Yoggington

So the mention of 'a bag of goats' rang a bell for me. I did recall it might have been on Lego Masters (Australia). After some digging, I found this, and screencapped from the Brickmas 2022 Episode 1, scene starts at the 25th minute. Episode is available here if you want to get full context: https://sh.video/2022/11/20/brickmas-specials-2022-ep-1/ For a quicker context one of the competitors explains the rarity of the goats to the presenter, and the presenter promises to get him one before the episode is over. Along the search he presents this image from his phone, and says it is 'Brickman's Norwegian counterpart'. Brickman is the show's judge. Looking at the Norwegian version of the show, it is unfortunately not the Norwegian judge (Erik Legernes - pictured here: https://bricknerd.com/home/inside-lego-masters-norway-a-chat-with-brick-master-erik-legernes-10-24-21 ) I've had a dig around online, but can't find the source of that pic. I don't know if this helps at all, but it's a bag of goats :D

A direct question for you @Mister Phes - where did the prize pool come from here? As in, were they provided by the Lego group in some way, or user donations, or out of your own pocket? If from TLG, was it just a once-off donation due to the release of Eldorado Fortress? Or is this some LUG benefit of some kind? I ask because I'd love to be able to estimate what kind of pipeline of future prizes could become available. There's a big difference in the approach of trying to plan a occasional contest versus one that occurs with some frequency.

There's a lot of feedback here, and a lot of points. I want to add my two cent from both a entrant and a voter point of view. As much as Mister Phes did good work single-handedly, it's a bad idea to have one person bear the whole load in organising something like this. It's an obvious risk of breakage if anything happened. It's also worth thinking about the burnout of Mister Phes themself - not all the feedback here is presented well, and I wouldn't blame him if he didn't fancy running another any time soon. Two assistants would go a long way. I'd advise an odd number (three or five) in case of disagreement & panel vote required. Next time a competition is on, throw me a tag. If I have time at the time, I can assist. I am pretty decent with management, with graphics, with low level coding (although to the Rich Text Editor on this forum). There is definitely room for better-defined and just more categories. There were some tiny sets in the 'big' category that couldn't compete. This would require a larger prize pool, I don't know how possible that is. But it's pretty critical to know this before a layout could be discussed/decided. There's a big difference with how you would set up for a series of one-off competitions every 6 or 12 months, compared to how a rolling competition every other month could work. At a base level, I think the simplest set-up is a common theme, broken down to tiny, medium, large categories in that (by piece count - maybe <50, 50-1500, >1500 ?). Each of those six to have a decent main prize & a small runner-up prize in each. I wouldn't differentiate between digital & physical entries - leave that to the voters to decide what they want to reward. I think the competition suffered a bit because it was trying to do everything. Honestly I dislike taking 'build a 90s-suitable set' as a theme at all, but fair enough some people like it. But then having it in the same category of 'modern remake' was wild. I mean, as an entrant my own entry didn't really fit into either by the time I was done. And as a voter how am I supposed to compare these? Am I supposed to be the one to strictly apply the rules or no? Sticking to one of these themes might have been better. I would prefer to see a single broad theme, that can be built small/medium/large. Examples from the top of my head; 'Ships & Shipyards', 'Pirates at rest', 'Movement included', 'Island living', 'Battle ready'. If there was a new competition running every say, two months - then you could focus on one theme at a time. You could also have a rolling comp which would allow people prep for the next one. A user commented during the comp how it takes more than two months to design & build a set which I think is true. So with a rolling comp, you could announce in January the full rules for an Islander build, but at the same time announce that the March theme will be ships. So if you don't like Islanders hey, why not just make something for the mini-category and start pondering a bigger build for the upcoming ships comp. This would also allow re-definition & improvement of the rules each time where necessary. If three comps in a row are dominated by digital entries, then maybe we do need to separate it from analog. I play an online music contest weekly, and have done so for the past five years. I mention this because it has the same goal of user engagement - keep people coming back to the forum. And every week people argue over the entries validity :D One thing I would say I've learned there is not to be too strict with either the rules or the application of them as a voter. Leave that to the organisers. If everyone is getting over-stressed about who is and isn't sticking to the letter of the law, bickering in thread etc., we'll scare away all the entrants. Lay out the rules at the start, have a few (more than just one) organisers who can tell users EARLY that their entries are in danger of being invalid. If there's a public vote later, then the voters can know that everything in the entry category is valid, and they can apply their own criteria within that. "Oh this is just too big", "Too similar to model xyz", "Too fantastical for my tastes" etc.. Is the theme strict, or is it just a starting-point for entrants (and voters)? If strict, only Brynn's entry was valid as he stuck to the available brick & colour palette of the time. If the rules were supposed to be as strictly adhered to as F1stzz reads them - how many entries would still have been eligible at the end of the competition? If this answer is less than ten, then does the competition even satisfy the initial aim of drumming up a bit more participation in the forum? Or do ye end up with a few competition-perfect entries but a ghost town of a forum. A couple of the voting comments did highlight that their votes were being cast on a specific criteria; e.g. ~"The sets I'm voting for, I could all see on store shelves as actual sets.", ~"I've decided to pick sets I could see TLG producing over the really beautiful entries more akin to MOCs but voting was still very hard! " , so if you strayed too far from the criteria, you did take a penalty - and probably the groupthink was enough to knock you out of the running - but it was not one that scared users away too much. For my own build, I started with the rules, but really my goal was just to finish a build for once. I figured if I was too far off the target, I'd get pulled up on it. And for what it's worth, I did try to tone down the "MOC-ness" of it, after feedback to that effect. Votes I liked the voting set-up as it was, barring a few small hiccups. All have been touched on by other users already. I think accounts pre-existing should be standard. Oh you're new and want to vote? Hey no worries, we go again in two months! I would think as standard we should not be allowed vote for ourselves. Maybe you give every entrant that also casts a full set of votes one bonus point onto their own entry? Other thoughts; Whatever happens, I'd suggest splitting ships into their own category/theme. I felt obliged to vote for a ship as they seem to be the essence of the Pirates theme at large, yet it was difficult to compare any ship against anything but the other ships. The CC contest was a nice idea, but I agree with a lot of the criticisms of the concept. It must be noted that engagement was way up. Was the engagement beneficial though? For my part I only commented where I thought I had something worth adding to a thread that might genuinely improve the build. A lot of critic comments seemed to be for the sake of being seen to make a comment, which is not actually too useful.

Hah! I feel this. (..although, with that new Viking set on the horizon hmmmm)

Hah! Simple but fantastic. Nice work.

I'll probably be in and out. I've moved on to a medieval project for now, but some bricks on the way to expand my islander set-up.

Congrats to all the winners! All should be very proud. And thanks Mister Phes for organising. The Pirates forum is not somewhere I'd typically hang out but the flurry of activity has kept me pretty engaged the past few months.

The easiest thing is just to upload to either YouTube or Vimeo, then share a link to the video page here.

To play devil's advocate on MFM's behalf. Nothing here proves the user created the extra accounts themself. A shared IP address just shows they are coming from the same location - Maybe their partner/housemate/brother created an account and voted. They had a flurry of new accounts sign up and vote for them - Maybe they were at their local Hungarian LUG meeting and mentioned the competition. I posted my entry in my WIP thread over on the Irish LUG forum, and encouraged people to come on over, check out the entries & cast some votes - was that also illegal? As there was no requirement in the rules to have a Eurobricks Account before the competition started, then anything so far is not actually against the rules of the competition. It doesn't look like it'll impact the result, so it's just a lesson learned for next time about tightening up the rules.

It's threads like this that keep me away from the classic space ends of the Lego community at large. The gatekeeping and high-horsery verges on toxic. Sometimes you gotta step back and ask yourself if you enjoy Lego or you just enjoy your own idea of what it's supposed to be. This was a fun throwback set. I've built it twice since release plus each of the alt-builds once each. Thoroughly enjoyed all builds, and learned a few tricks. The alt-builds were a neat bonus - unnecessary to include, but even the idea of them brought me back to trying to re-create the 'suggested' back of box models. It looks great when complete and really tickles the nostalgia bone. It has become my four yo nephew's go-to Lego item when he's over. That's good enough for me.

First is to build in stud.io, Second is to figure out what I'm doing with it. Third is to fit the palette (brick-built sail anyone? ). Fourth is to make some edits - I already have a better way to build the tree for instance.

I made the spreadsheet a few days ago, so the newest few votes have not been added (except my own edited vote, I added that today). So I don't have the Reader's vote in that count. As I mentioned, you'd want to take your own copy and update. And as ever with any data collection, double & triple check it. I don't intend to update mine unless a sudden flurry of votes for me put me back in contention. There may also be votes you don't officially count as mentioned above, I am no judge so I just counted everything in thread at that point.

Yep, I was definitely tracking to see if I might sneak into third. That ship has sailed however (), so the spreadsheet is out of date by a few days. Feel free to pull a copy and keep it up to date, or make a secondary worksheet for the mini-builds. And my edit is now in place Mister Phes. Congrats to the beneficiary :o

Imagine if someone was such a stats-nerd that they had been doing this for the category they were in already. Nah, no-one would do that. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RzTuQENmRYu6cIMSJTv6MKmp-rCOTD-GaCc2674szy0/edit?usp=sharing

Is an edit or as a new post better for you?

Thanks for the comment in-voting-thread @MstrOfPppts I do think I will likely submit this to one of the programs. Firstly though, I have to (slowly) build this out in stud.io. I'm about halfway through that process atm.

Oh shoot, and here I deleted the spreadsheet where I was tallying my votes, so I don't remember who was 6th and would be bumped up. Edit: Actually I do remember where this vote would go instead. I will do this over the weekend, but before I do, @Mister Phes can you confirm that is the correct course of action for me? To edit/add a vote since the one I had previously voted for is actually disqualified?

Thanks for highlighting this MOC. I built it over the weekend (in rainbow brick), and what a fabulous little ship it is.

These two parts of your comment are very related. Until you have a go, you will never improve or develop the skills! So I for one am glad to see you 'having a go'. I've looked over your pictures on flickr and I think you are already on top of the most obvious issue - the colour inconsistencies. Medieval walls are pretty forgiving in that you can recreate them using a mish-mash of all kinds of colours & textures - but here I think you've gone a little overboard with that ethos. I'd remove the tan parts at a minimum, if not two or three more colours. One main colour, one contrast colour, and a third (and possibly fourth) highlight colour tends to be my personal rule. More colours than that will unnecessarily distract the eye from the shape and the rest of it. The general structure & the opening up of it all is great for playability. Now that you know the outline, maybe it is possible to go back and hide the hinge bricks somehow? Is there a way to bury them in a rock or old wall instead of having them just sit on top of the landscape? This would additionally make them more secure and less prone to coming off. The only other major flaw in the outline/structure is that the top area seems unrealistically wide compared to the tower that supports it. Step it out a brick or two for sure. But three brick's width is pushing it :P With your interior, could you make some items to fill out the rooms some? Which is the kitchen, which is the throne room? At the moment they are all just empty rooms. And may I say, that is a helluva collection of minifigs. Now I see who has been buying up all the Black Falcons

Oh my, this is excellent work.

You just use the tags [spoiler] ..content here.. [/spoiler] to create a collapsible spoiler tag. Or the button as Yperio mentioned, for the same effect.

This was very tough to whittle down to just five per category, and there are double-figured amounts of other entries deserving of votes, but here's what I ended up with: VOTES Main Set Building Category 6274 Caribbean Clipper Remake by Alexu Forbidden Cove by TomSkippy 1871 Pirate Canon Battlepack by Jansued Imperial Trading Outpost by aex383 6269 Islander Palace by BrynnOfCastlegate Mini Set Building Category King Kahuka's Outrigger Boat by Kritch Shark Cart by TomSkippy Fortune Idol by Oky 1872 Imperial Guard Camp by Thewatchman Treasure Island by Oky Critic Comments: Edit 8th Sep: Adding an extra vote in my Main category votes as my Alexu vote no longer counts through their disqualification. Skulls Eye Schooner remake by Quotenotto New Critic comment:

Same story here I reckon I'd have made the same comments in various entries whether this part of the contest was running or not. And just a general comment to say I'm working through my votes now and it's very difficult to whittle the main category down to five. A lot of top-notch entries will be missing out.

Okay cool, that works. I'll pop a short line with each vote about why I'm voting that one over anything else, then I'll work my way through any topics that I want to add final thoughts to.

I believe this is what you're after? Let me know if not.