What’s happening people? I entered 3 challenges in the past months, dedicated some time to build a car, waited anxiously to see how it stacked up, and well, still waiting!
The organizers should select a easier evaluation method, or use prints to show the results, so no car handling for the organizers.
I know that feel bro. Anyone remembers Formula Automation 1990? ;_;
I think the biggest thing is they let the challenges run too long and then get hit with an update that screws with all the calculations. Another thing is they may not feel so enthusiastic about a certain challenge and just push it to the side. Either way it makes me think twice about entering any challenge now since the forum is filled with half finished challenges and ones that look like they will be a major pain for the OP, as a host you better be able to dedicate at LEAST a day to judging, writing and posting and that is the bare minimum, if you dont have the time then dont run the challenge.
I know I have a “challenge” running but at least I dont need to judge anything there so it kinda just runs, still waiting on one more part before I can do anything with my PC, laptop cant run Automation at all.
I know what you are talking about. So far I have run and finised 4/5 of my challanges completely. The only one not finished is The Best in Class. The results were posted. But the reviews are not finished.
So far it is the only one I have let slide like that, but it wont happen again.
The recent Homologation 1988 was finished in a timely manner.
Even with that one you let slide a bit Lordred I would still enter your future challenges, yours are always fun to enter. It is generally the first time ones that I dont think the hosts realize how big of a job hosting really is.
We should keep a tracking post/thread for challenge status, so we don’t have to keep flicking through and bumping various threads that get buried. Not 100% sure how that is to work just yet (one user manages central first post?)
Also I’m in complete agreement, it’s very easy to underestimate the work involved. I’m sadly only 2/3 myself, having not finished the absolutely ancient Mille Cavalli shootout. I promised to fully illustrate the article and much to my horror that’s actually not an easy thing LOL. Even the text I’ve been chipping away for 18 months it’s ridiculous. I refuse to call it dead though.
Also in retrospect BSLL was far larger but that just snowballed I guess LOL. Also I had a more competent person keeping the info organised. And PPAHC was pretty easy, when it came to processing data at least, but I had Blasters help me with the cards!
Don’t worry about V6SC going dead, once I have the chassis for the new update people can start turning the chassis into racecars and then the races will begin.
I am on 2/3 too. Both ATCCs went smoothly, but so many things are stopping me from writing the final somwos review, for example I’m finally on vacations, but now my computer is broken. The fact that I want that review to be extremely good doesn’t help one bit either.
Well, from experience, I was on pixelcarlife for some time, and racing there took ages. It’s a huge chore to judge a race, and maintaining a race in here is not easier, at least if it is - not by much, it’s still a chore. You have to understand that, and sometimes even let go.
I agree and I’ve been trying to take that into account with the development of my first challenge. It’s building a truck, so it’s not garnering the attention of some of the sportier challenges. That being said, I really hope that my newbie hosting status isn’t deterring people from entering. I’ve been very meticulous in developing a timeline that will work with my schedule as well as leaving the premise and rules up for discussion for two weeks. I’m really excited to put it all together.
Frequently it takes time for entries to come in. It tends to snowball closer to deadline!
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This, in every event I have had thus far, I get most of the entries in the last 4 days.
it’s just the ‘oh shit it’s gonna close, better forget my priorities and make a car first’ effect
My last 3 or 4 competitions, only 1-2 users entered, and this is frustrating because you expensed time to create the challenge.
Other competitions, like the Group B, only 1 race, and later.
I will enter yours as soon as my desktop is back together 
Already got 2 entries this morning that I will check when I’m not on my phone. So I’m happy to see interest picking up. 
[quote=“vmo”]My last 3 or 4 competitions, only 1-2 users entered, and this is frustrating because you expensed time to create the challenge.
Other competitions, like the Group B, only 1 race, and later.[/quote]
It is mostly because lately a lot of people do not finish what they start! At least that is my opinion in this matter. Due to the lack of interesting and properly finished challenges lately my automation fever has cooled down somewhat. I would like to say to all people that start a challenge: understand what you are getting into. Challenges are not done in 20 minutes or so and do take a significant amount of time in checking the cars and writing the reviews/results. People that never organised challenges before are ought to participate in a couple prior to organizing one themselves, at least then you have a small clue what it takes. Every dead/significantly delayed challenge sets a bad example. Also start simple and organise something unique and not another hot hatch or sports car challenge. Also simple time laps around any automation test track is not going to be good enough to simulate a proper race. This is mostly due to BRC challenge, which got people spoiled, at least I do.
Sadly, I thought it would end up like it did from the start tbh. Too bad though.
yes! i had the fastest car! only one race then vanished!
Its very sad to see that the challenge subforum is dying of a bit.
The problem of dying is caused by - in my opinion - a couple of reasons.
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Hosts disappearing
That is a serious issue… hosts abandon the challenge, people get disappointed and may lose their faith in other challenges or just stop entering those because they can’t be sure that it will happen again and making all the work worthless. If you host some kind of challenge, finish it. Hosting one is a huge amount of work, think wisely before starting one and dont just abandon it because you thought it wouldnt be so much work. -
Stuff is too complex
The most recent example I have is AMWEC. Its a really amazing challenge - kudos to sillyworld - concept seems really good! But I lost interest after i saw the 2+ page ruleset, which happend to some challenges here already. I like complexity, but reading through lines of rules and having to tab all the time just to double check if everything is allright? Thats not for me. -
Stuff is uninteresting
There are some challenges that sound dull or are not interesting enough to make people participate - which can cause a disappointment for the host and let him cancel it or people think “Eh, noone is participating, not interested” or “My nemesis is not participating, cant beat him there”. Make it interesting, make people WANT to participate!
Add variety to your challenge, make it stand out. The BRC stood out by random tracks in the first iteration and then had a full race simulation with live race commentary in the second iteration! Its hard to beat that, but if you do something clever people will still particpate in a race that is not that fancy or exciting to watch. AWMEC is an outstanding example in that case.
I see a huge trend for reviews right now… but soon that will shift, because having a ton of reviews will make it bland.
Innovate, go back to older challenges and revolutionize those! I haven’t seen a TEC Styled challenge since 2013! Or combine stuff with real life, like NormanVauxhalls idea of choosing the race tracks by real lottery numbers. -
Planning
If you make a challenge… try to make it so that people have enough time to enter. And please try not to set your challenge at the same time of other seemingly interesting ones. Once again i can only speak for myself, your opinion might be different. Right now I see maybe 1 interesting and open challenge on page one, while there are 9 running and 1 closed. Either they all started on the same day or I simply missed those. Don’t let them run too long aswell, people will lose interest! On Brobot races a weekly interval for Training, Qualify and Race was pretty optimal. For normal races something like results every 2-3 days seems okay too! For reviews: once they are done.
And now comes something that will go hand in hand with #5. -
Updates screwing with Challenges
While I siad that you should let people have enough time to enter, it shouldn’t be weeks or months. Updates will come and some point and break your challenge, and you really don’t want that to happen. For that i recommend watching the Little Dev Updates, as they can give you a rough idea how close the next update is. Plan ahead! Mostly you can finish the praperation of the results in one or two days after the deadline, posting them can obviously take longer.
@Tycondero:
Yes people are spoiled by Brobot - that is pure fact. But to be honest, for how long could you keep people interested with simple track times, innovation had to come at some point. Brobot is one way to innovate, AMWEC another. My next challenge is in preparation already, I just wait for Brobot 2.0 to release and can instantly start the thread about it. And by that you can exactly sense: I am not hosting a race without Brobot anymore, I don’t see a simple track-time as “satisfying” as they were in the beginning anymore.
Christmas season is also a bad idea for challenges in general. I hosted the first communist trohpy around that time and it ended up to be quite a pain because there were the holidays where i drove away for a few days and got off track. I can remember saying “tomorrow last result” and ultimately releasing it 7 days later.
However: Another Communist Challenge is coming!
WOO!!! That one was fun and had awesome narrative, cant wait to make a build for that! 