A costume contest.

[PumBumbler]

PumBumbler's Totally Awesome Costume Contest
Date/time: 2pm PST, Saturday December 5th, 2009

Place: Justice Pocket D
All judging will take place in Pocket D. If the zone fills to capacity judging will extend to Pocket D 2 but no further. All entrants are asked to come early enough to allow adequate time for judging.

Note that the number of attendees may make judging unwieldy unless certain rules are followed. If anyone repeatedly violates those rules they may be barred from winning, or their Super Group/SG mates may be barred from winning as well. Any penalties apply to this contest and may extend to any future contests I may hold.

• Only event organizers will be using request.
• The Podium where DJ Zero stands will only be for contestants and event organizers.
• Use of powers by non-contestants to obscure or grief a contest or any participant is forbidden.
• Negative or demeaning comments about any participants during judging will not be tolerated.
• No direct infringement of copyright in costume or bios will be tolerated, excepting those which involve CoX lore/cannon. Besides, your own creativity will be scored much better than knock-off derivatives of someone else's work.

General entries:
First prize: 1000 Merits + 6 IOs Purple/PVP + 1 Billion inf
2nd prize: 250 Merits + LotG set + 250 Million
3rd Prize: 100 Merits + LotG 7.5 + 100 Million

Judges will pick 7 finalists based upon their costume, theme and posing. Each finalist will receive 50 Million inf. Depending on the number of contestants, all entrants may be grouped and judged in sections in order to manage the judging process. If there are 2 zones to judge, the judges will split up and judge each zone respectively and choose 3 finalists in the second zone and 4 from the first zone. There is no specified theme or content that you must follow in order to place 'better'.

After the 7 finalists are chosen they will be presented individually for the crowd and judges to view (if necessary, all finalists and judges will be merged into zone 1). The crowd favorite of the 7 finalists will get a bonus 250 million inf.

From those 7 finalists, the top 3 will be chosen from their costume AND their bio. If you do not have a bio, you will automatically be disqualified from being in the top 3 contenders. This may result in the some or none of the top 3 prizes being awarded, if substantially most or all finalists do not have completed biographies. Note that spelling and grammar do count!

Emotes and poses can be used by all entrants.

Powers, emotes and poses can be used by finalists only. Any powers that obscure other entrants must be turned off upon request or you will face disqualification.

Additional Categories:
Newbs:
1st Prize: 250 Million
2nd Prize: 100 Million
3rd Prize: 30 Million
Less than 6 month subscribers (by badge count). No temp accounts may qualify for this category. Dual and Alts qualify, although alts of ineligible folks are still not eligible (ie. alts of my gfriends etc.)

Best Team/SG
Only 1 prize: 1 Billion inf + 1000 Merits
Minimum 4 players, 8 Max. The Team leader's bio will be taken into consideration as describing entire SG/team. Teams may be mixed fashion but coherence is obviously a bonus. If you cannot form a minimum sized team due to zone crowding you will not be able to compete. Thematic descriptions and creativity will be judged over identical appearance. Teammate bios may be used by Judges in order to determine further appropriateness in awarding the prize. Inf prizes will be split proportionally in Influence and Infamy according to the winning team's faction. Merits will also be awarded proportionally according to faction. The winning group can decide their allocation of prizes, ie. I will not arbitrate any disputes amongst the winning team if any conflict arises.

Kids Event:
I really want a kid's category but I have no way of verifying the age of the player. I may open up this category if there are enough reasonable suggestions on how to make a kid's category and prize(s) workable. Until then there will not be a kids event.

The Newbs and Team/SG categories may be judged concurrently in both zones if multiple zone instances appear. This may be limiting to folks who want to compete in both categories. Teams are asked to come extra early in order to ensure that you are all able to come to the (same) zone.

Random Door Prizes:
A bunch of stuff to be given away to attendees during and after the contest.

Since the prize list is very extensive, there will be concerns about whether this contest is truly fair, and that the prizes will be awarded as shown here. To that extent, here is the fine print:

Prizes: All prizes are awarded by me personally, the PumBumbler. In other words, every IO, every merit, every bit of inf that I am giving away, I have earned. No other player or group or developer or entity has given/granted/promised me any of the prize awards that I am giving. I will not accept any donations or help in this regard. There is no cash value to any of the rewards I am giving, so don't ask me for cash or a free video card.

Influence and Infamy amounts will be awarded identically on a 1:1 basis so Heroes and Villains can enter equally. IO prize mix will not be identical across factions. Prizes will be awarded according to the winner's faction and no faction credit or exchange will be given (eg. if you win on a villain, you will only be given infamy and loot for villains as appropriate, no substitution for hero loot or influence will be granted).

All prizes are given at my discretion, and no sponsorship by any group is implied or given. This includes any specific channel community personalities, Justice Radio, P.E.R.C., NCSoft or Paragon Studios, although their help in promoting, organizing and running this event is appreciated. I reserve the right to substitute equivalent or near equivalent prizes depending on my spurious moods.

I also certify that I have enough assets to cover the rewards as described. If there are concerns regarding this, I can speak to a member of any other organization such as PERC in order to verify my qualifications.
Maximum Prize outlay: 2350 Merits, 3.33 Billion influence/infamy, 1 LotG set, 1 LotG 7.5, 6 purple/pvp IOs. All IOs are crafted. Various additional door prizes will be given away as well.

Merit prizes are Task Force Merits. Since merits cannot be given or traded, the winner will direct me to spend those merits for them at a Merit Vendor in whatever fashion they want, and the product will be handed over to them immediately. Note that the spending toon _will_ be 50, so there are some limitations to the level of recipe the winner can get from this. Winner Merits can be banked for a period of 1 month before being lost, since I don't want an ongoing tally sheet of who I will owe merits to. Note that I am not available 24 hours a day, although I will try to accommodate your schedule in order to spend the merits in the shortest time frame possible.

All prize winners must not be hidden in any manner in order to qualify. All major prize winners will be checked against the eligibility requirements as necessary.

Who are the judges: Chloe Crimson has graciously agreed to run this event for me. Other than my setting up of the ground rules for her, the administration of the event will be in her capable hands. This means that other than coming to me for clarification regarding the rules, her say is final regarding the judging and competition for this event. If you wish to help out, please ask Chloe what needs to be done instead of me.

Many Judges are existing friends that I have on gfriends, supergroup and chat channels. Not all of them will be judging the event. I will not be judging any of the events personally, so I have no say in who the final winners will be. The judges will form their own private channel to discuss the contestants, and they will report the awardees to me. Guest judges may be in attendance.

Crowd judging will be eyeballed by the ranking coordinator by using a specific emote in order to judge crowd reaction to each finalist as they are presented. Ties may be subject to run offs.

Who can enter: Everyone except my gfriends and supergroup members and those eligible to be judges. Sorry. You must have a toon on Justice Server in order to compete, and of course, be in Pocket D 1 or 2 at the beginning of judging.

My current gfriends list is quite extensive and not everyone that I have gfriended have I teamed with much or have gotten to know very well (sorry). Note that my gfriend list has already been snapshotted, and if you are on my gfriend list after December 1, 2009 you will NOT be eligible to compete in this contest. If you are currently on my gfriend list and wish to participate in this contest, you must no longer gfriend me before December 1, 2009. Note that I will not re-gfriend you if you choose to drop me from your list. I'm harsh that way, sorry.

Why am I doing this?
For Great Justice! Justice has been very good to me over the years, and it is my home server. I have made some great friends and met many tremendous people here, and I hope everyone who comes to Justice is able to take part in a community that is one of the best that CoV/CoH has to offer.

I'd just like for everyone else to receive some of the rewards that I have been so fortunate to get in my time here. If anyone is coming over from another server just to participate in this contest, I wish you the best of luck and welcome to Justice!

Any clarifications will be placed in this thread and will be considered definitive from my answers and Chloe Crimson's answers only.

[Ice Knight]

Looks like a fun event . I will be there.

[ArwenDarkblade]

This is incredibly generous of you Pum, and I wish you a good turn out.

[Katfood]

Great of you to organize Pum. I will try to be there to lend support whether or not I can be there at the start for the actual events.

BTW, how can you give merits as a prize? Can we trade merits now?

[Gaderath]

Originally Posted by Katfood

BTW, how can you give merits as a prize? Can we trade merits now?

Originally Posted by PumBumbler

Prizes:
Merit prizes are Task Force Merits. Since merits cannot be given or traded, the winner will direct me to spend those merits for them at a Merit Vendor in whatever fashion they want, and the product will be handed over to them immediately. Note that the spending toon _will_ be 50, so there are some limitations to the level of recipe the winner can get from this. Winner Merits can be banked for a period of 1 month before being lost, since I don't want an ongoing tally sheet of who I will owe merits to. Note that I am not available 24 hours a day, although I will try to accommodate your schedule in order to spend the merits in the shortest time frame possible.

Very grand event, I hope it goes very smoothly, and cannot wait to see the costumes that are entered

[ChloeCrimson]

This is very exciting! I can't wait to see everyone there!

[Rani]

Glad to see another one of these come around, looks like a ton of fun.

[Streethawk]

Great way to show your server some love, Pum. It'll be a great event and I'm sure a great turn out with prizes like that.

Feel like we sould start a pot luck banquet list or something. Guess I'll bring the sodas and my famoous grilled sausage as usual. Someone make sure to bring cookies.

[_Cai_]

This is going to be an awesome costume contest. With so much at stake, I'm really hoping to see a lot of people bring their A+ game. Long live Justice!

[Bionic_Flea]

Hahaha! My not being on Pum's Global friends list finally becomes an asset! Now I must create the greatest costume ever known!

BTW, how can you give merits as a prize? Can we trade merits now?

Read the fine print:

Merit prizes are Task Force Merits. Since merits cannot be given or traded, the winner will direct me to spend those merits for them at a Merit Vendor in whatever fashion they want, and the product will be handed over to them immediately. Note that the spending toon _will_ be 50, so there are some limitations to the level of recipe the winner can get from this. Winner Merits can be banked for a period of 1 month before being lost, since I don't want an ongoing tally sheet of who I will owe merits to. Note that I am not available 24 hours a day, although I will try to accommodate your schedule in order to spend the merits in the shortest time frame possible.

[Godpants]

Major kudos to you, Pum. This is the kind of event that helps build a server community.

[Bobitron]

Wow Pum! How very nice of you. I'll do my best to make it to the event.

In my own show of vast wealth and generosity, I'll add 100k Influence to the winner's prize.

[PumBumbler]

Originally Posted by Bobitron

Wow Pum! How very nice of you. I'll do my best to make it to the event.

In my own show of vast wealth and generosity, I'll add 100k Influence to the winner's prize.

Great! Just remember that if you want to add anything that you will have to contact the winner directly to give them whatever additional contribution you wish to add.

[PumBumbler]

One more thing, if anyone has any good way of getting new players to find out about this contest, I'm all ears.

Outside of standing outside AP and Mercy spamming in broadcast, I can't think a way to get the news to new players (on all servers).

[Godpants]

Originally Posted by PumBumbler

One more thing, if anyone has any good way of getting new players to find out about this contest, I'm all ears.

Outside of standing outside AP and Mercy spamming in broadcast, I can't think a way to get the news to new players (on all servers).

How about posting it in the Player Events forum?

[PumBumbler]

Originally Posted by Godpants

How about posting it in the Player Events forum?

Already have, but I'm not sure what percentage of the population even visits the forums, let alone new players.

[Bionic_Flea]

Originally Posted by PumBumbler

One more thing, if anyone has any good way of getting new players to find out about this contest, I'm all ears.

Outside of standing outside AP and Mercy spamming in broadcast, I can't think a way to get the news to new players (on all servers).

Ask folks to post it in their MOTDs. I saw it was already on either JU or JFA2010 (or maybe both) but there are lots of other channels and SG MOTDs that could advertise it as well.

[PumBumbler]

Originally Posted by Bionic_Flea

Ask folks to post it in their MOTDs. I saw it was already on either JU or JFA2010 (or maybe both) but there are lots of other channels and SG MOTDs that could advertise it as well.

If you know of any channels that cater to people outside of the Justice bubble it would be greatly appreciated if you and everyone else spread the word.

[The Pope]

Make a cool banner or post card thingy and have Niviene post in this thread. That drums up community digest watchers.
Or, have someone drum up BackAlley Brawler. I hear he posts under the name Abraxxus. =P

Pope

[Soliton_Wave]

what day/time in aussieland speak ???