"I challenge you !" - contest

[Lhunithiliel]

I have been waiting for some time to lay open this suggestion, but ... here it is. :)

Right from the beginning, I have to admit that this is not my original idea, but I saw such an activity in another place and I liked it so much, that I thought that it may become popular in TTF as well.

This is a contest - game.
It is held in several stages and there is a winner at each stage.
The number of these stages can be specified by the Chief Mentor who shall take up the organization of the game.

Now ... this Mentor shall choose a "Master" for each competition = "stage". This person shall have to prepare an odd number of tough questions on Tolkien's main works.
There are going to be two teams for each "stage-competition" and each team shall choose their "spokesman", who shall be the one to announce the answer to the question asked to their team.

The rules:

- The "Master" asks a question to one of the teams.
- The team has 24 hours to discuss between them and find the answer they think is the right one.
- The spokesman of the team posts an answer
- If the answer is correct, the team gets points (how many points - to be specified by the Chief Mentor)
- If the answer is not correct, the team gets NO points ... AND...the other team has the right to give the answer to the same question within 24 h. after the Master of the game has announced that the first answer given is not the correct one. If the second team gives a right answer, they get the points and have the right to answer the next question.
- When the prepared questions are all answered, a winner is announced - the team which has gained more points.
- After a certain number of such "stages", there will be "The Grand Contest" between those first two teams, which have shown best results throughout the whole competition.
- The winner in this "Grand Contest" shall be honoured as THE WINNER of the whole "I Challenge you" - contest. :)

This is in brief the idea.
It is a very dinamic activity and I find it thrilling !

I very much hope you shall all like it, too! :)

There shall be, of course, things to be clarified and well organized before we start the game!

Gil-Galad, being the Master of the Noldorin Forge, please, speak up! :)

[Astaldo]

Well it sounds interesting. I'm in.

[Manveru]

interesting indeed... no time, tho :(

[Gil-Galad]

Awesome idea Lhun.

I will do my best and I will help you if you need my help.


I have some questions concerning some "technical" problems.

First of all ,how will be done the communication between the players?Msn,icq,irc,pm's??You should have in mind that not all of them will have Msn for example.Pm's are too slow if you ask me.In order to discuss the question every team will need real-time connection.Maybe we could "approve" only one connection,for example MSN.Thus the players will know that they can find themselves in msn and make a chat room and discuss the problem.What do you think?

Secondly,if the first team does not answer the question,the second team will receive another 24hours,right?Do you think that is fair?If the first team does not answer the second will have 48 hours(24h of the first plus more 24h) to find the answer.I am sure that every team waiting for the other to make a mistake will prepare itself to answer the asked question.Do you get my point?I believe that the second team should be given the opportunity to answer the question ,but immediately after the mistake of the first one.Thus both of the team will have 24hours.I find that fair,what about you?

What do you think?

[rohobbits]

um i can play but i will only be on at night. tell me more and
do we have team names and how many on a team.
just send back an answer but I will definitly be on the team.

rohobbits

[Lhunithiliel]

GG, those and a lot more organization-matters are to be yet worked out! A lot! But this is normal for any new activity. Right? :)

Now... about communication - PM-s are not that slow if the people are at the same time online. It is almost the same as being on MSN. But of course, the MSN system is much better in one thing - these people can ALL meet in one "window" and exchange opinions there.
However, in the place where I learned this game from (participating in it, too !) there was a specially created thread, which was opened and visible, mind it !!! , only to the members of the team. There they discussed both - the answer for their question and that of the other team. I am not well aware of the VB-software but I wonder whether it permits the existance of a thread with posts visible to only a few members - those who shall be of the team. We may ask, though. For example, one cannot enter the Moderators' "lair" ;) without being a Mod. Maybe a Team can have such a place, too. It is very very much more convenient to have the discussion of the answers in a thread because one can bring in quotes etc., develop his/her answer well, give larger information ...
So, the Chief Mentor should take care of securing such places for the teams, of course, after discussing the matter with the Webmaster and the Administrator of TTF! If this is possible to be done, then - OK. If not - we shall have to use to MSN or/and PM.

About your second question - I think you are right. But then, it has to be specified within what time the second team may give their answer if the first team has failed.
Besides, the second team shall have the right to answer not only if the first team has given an incorrect answer, but also if they have not given an answer within the specified time-term! If they're late - "Sorry!" - there goes the other team. Yet... how much time shall they have ?

Besides, I think that 24 hours for an answer is a bit too short a period - How about making it 48? People come from different places of this planet! Time becomes a factor then! :rolleyes:

What I can't figure out is the formation of the Teams. Because the original place of this game has a different structure from the one we are having here and it permists teams as representatives of various groups .... sth. like the guilds here when they existed.

Now....rohobbits (Well met !!! :D) gave me an idea :

What if there are a certain number of teams (not a dozen, of course!!! :D) - each with its special name (ex: "Gondorians", "Valar", "Feanoreans" etc....) and each team may be formed out of a certain number of members or ... one fixed membership but also providing the opportunity to other people to apply for and enter a team of their choice. Then, ALL members - those of the fixed membership and the other people in the team, may meet in their closed and invisible to others thread, and ALL may work out the answer. Then, the spokesman, who shall be elected among these members, shall speak up for the team.

Then comes the question about where this game should take place.
I guess there should be a place for the main threads of the contest and for the "invisible" threads of the teams (I so much hope this can be achieved - those "service" threads!!!), a thread for organization and scores ...

I would love to see it here in the NF, but we need more opinions, too. :)

For now ... there are these points I am suggesting for discussing.

WHERE IS that ex-Vala, now - a certain Rog ?!!! (And who is this Rog from the books, anyway? :confused: )

[Gil-Galad]

Yes Lhun,such thing is possible.Dave should be asked to do it.

When we were working on the Best of The Best Tournament it was hidden for the whole forum and only few people could see it.But at the same time I am not quite sure if those persons should be moderators of the section they see or not.You shoul talk with Dave about this problem.Basically I think there is not a problem to make such a thread,but are we going to open such a hidden thread for every question?That makes the things too difficult.Maybe the thread should be one and the same,only the persons who can see should be different,according to whose turn is it.
If I have the chance I would be happy to take care of it.

If this is not working I would vote for MSN.

48 hours seem to me better idea.I think that the second team should have only a few hours to answer,not more because it would be unfair towards the team which doesn't manage to answer in time or doesn't give correct answer.

It would be nice to have names of the teams,but let's not go to far away with our suggestions ;) .What about the different elven tribes?The Noldor,The Teleri etc. ..??


The Noldorin Forge is ok,if you ask me.Or something else.We can do like we did with the debates.We could create a new sub-section,part of one of the others.We will need several threds with different functions and I think it would be better if we put them in one sub-section.

What would you say?

[Lhunithiliel]

GG, I don't think more sub-sections will be allowed!
I think that there's enough place in the NF for the contest-threads and for the 'hidden'-threads of the respective tems.

The contest-threads should be open and visible to all.
Each tournament shall have its respective thread.

As for the 'hidden' team-threads - each team could have one where the team's members shall deiscuss the answers to all the wuestions asked - one should be enough.

Now... there's something very important I have to say!

You are the Manager of the NF and it shall be you who shall organize this game.
Not me!
I can participate as a contester and/or as a Mentor etc. ... but that's it.

I have offered the idea of this game. I'm prepared to aid in any poosible way for its implementation.
But my dear King, YOU are the one to make it really happen! :)

[Gil-Galad]

hmmhm I have to go to the opening of my academic year and to my first lecture in Political Science,so I will make my comments later.

But as a whole it would be a great honor for me to take care of it.Of course we will need some help,but this will be discussed later.Let me just survive after the first 5 hours of Political science.

[Astaldo]

Good luck High King though you don't need it. :)

[Gil-Galad]

Lhun I agree about the sub-section.

What I disagree with is the so called "hidden thread".I suggest them to be two.Two for both of the teams.The can be 'cleaned after" the end of every round.

The way I see the things is pretty simple.One thread for charts,the programme and organizational questions.Second for the contest-this will be the place where the questions and the posts will be posted.And two hidden threads for the two team,which will be cleaned after every round and used again in the next one.Thus it would be much easier for me to keep an eye on the threads.What is more we may have problems with creating more than two hidden threads.I don't think Dave would be impressed by the idea to create new and new hidden threads.Two are enough :)

[Gil-Galad]

Lhun is it possible to ask someone to help me?I have been thinking about the whole idea and I will need someone to help me,because if we want everything to run smoothly we should be at least two persons taking care of the whole contest.
What do you think?

[Gil-Galad]

As I said I would need some help for this contest.That is why I would like to ask someone to help me.

I've seen some really active members and I think they would not mind if I ask them to help me.I would like to ask Astaldo to help me with the organisation of the whole project as well as with its running.I've seen that he is full of enthousiasm and knoledge so he would be a good choice.

I am sorry for not asking you personally Astaldo,but we should put some pressure on this project and make it work sooner :)

[Astaldo]

I would be glad to help GG. Just tell me what you want. :)

[Gil-Galad]

Lhun some more organisational questions:

1.What is happening with the hidden threads.Whose idea is going to be accepted.As you know I suggested to have two threads(one for every team) that will be permanent and will be cleaned after the end of every round.

2.Are we going to use another online chat programme like MSN Messenger?

3.Teams?How will be the teams chosen?How many persons per team?

4We need some members with extended cognition in Tolkien to provide the questions.Members like you,Ithy,Nom,Gothmog and many others,of course if they do not participate in the contests.

Ideas?

[Lhunithiliel]

GG, my friend, let me 'survive' ;) :D till tomorrow and I'll post.

[Lhunithiliel]

Aaaaaah!
Saturday morning!!!
No work! :confused: :eek: :D

Lhun some more organisational questions:

1.What is happening with the hidden threads.Whose idea is going to be accepted.As you know I suggested to have two threads(one for every team) that will be permanent and will be cleaned after the end of every round.

2.Are we going to use another online chat programme like MSN Messenger?

3.Teams?How will be the teams chosen?How many persons per team?
GG, Astaldo, this contest is to be between teams, therefore each team should have its "secret" thread for all the cycles this team participates in. No need to delete/clean anything in this 'hidden' thread.

Now ... to explain some things:
The place I saw this game in had such an organization of the whole community, that they had sth. like our ex-guilds, only those were very large groups. There were five or six of these, and each round of the contest was held between two teams representing each of these groups. It was sth. like the Debating Tournament we had here at TTF (which was much more a serious contest! ).

Now ... in TTF as it is now, there are no more such groups ('guilds'), so the Teams , IMO, should be formed out of any TTF-ers.
And each team should have its 'hidden' thread where to be able to discuss the answers.
This is my opinion ,,, but it might be inapplicable. :rolleyes:
If 'hidden' threads for the teams are not possible, then I guess the MSN and the PM-systems shall have to apply, though this will be far less suitable!

However, at the beginning, just to "test" this activity in TTF, we could start with only two teams, therefore we shall need only two 'hidden threads.

TEAMS

1/ I suggest we call for 4 teams.
2/ We give each team a name.
3/ We invite people to join a team (hope they will accept the invitation! ;) :D )
4/ Each team elects their "Spokesman/woman". This person shall announce the answer in the official thread (which will be open in view to all) of the contest.
5/ Each team may :
- accept more members at any time
- members from one team, if they like, may go to another team,
but only after the end of the current round of the contest
6/ Each team may choose an emblem/sign

4We need some members with extended cognition in Tolkien to provide the questions.Members like you,Ithy,Nom,Gothmog and many others,of course if they do not participate in the contests.

See, GG, noone wishes to communicate with an 'ex-wraith' -- present 'Feanorean'! No one listens to her! :(

But ... they might listen to you! :p

As for preparing the questions - this will be the task of the Mentor of each round.

[Astaldo]

I find you r plan pretty good Lhun. I hope we will have and the participation we need. Because there may be some guys that want to join but after some days one-by-one stops posting :(

[Lhunithiliel]

Sad, isn't it, dear Vala?! ;(

Some more enthusiasm will be wonderful!

[Astaldo]

You and GG are more time than me in this forum so I trust that you can find some people willing to stay at the end of this contest. As for me I will do my best to get some members join this contest when you ask me. :)

[Gil-Galad]

Basically I agree with your ideas,except for the amount of the hidden threads.Personally I think this will make every mod's life much more difficult,I still believe that one real-time chat is better than posting and sending pm's.

I will talk with some of the members who are well-known for their knowledge and I will ask them whether they would like to help us with the question.


Just give me some time.I think we will need 3 or 4 members who could help us with the questions.