[sathumbbs]

My contest's Fast Five winners announced. How did I do Guy? first of all thanks to you for trusting me and encouraging me all the way.
Also I would like to thank all those who helped me for your tips and suggestions: I request all once again to give me more suggestions for this game or give me more tips in how to handle this contest bringing full justification and how to prove the users that I am impartial in rewarding, etc.

[sathumbbs]

Arkonen expressed concern that the reward in Chain Gang might be too high. I'm not expecting to see the number of winning posters get too large (in the first game we're already halfway through the alphabet and so far there are only 6). But just in case we could add a rule that says the maximum number of posters is 26, after which the game ends no matter where the letters are at.

How's that?

as feared I missed the game. but I have one doubt between melanthiabast to renatokun, n o p q. 4 letters have been skipped. Is that ok?

[melanthiabast]

as feared I missed the game. but I have one doubt between melanthiabast to renatokun, n o p q. 4 letters have been skipped. Is that ok?

Yes, normally it's 3 letters to skip - but you can go to 4 letters skipped if it includes a Q or an X

http://forum.mobilism.org/viewtopic.php?p=1958378#1958378

[carefr33]

My biggest nightmare is that I try to listen and take into account everyone's opinion, but that's mostly not possible to comply to all. Then fixing a price based on the 'market' isn't that illuminating [...]
Anyway, I changed the price for buying from/selling to the bank. One will never say I don't try... [...]

Ooooops! Looking at the drastic change in prices at the bank now I'll get nightmares of being flamed by other users for even mentioning the bank's prices
<carefr33 puts on his old fireproof asbest-suit>

Thanks for the explanations and reasoning, Guy1731. I hadn't seen the aspects you mentioned. Anyways ... I just wanted to share some thoughts I had and see what others think of it. I hope my initial post didn't come accross as some form of complaint or as something I expected/demanded to be put into practice. That would definitely not have been my intention.

[avoran]

HELP! Mods, I wanted to tidy up the first post of the CHAIN GANG thread and it got renamed to "Re: Discussion Topic"

edited to add:

Never mind, fixed thanks to sathumbbs

[Guy1731]

Ooooops! Looking at the drastic change in prices at the bank now I'll get nightmares of being flamed by other users for even mentioning the bank's prices

Do not fear. Changes of rules or contest playmode aren't usually caused on individual comments, that merely trigger a doubt that has been floating in my mind and give it a reason to become concrete. Usually it's me who gets flamed, but I know by now what users are here to have fun and appreciate the work done, and what users are just here to make trouble. And you are certainly not part of those!

HELP! Mods, I wanted to tidy up the first post of the CHAIN GANG thread and it got renamed to "Re: Dicsussion Topic"

Sorry, I wasn't around to see into this. But I'm happy and amazed you solved that yourself. You are doing great!

[avoran]

Unless somebody strongly objects or threatens to take away my doughnuts I'm going to make the following rule changes in the second round of Chain Gang:

1. time-out period reduced to 12 hours
2. maximum number of posters: 26
3. posters will be asked to number their posts

[sathumbbs]

Unless somebody strongly objects or threatens to take away my doughnuts I'm going to make the following rule changes in the second round of Chain Gang:

1. time-out period reduced to 12 hours
2. maximum number of posters: 26
3. posters will be asked to number their posts

Hi avoran First of all Congratulations for successfully hosting your own new contest:
My suggestions:
I think I misunderstood time-out period? I thought time-out period means the duration of the completion of the entire round. But in your contest you meant, its a time gap between two posts, which means the time limit for a user to post within a previous post. Am I correct?

In your first round you gave a period of about 36hrs in total. This is the time out period I am talking about. My suggestion is that you fix this period which means allocate a fixed time for each round within which period users can make a chain. Otherwise rewarding 26 users each with 500 WRZ$ which means a massive 13,000 WRZ$ payout per round would upset the warez system and people may start to abuse the system. As days pass by, What if a few regular users form pm friends to form an alphabetical chain just for the sake of the high WRZ$ that u r giving away as reward?

[sathumbbs]

Regarding My Fast Five contest: for this second round onwards I have decided to increase the reward amount for:

1) each fast five post Reward to 25WRZ$.
2) Jackpot reward to 50 WRZ$.

Reasons:
1.) The present 5WRZ$ is not so seducing to the rich players and neither a fair amount for the lower and genuine players. you might have noticed that if you are not alert and forget to check, you may miss to post at exactly after 5 posts.
2.) by increasing this amount, it will draw more players, the more the players the more difficult it will become as they will miss to post their "fast five post", as users who missed to post or those who return after 5 hrs will also try to disrupt the chance of posting a "fast five post". In a day hardly each user might get to make one or two successful "fast five posts".
3.) Another point of defence is due to the rule of "users should not post for 5 hrs after their "fast five post", it will prevent abuse and will give a fair chance to all users to participate and everyone gets an equal chance to win.
4) Reason for increasing the Jackpot reward: Each user gets only a 1/25th chance to win a Jackpot. Suppose there are total 50 posts made in a day, 1/5th chance of them to be fast five posts. and since for the "Jackpot Award" I count only every fifth post and if any "fast five" post matches then only the user is rewarded, which means it is now 1/5th of 1/5th chance which makes 1/25th chance only to win.
5) When i first wrote this contest, I wanted it to be 25WRZ$ for fast five post and 50 WRZ$ for jackpot. but for the trial run I started with low reward to be safe.

Any suggestions and counter arguments are welcome, it would help me and make the game to be more fool proof.

[avoran]

I thought time-out period means the duration of the completion of the entire round. But in your contest you meant, its a time gap between two posts, which means the time limit for a user to post within a previous post. Am I correct?

Yes. Raindrops had suggested making it 48 hours. I cut it to 24 for the first round and want to cut it to 12 for the second.

In your first round you gave a period of about 36hrs in total. This is the time out period I am talking about. My suggestion is that you fix this period which means allocate a fixed time for each round within which period users can make a chain. Otherwise rewarding 26 users each with 500 WRZ$ which means a massive 13,000 WRZ$ payout per round would upset the warez system and people may start to abuse the system. As days pass by, What if a few regular users form pm friends to form an alphabetical chain just for the sake of the high WRZ$ that u r giving away as reward?

The total time period for the contest is not fixed by any rules - it's the unplanned result of what the players do. Fixing a total time period is a possibility, but it wouldn't solve the problem of people setting up PM chains. That would require an alteration to the pay-out system. But unless and until we actually see such large pay-outs regularly and/or one of the mods insists, I don't want to change that.

[avoran]

Also it was only for this introductory contest that I've been PM'ing people and posting updates in the Last shall be First thread. Starting from round 2 you're on your own. Those WRZ$ have to be earned.

Hi Guy !

What a nice Please Reply - Worldcup Special edition ! However, I have some comments:

You posted the first list at 21:10 UTC+0 time, and you expected us to post AFTER 2 hours from that post time had been run out. It means the valid starting posting time would be 23:10 UTC+0, right?

However, some initial posters had been posted before that time. And the following poster kept counting by continuing that invalid initial posters. In my opinion, the valid poster starting with #3 by deathstalker139.

If this condition is not corrected, the last poster should be counter #82 or more, if there is another miscount happened, instead of #80, for the 1st stage of the game (80 valid posters).

Actually, iamnicki had been tried correcting it by stated her posting with #2, however, the next poster was back to the wrong counting.

I have tried correcting the counter again start from mine, #31.

[Guy1731]

All corrections are appreciated, and indeed there's been invalid posting at the start. The meaning of a delayed starting is that users that aren't online at the moment I post the contest still might join by then, while users who are online know they have to stay a little longer (or come back after two hours should they leave), to be sure not to miss the start. Another personal try to soften the 'prime time' problem.

Now, about the 'invalid' posters - those who posted before the 2 hours restriction - I understand it's the first time we use this, so I won't be to hard on those and allow them to make a second - valid - post.

Glad you like it. (There will be more 'specials'... stay focused! )

[Guy1731]

Acknowledgment contest Score chart updated.

[avoran]

an idea for the Fast 5 gave that would make it a bit harder to play - but easier for sathummbs to check:

after the user name you also have to post a link to a post by that person