A New, Improved Monthly Awards System?

Hello all!

First of all, I want to thank you Gina for your wonderful ideas. We mods do appreciate it when players come up with ideas for the site and convey them to the rest of us. It makes us feel good to know that players are taking such interests as this.

That being said, we mods have looked over your proposition and discussed it. While you have excellent ideas here, in all honesty, the overhaul is simply not feasible. That is not to say that your ideas are not valid, but the truth of the matter is that Mutant of the Month is supposed to encompass ALL[/b] of the smaller categories that you are suggesting. There are no rules about having to vote for old members or only people that you have RPed with, or anything for that matter. Nominating for MotM is supposed to be about making a player feel special, for whatever reason: whether you like reading a thread they are in, whether they are a joy to chat with in the cbox, whether they are an oldie whose time has come, or a newb who deserves to be noticed. MotM is supposed to be ALL of these things; sadly these plans just do not seem to warrant implementing.

That is not to say that we are knocking your ideas. Oh no, as I said, we love that you (and all our fellow members) are coming up with ideas; we are listening and we are extremely thankful. Unfortunately the changes offered here just are not feasible for a couple reasons:

1 – It will require a lot of work. Not only for the mods, but mainly for the players to keep interest in this up monthly, or even yearly, by nominating and voting. The last thing we want is a lot of buzz for this new system, only to have it halt a month or two in because people are not nominating enough. As it is, MotM barely scrounges up 2 or 3 nominees.

2 – Speaking of such, right now, we need MotM focused on a single objective. Too many categories could lead to a muddling of a practice that is supposed to be fun incentive. Too much could spoil that.

3 – Again, that this is not to say that we are completely discounting the ideas presented here. It is entirely possible that, down the line, themed contests could be brought up. These are all fantastic ideas, but it needs the proper timing to be implemented.

We love MRO, and we love that our players show such interest in its well-being. But what we need most at the moment is players nominating and actually voting for MotM and making that a success before we could even consider changes to that formula. It was successful before and it can be successful again, but we cannot do it alone. We need everyone’s help making it work. Gina, everyone, wonderful ideas, truly. But let us stay focused on what we already have. Together, let us build up the foundation we have, before we begin adding rooms.

In short, nominate and vote for MotM and make it the success we all know it can be.

-- Redcrosse Knight (on behalf of the Mod Team)