That was my brother’s, not mine.
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I don’t.
But let’s say I did. Everyone agreeing that my MOC is the best doesn’t tell me what that character looks like.
If the contests are worth skipping, then why doesn’t anyone know what Kualus’s mask shape is? Or Bomonga’s colour scheme?
Knowing a character’s body shape is not nearly as defining to their appearance as knowing their colours, weapons, or mask.
Keep in mind, a lot of the problems with the first contest came from the method of voting, not the entry rules.
And, as far as I can see, regardless of the Hagah Contest structure, there’s no need to mess with the voting process.
Oh okay still I think its a really good moc though. Maybe not my cup of tea for canon helryx but still very cool.
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That doesn’t really matter, though. Any change to the contest’s structure is going to present issues and generate dissent that impedes or frustrates the process. The fact that this thread even exists at all is proof of that.
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I’m fine with them having a hagah contest, if only because people have been making mocs of them for years now. Plus, people have already built or are working on their entries as we speak. Would be weird is TTV suddenly canceled the contest at the last minute.
I’m just not personally invested in them as we kind of already know what they all look like. Hopefully people will find creative tweaks with the build, like making a hunchback or pohatu-style hagah, but the winning entries will probably all be Iruni/Norik clones anyway.
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I’d agree with this (but allowing mocs), assuming we have to run the contests simultaneously. That would avoid inconsistencies in the team (e.g. two having the same mask, one not sharing the uniformity established by the others, etc.).
I would implore TTV to consider running them one at a time, or give the community the option to vote on this - along with skipping over the Hagah contest. If you run the voting simultaneously, people have little control over what combination of designs will win. Maybe people prefer ‘Gaaki entry A’, but then that means they can’t rightly vote for entry B in the Bomonga contest because he’s wearing the same mask as entry A Gaaki. So they’re in a conundrum - do they pick what they think is best even if it risks having an incoherent team as a result?
If you run the contests one at a time, people can reliably decide which entry is most fitting for the established line-up. I know if I see two designs and one looks cooler but one looks more fitting for the team, I’m picking the latter.
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So, having reconsidered the positions of the various groups I think I’ll just stand by my original point.
I will not be as…ahem…extreme as yesterday but my point still stands. Regardless of whatever happens, the most creative approach will still be an art-only contest, even if the rules stipulate that everybody should draw a metru torso.
Why?
Because, after all, there is only so far one can go with the available pieces. We have a rather limited range of metallic pieces and even fewer ones that would look good as armor (metallic green f.e would be very difficult to use on a metru torso).
And it stands to reason that after this we should decide whether or not this is worth it in the first place. Seeing what a terrible mess the previous two contests were (Hoseryx, the winning entry for Artakha being barely able to stand) and how controversial some of the upcoming characters will be (I am shuddering at thinking what a Nidhiki contest would be like in a discussion stage. Or a Golden-skinned being contest.)
Hot take: ideally, it would be cool to have an art-only contest, without any MOCcing part. Yes, this takes away a large part of the community but it also takes away a lot of the problems created by modern discussions surrounding the MOC contests (such as Nidhiki’s mask or the color/limitation of the Hagah) which, imho, is a net positive.
In general, I am kinda looking forward to this. If only because it will be absolutely hila…interesting to watch what this will lead to.
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By that reasoning, the second contest should have gone worse than the first, since it changed the structure.
Debate over the method of handling this unique contest is different than the contest-obstructing issues from the first contest.
But couldn’t that also be said about any of the others? Nidhiki is a green guy with a green Volitak and a scythe.
The problem with doing them one at a time is that you end up giving one of the Hagah “first dibs” on mask and colour choices. How do you decide which one to prioritize?
One idea that I’ve been kicking around for a while would be splitting up the voting period: do blind voting for the first half, to allow any clear front-runners to emerge without bias, but then make the results visible for the second half to allow people to shuffle their votes around to avoid the issues you have described.
And there are some people who are okay with that, and can work within it.
I’m not saying we should have a MOC-only portion (because then you force everyone to work within those restrictions), but I still think a MOC/Art combo is better than Art-only. People get all of the creative benefits of the Art, while still allowing people who are willing to work with the restrictions imposed by the available pieces.
The second contest did have issues because of the changes – however, the changes presented in the Artakha contest were explicitly rectifications of the worst problems from the Helryx contest, and so the dissent did not ultimately impede the contest. Here, we are seeing a potentially total overhaul to the contest’s entry system, which by its nature is resulting in delays to the contest in order to determine the entry system. If that change was never even presented as an option, I doubt any issues would have arisen; few, if anyone, even considered the possibilities given by 'Nak and 'Jay until they did so yesterday.
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No, because the Hagah have a canon build. Nidhiki, Tuyet, Helryx, none of the others do. There’s more room for creative builds.
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Good point. Potentially let people vote on which Hagah they want a contest for first, second and third. I can see Eljay rolling his eyes at this because it delays the process even more, but I really want to make sure we get a cohesive team by the end of this.
With the new voting system, it’s especially hard to predict which entry is going to win and thus to vote strategically. But the segmentation you describe is in theory a step in the right direction.
Fair. I, personally, don’t really like this idea but I see that more people are supporting it than vehemently going against it (as I am). It would make a bit more sense in canon to have all Toa to share the Metru appearance, since they are the only Toa (in so far we know) that had a “standard” transformation without any additional mutations.
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I’m probably nitpicking, and I apologize for butting into this quote chain, but wouldn’t any combination of MOCs be at least decently cohesive provided they adhered to the basic criteria of a Toa Hagah? I can’t fathom any MOCs being so outlandishly different that they would straight-up look bad when placed alongside the other Hagah, nor could I imagine that any given lineup of Hagah MOCs would look dissonant.
I’ve been saying this for years and finally find one person who agrees
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I’ll openly admit I’m probably more concerned with orderliness and uniformity than the average fan. For that reason, ‘decently cohesive’ probably isn’t going to cut it for me. What I don’t want for certain are things along the lines of:
- Four of the six have different masks, spear heads or chest pieces, and two of them end up sharing one
- Four of them have gold armour, one of them has silver and one has chrome blue
- Five of them have Hagah shields and one has a Visorak shell
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No, those are entirely fair. However, I’m unsure that would actually end up happening. Maybe spear/chest pieces might repeat, but I don’t see the armor coloration actually being an issue (the human tendency toward certain aesthetics will probably lend to a mostly gold/silver team, and I’m unsure if metallic colors aside from gold/silver will see much love). As far as their shields are concerned, I think it should be required that they wield the same shields used by Norik and Iruini, but that’s just me.
This leaves aside the fact that any artist is free to amend those problems if we host MOC-then-art, as we saw in the Artakha and Tuyet art entries.
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I discussed this in my original post at the top of this topic. I would be in favour of artists being allowed to modify the MOCs, for the sake of achieving consistency. But if you let them change the mask, the spear, the shield and / or the colour, you’re likely allowing them to tamper with what is principally different and creative about the MOC.
There’s also Nidhiki and Tuyet. EDIT: And Varian
I fully agree with your reasoning as to why the Hagah should have Metru builds, but I think it’ll be a difficult time convincing people to apply that to Nidhiki and Tuyet. (Not me though. I’m fine with Metru-build Nidhiki and Tuyet)
From a more general view, I think it makes sense for the Metru build to be the “standard” Toa shape, but Greg’s danced around that before.
I agree with this, except for the shield. I think it’s reasonable that all of the Hagah should have the same shield, and it also makes sense to allow placeholder shields, given the rarity and lack of colours of the part.
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Are we really, though? There’s precedent: Tuyet and Artakha art entries both modified the colors of the MOC, several Artakha entries modified specific pieces so as not to resemble others, most Tuyet entries changed the mace significantly, and the winning entries of both contests changed the Kanohi shape.
I’m on board with this. I was surprised how rare they were when I tried to order some.
If you let artists tamper with one part, that’s probably fair. But if you let them change any and all of those parts, you run the risk of someone either completely redesigning the MOC for reasons other than consistency, or upsetting the MOCist, whose winning entry has basically been cannibalised.
I think it’s possible to make it work. TTV would just need a very extensive rule set that’s carefully monitored. Then again, maybe the community will just not vote for things in the cases I described.
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This is my point, though: the artists have simultaneously tampered with all of these aspects of given MOCs in the past, and the results (while not all won) were usually fantastic and well-received.
The official Helryx portrait completely changed her neck attachment, for the better as far as I’m concerned; and likewise the winning Artakha added a cape and heartlight, melded parts together, altered the hammer, and changed both the color and shape of the mask.
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