Actually, as a former member of the Academy, we argued this entire subject out for months.
Should a member be allowed to submit his/her own works for consideration? NO, was the final answer.
Should a member be allowed to vote in the category that one of their submissions was considered? NO, was the final answer.
Should a member be EXCLUDED from any consideration for submission? NO, that would be completely unfair to that member. By volunteering to HELP the community,, why should they be excluded from contributing content to that community? Why should their content be excluded?
Higher standards for Custom Content is what the AME is all about. No one gets excluded from those standards simply because their work doesn't measure up either, each bit of content is reviewed, tested, and compared with the general content that is released by the community at large... ALL of them. Do they all deserve a 10? Surely not. Do they all deserve a Zero? Again, surely not.
The purpose of the AME was to help raise the standards a bit, and to congratulate those folks that spend the extra effort to make BETTER content. Shoot, take a real look at CEP. That hak pack is loaded with stuff that no one uses anymore, simply because it was all that was available when the CEP first started. Does all of it deserve a high score? Absolutely not. Does a large portion of it deserve a high score? Absolutely. If we, as a community, were to individually vote on each and every item, placeable, creature, etc, in the CEP, a large portion of it would be removed at this stage of things, since our own standards has risen as a community in general. Our computers are better, they can handle a bit higher poly count etc. Better texture artists have contributed to the vast array of textures available for use by CC folks in general. Most of the stuff being released in the past 2 years far exceeds the quality of stuff that came out when NWN was first released.
The AME is attempting to help alleviate the fanboy vote status on the vault. They have raised the minimum standards by a large extent, but only by the extent that MOST cc folks can accomplish if they actually spend the time to do so.
The AME is a small group of folks volunteering a huge amount of time to review works created by the community, and they have to have certain minimum standards for creations to even be considered. I know I can slap a mod together in just a few hours. It would suck for sure, but it would be a working mod. Would something created that quickly, with the few skills I have in scripting etc, be worthy of a Golden Dragon? Absolutely not. Most especially when there are folks out there that have spent months/years working on a module or series of modules, that have spent the time to create/write an excellent story line, filled in custom NPC comments, spent the time to search for OR create, that special tileset/group/feature to make their story come alive, and give each of us a special joy in playing. THAT person(s) deserves the credit, attention, AND award given by the AME much more than something that was slapped together in a few hours using stock content, dialogs etc.
In my particular case, I stepped down from AME membership when CTP was being considered for the first release we made. To avoid the possible conflict of interest that some would perceive or state. I can tell you though, that the current members of AME are beyond reproach. They stick by their own, internal rules (which have been posted on their forums) and they observe strict, VERY STRICT, adherence to the belief that a member can not vote on the entire category that is being considered, if that member has anything of their own in the submissions list.
Anyway, my fifty cents worth of comments can be taken or left behind, but I do believe, 100%, that the members of the AME are beyond reproach in how they handle things. Most especially considering that no one is getting paid for all the vast amount of time that is spent reviewing content. Heck, I can remember doing spell checking on modules that were being considered. Minor thing, sure, but in the huge amount of dialogs in a given module, it can take a large amount of time. Checking for visible gaps in any given mdl, be it placeable, creature, tile etc, things that are fairly easy to fix, but get ignored by folks when doing things too quickly. These, and many other things are tested, reviewed, and considered in a given submission.
Modifié par Bannor Bloodfist, 24 août 2011 - 11:07 .
