I was thinking it might be interesting to have a Community Based Foundry Contest.
Here's my rough concept at the moment...
_____'s brother has been kidnapped. You must investigate the trail, find the kidnappers, and rescue the brother.
Maximum number of entries: 8
Requirements:
- Average time must be LESS than 14 minutes (so NOT daily eligible!)
- Must include ___________ foundry map for basis
- No enemy mobs may use their "default" costume
- No existing quests eligible - must be created for contest
Winning Breakdown:
- 100,000AD for Overall
- 30,000AD for Visuals
- 20,000AD for Lore/Story
I'd be willing to provide the 75,000AD for the prize money (unless others want to contribute as well).
Thoughts, suggestions, kibitzes, complaints, discussion, ideas, etc?
(I reached out to Akromatic to see if we can use a "known" PC's "brother")
Suggested Themes/Plots
(A Neverwinter NPC)'s brother has been kidnapped, find and rescue
Search and Rescue (more open theme)
Comments
I'd rather a minimum time, of say half-hour and I'm not so keen on on the theme, I would like a more general idea, I have another Dwarven quest I'd like to make. Also, in my mind the maps should all be custom built with a decent time frame. A month at least.
I would suggest a judging panel rather than plays. perhaps even a vote system with each entry getting three votes. The reason being well known authors would have an advantage.
Whatever you decide I will give you all my AD as the prize money, last time I looked it was about 500k. I say this simply because I don't use them. I offer this whatever you decide for the entry requirements. My suggestions are just suggestions.
Also, I'd like more general topics too, like drawven, forest related, must include a city from the DnD lore, etc.
This. We all know how fickle user reviews can be. You can make the most beautiful maps and interesting story and the regular players will downgrade you for "too much stuff to read".
I'm also voting for a themed quest instead of specific plot. Less then 15 minutes is fine with me, making a micro-quest also requires some skill.
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I'm really partial to forcing it to NOT being "daily eligible" since that is one of the horrible things inflicted on the foundry. I think it accomplishes a few things...a three finger salute to the "daily" rubbish, and forces authors to really focus on a short, concise story, as well as making it easier to populate the environment, visuals, details, effects, etc. I know as an actual software developer I've seen some truly incredible programs that were contest limited to a certain size, etc.
With that in mind, I think a simple find the kidnappers, rescue the victim can be short, exciting and concise. But, I'm definitely open to other "time-limited" themes.
And thanks for the AD support -- I don't think we should go all out initially, maybe if you just match me, we bump it to say 100,000AD winner, 30,000AD Eventful winner, 20,000AD story/lore winner.
That opens up the question -- winners based on reviews by all reviewers, or do we form a panel of judges? If we were to do a panel of judges -- what's the maximum number of "entrants" to accept? Judges would have to commit to playing/voting on every entrant, right?
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As far as who can vote, I'd say no maximum, but judges have to sign up first, which can be as simple as "I want to be a judge."
I don't think that would work - I'd say a judge would not be able to vote for their own quest, but that that would reduce the total votes for that judges entry. Perhaps if winners were based on average vote that would work okay? Being an avid foundry fanatic, I would probably want to enter and be a judge as well, so I can see the appeal.
Is average vote score enough to allow judge-entrants? Discuss.
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This is my thinking too. Why I mentioned the idea of an entry buys you three votes, one for 1st place, one for 2nd and one for 3rd. This makes it fair as obviously you can't vote for your own. It also keeps it within the community, but also allows for possibly new authors.
Edit: If there was a tie I'm sure we could ask someone to have the final say based on the tie.
I can't promise that I will finish every quest, but I would certainly try to do so.
I'm not to bothered about the time and it's your idea so I'm happy to go along with that. With the theme maybe just a simple 'Search & Rescue' then. It's almost what you have said, but a little more open to interpretation.
I'm happy to match you with the AD, like I said even when I was more active it was wasted and almost all of it is from tips anyway.
I'll participate if the foundry is accessible for me by then.
I would offer to help with the reward but I'm kinda new and I think I only got about 150k AD on me so all I can offer is participation.
EDIT: I think I can offer 30k AD. It's not a lot but I still need my AD to get some items I need.
If you win you will nearly be able to afford a bag :P
Don't worry about the accessibility, we are all in the same boat.
I would love to take part in this and under 15 minutes would also work out well for me, personally.
It would be great if the entires were not judged by grammar/typos, as not everyone is a native English speaker - I know I might not be able to get a beta-tester in time (of course, I am not saying that it's okay if someone has a typo on top of a typo in every dialogue line)
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Maximum quest entrants: 8
Requirements added
Winning Breakdown:
Open Issues
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Voting: I can't think of a way to do it fairly at the moment, but I would definitely like to allow this if possible.
More themes/plots: Lets keep the current one for the first event.
Now I just wish the foundry would come up so I could get started.
I like the categories, but that means someone can win two prizes, if they make a good story with awesome visuals and it gets voted as the best overall?
This. I would love to both take part and be a judge. Maybe a public judging?
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If we have a set of dedicated judges, they need to evaluate each entry - at 14min/entry x 8 is just under 2 hours of commitment.
I think it would likely be the first 8 submitted before the deadline, not necessarily reserved. So, maybe on the deadline we open a topic for submissions - and the first "n" submissions are the entries.
I think we rule that you can only win one category and we select overall, then visual, then story. That way we ensure we have 3 different winners. We could probably provide all 3 averages so people can see how well they did in the other categories as well.
I think a more formalized judging where we have some number of judges committed to evaluating ALL entries, as opposed to public where it'd be more hit or miss, and as someone mentioned, more popular authors might get more public votes/plays. So, I'm leaning towards a set panel of judges, with perhaps an alternate or two if any judge needs to drop out.
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Either way, I just think it shouldn't matter how many entries there are - if you give judges enough time they can evaluate everything. I know I'm always taking way longer then estimated time when I am testing foundries - running around, looking at everything, testing for map breaks and taking notes. I think we should all agree that if someone wants to be a judge, then they need to commit their time to it.
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Yeah, you're probably right. Thinking back to the "official" foundry contests there wasn't huge number of entries. I guess if we just have a deadline for submissions, that should be good enough. If we were to get some enormous number of submissions, we can figure out what to do in that case. I'm probably overthinking it.
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Indeed, I think you will be lucky to get 8, but you never know. What time limit are you thinking? I think 4 weeks to create and 4 weeks to judge. It gives plenty of time and it may build up momentum. I do think maybe there should be a limit though based on a first come, first serve basis. Just in case.
Another idea instead of judges is to just let anyone and everyone vote by rating every quest. The idea being that to vote you must rate all of the quests with a 1-5 star rating and write it in the form of a list with your top three in the forum competition thread. Only votes that rate every quest will be counted. The advantage of this would be that players could become involved if they do so choose which would be nice if they did.
If you have a panel then realistically they shouldn't enter, any volunteers? I know I want to enter so that counts me out.
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It would be cool if we could get contests like this every 2-3 months or so. Maybe it would motivate people to play/create more. If the idea kicks off, maybe there could be a 'best new' category, for people who would be creating their first quest ever? We all know how hard it is to start out, and newbies verus pros... well, those are a bit uneven odds.
Either way, even without AD incentive this is a very cool idea. The winners will get bragging rights And maybe, just maybe, it would be a slightly better chance to be featured later on (that is, assuming, that the contest will become a 'thing' that happens every now and then).
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Ravenloft
Look for@Apocrs1980 or visit the main page here or Ravenloft here
Remember, it would be for a LESS than 15 minute quest. But, if four weeks is too short, what is too long? If I recall the Tower District contest, I thought it was four weeks, and then got bumped an additional two due to a couple of days downtime.
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Ravenloft
Look for@Apocrs1980 or visit the main page here or Ravenloft here
Oh no, we don't stand a chance if apocrs1980 is entering
Six and Two weeks is fine by me and if it means more people entering then all the better. I'm working on the assumption that it can be any length so longs as it is less than 15 mins, to avoid the daily.
Making a foundry "click on chest go to next quest" could CLAIM to have the theme of this contest the same as a "mass grind" Foundry could. If it's going to be a real contest it should require effort.
My second point I might make is make the maximum number of entries be TWO. This will help judges ( or reviewers, or whatever) cut down on time of the entries to go through, and will make the Foundry Authors really think about what they want to do for the contest.
I totally agree no previous Foundries should be eligible for contest. They should be published after start of contest.
"Why is it dragons only use ketchup? I'd like a little wasabi please. Us silvers like a variety of condiments."
"Don't call them foolish mortals. One, they don't learn from it. Two, It just ticks them off." - An Ancient Red Dragon
Definitely going to be LESS than 15 minutes specifically to prevent dailies.
(Although, nothing preventing the author from extending the quest after the contest)
Maximum entries is 1 entry per author. I was contemplating a maximum total number of entries, but I don't think we need to -- we probably won't get too many entries for the judges to go through.
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