Contest...?

I've been thinking we should hold a contest to try and boost activity and interest in the forum, but I have no idea how to go about it in a forum setting. Or what the prizes would be....
Any ideas?

Good idea The forum seems to go through periods of a reasonable amount of activity and then hardly any at all. Would be good to do something to keep people checking back and something else other than the rp to have fun with.
I don't really have any good ideas though. All I can think of are art or writing competitions.
For a laugh we could do best or most amusing MS Paint drawing of a selected canon character heh
Not sure about prizes...maybe we don't need any? Just other fun things to do?
I'm no use, sorry!

It's okay, this is sort of where I'm having trouble too.

I'm sure we'll be able to come up with something fun.

I was thinking of something....

I don't know if you want to do a fic contest, but here's my idea anyway:

Each person uses their RP character and picks another player's RP Character. Then (from a list) they pick one of the missions from the game (I think there could be a "scavving trip" or some such on there too) and they write it out. The contest part is to see how well the author captures the other player's character. In that way, the other player will have to judge (since it is their character) and that way the whole community gets involved on every level of the contest.

it needs work, but it's an idea...

Yeah I like that. Or it could just be a list of words that people can choose from to use as a theme.

There's still the question of a prize though... As fun as it may be, if there isn't an awesome reward I can't imagine many people jumping on board.

Ooooor, we use your idea and go with the quests maybe the winner's entry is added to continuity?
We could make a rule that people can ask the players of the characters they're using no more than 3 questions about said characters...
I like this. I will continue to brain storm.
I wonder if we could work an art contest into it too...?

The contest could be two parts, like: you have to draw a scene from the story you write? that way you not only have to capture the written personality of the character, but their physical appearance as well. (I know that several people have close or actual pictures of their characters but... still...)

Hmm... could work, could work...

This all sounds good to me, although I'd be a bit paranoid about taking someone else's character and writing/drawing them. I'd be worried about messing it up badly. I'd still give it a go though, would be interesting to see how everyone interprets each others characters.

That sounds awesome! I'll screw up someone else's character with my own interpretation any day! And I do like to draw.

I'm thinking it will end up being a list of words for people to choose from and they write a fun little (or serious, which ever) drabble or draw a comic (or regular art if you're awesome enough to capture your ideas in one frame) involving their character and any other OC. You can ask the other player as many questions as you like to learn about their character, but try to avoid questions like "What would he/she do if someone said ---- to them?" etc....

I've got the points system up and running, and I've discovered a way to award points to people so I'd like to use that for the prizes. Now I just need to figure out how the points can be used. Since the characters are really freeform it's doesn't really work to use the points to award in game benefits (although I'm sure there are some if I think about it enough.) So I'm thinking the points will be used to earn things you can't have at the moment (ie. Extra companion if you already have one, additional accounts if you already have 3, access to the Super Mutant race, etc...)

I've also figured out a way to add special little titles to everyone (aka Ranks). The titles you have at the moment relate to the number of posts you've made (over 25, over 50, etc...) but that can be replaced with a custom one. I'm thinking I'll use this if anyone does something really awesome (Kills several Behemoth's, completes a lot of quests, etc...) but it could also be used for contest winners. Maybe whoever wins (or maybe the top 3) get to come up with their own awesome title?

I'm also trying to figure out how people can win the contest. Sure, the player of the OC you borrow gets a say in how well you do, but if everyone does good then... yanno? Maybe the borrowed player judges the entry and then everyone votes for their favorite?

PS: If anyone has any input for the Ranks and Points please share over here. Thanks! <3