PXR Summer Event

[HKim]

Greetings Friends!

I hope you're all excited for Pokemon Sun and Moon! I know I am. Also the third version of the game will be Pokemon Star(s). That's not news, but my prediction. But I figured I'd go ahead an say it first.

Anyway, before all of that happens, we'll have the 2016 Summer Break and you know what that means!

Pokemon with way too much time on their hands. (Except Me and Other People)


Seriously though, March is usually the time of the year we begin to start figuring out what we want to do. It may seem early now, but June arrives sooner than you know. More importantly, we'll need that time because we have a lot to talk about.


In terms of logistics and organization, the War event last year was great. Everything proceeded smoother than normal, we didn't have any serious section breakdowns or lost judges and managed to finish things on time. Probably one of the best managed seasons ever.

That being said, the War was also the source of a lot of drama and arguments as well. While the events may have went without much of a hitch, the discussions regarding it all was full of a lot of issues. Too many fires, not enough water.

I think the problem is that the War, as a concept, isn't what works for this community. It was a great idea for Pe2K and served as a great source of entertainment there, but this is not Pe2K and what applied then does not apply now. We simply have changed as a community and that's a good thing! If we had not changed, we'd be destined for the same fate as the fateful ship.

I believe everyone is in favor of having a major event during the summer. Now what we need to figure out is what we're going to do. If not the War, then what?


That's what this thread is for: to figure things out. In the early years of the War, we used to create this kind of idea thread early on so we could hash things out. The truth was, we didn't know what the War was going to look like or how it would work, so we needed everyone's ideas and inputs. And as people replied and commented, we put together what would be an enduring legacy. The War was not the design of a single individual or even a group of people, but by the entire community.

We need to do so again now. This Summer, let us hold a new kind of event that continues to embrace the whole community. Let us put our heads together and think of a new way to have fun and enjoy each other's company. Let us talk and discuss innovative ideas and figure out ways to implement them. Nothing is sacred and everything can be considered!

It's time to create a new tradition for our community, one that everyone can enjoy and celebrate.


Friends, in this thread, I'd like to ask you to think about what you want to see. I want you to post your ideas of what might involved in this event. Let us innovate and let us develop what will be our Summer Event, for only we can determine what we might enjoy.

Let us begin.

[Coru]

I think something like a Festival will work best where there will be events in each section along with forum wide events. Forum wide events could include scavenger hunts that hide specific items (Images that would be edited into posts around the forum) such as certain pokemon items like mega stones etc and a thread would be created where there will be something like 2 or 3 hidden each week of the event and riddles would be posted weekly hinting at where we have hidden them. We could then hand out badges for people who found them all. We could also do pokemon giveaways if we are able to and do puzzles like crosswords like we did for our valentines day event.

I'm not sure what other sections could do, but Artist's Easel could host events such as art/pixel/writing contests and also collaborations with the intent to have one huge piece of work where all the community has helped create. Obviously there will need to be guidelines so it doesn't become chaotic and people argue over what they want to do or if they think it is a good idea. We could even host mini events such as daily drawings where a description is given each day and people have to draw it however they imagine it so many different images will be created from one thing and everyone can then comment and give tips and they could be rated by the community and everyone who manages to do this for each description would get a badge.

If we are not going to have the WAR system where we have teams where we gather points to win, I think we need to utilize the badge system more and decide on different rewards to make everything seem worthwhile and more interactive.

[Neo Emolga]

CV, I see your idea, but check this out, we could incorporate something like that into this.

So, I decided to comb through last year's WAR Discussion threads to get a better idea of what people would like. Since we're scrapping the entire WAR, I don't think too much focus on point distribution really matters. In fact, I'm trying to shoot for ideas where points aren't involved. Anyway, the basic gist I got from it was this is what most people would like:

• Teams that are smaller, but evened out. I'm going to say 3-5 seems like a fair number and was what most people seemed to want.
• More time for submissions. One week for everything all at once is too much.
• More judges involved. Preferably, a panel of judges.
• Not have everything going on at once, save for a few exceptions. Kind of like the Olympics.
• Scoring revision. Modify or remove scoring entirely.

I think I might have brought up this idea before, but whatever, I'll bring it up again.

THE PXR GYM LEAGUE

Back in PE2K days, a member named Dani (I have no idea where she is now or how to properly give her credit...) came up with a neat Gym League idea where people create Gyms as teams, all with a theme and all that jazz. Dani made a gym, found people to be her gym trainers, and said if you could beat two of her trainers in art, writing, battling, whatever, and then beat her, you'd get a neat little badge that you had the right to display in your profile, sig, and so on.

We could easily do this same kind of thing here at PXR, and it checks on all five of the above bullets. Now, I've put in some of my own modifications here, but the idea is generally the same.

Anyone can create a Gym, but as a Gym Leader, you need to be open to several areas. Making GCEA or ASB your only challenge areas isn't quite fair to people who aren't in those things, but want to try and earn your gym's badge. Also, your gym can have 3 to 5 people in it. No more, no less. It's your job to defend your gym against all incoming challengers.

QUICK RUNDOWN OF HOW IT WORKS:

Let's say Harry the Epic Bulbasaur wants to challenge the Banana Fiesta Gym, which has Rocky Balboa as the Gym Leader, and has three trainers, Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. To get to Rocky, Harry has to beat at least two of his trainers, which can be Alvin and Simon, Alvin and Theodore, or Simon and Theodore. Any combination of two from those three. Harry chooses to battle Simon, and Simon's selected areas of expertise are spriting, creative writing, drawn art, and URPG. Harry beats Simon in a URPG battle, a URPG ref verifies the victory, no voting is necessary. So now he's 1 for 2.

Next, he wants to battle Theodore, who has his selected areas of expertise in GCEA, ASB, creative writing, and spriting. Harry selects spriting as the field of battle, but Theodore gets to choose the subject matter. Theodore chooses that both of them make a sprite of Pidgeot, and both of them have two weeks to make a sprite. Both Pidgeot sprites are sent to a League Official, who makes a new poll thread where it has something like "Banana Fiesta Gym Trainer Challenge - Harry VS Theodore - [Spriting]." The League Official posts both sprites, but no one knows which one is Harry's and which one is Theodore's. Only the League Official knows. Anyone besides Harry and Theodore is allowed to vote, and they vote on which one they think is the best. After a week (poll closes after a week), the results are tallied, and Harry is the winner!

Harry now goes on to face Rocky Balboa, the Gym Leader of the Banana Fiesta Gym, who has his specialties as drawn art, graphic art, RP creation, and creative writing. Harry chooses RP creation, but Rocky declares that they both make a fantasy, non-Pokémon RP. In two weeks, they send their RP sign ups to a League Official. The League Official creates a new poll thread: "Banana Fiesta Gym Leader Challenge - Harry VS Rocky Balboa [RP Creation]" and puts both RPs up, but no one knows which one is Harry's and which one is Rocky's. They vote, and in a week, they like Harry's the best! It's up to Harry if he wants to actually run the RP, or donate it to the RP board for someone else to use. Rocky is free to run his as well if he really wants to.

Now that Harry has won, he gets a Banana Fiesta Gym badge token in his profile. He could also put the same token (or a smaller version of it) in his sig or as a profile postbit.

And bingo, there you go. Harry can now go challenge other gyms, all while also belonging to a gym of his own. Now, if Harry had lost one of his gym battles against a trainer, he could challenge them in something else, or switch to another trainer to challenge. He could also pick another area to challenge them in. He could also challenge a trainer/leader in this gym and a trainer/leader in another gym at the same time.

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That's the basic idea of it.

Teams are smaller, and two weeks is plenty of time for people to people to get stuff done. People can also say "hey, I've got two people challenging me already, I can't take on any more." That's fine. Or you can be put on temporary hiatus if you need to go on vacation.

Also, the whole rest of the forum can be your judging panel. Anyone can hop in and say "hey, that's a cool sprite, I'm voting on that" even if they're not a spriting expert. Also, trainers and challengers can take on as much or as little as they want. They're not pushed to DO EVERYTHING AT ONCE in a week for four weeks! Also, no points involved! You simply beat the trainer/leader, or you try again with something else.

So yeah, I'm curious to know if other people think this would be a cool idea to try.

[EmeraldSky]

What about a forumwide adventure, where every section had a role to play in furthering a storyline, like a mystery or a treasure hunt? That way everyone can participate, with prizes involved when the storyline reaches its end.

To use the treasure hunt idea as an example, Art can actually draw the map, Writers can build the world, help the admins write the story and flesh out the storyline, and so on.

[Severin]

Neo Emolga's idea sounds really cool, and it would let loads of people participate while letting them get better at something like spriting or writing, so it'd be productive for the people involved, too!

[Chakramaster]

Neo's idea sound great, but there has to be a way to make the team's fair. Depending on the number of people joining and limit on slots per team. I don't think letting the team leader choose just who joins would be good. Teams might be uneven or have a large group try to join one team but most have to be denied. It sounds like a very great idea to work on though! Definitely leaves for little complaints (not that there were really any to begin with). I'll spend some time and try and think up some more things to maybe throw out there.

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

I like that idea a lot, Neo. It would be cool to earn badges! :) Every team could design their own and maybe we could get someone to make nice sprites of them that can be collected in the postbit during the event.

I think the limit of 5 per team should satisfy people. I think we should let people form their own teams rather than drafting or anything though. It's much more fun if you get to be on a team with your friends IMO! And really, you're just playing for little sprites. Hopefully there won't be any drama. xD

I think there could be an issue with people challenging certain members more than others. For example, Bob might be known to be better in certain areas, so everyone challenges Miriam instead because Bob is too hard to defeat. Maybe instead of selecting who you get to challenge in each gym, you just challenge the gym as a whole, state what area you want to challenge in (drawing, RP, GCEA etc.) and then any of the gym trainers can choose to accept that challenge. (Each gym should need a set number of events they will participate in. So at least they can rule out a few things like the large scale RPGs or writing in general or something that none of the trainers can do. The gym leader themselves could also have a smaller set number. It makes sense for the gyms to be a little restrictive IMO, so that they're all different!)

If each gym trainer can only have so many ongoing challenges, that ensures that one person (the most skilled person in that area or whatever) can't just take all the challenges. If no one from the gym accepted the challenge in so many hours (48 maybe) then that could be an automatic win to the challenger. This would also prevent people from refusing to take challenges because they think they would lose, prevent issues with people going inactive (because it's up to the whole gym to cover challenges not a single person) and also will encourage teams to be made from members with diverse backgrounds so they have an "expert" in every event.

Having the public vote seems like a good way to judge and since teams are small, there shouldn't be too many issues with bias.

Good one Neo. :) You have my vote!

[HKim]

If we are interested in doing some sort of organized event that is forum-wide, there are different ways of organizing things:


No Teams

This idea has been discussed before and certainly eliminates many of the aspects of team rivalries or imbalance that were part of the criticisms last year. If there are no teams, then each person participates on an individual basis and achieves what he or she sets out to do.

The drawbacks to this idea, of course, is a lack of camaraderie that we used to have. No group banners or slogans. Less cooperation in various fields. That my not necessarily be a bad thing, but it might also be missed.



Small Teams

As Neo mentioned, this idea has merit in that multiple tiny groups can exist together in which only 3 to 5 people can join before a new team is formed. More adventuring party size rather than Team Rocket size. These smaller teams spread out the talent given the size of the community and prevents huge teams from snowballing away.

The downside is, of course, that even a small team can dominate, especially if it's specialized in a single field. A team of Ash K., WinterVines, Monbrey, Synthesis, and Ataro would probably always win the URPG section. (Then again, a team with just Ash K. would probably always win the URPG section.) I'm not saying this will always happen, especially if teams attempt to diversify, but it may not solve the problem from before.



Group Affiliations

Now this idea was borne from a number of sources including Pokemon Contests, White Wolf, D&D Alignments, and other areas. Essentially, instead of a member being part of one group, they're affiliated with 3 (maybe 4) of them.

Let me explain.

No one person is one thing or another in real life. We are all Pokemon fans, but some of us are children, some of us are teenagers, some of us are young adults, and some of us are older than that. In addition, we might differ in terms of our music tastes, politics, faith, birth month, favorite color, and nationality. It's these differences that make us unique and special. It our similarities that bring us together.

So why not emphasize this aspect in our forum event?

Now I'm not saying we should divide people up by race or politics because that's just going to be terrible and even worse of a problem than before, but there are other things that are much more fun to do. Thing Harry Potter for example. If you could choose one of the four houses, which would you want to be in?

Let me take the idea further, by presenting a few example divisions. These can be used or perhaps people can come up with different ideas.


Affiliation by Source of Power

This idea is more thematic. You know how each house in Harry Potter has certain aspects? Gryffindor is for the brave people. Slytherin is for the cunning. Ravenclaw is for the smart. Hufflepuff is for everyone else. Well one example we can do is give members a similar choice.

For example: What do you think is the driving force of the world? Or how do you change things in your life?

(These groups are based on Contests and White Wolf)

Intelligence

Only through the advancement of our knowledge can we truly achieve our full potential. The answers to the world's problems rely on discoveries we have yet to make, but must make in order to move foward.

Potential Roleplaying Powers: Science or Magic


Beauty

What truly moves the soul? We believe that it is our culture and our creations that truly inspire people to greater heights. Do you cry when you hear a beautiful musical piece? Do certain works of art simply overwhelm you? Does a story engage you to the point where you cannot put it down? Art, in all its forms, is what truly engages people in ways that nothing else can.

Potential Roleplaying Powers: Enhances Senses or Illusions


Strength

In times of crisis, sometimes you need more than a pretty flower or a fancy spell. Sometimes you need to simply go out there and use your strength to change the world. We know that only through healthy living and hard work can we be the best that we can be. And when we are at our best, we can move mountains.

Potential Roleplaying Powers: Physical Abilities or Improved Durability


Influence

The world does not move on its own. Each day our decisions are affected by advertisements, opinions, suggestions, pleas, and commands. And while one person can do much, a thousand people can do much more. A single pebble can create an avalanche if it rolls down the right path. In the same way, we know that only by encouraging others to act together coherently can we accomplish major goals.

Potential Roleplaying Powers: Telepathy or Connections


Love

There are no bonds greater than the bonds of love. Not just romantic love, but also the love between family members, friends, comrades, owner and pet, and others. When you truly love someone, you care about them to the point where you'd do anything to protect them. And in doing so, we achieve things never thought possible.

Potential Roleplaying Powers: Entrancement or Second Wind

Affiliation by User Number

This idea is based on an arbitrary way of splitting everyone up evently.

Go to your forum profile. If you look at the URL, you'll notice a number. This number relates to when you joined the forum. It may be possible to create groups based on the last digit this number, which will (more or less) evenly divide people. Since this last digit is between 0 and 9 (ten numbers), you can create 2, 5, or 10 groups from this system.

There are other arbitrary ways of doing this too. By birth month, day of birth, or what day of the week you were born. By lottery. Etc.


Affiliation by Goal

I haven't thought up much on this way of division, but I imagine we could figure out a few different groups here.

Some ideas I've come up with include:

• Liberty
• Authority
• Equality
• Future

Affiliation by Alignment

This is more RP than anything, but pretty easy to do. Essentially, is your character Good, Neutral, or Evil?

Can also do expanded alignments: Lawful Good, Chaotic Good, True Neutral, Chaotic Evil, Lawful Evil.




Anyway, that's just an idea that I figured I'd throw out there into the mix. The benefit of the affiliation system is that even if you're part of one group, you're also part of others with completely different group members. And thus, some groups might do better than others. Perhaps at the end of the event, the Group of Love, the Group of Good, and the Group of Liberty all did the best. You may not be a member of all three groups, but if you were part of one of them, you win an emblem at the end of it all.

And of course, there are other ways of creating Affiliations or even implementing this idea.

It's just another way of doing things and allows for comraderie and teams while diminishing the imbalance issues.

[Neo Emolga]

Just so people know, I can't take full credit for this. Dani (Daniella Defines Divinity) was the original creator with her Lavender Gym, and I jumped on the idea and started the Pika Gym. And that was followed through with a whole League getting created when people quickly saw how much fun our two Gyms were having. I haven't spoken to her in like seven or eight years, but while the PE2K league was around, it was a ton of fun and I even still have the original Pika Gym badge!



We, of course, can use the 80 x 80 tokens as badges instead, but we can create a smaller badge version if people want to put it in their postbit (like the Valentine's Day Pokémon icons), sig, or wherever to display it proudly.

Neo's idea sound great, but there has to be a way to make the team's fair. Depending on the number of people joining and limit on slots per team. I don't think letting the team leader choose just who joins would be good. Teams might be uneven or have a large group try to join one team but most have to be denied. It sounds like a very great idea to work on though! Definitely leaves for little complaints (not that there were really any to begin with). I'll spend some time and try and think up some more things to maybe throw out there.

I don't think Gym size will be an issue. Having only five members at max is pretty limiting and makes sure the Gym doesn't have too many people as benchwarmers that don't get the chance to be challenged.

I think the limit of 5 per team should satisfy people. I think we should let people form their own teams rather than drafting or anything though. It's much more fun if you get to be on a team with your friends IMO! And really, you're just playing for little sprites. Hopefully there won't be any drama. xD

Yeah, it's not like a Gym of five people is going to take such a lion's share of members that it will be impossible to deal with. Plus, this will also ensure we get a lot of neat and unique Gyms created.

I think there could be an issue with people challenging certain members more than others. For example, Bob might be known to be better in certain areas, so everyone challenges Miriam instead because Bob is too hard to defeat. Maybe instead of selecting who you get to challenge in each gym, you just challenge the gym as a whole, state what area you want to challenge in (drawing, RP, GCEA etc.) and then any of the gym trainers can choose to accept that challenge. (Each gym should need a set number of events they will participate in. So at least they can rule out a few things like the large scale RPGs or writing in general or something that none of the trainers can do. The gym leader themselves could also have a smaller set number. It makes sense for the gyms to be a little restrictive IMO, so that they're all different!)

This is why I think it would be best if Gym Leaders and Members list at least four areas they'd be willing to take part in, as well as how many Gym Challenges they'd feel comfortable doing at once. Otherwise, like Harry said, if someone like Ash K says he's only willing to do URPG, well, I don't see too many people getting past a senior juggernaut member like that and it would make people reluctant to challenge his Gym. But if he has to list three other areas that might be a bit more of a challenge for him to take part in, it'll give challenging members more of a initiative to try to take on his gym. But if they feel spunky enough to give a URPG battle with him a shot, hey, have at it!

As for challengers only picking easier members to challenge, it's unlikely, but it will push the senior members to help guide the challenged member. In any case, it should be encouraged for people to try challenging even the experts just to try their best and to see what they cook up. I mean heck, I would love to challenge someone like Velocity or Lunar Latias in Drawn Art even though I know I'm going to be gearing up my butt to get kicked. I would still like to try my best anyway (and see what they create in response!), but even then, you never know! It's all for fun in the end and great encouragement to sharpen one's skills.

No one is going to think less of anyone if their particular Gym ends up handing out lots of badges or one particular member has a tricky time with one particular Gym. I figure the pressure will be much lighter as challengers can take on Gym Challenges at their pace that feels comfortable and works for them. If one Gym seems too hard at first, try a different one or attempt challenging the defenders at other categories! Hey, Ash certainly didn't conquer every Gym on the first try and I'm sure some of us had trouble with some Gyms in the games (Looking at you, Whitney, and your blasted Rollout Miltank!).

If each gym trainer can only have so many ongoing challenges, that ensures that one person (the most skilled person in that area or whatever) can't just take all the challenges. If no one from the gym accepted the challenge in so many hours (48 maybe) then that could be an automatic win to the challenger. This would also prevent people from refusing to take challenges because they think they would lose, prevent issues with people going inactive (because it's up to the whole gym to cover challenges not a single person) and also will encourage teams to be made from members with diverse backgrounds so they have an "expert" in every event.

I also think this would help, but yeah, it would be silly for people to start Gyms, but then refuse all challengers just to try and make their particular badge more desirable (League Officials could step in if this really gets to be a persistent issue). If the Leader is going on vacation or has reasons to be absent, then they should either put one of their Gym Trainers in charge and be the temporary Gym Leader, or if it's only for a few days, just post a notice. And I would say give them three days to respond to the challenge. Sometimes we miss things or Internet connections get fried.

Having the public vote seems like a good way to judge and since teams are small, there shouldn't be too many issues with bias.

That's the whole idea, and I think it works even better if no one knows who made which entry. No bias!

THE ONLY DRAWBACKS OF THIS IDEA

Yeah, this idea isn't perfect, and these are a few of the things we would need to give up and consider.

No team-based RP - It's easy to make RP Creation a challenge category, but there won't be an RP involved that has the teams/Gyms against each other (no equivalent of a WAR RP). I mean, there could be, but it would just be for funsies and wouldn't have any badges obtained out of it.

Depends on voting charity - Members will need to accept that there's really no reward for voting. I guess we could track who votes a lot and give appreciation tokens in different levels (Copper, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Crystal, etc) to those who vote a lot so the system keeps going. I'd like some motivation for voting to keep going on, as if people stop, the League comes to a halt and that wouldn't be fun.

High potential for an APOCALYPTICALLY HUGE number of Gym Challenge poll threads - We might need a separate board just for judging polls, because there will probably be a ton of them all going on at once.

EXTRA PLUSES AND OPTIONS

Gym Customization and Theme Challenges - This idea allows people to customize their gym however they'd like. Plus, they could make the challenges based on the theme of their gym (for example, a Gym that likes Fairy Pokémon can base their challenges on drawing Fairy-type Pokémon, fairytale fantasy RP creation, battling with only Fairy-type Pokémon (gutsy thing to do, but possible!) and that kind of thing.

Graphics - Gyms are free to make their own banners, design their own badge, and that kind of thing. I'm sure many of the graphic artists we have here (me included) would gladly help other gyms design their own badges if they needed that kind of thing done. I think the only requirement should be that the badge and postbit dimensions remain the same for all the gyms.

Limitless Duration - We can keep the PXR Gym League going for as long as we'd like! There's no real end date and I'm sure Gyms may come and go, but it's an idea that doesn't need to pack up and quit when summer ends.

[Caite-chan]

This came to me while watching.....you guessed it Pokemon. I'll try to describe it as best as possible as I'm not very good at telling things as opposed to just doing them. It does play off of Neo's idea but more of a single person type deal. For those who have watched Pokemon may know about the Pokemon Contests and those who take part are Pokemon Coordinators who compete for ribbons. This would be a lot like that.

Each Coordinator would have a team of no more than 6 Pokemon that they would use for each contest. You could compete in Art, Writing, Role Playing and Showdown. Each contest would last a month and could consist of 2-3 rounds and would last a week to a week and a half. Coordinators would face each other in a 1 on 1. For example:

Neo vs Me in drawing. We would have to use one of our six Pokemon in the drawing somehow and there would most likely be a theme. If Neo wins he would move on and then it could be Neo vs Sarah in Writing and again you would have to use one of your six Pokemon in whatever writing you would do. Round 3 could be the Showdown. Whoever wins would get a badge or a ribbon or whatever we come up with.

And if you earned say 6 ribbons the grand prize could be a feature on the site. Interview or show off your work.


The one thing about having Gyms is that Gyms would come and go and you would have to find people to be Junior Trainers. People could compete one month and take the next one off if they want. With this, you wouldn't have to worry about things coming and going.

It sounded soooooo much better in my head...lol.