Suggestions

I have nothing against the artists who made the skins (hell I make skins and accents for these contests sometimes!)

But there needs to be a better variety of winners! There's a lot of dragons that just never seem to be up there when the holidays roll around.

Support. I get fed up with realising that species have no look-in for the skins, especially in this festival with the TWO male SDs that were pretty much the same idea.

hmpf. There was a thread a little while ago that was suggesting that users get a vote on the skins that win. I spent a bunch of time sorting out what users thought of the skins/accents from the Flameforger's Festival to show that the admins really do seem to be considering what the players want, and then the thread must have been deleted (it didn't have much support). Reposting here, because it's still interesting and potentially useful information: [quote]Comparing the [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=mb&board=skin&id=1160586&page=1]Flameforger's Festival Discussion[/url] to the [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=mb&board=ann&id=1176686]Skin and Accents Contest Results[/url], there's a noticeable theme that the most discussed Skins & Accents [i]did[/i] get picked as winners. [b]AriiKnave's "Molten Surge" [/b]- a few fans, every few pages starting from pg 3 [b]Fimbry's "Gilded Metalworker"[/b] - about 1 mention per page, from pg 3-18, plus several scattered mentions later on. [b]Piney's "Firebird Feathers"[/b] - lots of support from pg 5 onwards, averaging about 1 mention for every 2-3 pages [b]TeaDino's "Igniteus"[/b] (skin version) - quickly gained support, with 10 mentions from pgs 18-20, and 1-2 mentions/page for several of the following pages. Interest spiked again as of pg 47, when it was made into an accent. [b]Pudi's "Flameheart"[/b] - 8 mentions from pg 23-25, 4 on pg 27 alone, and about 1 mention per page for many of the following pages [b]Ree's "Cinderheart"[/b] - A couple of mentions around pg 30 (there were many coatl entries, but I believe that this was the only one that anyone expressed any interest in at all. [b]Krissycakes' "Crumbling Phoenix"[/b] - handful of mentions from pg 38-42, picks up again pg 45 [b]Luunai's "Blazing Phoenix Feathers"[/b] - a handful of mentions starting from pg 43 [b]Kabu's "Construct of Flame" & McLarenSpider's "MagmaBorne"[/b] - 1-2 mentions each. So, that leaves 2 entries unaccounted for. One of which is a male Guardian, and prior to this competition we already had 7 male Guardian skins, so it's possibly just something that no-one was excited for. The other was submitted fairly late in the competition, so it would have had lower visibility. There are a couple of outliers that were highly discussed, though there are any number of reasons why I suspect they may not have been disqualified or ranked lower: [b]Cockatrice's "Chimney", Asmo's "Feuerteutel", Lorelei's "Smoulderstruck"[/b] - The first one uses forced-3D features (i.e. smoke tendrils. Entries with paint-on clothing have been similarly rejected in the past) which can look odd when layered with apparel. The second one might have been disqualified for being too dark (the creator has currently submitted it as an independent skin, so we'll see how that turns out). The third one may run into the problem where it's too generic of a pattern, and/or adds too much darkness to the darker dragons. [b]Shrimp's "Gemforger"[/b] - I would guess that this accent was passed over for being too similar in form to the male Snapper accent from the Thundercrack Carnivale, combined with the fact that Snappers have one of the lowest breed populations (the Skydancer population is 3x higher, for example). [b]gowana's "Flamewalker" & Volpe's "Ragnarok"[/b] - both male Imperial skins, neither had as much support as Pudi's skin. Also note that while there were a few interesting male Imp accents, none of them had as much support as the winning skin either.[/quote]

@Haven @Kyar

Yeah, thinking about the factors that go into the decision process, it could be worse, overall. It seems like the same complaint as last year, when female pearlcatchers were a popular choice.

On the other hand, the main problem with choosing two male Skydancer accents now, is that it sets up the potential for issues in the future. What if there's an amazing Skydancer accent submitted next festival, or the one after that, and everyone supports it? Do the admins choose it anyways? Then there's the fact that when we talk about "under-represented breeds", it's also helpful to take into account the fact that there are vastly more custom Skydancer/Wildclaw/Imp accents available than there are for the common/uncommon breeds...At the very least, hopefully the top accent makers are paying attention to the complaints this time around and focus their entries on breeds that are not Skydancers.

I do agree that it's all on the entrants, and not the admins, that coatls didn't get better representation with the selections. Most of the coatl skins/accents were not very inspiring, and it was quite fortunate that there was even one that made the cut (the accent that did win may be simple, but it is quite fitting).

I really dislike the fact that there are two M SD feather accents. .-. If you are going to up the number of winning skins, could you at least pick some different ones?