A Contest for a contest!

I have a billion influence that I'd like to use for an event... the question is.. WHAT EVENT?

So before I can have a contest we have to have a contest to pick the contest!

So what are some ideas for contest/events that you would like to see?

-Kult

Here's a short list of contests that we've already seen:

- Costume contest
- Costume and character bio contest
- Hide & Seek
- TF/SF race
- Handicapped TF/SF race
- Trivia contest
- Story writing contest

I've seen variations of the above combined with varying themes.

Are you looking for one of the above or something different?

Hm, the problem is, team events are mostly out. Unfortunately, a billion isn't enough to split amongst 8 people. So at the most, we can do tag team type events, or solo endeavors.

So...

I would recommend a Scavenger Hunt, but the last time I tried that it didn't go over so well. Perhaps a (themed) base contest? Something that tests ingenuity rather than builds?

The Amazing Race

Read my stories!

OR!

You could do a CoH Ironman triathlon!

Start with a timed TF, then move into a scavenger hunt, and finish up with a costume contest! Take your Billion, give 1/4 to the overall winner based on points, then 1/4 to the winner of each individual event!

Read my stories!

You could do a TF/SF race (similar to what AdmiralPhilip did with the Apex and Tin Mage Task Forces) where the winning "team" is decided on lowest time/death count and would then get the grand prize (1 billion inf for example) to split.

The catch being the more people on the team the smaller their share. So a team of 8 would get 125 million, while a duo would get 500 million each, and a solo participant would get the whole 1 billion.

How about a Scavenger hunt?

A list of invention salvage that has to be collected and returned to the host.

It would obviously be a mix of common, uncommon and rare, covering the whole scope of levels.

First team to return with all the salvage wins.


But since it's been mentioned by other people, I've got another idea.

Build-a-Costume.

This is basically a reverse costume-contest, where instead of you showing your costume concept to the judges, the judges give YOU the concept, and it's an attempt to see who can get the closest to the judges vision.

Basically a City of Heroes version of Face/off, that special effects and makeup competition show on TV.

Here are two:

Most spectacular death screenshot contest.

I like the Amazing Race idea:
Team of 8, brand new characters (not players) and it's a race from 1-10, or 1-15 for the most badges, and levels gained within a weekend or set time frame.
That could be done by a variety of ways, street sweeping, or TFs or missions, BUT it has to be level 1s starting. Not exempted down, but brand new toons.

Speaking personally the actual reward amount in a contest doesn't really matter to me as long as i think the contest is interesting enough on its own. While I don't have the kind of cash sitting around to offer 1B prizes to folks, I have enough for everything I want to do (and if I want more, I just grind out some hero merits, exchange them for LoTG +recharges or whatever is selling well on the market and pick up some cash).

Somethings that attracted me in the last few time I joined in on events (or wanted to join in but was prevented by RL):

1. Themed TF's that require specific costumes followed by a costume contest. I thought Stone's wizard themed Mortimer Kal SF was a great idea - I was horribly sick that day and had to miss it but I would do something like that again.
2. Group Challenges - the very first event I ever particpated in was something I think Huron put together. The challenge was to assemble a team of villains that had 1 of each AT type and run 3 or 4 of the L50 SF's, with the goal being to turn in the fastest time total for all the SF's, with each death adding extra time to the total and so on. The same characters had to run all the SF's, no alting out. This one was spaced out over a month or so to give the teams time to try several times.
3. Costume contests with unusual rules and special prizes - I don't get into CC's that much but when Layla challeneged folks to design characters that looked like her and Stone's main, I had a flash of inspiration and actually gave it a try. It helped that she offered one of her special dolls as a reward - not sure if you can offer this type of reward but the more interesting the 'challenge' in costume design, the more likely I am to try it out.

Those are the types of contests I find interesting. I don't do 'find the character' or scavenger hunts - I burned out on hunt the pixel games 20 years ago, plus I play this game to kill stuff so the more fighting, the better :-).

Some interesting riffs off the above ideas:

1) Small team iTrials - run a specific iTrial or set of iTrials with a specific team, going for speed runs with deaths counting against that.
2) More costume themed TF's: A robot themed Synapse TF, a witch themed Katie Hannon, a Cyborg themed Sister Psyche. I would suggest a Roman themed ITF, but thats TOO obvious. Maybe a Military themed Admiral Sutter or a Rikti LGTF.
3) Master TF speed runs - who can do the fastest MoSTF, MoLGTF and/or MoLRSF or some combination of all those.
4) Shard TF's - who can turn in the fastest time on ALL the shard TF's.

On the multiple TF contests each team would have to include the same characters for all the TFs and it would be most interesting to require a mix of AT - maybe restrict duplicate AT's.

I've always thought a cool event idea would be a sort of "Gauntlet" made in AE. Basically a series of fights with progressively harder enemies and the person who gets the farthest wins. Of course the fun part would be to try and make some of the higher tier battles unbeatable and see if anyone surprises you. The thing is I've never been able to figure out how to do something like this with AE so I'm not even sure if it's possible.

The problem I've noticed with events in general as it relates to attendance and prizes is:

There are some people that won't bother to show up unless their personal payout makes it "Worth it" to them. What this number is varies, but it's generally mildly high.

And then there are people (namely the ones that join my events) that I get the feeling will generally show up even if there was no reward, just because it sounds fun.

I'd just as soon as focus on the latter, but if you want a large signup pool of people, it's something to keep in mind. Oh, and lots of shilling. For some reason most people don't visit the forums, so they tend to miss out on the what/when/where. Go figure.

I personally like Major_T's idea (about the less you bring, the more you get--with the obvious risk/reward that entails), and so my idea for an evil challenge would be a Speed STF, one minute penalty on each death, and leaving the "Power Towers" alone in the final LR fight. Of course, with something that restricted, your signup list might be limited.

Costume contests, on the other hand, is something that anyone can sit down and try so that's worth looking into. Perhaps something like Laylas Iron Tailor, but with certain themes this time?

I also like Zal's Gauntlet idea.

Dark Times at Paragon High


When I22 hits. A lot of people will be making Dark Control based toons.

So, how about a series of TFs geared toward not only getting some of the Task Force Commander badges, but also help a bunch of people level up the new shiny?

Death From Below
Posi 1
Posi 2
Synapse

Minimum Team Size of 4: Teams stay the same for all the TFs.

Lets say the team members must have Dark something as either Primary or Secondary. It would be challenging to limit the team to just Controlers or Dominators. So lets open it up to any combo so long as Dark either Primary or Secondary. This includes every AT I believe.

And lets have a screen shot of total time.

Lowest Time gets a Prize.
Most Deaths gets a Prize.
Maybe a bonus of negative time if no taunter types are on the team?

This is just a starting point.

I personally wouldn't be opposed to chipping in 500 million to something like this.

Maybe even have a 250 Million buy in for evey player that enters the contest. So the pool of winnings go up? That would be 1 billion per entered team.

Just a thought.

And River...if we had a contest for the first toon to go from 1 to 50...that would just be mean...

In my line of work, I have to ask hard question and identify problems inherent to a plan before work begins; that way we don't waste time/money following a particular plan before realizing that it won't/can't work because a particular detail was overlooked thus rendering the endeavor futile.

I noticed a couple of items in the above suggestions that could have problems...

Quote:

Originally Posted by EricHough 1) Small team iTrials - run a specific iTrial or set of iTrials with a specific team, going for speed runs with deaths counting against that.

How do you envision solving the problem of determining exactly who was on the iTrial, how long the iTrial lasted, and how many times those participants died?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stone Daemon my idea for an evil challenge would be a Speed STF, one minute penalty on each death, and leaving the "Power Towers" alone in the final LR fight.

If my memory serves me correctly, you can't damage Lord Recluse in the final battle until certain towers are destroyed.