Azure Lightstar

Last Sunday's triple header is now in the books.

I hope that everyone had a fun. I certainly did.

We had a few technical and logistic hiccups this week. But with patience from the participants and some quick instruction from the organizers, everyone pulled out victories.

I'm glad we were able to get enough people to run both CoP Trials. It was also good to see four full teams and some partial ones participating in the Mothership Raid. Hopefully everyone had a chance to participate.

Remember to register early!

Special thanks go to the Arbitrators villain group this week, who co-sponsored the event (as they have done without complaint for several months now). The super groups that I've teamed with have only benefitted from having been associated with this group.

~Azure

Takeaways: With enough planning and promotion, people will participate even if the prizes are small. The more I am willing to offer, the better my turnout should be, and the better my chances will be in bringing in top designers. What would really be appreciated though is allowing more Red-side involvement.

Thanks everyone, from your replies, I’ve decided on the following format:

Main Judging:
Judging will take place a cooperative zone such as Pocket D or the Rikti War Zone to allow for Red-side contestants and audience members. Contestants may enroll themselves in one of three division or leagues. The leagues are currently: First-Timer, Casual Contestant, and Old-Hat.

Contestants will be judged on Creativity (coming up with an original look or showing a unique use of a costume piece), Presentation (how well did you esthetically tie the costume pieces together with color and style), and Use of Theme (does your costume fit well with the theme of the competition). Each competition will have three judges. One criterion is assigned to a single judge for the duration of the competition. Each judge can award up to 10 points per contestant for their category, based strictly on the category they are assigned to.

Individual scores are added together to give the contestant their overall score for the competition. The contestant with the highest overall score in their league is declared Best-in-League for that league. In the event of winning tie score; any honors and contest winnings will be divided up as equally as possible among those contestants.

Audience Favorite Award:
After the main judging and awarding is complete, all contestants will be asked to join the audience. The top scoring contestants overall will then be asked to participate in a special Audience Favorite Award. Typically, the number of contestants for this contest will be five to ten people, but this may vary based on scores and how many total people participated in the main judging. These new contestants will be asked to space themselves out in a single line in front of the audience. The audience members will then be asked to go to the contestant that they felt had the best costume. The contestant with the most players around them will be awarded a special prize.

Special Prizes:
Throughout the event, special random awards may be given out by judges to various participants of the contest (audience members included). For example, a judge may give hand out a random prize for the That-Audience-Member-really-should-have-been-a-Contestant-Award, the Man-You-Must-Be-Colorblind-for-coming-up-with-that-Color-Scheme-Award, or the Most-Likely-to–have-been-Flushed-down-a-Rikti-Toilet-Award. As you can tell, these awards are meant to be light-hearted, fun awards. The main emphasis will be on the main judging and the audience favorite.

First scheduled event:
My first costume contest will be scheduled for sometime in mid-April. I will post with the actual date and time as things further develop. The theme for this contest will be “Spring Forward”. Based on the replies from this forum, I’m going to tentatively offer prizes at 50 million for Best-in-League: Old Hat, 30 million for Best-in-League: Casual Contestant, 10 million for Best-in-League: First-timer, and 60 million for the Audience Favorite. I may raise this later though.

~Azure

In your opinion, what is considered a "worthwhile incentive" to get participation in a costume contest?

When I first started CoX, the prize money seemed a lot smaller. The prizes for costume contests I hear about now are usually for billions of influence. Should that be a requirement to get people to come out for a costume contest? Is it really a turn off to offer a few hundred thousand instead of billions? What about recipes as prizes?

I'd like to start holding regular quarterly costume contests, but don't want to have to become an influence farmer to do so. I was thinking about having seasonal themes for each contest and a special themed costume contest on Veteran's Day (in memory of my father) and Halloween (my favorite holiday).

I'm looking forward to your input.

Just a reminder to sign up early. Signing up early makes it easier to balance out the teams, which I feel is the real trick to the succeeding at the CoP.

And even if you don't participate in the trial itself, feel free join all of us for the Rikti Raid between the two runs. Mothership raids are extremely fun and can be a great way to meet new players.

See you all soon.

I've really bad the last week. I will try to post some more this week regarding music for CoH. Thanks again.

Happy belated birthday.

Thanks everyone for attending the CoP this last Sunday. I believe that we had recorded our best times against Stormy yet (both on the Red side and the Blue side). And thank you Shockwave from letting me run the Rikti raid in between the trials. I have a blast doing it and hope to run the mothership raid again.

As always, I'd like to thank the veterans who donate their time and resources to the Cathedral of Pain trial. Without them, we would not succeed. I'd like to thank Shockwave for doing the work of balancing out the teams, organizing the event, and all the stuff that goes on beforehand. I'd also like to thank Shadow again for letting us use his voice server.

And I'd especially like to thank the Academy for this award...wait...wrong speech. LOL.

Seriously though, thanks to everyone who attend the CoP. Hope to see you all soon, and team with you all again sooner.

I'm excited.

-gives thumbs up-

According to science, BaCoN is naturally occurring as well...

Happy Birthday!

Congratulations!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday!

I really don't expect much of a boost from level shift on this trial.

It was nice to see Stormy nearly defeated after just the first barrier drop though. We were so close this time!

I'm truly looking forward to seeing more new faces on the next run. For me, this is about giving everyone a chance to succeed at the trial, so it's good to hear people get excited when they do.

Some of the thanks needs to be directed toward all the veteran players of the CoP that graciously give up their time and their resources each time we do this, whether it is as a leader or just as a player. As one of the occassional team leads on the run, I have the opportunity to see and hear all the stuff that goes on before the run takes place.

I'm humbled that people continue to craft daggers, purchase HVAS's, and go through the Shivan runs in order to make this work for everyone, especially on characters that they have already completed multiple CoP runs with.

So from me and from all of the players who are looking for their first win on CoP...thanks.

So got you covered...

Congratulations.

Don't forget that the Triple Header is this Sunday.

I'm personally interested in seeing how Level Shifting is going to affect the runs. As always, I looking forward to seeing new and old faces there. Come for all three parts or just some of it.

Everything kicks off in Pocket D with the Red Side CoP Run at 1700 EST (5 pm).

=D

~Azure

But The Count is just a distraction for the rest of the crew...

My anonymous sources say that Christina Aguilera is actually a Nemesis replicant.

Her “national anthem flub” last night during the Super Bowl was really a carefully orchestrated plot to subtly destabilize the world economy. The plot involved shortening the length of the anthem by one line in order to decrease the overall time of the pre-kickoff, which ultimately caused financial ruin to those betting on the length of the pre-kickoff show.

There is also unconfirmed speculation at this time that the Black Eyed Peas were also Nemesis agents, as revealed by the mechanical delivery of their performance during the half-time show. This only strengthens the long time notion that Slash and other guitar greats are indeed Nemesis robots as well. Witnesses claim that the Nemesis are attempting to produce their own version of the Lost. The first prototypes appear to be a stylized version of the “TV-Heads”.

We should keep are guard up and (over the next few years) watch the players that were injured during the game last night. We saw them taken to the locker room for medical inspection, but they may have been taken to a secret Nemesis factory under the new stadium to be replicated. Stay vigilant everyone.

=D

~Azure

Don't rule out the enemy forces yet. They have a weapon too, that will surely bring their opponents down for The Count....One, two, three...three punches...ah, ha, ha.