Criteria for the Interior Design Contest?

[Luna_Ariana]

Well it's not from the English Team but on the German Thread there's been an actual repsonse posted.

Hallo zusammen,

Angesichts der Bekanntgabe der Ergebnisse des Einrichtungs-Wettbewerbs möchte ich mich gerne mit einem Update zu Wort melden.

Ich verstehe eure Frustration in Bezug auf die derzeitige Situation und möchte mich aufrichtig dafür entschuldigen, dass einige von euch sich unfair behandelt fühlen. Es ist selbstverständlich, dass in eure Teilnahme viel Zeit und Mühe geflossen ist und in keinem Fall möchten wir euch den Eindruck vermitteln, dies nicht entsprechend zu würdigen. Für zukünftige Ereignisse dieser Art werden wir die von euch genannten Punkte berücksichtigen und im Team besprechen.

Wir bitten euch zu verstehen, dass bezüglich des Punktes der Mehrfachteilnahme diese nicht gegen die Regeln verstoßen hat. Jedoch nehmen wir auch dankend das Feedback aller Gewinner an und versuchen diesen Aspekt für zukünftige Wettbewerbe besser im Auge zu behalten, um den doppelten Erhalt von Spielgegenständen zu vermeiden.

Ich bitte euch nochmals aufrichtig um Verzeihung für die Unannehmlichkeiten.

Liebe Grüße,
Xuquanidi (Xu)

What she said in the Post is that she understands our Frustration and that they will work on this in the Future. Including an Apologize.

Well.. atleast one response has been made?

[HyoMinPark]

Well it's not from the English Team but on the German Thread there's been an actual repsonse posted.

What she said in the Post is that she understands our Frustration and that they will work on this in the Future. Including an Apologize.

Well.. atleast one response has been made?

It would be lovely for them to respond on the other subforums as well. I don’t know if JP had any sort of attention directed at this, but the English forums were at least blowing up over it. Can’t speak for the French forums, either.


I’m still not happy with them simply saying “We’ll work on this in the future”. Because people broke the rules and won now, and people followed the rules and lost now. Honestly, it never should have happened; they should have been more diligent and actually looked at the entries, but, at this point, I don’t even know what to say anymore.

I don’t think I’ll participate in any future contests though, since apparently the rules don’t matter.

[Luna_Ariana]

It would be lovely for them to respond on the other subforums as well. I don’t know if JP had any sort of attention directed at this, but the English forums were at least blowing up over it. Can’t speak for the French forums, either.

Checked the French Forums yet couldn't see any official Response from there. Soo it's mostly the German Rep who did it.

And yes they really NEED to do something about it now. People been saying that it alreadyy happened earlier Contests and it's still the case. The more this is happening the more people will not join at all. Square Enix please do thing for that. .__.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Checked the French Forums yet couldn't see any official Response from there. Soo it's mostly the German Rep who did it.

And yes they really NEED to do something about it now. People been saying that it alreadyy happened earlier Contests and it's still the case. The more this is happening the more people will not join at all. Square Enix please do thing for that. .__.

I really hate their "we'll fix in the future" policy. How about you follow your own rules to begin with? I mean, how difficult is it to eliminate entries who altered their screenshots either through gpose or icam? I really feel like the theory floating reddit is accurate. They didn't judge anything but simply drew names out of a hat.

[nranola]

And yes they really NEED to do something about it now. People been saying that it alreadyy happened earlier Contests and it's still the case. The more this is happening the more people will not join at all. Square Enix please do thing for that. .__.

Exactly, it's happened before, so why is this sort of thing still happening? "We will work on this in the future"? Since this has happened before, the future is NOW.

It's not like they don't have time to act on the situation, either. The prizes don't get awarded until December. If there's any anomalies with the winning entries, they can absolutely do something about it before then.

In your opinion, wich participants to the contest should be disqualificated?

I think it's safe to disqualify the people who have submitting entries that use gpose, other alterations to the screenshots, and not submitting the correct number of screenshots. There have been winning entries who have modified their houses during the judging period as well, but since we never got a clarification about what exactly counts as "modifying the house" (i.e. does modifying parts of the house that are not included in the screenshots count?) and because there's no way to procure evidence on our end except for maybe admission of the act by the player, it will have to be left to the GMs' discretion.

[HyoMinPark]

I think it's safe to disqualify the people who have submitting entries that use gpose, other alterations to the screenshots, and not submitting the correct number of screenshots. There have been winning entries who have modified their houses during the judging period as well, but since we never got a clarification about what exactly counts as "modifying the house" (i.e. does modifying parts of the house that are not included in the screenshots count?) and because there's no way to procure evidence on our end except for maybe admission of the act by the player, it will have to be left to the GMs' discretion.

For what it’s worth, this footnote was added yesterday to the Lodestone post announcing the winners:

* You are now free to make changes to your estate decor. Thank you for your patience.
* Updated Monday, October 29 at 3:00 a.m. (PDT)

Considering the contest was about Interior Design, it can be assumed that any changes to the interior of your estate (adding furniture, removing furniture, changing floors/walls/lighting, completely redecorating, demolishing your estate, relocating your estate, etc.) were things you were not allowed to do. Small things like planting/unplanting seeds in flower pots I do not think they would consider significant, but adding in new furnishings, removing furnishings, or moving things around could have been interpreted as strictly prohibited as per the contest rules:

Do not make any changes to your estate until after Sponsor reveals the winning entries.

All things digital leave a digital trail. I’m 100% certain there are change logs that GMs could easily have access to, to see any changes made to a particular estate, including the interiors. Everything leaves a mark somewhere when it comes to programming.

[nranola]

Small things like planting/unplanting seeds in flower pots I do not think they would consider significant,

I'd argue that using flower pots may still be considered as breaking the rules because I've seen many people (myself included) use the flowers still in the pots as part of the decor. This was one of the things I was wondering about myself and wanted clarification on, but unfortunately we didn't get any official response on it.

I also believe that the GMs would be able to know which entrants modified their houses within the judging period if they took the time to look at their logs. I suppose that considering how many rule violators made it into the winners list, and some comments on the reddit thread from people who had knowingly forfeited the contest by modifying their interiors and shockingly still won, my expectations on them doing so is quite low. That said, I think they should at least disqualify the winners who had violated the no gpose/alteration rule and other clear violations that we can see via the screenshots. This is how they "do better".

I do appreciate them hosting the contest and I imagine it must be a huge undertaking going through as many entries as they do, but I hope they make this right. I would be perfectly fine losing contest after contest if the rules are implemented properly. The way things stands right now joining the contests feel like wasted time and effort.

[Asrun]

Well it's not from the English Team but on the German Thread there's been an actual repsonse posted.



What she said in the Post is that she understands our Frustration and that they will work on this in the Future. Including an Apologize.

Well.. atleast one response has been made?

Nice to have an answer, but an apology means nothing at this point.

The more I look at the winner list and the more i find evident violations of the rules...
Someone even made a video about it:
https://youtu.be/41W0aNgWz0s

It is just ridiculous for them to say that for future events of this kind they will consider the points mentioned in the german post. In this contest they set rules and then they choose as winners so many entries that so clearly violated those very same rules...

They should at least select other winners among the ones that followed the rules to get credibility back. If they won't react to this situation this time, I will not care for any future events or contests. Fool me once, shame on you....

[MizArai]

Nice to have an answer, but an apology means nothing at this point.

The more I look at the winner list and the more i find evident violations of the rules...
Someone even made a video about it:
https://youtu.be/41W0aNgWz0s

It is just ridiculous for them to say that for future events of this kind they will consider the points mentioned in the german post. In this contest they set rules and then they choose as winners so many entries that so clearly violated those very same rules...

They should at least select other winners among the ones that followed the rules to get credibility back. If they won't react to this situation this time, I will not care for any future events or contests. Fool me once, shame on you....

In the video he talks about people using 4.4 furnishings, but they show things that were added to the game in 4.3. I didn't see anything that had been added in 4.4 in any of the winners' pictures, though I haven't really taken a chance to study them yet.

He also talks nonsense about how winners used glitches for things like lofts, but that was something people specifically asked if it was ok and never got an answer to, it's also something that SE has known is happening for a long time and if they wanted to, they could easily fix most of it by just getting rid of the counter placement toggle. "Glitching" is a huge part of decorating houses in ffxiv, so it shouldn't have even been mentioned imo.

I do take offense to the person who won and used a screenshot of their yard (especially since they asked in the forum and were told they could not).

It was specifically stated that a person could make one entry in all the different sizes, so if you had an apt/ FC, cottage, house, and mansion you could enter all four, so I'm super happy for the person who won 3 times. That's amazing to me!

The winners who used /gpose, filters, had their character in the screenshots, or altered their screenshots with a 3rd party program should have been disqualified. Some of them were quite obvious.

With how lax everything else about the judging was, I do wonder how many people altered their home and won anyway, though it's been obvious for a long time that SE doesn't take these contests too seriously, since these kinds of things happen with all of them. I agree with the other people who say not to take it so serious yourself. Enter to show off your great home.

[GunnerMegaraptor]

As this was my first time entering, I didn’t realize how strictly the rules would be enforced. That said, I did make sure to read all of the rules thoroughly and followed them exactly to refrain from being disqualified. I even used the practice thread to make sure my post didn’t have any issues and so I wouldn’t need to make another post. After putting so much time and effort into complying to the given rules, it’s a bit frustrating that people who didn’t take the time to read the rules or broke them purposely won. Now I at least know that the contests are more casual than I anticipated (which I should have maybe realized based on the rewards) but I do wish that this information was stated more clearly for those that haven’t entered before. I think it’s pretty obvious that giving rules for a contest leads people to believe that entrants breaking these rules would be disqualified.

I also read about one person getting disqualified because they made a small change to their home, yet others that used /gpose or had their character in their screenshots won. If this is the case, then that is really unfair. Why should only some of the rules be enforced?

Another thing that was a little upsetting is that some of the entries that won appeared to have less effort put in than others. I think most were great, but I saw one that had a completely empty room with grass flooring and a couple were fairly plain, but there must have been a reason they were chosen of course. I suppose that the screenshots also may not have portrayed the house as well as physically visiting the home.

My main takeaway from the contest experience is that it’s not organized that well, but the rewards aren’t amazing so it’s not a big deal. Just meant to boost morale in the housing community and get people more interested in housing in general. I do hope they fine tune things in the future, but I won’t expect them to take any action regarding this currrent contest.