Challenge thoughts
 

Considering this prize had (in my opinion) the coolest prize evar and yet no one finished here at SL, I'm opening the floor for opinions and suggestions on what I could do with the challenges that would make people interested and actually want to compete and finish. What do you think the challenges need?

That's a tough one Mike.

I think the biggest problem we seem to have here at SLW is a lack of regular posters/contributors these days.

There's many times I can come on here and not see a single post for two-three days. There also seems to be a lot of single post wonders cropping up as well (ie: people who, judging by the nature of their posts are completely new to 3D in general, or Lightwave in particular) that post a single question only to disappear and never show their faces again.

We need to get more of a community going here then, I think we'll start getting the competition entries.

The problem is, we're facing stiff competition from the NewTek and SpinQuad forums I suspect, and I'd guess most of our old, regular userbase is hanging over at one or the other of these...

I have to agree with Mark - although there are some members who are regulars here and who do pop their heads in a lot, there are relatively few who make posts or new WIPs. I think a lack of recognition of the site and the prizes doesn't really help but that's again down to advertising of these things on the main pages.

There are an awful lot of Lightwave forums out there....

yes I agree with mark and fallenswordsman.
The problem is not in the challenges itself, it's the lack of a big community.
I voted yes for the merge of the sites mainly cause that would help to get more of a community feeling.

I subscribe the previous posts.

I like this site because it is not to big, but indead it is a bit to small. I also voted for the merge.

When more people regularly visit this site, maybe than the challenges will be more succesfull.

jocco

Ditto as above.
I used to visit here all of the time, posting quite a bit of my stuff. then things seemed like they slowed down, and I started frequenting SpinQuad. Nothing against SimplyLightWave, I love it, but when there is no one responding to your posts, it doesn't make you want to post anything, or even visit the site for that matter.
I looked forward to the competitions, although never finished one. But I think once the traffic for the site increases again, the competitions will get more entries.
My only suggestionwould be this: get the SimplyLightWave and Simply3DWorld names out there to more people.

Yep, I have to agree with all above. I started on the latest competition, because the prize was so cool, but life got in the way.

For me personally, I have a day job and a part-time videography business so I don't have much free time for the fun stuff. I visit almost daily and try to help others when I can but just don't have the time to compete. What I use LightWave for in my video business isn't worthy of posting because it's pretty uninteresting to regular 3D folks.

I don't think it has anything to do with the prize, interest, or inversly the lack there of in the challenges so much as has been mentioned, its just gotten rather quiet [and that's an understatement] around here.

Back when 100 or 200 people went thru here a day, if 10% entered the challenge, that's 10 to 20 people right there, now you've only got 10 people that visit the site daily, well, that's only one person to participate in the challenge.

It seems, tho I hate to say it, and can't back it up with fact, that LightWave as an app may also be in a bit of a down swing, the v[7]/v[8] life cycles, v[8] in particular didn't seem to live up to what they were supposed to, and some of the user base may have jumped ship. Now with v[9] and all that its shown thus far and promises its making, perhaps that could turn as well.

I think the best thing might be to get the regulars posting as much as possible, and hope to catch the people like myself who tend to breeze thru. Ride the storm out I guess, is all I can offer.

I'm not sure how you'd spread the word more; If you look for LW tutorials on the web, you'll wind up here in pretty short order as it is.

There is a certain ebb and flow to the web tho, some sites take off, and then stall for awhile, then flourish again; I can't say I was around for the "hey-day" of SL, but this may well just be the stall, and that a pick up in activity is just around the corner.




As a drastic measure, and logistical nightmare, you could look at getting some sort of community project started, get the regulars to spread the word to some of the other sites that you're going to be starting something and are looking for people to join. Then as its worked on, just keep "spamming" it elsewhere, like updating a project thread on other sites, small updates, just something to entice people, whilst keeping the majority of the updates here. Could improve traffic and might jump-start things around here, tho like I said, it can be a logistical nightmare, and requires a really solid leadership core to even begin to be a workable possibilty.




As for my personal involvement, or rather lack there of in the last challenge, as I failed miserably to even come close to completing my entry. I got tied up on one big project for most of the time [tho its on hiatus now due to computer problems], even with that project, I still intended to make a push in the last week or so of the challenge, but found myself instead spending forever trying figure out what the problem with my computer was and what had to be done to get that sorted out. I do feel like a bit of a jerk as spam-bots posted more on my WIP than I did, and hope to get a WIP going in the regular forum, as soon as I get a chance. Hopefully redeem myself a bit and save some face.



...and I got carried away, sorry, I know none of you want to read all that. This is what happens when you don't post often enough, it gets all pent up. :alien:

warlock,
glad you did ramble on, I think you are right, I noticed a big difference from two years ago, and even much recently. I think it takes a lot of initiative to get things rolling on any site, a lot of effort to generate a smal blip. I think there were too many challenges going on at the many LW websites and in combination with large workloads, there was the inevitable burnout.

However; once you lose momentum, it is hard to get rolling again. I think Spinquad spent a lot of time and effort to revitalise their website. I don't blame SLW for merging with other app related sites, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I think one of their problems is all their good forum admins have left for good jobs in the business and their absense shows , this is in no way meant to be a slam or hurt any who are still here, it just appears to me to be the case.

I've been working my dayjob 10 hours a day 6 days a week for going on three years now, + I've got another part time gig going on (computers) along with that so I'm burned out and would really love to sit here and play wth LW all day !! That's one of the reasons I haven't posted any work for a while.
:headbang:

There must be something about a lot of people being busy. I'm with them, I only wish I had had more time to participate this past year. Between my job and renovating my house I had no time to do anything on the computer. But there is a light at the end. I've finally finished my beadroom (I'd been sleeping in the living room since August) . There is still plenty to do but I can take my time.
So now I can get back into the LW zone. My demo needs a lot of work so I think I'll be posting a lot more often.

BTW I never cared about the prize. It's the challenge, goal, deadline, crits, and most of all the experience that brings me back.

Looking forward to the next comp.:beer:

Thanks for all the input, guys. I guess it's just slow around here, huh? I'm hoping that once the site merger happens, things will be better for all the apps

You can say that again Mike ... this has been the most active thread of the last week or so :D

I think it will be a lot better after the sites merge together.

I do agree with rwhunt99. I was busy with a challenge on another site. Although I am new here to posting on this site, I have checked out the tutorials from time to time and have thought about taking some. Which is, BTW, one of the reasons I finally signed up. But us 'beginners' do take some time on these challenges. I do look forward to getting better, faster and then able to do more and more challenges ;)