Just as a precursor, I’m not trying to offend or criticize anyone with this post; I just have questions about this “contest” at the LAN’s lately. I appreciate you not taking this the wrong way as it’s not directed negatively at anyone, just a general observation over the past few years.
As a non-modder (at least not enough to enter the contest) what makes a PC worthy of entering a contest? I have a Cooler Master Scout case. It comes with all red fans, but I’ve replaced them all with blue fans, I’ve also added lights to the sides, I’ve spent lots of time hiding all the wires and also installing an aftermarket CPU cooler. After hanging out with JJ’s mods or some of the awesome crazy ones at LAN OC by other people (ie: Minecraft, entire old gaming system mod, fish tank…) it just seems like painting the case is the new wave of the future. While I think that’s cool, I just have questions on what else was done with the case. Water cooling, other holes cut, special lights ordered...
I’d like to challenge modders to come up with a quick 30 sec description of their case and what they’ve actually modded. Or maybe post up their work log on the website prior to the LAN, or maybe just write something up so that people can see what the case original looked like so we can see what was actually done. Some of these cases come pre-modded. I just hate to think that someone who spent lots of time hiding wires, buying special coatings for the ones you can see, installing lights, cutting holes for water cooling, building the case from scratch or whatever else that can be done isn’t being considered because someone was able to find someone to paint their case for them. To me it’s like doing a contest for over-clocking and just giving the prize to the person who spent the most on the hardware, instead of taking into account the specs of what they had to work with and their skill in actually making it run faster…
Again, I think the painting is very cool, but unless you airbrushed it yourself, or designed it yourself, should it count as a Mod? At least enough to enter a contest? Maybe I’m just a little bitter that I’m not that creative or good with my hands, I just hate to think that the guy who spent his blood sweat and tears totally re-doing a case, is beat by someone who just has a already cool case painted, or by installing a lighted fan, if the case didn’t come with them already…
This all stems from looking at the mod in CPU mag, and reading that he build the case from scratch and how cool that was. So I just mainly wanna know what you did to your case, so I’m not just judging on what I can see, but also what was done to get it that way.
Again sorry if I offended anyone, but that wasn’t my intention, I just wanna elevate the level of this contest.
I don't think you should have offended anyone with this post. And I do not intend to offend anyone with mine.
I would like to say this however, I don't think there are any restrictions on entering a case mod contest, and therefore there should be no issues with the contest itself. With a contest like this it comes down to what the voters think. Sometimes it works out like it should, sometimes it doesn't, thats what happens when you let a group of voters decide instead of a panel of judges. I don't think anything needs changed. I remember Plague's case before this one, and it certainly wasn't just a "painted case" nor was this one in my opinion. I think the one that Plague had was the coolest one there, but that is just my opinion. Other people felt the same way, and therefore he won the contest.
If we want to talk about he biggest injustice in a case mod contest, we can talk about when BillyBob built a claptrap case from the ground up, and lost to a case with a few lights and flowers on the side. Why did someone who DESERVED to win not win? Because that is how the voting works, the gamers get to vote, and the gamers decided that it wasn't to be. Sometimes we have injustice, but its not like we have voter fraud going on. In the end all of the cases are cool and blow mine out of the water so I don't feel I can judge well enough who "deserves" it the most so I just vote for the mod that I think is the coolest.
Also, I agree with your last post. I think that the owner of the case going in front of the group and giving a story and description of the case would be an excellent edition to the way the contest is run. Normally I go around and ask myself what was done to get the case into its current state. I regret that I did not do this at Nexus Lan 9, but I was way to busy raging at HoN.
Just my 2c.