The winning design looks like some bastard mishmash of Galaxy, Sovereign and Oberth. What a waste of a good name.

---

You are standing on a 4.5 billion year old complex, self-sustaining organic spacship, which is orbiting a power source a million times larger than your ship. There are 200 billion other power sources, many of them with ships like yours, in your fleet. There are 40 other fleets in the immediate neighbourhood and your entire neighbourhood is moving at two million miles per hour towards an object 150 million light years away. Welcome to life, it's a lot more exciting when you think on larger scales.

Hey, its just one more bit of stupidity in TNG-era Trek. Its nothing we're not used to.

The official site for the winners is up: http://www.startrekonline.com/node/2415

Gah, congrats to that guy for winning and all, but sheesh, really? I would have been alright with the second place guy winning as that was one of my preferred designs, but this thing is just... not the Enterprise.

What I find insulting is that the design with the most votes is not even listed among the runnerups.

That's just an unnecessary slap in the face.

It just sounds like "hey guys, do work for us for free. BTW, we are totally going to ignore your input on anything".

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Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
------------------
"You know, you insist government is depraved for not legislating against what we can see on newsstands, or what we can see in an art exhibit, or what we can burn in protest, or which sex we can have sex with, or a woman's right to choose, but don't you dare try to regulate this deadly weapon I have concealed on me, for that would encroach against my freedom!"
- Sam Seaborn
------------------
Et si omnes ego non

Cute flood of angry emails and/or phone calls to CBS over this, I hope. I'm certainly going to see if I can find a good number to call and complain.

I'm sorry they fucked you over, F_M; yours looks badass. It's still my wallpaper.

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Ceci n'est pas une signature.

It's cool man. I kinda like the winner's design. At least it's different.

If you want the latest render for your desktop I'll have the a variety of sizes (san orthos) up later tonight.

That is true at least they did that, but I really liked your design because I felt it balanced old school and newer trek ship elements.

Keep up the hard work on your other projects, I always enjoy checking the site and seeing what you have come up with recently.

Before I go... like, fucking camping or something... I did want to say that I emailed Cryptic and they emailed me back. To summarize, some of them liked it, but it sounds really unlikely that it will ever make it into the game, without them having said "no" flatout.

Also, by way of a source who will remain nameless for the sole purpose of inviting speculation, I was able to contact Scott Herbertson: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0378643/
He did me the amazing favor of giving me his thoughts on my design, and I've found his words quite comforting.

I'm really hoping he won't mind me quoting him here:

To put it colloquially, Mr. Modem, you got screwed with your pants on. That you were not among the top four, after having received the greatest number of fan votes, well, this says enough for me about the people running this "contest".

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73% of all statistics are made up, including this one.

I'm waiting as fast as I can.

Just one more reason for me not to buy the game then.

---

Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
------------------
"You know, you insist government is depraved for not legislating against what we can see on newsstands, or what we can see in an art exhibit, or what we can burn in protest, or which sex we can have sex with, or a woman's right to choose, but don't you dare try to regulate this deadly weapon I have concealed on me, for that would encroach against my freedom!"
- Sam Seaborn
------------------
Et si omnes ego non

The winning entry looks like poo.


It's also a shit game anyway.

Can someone give me the e-mail address of who I should be complaining too?
I feel angry enough to send a cross email.

---

"Seriously though, every time I see something like this I think 'Ooo, I'm living in the future'. Unfortunately it increasingly looks like it's going to be a cyberpunkish dystopia, where the poor eat recycled shit and the rich eat the poor." Evilsoup, on the future

StarGazer, an experiment in RPG creation

Damn I'm sorry Fuzzy. Its a fucking travesty that they didn't even give you a nod as runner up considering the poll results.

Hell, even a "and such and such won our user vote" would have been adequate. Not great, but adequate

---

"Seriously though, every time I see something like this I think 'Ooo, I'm living in the future'. Unfortunately it increasingly looks like it's going to be a cyberpunkish dystopia, where the poor eat recycled shit and the rich eat the poor." Evilsoup, on the future

StarGazer, an experiment in RPG creation

Of course if they said that it would be a tacit admission that they didn't give a shit about the votes. This way they can give a vague pretense that the votes were in any way relevant.

Definitely a shame Fuzzy, I still like your design better than any of the top four finalists.

Yeah... seriously Thanas. I'm so not buying the game because of the dump they just took on fans... and not even casual fans like me, who can probably be bothered to check out their sight and vote from time to time.. but fuzzy put work into that design. That's a dedicated fan who really put time and effort into a quality work so they could what... pick the model with a foreskin on the engine hull???

I frankly, don't give a shit if "some of them liked it" Those assholes made it a voting contest which was entirely misleading, considering the votes counted for shit.

Fuzzy don't throw that design away, i wouldn't mind seeing a couple more videos of it. I was loving your demo piece.

It would not bother me so much, in principle, if the actual winner didn't follow the votes. Because it was going to go into the 'canon' and CBS would ultimately have to approve it, and CBS may not have cared. And I wouldn't blame Cryptic (much less denounce the game forever*) over what CBS decided, because it's not like they can control that.

That said unless CBS also had a hand in the second, third, fourth and runner up winners (and I don't see why they would, though maybe they did I don't know) I can't see why they wouldn't take the votes and ratings into account. Because otherwise, as said above, what was even the point of having them?

Incidently, the STO forums are pretty pissed at the winner, too. So it's not just this band of nerds.

---

*For the record, I do enjoy the game, and don't think it's 'crap' or 'rubbish' as others do (and please let's not derail this into a G&C level thread). Still, there are plenty of legitimate gripes about the game that could turn people away which have nothing to do with this contest. Like how they can release new Federation ships and costumes every couple of weeks, yet the Klingon side gets jack and shit despite many promises to give the KDF some love. Naturally, KDF players and even just those who like to dabble on the KDF side are pretty pissed over that.

Who knows, maybe the upcoming Season 4 update will finally give the Klingons some much needed loving, from ships, costumes, to actual content that isn't just straight PVP. But I don't think a lot of people are holding their breaths for that one.

woah woah woah let's not just toss the N word around, I do sports

Desktop backgrounds:

1024: http://crossovercomic.com/media/extras/Unrelated/startrek_contest/desktops/1701-f_ultimatefinaldraft_1024.jpg

1280: http://crossovercomic.com/media/extras/Unrelated/startrek_contest/desktops/1701-f_ultimatefinaldraft_1280.jpg

1440: http://crossovercomic.com/media/extras/Unrelated/startrek_contest/desktops/1701-f_ultimatefinaldraft_1440.jpg

1600: http://crossovercomic.com/media/extras/Unrelated/startrek_contest/desktops/1701-f_ultimatefinaldraft_1600.jpg

1920: http://crossovercomic.com/media/extras/Unrelated/startrek_contest/desktops/1701-f_ultimatefinaldraft_1920.jpg

2048: http://crossovercomic.com/media/extras/Unrelated/startrek_contest/desktops/1701-f_ultimatefinaldraft_2048.jpg

8192: http://crossovercomic.com/media/extras/ ... ft_big.jpg

Regardless of what the dolts at CBS think, your work will always be held in high regard here and by the voters who made your design both top-rated and most-voted. I am going to enshrine this thread in the Gallery where it rightfully belongs. Excellent work.

Agreed on the saving.

Anyway, thought I would put this here. There is a good chance that Fuzzy's ship will make it into the game anyway.
The new Enterprise will be the generic cruiser, and Fuzzy's will be a science cruiser... personally I think those should be swapped, but it would be great for it to get in anyway...

Also: hey look! it gets fuglier http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=4 ... count=1221

---

"Seriously though, every time I see something like this I think 'Ooo, I'm living in the future'. Unfortunately it increasingly looks like it's going to be a cyberpunkish dystopia, where the poor eat recycled shit and the rich eat the poor." Evilsoup, on the future

StarGazer, an experiment in RPG creation

Its not that ugly. My main complaint against it is the rather tenuous connection of the saucer to the engineering section. Trek ships already get bashed for their fragile construction around here.

Completely agree with that. Two well-placed torpedo shots and bye-bye saucer.


That would be sweet, but what's your source?

The winner offered them orthos and they declined?!?
http://trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=49455 ... count=1251

They've taken control now... It's the ability to improvise they wanted, not a finished product!

Fuuuuck...

The Eve contest was the opposite. They didn't care about the perspective, their only requirement was all 6 orthos. THEY wanted a finished product but Cryptic just wanted a doodle to inspire them to create their own design.

Even more ironic is that those artists in the Eve contest created BEAUTIFUL perspectives too: http://www.evecontest.com/finalvote/ -even though they weren't required!

How could I have misread what this contest was so badly? The website design alone should have told me. Of course they only wanted thumbnails. You can do ANYTHING with a reference that small. I thought I was so clever by figuring out the maximum vertical area...

I could have given them flex room if they'd told me that's what they wanted!

I killed my chances by working to hard. I really just can't believe it.

>sigh<

I'll be fine. Already better than yesterday, and tomorrow is the weekend. I gotta get out of town... go out to the hot springs or up to the hills...