Categories
News

MER Deceived Contest

MER Star Wars: The Old Republic Contest

Alright, we promised on the last couple episodes that we would have some sort of contest by which one of our lucky community members could win a copy of SWTOR: Deceived, autographed by Daniel Erickson and most of the TOR writing team down at BioWare Austin. Well, I can tell you, it’s gonna take more than luck (insert Obi-Wan quote here). Here are all the gory details:

Each participating member of the community may submit a short story about their prospective first character in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Each person’s story could be anything related to their character in-game, but the easiest to write would be an origin story. The story must be no greater than five-hundred (500) words and will be judged by Zach, Evan, & Alan.

The big question, of course, is how do we pick the winner? We’ll base our judgements upon three criteria: Originality, Detail, & Use of Lore (if you’ve seen Iron Chef, it’s kinda the same). Here’s some detail on the aforementioned criteria:

Originality. If their smuggler is named Dan Lobo, his companion is Bewchaca, and they fly the Bicentennial Eagle… yeah, that’s not original. Like, AT ALL.
Detail. “My name is blah blah blah, I’m from Tattooine. I have a gun.” No. The more detailed the story, the better. Points for art as well, though, not so many that good art with a crappy story will fair too well. Ditto for a great story with stick figures; no bonus points there.
Use of Lore. Use of story assets is greatly encouraged, though not to the point of “He attacks with Charged Blast, then runs in and uses Rocket Punch, kills them with Flame Attack, then goes back to his class trainer and gets his new ability!” Sorry, that’s another no-go. Making game assets work within the context of story is a must for using game mechanics. Also, I should mention, you won’t be graded on how closely you follow established continuity. That’s not to say that you can re-write the history of Star Wars, but if you make a timeline error, we’re not going to disqualify anyone. Besides, with the rate at which Lucas invalidates established authors’ work, you might be right today and wrong tomorrow.

To make the scoring interesting, diverse, & fair, each criteria will have it’s own grading scale. Originality will warrant a point scale of 1-10, Detail 1-5, & Lore 1-5 (again, very much how Iron Chef does it. I love Food Network).

Again, the grand prize is Star Wars: The Old Republic “Deceived” written by Paul S. Kemp and autographed by the SWTOR writing team, including Daniel Erickson, Hall Hood and a few other SWTOR members of the writing team. We would also like to feature the top three entries on the front page of the website, and, as each community member pleases, we could have a forum thread in which everyone can share their creations. Please only one entry per community member, though if your household happens to have more than one community member each one may enter. Submissions may begin June 1st 2011 and will run through July 1st 2011.

We’re looking forward to reading everyone’s entries! Jedi, Sith, Trooper, Agent, whatever you’re gonna play on Day One, we wanna read about them here first! May the Force be with you (and your word processor!).

Email your stories to moseisleyradio@gmail.com and include #MERContest in the title.

29 replies on “MER Deceived Contest”

And the creative floodgates have been opened! This is awesome I love that ya’ll are doing this as the contest!

Only 500 words…

I’ll have to find a way to condense I guess… my chapter 1 is 2400 words alone… hmm

oh well will try…

can you put email details in this post please? so i don’t have to replay the last part of the podcast to know 🙂 thanks!!

If you go over 500 a little we won’t count off. I am a short story guy though. Its one of those things you will have to keep in mind if you choose to go over though.

Having a word limit like 500 is always I find is always a challenge but makes you really consider every word you write. This is a pretty cool, kind of contests. Good luck everybody!

I sent mine in last night before this article was posted, so I’m immune to the rules. ftw

Ya I sent mine the other night too. I re-read over it before I sent it wondering if I should remove any parts and just felt that doing so would just ruin it. I don’t mind if I lose points over it, cause I would’ve just felt like I betrayed myself lol.

I can promise you that no one will lose points for going over 500 words as long as its entertaining or the extra words do not make it seem like its full of filler. I would recommend anyone to keeping it to a short story format as much as possible.

Really enjoying the stories so far, guys! I’m really blown away at just how much depth we’re getting in such short stories. It’s gonna be tough to choose, but I am looking forward to reading even more entries.

Oh man, this contest sounds right up my alley! I love writing Star Wars stories! The length’s gonna be a challenge, but I’m definitely up for it! One thing though. I didn’t see it anywhere in the description, but is this contest US only, or can anyone anywhere participate?

Also, Bicentennial Eagle made me lol. ^_^

Guys? I understand you’re undoubtedly busy with other things too and I don’t mean to sound impatient and whiny, but I would really appreciate it if you could give an answer to my question.

I live in the Netherlands. Not sure how much the shipping costs would be, but depending on what they’d be I’d be willing to pay some of it. Of course I’d have to actually win for this to actually matter, but oh, details, details… ^_~

Tell ya what, send us your story. If you win, you win. I’ve shipped stuff overseas plenty of times, and if, for some bizarre reason, the cost to ship is astronomical, we’ll figure something out. No extra points for furthest geographic entry, btw.

Good luck!

(Come on, people, I better hear, “In my experience, there’s no such thing as…”)

Hey Guys,

This is a GREAT contest idea with an even better prize. Nice job! I’ll bet you get a boatload of submissions. I’ll probably do one myself. 🙂 That book would be sweet.

But wtf is up with that steak story? Man. That’s insane.

Sunny Ravencourt
Sunny’s Diner
sunnysdiner.podbean.com

Crap, I read the post from zach saying our stories could be a little longer if need be AFTER i sent mine off :(. I was forced to remove some things I would have liked to keep in. Oh well… I guess if you guys like it, i can send the original version too 😛

Goodluck everyone!

can we get a confirmation email that you recieve our submission? it would be great if you can and if not i’ll live too lol 🙂

Hey there! One little question. Is July 1st the final date the story can be submitted or should it be in before that day (i.e. June 30th is the final submission date)? Just checking because while my story is nearing completion, I wanted to run it by a friend for a quick proof-reading before handing it in.

July 1st was just an end date to set, but if people need the holiday to iron stuff out, we won’t mind.

And it’s off to the proofreader. Shouldn’t be too long before it reaches your inbox.

By the way, Zach said going a little over 500 words would be ok, but would 746 still be acceptable? I know it’s almost 1.5 times as many and I’ll get back to cutting if it isn’t, but over 250 words have already been cut from the initial version and it’ll be hard to keep the story intact if more is to be removed. So, I shall await your judgment.

Sorry I keep throwing all these questions at you. ^_^; I’m almost starting to feel like Noober and Neeber. … Please don’t throw rocks at me!