The Meteoriks Awards 2017
category: general [glöplog]
I expected you to do an extract of the category proposals, reasonably spanning the range. And for instance I think you had something like "best 4k intro", "best tiny intro" ,"best high end intro" and "best use of bytes". So an extract would be one of the latter, while best 4k is both extremely traditional and limited at the same time.
It's like limiting the soundtrack category to "best soundtrack in a black and white demo".
I would much rather skip ALL the traditional compo separations, and then have things like the proposed "one trick pony", "use of bytes", "effects" etc, which fits the "soundtrack","direction","graphics" etc set of categories.
(I'm not too happy about "best intro" either, since this seem largely decided as best result within the set restriction, so better make it completely orthogonal like above when you won't have all compo categories anyway)
Also I would not expect 64ks to be nominated in the demo compo, they are not demos but 64ks! Again, this is not a demo party with a single combined executable compo, but some specific(seemly random) category picks.
It's like limiting the soundtrack category to "best soundtrack in a black and white demo".
I would much rather skip ALL the traditional compo separations, and then have things like the proposed "one trick pony", "use of bytes", "effects" etc, which fits the "soundtrack","direction","graphics" etc set of categories.
(I'm not too happy about "best intro" either, since this seem largely decided as best result within the set restriction, so better make it completely orthogonal like above when you won't have all compo categories anyway)
Also I would not expect 64ks to be nominated in the demo compo, they are not demos but 64ks! Again, this is not a demo party with a single combined executable compo, but some specific(seemly random) category picks.
Compos are still largely structured around major categories such as 4k, 8k, 64k, demo .. so in my view it doesn't make sense to leave those categories out.
I do however *also* like the more conceptual categories, and in my view it is a good thing to have stuff like Freestyle Graphics and Best Direction on the list (well I am a graphician...)
So.. in conclusion I think the awards list should simply be updated to include major compo categories and we're good to go.
also
DUB Awards really is a great awards show, we award all the best stuff, everybody knows it!
I do however *also* like the more conceptual categories, and in my view it is a good thing to have stuff like Freestyle Graphics and Best Direction on the list (well I am a graphician...)
So.. in conclusion I think the awards list should simply be updated to include major compo categories and we're good to go.
also
DUB Awards really is a great awards show, we award all the best stuff, everybody knows it!
In my opinion, an award-show like the Meteoriks should mirror the demoparty standards of regular compos, and then build on top of that with categories that feel relevant.
I can understand the thrill of competing against full sized demos, but to be honest, don't we all get a bit disappointed when categories are combined at parties? And thats when there are too few entries... There were ~20 64k's released last year, surely thats something you can work with? The groups on top are so close in quality that a yearly award to settle "whos best" makes sense to me. Anywho, its easy to complain and im a bit biased. I love the idea of it all and i that there is people willing to keep the tradition of award-shows alive.
I can understand the thrill of competing against full sized demos, but to be honest, don't we all get a bit disappointed when categories are combined at parties? And thats when there are too few entries... There were ~20 64k's released last year, surely thats something you can work with? The groups on top are so close in quality that a yearly award to settle "whos best" makes sense to me. Anywho, its easy to complain and im a bit biased. I love the idea of it all and i that there is people willing to keep the tradition of award-shows alive.
well I'm not so thrilled about the categories but maybe last year someone else was not thrilled. but reading only one number in the list makes is a bit boring :D
as long as Moonlight wins best movie
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On the other hand: a 64k award would not bring anyone any benefit.
All 64k authors this last year, including us, know that our releases were quite well recieved (to say the least). And winning one more award for it... who cares?
But putting 64ks in the same category as demos here gives the opportunity to value the works in a different light: If a 64k wins that category against all other demos, that *really* feels like a new achievement: Having managed to beat even the size-unlimited ones. I feel with last year's 64ks, that is a definite possibility.
And if a big demo wins afterall, well, we just have to try harder next year.
so pretentious and disrespectful...................
Ho boy. I can only speak for myself, but it felt weird to submit a 64k intro category proposal because that's kinda like creating your own award for something you did.
So setting that aside, 2016 being an exceptional year for 64k intros, I wasn't really worried that there would be noone else to submit the proposal, or the jury itself would surely fill the gaps if that would indeed happen.
Well... oops.
Now I don't know if this category listing is really the result of a missing submission, or the jury considered a separate 64k category but dismissed it in the end.
If it's the latter then I agree with Ferris:
- Merging 64k into the demo category will actually squeeze out great demos that would deserve at least a nomination. Considering the fact that demos are still the largest pool to choose from, this doesn't really sound logical.
- Similar to the above, it would be of course a big honor if a 64k would win over the best demos, but that would mean that we wouldn't actually have a "best demo". And that would be the weirdest thing in my opinion.
So setting that aside, 2016 being an exceptional year for 64k intros, I wasn't really worried that there would be noone else to submit the proposal, or the jury itself would surely fill the gaps if that would indeed happen.
Well... oops.
Now I don't know if this category listing is really the result of a missing submission, or the jury considered a separate 64k category but dismissed it in the end.
If it's the latter then I agree with Ferris:
- Merging 64k into the demo category will actually squeeze out great demos that would deserve at least a nomination. Considering the fact that demos are still the largest pool to choose from, this doesn't really sound logical.
- Similar to the above, it would be of course a big honor if a 64k would win over the best demos, but that would mean that we wouldn't actually have a "best demo". And that would be the weirdest thing in my opinion.
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Now I don't know if this category listing is really the result of a missing submission, or the jury considered a separate 64k category but dismissed it in the end.
if the head of the jury answers the ongoing discussion with "who cares...?" + implies to the merge of cathegories, then I'm sure it was a considered options amongst those involved, and the choice has already been made.
There has been a category of 64kb intros in the scene awards from 2003 to 2011 (in 2002 was called best intro). I believe most of the sceners respected the scene awards. I don't get why instead of improving on top of the scene awards categories you've decided to merge 64kb intro with demos. IMHO it doesn't make sense at all, they are just not the same thing.
Without looking down the rest of the approved categories, I think 64kb intros are basically one of the king categories of demoscene because of many well-known reasons, it's extremely hard to make a really good 64kb intro for amateurs.
So I don't understand at all the decission of not having a specific category to represent them. It reminds me to the same error happened on asm2011, where the 64kb compo was cancelled, tsk. It's true the ammount of 64kb intros has decreased in the last year... but I think not having a well-deserver award for that category won't motivate more to the talented groups out there.
I think these awards should also be a good way to inspire new fresh people to join this great comunity, you can see how newcomers are speechless every time they watch 64kb intros and they don't even know how to make them... and now you don't provide such category, i really don't get it. I think these awards should be not only to pride the best prods of the year but also trying to attract new talents to make it even more awesome.
That said, I think the meteoriks are a really great initiative, so thanks to all involved people making it happen... I just don't think is a good idea not working on top of the old great scene.org awards, which worked really well for many years.
also:
and a little comparison here
Without looking down the rest of the approved categories, I think 64kb intros are basically one of the king categories of demoscene because of many well-known reasons, it's extremely hard to make a really good 64kb intro for amateurs.
So I don't understand at all the decission of not having a specific category to represent them. It reminds me to the same error happened on asm2011, where the 64kb compo was cancelled, tsk. It's true the ammount of 64kb intros has decreased in the last year... but I think not having a well-deserver award for that category won't motivate more to the talented groups out there.
I think these awards should also be a good way to inspire new fresh people to join this great comunity, you can see how newcomers are speechless every time they watch 64kb intros and they don't even know how to make them... and now you don't provide such category, i really don't get it. I think these awards should be not only to pride the best prods of the year but also trying to attract new talents to make it even more awesome.
That said, I think the meteoriks are a really great initiative, so thanks to all involved people making it happen... I just don't think is a good idea not working on top of the old great scene.org awards, which worked really well for many years.
also:
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I wonder what Meaty would have thought of this list.. he was pretty vocal when Assembly dropped the 64k intro category.
and a little comparison here
Now ask yourselves if merging 8k intros with demos makes sense.
xtr1m: ofcourse! they are much more like demos, than like 4ks. It's not like they are sharing principles, toolchain or anything. Demos they are!
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nonsense categories like [...] "new talent" (basically the category we desperately searched for candidates for back in the Scene.org Awards days, without much luck..)
Nonsense category?
I was a juror for 2014 and 2015 for this cat and it was a good surprise that we could find a fair bunch of good (imho) prods by new talents.
I mean, FYI, a few very solid (imho) prods didn't make the cut each year
(because of their quality, or the breakthrough/freshness-of-the-talent ratio not enough, or we didn't get the autorisation from the author).
So yeah, good news, the scene is not that dead.
Even so, the prods by new comers are often overlooked (no famous label = no clics) and it's hard to have some recognition by winning a party when you start (even if you did a fair job), so improving that a bit thanks to a Meteoriks category seems important.
(BTW, and sorry for the offtopic, It's kind of frightening the number of people that released a pretty cool prod at a "local" party... and seem to have forgotten about the demoscene at all.
Did they not get enough thrill to dig more and get more involved? The bar from "just one prod" to "active demoscene group" is too high?
It this poor retention normal or are we totally missing something?
Some examples: Cabbibo, eleven, this french group, kevinkerttunen, NOOP, dnlb, mrvuxHarveyman, declis, MetroGirl, the majority of thoses...)
About the main topic: yes, please bring the 64K category on... or a least a "High-end intro" category :)
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xtr1m: ofcourse! they are much more like demos, than like 4ks. It's not like they are sharing principles, toolchain or anything. Demos they are!
Exactly! Because we have so much room to store tons of meshes, textures and music!
I mean, having done an 8k that has been nominated as high end intro, clearly they must have realized that this decision was a mistake last year and as such had to be changed for this year?
At least I'd like to hear the jury's reasoning behind that particular "deviation" from the previously established standards.
At least I'd like to hear the jury's reasoning behind that particular "deviation" from the previously established standards.
Let me try to explain our decision and the constraints that led to it:
We decided early on that we want to go with ten variable categories plus the two standing ones of New Talent and Public Choice. We can't keep adding categories because the awards show can only run for so long.
We had 29 category submissions, and those didn't even include "best demo" which we too felt was a must, so something had to give. So what do we drop and merge? At the fourteen categories mark things got hard and we knew we couldn't please everyone.
Do we drop Freestyle Graphics? Cue the ire of graphicians worldwide. Best Soundtrack? You gotta be kidding me. Low-End Demo? Blasphemy!
We could have merged 4k and 64k into a "Best High-End Intro" category like we did last year, but given the exceptional greatness of last year's 64ks, we could just as well have dropped 4k altogether. So our decision was to merge everything above 4k into the "best demo" category because, as urs said, we felt that the 64ks have very good chances at winning a combined "best demo" award this year, and what would be a better display of the sheer awesomeness that was last year's 64ks?
This is certainly not the only valid option, but it is what we, the people who volunteered to make these awards happen, went with, and I believe any other option would have been equally disappointing for some.
That said, I personally am saddened by the style of discussion we're facing here. We're not doing this for fame or riches, we're doing this for you after all, so I do not think we deserve the treatment we're getting. Thanks to the people who keep a constructive discussion going without getting personal.
We decided early on that we want to go with ten variable categories plus the two standing ones of New Talent and Public Choice. We can't keep adding categories because the awards show can only run for so long.
We had 29 category submissions, and those didn't even include "best demo" which we too felt was a must, so something had to give. So what do we drop and merge? At the fourteen categories mark things got hard and we knew we couldn't please everyone.
Do we drop Freestyle Graphics? Cue the ire of graphicians worldwide. Best Soundtrack? You gotta be kidding me. Low-End Demo? Blasphemy!
We could have merged 4k and 64k into a "Best High-End Intro" category like we did last year, but given the exceptional greatness of last year's 64ks, we could just as well have dropped 4k altogether. So our decision was to merge everything above 4k into the "best demo" category because, as urs said, we felt that the 64ks have very good chances at winning a combined "best demo" award this year, and what would be a better display of the sheer awesomeness that was last year's 64ks?
This is certainly not the only valid option, but it is what we, the people who volunteered to make these awards happen, went with, and I believe any other option would have been equally disappointing for some.
That said, I personally am saddened by the style of discussion we're facing here. We're not doing this for fame or riches, we're doing this for you after all, so I do not think we deserve the treatment we're getting. Thanks to the people who keep a constructive discussion going without getting personal.
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We can't keep adding categories because the awards show can only run for so long.
Sorry people, you spent months preparing the greatest entries last year, but no category for you, 'coz ain't nobody got time fo' dat.
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Do we drop Freestyle Graphics? Cue the ire of graphicians worldwide.
Then again, why do we have Best Freestyle Graphics if we don't have Best Music? Is the ire of music compo entrants not as relevant?
Metoriks orgas: thank you, and keep it up! Even if this year's category selection is considered as an experiment, it's worthwhile.
wullon: yes to this.
I think it is, and am hoping to do something about that with howto.
wullon: yes to this.
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The bar from "just one prod" to "active demoscene group" is too high?
I think it is, and am hoping to do something about that with howto.
Having the above said, I sort of agree, that the 64ks this year have a chance to compete with the best demos. But when to have a dedicated 64k category, if not in the year, which had the best 64ks during the last decade? Seriously...
Anyway, not like I really care. Just, WTF.
Anyway, not like I really care. Just, WTF.
My personal opinion is, that you should handpick the categories and the jury by yourself. This crowdsourcing / volunteering the jury + categories gives me the impression, that it was a burden noone really wanted to carry. But that's just me, don't really know what's behind the scenes.
You could rather stick to the tradition and reflect the categories what are present in demoparties, or go completely different, and try to be funny and forget the demoparty scheme, like the DUB awards. The current seems to me like a mixture of being both, without being funny at all.
Also I didn't wanted to offend anyone, but the halfhearthed and no-explanation at all answer from the head of jury pissed me off, sorry if I've gone personal.
And I still cannot live with the explanation, give us the 64k back!
You could rather stick to the tradition and reflect the categories what are present in demoparties, or go completely different, and try to be funny and forget the demoparty scheme, like the DUB awards. The current seems to me like a mixture of being both, without being funny at all.
Also I didn't wanted to offend anyone, but the halfhearthed and no-explanation at all answer from the head of jury pissed me off, sorry if I've gone personal.
And I still cannot live with the explanation, give us the 64k back!
When awarding size specific prods how granular do you go to be "fair"? 1k, 4k, 8k, 64k? Then what about 256byte prods? Ok lets do a <1k category, but wait
shouldn't we split this into new and oldschool platforms...? Also lets be honest here and assume "best 4k" would be replaced with "best intro": no 4k(yet ;P) stands a chance against a good 64k, where as in contrast to that 64ks definitely have a chance against demos.
Also when having that fine grained categories its much easier to anticipate the winners(just flip a coin on pouets top ranked prods of that category that year) making the award ceremony kinda boring and predictable on top of being longer...
Personally I feel like "interactive" is more of an oddball as it probably has very little contestants, where as a hypothetical "best music" while very hard(if not impossible) to judge would be the opposite in that regards. Also I see "best direction" and "best story" which while not the same are quite closely related, I would've liked to see something like "best art style/direction" honoring prods that have an outstanding and/or very polished art style.
shouldn't we split this into new and oldschool platforms...? Also lets be honest here and assume "best 4k" would be replaced with "best intro": no 4k(yet ;P) stands a chance against a good 64k, where as in contrast to that 64ks definitely have a chance against demos.
Also when having that fine grained categories its much easier to anticipate the winners(just flip a coin on pouets top ranked prods of that category that year) making the award ceremony kinda boring and predictable on top of being longer...
Personally I feel like "interactive" is more of an oddball as it probably has very little contestants, where as a hypothetical "best music" while very hard(if not impossible) to judge would be the opposite in that regards. Also I see "best direction" and "best story" which while not the same are quite closely related, I would've liked to see something like "best art style/direction" honoring prods that have an outstanding and/or very polished art style.
agreed. dropping fundamental categories over bullshit ones like best story or interactive is stupid. then again, it shows that elected categories didn't really work and that hopefully next year the core jury can set at least some fundamental categories in advance, unless there's a significant reason not to include them (not enough quantity/quality, i guess that's a non-democratic subjectivity most people can live with).
dojoe, your explanation emphasizes my point, as I said: Nobody talks about 8k. And yet there have been 3 PC-8k compos at revision and there's going to be a new one again. It's an emerging platform which even got honored in past award shows already.
Your arguments focus entirely on 64k's and why they shouldn't belong in a "high end intro" award, but the split "5k and up" is misplaced. How can 8k's compete with 64ks or demos?
Apart from that, in my opinion: In order to objectively pick good categories, you shouldn't consider the releases beforehand! Because this time, this decision showed everyone, that if enough people do a lot of bunch of good 64k intros, no 8k or 64k intro deserve a best intro prize. As an 8k intro coder I suffer from that collateral damage, and as an aspiring 64k intro coder I wonder if I should stop taking this seriously.
I'm sorry for the rant, though.
Your arguments focus entirely on 64k's and why they shouldn't belong in a "high end intro" award, but the split "5k and up" is misplaced. How can 8k's compete with 64ks or demos?
Apart from that, in my opinion: In order to objectively pick good categories, you shouldn't consider the releases beforehand! Because this time, this decision showed everyone, that if enough people do a lot of bunch of good 64k intros, no 8k or 64k intro deserve a best intro prize. As an 8k intro coder I suffer from that collateral damage, and as an aspiring 64k intro coder I wonder if I should stop taking this seriously.
I'm sorry for the rant, though.