Winner!

[ZephyrPhantom]

Also, why the BM's would privately agree to that with just one team is quite strange to me too.  If that is the decision then so be it - make it public when asked and/or agreed.  Right?

Given the context of the event, a rule change should be made known to all teams as opposed to just one at the time the rule is changed. Just my 2 .

[Vangelios]

to me the tradition is a team to make your own icon, I only me and BO extended so?
to me you guys mix task with final awards, can be or not that icon.

@Vange-

Yes, Brawlers making their own icon in the bonus task submissions is the tradition, I think.  I'm quite curious about a Brawl team sending a private request that they could finish-design their own award if they won.

...and now NOT direct just at Vange, but in general:

Is there an explanation for why such a request/discussion wouldn't be publicly posted in the task/round topic for all to discuss at the time of that task?  There is no inherent advantage gained or lost by making that public.

Also, why the BM's would privately agree to that with just one team is quite strange to me.  If that is the decision then so be it - make it public when asked and/or agreed.  Right?

EDIT:
Nae/ARTH -- Do not take my comments here and inquiries above as personal attacks.  I legitimately am asking what I've asked here in order to know. Your hard work and investment into operating this event is not taken for granted - not by me at least.  Thanks.

this final icon I did before the end R6, however one bad version I did in the end of R1 and I sent to BOs,
and it was just me not the team, why the BM's would privately agree to that with just one team is quite strange to me? perhaps you because not done the same?

[Linkcat]

I agree that Gravy's icon should be used. It's not fair to give one team the privilege of designing their own icon just because they asked for it, without any notice given to the other teams.

I also want to say that Gravy's icon is Physsion's original idea, and not based on any other icon.

[ARTHANASIOS]

Um, this is not mentioned anywhere publicly that I recall - so a private agreement was reached between BM's and a team in the event to do this?  0.o

Yes, a "private agreement" or a granted request as I prefer to see it. Much like the request you asked me to grant you of drawing a CI&A image of your last round CD&DB submission, regardless if the turnaround of events had it cancelled. It was totally legal because the image I was going to create wouldn't be part of your submission in the first place, just a custom work of mine, and it wouldn't be included within the submission spoilers, it would just had been a reply of mine to the voting topic. And yes, it was a "private agreement" between you, your team (MoL) and me. No written or ethical rules were broken...

Reusing your own art to make new art isn't exactly the turnabout of the century.

The issue's less about "X person should get [icon]!", and more about the fact Brawlmasters said one thing but did another. An event should try to follow it's rules on both the player and organizer side, otherwise people might as well just do whatever they want.

1st) The "Reusing your own art to make new art isn't exactly the turnabout of the century.", in my humble opinion, is totally non-related with the issue and reveals sentimental bias.

2nd) We have absolutely NOT broken ANY Brawl rules.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Winner
The team that has the most points after all 6 rounds, wins the event. All members of the team will receive a cool forum award icon and tons of respect. In the event of a tie, there will be a sudden death challenge for the bosses to determine the winner.

It nowhere mentions the sprite of the award icon is going to be the one of the winner of Bonus Task 1.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Bonus Task 1 (Round 1&2): Being Cliche Can Be Nice...

Redraw the Winner's Award Icon!

What the title says. It is a well-kept tradition to have Brawlers creating their own award icon! Size must be 32 x 32 pixels.

All teams who submit will receive 5 points. Winner will receive 5 points!

Deadline: Round #2 deadline.

As with the Rules' spoiler, it mentions that the winner of the Bonus Task 1 will receive 5 points (in addition to those gained for submitting it) but it does not mention what the award icon of the whole event may be. Gravy Train Co. have gained their 5 points for winning Bonus Task 1, rules were kept.

The final decision of the Award Icon is decided by the BMs because nowhere the rules state otherwise; period.

[Naesala]

First, let's look at what was officially said in the rules

Spoiler for Hidden:

Bonus Task 1 (Round 1&2): Being Cliche Can Be Nice...
Redraw the Winner's Award Icon!

What the title says. It is a well-kept tradition to have Brawlers creating their own award icon! Size must be 32 x 32 pixels.

All teams who submit will receive 5 points. Winner will receive 5 points!

Deadline: Round #2 deadline.

-------------------
Winner
The team that has the most points after all 6 rounds, wins the event. All members of the team will receive a cool forum award icon and tons of respect. In the event of a tie, there will be a sudden death challenge for the bosses to determine the winner.

So, as far as I can see, the argument that we promised Bonus Round 1+2's icon would be what we used was more of an assumption based on how previous brawl's have panned out, and not based on any particular set of rules.

Next, as to "why was this private"? Well, to be honest, I didn't think in mounted to anything. I personally didn't even say yes or no to Vangelious we he asked, I said something along the lines of maybe, we'll see if you win. Then they won, and they asked if they could use their icon. Since Brawl doesn't come with a fancy title or your name on the forums, I didn't figure it would be a big deal, again, so when ARTH was for it, I said sure. I did not at all think this would spiral into discussion of conspiracy and rule breaking. As I said, no rules have been officially broken and the discussion did not seem to warrant public statement. It had no impact on any part of the actual event, only on the reward, and not even on what amount of reward was given, just the details of it.

When some people got upset, my response was to go with the mass opinion. On one hand, I understand that the icon that won the bonus task is usually intended to be the one used by the winner. I also know that usually the round 1 bonus winner is chosen by the Brawlmasters anyways, though we took into account votes this time because we didn't make that clear to everyone. I can understand the winning icon creator feeling let down about their icon not being used. But at the same time, I can see the winners asking for an icon that represents them and that they find pleasing. I am going to weigh most heavily the opinions of team red stars and team gravy train co for this reason, and less the other teams.

TLDR; The Brawlmasters haven't broken any rules, The Brawlmasters didn't conspire with Red Stars because it wasn't a big deal, now that it looks like a big deal we're going to listen to public opinion, primarily those involved, to try and calm everyone down.

Ninja'd in part by ARTH

[ZephyrPhantom]

1st) The "Reusing your own art to make new art isn't exactly the turnabout of the century.", in my humble opinion, is totally non-related with the issue and reveals sentimental bias.

That statement was a reply to Vangelios's opinion on the reuse of art and should not be considered part of the main discussion about icon usage.

The clear and detailed response is appreciated. Thank you.

[Treldon]

Wow...I wouldn't have thought such a heated argument would spark from this.

To be fair, the rules never stated that the winning icon would be the winners' icon, we all jut assumed it.




But to compensate for it, I still nominate Gravy's icon to be used for the winner of 12 lives #3 

[rob77dp]

Um, this is not mentioned anywhere publicly that I recall - so a private agreement was reached between BM's and a team in the event to do this?  0.o

Yes, a "private agreement" or a granted request as I prefer to see it. Much like the request you asked me to grant you of drawing a CI&A image of your last round CD&DB submission, regardless if the turnaround of events had it cancelled. It was totally legal because the image I was going to create wouldn't be part of your submission in the first place, just a custom work of mine, and it wouldn't be included within the submission spoilers, it would just had been a reply of mine to the voting topic. And yes, it was a "private agreement" between you, your team (MoL) and me. No written or ethical rules were broken...
Disagree.  It was public knowledge you would create CI&A images at teams requests.  In that case some level of advantage or perceived advantage could be taken by making that request public.

Reusing your own art to make new art isn't exactly the turnabout of the century.

The issue's less about "X person should get [icon]!", and more about the fact Brawlmasters said one thing but did another. An event should try to follow it's rules on both the player and organizer side, otherwise people might as well just do whatever they want.

1st) The "Reusing your own art to make new art isn't exactly the turnabout of the century.", in my humble opinion, is totally non-related with the issue and reveals sentimental bias.

2nd) We have absolutely NOT broken ANY Brawl rules.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Winner
The team that has the most points after all 6 rounds, wins the event. All members of the team will receive a cool forum award icon and tons of respect. In the event of a tie, there will be a sudden death challenge for the bosses to determine the winner.

It nowhere mentions the sprite of the award icon is going to be the one of the winner of Bonus Task 1.
The R1/2 bonus task is where it is stated the task is to design the winner's icon... Not in the rules tie-breaker or something like that.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Bonus Task 1 (Round 1&2): Being Cliche Can Be Nice...

Redraw the Winner's Award Icon!

What the title says. It is a well-kept tradition to have Brawlers creating their own award icon! Size must be 32 x 32 pixels.

All teams who submit will receive 5 points. Winner will receive 5 points!

Deadline: Round #2 deadline.

As with the Rules' spoiler, it mentions that the winner of the Bonus Task 1 will receive 5 points (in addition to those gained for submitting it) but it does not mention what the award icon of the whole event may be. Gravy Train Co. have gained their 5 points for winning Bonus Task 1, rules were kept.
"Redraw the Winner's Award Icon" is itself a statement of the task being to design the winner's icon.  How can that be interpreted otherwise?  0.o

The final decision of the Award Icon is decided by the BMs because nowhere the rules state otherwise; period.
Um, OK?

How about I just decide to let it be and quit joining in this now "someone is wrong on the internet" discussion?  Yeah, that's it - I'll leave it at my "vote" (if bralwer votes are being counted for things here) is for the R1/2 bonus task winning submission to be the winner's icon.

Edit:  Also... robnotangry <-- this is true.

[ARTHANASIOS]

@rob:

* In an official Forum Brawl #4 thread, I've never made an announcement like that. I just posted to my Deck Image Tool which is non-related to Brawl and it is fine because the creation of an CI&A deck image the way I meant it had nothing to do with the submission itself and it didn't break the "team-can't-get-help-from-outsiders" rule.

* And you acutally redraw the Winner's Award Icon. Your own Winner's Award Icon which was your Bonus Task submission. Much like Frostbite did, much like Ragnarok did, much like any team did. It just you people jumped to the conclusion it was going to be the award icon of the event. Maybe the wording could've been better, idk.

* The "period" that I said was due to my wish to end this discussion that leads nowhere and just causes anger, envy, distrust between brawlers and brawlmasters alike.

1st) The "Reusing your own art to make new art isn't exactly the turnabout of the century.", in my humble opinion, is totally non-related with the issue and reveals sentimental bias.

That statement was a reply to Vangelios's opinion on the reuse of art and should not be considered part of the main discussion about icon usage.

The clear and detailed response is appreciated. Thank you.

Glad to hear it.

[JonathanCrazyJ]

Frankly this complaints of icons is not anything like people who are concerned with event integrity, but other types of feelings that taking an unpleasant and awkward situation at the cost of nothing.(ie no one will profiting from it)

I'm really disappointed with their attitudes, just already rather not receive any icon, just to make some people happy.

Wow... ok, I'm actually quite hurt that you think this is to stir up trouble cause I'm bitter - You are absolute deserved winners, I was excited to see the forum brawl icon on your team, because it would round off a completeness about brawl, an event I have loved from start to finish.

I do not even slightly criticise the decision to change the award icon because of any "back door" deal, I think what nae and arth did is completely VALID. My disagreement with it has nothing to do with this.

Lastly I REALLY did not want / intend to spark a heated debate. If people (mostly Gravy Train tbh, as it's their icon) agree with the change, absolutely fine! I just saw it and was a bit sad because I enjoyed the thematic idea of having the icon ACTUALLY COME from a brawl task, I was excited when I saw the task (having no prior knowledge of other brawls) I was excited doing the task (hey, even if we don't win, we still might get to design something permenant on the forums) I was excited seeing gravy's submission (oo, that looks cool, I'd like that to be the winner icon!)

I am very sorry to have caused controversy. Please EVERYONE, do not let a discussion turn into an ARGUMENT which could taint the magnificent event of brawl, or Red Stars deserved victory.

Vang: your icon looks fantastic. If it had been ready for the task, I might well have voted for it. That is not the issue. You did great work in brawl, as did your team. Congratulations on your victory!

Sorry that what I said was taken as inflammatory. I was just surprised / disappointed. I will now duck out of the debate, except to say "calm down folks!" I think it IS important what the (few surviving lol) remaining members of Gravy Train have to say though

[dawn to dusk]

after all the crap that gravy train went through, i think it should be uplifting for them if their icon was used

but tbh, if gravy train and stars can come to an agreement that should be enough

[Physsion]

As the creator of Gravy Train Co.'s award icon, let it be known that I'm not upset whatsoever about the icon not being used.

However, considering that this thread is the only communication I've had regarding this decision, since ARTHANASIOS' private message to me telling me that my Brawl icon had won, I think the lack of transparency the Brawlmasters are showing is a wee bit dodgy.

I understand that a lot has been going on with the final votes and all, but a little bit of communication regarding things like this would have been much appreciated. I too was excited to see my icon used, as this was the impression given to us by the description of the Bonus task and Arth's message to me personally, and I was confused to see an unfamiliar icon underneath the Red Stars members' names.

Brawlmasters, please - you've done a great job hosting Brawl, but don't let it end on this note. Don't hide behind your "it's not in the Brawl rules" and have some respect for the participants. Our icon was selected as the winner through the voting process, and we want to know why the winning team was given a special opportunity to modify their submission long after the due date.