Re: Suggest a Competition
Posted: Sat May 09, 2015 3:04 pm
The idea I've come up with is sort of a mix of the recent Coops Challenge with the various Guild Bonus specials. The general idea is a Festive Fund-raiser to support the local orphanages or some other worthwhile in-game charity (along the lines of the Salvation Army, for those familiar). When the competition starts, players have to visit a local festive office and pick up a new Special item, which is their fundraising device (modeled after the existing Guild Bonus special items). Once equipped, they just play as normal, and their device automatically deposits credits based on their in-game profits. This can be a percentage skimmed off the top (more of a donation-style competition), or work like the Guild Specials where you just produce extra income as you play that goes towards the fund. So, you drop off some cargo and get your payout, and a percentage of it gets added to the overall fund.
We would need to expand on the existing Guild Bonus specials somewhat so that they gather credits for many in-game activities, not just the specific one(s) they are currently built for, but otherwise I'm imagining them working in a similar way, but instead of donating to your guild, they donate to the server goal. As a slight alternative, the credits get added to your own personal Charity Box, which you then have to personally deliver back to the Festive Office before the deadline to get your funds counted toward the goal. You obviously wouldn't be able to ever access those funds for your own personal use, but this would involve a bit more direct player involvement in the project, and could also let players compete with each other if they wanted. We could even make it more of a guild competition - the funds get added to a Guild total, and then someone from the Guild would have to make sure things were eventually deposited to the overall goal, but this would let guilds compete against each other. Lots of ways this could be run. Maybe if you reach certain personal goals (level-bracketed, of course), or guild goals, you get some reward for your contributions, like a Sochi Device-type of thing, or some other added benefit (+1 Pod Point, for instance).
To make the whole thing actually fit into whatever festive event that is happening for, equipping the fundraising device would provide a visual impact on the game-screen (sorry, VI-players
), adding holiday-appropriate graphics throughout, similar to the Christmas taggers. Possibly even just a holiday color scheme for some of the main in-game control bars and promenade windows, or even just a set of holiday-themed Avatars.
A few last minute notes: Since you have to opt in, it will involve a lot more player interaction, trying to get everyone to participate and spread knowledge about the competition. If it's guild-based, that could get a lot of good guild-based interaction. If we have the credits skimmed off the top of a players profits, that would require players to personally choose if they want to make that sacrifice, rather than being a automatic, but would also make players work harder especially if working toward getting some personal goal.
Anyway, there's my basic outline, a lot of which can be added to.
We would need to expand on the existing Guild Bonus specials somewhat so that they gather credits for many in-game activities, not just the specific one(s) they are currently built for, but otherwise I'm imagining them working in a similar way, but instead of donating to your guild, they donate to the server goal. As a slight alternative, the credits get added to your own personal Charity Box, which you then have to personally deliver back to the Festive Office before the deadline to get your funds counted toward the goal. You obviously wouldn't be able to ever access those funds for your own personal use, but this would involve a bit more direct player involvement in the project, and could also let players compete with each other if they wanted. We could even make it more of a guild competition - the funds get added to a Guild total, and then someone from the Guild would have to make sure things were eventually deposited to the overall goal, but this would let guilds compete against each other. Lots of ways this could be run. Maybe if you reach certain personal goals (level-bracketed, of course), or guild goals, you get some reward for your contributions, like a Sochi Device-type of thing, or some other added benefit (+1 Pod Point, for instance).
To make the whole thing actually fit into whatever festive event that is happening for, equipping the fundraising device would provide a visual impact on the game-screen (sorry, VI-players
), adding holiday-appropriate graphics throughout, similar to the Christmas taggers. Possibly even just a holiday color scheme for some of the main in-game control bars and promenade windows, or even just a set of holiday-themed Avatars.A few last minute notes: Since you have to opt in, it will involve a lot more player interaction, trying to get everyone to participate and spread knowledge about the competition. If it's guild-based, that could get a lot of good guild-based interaction. If we have the credits skimmed off the top of a players profits, that would require players to personally choose if they want to make that sacrifice, rather than being a automatic, but would also make players work harder especially if working toward getting some personal goal.
Anyway, there's my basic outline, a lot of which can be added to.
