60 replies to this topic

[TaraBing]

I see you dilligently keep your statistics, Tara.

 

Well, since you were curious how many players from the best studios end up in the weekly Top 10, I can provide you the data for my week... 1. Amberson, 2. Analis, 3. Lursa, 4. Krysta, 5. Ayy, 6. Clydesdale, 7. Mynx (Youd did it, girl! Top 10! I didnt notice it before... ), 8. Brittn3y, 9. Gertie, 10. Gigi71

 

 

BTW, does anyone else dislike the "supreme sticker" that takes up the whole damn cover as much as me? I would say that’s also a big no-no in terms of your chances to win... at least in most cases, ‘cause I can't say that there was never an exception to this rule before.

 

• I like to track my entries to see what made them good (or bad, I have some bad doozies).  The cover in between my first place and 2nd place finishes ended up in the 1,000's rankings.  Ouch.

 

• Yourself, and Mynx might be the only finishers outside of the TOP-10 studios.  If that holds form, the over/under is 8.

 

• The supreme sticker is called a "violator sticker" in the marketing/advertising business.  Violator stickers can be used discreetly in the corner of an ad or product or bold across a large area (as is the case here)... it covers almost 1/5th of the real-estate on these covers.  Yuck... !  I often don't vote for it, when I see it as well.

 

 

-TB

 

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[Amberson]

You overlook ayy (I mentioned he is from my studio), so the over/under is 7 for that week.

 

And thanks for the info about the "violator sticker". I didnt know this technical term till now.

Edited by Amberson, 09 May 2017 - 15:03 PM.

[TaraBing]

You overlook ayy (I mentioned he is from my studio), so the over/under is 7 for that week.

 

And thanks for the info about the "violator sticker". I didnt know this technical term till now.

 

 

You did say ayy was in your studio.  That's pretty good for two players to finish Top-10 in BBA  from the same non-Top-10 studio.  My guess is that is really rare.

 

So with you, ayy, and Mynx identified, the other 7 are all from Top-10 studios?  If that holds true, that sounds about right.

 

 

* * *

 

As for remembering about violator banners, that is some old school memory from days gone by.  I used to work in software games business A LONG TIME AGO, and the marketing department wanted to republish some existing titles with a new sponsor, and one of the players in the room piped up - we can use a "violator" in the corner of the packaging, "Sponsored by...".  I never forgot that.

 

 

-TB

 

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[Amberson]

It probably is rare. People might think that there was some studio cooperation involved, but as i said, we don’t do that. Ayy is actually one of the studio members that I haven’t spoken a word to... yet.

 

Anyway, I followed your suit and looked into my filmography to get familiar with the statics in a similar way as you did.

 

I won’t count my very first participation in the awards, because I started to play on Sunday, so even though I did shoot 3 movies that day, I didn’t really have a chance to place high no matter how good the cover was. The next week I was 30th, then 82nd, 58th, after that came the fiasco with the police-themed cover that didn’t even get to the Top 1000 and since then I was constantly improving by being 25th, 14th, 10th and finally first. So it took me 8 (or 9, if you count that very first nomination) weeks to win. I quess that's a very short period of time in comparison to most other players. But who knows, maybe now I'll start to gradually decline for a change and some of the luck I had so far will move to another player. Maybe even to someone who will read this message.

[Mynx]

Yes! I was excited to see 7th because that's the highest I've gotten so far. It was a new outfit too. The higher level I get, the better the outfits look and I saw some of the higher ranking players using the same outfit so I wanted to give it a try. 

 

The only reason why I bring up a conspiracy is because I usually see the same players or high ranking studios at the top. At least top 50. And all I want to know is how. My goal is to hit #1 just one time and I'm move on to the next goal. I'm not expecting it to happen soon, but knowing how the system works helps too. 

 

And grats on getting #1 Amberson!

[Analis]

The only reason why I bring up a conspiracy is because I usually see

the same players or high ranking studios at the top. At least top 50. 

 

 

No offense to anyone, but why does everyone so easily forget that there is a reason why these people and studios are top 50? It is more than anything else because of activity. People who are actively involved in this game get drawn to top studios. And top studios are almost constantly in search of a replacement player here and there. Like… someone who's more active than an older member who started going offline more lately, who isn't so interested in the game anymore or just stopped being chatty-social. It's a given that players come and players go. But if you're a good player you'll almost always get swallowed up by a top studio. Players want that. Studios want that.

That's just how it works.

 

For example: I've checked out all three of you before - Tara, Mynx and Amb - when you reached the BBA top 10. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has. If I haven't tried to check if you wanted to join our bigger studio (Bros and Hoes by the way - w00t w00t), I'll have had my reasons. But the BBA is generally a good place to check for players with a pulse. So my prediction is: if you keep it this active, Amberson and Mynx, you'll probably get asked sooner than later to join a bigger studio. It's your choice if you go with it or not. There's no shame in either choice, but if you go for the bigger studio, like most others have done before you…

 

"welcome to the conspiracy". 

[TaraBing]

No offense to anyone, but why does everyone so easily forget that there is a reason why these people and studios are top 50? It is more than anything else because of activity. People who are actively involved in this game get drawn to top studios. And top studios are almost constantly in search of a replacement player here and there. Like… someone who's more active than an older member who started going offline more lately, who isn't so interested in the game anymore or just stopped being chatty-social. It's a given that players come and players go. But if you're a good player you'll almost always get swallowed up by a top studio. Players want that. Studios want that.

That's just how it works.

 

For example: I've checked out all three of you before - Tara, Mynx and Amb - when you reached the BBA top 10. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has. If I haven't tried to check if you wanted to join our bigger studio (Bros and Hoes by the way - w00t w00t), I'll have had my reasons. But the BBA is generally a good place to check for players with a pulse. So my prediction is: if you keep it this active, Amberson and Mynx, you'll probably get asked sooner than later to join a bigger studio. It's your choice if you go with it or not. There's no shame in either choice, but if you go for the bigger studio, like most others have done before you…

 

"welcome to the conspiracy". 

 

I like the way this is worded... especially the "pulse" part.  It reiterates the nature of what it takes to play for and be in a Top-Studio.  Top Studios (and those that want to be) are vigilant in monitoring the pulse of their membership and weeding out those not performing and replacing them with more active players.  It's how a studio survives and if there is one constant, that constant is change.

 

What doesn't change are the rules for membership, - they usually include the following:

1. "you must be of a certain level, active, and/or exceptional in some way",
2. "try to grow x-amount of levels a week",
3. "help out with temple challenges",
4. "don't duel your fellow members",
5. "donations are appreciated, but not required",
6. "be active in our studio chats",
7. and the one that makes it all clear, "inactivity of x-amount days or more (without notifying a boss or a producer) is grounds for dismissal".

 

It's a winning set of guidelines and one that cultivates an expectation that studio members should be team players looking out for each other, and if you're not contributing or looking out for each other then you're not a team player.  This theme is extended to all aspects of the game, including BBA.

 

 

As for the belief that says all good players want to play for top studios, I don't subscribe to that.  While I can appreciate how other studios are built, there is something to be said for growing a studio simply by growing your self and being loyal to your studio.

 

This game is completely playable no matter what level you are at.  It's like playing basketball.  You can still find a group of friends (studio mates) you enjoy playing with even if your collective game is played "below the rim".  Will you get squished by the "high-flying pros" should they come knocking on your court for a game?  Most certainly.  But the game is designed to lessen the blow based on the disparity in levels.

 

 

 

Game on, at all levels.  

 

 

-TB

 

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[Analis]

Very nicely put Tara!

 

As for the belief that says all good players want to play for top studios, I don't subscribe to that.

 

I did say "almost always" there - I did have UK2 exceptions like you, Tori and Lozenges in mind.

Meaning: people who outgrew yet stayed in their studio. Sorry if that's blunt: I actually respect it a lot.

Of the top 150 glory players in UK2 there are only 15 players who have never been inside a top 12 studio.

That's only 1 out of 10: if you compare that percentage to the 2-3 out of 10 who generally have a top 10 spot in the BBAs...

Just saying it's generally so. But glad there are exceptions.

[TaraBing]

Very nicely put Tara!

 

   :

   :

 

Just saying it's generally so. But glad there are exceptions.

 

And I think Jan13 of Barbar gets an honorable mention here as well - but Jan plays by himself, no pun intended. 

 

-TB

 

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[Mynx]

I've been asked to join other studios (don't ask which because I've forgotten and deleted the mail since) and I refused because I like the studio I'm already in. Like Tara said, I've noticed a lot of the higher ranking studios have more rules and I understand it's the formula they use to be as successful as they are, but it's not for me. I'm active daily and I do my three movies a day unless something is going on in real life. From what I can remember, I've been with them since I started playing the game which has been over a year and I don't plan on abandoning them now. 

 

Besides, Analis, it's all conversation. Conspiracy makes it sound so mysterious and it was created in hopes of getting people talking. 

[Amberson]

Same here. I was already asked to join a big studio on the edge of Top 10 with the ambition to become a stable part of it some time ago. And recentiy I had a little e-mail comversation with one of the absolute best palyers on the server who also offered me to join his Top 5 studio. What actually started the conversation was the fact that he noticed my covers, like you yourself did, Analis, during my second week of playing when you e-mailed me to say how you liked that particular cover (I ended 30th with it and I think that you were in fact the winner of that week, so it was nice to hear that such a sucessfull and well established player took positive notice of some newbie). Anyway, I declined both of those offers and at least in the foreseeable future will decline any other such offer as well.

I like my studio, even though it's not full of ultra active and chatty people. I like the freedom of our studio policy which is very laidback and doesn't force you to anything. You don't have to notice anyone in advance that you won't be able or don't want play for a couple of days. You will be kicked out only after a very long time of complete inactivity and even then it will probably be me who will kick you out , not our boss. You don't have to donate anything if you don't want to, you don't have to chat if you're not into that and you can still be a part of our team. I realize this is not the winning strategy, it's actually quite the opppsite, but nevertheless we still have a couple of very active players and a bunch of others who play regularly. So in the end we still manage to secure our 16 or more skill points in the weekly temple competition and we are actually improving as time goes by (we were already in the Top 10 recetly when you had to buy skill points and one of our members somehow bought like 1400 of them). I find it more entertaining and exciting to help it in such progress then to just ride on the tail of an already established powerhouse. If more strong players stayed in the second-row studios, the competition wold be bigger eventually and the game would be more fun. I know that this will never apply to most people, but I don't mind to be the exception by my own choice.

On a personal level, I managed to jump from the bottom of the very top of my studio quite quickly and now want to solidify that position, not to right away move somewhere else where I'll be again at the bottom among completely new people and under constant pressure to perform. I did perform for the last 2 month, but for example now I can't play at all for at least 3 days. Maybe in the future, I won't be able to play for an even longer time or the game won't interest me like it used to... And in my current, I don't have to worry about the comsequences. I'm able to play exactly how I can and want at any given time. The play itself should be fun after all and not a stresfull experience.

One more great thing about our studio is the fact, that it is fully expanded and in this regard belongs to the exclusive club of only 10 studios that accomplished this on the UK2. So in terms of possible boosts, the best studios don't have anything to offer me that my studio doesn't provide my with already. You don't even need to be a part of the studio titans to be sucessful in BBAs (that is determind mostly by your individual activity, abilities, luck etc.), so the only real advantage in joining the would be the rise in weekly skill points and experience from the Temple and maybe also more notes from studio fights. But if you don't have the ambition to be one of the top players on the glory ladder, you don't really need any of that.

In the end, I think my studio is ideal for me and offers me exactly what I want. I might not seem that way from my posts in this theead, but I'm actually not that much of a social player... Regardless, I still managed to enjoy some fun times in our studio chat which is usually silent. So there really is no reason for me to go somewhere else.

But back on topic: If you shoot the maximum amount of weekly movies and put some effort into your nominated cover and still have trouble to crack the Top 100/Top 20 /Top 10 (whatever is your goal) while you see other familiar names there constatly, I can understand how that can feel frustrating... Because I think that if you follow the advices provided in this thread, anybody should be able to be part of those names as well, even if some voting manipultion was indeed happening.

Edited by Amberson, 14 May 2017 - 02:10 AM.

[Amberson]

I have to say that sometimes I don’t understand the voting system at all. It seems that I’m on the way to have another massive flop (ranked 1000+) on my hands this week, even though the cover objectively doesn’t really look that bad to end up so miserably. On the other hand, there are some quite shoddy ones (with the violator sticker or long titles covering everything up etc.) that are undeservedly faring much better. Is it because I didn’t make the maximum amount of movies last week (I still managed to shoot 16 of them)? Or just bad luck?

 

I wonder how many times your film shows up as a voting option during the initial cut, after which it is eliminated from further competition. If it’s only a handful of times (the amount of competing movies is huge, after all), then maybe if you have bad luck and your cover is paired with other nice covers or gets shown to the “wrong people”, it can flop even though in any other week it could be competing for a placement in the TOP 100 or better.

 

I’ll probably have to test this theory by submitting the same cover again in the future, if it indeed flops this week (not sure if the initial voting phase ii still under way or already over).

 

PS: Too bad I can't edit my previous post anymore - so many typos and spelling errors...

Edited by Amberson, 16 May 2017 - 12:48 PM.

[CaptC]

The number of movies you make seems to tie in quite strongly to how well your movie does.  I think it is fair to say, that your cover must be AWESOME and win almost every comparison, if you do less than 21 movies in the week.

[TaraBing]

Well besides "making the cut" to be in the TOP 100 on the FINAL DAY, I think Analis was on to something when it was mentioned, it also helps to CONDUCT a lot of voting ballot missions in general to help propel your cover in to the good graces of the voters.  Why does it make a difference?, I don't know why for certain, but I would swear it does.

 

 

TRY THE FOLLOWING...

Just an aside experiment, make two similar-looking covers for two separate weeks with the same number of covers each week.

 

1. For one week *(where it makes sense), CONDUCT as MANY voting missions as you can.  If you're fairly active you should be able to contribute 50 to 80 votes to the ballot box that week.
   
    
2. For the other week *(again where it makes sense)  AVOID any and all voting missions like the plague.
   
    
3. Which of your two similar movie covers got more votes?

 

Please REPORT IT HERE, if you do this.

 

 

Thanks,

 

-TB

 

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[Amberson]

You know, I used to also think that doing voting missions may theoretically play in your favor and give you some kind of advantage.  But I had weeks where I was more active in this regard and those where I was less and I didn’t see any difference in the actual outcome. In fact, I took significantly more voting missions the week before my win in which I placed tenth. The only difference was, that during the last two days my cover spontaneously appeared twice as a voting option and not just once. When I was even less active in taking voting missions, it didn’t appear at all. So that’s probably the only advantage that you can get. After all, AFAIK the game rules don’t say anything about rewarding you for voting in a similar way as the shooting of three star movies does.

 

But since my cover had indeed flopped this week, I tend to believe that it really does make a big difference whether you shoot all of the 21 possible movies or not. It seems that with every film that you didn’t shoot during the week, your chances of being successful considerably drop.

Edited by Amberson, 18 May 2017 - 21:37 PM.

[Mynx]

The voting missions don't mean anything. The week I ended up at #7, I didn't do any voting at all. I don't even believe I did all three movies every day. I probably missed a few.

[TaraBing]

Congrats on Analis winning Legend this week.  3/3 Finishes of  #1 in BBA. 

 

Yowza,

 

-TB

 

.

[Analis]

 

Woot! Woot!

 

Had a nice cover and a safe top 20 spot throughout the week.

But Hapagirl and SheRa had the top 2 on lock for most of the time, so I didn't expect this week's win...

To show how fickle the BBA can be though: I had 136 votes this week, less than the 142 I made when Amby won.

That was the first week I actually paid notice to the number of votes, so I can't tell if it's significant, but still.

Oh and I did spend most of the weekend energy on ballot missions: Temple allowed it.

[Amberson]

Congrats Analis on oficially becoming a legend. Don't lock the doors behind you so that some of us fellow superstars might join the club one day and keep you company. I hear that it gets lonely at the top, even though the view is suposedly lovely.

It seems all my premonitions have come true. Analis got her "revenge" (= legendery triumph) and I was on a downward trend for the last two weeks (1>47>1000+). I actually didn't get any votes last week, which is my all-time worst result. But things are looking up this week and I'm already looking forward to next week. I'm trying something in a similar Hawaiian style of Analis' winning cover. I wanted to do that since the Lei Day special, but I decided to use the opportunity to bang the legendary Mr. Banger first. However, now that I'm done with the old man, I'm ready to enjoy my big five O's in Hawaii. (Those are hints about my covers, in case you're wondering what the hell am I going on about )

Anyway, another stray observation of mine: I think that it's better to attack from behind than being too high too soon in the BBA voting rankings. I've never seen anyone who was first during the week to retain that position till the end. SheRa was first this past week for a long time and ended up third, I think. Before her, I saw ayy being first for a day or so who afterwards fell from the Top 50 altogether. The real winner was once again decided in the last day. That's the time when you want to get to the top spot, because once you do you are usually able to hold it. On the other hand, I think that when you are too visible during he week and become the main contestant to beat, it puts a target on your back and thus loses you some votes from other players who are trying to catch up with you. We can add this theory to the list of running conspiracies.

[Analis]

Anyway, another stray observation of mine: I think that it's better to attack from behind than being too high too soon in the BBA voting rankings. I've never seen anyone who was first during the week to retain that position till the end. SheRa was first this past week for a long time and ended up third, I think. Before her, I saw ayy being first for a day or so who afterwards fell from the Top 50 altogether. The real winner was once again decided in the last day. That's the time when you want to get to the top spot, because once you do you are usually able to hold it. On the other hand, I think that when you are too visible during he week and become the main contestant to beat, it puts a target on your back and thus loses you some votes from other players who are trying to catch up with you. We can add this theory to the list of running conspiracies.

 

Thx Amby.

And I'll leave the door unlocked.

 

I agree with that last observation by the way. Most of my wins, if not all, have been due to the weekend votes.

I think that by doing all my 21 movies, being recognisable and very active, being member of a kickass studio and doing a lot of ballots... I always end up relatively high, most always in a top 50 or 100. If I'm lucky enough to get pushed up to the top 20, the cover and face and "from your studio" do the rest I think. And no offense to anyone at àll but if you see what kinda of butt-ugly covers sometimes make the top 20... an elegant or pretty one might just win over those 100s of players who do not really care about studio politics or winning, and who just vote for a pretty cover.