Vote Rigging?

[Kydoimos 915]

A bit concerned, on the SP category, being that it's judged by the public, what's in force to stop vote rigging? I mean, couldn't someone just keep voting up their own project? Or creating false profiles etc. Or downvoting good projects because they're worried about the competition? I'd feel a lot better if the whole thing was being judged by a panel put together by BIS...

[progamer 14]

Just let mob mentality solve that problem. Mob mentality never goes sour...

[Polygon 11]

I'd feel a lot better if the whole thing was being judged by a panel put together by BIS...

Where is it told that it won't be?

[Greenfist 1863]

20 finalists will be selected by the public, the winner by the judges.

[2nd ranger 282]

In the rules.

In the category Singleplayer Game Mode, 20 finalists will be selected by general public evaluation.

No criteria are determined for the category Singleplayer Game Mode as the finalists will be selected on the basis of public voting. Entries in this category will be awarded according to the number of received votes. Voting in this category is public and based on the discretion of voters. Entries with the highest score will be put in a fixed order while the score is determined according to the differential between the positive points (likes) and negative points (dislikes).

Then the three winning entries will be picked by a panel.

There are several things that make this system unfair, including the ones pointed out by Kydoimos. Also that voting opens in March, so anyone who submits their entry early is in with a big advantage because they will have more exposure. Clans might get their members to vote up an entry made by one of their own. Entries by high-profile mission makers might get more attention. And it's not like everybody is going to play every submission, so the vote is flawed for that reason alone.

And finally, I wouldn't trust the public to vote on missions that are actually any good. I'm constantly amazed that some missions on Steam that have 5 stars but don't even have tasks or a briefing. In short, the public will not be basing their votes on the same criteria that a BIS panel would. It's going to be subjective based on what kind of mission the majority of the public prefers, which in my experience is always along the lines of "You're a DELTA team BEHIND ENEMY LINES and your mission is to BLOW UP NINE TANKS and DESTROY THE RADAR TOWER and then STEAL A HELICOPTER to escape." If that's the kind of mission someone likes then that's fine, but whether or not a mission has working tasks or a briefing and is generally well-made doesn't seem to matter to alot of people in this community.

[Kydoimos 915]

Yeah. That's what scares me! BIS - if you're reading this - please, the community would feel better having you judge our entries! Otherwise, we'll tear ourselves apart and there will be a lot of animosity!

[Edge 2]

Hello, and thank you for the valuable input! Of course we are aware of the possibility of vote rigging, and we are working on a technical solution which would hopefully prevent it. Please cross your fingers!

The reason why we want to have finalists in one category selected by the community is that we want everyone (and not just contestants) to have chance to add their bit to this community event, we regard this as part of fun. :)

Of course, the selection of finalists by us vs. community would differ a lot, but we trust you! :) We hope you guys will give your "likes", "points" or "votes" (or whatever we will settle for) to the quality missions and campaigns - the community has IMHO seen enough to be able to judge this. It is obvious that missions entering the contest earlier will have chance to get more votes, but we honestly could not think of anything feasible which would counter this. I can imagine us keeping few wild-cards for the SPM entries we would like, but that would obviously require change in the rules (which is something I don't wish to do too often).

[teddmcfred 10]

How about having a deadline for everyone to submit their missions and then once the deadline is past have all of the missions available for rating at the same time

[gdscei 1]

How about having a deadline for everyone to submit their missions and then once the deadline is past have all of the missions available for rating at the same time

That seems like the best option, lots of contests do that.

[Rydygier 1302]

^ sounds fair as for voting, but then mission makers will get less time to polish their work, than participants of all other categories, and this may negative affect quality. Maybe then do not set earlier deadline for missions, but allow to vote eg. only in the last month/week? If there is one vote per person, then this is reasonable anyway - at least I would wait with my vote to the last moment, where all submissions would be 100% polished, and there will be certainty, that nothing better will appear after I voted.

Alternative perhaps:

Not general sum of votes should matter, but rather average amout of votes per month or week? If this should work fair, each voter should have possibility to add another his vote again each month/week. Additional advantage of such solution would be ability to change the mind. For example I voted on mission A in March, and in further months but in July appeared mission B, in my opinion better than A, so from this moment mission B has my monthly/weekly vote. For this purpose should possible even to un-vote one or more of my earlier votes and/or move them to another project. Sounds interesting to me, but I'm affraid, there may be also big cons of such system.

[Korneel 115]

Hi guys, just to elaborate on Edge's post and perhaps take away some of the concerns, let me try if I can clarify a few things. Firstly, public voting will indeed only be part of the SPM category, where the community can select the 20 finalists. The winners, however, will still be selected by the Make Arma jury. If there's any indication/suspicion of vote rigging, we'll make sure to intervene. Please also note that it will be possible to register your project, and create a project profile on www.makearma.com, without submitting the creation itself. You can also keep updating your work until the submission deadline. Secondly, as for any games developer, we do consider self-promotion and presentation (to some degree) as part of the process. Obviously the quality of your work comes first (it will not become a popularity contest), but it's definitely something to take into consideration. Alll in all, we take your suggestions to heart, and will continue to do so over the next few months, as ultimately the most important thing for everyone is that only the best will win.

Edited February 26, 2014 by Korneel

[Kydoimos 915]

Thanks Korneel - sounds fantastic! Really excited!

[bigpickle 0]

This has the possibility of causing a big division in the community, it is well know the people collaborate on mods, all it takes is someone to not include someone who contributed to light that fire. I think this competition for cash is a big mistake.

Just my 2 cents.

[nettrucker 142]

This has the possibility of causing a big division in the community, it is well know the people collaborate on mods, all it takes is someone to not include someone who contributed to light that fire. I think this competition for cash is a big mistake.

Just my 2 cents.

I couldn't agree more with you although already the steam exclusive distribution has caused a first division of the community and I'm afraid that this contest will continue this trend.

[Undeceived 392]

It is obvious that missions entering the contest earlier will have chance to get more votes, but we honestly could not think of anything feasible which would counter this.

This is really a fatal point, Edge!

Project released near to the deadline certainly won't get as many votes as other projects which were released around april or so (even if the later projects in some cases might potentially have a better quality, as the author took more time to expand and polish the mission/campaign).

Please think about this again, BIS... This is not good.

[Ezcoo 47]

I agree with Undeceived.

How about closing the submissions of mission category before voting? Either the submission of missions would be closed earlier than the other categories and the voting would be possible from that moment to the deadline of the other categories, or the public voting of the missions would start after the general submission deadline and last eg. a couple of weeks.

[Kydoimos 915]

I was also thinking about this issue: if for instance, you submit missions in a campaign, one by one, from the beginning of the voting period to the deadline, would that mean that every time you've updated your project, players would need to play though the missions they've already completed? This would engender a big disadvantage, as a lot of voters might not wish to play through a mission for the 3rd or 4th time just to get to new material...

[das attorney 857]

They could always use the ENDMISSION cheat to play the mission they wanted.

[Undeceived 392]

They could always use the ENDMISSION cheat to play the mission they wanted.

Yes, but depending the structure of the project (e.g. a campaign) and the scripts used, ENDMISSION would definitely screw up everything.

[Kydoimos 915]

Yeah, I have no idea how I'm going to get people to re-play missions just to get to new material!

[das attorney 857]

Yes, but depending the structure of the project (e.g. a campaign) and the scripts used, ENDMISSION would definitely screw up everything.

You could try the following so that you use a combination of saved data and then BIS_fnc_param if there is no saved/default data to work from:

At the end of every mission, you put the relevant info to make it persistent into an array:

// these are some things that came to mind

• global variables
  
• locations
  
• groups
  
• units
  
• vehicles

// and all the variables associated with them

Then you save this to the profileNamespace with saveProfileNamespace

Assuming there is some saved data, then you load it into the mission and continue as normal. (I think if you're playing it in one hit then this isn't even an issue).

But if someone starts a mission without having previously saved data in the profileNameSpace, it puts some default values into the mission (as if they were playing it as a one-off).

So you can play through the campaign sequentially (and it saves the current progress at the end of every mission to the profileNameSpace) or you could pick it up halfway through; and the game will recognise you have no prior progress and set some defaults with BIS_fnc_param.

That's what I would try anyway. Your mileage will vary :)

edit: you might not have to go to all that trouble - just define a variable at the start of the campaign that is persistent through the usual BIS way of saving missions. If it exists when you load an individual mission, then the game knows you are continuing. If it doesn't, then define the default conditions from there.

That way you can rely on default BIS campaign saving, but if none exists, then you default to some presets.

Edited March 7, 2014 by Das Attorney
C-L-A-R-I-T-Y

[L3TUC3 32]

Hi guys, just to elaborate on Edge's post and perhaps take away some of the concerns, let me try if I can clarify a few things. Firstly, public voting will indeed only be part of the SPM category, where the community can select the 20 finalists. The winners, however, will still be selected by the Make Arma jury. If there's any indication/suspicion of vote rigging, we'll make sure to intervene. Please also note that it will be possible to register your project, and create a project profile on www.makearma.com, without submitting the creation itself. You can also keep updating your work until the submission deadline. Secondly, as for any games developer, we do consider self-promotion and presentation (to some degree) as part of the process. Obviously the quality of your work comes first (it will not become a popularity contest), but it's definitely something to take into consideration. Alll in all, we take your suggestions to heart, and will continue to do so over the next few months, as ultimately the most important thing for everyone is that only the best will win.

That is a false statement as the popularity in the first stage is the main criteria for selection. Self-promotion is at this stage the only way to get considered for judging. A good quality submission certainly has a leg up over the competition for those that care about that, but a smartly placed ad on YT/reddit/FP/4chan that gets votes and support is of more value.

It's the direct opposite of what you intend.

In theory the best quality entry gets the highest votes, but in practice that hardly ever works out that way.

[Korneel 115]

That is a false statement as the popularity in the first stage is the main criteria for selection. Self-promotion is at this stage the only way to get considered for judging. A good quality submission certainly has a leg up over the competition for those that care about that, but a smartly placed ad on YT/reddit/FP/4chan that gets votes and support is of more value.

It's the direct opposite of what you intend.

In theory the best quality entry gets the highest votes, but in practice that hardly ever works out that way.

Hi L3TUC3, I think you fairly point out that promoting yourself can benefit entries in the SP category (in terms of making it into the finalists). That said, we should still recognize the importance of the quality of the entry (concept/execution/presentation) - and for instance the word-of-mouth buzz this often generates. In that sense, I think we might have different perspectives/predictions on the quality-vs-promotion balance, and the effect either one has on voting and popularity. That is completely okay of course. At this point only future will tell what's going to weigh in more. However, also given the fact that there are 20 finalist positions, I feel confident that the 'best' entries will eventually win, which in my (personal!) definition are probably the ones who do well in most aspects (concept/execution/presentation/promotion).

[L3TUC3 32]

Hi L3TUC3, I think you fairly point out that promoting yourself can benefit entries in the SP category (in terms of making it into the finalists). That said, we should still recognize the importance of the quality of the entry (concept/execution/presentation) - and for instance the word-of-mouth buzz this often generates. In that sense, I think we might have different perspectives/predictions on the quality-vs-promotion balance, and the effect either one has on voting and popularity. That is completely okay of course. At this point only future will tell what's going to weigh in more. However, also given the fact that there are 20 finalist positions, I feel confident that the 'best' entries will eventually win, which in my (personal!) definition are probably the ones who do well in most aspects (concept/execution/presentation/promotion).

It's a rational viewpoint but a bit naive. It seems pretty easy to have LOL entries completely subvert the intention of the competition while remaining inside the ruleset. I agree that these entries wouldn't be able to pass the final judging, but they can edge out sincere competitors for a spot in the final 20, which seems unfair, not to mention it wouldn't reflect well on the contest itself.

I'm not saying this will happen, but you must take the possibility into account. To me the current popularity mechanic seems vulnerable to abuse from third parties.

[Korneel 115]

It's a rational viewpoint but a bit naive. It seems pretty easy to have LOL entries completely subvert the intention of the competition while remaining inside the ruleset. I agree that these entries wouldn't be able to pass the final judging, but they can edge out sincere competitors for a spot in the final 20, which seems unfair, not to mention it wouldn't reflect well on the contest itself.

I'm not saying this will happen, but you must take the possibility into account. To me the current popularity mechanic seems vulnerable to abuse from third parties.

I appreciate your input, and recognize that there is a potential downside to public voting. For now, we've decided to go down this road - so let's see how things will go! Hopefully this contest element, where A3 players have a vote in selecting the SP finalists, can simply bring some extra buzz/visibility to the contest and the entries!