HUGE Writing Contest - Millions of gold, Hundreds of Platinum, a FORTRESS, and TONS More!

Make it an in-game book!

If I had more resources and money to give away, I would have added more categories, but as it is this is pretty much 99% of everything I have.

For taming, you could always work it into a story, or perhaps even submit it into the magery category (probably the closest I can think of).

Yea there is definitely potential to use it as a guild backstory.

With about two days left, just wanted to give a push to anyone thinking of entering or submitting more entries!

The following categories have 0 submissions (and thus are potentially ripe for easy winnings):

Factions
Inscription
BoDs

The following categories have at least one entry but have extra prize slots just waiting to be grabbed up:

Champion Spawns
Tailoring
Carpentry
Holiday Events
PvP/Battles

The rest of the categories have more submissions so are a bit more contested. Please feel free to submit to any of the categories though because the more categories submitted to, the higher the odds are of winning the fortress!


When the deadline hits, I will make a full list of submissions here to double check and make sure I didn't miss any from anyone. Further, I will also try to ultimately make comments/notes on each entry that I read to, at the very least, offer some sort of feedback on them.

Thanks!

Wow.... not sure how I just found this, but gonna get to work.

This is it - the final day! 11:59pm EST tonight is the deadline!

After the deadline, I will read through all of the entries and start formulating scores for each one. My progress will be a bit slowed as tomorrow and the day after I will be pretty much driving all day each day, so please have a little patience! The results should be posted relatively quickly and the prizes will be distributed throughout the week to the winners. Whoever wins the fortress might have a slightly longer wait because I need to move about 500 books out of there first.

Thank you and good luck!

Sent you my three submissions in separate messages =)

Thank you Sara, I got them and will let you know if I have any issues

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All categories except Factions has at least a couple of entries for the most part, with some categories being more highly contested.

Just a reminder, all submissions are due by 11:59pm EST tonight. Be sure to include all of the required information in the PM as outlined in the rules

Thanks!

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That is a whole lot o' submissions! Thanks Gideon

And about an hour and change left for any last-minute submissions!

I think I got my one in right at the last minute.... literally...

THANK YOU @Alex Caember , this is very exciting! Can't wait to see the all the submissions!

Thank you very much everyone! There are well over 70 submissions I must now go through and put through the score calculator

I am still on the road so can't get a ton done just yet, but I will have the results as soon as possible and will start contacting the winners as soon as I know who they are

When you said this, I assumed you meant before you started scoring, so you could make sure you had all of them. Are you going to do this before you score them? Before we get the scores, I'm interested in seeing which categories got the most and least submissions.

@Kirby, Alex said in one of his posts that he's going to be very busy driving for a couple of days, immediately after the deadline. I imagine he needs just a bit more time before he can post the entries for us to check that our titles are there
If @Gideon Jura submitted his MA thesis as one of his 18 entries, reading is going to take a long time

Ok makes sense

If you're talking about Gideon's thesis, I certainly hope so!!! Best of luck, @Gideon Jura!!!

Below is a full list of entries:

El Horno / Elhorno The New Frontiers of Modern Magic
El Horno / Elhorno The Fall of Magincia and Rise of Rex
El Horno / Elhorno The Miner's Bible
El Horno / Elhorno The Harrower
El Horno / Elhorno How to Play the Lute (and make money too!)
El Horno / Elhorno The Spellbook Supplimentary Guide
El Horno / Elhorno The Hungry Tinker
El Horno / Elhorno IRC/Forum Guide
Arnold Lutz / Lutz Lutz Family History
Arnold Lutz / Lutz KiN - A Clan That Became a Dynasty
Arnold Lutz / Lutz Upside to Tinkering
Arnold Lutz / Lutz Platinum Reward System
Jakob / FranzPfniffel The Bank Thief, a Poem
Jakob / FranzPfniffel Franz & Sherelle: A Renaissance Love Story
Jakob / FranzPfniffel A Draft of cA Times
Jakob / FranzPfniffel The Fisherman's Guide to Renaissance
Jakob / FranzPfniffel The Jhelom PK, a Poem
Jakob / FranzPfniffel The Scribe's Handbook
Sackrete Beruthian the Battleminer
Pirul Mars Rising
Pirul A Treatise on Treasure Hunting
Pirul A Brief History of the Company of the Vigilant
Cero Lair of the Giants
Cero By the Sword
Cero A Notebook Labled: Lockpicking/Dungeon Chests
Kirby Kirby’s Guide to the Kirby Fishing System
Kirby The History of Kirby & Co [K$C]
Kirby A Day in the Forest
Kirby Love Can Be Deadly
Kirby A Dish Best Served Pink
Hiji Zuru To the Brink and Back
Eskull First Descent
Smash Of Time Past and of Times Past
Tessa The Making of a Treasure Hunter
Trojan Cow Platinum Rewards Explained
Trojan Cow The Falconer and the Order of the Skulls
Trojan Cow The Diary of a Battle Miner (The Long Hard Slog)
Trojan Cow Guide to IRC and Forums
Trojan Cow The Case of the Murdered Alchemist
Paddy O'Brien Chunky Surprise Stew Recipe
Anonymous Assymetrical Warfare
Henderson Elim Garak's Guide to Carpentry
Henderson Elim Garak's Guide to Tailoring
Henderson Elim Garak's Guide to Training Inscription for Profit
Henderson Tailor BoDs Can Be Fun!
Henderson The Way of the Rogue... House Looting!
Henderson A Canadian Tale, My Story
Sara My Road to Inscription
Sara BoD's for Newbies
Sara Carpentry Guide
Sara Tinkering Guide
Gideon Jura Humble Beginnings
Gideon Jura Plat Train
Gideon Jura The Road Less Travelled
Gideon Jura World Chat
Gideon Jura Two, One, Drop
Gideon Jura Fail2Prep, Prep2Fail
Gideon Jura Platinum Dreamin'
Gideon Jura Patience and Profit
Gideon Jura You Spin Me Round
Gideon Jura Hammertime
Gideon Jura On Ballot Boxes and Staves
Gideon Jura Boom Goes the Dynamite
Gideon Jura Words of Power
Gideon Jura Absolute Power
Gideon Jura KGB
Gideon Jura Watchin' the Clock
Gideon Jura Order from Chaos
Gideon Jura OoOo Ooo
Azoth An Introduction to Alchemy
Azoth A Brief Description of Inscription
Azoth The Spell Fizzles: An Incoherent Interview with Abramelin
Azoth This Life of Mine
The Watch Character Origin
Antos Lingua Magica
Antos Yew Endures
Antos Faction or Fiction?
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If you submitted an entry that is not listed here, please let me know, I might have missed it in my PMs, but I think I got everything.

There are 13 people eligible for the Fortress giveaway.

Here is a breakdown of number of entries per category:

Character History 11
Guild History 8
Guide: Early Money 5
Guide: IRC/Forums 3
Guide: Factions 2
Guide: Champion Spawns 2
Guide: Platinum Rewards 3
Treasure/Tales of Adventure 4
Guide: Tailoring 3
Guide: Blacksmith/Mining 5
Guide: Carpentry 4
Guide: Tinkering 4
Guide: Inscription 6
Guide: Magery/Arcane Lore 5
Guide to Roguish Behavior 5
Guide: Holiday Events 2
Guide: BoDs 3
Guide: PvP/Battle 2

The ones that have two entries pretty much guarantees that the people who made those submissions will win *something*. The Character and Guild history categories have the highest number of entries.

At this point I have gone through roughly half of the entries.

How the scoring works is that I give each entry a score that is between 0 and 100 based on the overall impression of the piece of writing (similar to perhaps grading a paper from a student), and then I have a bunch of extra categories that augment this number, such as an in-character bonus of 0 to 5 points, a theme adherence bonus, a grammar modified (-5 to 5, though thus far nobody got any negatives, only positives in varying degrees), and a few others. I make all the columns in my spreadsheet black as I enter the numbers so that way I don't keep looking at the numbers I already put up for other entries and allow that to influence me and make unjust comparisons. I am doing my best to compartmentalize each entry and score it according to the metrics I set up ahead of time. Only once all entries have a score will I then compare the scores to determine ranked winners. The three absolute highest scores will also win the special writing desks and trophies. I will see about getting some additional trophies for some of the entries as well.

I hope to have these all read and scored soon! Thank you for your patience and for your writing

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This must be the best contest ever! Great variety: most people could contribute with at least something, generous prizes and not least, what an undertaking to take this on: planning, setting up rules, reading and judging. Very well done @Alex Caember !