Guild of Writers

Lately it seemed to me that in addition to Rapid Age Development contests, in which ages are designed in a very limited time, we could also use other types of contests. Especially ones where there is more time to do in-depth development in the area of details and story issues.

To that end I propose a "Detailed Age WritiNg" Contest (DAWN Contest for short), using the following rules:

1) Contestants will have 1 or more months to work on their ages
2) Emphasis in judging will be on story and audiovisual details
2a) (edit) Story as stated above can also refer to the ages background info - in whatever form given - and immersion or continuity.
(Why is an object in your age? How did it get there? How does it affect the environment?)
3) Contestants are allowed to submit continuations of previous work - as long as considerable extra work has been done on said works
3a) Reusing content from previous ages is allowed
4) Teams of up to 3 people are allowed
4a) You can accept any help during development, as long as the major part of the work is done by you or your team.
5) The judging panel will primarily consist of the contestants themselves (peer-assessment),
5a) Contestants will judge all ages except their own
5b) If they are willing, up to 5 maintainers may also join the judging panel, those maintainers will be judging all ages
6) Contestants are required to have their ages checked out by maintainers before the final submission.

As many have dropped out of the last RAD contest I propose the following for the first DAWN contest:

First DAWN Contest
THEME: It will continue on last RAD's theme of small ages (everything explorable will need to fit into a 200x200x200 ft cube).
TIME: Submission Deadline on February 1st 2009

If you like to sign up for this contest please do so. Rules are open for discussion until indicated in another post in this thread.

Current Contestants:
- Trylon
- GPNMilano
- Mystified Explorer
- Mar
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-

Maintainer Judges:
- Dot
- Ametist

Yeah, RAD is more about what can you do in a short period, so it can be considered as quick builds to explore.

DAWN, I would guess much of the backbone we already have in place for RAD just an extension on time frames?

RAD as it grows will lead onto grouped contests, but if only 6 people want to do it, it ain't much of a contest with just two entries ie 2 teams of 3

We wanted to keep some story focus in with RAD in some form, some reason beyond why the Age was written, this can be difficult in the tight time frames.


My only real suggestion for the first DAWN would be to extend the boundaries to 300 or 400 feet edge of a cube, as you'll be wanting ot add more to the scene than the scene can hold.

See Jalak was boring to me, it was too small , and not much to do by your self where as the pods with the exception of Tetsonot had something in them that you wanted to see or do, still too limited for my liking as I so wanted to step outside of the pods and walk around, and interact with the creatures.


Peer assessment may sound good, but can be difficult to control.


i'm yet not ready to join in a team as i'm still learning some of the core funtionality of the plugin to be useful to anyone, so good luck to anyone that wants to take part in a 3 month marathon in Age writing

Both RAD and DAWN can work together to strengthen our communities - have fun

I'm up for this one. It'll give me a chance to finish my RAD age to my satisfaction.

Can't say I like the part about focusing on story. But hey, I hope this works out.

Maybe RAD can also change so it's a little more stable. This current one has been very wobbly and fractured.

I think this is partly because someone decided they needed to clean house and get some new people as judges. Having new judges isn't bad it's just that we weren't just judges in the previous ones, we helped run the whole thing. I don't like at all how RTR and Grogyan want the RAD to go in the future. Why can't anything stay simple.

I felt like the second RAD was heading in the right direction. It had gained strength and experience from the previous one and was easier to arrange.

Then, Andy posts a great idea about a small age RAD. This RAD really should've been almost just like the shells one only not in shells. But because no one agreed with the people running it there wasn't too much talk about things like Cyan textures etc.

The serious during-sign-up discussion started with some "kind" "let you in on a secret" announcement from Grogyan about his and RTR's schemes they were going to execute. This made everyone really angry and feel like the people running it would use all their power they could to pull the rug from under them.

Ah... I could go on all night.

Yeah, I made mistakes, I do that a lot - now where is that brick wall so I can smash my head against.

Lontahv, the 3rd RAD was coming up, and I as well as others have been so busy with RL that when we were starting the preparations for it, people already had preconceptions on what it should be.

The little addition of something small that you could place into your Age, like an easter egg, was something I alone had thought up, so flame me for that, i'm already on the barbecue already.

I wanted so badly to join in on this last RAD, and by contrast I am no where as good as all those that entered this time, I havn't played with wavesets, lighting and so forth, and also because I wanted there to be a "ride" for you guys to go on, like a gondola around Venice

I wanted help from someone that was in the opposite time zone to myself and knows a lot of the eccentricities of the plugin and other things, I also needed help from someone who could be relied on to provide user space to upload Ages for everyone to explore. Its very very hard to organise it all by yourself especially when you yourself are in a full time job.

I'll get feedback from this contest as well as Robert and Nynaveve on what could be a theme for the next one.
Maybe DAWN can continue straight behind RAD? <- Comment on this idea please.

I'm keen to give this one a go

Sounds an excellent idea, Trylon!

Please count me in as one of the maintainers on the judging panel. I'm sure there will be others. It would be good if we have a mix of inspection skills on the panel too.

Yes Trylon, a brilliant idea.

To have more time for more detail in your age is good. The part of the storyline isn"t my thing but it is a part of a real age so.....
I would like to parcipate.

Lontahv wrote:Can't say I like the part about focusing on story. But hey, I hope this works out.

mar wrote:The part of the storyline isn"t my thing but it is a part of a real age so..... I would like to participate.

Since the rules allow teams of up to three people to participate, this might be a good chance to involve those who are able to create storylines but not able to model or code. Robert the Rebuilder's team builder tool could prove useful here: http://www.guildofwriters.com/wiki/Form ... oject_Team

Keep in mind that not all Ages have stories:

Nexus, no story there, it's just something that has a very useful function.
Eder Delin and Eder Tsogal, again, no story / history / background there. They are simply garden Ages to have fun in.

Even the Pods were limited in their story: Background was simply a map laying on a table....the story of the pods were actually more of a continuing story that was in Sharper's journal, and then it was all about things happening OUTSIDE that one pod, no mention of any of the other pods.

Having stories or history is very interesting and can help make an Age even better. But I hate to think that it always has to be a requirement each time. That will keep me away from contests like this. I'd rather save the story element or history for much larger Ages, as they are Ages that take a LOT more time than 1 month to make.