The revised rankings for weeks 3 and 4 will be posted on Monday morning CET while we are still verifying the rankings for weeks 5 and 6.
We have listened to your feedback and reviewed experiences that were perceived as suspicious. As a result, some experiences have been removed in accordance with the Buildersā Challenge rules. Please note that the rules have been updated to enhance clarity and ensure fairness.
Weād like to clarify our approach to duplicated and other āspamā experiences. Existing duplicated experiences and those deemed spam, such as templates or empty LAND, will still be included in the rankings and will receive rewards. However, they will not affect the overall rankings. For example, if a duplicated experience ranks at #30 and your experience is at #31, your experience will be considered #30 in the rankings. Moving forward, any new duplicated or spam experiences will be disqualified. The Sandbox reserves the right to remove experiences from the leaderboard at our discretion if they are considered āspam,ā including empty LAND, templates with minimal changes, and duplicates with minor modifications.
Note on Gaming Guilds
In the Web3 space, gaming guilds are organized communities of players who come together to achieve shared goals in various games. These guilds often pool resources, share strategies, and may offer incentives or rewards to their members for participating in specific activities. When properly vetted, gaming guilds can significantly enhance player engagement and success within a game, provided that the engagement is genuine and not artificially inflated with bots or idle players. Understanding how these guilds operate is crucial for recognizing their influence in the gaming ecosystem. If youāre interested in learning more about gaming guilds and their role in Web3, further exploration into the topic is encouraged.
Following our commitment to involve creators more, we would like to start immediately by encouraging you to use this form to report any suspicious experiences in the rankings posted moving forward.
Thank you for your continued support and understanding. We wish you a happy weekend and look forward to seeing you again on Monday!
Thanks Tuschay. The setting that usually causes this was not activated, so not sure why you are seeing it. I am able to use the form with my personal email. I reactivated and deactivated the setting again. Did it make any difference?
Also happy to address the topic of guilds further. For now, itās weekend here and itās been a long week! Hope you have a good one
Exatly the same issue of Tuschay! Iām on holiday without pc, maybe itās a problem with the smartphone. Iāll try again when I came back next week.
Honestly, can we just drop this whole idea of a leaderboard? Or just report the top 50. Its been nothing but grief for everyone.
We are in week 8 out of 10, and here we are awaiting the results of week 3 and 4. How does an outdated leaderboard show us where we are ranked currently? No runner wants to know the timing of lap 3 when heās already running lap 8.
It sounded like a good idea in the beginning, like a novel feature. But now itās just a bug thatās got everyone unhappy and getting at each otherās throat.
Outside of the top 50, I believe most people just want to get the SAND that they earned from people visiting their experience. Thatās it. For those who want to cut each other up for the top spot(figuratively), please, go ahead, but donāt hold everyone else back.
@VeePyre, is there any timeline as to when weāll get our reward for week 3/4 and 5/6.
You said it right, we went from an event where everyone could participate to an event where if you are reported you are expelled.
All this not shortly after the end of todayās week, but rather at the end of the event, when there are those who do it only out of spite, jealousy and so on and not for a real reason.
Personally I expected stricter rules this time, but that wasnāt the case.
We have gone from 100 experiences to 50 experiences to check but we still havenāt seen the 5/6 week and the 3/4 week we still donāt have the official status of the changed ranking.
A Mocaverse event has been released where all the participants with the experiences showcased from that event are and will be in the rankings, so I expect a good turnaround in the rankings.
I wouldnt have any issue with that at all. I was surprised when I was told that i could still participate in the challenge even though i was in an event. I was happy from a self serving pov, and as the challenge rolled on, i recognized how many extra plays this would generate for me.
I mentioned this earlierā¦ In the first bc, i was in an event and then about a week or two later the bc started, and i was pretty disappointed that i couldnt be involved at all and sat on the sidelines for the duration. To that end, Iām glad i was able to participate this time and asked for clarity from the TSB team to ensure entry into the bc2. Even then, the game didnt even show up on the rankings for weeks 1 to 4, as the game was still flagged as an event, so guess the filter system didnt get the memo.
Being featured or trending should still allow participation, however, they should be on a moving, scrolling list to ensure that those games that are two or three clicks down the list have as much chance for visibility as the lucky games that get the coveted first 3 or 4 slots.
Trending games are a bit more problematic as many of those games just sit there for weeks garnering tonnes of spotlight that Iām certain skew visits.
Itās a tough one, because you do want to reward games for being popular, but in a challenge like situation where competition is involved, competitors expect a level playing field and utilities that lend an edge to one game over another and then continually reinforce this unbalance that sense of fair play.
Even in the different categories of games, there is a visibility issue to games that arent shown in the first couple of pages. What determines those games placement in those slots? Its not always plays or visits if you look at the numbers.
My golf is a sports game, but you have to scroll pretty far down that list to find it, even though it has more plays than some of the experiences above it? In that way for most people, it never sees the light of day. Same goes for one of my other games.
My MP game is an obby, party game and as there are less games in that category, it features pretty high in the list, but againbthere doesnt seem to be any rhyme or reason that i can see as to why it is positioned where it is?
All 3 of my games are published on premium lands. Id understood that premium lands would confer higher visibility benefits to those landowners, and in one way it does by giving a larger thumbnail, but that doesnt really provide much benefit when the game is buried 5 page clicks down.
At 4x the cost of normal lands, id expect them to provide far more utility than they do.
Overall, i believe in the spirit of fairness that the main page for TSB needs to randomize games on the main page in order to expose the player base to games they might not otherwise ever come across, otherwise the format unintentionally continues to reinforce plays of the games that are essentially pinned there.
Duly noted with the leaderboards, and this is a much discussed topic internally, too.
At this point, the Buildersā Challenge is at its infant stage and just learning to crawl. There has been trial and error, and there will continue to be trial an error moving forward.
This is a natural part of any process, but we are listening closely to the feedback and want to really work more closely with the community make this something that we as a platform and you as creators are proud of and happy with.
I aim to lend my expertise from my experience in orchestrating our Game Jams, which is a much more mature program, more. It has had its ups and downs, too, and thereās much experience from this that BC can draw on.
We look forward to moving ahead with this current BC with better practices and more transparency, but even more so to work together on planning the next with as many good improvements as we can.
As for āwen rewardsā:
Well, actually rewards for weeks 3+4 should be out NOW
As mentioned before, we have key players on holiday, so communications might also be a bit slow. Thanks for your patience!
Weeks 5+6 will not be out until we have made the final reviews of the rankings, which will be posted when ready. I would not expect any rewards for these weeks in the next two weeks or so. Donāt take my word for the final answer on that matter, however
Hi Andy, thanks again for your contributions to the debate and for your feedback.
Iām not so sure if it is an unpopular opinion that experiences in events should not be allowed to participate.
Why donāt we do a quick poll to get a pulse on that??
The poll is below, but here are some points to reflect on:
Scenario 1: Experiences are allowed in events and BC simultaneously.
Allowing both helps generate extra visibility on validated experiences and rewards good creators for their hard work and for contributing positively to the platform.
Scenario 2: Experiences in BC are not allowed to be featured in live events.
As a creator, would you still be interested in being featured in an event if you knew that this would exclude you from BC?
Whether your answer is yes or no, why?
POLL
Should experiences that are part of official events be allowed to participate in the Buildersā Challenge?
Yes, they should be allowed.
No, they should not be allowed.
Iām not sure (specify in thread).
0voters
Curious to hear your thoughts. Please do elaborate!
I love the idea of having polls for votes! Itās so great to get everyone involved. However, I think it would be best if only creators participated, as they are the ones crafting these amazing experiences. If we keep having polls like this, maybe we could add a feature in this forum that tags creators and regular players separately using a form. This way, we can ensure a fair balance and avoid any āguildsā voting powerā issues.
Iām glad you enjoy polls as a way to make your voice heard.
Appreciate your feedback. Polls are a great way to get a quick pulse on general sentiment for a topic, but they should always be used in combination with other feedback methods where a deeper and more precise understanding is needed. Rest assured that we will not use a poll to make final decisions
Iām working on a more structured and consistent approach to gathering feedback from creators, using various channels and formats at consistent intervals. This way, we can ensure that we always keep an eye on where the community is at, and itāll give all of you a stronger voice with a more clear and organized way to share your thoughts, opinions, and ideas.
About the participation of published experiences in official events within Builders Challenge 2 (BC2), it is important to consider fairness within the competition. In Builders Challenge 1 (BC1), there was a rule that excluded participation data obtained during official events to maintain a level playing field.
However, and although I believe this rule was not implemented at any point in BC1, now in BC2, TSB decided to remove this rule, raising concerns about how exposure at official events can disproportionately affect ranking and therefore , rewards based on player participation.
I agree with what @theJoncrow mentions:
I believe that any help is needed, and participating in TSB-sponsored events actually helps a lot in experiences that fail to achieve the reach that in some cases is needed and deserved. It has been seen that indeed there are experiences and studios that have been able to manage and be in a high ranking without needing to be in an event sponsored by TSB (I only refer to those who have achieved those results in an honest and organic way, I leave aside those who have used botsā¦ sorry, Guilds and YEAH actual BOTS and are still in this ranking using the same dishonest practices that they have been used since BC1) but as mentioned before, participating in an official event has a disproportionate influence on the ranking as @Gikis mentioned.
Participating in events either officially sponsored by TSB or not, should not be a reason for which you should not receive BC rewards, rather I believe that if an experience or a studio participates in one of these is when we should take advantage of that help to get that player engagment in our experiences and projects, is when we should push ourself to show our experiences, projects, and work to a new audience and get that āexposureā of which so much is spoken.
But the way in which these events act at the moment is neither adequate, nor fair to all participants, because it exponentially influences the bi-weekly ranking.
My feeling is that implementing rules in the middle of the event is something that generates frustration, so I donāt expect changes in the remainder of BC2. If a BC3 is planned in the future I hope that these points are taken into consideration and that ways can be found to help the games to have that boost that is needed (if it is needed) and in turn TSB will benefit from what the studios or Builders do with that exposure to retain more players for the games and why not, attract new ones.
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I know this is not related to āParticipation in official TSB Eventsā but something that is totally wrong is the duplicate experiences in LAND that are participating in the BC. Sincerely it fills me with frustration to see this āpreliminaryā ranking because it only took me 1 minute to realize the duplicated experiences just by seeing the name.
What is worse is that in a way I hope to be satisfied with only one of these duplicate experiences or experiences with suspicious activities (GUILDS and BOTS) and move up one position in the ranking, just one, which would allow me to earn some more SAND, but even more frustrating is that I am satisfied with just that.
These two rules are present in both BC1 and BC2 and I think that by means of these rules it is not necessary to āaddā new rules or āclarifyā something
I donāt see any problem with these rules, but I consider that TSB should have a stricter penalty with these people that corrode the ecosystem and not just ban the experience.
UGC creators can help this platform grow and become āTHE top project in the metaverseā, but maybe it wonāt happen with these bad actors here, apparently the trusted ones didnāt turn out to be so trusted.
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I know BC was originally intended to be an open event for everyone, which I think is great. Iāve seen Land Owners really excited to create and work on their own experiences and thatās one of the few things that has made me happy about this whole event, and I think itās been a good move on TSBās part.
But maybe I think doing so has been what has opened the door to all these bad actors.
I hope that for BC3 (if there is one) TSB looks for ways to get people who actually show genuine engagement with the platform to participate, I know it will be difficult, since there are more people like that participating in these events and who are showing true genuine engagement with the platform. Opening Game Maker for 7 is not a way to measure someoneās commitment by any means, opening and closing GM just to be eligible is something that anyone can do.
TSB wants to ensure our commitment to the platform by just opening GM for a week? There are some who have had GM open since its launch and thatās been years, some of them continuously creating something for hours and without a break even on weekends and without holidays.
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As I mentioned before the rankings came out, warning about a possible exploit that could happen about duplicated experiences or publishing several experience in one single LAND, I mentioned some feedback that may be useful and in turn add value to LAND and Premium LANDS Owners in the future and future events.
Something should be done, for example, during these years I have created and helped to created approximately 30 experiences in Game Maker, which are not empty experiences or templates without any work, nothing stops me from publishing all those experiences in One single LAND and earning if not triple or much more than what I am being rewarded at this moment.
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(I vote āIām not sureā on the poll, just to specify a little bit more).
I think this poll will really help a lot in the future, I hope this and other methods serve as a way of communication between TSB and the Builders that demonstrates a genuine commitment to the platform, and that the āinfant stage ideaā, āweāre still in ALPHAā or āpreliminary rankingsā is put aside. I think everyone will agree with me that we want a BC3, if there is one, with the same quality of the experiences that we make.
I know that our word is not the final decisions that TSB as a company must make, but perhaps listening to our points of view or taking into account our feedback will help to avoid these problems and have successful and fair events in the future.
The truth is that the poll is a good idea, it gives the impression that TSB want to know our opinions, I will not say more about that, many times we have seen TSB doing only what is necessary to keep people calm when something bad is happening. But I think we all appreciate the poll as a way of communication @VeePyre.
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Since I have a feeling that none of my experiences will be Featured by TSB, Iāll take the opportunity to talk to this audience aboutā¦
GALACTIC CLASH
Galactic Clash, a unique space PvP in TSB, why? Because itās the most Galactic and the most Clash of all. It has 3 totally unique ships per team, each with 3 different and unique abilities. Give it a try, with the necessary support we can implement more ships, and more game modes (as you will notice this game has the base of a moba so that is what we hope to achieve in the future)
GET GROSS
And of course, I would like to mention the black sheep of our games or rather the ādirtyā sheep of our experiences.
Get Gross an Obby Race in which your only goal is to be the dirtiest of all. As simple and gross as that.
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Thank you for your thoughts on participation in official The Sandbox events.
I wonder what you mean by āor notā here:
āParticipating in events either officially sponsored by TSB or not (ā¦)ā
What type of unofficial events do you believe we should exclude experiences in the BC from? The question of whether itās allowed with official events is an important one, because we, The Sandbox, are creating these events and thus are directly accountable for granting more visibility to those who participate. However, do you not think that any unofficial events, perhaps created by a group of creators or any other type of event which the creator has actively sought out and/or worked on should be allowed? Here, may we not be talking about the creator making active efforts to find unique ways to promote their games?
I would like to see that creators have the freedom to work as hard and smart as they want as long as they adhere to the rules. And this should be rewarded. The Sandboxās role in boosting numbers through various means of granting visibility is a topic I invite all of you to discuss and provide feedback on. This can be in relation to tweets, events, articles, featuring, and other promotion directly from The Sandbox. Keep in mind that promoting quality content through channels like Social Media / articles, etc. is an effective way to attract new players to the platform. This may boost one creator specifically, but can simultaneously create a ripple effect as their talent attracts new users who are then more likely to check out other content from other creators on the platform. This is overall healthy for everyone, but balance remains important.
Duplicate experiences
You also mention the duplicate experiences. We understand how people feel about this, and thus we have also taken action on the matter. You express concern that you will earn less SAND due to the duplicates you see in the leaderboard. Iād like to quote our clarification on this from the original post above:
āWeād like to clarify our approach to duplicated and other āspamā experiences. Existing duplicated experiences and those deemed spam, such as templates or empty LAND, will still be included in the rankings and will receive rewards. However, they will not affect the overall rankings. For example, if a duplicated experience ranks at #30 and your experience is at #31, your experience will be considered #30 in the rankings. Moving forward, any new duplicated or spam experiences will be disqualified. The Sandbox reserves the right to remove experiences from the leaderboard at our discretion if they are considered āspam,ā including empty LAND, templates with minimal changes, and duplicates with minor modifications.ā
Iāve highlighted the important passages here. Any duplicates that were present in the weeks 3&4 rankings will remain but will not affect your rankings for that week or the following weeks. Any new duplicate experiences will be disqualified. We will do what we can to remove them all but appreciate the help of the community to report any that they see in the leaderboard as well to ensure that we do not miss any.
I hope this answers your concern for this BC!
āTSB wants to ensure our commitment to the platform by just opening GM for a week?ā
Partly, but not entirely. This rule makes it harder for various people with bad intents to sweep in and take a slice of the cake. Itās not fool proof, but itās a guard.
We are working on other ways to deal with this more effectively.
ā(I vote āIām not sureā on the poll, just to specify a little bit more).
I think this poll will really help a lot in the future, I hope this and other methods serve as a way of communication between TSB and the Builders that demonstrates a genuine commitment to the platform, and that the āinfant stage ideaā, āweāre still in ALPHAā or āpreliminary rankingsā is put aside.ā
Iām glad you find the poll helpful. Letās do more, but at the same time ensure that deeper insights are gathered from creators consistently. A quick note on the āinfant stageā as this is a direct quote from me. I refer specifically to the Buildersā Challenge, not to The Sandbox as a whole. Even if TSB has been around for a while, the BC is still new. My point is simply that, as with all new things, adjustments and trial & error will happen over the course of some time. Just like it did with Game Jams which has matured over some years.
For those who have been taking part in Game Jams during my time here, I think (and hope) that you have also experienced this same approach from me of transparent communication, asking for and listening to feedback, making improvements where needed, trying new ideas based on your feedback, etc. Sometimes it works, other times not, and then we adjust. We, for example, used to have only Top 10 in Game Jams. Creators wanted more rewards and we implemented new rewards categories such as āRising Starā āNewcomerā āBest Game/Level Design,ā etc. This didnāt quite work out, so now we have our Honorable Mentions, which rewards participants more evenly. The key driver is how we work with the community. So letās do it right
Thanks again for taking the time to provide detailed feedback, Rocksy.
Maybe it was misunderstood what I tried to say, my opinion is that there should be no experience excluded from BC2 rewards if it complies with the rules and the Term of Use and others BC2 rules.
I believe that if a studio or experience participates in an event, and it has the desire and commitment to contribute to the platform, this studio or experience would do its best to take advantage of this exposure in the best way, which has happened very little.
To this I would like to add again that it is an unfair system event and that it should be improved in the next BC. (Or maybe I should just leave Building and focus on earning rewards by Playing, which seems to be more profitable.)
I also mentioned unofficial events, because I have started to hear people complaining about them (for no good reason). I think these are by far fair and organic events compared to official events, and they also help to show our hard work to other audiences, I just wanted to mention this group in what I have heard, but as I said neither of these two cases whether official event or not should be a reason for exclusion from BC rewards if this ones are attached to the Rules and Term of Use.
I donāt know if this was misunderstood but I keep reading what I am trying to say.
Iām sorry @VeePyre , but you are not the only one who has mentioned this or these kind of phrases in and outside BC, but it sounds like excuses.
I think that Game Jams have been evolving hand in hand with Game Maker for years, maybe thatās what has created a better system, and the communication that has taken place between the participants and the team. But I still think that there should be an event whose system has the same quality of the experiences that participate in it.
I hope that someday that will happen.
(sorry I cannot post any links)