Breeding Competition (For all the artists in the house!)

Post by **Dray** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 11:13 am

I was thinking about holding a breeding competition in the Nexus, since we have so many dragons and so much variety!

Here's how it might work.

1) Everybody suggests a trait or five, and at the beginning of the competition, 2-5 traits are drawn out of a hat, for random's sake.

2) Everybody who wishes to participate signs up.

3) Participants then must find a pair of breedable dragons within their ranks (your collection) who would most likely have offspring with the drawn traits. They must then submit a picture of the offspring
--Only dragons from your own collection may participate (No creating new dragons just to fit the requirements!)
--Alternately, ALL dragons in the Breedables Database are fair game, so long as they don't come with special rules. (Providing that JKat updates the thread to include new participants. xD)
--Secondarily, if you want to team up with another participant to pool your 'collections' together, you still must each submit a dragon, but you'll split the 'pot' at the end of the competition providing one or the other of you wins.

4) When the dragon is done, post it, along with links to the parents so that we know the parents exist and are paged.

5) Once the drawing-time of the competition is over (One month? Two months? Two weeks?) we hold a vote. The vote is not based on skill, but rather who has the closest dragon to match the traits. We're assuming here that you're not going to mutate the baby just to match the requirements!

6) The winner (or winners, if you've borrowed from another participant's collection) get to keep all of the dragons that were drawn for that round of the competition AND receive a seal of Adept Dragon Husbandry from the Kalyturn Hybridization Agency (quite possibly good for one free dragon. ;P).

7) All other participants who handed in a dragon will receive a flitter with the same traits listed, along with a seal of approval from the Kalyturn Hybridization Agency (which is also quite possibly good for one free dragon... >:D)

8) If this event becomes a semi-regular happening, those who accrue several seals (of participation or Adepthood) may also garner special privileges: picking some or all of the traits for the next competition, special offers, moar dagrons, and if anybody would like to suggest further rewards, those too!

9) Any templates from the dragons you submit are fair game to use again, if you'd like. If you want to give out more of them, or turn them into a species at your adoption center (or for your stories, whatever you'd like!) Go for it.

10) Since the winners will be getting a few dragons, and paging can take a while, there won't be deadlines for getting all your winnings paged. I may throw in a third seal for Extraordinary Mastery of Tendmanship to those who page all of their winnings within one month... and that may very well work like cyborware tokens, providing everybody is fine with having their images altered? This is something I'd like to work on some more.

<hr>

So, would you guys be interested in this kind of competition? :) If you have any suggestions to refine it, or anything to say about it, feel free to post. ^_^ If everybody's interested, I'd like to set it up so that the first round ends at the end of January?

Myrror · Post by **Myrror** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 11:20 am

I'm taking that dragons from your collection should be paged before the competition starts, yes? Particularity if the person drew them *pokes at her unpaged whorlings*

Post by **Dray** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 11:23 am

Definitely. XD Would it be more fair to players if we weren't allowed to use dragons that we drew, to cut down on the possibility of cheating? I mean, I don't expect anybody to do that, but it might provide more of a challenge for people who have drawn a lot of their own dragons. XD

Myrror · Post by **Myrror** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 11:29 am

Well, I'd definitely be out if I couldn't use my own..

Post by **Dray** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 12:25 pm

XD Don't like that idea? Alright, we dun have to include it.

Kitsuneko · Post by **Kitsuneko** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 4:12 pm

I liiiiiike that idea. And lord knows I have enough variety among my own dragons. I'll have to buy a scanner first, but count me in.

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 4:31 pm

I have plenty of variety.

It worries the page-monster in me that the winner "takes all"... O_____O;

Asha Wermyst · Post by **Asha Wermyst** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 5:50 pm

Mmm, me too. That's an easy way to fill up the rest of my bandwidth...

I'm in! Looks fun t'me, and I've got variety...

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 6:25 pm

Well, I guess I'm rather new to the Nexus to have a real versatile collection, and I'm not really an artist compared to most of the people here, but I just got a brand new graphics tablet and I'm feeling kind of confident. ^^; Sounds very interesting.

Post by **Dray** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 7:01 pm

Hey, if the winner wants to distribute the winnings... maybe we can make that an option?

Also, we could split them amongst the top three winners? 1st place gets to pick their third first, then 2nd, then 3rd?

In any case, I'll set up a new thread and start taking suggestions for traits that these guys may possess. :D

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 7:32 pm

I like that idea of winner not getting "Everything"

It would depend on how many enter of course, but that's a little intimidating lol.

Post by **Dray** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 7:36 pm

Maybe having first, second and third place work better than just first place?

Silver Midnight · Post by **Silver Midnight** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 8:44 pm

I'll join. I certainly don't want all those dragons, though, it just sounds like fun.

JKatkina · Post by **JKatkina** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 10:10 pm

I liked the idea of the person who wins getting to choose what happens to the dragons! Then if they don't want them all, they can give 'em out or something? XD I know I would have trouble paging all of those dragons! XD But this does sound fun!

Post by **Dray** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 10:39 pm

In that case, post-winning, I'll give the winner the option of what to do with 'em. If she wants to keep 'em or split them or give them all away, that'll be up to her. X3 It's more the "wooh, let's draw!" that I want to have fun with!

Xalia · Post by **Xalia** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 10:44 pm

Sounds like fun! I'd be in on it, assuming I have time and inspiration...

Post by **Dray** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 10:46 pm

The contest thread won't open until January 1st or so, and will be open until January 31st. ^_^ Until that time, feel free to suggest as many traits as you want, from the simple ('blue') to the complex ('seven gold horns')... and then on the first, the random traits will be drawn and... then we can draw. XD

Xalia · Post by **Xalia** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 10:51 pm

I has a question...and I figured I'd ask it here instead of cluttering up the contest thread...

The contest thread says breeders and geneticists are being invited...I'm assuming geneticists can't use their genetic skills to add traits from more than two dragons, yes?

Post by **Dray** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 11:08 pm

Hmm, no, they can't. I should re-word that. In this particular competition, everything is strictly conventional; only two paged dragons from a legitimate clutch (or giveaway, or birthday gift... you know, dragons that weren't made on the spot for the contest) may be bred. This is to narrow down our options and make the contest more of a challenge.

Perhaps in another contest, I'll up the number of traits and allow people to claim 'genetic tinkering' to create unconventional mixes of genes?

Xalia · Post by **Xalia** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 11:27 pm

*nods* So we're talking male-female, conventional breeding with size restrictions and everything... Yah, might want to put that in the rules, just to be clear!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 3:09 am

I think I could squeeze this in... I should have a nice pool of variation, though a lot of the variation comes from my own holiday clutches. But they're existing dragons, paged mostly so I don't see how you can cheat with them when you draw random traits...

Post by **Dray** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 9:41 am

Nope, those are fair game. :)