About the Avatars System

[Alatar]

Yo:flamer::battle:
Umm like this isn't ment to be rude or anything like that ok so sorry if it seems that way.

With the Avatar system i noticed that well you have got to post A HELLA LOT! to get the good ones.

Is the point of this to try and encourage members to be active????
Or is just that high to make people envey those that have reached the higher Beatter Quallity ones????

I personally just want to make it to the last one so i can try and show off by makeing a cool avatar and have the praise and compliments of fellow members

which can also in turn be put into a competition of some sort for the best Avatar Of The Summer or Month and so on

Just something i felt i should ask about hope it aint to much trouble
Long Live The Red Hot Chili Pepers da best band eva!

[Bonos-Girl]

well....its not trying to encourage members to spam, if that's waht you are implying. The whole avatar system is designed to reward members who regularly come here. if people spam just to get cool avatars their post count will be lowered so it only counts the people who are actually valuble members of the community.

I don't understand your 4th and 5th paragraph....so i'll ignore them unless someone wants to translate them for me! (i am english...i just happen to nt understand the way they are phrased...lol)

and erm....what do the chilis have to do with avatars?! :huh:

anyways...i hope i've answered some of your points.....

[Alatar]

yo:flamer::battle:

lol yeh thanks oh and 4th paragraph *2nd last* i was trying to say that if there was the chance for everyone to make there own Avatars then there could be a reward of some sort every so often for the best one.

When you say "The whole avatar system is designed to reward members who regularly come here."

What about the people who come here as much as possible to talk and interact which is expected. But they may have jobs or may still be at school or University.

They are disadvantaged to the people who could come here alot more because they dont have to attend buisness/work.
So they would come here but becuase of there other responsabilitys they cant have the pleasure of getting new and beatter Avatars as much Other Members might

Oh and The Red Hot Chili Pepers is a band and i was listening to them when writeing the message so i kinda got wraped up in the music and the writeing lol sorry

I hope that one makes sense lol i am not the exactly the best at spelling, Punctuation and so on

cheers:thumbs:

[Illuvatar]

Well, the avatar system is definitely not a competition. Or any type of "motivation" tool.lol

We've actually designed it to where you will have a choice of quite a few rather quickly in fact. We start you off with a few, and then you get some more at 25, more at 50, 75 and so on. Some boards have a limited set of avatars to choose from and we thought we'd do something a little different here.

Rather than a "competition", what we thought would be fun is that as your post counts increase, the title under your name changes in accordance with the chapters in the books, everytime your title changes, there are more and more avatars to choose from. Sort of a journey if you will, along the lines of the journey that the fellowship took.

Some of the really kewl ones are actually "custom" avatars and we have a couple of programs in place to award folks with those. There's the Member of the Month program, and the soon to be announced Subscriber program.

On a side note, if anyone is interested in helping me update our avatar collection, just let me know. We have tons of art in our Art Gallery that would fit into the various chapters. All that is needed is for someone with the time to pick them out, resize them and get them to me to upload.

This avatar update has been on my "to-do" list for awhile, but I'm currently in the process of updating the Photo Gallery and wouldn't mind the help.

There, I hope this answers your questions as to the design of our system. Have fun, and enjoy the journey!

[Nessa the Dancer]

Illu beat me to it again...as usual lol but I'm still gonna add my bit as well.

Well, the way I see it, the Avatar system corresponds to the Title system, which in turn correspond to the journey through the books.
You start off in the Shire with Avatars that reflect that, and as you gain more posts and change chapters, you gain the Avatars that reflect those chapters – Tom Bombadil’s House, Moria, Lothlorien and so on.

As Bonos-Girl says, it is designed to reward good posting, but I do not think it is designed to encourage envy or spamming.

The thing I loved about this site when I first came was that there was not hierarchy when it came to titles and Avatars, you just follow the adventure and everyone is equal.

In my opinion, I do not see why there should be any competition when it comes to Avatars, the whole point of these Forums is to discuss Tolkien and his works, and other aspects of Middle Earth and beyond, the Avatars and a nice addition to this.

[Alatar]

Ok thank you both for clearing that all up:thumbs::grin:

oh and about the request for help updateing the avatar system i could help as i use Fireworks MX a fair bit and it is good for that stuff but i would only be able to do it on weekends

so i dont think i would be of much use lol oh well

:thumbs:later:thumbs:

[Illuvatar]

Well....hmmm...actually mate, there's no real big rush!

If you want, and seeing as how you have FW, that would really be a big help. :thumbs:

Like I said, there are tons of paintings in our Gallery from various artists that relate to all the events/chapters in the books. All you really need to do is pick out the ones in portait format( landscape gets wonky) that we don't allready have up, batch re-size them in FW to 50 pixels for the width. And I'll upload them all into the proper cats when your done.

Let me know what you think....as I said, no big rush, no hurry, no worry;)

[Alatar]

well i guess i could if you want me to but i wont be able to start till next week or arfter as my father is going away so i wont be able to go to his house to use itmecry

but arfter that i can do anything you would like with FW

but i will email you when i am able to do it just to get details & reminder what to do lol

that alright with you??

[Illuvatar]

Sounds great mate!

No worries! Take your time, and let me know when your available. :grin:

[Alatar]

ok will do:thumbs: