Weekly Contest Ideas

[GroupMagma]

So as you may have read, our "_____ of the Week" weekly contests are no more. Hopefully, as a result, we can host much more fun, exciting and creative contests now on a week to week basis.

And what better place to go for ideas than to the Community! For this month, we want to take the best three ideas from the Community and try them out as weekly contests. The winner may not have the rules exactly as listed (we reserve the right to tweak things around ), and it may not be the definitive Weekly Contest going forward -- we'd like to mix things up week-to-week to keep things interesting. But it may make it into the rotation, and you'll get the satisfaction of a Job Well Done.

Oh, and 50 Gems this week to each of the three winners.

We'll run the contest through Sunday. Feel free to tweak your own ideas, or bounce ideas off each other, before coming up with your final ideas on Sunday. Good luck!

[redbites]

How about the return of the "what's that item" contest? Except this time Teamlava has the contest on the forums!!

[ahshan]

Joke of the week!

Post the funniest joke you know or have come up with! along with the story you would like your gems credited to.
1 post per account. Every joke that makes GroupMagma laugh can be entered into a draw.
Then x number of people (should be based on how many people made you laugh) will be drawn out of a hat (or something else) and they will win 50 gems.
But you cannot post a joke that has already been posted that week so you will have to read through everyone's jokes which gives you laughs from the community. To avoid people from posting comments on the thread, just have a rule saying: If you like someone's joke, post it on their visitor wall (that way, they communicate with the community like that).
Also, the jokes shouldn't be too long or else they'll be disqualified because we don't want to strain GM's eyes.

IF we had a "thank" option in the forums, we could make it so everyone gets to vote on the jokes they laugh at. So when they read through the jokes, they could "thank" it if they made them laugh. That way, GM would read the jokes, "thank" and see who has the highest "thanks". But unfortunately, this forum has no "thank" option, but if it did, it would make contests like this easier.

Why would this contest be better?
1. Uncommon jokes are not that easy to know/find/create. Takes real thinking. It's more challenging than posting a picture.
2. Possible for android users to participate.
3. People would have to read through jokes by other community members which engages them. They will find how fun it is to read them. If they do not read them, they will risk their chance of winning just in case their joke may have been said already.
4. Won't have to worry about people posting fake pictures. Just gotta look through all of them to make sure no one posted twice. If they do, you could suspend them for a week from the forums or something?
5. It's fun for you to read jokes and very fun for the community members too.
6. JOKES ARE AAWESOMEEEEEEEE
7. If you're not funny at all, oh well, as long as you know how to google or read a joke book, and find a funny one, then you have a chance at this.
8. Is for all games and only 1 entry per week. So people won't be posting 9 pictures to 9 threads for 9 chances to win 9 prizes. Just 1 chance, for all.

[gobblies]

______ riddles!

you choose an item and create a riddle such as

I can be 'sea'n in a few restaurants
im a real gem
i have a twin.


ANSWER: seahorse statue.

or the theme contest,

every day/week you announce a theme to design
our restaurant, and It can be a random number or judge that decides the winner

so example: restaurant: 4th July!

i would design my resto to have a 4th July theme, and post a pic here and hope to win!
(this is similar to the weekly contest, but it involves the community more!!!

if i win 50 gems, credit to restaurant plz!!!!

[greygull]

Theme based, peer judged designs. Similar to what the contests were, but each week or whenever, a theme is created (ex. Best Restaurant that DIDN'T use gems). People can enter until Thursday midnight (PST), judging by the forums until Friday midnight, winner declared Saturday. Yes, members of TL can also judge, but all votes are counted equally.

I posted this on another thread, thought I'd carry it over.

Also, maybe, an agreement can be made with any and all winners. If you win a contest, you don't enter again for two weeks for just that story. If there are peers judged contests, this would balance it some.

And how about groups of levels contests. Maybe only levels 1-10, 11-20, etc. Each level could run one week, the following week would be the next level. So people just starting out arent trying to compete with people have been playing for a while. TL can decided how it's judged.

Some contests that are answer only, no pictures. Like the fun games in "Off Topic" right now. Expand the "Two truths and a Lie" to maybe 8 truths and 2 lies, and the first two winners get like 5 gems each. It wouldn't carry on, just once a day or so. If done by moderators, could be info about TL, or interesting places around the world, or something like that.

[kooky panda]

This may be out there but what about a forum contest? I know a lot of my nbrs are confused and do not understand how to use the forum. This may encourage more people to come and learn about the forum.
Moderator could pose question like: Where would a person post the question. My crops keep dying, why?

Members would have to tell you where this question should be posted
Feedback, off topic, discussions,etc.

Moderator could also ask for answers to most common questions. Like. Why do some people get updates on Friday and other do not?

This would make members learn how to search the forum form threads to find answers.

Members can try and win gems, but may also learn some things .

Instead of first person to post answer, pick a number in advance and the person that posts correct answer on that number wins
If that person posted wrong then go to next post until you get an correct answer.

If weekly then have rule that someone can only win once for the month. If daily then they can only win once form the week.



Gems to go to farm

Thanks

[clhs]

The problem with contests like "what's that item?" is that we aren't all on the forum at the same time, and we're not all in the same time zones. So anyone outside of TL's time zone would be at a serious disadvantage with these sorts of contests where essentially the fastest (correct) response wins.

I think it would be much better to have a contest in which the community can enter at leisure and then the winner is determined after entry closure (a bit like the old system, with the '_____ of the week' contests).

Ideas for such a contest? How about:
1. Most helpful post of the week: a prize for whosoever posts the most informative or helpful post in a specially created contest thread in the forum. There are always people looking for tips on how to do things, so encourage people to share their knowledge by having a contest based on the most helpful tip.

2. Limericks: a prize for whoever comes up with the best limerick about their bakery, restaurant, etc.

3. Most realistic bakery / city, etc. This would still involve taking a photograph so it might not be ideal for Android users, but realism in our virtual worlds is a great thing!

4. Most creative idea for a theme: ask the community to come up with ideas for themed updates. The best one (or perhaps one that TL decide could be considered for actual implementation) would collect the prize.

[yogurtjunkie303]

First of all, since I only play CS, then I could only give a CS example.

But thruthfully this could be applied to Zoo, Bakery, Restaurant, Nightclub, Fashion, even Farm.

Player is to provide a picture of real place, and try to replicate the setup on their story games as best as they could. The real picture could be taken by themselves, or from the internet, google map, etc.

Then, the player is to name the 5 items they would like to be considered. For CS, street layout would be consider as 1 item.
For RS, NS, Fashion, Bakery, etc, floor patterns would be counted as one item. Wall patterns would be counted as another item.

Example:




1. Town Hall
2. Water fountain
3. Museum
4. Large park
5. Street layout

You can easily find pictures of restaurant, bakery, nightclub, farm, zoo, empire, for this contest. Or take your own pic.

[sissy8]

i want to nominate one of my great neighbours plus a reason, both get gems and magma decides whio is gonna win

[driftboutique]

For restaurant story: menu of the month, where people can enter a list of food items from restaurant story that they would like to make up their menu a well as a title that explains the theme of their menu. Perhaps the menu would have to include three appetizer or side dish items, three entrees and an optional dessert.

One entry might be: grilled corn, garden salad, mac and cheese, cheeseburgers, gourmet hot dogs, and shrimp kabobs with berry pie as the dessert. The theme could be "summer barbecue."

Another entry might be: bruschetta, garden salad, fried calamari*, chicken Alfredo, pizza, and spaghetti with tiramisu for dessert. The theme could be "family-style Italian."

All the menus would be put together in one post and voted on by the forum community. The voting could be similar to what's used in Matt's food polls, but perhaps here people would name their top three or five choices for most delicious sounding menu and points would be assigned. Whoever received the most points would win. You could have first, second, and third prizes instead.

*You should totally add calamari to the menu.