Prizes Pending! If you're one of the winners, you'll see a note posted in game to you, shortly, with details of your prizes.

First Tier Winners

Vhergruhl - I really enjoyed this role. Nice creative spin on a battle guy.
Beneb - Really good role...the "ghost" angle was a neat twist.
Beaubril - I think this might have been the best written role...really enjoyable read.

Second Tier Winners

Elemek - It's a good role...but the consequences (evil?) seemed forced.
Ferrod - I might be a sucker for the good rager story, but I really enjoyed this, too.
Mourie - Really interesting concept for a good character.

Third Tier Winners

Llorenz - Good intro role with background. I can't believe you used the word darkelfyness.
Turas - Very Clever Spin
Batu - Good Empire role!



If I noted you as 'good basic role' below, be proud! That means it was a good role and exactly how I want the role contest to be used.


Jaliph - Good set of role entires to set a character up. I was sad that nothing happened between rank 1 and 35 to "grow" the character.
Valryk - Not bad, but kind of minimal.
Gatusso - Pretty good role...but how is this at all related to your cabal choice?!
Clarisandrie - Won Sept (see HELP ROLE CONTEST)
Perdray - Good Basic Role
Tirrael - Good solid role in the 'this is my god' 'this is my class' 'this is my cabal' way...I wish more roles covered these basics
Neyveryd - I really liked the first entry, but then the others didn't grab me and overall I really wanted more fleshing out of the character
Marty - Ok basic role, but man am I having a really hard time getting over the names "marty" and "jenny"...fantasy game, dude!
Nistyr - Very basic beginning of a role
Yrillbink - Things fall off, blah blah blah.
Naion - Ok start, not much meat here yet.
Kathiva - good role...lust / daevryn
Visuval - I do not understand your second chapter. Alternate identity? Mysterious twin? Please remember we're not in your head and these "leaps" between role points really need explaining.
Oekaun - DISQUALIFIED. Role chapters all added after contest announcement.
Dumbin - Basic Role (could really benefit from some formatting)
Isynsor - Reasonably good battle role
Sananto - Good Battle Role - Nexus lightning blast
Ffolliott - Really Good Basic Role
Brollos - Good Outlander Role
Fobrin - Good Basic Role. Background on your RP for the char...some updates, etc.
Zanbatou - Good Thiefy role
Avrek - Won Sept (see HELP ROLE CONTEST)
Durzan - Holy Long Role, batman!
Merenwin - Ok intro/basic role
Gorg - Hi, I'm a U turn between cabal A and cabal B.
Turjuk - Pretty good ranger role...but what's up with the race prompt in the middle? (not something I would count off for, just funny)
Drahmim - Good Basic Role
Ashirak - Good Basic Role
Hulgur - Good Basic Role
Arlanthalus - Basic Intro Role
Aarindehl - Check out role formatting, yo!
Adina - Good Basic Role
Jhuutr - Short Basic Role
Harldren - Short Basic Role
Darascus - Very Good Basic Role
Anponrus - Good Basic Role and good use of story / notes
Gurbek - Good Orc Role!
Arengel - Good Basic Role
Rywald - DISQUALIFIED - after deadline
Raatok - DISQUALIFIED - after deadline
Teutonium - DISQUALIFIED - after deadline
Sanil - DISQUALIFIED - after deadline
Rioko - DISQUALIFIED - after deadline
Lerikdas - DISQUALIFIED - after deadline
Kiraan - DISQUALIFIED - after deadline
Iljenia - DISQUALIFIED - after deadline

NT

For those who disqualified as per after deadline, can they submit for the next role contest? Assuming that they haven't won anything yet.

Yup. No reason you can't apply to the next.

I am going for a different feel with this role than I have ever tried. If it seems confusing that I use npc's that are in the game, sorry for that. I wanted to do something more grounded in CF's backdrop rather than completely made up.

Curious...did you like that approach, or does it seem odd?

I always thought I was a terrible role writer, and never put much effort into it. My main aim was to get my point across without boring you too much.

This my first RC entry and it has definately given my confidence a boost, I'll put even more effort into future roles.

Thanks again.

Few questions:
Elemek - It's a good role...but the consequences (evil?) seemed forced.

1) Can I email or speak to you about the (evil?) thing or should I explain the reasons for it more in my role?

2) As I was not an overall winner but a 2nd tier winner can I continue with the role and enter another contest or is that it?

Thank you again.

>Few questions:
>Elemek - It's a good role...but the consequences (evil?)
>seemed forced.
>
>1) Can I email or speak to you about the (evil?) thing or
>should I explain the reasons for it more in my role?
>
>2) As I was not an overall winner but a 2nd tier winner can I
>continue with the role and enter another contest or is that
>it?
>
>Thank you again.
>

I don't really see a point of #1. I clearly thought it was a good role. It was just the one slightly distracting point I found reading it - so I left my note in as commentary (understand I haven't *watched* your character at all to see how the role ends up getting played out.) So, keep in mind my comment is only in the 'while reading it I didn't get the "evolving" character ending up evil given the steps in the story, word choices of the author, etc.' vein. As for email - I really don't like discussing characters in an OOC way while the character is still active.

As for #2, see Daev's post below. I'd tell you to go ahead and enter and let the judge of the next one decide that.

Dang, I though there was still at least a day till the deadline when I wrote the note...
Oh well.

I lose simply because I have a well fleshed out role with a purpose and continued moving storyline?
Meh.

No offense, but this kind of thing is why I'm reluctant to provide commentary when I run a RC. I don't mind the time spent giving my opinion, but I'd rather do something else than spend the obligatory time to sanitize my opinion to make sure someone's not going to be pissed off about it or take it the wrong way.

Fortunately, RayBaer is nicer than I am and is generally willing to volunteer to clean up my "WTF does this role even mean? This doesn't make any sense at all"s into "We found this role hard to follow"s.

I asked for a reason my role was rejected on the basis of being to long and this is the answer you have Nep.

Not only was my question NOT directed at you, but honestly nep do you follow me around everywhere trying to get me to flame you, or is it just a part time hobby cause I'm getting way tired of it.

Lose the grudge dude, or you guys will just be down yet another player.

I don't know who the #### you are, or why you think you're important enough for me to stalk that way. Regardless, I assure you you're not.

If you want a serious answer, ask a serious question. Post a snotty sarcastic reply, maybe you get a response of the form "see, we don't like to do things that draw snotty sarcastic replies."

The venom you hold is just in general to everyone on the mud? Because seriously, you might as well be playing a thief lugging around a merc and full saccing everyone you kill, the result is the same. People say bleeeeh.

I asked a "real" question, it was a little irate yes because I feel like thats a "This is too long I don't feel like even trying to read this" rather than I read it and didn't understand it.

If thats a problem in communication then try and polish it up, considering text is the only way you communicate with us players anyway. Of course I'm a little miffed, but trying to brush me off like I'm unimportant is largely the cause of our rapidly shrinking playerbase.
Players are important to CF, sometimes we get a little snotty and whiney sure. The answer is not act like a giant turd sandwich in response, especially with waning player trust in imms.

If you didn't like my answer, this forum is moderated you didn't even need to post this unless of course your trying to out my character and allow OOC feelings press on me ingame, as some sort of snotty little revenge.




As for the rest, I figured you'd say that.
Imm policy is to first deny it ever happened, then maybe look into it if it won't make you look bad. And if it turns out to make you look bad, bury it. Even if its blatent cheating.
So of course you'd deny any sort of stalking of who plays what that'd be cheating that was just a semi-baseless jab because of your snide response.

There was no venom in my first response. If you saw some there, that's you bringing something to the table that's not there. Was there some venom after that? Of course. Your post was insulting and, if I'm being honest, completely insane.

(Now, I know who you are. I honestly took you to be the guy who was banned from Dio's today, and I probably owe that guy an apology for assuming that.)

#### if I can even remember if I've fought with you on other threads, but going just based on this one, it seems like you want to be able to be as big of a jackass as you want and generally have me be polite and accomodating in response. That's not happening. It doesn't benefit me personally if you specifically are happy, sad, angry, or on fire. CF is something I, like most of us, do for fun. Turning the other cheek when you're being a jerk is not fun for me, not even in a sacreligious way. However, there's also too much good stuff going on in the rest of my life for me to ever care enough about a surly player to stalk or particularly plot against them. There just aren't enough hours in the day.

Dial your jackass-ometer down from 11 to a nice comfortable 3 or 4 like most of the players and you'll be treated accordingly.

... a pissing match cause he didn't like how his role was recieved. It's a superiority issue. Based on the fact that he's one of the best writers of this age and time he probably should have won. Cause out of about thirty some roles his had to be teh l33tz0rest ####z of them all.

From his ORIGINAL post, you can see that he is miffed about losing, but then tries to play it off as if he didn't care by offering a resigned "Meh". In reality, if he truly felt this way, he wouldn't have posted jack #### in the first place. Then you can tell that he doesn't like you (Daevryn) because he immediately turns hostile towards you and brings out of discussion beef into play immediately. Personally I think that you were pretty polite, and if you had said it any other way that it wouldn't have been true to yourself, instead turning into an ass kissing boo-boo fixer, which is why I respect the post and the mud.

If we lose this guy as a player because he didn't get his way... good ####ing riddance because I, myself, won't even notice the absence of the whiny, belly aching, I should win cause I'm special attitude.

"I asked a "real" question"

"I lose simply because I have a well fleshed out role with a purpose and continued moving storyline?" is not a real question.

It's like when your wife asks 'Does my bum look big in this?'

or

'Do you find her attractive?'

Loaded questions!

You "lose" because your role wasn't good enough quality to win the contest and Cyradia was too nice to say it and decided to comment on the length of the role instead. Could be that too. The people who had "Good Basic Role" didn't win either, but is it reasonable to think that they didn't because they had a good role?

You lost because there were at least 9 people with better roles than yours. That said, my comment only means I'm suggestiong that in future roles you consider the adage: "quality, not quantity."

Nobody said you were disqualified...you assumed that.

Since I was clearing being a jerk.

My question is what does length have to do with quality, and why is it even mentioned when it hardly has anything at all to do with judging the contest, by your own admition.

If length isn't the issue, don't mention it then. I don't enter competetions so I can get the same general answer as everyone else just to appease me, I want either "Yes you won" Or "No, you lost and this is why" I can handle constructive critsism, I strongly dislike vagueries spouted simply to shut me up.

And, if you don't like the ####ty way my role is formatted, why don't you guys do more than saying what a great idea having a formatter on the offical page and do something with it.



Nice Graatch move, Nep.
last word last word last word!!!!!!!!!!!

You're really an asshole.

I haven't had a damn thing to do with this RC (except not winning it, either). But you're an asshole.

It's funny you say something about Nep pulling a "Graatch move" because your sense of entitlement on this whole topic is eerily reminiscent of the whole Marbeliel thread.

You didn't win because your role wasn't as good as others.
Part of the reason your role wasn't as good as others was the fact that it was so long, unnecessarily.

That's how I read Cyradia's post.

Stop being an asshole.

Just because you put a question mark on the end of a sentence does not mean the sentence is a valid question.

You are making a statement. And, what's more, is that you are doing it in a snide, bitchy way. If I were giving a speech at a job meeting and someone said something like that, I'd probably smack them down (gently at the meeting, and then brutally when I got them alone). Here, no one has to be gentle with you, so don't complain when they asplode all over you in response.

I'm pretty sure the char wasn't even created until after the announcement was made. Any way you can double check that for me? I don't think I should earn a DQ for being created after the fact.

Oh, and if I am wrong about that, sorry to bother.

>I'm pretty sure the char wasn't even created until after the
>announcement was made.



Um...yeah, that's a huge part of your problem. As mentioned in the role contest note, please make sure to read HELP ROLE CONTEST.

I think your question would be answered in rule #2...


2. Only role entries that were added BEFORE the time stamp of the contest note will be judged. Contests are run to reward characters that were already utilizing the role feature, not to create a frenzy of role entries after the fact.


The fact that your character wasn't created until after the contest note makes it even worse. The idea behind the role contests are to reward characters that are already using the role command, not to get a frenzy of role writing once the carrot is already in sight.

First, thanks for taking the time to read all these. I've graded enough student essays through the years to know what the chore is like.

Second, a question: do roles have to have some kind of unusual twist to them to get 'noticed' enough to win? I'm not asking to be critical, just to try and understand what the judges are looking for, accounting for differences in judges' tastes. I had fun writing mine regardless of any prizes (or lack thereof) but if I'm writing one for the future, I'd like to know what it takes to stand out in the eyes of the judges.

Last, I'm guessing basic means the role contains the necessary story line to understand the character and motivation, just not anything quirky enough to move above that label. Or is it writing style and story telling that's just basic?

Thanks

I'm afraid I don't have good answers to your questions...except that it's very subjective. It's like trying to describe a piece of art that grabs you. I throw out a LOT of roles for being too quirky or bending the "fantasy world rules" that we have in place. For example, one of my pet peeves is a role that claims some kind of immortal/demon heritage. Um, no, you're a mortal...deal with it. Other judges might love the story.

I tend to like a believable story that is fun to read and offers an interesting reason for this character to have chosen the path that he/she did. That's not to say that a decent 'my father was a paladin and now I want to be a paladin, so there...yay team good!' isn't worthwhile...but that's not going to make the cut of roles that stand out. Also, while I'm not "grading" roles and I'm not looking for typos and grammar...there's a LOT to be said for a readable role. Spelling, grammar, and nice formatting all help to not distract from getting your message across. Keep in mind the judge is usually reading circa 40 roles...many of them are at least 5 healthy chapters long.

To me, what makes the role stand out and make it's way to the winner's circle is almost always a combination of idea and delivery. I've seen roles where the concept was great, but pulling the concept out of the jumbles of sentences was painful. I've seen roles that were full of fluff, but just really well written (think mediocre fantasy book that's a super easy read and keeps you turning pages.) My favorites are when the two combine.

Now, ALL of that said...I get other imms to help me put together the prize packages, and every single time one or more of them says something like, 'I can't BELIEVE you picked this as a winner.' and 'This role was awesome and didn't even make your first cut list, what gives?' That is the EXACT reason I love a variety of judges from contest to contest. I don't want to make sure I'm following some clear cut set of rules to pick my winners. I want to have fun reading roles...pick a handful that move me, and trust that the variety of imms gives every style a chance to shine.

Out of curiosity, should I not have bothered entering this month, as you cited my last month's win as sort of a DQ'er? The rules state *generally* we can't win again.. are there cases that you can think of that WOULD allow a contest winner to win again? (this question can go to any judge of a role contest, BTW, not just you, Cyradia.)

Also, any comments at all about the role since last month? What would your opinion had been had I not entered in September?

Avrek

>Out of curiosity, should I not have bothered entering this
>month, as you cited my last month's win as sort of a DQ'er?
>The rules state *generally* we can't win again.. are there
>cases that you can think of that WOULD allow a contest winner
>to win again? (this question can go to any judge of a role
>contest, BTW, not just you, Cyradia.)

This is something we've been talking about recently.

The tradition for a while now has been that if you win, any chapters that were valid for your win can't be considered for future contests. In practice, this has pretty much disqualified previous winners -- a lot of the best roles often start with one or two brilliant chapters with subsequent chapters being much less polished. (Not saying this is what we'd love to see, just, the way things tend to go from most of the roles I've seen.)

Now we're sort of thinking, maybe if you win that should just be it. You could still get more imm XP for your role, get custom rewards based on doing a good job playing your role as written / conveying changes in your updates, but not for writing more role in a vacuum. (I try to factor in how well people play their role when I judge a RC, but even in that case the role as written is the biggest factor in winning, and for many judges it's the only factor.) The idea being, hey, you've gotten this pretty cool reward for excelling at this aspect in the game, now go out and excel in some other aspect as well if you want more goodies -- lead a cabal, get a tattoo, be a standout RPer / PKer / explorer, etc. I think that makes a certain amount of sense.

The question that I think is still up in the air and may or may not end up being one of those 'depends on who's running the contest' things is what constitutes a win. First place or first tier or the equivalent in anyone's contest pretty clearly does; honorable mention in contests where it's just a small immXP or edge credit or a train reward probably isn't. What about something like the honorable mention in most of my/Rayihn's contests or the second tier in this contest, where those characters are getting some kind of special reward custom to their role/character, but not as good as a first prize? I don't know. I can argue that either way.

For the record, I fully agree with Daev's post. Most importantly the paragraph starting "Now we're sort of thinking..."

Wow. I thought I might be able to get honorable mention or something, but I never would have guessed for first tier.

Thanks a lot for taking out the time to run this.

PS, the prizes are amazing.

I thought your prizes were really amazing too. Not NEARLY as amazing as rage deleting a few hours after winning them though. Holy hell...THAT is amazing.

That's called forcing myself to take a break for a day or two before I get _really_ angry and actually delete.

Well, posted my thank you under the wrong thread. So I'll stick with it. Thank you!