Community Involvement in Melan Rework?

Suggestion Title: Get the Wonderful Community involed with the Melan Colors Rework Suggestion Summary: So my idea is that the art department could utilize the community to speed up the Melan Colors Rework. It could be done through some sort of contest where users can recolor the sprite with a palette they think would be an apropriate melan. It would be up to the art department to go through the sprites and delibriate over the submissions. They wouldn't have to go with the sprites that are submitted but it would be a way to get ideas for the palettes of the sprites needing recolorings, which I think were only melans. In another similar site to this, Flight Rising, they did an event where players submitted recolors of a Familiar. It turned out to be a great way to involve the artists in their community and there was great reception. It would also liven up the official contest forum, which seems to be gathering a bit of dust. So you could offer prizes for whomever made the "best" recolor. Positive points: It could possibly fast track the recolors on the bad melan sprites and it could allow the community to get involved with the work on the site. The contest would allow players to see melans they want to get, because they helped pick the colors. Negative points: I am unsure if there could be legal issues but it's only recoloring the sprites, so none of the submissions could be claimed as original. It may be tiresome for the art department to go through all the sprites submitted. Reason For Consideration: I feel that, based on the good example set by flight rising's contest, it would be a great way to involve the community and it would speed up the recolors of those melans that the community seems to love so much. Link to FR's coloring contest - Here

Ehh... I mean, the main issue, I think, is with the community being able to see the winning sprite. Half of the fun of melans is being able to discover what they look like, and that'd be taken away. Besides, recolors really aren't that hard for the staff, it's just a matter of finding the right palletes. When you come right down to it, judging the different entries is probably more work than just making the sprites themselves...

Well I addressed that. The Art team doesn't have to take the sprite they liked the most, this could simply be a way to get inspiration for the recolor and see what kind of colors the community would like to see.

The problem is, if you're not on the art team, you cannot make anything - sprites, background art etc - that will go onto the site. While you can make your own melan and go "hey, this idea looks good for a melan!", it's unlikely it'll be considered for the final result of said melan.

R'ahnok is absolutely correct. We simply cannot accept anything from anyone outside of our team. To be on-staff is effectively to have a contract that the things you make will be for us to use - to extend that contract to people as a general would involve some issues. As a simple example... Is the person over 18? If no, you cannot enter in to a contract anyway, so... Sorry, but we can't accept anything since you can't legally sign anything over anyway. And let's say we ignored this fact - then any person who decided to get salty / funny with us in the future could (if they were under 18) turn around and basically tell us to take their 'entry' down and off of the website - and there's nothing we could do about it. We would, legally, have to take it down. That would make a lot of people mad and they'd probably direct their anger / irritability towards us - and in part, rightly so, as we should never have accepted such things to begin with in that hypothetical scenario.

You misunderstand me. I'm not saying the winner would become the sprite itself. I aknowledge there would be legal issues. I'm simply saying that the art team can use the community's examples to better give us melans we would want to hunt. Colors that the community wants to see in their melans.

I don't support this, for the reasons that Niet said - it'd be a legal mess. However, I am in support of something like the contest for recolouring familiars that FlightRising held. Perhaps there could be an art-based event to design a new outfit that can be unlocked? Or if the problem is that it's been designed by someone outside of the team, a contest to suggest the best theme.

*Garthic And if there's any form of new sprite to have the community be allowed to have any say, it would likely be a poll of some nature. PFQ can't use anything made by people other than their staffed artists.

Again, I'm not saying the art team would use the winning entry of the contest. It would simply be a way for the art team to see what colors and palettes the community would like to see in their melans. The Entry would NOT become the offical artwork on site.

Maybe just PM Sei or someone else on the art team saying you think X color would look nice on X Melan, like put a little tip in their ear? Because they seriously cannot use non-art-team-made sprites, I dont even think saying it was used as inspiration would be alright, simply given that the Sprite used as inspiration, was made by a minor/other legal issues arise, or wanted it taken down, then that leaves the team out of a Melan Concept/Color that the community liked. Its best to just let the Art Team handle it, they have a lot of work to do, the Melans being a big part of it, so it'll get done eventually, and get done the right way.