A "Summer Cup"

skyfall4 • 21 March 2019 at 10:57 PM

During the summer, it's when most people take vacations and breaks from Egg Cave, however, for those who remain active there's nothing really going on for them, as most events are during school months. This might be complicated, but I do sometimes wish a Summer Cup existed! It can be an optional event, so you enter only if you're active during those months.

Basically, you can arrange a group of 3 with your friends or other active people, or somewhere around that number. Then, together, you will complete daily tasks (like feeding, visiting the Cave, clicking XC creatures) to earn points. Everyone's points will contribute to your team. However, prizes won't be given out to the top point collecting teams- instead, you are given a "points meter", and every time you hit a certain amount of points, you get the listed prize! By maxing out the meter, you'll get the biggest prize, say CC or a limited creature. Then if you have already completed all the goals, I suppose you can keep collecting points for EC?

So this is sort of like a casual competition, where you work together to achieve a goal at your own pace rather than needing to beat people in order to obtain a prize (like Find the Gobblers). It's a rough idea, but I do sort of hope to see something else going on in the summer...

Pings: (sorry!)
@qerrats
@moonweaver
@cloudslay3r
@jlya

qerrats • 22 March 2019 at 12:38 AM

@skyfall4 Oooooh! I love the idea! Summers are always a bit... idk, maybe UNeventful (hehehehe, see what I did there? 😈 ) And I feel like this would be really cool to do as well. Hmmmm.... maybe every day there would be, lets say, 3 options to chose from for a challenge. Like: uh... feed 150 creatures each? XD Or maybe spend ____ ec in the travel agency? It would be really interesting! 😱 I would so participate, and I am pretty active during summers..... 😋

minnie298a • 22 March 2019 at 3:00 AM

@skyfall4

I haven't actually voted, because I'm on both sides of the fence.

Part of me wouldn't object to another activity/event. I'm as active as I feel like being and spread my time over a couple of sites, concentrating more on events.

However then there's the part of me that lives in a country where Summer is December to February, and I'm forever doing out of season event based on another countries holidays. There's also the part that doesn't like having to deal with people all the time so don't have any proper "friends" and would get very anxious over letting my team of strangers down if something happened in real life (eg last year my Mum spent April to Oct in Hospital, as stated, Northern Hemisphere Summer is my Winter, so flu season etc)

moonweaver • 22 March 2019 at 10:11 AM

@skyfall4

Yeah... Would teams be assigned or we pick?

skyfall4 • 22 March 2019 at 8:36 PM

@qerrats @minnie298a
Thanks for the feedback! And yeah, that's true, for those who have summer during the Northern Hemisphere winter months, it might prove a challenge D:

@moonweaver
We pick! That way we work with people we know and are active 😃

moonweaver • 22 March 2019 at 8:38 PM

@skyfall4

I likes dat idea 😃

mastergemma • 22 March 2019 at 10:13 PM

@skyfall4

I'm fond of this idea!

Possibilities for activities could include completing y number of quests, finding y creature in the cave, buying x amount of travels or x travel but it'll have to be different travels for each group but of the same rarity.

The downside I do see is having so many groups. There are at times where it definitely can work, but I would prefer separating all users into 3 or 5 groups to complete the activities.

skyfall4 • 22 March 2019 at 10:19 PM

@mastergemma
😃 Those are just a number of activities to complete! 😃 If you had to click a certain amount of XC creatures, it would definitely get the click exchange going again!


Hmm... that reminds me of Hogwarts 😋 Sort everyone into a house xP

But I see what you mean 😊 More groups are definitely much more complicated than just a few really large ones 😊

wigglytuff • 23 March 2019 at 1:15 AM

@skyfall4 I like this idea a Lot! Maybe to spice things up, you’ll be paired up with other random people (to prove they’re active they can “join” the cup) lol xD

cloudslay3r • 11 April 2019 at 11:52 PM

@skyfall4

Maybe this event doesn't have to be during the summer, but during a month that hasn't have an event yet? 😱

And about the team thing....This might be complicated but perhaps there might be an option for an user to do quests solo or with other users? They'll both get the same reward but perhaps the teams would have to put more effort in to acquire the same reward as an user going solo? Ex. A team would need to finish 100 quests all together while a single user needs to do 50? Again I agree it'll be hard to balance....

I feel like the a month with quests would be nice either way, however the system would be if it were to be created. The rewards could help those users who are unable to buy cc, like small ec rewards here and there. 😊

whitefire • 28 April 2019 at 4:07 PM

@Skyfall4
This sounds fantastic! Like you said, a lot of people go on vacation during the summer, but for a lot of us, it's a pretty slow time when we don't have school or any other obligations--having an event to play on here would be pretty fun.

I saw @Minnie298a mention that it might not be so great to have something summer themed during other people's winter, so maybe it doesn't need to be summer themed? Maybe it could be themed around Ark Victory Day instead. It could run through all of July. A memorial festival of a near-disaster of the past, where spirits run high and Arkians relish the chance to compete. Alternatively, it could just be something an NPC "started out of boredom" in June, when nothing's going on and nothing's been going on for a while. They wanted to spark a little friendly competition and so [Name of event] was born.

I think what @Mastergemma said about a smaller number of large groups sounds like a good idea, too. I think that would present an opportunity for more, different kinds of quests, and a division of work within each group. For instance, the travel-buying idea--some people might not have a lot of EC. Well, then you have other people in your group who happen to have quite a hoard to pick up the slack! Also, you should still have to opt in somehow--when you log in, there could be a pop-up about the event or something--so we don't get a bunch of inactive users in the groups. But the sorting would be random, to keep things even. Larger groups also means that if someone has to dip out for any reason, there are still a lot of people playing, so it doesn't affect one group's odds of winning too much.

Now for just some general suggestions:
Maybe instead of a points meter, there could be some kind of currency like the Kinump Seeds in the Halloween event, and a pool of prizes instead of prizes at intervals? Since it would still be a team competition at its core, the points could be awarded as a matter of x points being awarded to each member of the team for y objective's completion. The possible prizes could be a selection of limited edition creatures, items, travels, etc. so each member has a choice of which thing they get, if any, and isn't stuck with a prize they don't want. Having multiple choices instead of an "ultimate" prize would give an incentive to keep playing because there's no final prize.

In addition to the objectives, maybe there could also be games like in the Halloween Fair? I don't know exactly what they'd be, but I'm sure I could think of some if we think it's a good idea. Each victory would provide a greater number of points for the person playing than for the team, but there could still be some given to each team member (i.e. player gets 5 points, other team members get 2). I don't know if it's feasible, but it could be fun.

And perhaps at the conclusion of the event, there could be extra points awarded to each member of the team that had the most completions of a given objective. As in, Team A completed Objective 1 the most times, so each member of Team A gets x points; Team B had the most victories in Game 1, so each member gets x points; and so on. The prize shop would be open for a week afterward so everyone can claim their prize.

minnie298a • 28 April 2019 at 10:58 PM

@whitefire
My issue isn't so much with the theme being out of season (except when I try to find Christmas/Festive stuff without snow, fireplaces, and warm clothing), it's more to do with what you wrote in response to Skyfall4. It's the mentality of it's "Summer vacation time and I don't have anything to do for 3 months". Yes, I get that it is a quieter time over there for many. Our Summer school holidays run for about six weeks. They start a week or so before Christmas and end around the end of January. So are filled with Christmas, New Year and Australia Day. We don't have the massive break. As a result the whole concept of "nothing to do " for weeks and weeks is rather foreign to me.

whitefire • 28 April 2019 at 11:10 PM

@Minnie298a
Ah, that makes sense. I understand what you mean now. This is a wee bit off topic, but out of curiosity, are you saying that you spend more time in school as a result? Or have a greater amount of shorter breaks? I've never chatted with someone from your side of the world about schedules before, so I'm curious how that works for you.
But I still feel like, ignoring my mention of it being a slow time of year for us, it would still be fun to have an event during that time period. Disregarding real life schedules, that time frame (May-September) is still a pretty slow period for EggCave, and I think an event like this would be fun. Would having bigger teams, meaning less personal accountability for the team's well-being, at least address your concern about letting your group down if something came up?

minnie298a • 28 April 2019 at 11:53 PM

@whitefire
Oh, I'd still do what I could for any event going. Regardless of the timing. I'm not at school and I'm currently not working, but caring for my Mum. My schedule is my own to create around her appointments and her needs, but I have no designated holidays or days off.



As for school, most schools work on a 4 terms a year schedule. Normally it's 4 blocks of about 10 weeks, so about 40 weeks in total. A lot of schools here still prescribe to the 9am start, 3pm finish, but some start slightly earlier or later, or run longer with longer breaks, but really no more than about 6.5 hours Monday to Friday. School starts the last week of January, with the first holidays being at Easter. Then there is a two week break around the end of June, and another 2 weeks at the end of September. The year ends a week or so before Christmas. This year the school year started on the 29th January and will end on the 13th December. Year 12 (or the last year of high school) normally finish Mid-November, 4 weeks before the technical end of year, with grades 10 and 11 finishing 2 weeks later. We only have two main forms of compulsory school, Primary and High School. In my state you start high school in grade 7, so about the 12, 13 year old mark. Most schools will do the transitioning visits for those starting high school the following year in the 2 week block after the grade 12's leave, but before the Year 11's do.

whitefire • 29 April 2019 at 2:21 AM

@Minnie298a
Ah, okay then! I just wasn't clear on your opinion of the event from your previous two posts here. You were objecting more to the assertion that "this is a slow time of year" than the nature of the event itself, right? But yeah, I can understand how it could be pretty aggravating for events to always be catered to a different population's schedule.

That's interesting! So it sounds like you have much shorter school days, but more of them; in my area, we had 9-week quarters with 7-hour days. The grade divisions are different, too--we have primary/elementary school from kindergarten-5th grade, middle school 6th-8th, and high school 9th-12th. Thanks for sharing that!
Though if we've any more to say about this (I think it's pretty interesting to learn about), we probably ought to move it to DMs or a different topic, since we've gotten pretty off-topic here, haha.