Guillak

I did understand it as you just rephrased it, no worry! And we're all allowed to write negative feedbacks anyway. As for the luck part: *I* don't like the way it was made, but I couldn't find a better option … apart giving more time. As for the small participation: I read it properly too. Cups of tea and pickles are worth more than a silver coin. That's why I used silver coins as an example, it's the smallest [useful] valuable I know of. Simple resources like water or lumber could be cheaper, but it would be neither handy nor appropriate. I'm not really sure of the value of candies, I guess it varies across people (those who have an elucubration would give them more value). And I suppose the prize for the winners is big too.

Happy birthday to you two!

Thanks for the feedback guys. [quote name='Tom Pouce' timestamp='1335130606' post='109437'] Its a mix of intuitive and knwoledge logic with part of random luck [/quote] I wish there was no luck at all, but unfortunately it couldn't be helped in the context of the birthday (rather short amount of time + we don't know everybody + forcing participants to vote non-blank). [quote name='Tom Pouce' timestamp='1335130606' post='109437'] My only suggestion to improve would be to give over the big prizes many small participation prize like 1 candy or 1 cup of tea, or 1 pickel (just suggestion as i dont know what is really apropriate necessary), so more or everyone would get out with something even if its not much. [/quote] The more people participate in this game, the better (and more "accurate") it is. There were 45 participants this time, and gathering 45 silver coins is not that easy for a single organizer … This is valid for most quests around, most of the time you'll end up with nothing. But you don't participate [i]only[/i] for the reward, do you? The best rewards you'll find in MD are not material! No reward implies you only assign creatures to those you want/know well, with no constraint. And others do the same for you. [quote name='Tom Pouce' timestamp='1335130606' post='109437'] More creatures? feel not as new player dont know all names of creature at all there levels [/quote] Veterans ask for more, and recent players ask for less. How expected! I limited the creatures to that of the main lands on purpose for the reason you mention. In all cases, one can just ignore a creature he/she doesn't know, so I think more [i]can[/i] be better in this case, providing there are enough participants (if not, the distributions would just go flatter). Regarding this aspect: one could be able to assign and/or receive creatures only if he/she possesses this creature. So there could be an "unlocking phase". This way you can only use creatures you do know yourself … [quote name='Tom Pouce' timestamp='1335130606' post='109437'] Make it permanent? feel not, as would make it possible to control one perception or make group voting [/quote] I don't really get your point here … There is no reason to team up. You just depict people based on how [i]you[/i] see them, others' opinion does not matter. Permanent => plenty of time to meet people, learn about them, recruit and learn about all creatures, and find the right match(es?). [quote name='Change' timestamp='1335137045' post='109439'][list] [*]Reset the votes at the beginning of every month. [*]At the end of each month, the person who got 1st place gets a badge saying "Master Judger of Character" or something like that (hopefully shorter). [*]Their badge gets given to the person who wins at the end of the next month (so they'd have to 'fight' for their title to keep it). [/list] This would hopefully be done automatically somehow, otherwise it's too much work really. [/quote] Nice idea, but that's really a "competition" view (what you depicts sounds a lot like the Head Contest ), which I did not intend in the first place if it was to be permanent. And it would be too much work for the participants, who would have to re-enter all their votes every month or so, while some have known each other for years and would rather keep their entries intact. [quote name='Change' timestamp='1335137045' post='109439'] And unless a group of people wanted to get together to boost their egos in turn, then group voting would be a non-issue I'd hope. [/quote] Me too. Especially if there is nothing (material) to win.

[quote name='Inv1ctuS' timestamp='1335187827' post='109483'] Will the items be given out when the results come? [/quote] Yes!

Only 26 participants have entered votes so far, and only 7 entered votes for everybody. A couple participants asked for more time. => One more month, and there won't be any further deadline extension! As time passes, it seems more links get broken … I can't monitor them all unfortunately. In most cases, you still end up on a YouTube page saying that the video has been deleted because of infringement or similar. Providing the song title is still visible, you can just copy-paste it in the YouTube search box to get another version.

12 entries received. Thank you all for your participation! As for reward:[list] [*]everybody will receive 1 pickle + 1 candy + 1 silver coin [*]in addition, top five will receive a spell stone (best one chooses first, then second, etc.) [*]in addition, top three will receive an additional candy [*]and in addition, the best one will receive a bonus cup of tea [/list] Results "soon".

[size=2](Fang, everything was written above + PM, you lazy boy :-p)[/size] Here are the results! The following percentages are based on the votes of the 26 participants who have voted, which is quite low. Still, there seems to be some agreement on several participants: [attachment=3788:WhatCreatureAreYou.html] (Percentages may not sum up to 100, that's just because of rounding) Surprise: Awiiya is a tree! Manda, we like you the way you are. As expected, many distributions are rather flat, especially for recent players (for several veterans too, so no worry ). The way I see it is that it should take shape as you spend time in the realm, just like a certain box expands … [b]~ Scores ~[/b][list] [*]You get one score for each participant = the percentages of people who chose the same creature as you. [*]Your final score is the average over all participants. [*]As stated in a previous post, votes for latecomers don't count (that's just Fang Archbane—sorry). [/list] Some participants have very low scores; that's mainly because they left many entries blank. Princ Rhaegar: 25.5% => 1st prize! *Clock Master*: 24.0% => 2nd prize! Tal: 23.4% => 3rd prize! lashtal: 23.2% xcercses: 21.4% AmberRune: 21.4% darkraptor: 20.8% Tom Pouce: 20.5% joshdragon: 19.5% *Burns*: 19.3% Sunfire: 18.1% Esmaralda: 17.8% Marvolo: 16.9% Eon: 16.9% Change: 16.7% Guillak: 16.6% [size=2](I wouldn't have taken any reward of course)[/size] Isabella Finch: 16.5% Menhir: 15.2% everyone: 14.8% gonzalocsdf: 14.8% Kris Summers: 13.7% Zyrxae: 13.5% Don Alexander Rey: 12.3% ignnus: 7.8% Maitreyi Devi: 5.9% Falronn: 4.7%[list] [*]Some scores are really really really close … Sorry Lashtal! [*]You can recalculate your own score to make sure I didn't make any mistake (bug, rather) if you want. There shouldn't be any problem, but just in case … Just be aware that the percentages displayed are rounded, so you might get tiny differences (if you want the exact number, see next bullet). [*]For transparency, I can provide the whole data dump if someone wants to check. I swear the presence of my "bosses" in the top two is beyond my control. [/list] Winners will get their prizes as soon as I have them! Thank you to all who participated! Even if you didn't vote, your simple presence provided matter for voters. [b]~ More? ~[/b] In the end, this game seems to need more participants, more creatures, more time, and no scoring at all, so that you can safely leave your choice blank if you don't know someone. If anyone has ideas, I'm open to all suggestions for a possible sequel. Allow to assign multiple creatures to the same person? Make it a permanent "quest"?

I have received 11 entries so far. As for "what creature of you", I'll extend the deadline: entries are welcome until Sunday, 12:00 server time.

Only half of the participants have voted so far … Mur seems to keep everyone busy! Deadline extended: you have until [b]Sunday, 12:00[/b] (noon) server time to submit your votes. Preferably in the clickie, but I still accept in-game or forum PM's instead if you have no other choice.

Happy birthday Emerald!

Please [b]don't forget to save[/b]! If you leave the clickie without clicking the save button, all your votes will be left blank. If everything is okay, you should find the clickie in the state you left it whenever you come back (your votes should still be selected). So far, I have votes of: *Burns*, *Clock Master*, AmberRune, Change, Don Alexander Rey, Eon, Esmaralda, Falronn, Guillak, Isabella Finch, Kris Summers, Maitreyi Devi, Marvolo, Menhir, Princ Rhaegar, Tom Pouce, Zyrxae, darkraptor, everyone, ignnus, joshdragon, lashtal … which makes 22 people, over the 45 who have registered. One day left! EDIT: Since many participants seem to be chasing Mur, and are therefore unlikely to come back before some time, if not before the end of the birthday, you can PM me your list of votes if you want. It's less handy though, for you and me, so please use the clickie if you can. Don't forget to assign a creature to yourself too, it counts as a regular vote. And unfortunately it's better to vote random than blank if you want to score points … Couldn't think of a proper solution for this issue. [b]List of participants:[/b] *Burns* *Clock Master* AmberRune Arkken Awiiya Bolleman Change Don Alexander Rey Eon Esmaralda Falronn Fang Archbane Grido Guillak Isabella Finch Ivorak Kris Summers Lintara LoPhOpHoRa Maebius Maitreyi Devi Manda Marvolo Menhir Morgase NewPower Princ Rhaegar Rannel Soothing Sands Sunfire Tal TheComedian Tom Pouce Ze Riel Diel Zleiphneir Zyrxae darkraptor everyone gonzalocsdf ignnus joshdragon lashtal samon underworld xcercses Edit 2: updated list of people who voted

The reason why I wanted to prevent late registration was to give everyone enough time to enter votes for all other participants. Some have already entered all their votes and might not be able to come back to re-enter missing entries … So: registration is still possible at the wooden sign of the Marble Dale Park (password "Who am I"), and new players will be able to compete for the rewards, but the votes you enter for those new players will not be taken into account when calculating scores. => If you already have entered all your votes, don't bother coming back … although it would be nice to for the latecomers. Latecomers are players whose name comes after Rannel in the list (there's a small horizontal rule just below).

Registration is over! There are 44 participants. The clickie has ben updated. Same as before: "Who am I" at the rope in the Paper Cabin. Keep in mind that being assigned a grasan is not (necessarily) an insult! I have some serious glitches with Chrome when opening the clickie, but it works fine anyway. No problem with other browsers apparently. Google's fault.

I couldn't resist and made a sound player myself to see (hear) how it would feel, but the way I coded it was deemed too open to potential abuses, so I won't release it. That said, I just recap the main ideas here, in case something similar gets done some time. Regarding possible "messages to convey": I talked to Soothing Sands about it; the goal here is not to add nor alter any meaning to the locations—the scene drawing itself and the poem in it suffice (and I don't grasp many of them anyway, that would be a tad pretentious)—, but just to immerse the player more in the game. And why not make you pause longer in such or such location because of the relaxing feeling it inspires … or the opposite. So I've been using:[list] [*]YouTube links only. Those found in e.g. [url="http://naturesoundsfor.me/"]http://naturesoundsfor.me/[/url] are great but a bit repetitive after you heard them a lot. I noticed a more advanced sound mixer at [url="http://www.ambient-mixer.com/"]http://www.ambient-mixer.com/[/url], but the mixer is heavier and takes time to load. YouTube videos (hidden, so you just hear the sounds) are a nice compromise in my opinion. [*]"Continuous" sounds, i.e. if you move from one location to another and the sound played here is the same, then the video doesn't restart, it just keeps playing. [*]Up to two videos playing simultaneously: a "global" one that covers a whole land, keeping the sound transitions smooth as described above; and a "local" one for scene-specific objects (e.g. streams, burning torches, etc.). [/list] All are relatively neutral and unobtrusive sounds. The list I've been using so far (outdoor only): "Global" sounds: [url="http://youtu.be/nxj4yhoOTN4"]Marind's Bell[/url], [url="http://youtu.be/x_lfcwO03xI"]Loreroot[/url], [url="http://youtu.be/PsXxQZrl_qM"]Underground[/url], [url="http://youtu.be/d47zR5rXDsc"]Storm Coast[/url], [url="http://youtu.be/eEFG6lk5xFA"]No Man's Land (north)[/url], [url="http://youtu.be/1XRkEDCNyUI"]No Man's Land (south)[/url], [url="http://youtu.be/AnlnDenJAkM"]Archives[/url] "Local" sounds: [url="http://youtu.be/ZNNIes8zUk0"]fountains[/url], [url="http://youtu.be/GX1EWDn_TCE"]creeks[/url], [url="http://youtu.be/KtXG2xzKmEg"]torches[/url], [url="http://youtu.be/8VoZVpeIL-Y"]howling wind[/url], [url="http://youtu.be/2bSwUiLmZRg"]near White Lake[/url], [url="http://youtu.be/UWFjhEYXbbU"]near Green Lake[/url] [size=2]Muuuur, let me play with sounds please :-)[/size]

Bump! Rewards updated! All participants will receive a little (or big) something! Three days left! Come on it's easy!

As I listen to all the songs myself, I realize several participants were assigned the same song. This can bias results if you want to vote for such a song, because the votes get scattered. Now it's too late for me to "normalize" duplicate entries (well I [i]can[/i] do it, but I don't [i]want[/i] to since it's badly coded ), so here is a simple solution: if you want to vote for a song that appears multiple times in a list, just vote for the first one. It should be okay if everyone does the same. Again, if you want more time to vote, just tell me !

A little change: null vote will still be possible, but won't count as a regular creature as I initially stated (first post updated). After thinking about it, it could make us systematically vote null for younger players in order to get better scores. => If you leave blank for someone, you'll score 0 for that someone. => If you don't know someone, go find that someone quickly in order to know him/her, or assume what the person is based on his/her name, or go random. Registration will be open until tomorrow evening, then you'll have two days to enter your votes. There are 39 participants so far, prepare your votes in advance!

To the more recent players: please, don't get upset if you get a majority of blank votes, as you may not be well known by many participants, especially if your character is not very talkative. Still, assigning creatures to others should be entertaining … I hope. In any case, don't hesitate to make yourself heard during the next days, so that more people get to know you!

[size=2][I have just realized the two other birthday quest topics have been moved, so I'm posting that here too—mods feel free to move as necessary][/size] The Musical Portrait game is not over, yet here is a variant already … This one is much shorter, simpler, and MD-oriented. Most people can identify themselves to one or several creatures. The goal here is to let others choose for you, and see if it matches your expectations. Perhaps this will make you think about various aspects of your own personality? [b]~ Rules ~[/b][list] [*]Participants register in a first phase; [*]Once the registration phase is over, each participant chooses one creature amongst the list of basic ones (see below) for every other participant; [*]Eventually, everyone can see what creatures have been assigned to what participant, and in what proportion. The winner is the one whose choices are closest to those of the majority (same as detailed in the [url="http://magicduel.invisionzone.com/topic/11656-your-musical-portrait/page__st__20#entry107912"]Musical Portrait post[/url], but all votes have the same weight). [*]No alt please. [*]This is still valid: [size=2][quote name='Guillak' timestamp='1333211735' post='107912']I kindly ask everyone not to try anything like team up to vote for the same songs in order to get better scores. Although the goal is to get as close as possible as the others, there are way too many songs to choose from for two people to accidentally end up with the same 60 votes. Any miraculous similarity between votes will be automatically detected.[/quote][/size] [/list] [b]~ Rewards ~[/b] Council offers rewards for the top three! I have no clue what. But I assume it's worth it! [b]~ How to start ~[/b] Use the password "Who am I" at the rope in the Paper Cabin (same as BFH). This will add your name to the list of participants, and you will be able to see the current list of participants, so you can start thinking about your choices. Registration will be open for a couple days, then you'll have until the end of the birthday to submit your entries (another clickie, or the same updated). [b]~ Creatures ~[/b] 15 families from the main lands, as displayed on [url="http://magicduel.wikia.com/wiki/The_Bestiary"]MD Wiki[/url]:[list] [*]No-Man's Land: Grasan, Barren Soul, Aramor [*]Marind's Bell: Angien, Archer, Elemental, Bird [*]Loreroot: Tree, Lorerootian Archer, Knator, Water Being, Toxicodendrite [*]Necrovion: Unholy Priest, Tormented Soul [*]Golemus Golemicarum: Drachorn [*](BLANK): null vote is possible, and is selected by default. If you leave it as is, you will score 0 for that participant. [/list] Clickies were not much tested, so if you see anything strange, please tell me …

Here is a little "research" quest for MD birthday:[list] [*]Choose a stair in the realm (from any scene), and describe why you chose it, why you like it or not, etc. It can be a couple words, sentences, or even pages if you feel like it. [*]Entries will be evaluated by 3 judges (Princ Rhaegar, Lashtal, and myself), and sorted according to their pertinence and originality. [/list] Rewards:[list] [*]level 5 weaken stone offered my Marvolo; [*]a protector spell stone offered by Maebius; [*]a mirror ritual spell stone offered by Lashtal; [*]a heat stone from the Fusioneers; [*]a simple (? I don't know. Surprise) weaken stone; [*]Fyrd Argentus will provide pickles as well; [*]now I have a nice load of candies donated by Rex Umbrae Killer; [*]one tea cup and some silver coins (Marvolo ++). [/list] Every entry will receive a little something! The big stones will be for the best entries though. To enter, just send an in-game message to Guillak with your entry. Entries are welcome until the end of the birthday! I will try to write a summary when it's over. Edit: updated rewards and judges

[size=5][i][b]Part 2[/b][/i][/size] Now is time to select the best songs, as well as the best portrayers! [b]~ Rules ~[/b][list] [*]Only those who participated in the first part can vote. That's 60 people. [*]For each participant, you choose amongst his/her list of songs the one that best portrays him/her. Keep in mind that this is not about your musical taste, nor even the participant's, but how [i]you[/i] see the character. Avoid systematically vote for the songs the participant put in his/her papers, or posted in the mood panel, or once said he/she likes … [*]You can't vote for a song you assigned in the first part. [*]All participants will score points according to their votes. The songs you have assigned during first part do NOT count. Consider the second part a new game: everyone has the same chances to win. You will get one partial score for each participant, which amounts to the percentage of people who voted for the same song as you. Your global score will then be the average of all your partial scores, weighted by the number of songs assigned to each participant (the more songs a participant has received, the more difficult and the more it counts). If you don't choose a song for a participant, the corresponding partial score is 0% of course. [/list] [color=#696969][b][i]Example:[/i][/b] [i]Song list for Player I:[/i][/color][list] [*][color=#696969]Song 1 (40% of people voted for this one)[/color] [*][color=#696969]Song 2 (25%)[/color] [*][color=#696969]Song 3 (20%)[/color] [*][color=#696969]Song 4 (15%)[/color] [/list] [color=#696969][i]Song list for Player II:[/i][/color][list] [*][color=#696969]Song A (60%)[/color] [*][color=#696969]Song B (40%)[/color] [/list] [color=#696969]If I vote for Song 3 (for Player I) and Song A (for player II), my global score will be (20x4 + 60x2)/(4+2) = 33.3%[/color] In other words: you get more points if your votes are close to that of the majority, i.e. if you really vote for the best songs. I hope. [b]~ Rewards ~[/b] So far:[list] [*]1 Morph [*]1 Wishpoint (thank you Rhaegar ) [*]1 Santa (thank you Sasha ) [*]All sponsors welcome! [/list] Assuming I have more rewards to give: the participant with the highest score will choose his/her reward, then the second best will choose amongst the remaining ones, etc. I kindly ask everyone not to try anything like team up to vote for the same songs in order to get better scores. Although the goal is to get as close as possible as the others, there are way too many songs to choose from for two people to accidentally end up with the same 60 votes. Any miraculous similarity between votes will be automatically detected. I participate myself, but I won't take any reward of course if I manage to get high scores (I won't calculate any score before the end anyway, so I'm as blind as you all). [b]~ List of songs ~[/b] All-in-one for public offline "reading", very similar to that in the clickie: [attachment=3700:MusicalPortraits.html] The file is large, it might take some time to load all images. As I said in my previous post, I replaced all empty descriptions by the actual song title. Hopefully I didn't make any mistake. Some participants received very few songs, mainly due to their late arrival in the game, or simply due to their low age, so they are not well known yet. May those few songs make you want to meet them! Warning: there are [b]755[/b] songs. Even if you don't aim for the first place, try to vote for as many people as possible, as it will make everyone's score more accurate. The goal is to vote for the best portraits, so you don't have to listen to the songs in their entirety; there are several private jokes in there. Don't worry, you'll have plenty of time. Due to the unstable nature of YouTube links, there are still a couple broken ones, and others might appear in the future. I will update the list every time a broken link is fixed (currently still PM-ing participants about it), and announce it here (see edits at the end of the post). [b]~ How to start ~[/b] Same as for the first part: "musical portrait" in the Oak Log at Awiiya's Way. The clickie has been updated and allows those who participated in the first part to select the best song for each participant. You can change your votes at leisure. If you notice bugs or anything strange, PM me etc. [b]~ About the end ~[/b] Since the number of songs is large, I propose to make this part last for one month, so that everyone has enough time to vote. We will make it longer if necessary. I will then display the list of songs again, along with the percentage of people who voted for each one. I intend to show the "authors" of the best songs as well, say the 20% best. Let's see how many participants managed to properly portray themselves! Eventually, for transparency, if someone wants to view the complete list of who voted for what, just tell me and I'll show it. I won't make it public though. [quote name='SageWoman' timestamp='1333060288' post='107795'] This is all I could find for myself. What think you? [/quote] I vote for it! [size=2]Edit 1:[/size] [size=2]+1 WP by Rhaegar[/size] [size=2]Edit 2: [/size][size=2]-1 broken link for Zleiphneir[/size] [size=2]Edit 3: -1 country-blocked link for Maebius[/size] [size=2]Edit 4: -1 broken/country-bocked/private link for Brulant, Esmaralda, Kiley, Maitreyi Devi, Marvolo, and Xcercses[/size] [size=2]Edit 5: -1 [/size][size=2]broken/country-bocked link for Rumi, [/size][size=2]Maitreyi Devi, and Marvolo[/size]

How about letting everyone compete again, even those who already won the contest, but with huge handicaps? The more times you win, the higher the handicap when you gather heads. Or you can even have one to begin with, e.g. all stats halved for every time you have won (so if you win 3 times, you only have 1/8 of your stats). Same for the reward: you don't get any new medal, but just the stat bonus, which is divided in the same manner. In short: the more you win, the more challenging the contest and the smaller the reward.

Since nobody asked for extra time, part one will stop in one week, as planned ([color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Saturday, march 31th). There is little time left, so the clickie won't accept new participants anymore. C[/font][/color][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]urrent participants are encouraged to continue assigning songs until next week, as the latest participants haven't received as many as others.[/font][/color] A couple more precisions regarding part 2:[list] [*]Please make sure that none of the video links you have assigned is broken. Some videos tend to disappear from YouTube, due to copyrights etc. You can check them just by looking at the video thumbnails in the clickie. [*]The "title/description" field will be used to list all the songs. Many are currently empty; if you don't know what to write, please just put the actual song title. This is just to make the song list friendlier. I will do it myself if some descriptions remain empty, but the less I have to do, the better [*]Don't forget to assign a song to yourself if you haven't yet! [/list] Edit: added last bullet.

Happy birthday Brewlant!