Then talk to iNana and I bet you could work something out. :D

Wouldn't it be a great experience for the community? I mean is the amount of players really that crucial that it outweighs everything? Does having everyone able to participate affect them negatively? And why should the wants of a few outweigh all the players that want to participate in competitions?

sounds like a personal problem

Better for you, tags not even a requirement. The requirement is that you participate in the contests. We've had many people in other major guilds join and be active on the forums.

Too bad attitude is taken into account when choosing the winners.

Hmm, I don't really know how to explain it.

I'm going to make up numbers here, so please forgive me.

You have one thousand members in a community of varying degrees of talent--some fantastic talent, some not so fantastic talent. You start doing tasks like this and release a forums, and it becomes a bit chaotic. A lot of the work isn't very good, and it's hard for the organization to be controlled because of the tons of members producing extremely different content. It's so chaotic, and now the hundreds of entries for every contest just get a "yeah, nice" or a "decent" comment from the leaders of the organization. Nobody's really getting anything out of it anymore. They improve, but solely on a personal basis. There's so many members that it's crazy for everybody and isn't as fun or useful.

Now, then you have the Initiative with twenty members (random number, sorry). These members have proven to be talented and are dedicated to working with one another to even further their talent. Because of the general skill and smaller population, everybody is able to interact better. People get to know everybody instead of just forming their own groups of friends within the organization. The members get plenty of tips from each other, and the leaders will be able to spend more time helping all the members. It's good for all the members.

Is the first one better than the second one? Depends who you ask. The first one is okay for 980 members of Graal, but the second one is extremely good for 20 members of Graal. The bottom line, however, is that both are completely different. The Initiative is not the first and so it's silly to try to change the second into the first because, well, that's not what it was made for. A different organization could fill that niche, but not the Initiative. Not because it isn't capable of it but because that's just not what it is.

In my opinion the guild needs to be harder to get into. Majority hand in pillow and or gradient shaded hats. Since majority are new to it the feedback you get for a 5 minutes pillow shaded hat is 'OMG amazing' etc.

The guild can be joined by anyone and if you don't get in, practice. Join pixel art communities they are the best help

Another thing I hate is how people use 50+ colors to shade a hat. I saw a piece submitted by Chisel on pixeljoint which used 80+ colors. The reason these pieces have so many colors is that they use tools not made for pixel art such as filters, effects and the paintbrush with AA on :P

The initiative is pretty boring since all you do is make hats, statues and paintings. Trust me it gets repetitive.

I agree with the above post about public competitions, that could give people who no longer or don't play the game a chance. :)

Just my 2 cents.

Glad I'm not the only one who noticed that.

That's like saying it's unfair that Rufus doesn't let everyone into US

tl:dr most of it

but I agree with higbey because these competitions should be available to everyone because I would love to send in work and not have to work or wear tag of the initiative guilds. The artwork sent in could be amazing and better than the people in these special guilds.

cant believe I'm agreeing with him

Anyone can join the initiative, tag isn't required. The people not in these 'special guilds' can just sign up.

I don't want to join, I want to make graphics without the pressure of the special guilds. Hence why we should have everyone in a competition.

Ah, I get it now. To be honest I haven't been active on the initiative tasks for months. There is no pressure.

I do like the competition idea! There could be weekly competitions for everyone.

exactly :love:

I would jsut feel under pressure todo absolutely amazing stuff in very short amount of times and so it would lead to a kick :(

You have around 15-25 days to make hats lol.

I'm in the Initiative and I completely disagree with this.
MattKan has set a valid argument with this, there's Azrael's hat contest, that's open for the public.
If you want more competitions open to the public just feedback it or use the forums, protesting for a great creation to be shut down isn't going to do anything.