Category:Newbie Guide Contest: Difference between revisions

A category for pages that are part of the Newbie Help Guide contest.

Contest

Elanthipedia currently hosts a few excellent guild guides, and I'd like to incentivize that work, with RPAs and alterations if need be. What we are looking for is newbie guides, both a guild-specific guide for each guild and a general guide. The general guide should assume a wide-eye newbie who has absolutely no knowledge of the game.

What is going to make this contest unique and potentially hilarious is we're working with the fine folks at Elanthipedia and, in wiki spirit, these will be collaborative guides. There will be, for example, one Necromancer guide, and all the Necromancer players that want to input in it need to collaboratively work on that single guide rather than every man coming up with their own individual guide.

Likewise, there will not be a single winner, but everyone who makes a significant edit to a collaborative guide wins. Prizes include liberal use of the RPA command and free alterations to be festooned out at my discretion.

Requirements

The collaborative guide is a newbie guide. It should be aimed at people who have limited to no experience with DragonRealms. Moon Mage, Necromancer, and Thief guides should not spoil the puzzle to join the guild, but can cover mechanics such as Khri and DO generation. Likewise, the general guide should be a severely newbie guide. We're talking stuff like "What's a guild?" and how to make money with branches and so on. Optimally a total newbie can read the general guide and get a sense of how the first steps of their character's life will go.

All guides and entries will be hosted on Elanthipedia. Entries sent via e-mail, carrier pigeon or what have you will not be accepted.

This will, of course, be an ongoing project as the game is updated and changes are made, but for purposes of the contest, entries will be considered final on or around November 30th.

FAQs by GM Armifer

Q: What counts as a substantial edit?

A: One time the Supreme Court was asked to define pornography, and the response boiled down to "I know it when I see it." Broadly we are looking for actual additions or significant stylistic edits to the page, not just grammar checks. Beyond that, it will come down to the intuition of myself and my crack death squad of judges.

Q: I have no idea how to write in wikiese, can I participate?

A: Yup. Plain text submission is acceptable as long as it's a substantial edit. We encourage you to learn how to stylize a wiki -- it's quite easy! -- but it's not a requirement.

See Basic Wikicode for help.

Q: I am a Gamehost/Mentor/Board Mod and want to participate, can I?

A: This is open to all players, including our player-volunteers. Use your player personas to contribute and they will be judged on the same criteria as all other players.

Note that while some Elanthipedia moderators have chosen to participate, those who do will not be allowed to act as moderators for the contest pages.

Q: I already wrote a guide, can I still participate?

A: Yup. Existing guides can be used as templates or taken in whole/part for the collaborative guide. If this is done, the original author gets credit for the edit.

Q: I want to work on multiple guides, do I get multiple prizes?

A: If you get an alteration, that's one per person. Multiple RPAs may be given out.

Q: This seems ad-hoc and dangerously capable of spiraling into disaster.

A: Please phrase that in the form of a question.

Q: Is this going to become a giant drama bomb?

A: Hopefully not. Those in the audience that know me or my events know that I like to experiment with the medium, and this is no exception. I am putting a lot of faith in you guys to be able to work collaboratively toward the common good of the game, with PRIZES PRIZES PRIZES for your effort. If this becomes Drama I will try to salvage what I can and reward those I perceive as having acted in good faith. The Elanthipedia mods are also perfectly capable and willing to ban further entries from people who get too worked up over being edited. But it doesn't need to become a problem! Let's have fun instead.

Q: What kind of alteration?

A: To be perfectly frank you with, my valued reader, I am holding off on specifics until I know how many people start contributing. Alterations may be face to face or may be a scroll list, depending on how many we ultimately feel deserve to go out.

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