Topic category: Website and community discussion
I have noticed certain users getting... highly disappointed... about not winning the MOTW (Mod of the Week) competition, so I decided to try and put together a forum topic to offer some advice.
Keep in mind, this is just my personal advice (although some of it comes from what Klemen or Matej have said elsewhere). Also, I am not a moderator or in any way involved with choosing MOTW. Lastly, at the time of writing this, I haven't won MOTW myself, although I believe that one of my mods came somewhat close.
So, without further ado, here are my tips, in no particular order:
Come up with a good mod idea. It can be something completely original, or a very common theme with a slight twist or original take on it, or just an expansion of what is in vanilla Minecraft.
Put a lot of effort into making the mod. My assumption is that a lot of MOTW winners put hours upon hours of time and effort into their mods. And even then a mod isn't guaranteed to win.
Try to make high-quality textures and models. I know this is something that not everyone has a lot of experience with. If you struggle with this, my advice would be to make a few practice mods that you don't upload, with models and textures nearly-identical to vanilla ones, but recreated pixel by pixel rather than copied and pasted to get some more experience with vanilla-style texturing (at least, that is what I did initially when trying to make good item textures). Also, a lot of vanilla textures have 7 different colors/shades, or sometimes 5 or 9, so you could use that as a reference point.
As Goldorion said here: https://mcreator.net/forum/69949/how-get-mod-week if modeling/textures aren't your strong suit, you could also try to make mods with really unique mechanics.
From what I can tell, MOTW is judged by a real person (Matej) based on the quality of the mod's page, and the mod itself, and taking into consideration a large number of factors, explained a little more by Klemen here: https://mcreator.net/forum/53909/how-does-klemen-choose-mod-week
With that in mind, you will want to create a high-quality mod page, although I know not everyone has a lot of experience with that. (I struggle because I'm not familiar with external image hosting services). An example of a high-quality mod page can be found here: https://mcreator.net/modification/114863/orevolution
Also, Matej said once that mods with AI-generated logos aren't eligible for MOTW because of the controversy around AI. (in the past they gave MOTW to a few mods with AI-generated logos and some people very loudly hated it)
A very important tip, keep re-submitting your mod for MOTW week after week. Matej has said that sometimes a mod comes close, but there is another mod that just slightly outshines it, or they want to give MOTW to a smaller mod with a different theme rather than five combat-based mods in a row.
Especially keep re-submitting your mod if Matej comments positively on it. I'm pretty sure they primarily comment on mods submitted for MOTW that got close (I have actually submitted two of my mods at different points, and only one of them was commented on [the much better one], so I'm making a few assumptions here based on that)
If Matej doesn't comment on your mod, you may need to do some more work on improving it.
Another very important tip, accept defeat gracefully. If your mod doesn't win MOTW, try again another week, rather than complaining about it. I know if I was the one judging MOTW, I would be less inclined to aware MOTW to someone who was a sore loser a few weeks ago. But if you just accept defeat gracefully, you can always try again next week. Also keep in mind, there are a lot of people who never win MOTW, and the vast majority of mods don't get it. It is only awarded to the mods Matej thinks are best in the weeks they are submitted.
That is my long-winded list of tips and advice for trying to win MOTW. If anyone else wants to add to it, or Matej or Klemen have some clarifications to make, feel free to do so.
