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Realize the cost of your suggestion.
Thank you, SamurottX

This purpose of the rest of the guide is to not make a bad suggestion, often telling you how to go from "bad" to "good". The overachiever's guide tells you how to go from "good" to "much, much better". This is only one of two sub-guides not written by Theriasis (the other being 0_Zippy for making the balance guide), meaning this guide will be much more positive.

Ever play a video game that involves getting more than 100% completion? Or being able to earn better than a gold medal, which is usually a platinum one? This guide will try to help you get that. If you only care to make just decent, okay suggestions with "eh" amounts of work, this guide is not for you. Who is it for? The people who want their ideas to shine so hard that we can't look directly at it too fast, the kind that most likely make the suggestions hall of fame and get showered with "I support!" for many pages.

Note: Following the guide to a 'T' may also involve you having to learn program-using skills you haven't nailed down quite yet.

Apart from the suggestion being good, proper readability and formatting is one of the most desired things for the reader of a suggestion. If the format of a suggestion is too sloppy, it brings the integrity of the suggestion down. Format a suggestion like you want that A+ grade.

You can't really have a post without text, so you might as well arrange that text as beautifully as humanly possible. This includes good spelling, proper grammar and proper punctuation placement. If you have a long suggestion that has many stats, attributes and features, then it may be best to split that up into some nice sections with pretty headers.

The rest of the suggestions guide mentions how you need proper formatting, but this sub-guide will give much more ideas and insight to that. Make sure your suggestion is split up into nice sized paragraphs - not too long, not too short. Also, even though this part isn't as necessary, but if you can, make sure your paragraphs encompass points properly, rather than having single points splashed around multiple paragraphs, but that really depends on how you present it so that part isn't painfully important. That's a mixed bag.

If a paragraph is too short, it might not even be a paragraph at all and you probably can attach more to it. If it's too long, you could slowly bore reader's until the next paragraph hits. Paragraphs that are too long can overwhelm and "tire" the reader, as if you're telling a super long joke that should have reached a punchline 2 minutes ago, you don't want that. In other words, long paragraphs can come off as rambling. Even this very paragraph is probably boring you now. Sorry guys, do you forgive me?

Lastly, let's talk about headers. Headers are the most awesome way to split up and organize a suggestion. Make those headers nice and big, and if you want, a nice fitting easy-to-read color. For bonus points, maybe make an image of header text like I've been doing. Maybe slap another smaller image to match what the header reads for more bonus points, just don't overdo it and clutter it.

Note: To refine your post better, you may need to do some post editing in [BB] mode.

I'll give a brief here's-good-and-here's-bad example.

I personally think the best suggestions absolutely need some good images. There is no collection of words I can think of to express the fact that good suggestions should have this. Yes, it does give something pretty to look at and gives us more than just text, text and more text. But it also helps us readers dive into the mind of the suggester and makes us see what they want us to see. We see the suggester's vision. Ever have a good idea but couldn't express it good enough because others just need to see it?

If you want to show the readers how creative you are, you probably need to obtain some moderate to extreme image editing skills. In some lucky cases, you can find an image without needing to do so, but you making stuff yourself showcases how serious and skilled you are at giving ideas. Another thing people should know, is that even though an image brings home a point, it still might take some editing to make it look better. An example is images that have backgrounds... Let me just show you...

Are both images good? Sure. But chances are, you find the right one better as the background is transparent. The left one just comes off as being blockier while the right looks more defined and sleeker. Sometimes we need to apply that creative elbow grease to make an image shine a little more.

There's a special case for mob suggestions. If you want to make a model of the mob, you have two choices: the first one requires extremely critical and advanced 3D modeling with programs such as Maya or 3DS Max and very, very careful texturing work. Or... the second choice, which requires almost no 3D modeling skill at all and involves a program made specifically for Minecraft in mind called Techne! See? Uncle Cerroz helps you out.

In the case of sprites, it's pretty easy. Just make a pixelish 16x16 image, and resize it. In most image editing programs, there are options such as "Bicubic" and "Bilinear" resizing, but "Pixel Resize" or "Nearest Neighbor" ensures the image will be nice, sharp/pixelly with no blur. Just make sure to resize it in dimensions divisible by 16.

Sadly, this guide covers just suggestions and won't provide a tutorial on how to use these programs. Some quick Google or Youtube searches will get you on the right track. Don't worry, Techne doesn't take long to understand. It's a pretty simplistic program. Another note, make sure your images are relevant. If your mob is based on a Chinese insect, you only need to post a picture of the insect, not a picture of China.

If you want an idea to make the suggestions hall of fame, good images are absolutely required!!

Image Formats (Added 9/28/05)

Anyone who has been using the internet for a week probably know of all image formats. The most sought after and prominent format is PNG, because it a.) has a very small filesize and b.) can support any type of transparency (being 'index' and 'alpha'). JPEG is also fine, assuming the image is not too compressed and transparency is not needed.

A GIF file can work if you make an animated image, but take note that those kind of files have very exclusive amounts of colors and there's no working around that. GIF images are 8-bit only and can only support this amount of colors: 3, 7, 15, 31, 63, 127 and 255. A GIF can make an image very grainy and loss-of-colors, so optimize it wisely. GIF files can only support 'index' transparency, so you can't have an opaque slowly blend into transparency (which is 'alpha' transparency). It's only 100% transparency and 100% opaque. No in-betweens.

"But Cerroz, is it possible to have both alpha transparency and animation?" Yes there is. There is a very unique image format known an APNG, but making these kind of files can be very tedious and tricky, and may require many tries before you get them just right. Also, APNG files are not supported by all browsers, so some users only see the first frame, and not a full animation. Sadly, you can't have everything.

There are too many good programs out there to name them all. The most obvious one is Adobe Photoshop. For GIF's, I use Jasc Animation Shop, which is not one of the better programs, but it's one of the easiest to use. Note that Photoshop can make GIF's too, but it might take a smidge longer for you. For APNG files, APNG Assembler is a solid choice.

When you're being an overachiever and stretching your arms out because you're trying to feel the cold medal of that platinum medal just out of reach, you can't just have a good idea, you gotta have the pizzazz to present it beautifully as well.

Talk about eating your cake and presenting it too right? And... maybe still eating it. It's cool you gave us the awesome idea, but can you explain it so cleverly and smoothly that you can hook us more and more, making the idea triply more irresistible?

If you happen to be a clever writer, or just a clever speaker, chances are you're gonna nail this part of the suggestion. There's a difference between "Here's an idea you'll all like." and "Alright, I'm gonna need everyone to sit down. If I'm gonna be serving this good idea cake to all of you, you can't crowd around me. Look at the cake though! It's got a picture of a unicycle lizard on it!" If you truly believe you're funny, you can use that humor as well.

Language Barrier

I think it's safe to say that you already know this forum is English based. If English is not your primary language and you are struggling with it, my advice is this: hang in there. It's understandable you won't master a language just so you can make a good suggestion, but I advise giving your suggestion a rough draft to an English-speaking person.

As the very top of Theriasis' guide states, if we can't handle negativity, we shouldn't make a thread at all. Though you soon-to-be-overachievers know this already. Don't be afraid of negative reception. Grab it! Use it! That feedback is your ultimate ticked to make a gold suggestion into a diamond.

I can promise you that the most famous suggestions did not start out as refined as they are now, and if they did, they probably have a lot to improve anyway. I personally get a bit worried if I get no negative responses sprinkled in here and there, because I don't get to see what to fix in my idea.

If you get too much factual negative responses and the core of your suggestion has been proven to be a bad idea, it may be best to move on to a different idea. As not all ideas can be repaired.

If someone makes a very long post stating negatives on your idea and you want to prove them wrong, then respond to all of the points. If you just "respond to what you want" and skip over many negative points, that can showcase laziness and that you're trying to avoid negativity. That is not the kind of attention you want. If you can't refute a factual point, then openly admit that the critic is correct, and if possible, try to fix what said critic brought up.

This is the most unique section of this sub-guide, as this is this without a doubt the most rare thing ever seen in a suggestion. Some suggesters have uploaded videos helping explain an idea, but maybe once or twice has one gone through the effort of making one, uploading it and presenting it.

Provided your idea is actually good, making a good video will put your chances of a hall of fame place at roughly 95%. As expected, providing such a thing will require some serious effort. The video editing software I use is Sony Vegas, but if you have basic knowledge of video editing, almost any software will do. Even something basic like Windows Movie Maker can work.

I made a short video for my Ancient Zombie suggestion, and it wasn't anything spectacular, but it was still awesome to see in a suggestion. Here it is:


If you can manage to animate your mob and put that in a video or .gif image, then you are in. Like. Flint.