[locke]

The 2009 Isles Builder Competition

** Please feel free to copy this information and post it elsewhere to raise awareness of the competition. **

The Isles MUD at nimud.divineright.org 5333 has an open call for creative people who want to add to our service. To drum up additional participation, we have decided to host a builder's competition this summer.

Everyone who feels they are qualified is invited to participate.

TO PARTICIPATE:
We encourage experienced builders to login to nimud.divineright.org 5333 and submit an application with a new character (or, existing character if you have one), indicating you wish to build or 'write'. In your "builder resume" please include mention of "the contest" or "the competition". Tell us if you will be attempting our scripts "trace" feature or not. Applicants must include at least 1 paragraph describing their building experience. We recommend prior experience with at least ROMolc.

After you are approved, your character will be given builder status.

Everyone who wants to participate will be given access to building features. The features will seem similar to ROMolc and other OLCs, however they are tailored to the very advanced OLC needs we have. Locke will be available to train you on methods if you email him with specific questions during the building phase.

FINALIZING YOUR APPLICATION AS A CONTEST PARTICIPANT:
Once you have read through our documentation, also available on the web at applied and been approved, you must write Locke at the email address provided (herb-dot-gilliland-at-gmail-dot-com), and request the type of area you want to create (science fiction, fantasy, etc) and a basic 500 word outline of what kinds of things will be included in your work.

ALL ENTRIES WILL BE GIVEN 100 VNUMS, BUT YOU CAN ALWAYS ASK FOR MORE IF YOU NEED THEM.

USE OF SCRIPTING:
To use our scripting language, it is a complex process that must be discussed first. However, certain aspects of our scripting system are designed to effectively, rapidly develop automations for actors and props. Scripting will be an optional part of the contest, but is encouraged. We will permit the use of the "TRACE" feature only for the competition, and we will demo the feature which is also documented. It is optional to use scripts, and scripts will only be considered in the 'entertainment factor' of our judges' analysis.

PRIZES:

* Your area and its results will be published along with your credits. This is the "consolation" prize.

* The top winner (1st place) will receive an "I built this MUD" T-shirt in the color of their choice, along with a "niMUD.org" mug with their face or image of their choice.

* The 2nd place winner will receive an "I built this MUD" T-shirt in black.

* "The twink award" goes to the worst area with the most comedic potential (determined by the judges' vote or concensus) who will receive a "Noob, I got PK'd" green T-shirt.

Winners must submit to Locke their shipping address and preferred T-shirt size (S,M,L,XL,XXL,XXXL) to receive their prize. First prize winners must submit an image to receive an image on their mug. This will be taken care of after the winners are announced.

FORFEIT YOUR PRIZE AS A DONATION (OPTIONAL):
Winners may opt to have the prize money donated to a MUD of their choice. [Chosen MUDs or mud services may not include illegally operating services taking donations illegally, or our service nimud.org, The Isles MUD, etc. Prize money will be equal to the cost+shipping of the prize forfeited. We will consider other charitable organizations if they are suggested by the winner. It's about $20-30.]

Competition rules:

* Participants must sign up and be approved by July 4th, 2009; applicants who apply sooner than July 4th get extra time to learn the OLC and can begin building as soon as they are approved.

* Areas must be built on The Isles at nimud.divineright.org 5333 starting at the time of approval through August 15, 2009.

* Some tutorial information will be provided by Locke, but it is only available at his discretion during the period of July 4, 2009 through August 1, 2009. You can always email him with specific questions. If you ask too many questions, though, you will be ignored. We reserve the right not answer questions if they require too much effort. Only ask about specific methods or flags.

* Winners of the competition will receive a prize notice and should receive their prizes by November 1, 2009. Winners will be announced August 31, 2009

USE OF BOTS, CLIENTS AND THIRD-PARTY PROGRAMS:
Participants may use macros, clients, bots etc to build viable areas. However, participants are not allowed to spam or attempt to crash intentionally The Isles MUD, or in any way disrupt other builders who are participating. We reserve the right to revoke access and disqualify participants based on these grounds.

RESERVATION OF AUTHORITY:
I reserve the right to adjust these parameters if there are delays in finding judges, acquiring participants; if judges drop out of the competition before the end, I reserve to be the sole judge.

Judge's considerations (how the contest is judged):

TO AVOID DISQUALIFICATION:
To be considered complete, an area must have at least 10 fully described rooms including resets (rooms with at least a one paragraph [4+ sentence] description), 5 fully described [4+ sentence] and clothed / equipped actors, and at least 10 unique objects. Entries which are not up to these standards will not be considered in the competition.

BALANCING HELP IS PROVIDED BY LOCKE:
Balancing may occur during the review phase when judges are playing the area and are too low a level. However, if it occurs during this phase it will count negatively. Thus, Locke will also be available during the last few days (August 12-15) to help balance statistics before the end of the build phase. Locke reserves the right to make changes to your area as he sees fit with respect to statistics. Disqualifications based on incompleteness will also occur during this period.

ON AUGUST 15th, MIDNIGHT EST:
Locke will return participants' characters to mortal level and lock you out of the building tools until the winners are announced on August 31st.

JUDGEMENT CATEGORIES:
Judges will consider an area's completeness, entertainment value, number of working quests, uniqueness of the design and ideas.

Do you want to help us judge?

We are also taking applications for an area judging panel. 4 judges will be chosen by me and announced the day of the closing of the applications, July 4th, 2009, at midnight EST. Judges will play each area together over a period of a week and privately cast their votes. [Please only apply if you can participate in the decision phase starting August 15 and ending August 25] To apply, send an email to herb-dot-gilliland-at-gmail-dot-com

ADDENDUM: Judges cannot be participants and participants cannot judge.

PERMISSION TO USE: To clarify, by participating you are agreeing to permit us to use your area in our service and permitting us to publish your entry with our software package.

CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND OUR CONTROL: In the event of mud crashes and loss of work, nothing can be done about this. We hope you will cooperate in fixing whatever bug caused the crash. It should not dramatically effect your available time during the building phase and, frankly, the server comes back within 15 minutes of even the worst bugs as long as I am around to catch them.

Locke