The whole hairstyle contest is bogus

[ElHeggunte]

I would say most votes don't get counted because i already know plenty of people that avoid these forums like the plaque and also banned players can't vote.

Those both sound like personal problems to me. It's not SE's fault if someone wants to avoid the forums and can't be bothered to visit for the few minutes it takes to vote. Getting banned kind of falls into the realm of personal responsibility too unless you want to fault SE for enforcing their own rules.

There are a lot of things they could have done better with this contest, but having the voting on the forums is fine.

[myahele]

I can understand why they went the forum route since the forum is linked to your account and as long as you logged into the game in the last 2 weeks you'll be able to enter the forum/lodestone.They probably wanted as much active players and with it being tied to one account makes things easier on their end.

I believe that it could have been better handled than the forum. Perhaps they could have done the voting on the Lodestone?

[Blood-Aki]

Those both sound like personal problems to me. It's not SE's fault if someone wants to avoid the forums and can't be bothered to visit for the few minutes it takes to vote. Getting banned kind of falls into the realm of personal responsibility too unless you want to fault SE for enforcing their own rules.

There are a lot of things they could have done better with this contest, but having the voting on the forums is fine.

An old FC mate i had a while back (quit now) got perma banned for telling someone it hurt to be around them, yes, saying that to someone got him banned. So i guess that is "enforcing the rules" and things like in turn keep people away from these forums. As i said, they need another source, if they want to get full actual legit votes.

Not to mention that you do need an active account to vote, it's fine to be able to vote if you say, take a break from the game. but plan on coming back but decide to vote.

[Ryel]

Those both sound like personal problems to me. It's not SE's fault if someone wants to avoid the forums and can't be bothered to visit for the few minutes it takes to vote. Getting banned kind of falls into the realm of personal responsibility too unless you want to fault SE for enforcing their own rules.

There are a lot of things they could have done better with this contest, but having the voting on the forums is fine.

Well actually it is, and is the entire point of having forum moderation to begin with.

When a game's forums are specifically designed to be a platform of communication between the developers and the players it is very much an issue if their players are actively avoiding their forums because of the types of posts and discussions that take place, players should not be afraid to visit the forums because they are afraid of being banned from them.

This is especially a problem when well though out and constructive posts regarding current and future development of content (parsers, endgame difficulty, variation of content design, and weekly caps) are often met with hostility instead of informed and intelligent discussion. Even this very thread which is pointing out an issue of communication and community involvement is slowly degrading into a pit of hostility when the OP's points are quite valid.

As for how the voting system is handled they easily could have added a poll system into the launcher itself that appears after you input your login information that could tally account votes and wouldn't require players to interact with the forums at all, doing so would give more accurate results as the players voting would be the ones actually logging into the game.

Perhaps instead of dismissing it as a personal problem, discussion should take place as to how to get more people to participate and post on the forums so the devs can actually get feedback from a larger percent of the playerbase.

[IvanOliver]

On my server, I've frequently mentioned this hairstyle contest to the public in Isghard and the goblin town in Dravania, but it seems no one is really interested in it and some have said they do not care. I've mentioned it on my FC as well and got someone to check the contest out. I can see it being an issue to have the voting on the forums because a lot of people usually think it is too negative but I'm sure a mature person would be able to look past the negativity and vote for stuff they want. I super-rarely comment on these forums and have already voted. The voting process is simple and I believe it is up to the individual to participate whether they like the forums or not. Are a lot of people missing out? Yes, but there are multiple reasons why, whether it has to do with themselves or other factors but imo the forums are fine enough. As for the people banned, I think that sucks but I guess it could be a consequence.

[BreathlessTao]

The link telling people to vote was on the launcher, so they have no excuses.

Do you have any idea how many people don't even seem to notice anything else in the launcher than the login part? Patch notes, seasonal events, contests - heck, even when a maintenance notice is shown in full as a separate stop before the game is actually launched up... I always have at least half a dozen people being surprised at / asking questions about those exact bits of information when it comes up in a convo anywhere, and I'm probably one of the least sociable people in the game, so I barely have channels. That's how much attention most people pay. Of course, it doesn't help that the launcher is quite clunky too, and even if you do open a link, it's only two or three intro sentences, after which there's only a URL to open up the browser - patience isn't a virtue these days, and something like that is too cumbersome for most to care, even if they do check out news in the launcher. So yeah, while this "it's in the launcher" argument seems perfectly legit to cover the informing-people-about-things part, it really doesn't work at all.

[Laerune]

If they informed the players via social media or the forum alone, then I would have agreed with you, but since there was a link to the voting thread on the launcher, one could say that every active FFXIV player would have atleast known about the contest. So I have to disagree with you.

[Shamo_Lomenzo]

When a game's forums are specifically designed to be a platform of communication between the developers and the players it is very much an issue if their players are actively avoiding their forums because of the types of posts and discussions that take place, players should not be afraid to visit the forums because they are afraid of being banned from them.

You say this like it's not a common thing on online forums.

Every forum I have visited, without fail, had members that fought with or feared the moderators as well as flung around the word 'toxic' as much as this forum does. Your statement isn't really a commentary on this forum, but on online forums in general.

[LaylaTsarra]

Does this forum have moderators? Hard to tell given I rarely ever see them respond to anyone. The forum sadly can be very toxic and I've been a part of quite a few of them. Nothing wrong with dissent it's just that here it does get very hot and heavy a bit too often for my tastes at least.

Happy we're getting new styles. I hope we get more than one pic from these per role. I think it makes the game a lot more fun to have a lot more choices.

[Antanias]

The problem with the contest is that people can only really pick one hairstyle for each gender. There was a rather recent dev post that clarified how the voting process actually worked.

Edit: Here is the link: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...69#post3297169