Event E2/Proposal tfoc
While this entry did not make the shortlist, you are welcome to continue discussing & planning to run your event after the E2 event period. A new thread has been started for non-shortlist entry discussion.
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This is an entry for E2: The Event Event. |
| tfoc Make A Bad Game Design Suggestion |
Participants post a bad suggestion to Game Design and then make a physical representation of it to be judged.
| Player Profile | Timeline | ||
| Audience | Everyone! | Elapsed time | February 24th (Forum portion of entries accepted) to March 19th (Results posted to forum) |
| Unit of Entry | Individual entries, one per account. | Participant Time | As long as it takes each participant to craft an original forum entry, make their physical representation of it and either post a photo of it to the forums or send it to Three Rings. The judging date and possible postal deadline should be as near to the March 19th E2 deadline as possible. |
| Expected Participation | Any account holder can enter, hard to say how many physical entries would be created though. Enough to warrant the prizes, but not too many to overwhelm a small panel of judges. | Judging Time | Again, hard to say. I would probably allow 24 hours for judges to look through the photos, shortlist, decide on winners and announce results. |
| Platform | The forums, and hopefully the Three Rings letterbox. | ||
Contents
Details
Event Description
Participants would first of all think up an addition or change to the game that would be regarded as a bad idea by the player community in general. Participants then post their idea to the forums, as so many misguided souls have posted bad ideas to Game Design before them. After several minutes of constructive criticism and character assassination in the forums, participants leap into action constructing a model or mock-up of their idea. This can be any physical object. Participants take photos of the objects and post them to a specific submissions thread along with a link to the post containing their bad suggestion. Judging takes place and a winner along with several honourable mentions are chosen.
If permitted under the E2 rules I would like to ask players to optionally send their objects through the mail to the Three Rings offices, where a team of devs would be asked to to judge them for possible additional prizes.
Example: Poker Hats
Pirate A decides to enter the contest, so scratches his head and comes up with the concept of poker hats. He posts the terrible idea to the main Y!PP forums, then gets to work making scale models of the different hats. A Stetson made from a beer mat and a tiara made from a paper clip are photographed and posted to the submission thread.
Judging
Entries should be judged on originality of concept, forum presentation and physical interpretation.
Prizes
If donated I think a 'Booched!' T shirt would be an appropriate first prize, harking back to the days of the one word criticism often levelled at hastily posted Game Design threads. Alternatively, a familiar could be used as I think the event is accessible to a large proportion of players. A small number of entries could be awarded specially renamed ships as a prize for honourable mentions, and anyone taking the trouble to make something could receive a participation trinket of some kind.
Help Required
Volunteer Assistance
A small panel of well-known forum users would be asked to be judges.
OM Assistance
OMs would be asked to donate trinkets and renames, sticky the forum thread for photo submissions and add a link to the event announcement to the welcome screen in game.
Workshop Coaching
Some discussion points that have come up while developing the idea:
- Under E2 rules, would the devs and their letterbox be allowed to play a role in the judging?
- If so, are they willing to?
- Should old ideas including those on The Anti-list be discouraged/disallowed so that every other entry isn't a gun whale or pistol?
- Should there be a limit on materials used in the physical submission? Maximum cost of materials? Recycled materials only? It may make the contest more accessible to new, casual or younger players.
- People often seem to have problems with image hosting.
- Would it be a good idea to let contestants upload their pages to the YPPedia?
- I could create a tutorial to Flickr for contestants to guide them through creating an account, and then tagging their pictures so that every entry could be viewed via a link such as http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/YPP_BadSuggestionContest/. I'm not sure how long Flickr accounts take to activate though, which could cause a problem.
- How should the forum posting of bad suggestions be handled? Individual posts to GD? Posts to a stickied submissions thread in GD? Use a single thread but keep it in the events forum instead?
History
Previous Similar Events
None that I am aware of, although it is the same principle as the contest to win a place on the Key West cruise.
Qualifications
As a member of the flag Looterati I have assisted with and taken part in various events both on forums and in game. My pirate has personal money that I am willing to spend on prizes, and my flag has an events fund that may be able to contribute.
