anything going to be done about the known cheats?

 

[Xelious Norwood]

The sad part is that it really wasnt a cheat it was just using a loop hole to ones advantage. And no I am not saying it was right at all, I am just saying thats why you could see so many of them go up a huge amount of votes in some cases less than 12 hours. I can only say dont vote this way in the future. You could of honestly of tossed a blank plot up and could of won using this loop hole.

 

[MadMartyr]

Well, the proxy loophole is one thing, but there were many people seeking votes from people who aren't players as well. If this is acceptable, great. I feel like that also violates the spirit of the contest where UO players vote for the work of other UO players, but it wasn't explicitly disallowed. I think it's time to let it die, and see what Stratics/Mythic come up with to close the contest officially.

 

[Lady Michelle]

I didn't enter because I didn't want to put all my effort into creating something just to end up resenting my work and UO because of the way people treated me for being one of the Memorable Moment winners on Chesapeake if my design was good enough to place in top 10 or win the grand prize. After the Memorable Moments I stopped writing News Reports and storylines because I hate it now and I don't want to hate designing houses in UO.

You stopped writting because of the way people treated you because you were one of the winners of the memorable moment contest?
What the hell is the matter with you? Letting others intempated you making you hate something you love to do you go back to writing news reports, and story lines. NEVER EVER LET anyone who is being CREUL take a piece of what you love to do make you hate it. You won the robe enjoy it( yes I went there personal attack for his own good)
I dont care if I win or lose I like to show off my decorating that is to me the most important thing than winning. Plus I dont expect everyone to like mine either I didn't win this contest, but once the offical page of the winners are posted I will grads them.

 

[Lord Gareth]

The sad part is that it really wasnt a cheat it was just using a loop hole to ones advantage. And no I am not saying it was right at all,

(This is not directed at anyone specific)
One thing that will always puzzle me about using a loop hole or cheating to win a design or writing contest is this. You enter a contest and you win your big prize, get your name posted wherever etc. You didn't win because you're work was really good or because you're very talented. You won because of a cheat or a loophole so not only is your work phony and fraud but so are you as well. I don't know about anyone else but I sure wouldn't want to have a trophy reminding me of that everyday LoL

 

[Eärendil]

I don't know about anyone else but I sure wouldn't want to have a trophy reminding me of that everyday LoL

This

The only motive I can see is getting the items for making money (gold or RL-money). Who else would want to win that way? I never even tried to cheat and I will never do. It´s a game - and satisfaction comes out of effort.

Bad thing is that we have no way of dealing with cheaters... Every thing we try, every event we offer, there will always be the notorious party-poopers that want everything the easy way...

It is disgusting. They are disgusting.

 

[Lady Bleez]

Don't worry, most of the ones who "cheated" won't have the trophy long enough for it to bother them much. Instead someone else will have a trophy they never even tried to win, they just bought it.

 

[SixUnder]

vote for Willa!
Tram 86.23N 25.22E http://uo2.stratics.com/holiday-season-contest

 

[Gheed]

You know I don't think that telling your friends who dont play UO to rock the vote to be all that bad of a thing. Maybe a couple of them take an interest and pick up a sub.

 

[Petra Fyde]

The sad part is that it really wasnt a cheat it was just using a loop hole to ones advantage. And no I am not saying it was right at all, I am just saying thats why you could see so many of them go up a huge amount of votes in some cases less than 12 hours. I can only say dont vote this way in the future. You could of honestly of tossed a blank plot up and could of won using this loop hole.

Surely using a loop hole to one's advantage IS cheating? The only thing I can say is, no, you couldn't toss up a blank plot and win because it wouldn't have met the entry criteria. I think you can safely say that this method of selecting winners for a contest will not be used again.

 

[outcry]

Surely using a loop hole to one's advantage IS cheating? The only thing I can say is, no, you couldn't toss up a blank plot and win because it wouldn't have met the entry criteria. I think you can safely say that this method of selecting winners for a contest will not be used again.

No matter what Petra you as always did an awesome job and we as a community really do thank you for all your hard word

 

[Eärendil]

Yes! Grats to Petra!