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.
