Hair contest: petitioning

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Originally Posted by starinthegutter

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I hope so, I want another chance at getting one of your hairs! /pray

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Originally Posted by Savvy

I hope so, I want another chance at getting one of your hairs! /pray

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Aw thank you! ;; <3

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Originally Posted by Eye_Gore

Did you actually submit an entry or just upset about the selection?

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He or she did....

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Originally Posted by DoctorSecksy

http://i442.photobucket.com/albums/q...s7yofzdos.jpeg

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It sounds like someone is mad bc theirs wasn't picked. In the end, it is SE that is holding the contest and they have a right to choose the finalists. We can only choose the winners. Stop whining, don't vote for any of them if you don't like any of them, and maybe if this contest goes well, they can hold another and you can submit for that one. Better luck next time. And for the record, I wasn't crazy about any of them, but I am not complaining. I wished there would've been more longer hairstyles for girls, but hey, there's nothing I can do. Thats life!

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Originally Posted by DoctorSecksy

I'm looking for interested parties to help file a formal petition of the hair contest.

This isn't to shame or put down those who were chosen as finalists. Congratulations if you were. This would be a petition stating the general upset at the lack of representation of what we, as a community, wanted in style choices. I don't bring this up lightly, as there are probably those people out there who feel the choices displayed suit them. However, after reading the numerous complaints spanning over multiple threads on the matter, I feel we need to solidify and congregate to get our voices heard.

If this contest is to appeal to us and be us making change in the game, I feel that we should have a proper array of resources and ideas to work with. Not the limited and seemingly biased opinions of a few.

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The hair styles have to be implementable as well. It's technically possible to have elaborate styles with every strand of hair noticeable but that would take immense processing power.

We've been told that every graphical change they make has to be investigated and costed for processing and memory usage so that it doesn't tax the host computers (and consoles) since you can have hundreds of people on at a time and you have to render that hairstyle many times. This means some styles just can't be implemented easily.

Would you rather they choose a style and then find it's not possible to put in game?

I feel like this thread will all roll around to:

"They didn't choose MY hairstyle to be a finalist so this whole contest needs to be stopped."

I honestly think some were chosen because they were easy to implement. This game probably won't be able to do some hairstyles well because of memory issues.

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Originally Posted by Averax

I feel like this thread will all roll around to:

"They didn't choose MY hairstyle to be a finalist so this whole contest needs to be stopped."

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I didn't try for it.

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Originally Posted by Averax

"They didn't choose MY hairstyle to be a finalist so this whole contest needs to be stopped."

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This was not the OP's point at all. I didn't submit an entry and I'm utterly disappointed and uninspired by the current selection (m & f) and doubt I'd use the any of the styles (female) on my character; I totally understand where the OP is coming from. There isn't much variation in the selection for us to vote on (e.g. several side ponytails). One of the entries, if I recall correctly, doesn't even have a back view; which was part of SE's official rules.

SE is notorious about not having competition participants honour their own rules or taking action when they've been notified of a breach of rules. I believe this happened in one of the Starlight Celebration screenshot contests too and they had to pull down one of the winners.

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Originally Posted by Bunnchu

i'm not ungrateful. but most of them suck. dont get me started on the photographs.

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This is incredibly rude to say.
Oh well, probably the last time we have anything fun to do because the community is always angry about everything.
I'm not saying all the choices are perfect, hell some of them, looking at the men section, look so similiar to what we have in-game it's not even funny.
Quistis hair is similiar to Minfilia hair kinda. A lot of people took their times and a lot of them are pretty cute.

I know people are upset and all but you don't need to say peoples art, or RL photo's suck, wow.

Personally I submitted and honestly don't care if mine were chosen or not, I know there would be a ton of great contenders to choose from, based from what I saw of the other thread of the ones that didn't make the cut, there were a ton of styles in there that far outshine some of the finalist listed. I just think the variety in styles to choose from is not there. There are no stylish curly hair styles, there's just pig tails, side ponytails or styles they already have in game that just require minor tweaks to avoid heavy work load and don't break their character rig system. There's 3 side pony tails, one with flowers that actually looks like bridal hair (which I would never wear to battle). Then there are the ones that designed their styles based off existing Final Fantasy characters. If I was to not get chosen and I know the creator of this thread agrees it would have had to be by the creme dela creme. I know with each patch they will continue to release more hair styles so I'm not so bummed out about it.

http://i.imgur.com/7ImGFjK.jpg

Really though, I liked a good number of the entries. It's been said before, but I feel like they went with a number of factors when choosing the finalists, and ease of implementation was likely one of them. Really, I think the most unique hairstyle I've seen thus far is a sort of braided baroque looking poof hair. It is just amazing. The implementation might have been a tad tricky though.

Either way, I like having nice things...so maybe we can complain a smidge less?

"My opinion is more important than yours, so you shouldn't have an opinion."
Grow up, the world consists of more than just you.

My only issue is that they literally have 2 entries that are the same hair style. The side pony-tail in the 1st post and the real life image of the girl with the side pony-tail. Why do we need two entries of the same hairstyle? It seems like an oversight to not include more representation.

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Originally Posted by missybee

Either way, I like having nice things...so maybe we can complain a smidge less?

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Yeah, I have to agree with this. I realize that some people are upset/annoyed/disappointed (to varying degrees) right now and that's really unfortunate. It worries me, however, to think that the devs may take the criticism too harshly and we may not see anything like this again. Goodness knows I've seen it happen in other MMOs I've played. The devs try something out but maybe fall a little short, a giant ragestorm erupts and the devs never do anything similar again. I'm not saying don't be critical but I am saying that try to keep your criticism even handed and optimistic. For example, many people are calling the devs out for perhaps using ease of execution as a selection criteria.. but why shouldn't it be? I mean, they're the ones making the styles in game and know exactly how much time/effort/money it will take to create a style.

Certainly would be nice if people designed the hairstyles on more than just one race. The hairstyles that we can vote for would not look good on my Roegadyn at all due to how "old" he looks. I can see a lot of those hairstyles looking alright on the Midlander, Miqo'te and Lalafells, maybe some Elezen and possibly Highlanders and Au Ra... but not a (muscular) Roegadyn.

http://i.imgur.com/COoyJBH.png

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Originally Posted by StriderShinryu

A post!

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Yep!

I wasn't trying to sound like all of an arse in my post, I just really think events like this are fun. I'd hate to see us lose these sorts of things as a result of event coordinators not enjoying the community backlash, etc. :<

My only problems with the finalists are the two blatantly plagiarized male styles and the 'lollipops and licorice' cuteness of the female styles. I have no problem with the inspired styles because they didn't take a google-fu picture and submitted it, they took the base Square provided and actually drew the style themselves. Also, it's not really 'ripping off Square' if it's a contest hosted by Square. I'd say it's more akin to making your own rendition of museum art to submit to the museum's own "Copy a Classic" contest. It's giving considerably more effort at requesting said styles than a mere question in a Live Letter thread ever could (especially on the English boards). I'm actually rather shocked that this thread isn't complaining about the two plagiarized styles, that's a topic I actually don't mind seeing repeated for the sake of repeating.

Append: And seems voting has begun and many of the styles they showed during the Letter From the Producer didn't actually make it making all the talk over the plagiarized styles moot. Still, too much cuteness among the female entries, but it's good to see males were hit with the midge mallet just as much. I retract my disputes, each and every one. Sigh, now if only they will finally make the long Male Highlander styles unisex... I can dream.

OP have you thought that the chosen finalist designs where chosen not just for aesthetic reasons but because they are able to be added, aka, minimum clipping and able to recreate within the poly count budget? Highher the complexity, the higher the poly count.

Also, as stated in the rules the choice is what the devs liked.

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Originally Posted by Sapphic

Also, as stated in the rules the choice is what the devs liked.

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The rules said many things that didn't get followed.

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Original Image Source

http://i.imgur.com/KVcOZTk.gif

The best part?

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When using a picture to submit an entry, you may use either your own hair or a mannequin. Additionally, there are no restrictions on using wigs; however, please do not include aspects other than the hairstyle in the picture, and be sure to follow all of the rules

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Square Enix shall not accept submissions that: ... (b) violate or infringe any laws, regulations, or rights, including any intellectual property or privacy rights;

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* Entries must be an original design created by the person entering the contest.

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I actually agree with this. The hairstyles are bland and a lot of them look pretty similiar. Even on the front page theres two bun styles that look almost the same and at least three or 4 side pony tail styles. One of them even looks like a Yugiri's hairstyle with the pony tails chopped off. Oh look, theres quistus's hairstyle, real original. I mean the dev's could have put her hairstyle in automatically, why is a finalist spot being wasted on a style from a previous game?

Yes, the contest does seem very biased based on the styles selected. Also the method of voting is favoring the first post due to the fact that people see that first and are too lazy to scroll down to the other pages.


Also, will the sunshine brigaders stop trying to suppress people by drowning this in positivity hoping it goes away? You are attempting to stifle progression just because you can't deal with facts being presented. If you don't like it, you just don't click the thread.
Keep this in mind next time you have a complaint and everyone tells you to "stop whining".

Thank you to those who have expressed your opinion politely, regardless if you agree with me or not.

No, I'm not upset I didn't make the cut. There are many other styles that people might find more desirable. I feel, though, that the finals are not more desirable. I could repeat myself until I'm blue in the face, but I'll say it again. A lot of the finals broke the rules and still made it, a lot of the styles are too similar to preexisting styles in game or in contest, and I feel the voting process has been skewed. Mami really hit it on the head.

And about being able to digitally render the style in game: im sure this was a factor, however, it seemed that as long as you stuck to the base guidelines, you were fine. A lot of the styles I'm seeing in threads seem a lot more realistic and manageable from an implementation aspect, but I have no skills or knowledge on this, so it's all speculation anyways.

If you guys saw the other entries, you'd understand.

IMO I don't really want another contest like this because the way they handled it made it not fun at all. Seriously, it seems like they just picked the first 25 entries off the pile and posted them. 2 or 3 entries that are almost identical to each other per category, multiple entries that are obviously against the rules. 2 entries (that I know of) that were already disqualified for cheating once the voting began... It's a mess.

Someone started a thread with the styles they posted. A lot of the styles being posted put all of the ones in the finalist bracket to shame

I am kicking myself, if I could just do an already existing hairstyle of a final fantasy character to get into the finals, like that Quistis copy, then I would have totally done a female Caius Ballad hairstyle!!
Instead I tried to make an original hairstyle, tsk tsk.

Also.... It's been scientifically proven that people will be more likely choose the option at the top of lists, and that options in the middle of the list will be chosen the least, regardless of what the options actually are. >.>

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Originally Posted by MamiTomoe

Someone started a thread with the styles they posted. A lot of the styles being posted put all of the ones in the finalist bracket to shame

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This is an opinion and the fundamental problem with this thread. Almost certainly your favorate style will be one that others either don't care about or don't like at all. That the thing with this. Its driven by opinions.

While you might not like any of the hair styles that doesn't mean that they are bad choices. This whole thing is increadably subjective. Frankly there was only one style I liked and its pretty clear at this point it's not going to win.

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Originally Posted by Belhi

This is an opinion and the fundamental problem with this thread. Almost certainly your favorate style will be one that others either don't care about or don't like at all. That the thing with this. Its driven by opinions.

While you might not like any of the hair styles that doesn't mean that they are bad choices. This whole thing is increadably subjective. Frankly there was only one style I liked and its pretty clear at this point it's not going to win.

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Because a contest full of the same side pony tail and bun styles are are almost exactly alike, one past FF hairstyle and plagarized recolored style from an advertisment, totally invalidates this thread and should be stifled just because its an "opinion" not a blatant fact.

Hey guys, according to this person, we are stupid and the contest is being totally run properly.

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Originally Posted by MamiTomoe

Because a contest full of the same side pony tail and bun styles are are almost exactly alike, one past FF hairstyle and plagarized recolored style from an advertisment, totally invalidates this thread and should be stifled just because its an "opinion" not a blatant fact.

Hey guys, according to this person, we are stupid and the contest is being totally run properly.

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My point was just because you don't like them doesn't make this contest broken. We knew from the start the Devs would be picking out the finalists. As I said, I'm not a fan of the selection but that doesn't make it invalid. At most you can claim that perhaps some of them breach rules. Even then its likely that if these are the ones they looked at that the ones they would pick to replace it will have similar styles.

Your argument seems to be that you don't like what the options are so therefore the contest isn't being run properly.

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/...20131109073200

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/a...1&d=1441012786

hmm.... so the winning male style.... Actually looks like a better rendered version of this.... Anyone want to be Rundelhous Code? XD

If you go in a red wine (whine previously !) contest, and half the crowd spit the finalist bottles, it means the contest is broken.

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Originally Posted by Mclyde

whine

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finally made sense of this thread

My only complaint is that for a contest that was supposed to be about showcasing creativity and originality, there sure is a lot of similarity in what made the cut for the finalists. A lot of them are either variations on styles we already have in-game or variations of each other... do we really need multiple side ponytails in the running? There are five different versions of a side ponytail/side-tied hair for the female hairstyles-- that's more than a little ridiculous. I was hoping the devs would pick a better diversity of styles, since there clearly was an impressive selection to choose from if the other thread is any indication.

Well based on what Mami stated the contest is indeed broken. They did bullet point originality as one key aspect of this contest and having Quistis, Warrior of light minion hairstyle and a photographed Roxas wig clearly shows how broken the selection process was. They could have been implemented those hairstyles at any moment without the need of their fans to submit it to a contest and made them available as micro purchases. Having 3 of the same style essentially dwarfs available entry options and potential variety which clearly indicates that the developers are biased towards side pony tails. The other thing there was no automated email system setup confirming your entry.

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Originally Posted by MiniMel

http://i.imgur.com/KVcOZTk.gif

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Luckily, I believe this entry has been removed.

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Originally Posted by lilirulu

My design was shown off in the livestream (male no.13) and made it into the contest. There may have been others but I simply didn't bother to check.

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Ah! Thanks for pointing that out.
Maybe the others weren't chosen because they posted it on social media... I bet a lot of hairstyles weren't chosen because of that?

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Originally Posted by Black_Rose

i don't understand.
it was said that the finalists were to be picked by developers based on creativity, originality and skill.
i for one am happy with the top 30 male and female designs.i didn't like them all, but the ones i did got my like.simple as that :o

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This. I don't agree with most of the hairstyles that made it into the voting but devs have their own taste for hairstyles and we have to respect it. :)
I also believe they picked hairstyles that are probably easily implementable and won't clip too much.

I feel bad for the entrants whose designs were chosen for the voting as all of this negativity and criticism has got to be detracting from what should be a happy occasion for them (except for the people who plagiarised pictures, they don't deserve sympathy). Personally speaking, neither of my designs were chosen but as one was an afro (I'm stupid and forgot they were already working on this) and the other was something that wouldn't have won many kind comments in the voting, I'm less shocked than most of my fellow losers. I'd have liked to have that style, but I still enjoyed voting on the alternatives since I never expected to be chosen anyway.

There are lots of reasons why the lovely designs which didn't make it through might not have been selected, though, and I think it's important to consider them. First and foremost, designs which coincidentally happened to resemble hairstyles the dev team are already working on would have probably been dismissed outright. It's unfair since players have no way to tell, but I imagine that the design team already has a bunch of 'must have' designs (like the legendary afro) they want to implement from time to time in patches, and if they've already started working on their version then it wouldn't make sense to let a similar style win the competition and detract from their upcoming announcements. In other words, simple bad luck could be involved.

Then there are some stunning designs which look beautiful, but it's hard to figure out how they actually work. This is especially the case with more abstract 2D art where the illustrator can cheat with perspective and proportion to make something fantastic on paper which would look terrible in 3D. People have been complaining over the notes on some of the shortlisted drawings but they really help; if they can tell that the designer is going to have to contact the winner again to ask how it works, well, it's going to be too much effort when there are hundreds of other entries to choose instead. Some don't show how the hair wraps around ears (of any kind), or how it looks from different angles, and in some the back view doesn't look like the same hairstyle as the front view.

A few of the great designs which weren't selected have obvious problems working around Miqo'te ears due to the positioning of various elements or partings. I know a few of the selected designs have this issue too, especially with Au Ra and Miqo'te, but it's possible that the designers felt they would be easier to implement based on previous experience.

The complaints about there being too many Japanese entrants make no sense to me. The game is promoted much more widely in Japan and awareness of the competition would have been widespread. The developers are mostly Japanese too and accustomed to Japanese tastes, so given that they probably received a significantly larger number of Japanese entries than any other it's not surprising quite a few made it through to this stage. It's annoying that they didn't translate the comments into all four languages though; how many non-speakers realised that the seventh female entry was supposed to resemble a moogle's pom and ears without the annotations before moving on? Again, if the entrants had known how their designs would be presented they might have annotated their drawings very differently.

Ultimately I'm just really happy they ran this contest. Even if they pick the 'worst' submissions it's still more hairstyles in the game to choose from, and if the contest goes well they could run it again in future to give us more sorely-needed character customisation choices. It's good that the community is questioning some of the more dubious things like the plagiarised designs (I'm glad that the stolen one was disqualified) and praising some of the alternate designs people submitted which were overlooked, but hearing people take out their frustrations on the people who worked hard on their entries, or making xenophobic remarks about too many Japanese drawings - based on assumptions - really bites.

Majority of complaints focus on how many of the entries just... Look so similar to what we already have. There are some that certainly stand out for being unique, but what's the point of adding in a pony or bun style, when that is already among current choices? If they're worried about clipping during animation, yet another pony style is not a prime choice. Just look at the lightning style...

Like I said before, my complaint towards the hairstyle options is that majority of them would not look good on a Roegadyn (unless they choose a particular face, but even then majority would look weird on a muscle man).

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Originally Posted by Nestama

Like I said before, my complaint towards the hairstyle options is that majority of them would not look good on a Roegadyn (unless they choose a particular face, but even then majority would look weird on a muscle man).

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I agree!
And same for the women styles realy. Only 2 suit a butch/warrior style female and theyre waaay behind in votes because of they didnt seperate NA, JP, EU entries n threads so theres an abundance of 'kawaii' and ripoffs.

This thread is really upsetting.
I had a hard time choosing a style I liked to vote, because none of them were really me, but I chose the one that had the most elements of what I would like implemented in the future.
No matter who is chosen as the finalists people will be upset their favourite didn't make it. A petition is pointless and this amount of backlash only goes to show the devs that they shouldn't hold contests like this in the future.
What about the people who were chosen? They must be so happy and I'm sure all this hate is so hard to deal with.