Hello fellow miners. Allow me to tell you a story before getting into the details of the contest.
Story
I, like many people, played classic to begin with. And I, like many people, have spent mindless hours in classic building. Eventually I started my own server (Puppy) with my coworker. This server wasn't the most popular server, but I believe it went pretty well. I developed a small community of people who would look after the server in my absence.
Eventually (after infdev) I purchased Alpha. Like many people, I have spent mindless hours in survival single player. Unlike many people, I don't particularly care for survival multiplayer yet. I created a SMP server anyway. (private, sorry, can't give away the IP.)
There have been a few times I've gone back to Classic to check out my server and my ex-coworker's servers, but classic really seems dull to me now. It got really bad, as I've basically abandoned my community (sorry guys), so bad that I saw a server a few weeks ago that was called "Poop On Puppys". My guess is that it was an op from my server sick of long server outages due to me not checking on it too often and it crashing.
Anyway, on Dec 28th, @Kappische gave away a Minecraft code at about 5AM GMT-5. Fortunately for me, I was awake, due to a harsh software development deadline I had to meet (the next day, I did meet it). I immediately logged into my alt account and snatched up the code. I intended originally to give this account away to my brother-in-law, however, he doesn't have a computer to use it at the moment.
I mulled it over in my head. "What is the best and most entertaining way to give this account away? A contest to be sure." So I designed the contest rules around my style of playing Minecraft SSP. Unfortunately for you players of classic, this contest is open to those who already have a premium account. Sort of made you do a double take, didn't I? You have to have a premium account to win a premium accout? Yep. Thems the rules.
Unfortunately, minecraft classic is too unstructured to be capable of holding a good contest. Spleef matches are pretty lame and building with an infinite amount of blocks is too easy. Therefore, in order to win this premium account, you'll have to play with a premium account. If you win, you win the account. Then you can do whatever you want with it. That means trade it for something else, give it away, keep it for an alt account, etc.
Contest
Minecraft Survival Contest - The Life Of A Minecrafter.
RULES:
1. The contest begins now and ends at Midnight on 01/08/2011.
2. The user will capture their entire play session using a screen capture tool like Expression Encoder, FRAPS, Gamecam, Hypercam, whatever.
3. The user must verify they're on HARD mode. They will, at the beginning of the video, go into the options panel and show their mouse pointer over the difficulty option while it says HARD. If it doesn't say HARD initially, the player must change it to HARD.
4. The user must record themselves clicking the "-empty-" button to create a new world. If they don't have a slot open, they must delete a world (sorry, new worlds only) and create a new world.
5. The user will survive in this world until they die once.
6. While surviving in the world, the user must engage enemies if they see you. This doesn't mean you can't be strategic. The user may optionally engage enemies who don't see them. You are allowed to heal, armor up, and all the regular things you do, like building traps, extensive bases, etc.
7. Upon death the world they created for the contest must be deleted. (Aka Hardcore mode).
8. Should a player reach 1 hour and 20 minutes of gameplay time, they will quit to the menu and be allowed to keep their world. (this doesn't automatically qualify you for winning.)
9. All videos over 10 minutes should be sped up to 8x speed (Windows Live Movie Maker has a feature for this, don't know about other programs). Preferably you'll have audioswapped some song in for the duration of the video, so users don't have to watch a silent movie. Or if you have the original audio, great. Or if you want to add in voice narration or your own soundtrack, awesome.
10. Videos should be posted to your youtube account. After which, the video should be posted to this page.
11. The user may make multiple entries, but must split them between posts, so each post can be easily linked back to. Note, however, that this may split their votes between their own videos.
12. The community will rate the videos and decide on a winner.
13. The first 5 videos will be exempt from having to vote on other videos in the thread, but after 5 videos, the poster must include a vote for their favorite video in the thread besides their own.
14. Once a vote is entered, it is unchangeable. Instead, vote again, just not on the same thing.
15. People who are not participating in the contest may also vote on their favorites.
16. During the contest, I will tally the votes. There may be a delay in me logging a vote, but it won't matter since at the end of the contest, the tallies need to be made anyway.
17. The winner will win the Minecraft account. I will PM the user asking for their email so I can change the email settings over. After I receive the email address from the poster and get it updated on Minecraft.net, I will send the login details for the account to that person. You'll be free to do what you like with it. (Maybe give it away to a friend? Or perhaps another, better contest) It is highly recommended to change the password to the account at this point. I also will not keep your email information, I will simply delete the PM after I'm finished with it.
18. If any of these rules are broken and a video is posted by a user anyway, said user's video will be disqualified from the competition. They may try again with a different video.
</RULES>
Phew. That was quite extensive, but I believe it makes for a fair competition. Good luck,
EDIT!: I forgot to mention, please title your youtube video with "The Life Of A Minecrafter" in the title. This will help create a trending topic and generally benefit everyone involved with youtube discovery later on. This is of course, optional.
EXAMPLE VIDEO Link Removed
Available in 1080p.
Entries
1. Mr_Pirate12321 Link Removed (Vote exemption, voted anyway.)
2. diargon Link Removed (Vote exemption)
3. reissem Link Removed (Vote exemtpion)
4. Om Nom Nom Link Removed (Vote exemption)
5. Thermistocles Link Removed (Vote exemption)
6. AznColaz Link Removed (voted)
7. maximdymok Link Removed (You must make a vote to have your video count)
8. TheMusicness Link Removed (You must make a vote to have your video count)
9. Sniwer Link Removed (You must make a vote to have your video count)
10. vitric Link Removed (voted)
11. sniff Link Removed (voted)
12. MitchyMonster Link Removed (voted)
13. Dazanan Link Removed (voted)
14. PrancingLion Link Removed (you must officially post your entry to this thread, you must also vote to have your video count)
15. Blue_A10 Link Removed (voted)
16. PlasticSoda Link Removed (voted)
17. woodensword Link Removed (voted)
18. woodensword Link Removed (voted)
I got a PM from Sil3nt regarding the competition and I think it's a good question, so I will post it here and an answer to their question.
Quote from Sil3nt »
One question about your contest, are we allowed to play for an hour or so, and then take a break, then continue on. Sorry if I overlooked it in the rules.
You're allowed to pause the game by hitting escape, at this point I recommend to pause or stop your recording until you're ready to begin again. However, you're not allowed to completely quit the game, due to tools that could be used to edit your save. When you come back to your game after pausing, make sure the screen recorder records you unpausing the game. Then you can make it seemless during the editing process.
Remember, the whole thing needs to be completely from beginning to end. Nothing should be cut out of the recording with exception to context menus or GUIs of the recording tool when you're going to stop it.
Also, it should be noted that 1 hour and 20 minutes is the upper limit of the contest footage (1 hour 20 minutes at 8x speed is 10 minutes.) Therefore, if you play for 1 hour 20 minutes, stop recording and submit your video. Accounting for a small amount of trim, you won't be discounted for quitting up to 5 minutes early.
You can also add text narration if you wish, but I would rather you stay away for special effects. I'd like to stay true to the general feel of minecraft.
Isn't it a bit nonsensical, they need to post Beta gameplay when they haven't got it, and the way of getting the account is by posting Beta gameplay?
Argh! CATCH 22 ALERT!
Quote from adorablepuppy »
17. The winner will win the horrifickitten Minecraft account. I will PM the user asking for their email so I can change it over. After I receive the email address from the poster and get it updated on Minecraft.net, I will send the login details to that person. You'll be free to do what you like with it. (Maybe give it away to a friend? Or perhaps another, better contest)
You're free to use it as an alt or give it to someone you know, or even hold another contest for it.
Quote from 212 »
Well I already have an acc so I won't enter just for to give chance to all the other people :wink.gif:
The thing is, only people with premium accounts can participate. You can win the account use it or not use it however you see fit.
you said "you could start another contest with it" (cba quoting) i have a feeling i will keep seeing this account... it may end up in the never ending loop of contest prises until someone gives it to a friend... lol but im not entering because i dont like to play on hard because i get bored of dying and prefer to play on peacefull until i feel like fighting
It would be quite entertaining to see any future contests that pop up for this account. I might enter a future one just for the sake of starting another contest. :smile.gif:
Hmm... spend 1.3 hours and win a 20 dollar prize, or... spend 3 hours and finish my tunnel system, build a chapel, mine clay for my refinery smoke stacks... or.. go mining diamonds on lava beds with my water buckets....
CURSE YOU MINECRAFT! I want my sleep back!
...ohhh a coal vein, i wonder where this leads....
i may enter this but surrely having hypercam recording for at most 1.2 hours will take up alot of space?
I recorded 40 mins of SSP recently and it took up nearly 800 MB. It was also 720p video though. The resolution and the frame rate of recording will determine your end size. I don't imagine 320x240 or whatever will take up that much room.
This is absolutely briliant, but I am not going to enter, I just don't know how to do any form of video recording thing at all . If it wasn't for that I would be trying so hard to do this. I actualy could have some use for another acount. Could anyone provide some help?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I was the second person to use the avatar I have. The rest took it from me. The first I asked, he said yes.
I know what I'm doing. I plan ahead, or get tired and screw up everything.
This is absolutely briliant, but I am not going to enter, I just don't know how to do any form of video recording thing at all . If it wasn't for that I would be trying so hard to do this. I actualy could have some use for another acount. Could anyone provide some help?
Another good option is Microsoft Expression Encoder. The trial version lets you record up to 10 minutes of unwatermarked video, but you have to encod it after recording it, which can take a lot of time.
I usually record my vids at 15fps, 720p resolution. If i'm speeding it up to 8x, I just send it through Windows Live Movie Maker and goto the edit tab after clicking my video, then I select 8x.
This is absolutely briliant, but I am not going to enter, I just don't know how to do any form of video recording thing at all . If it wasn't for that I would be trying so hard to do this. I actualy could have some use for another acount. Could anyone provide some help?
Do you have Hypercam 2? You can set it to record at something like 2 FPS and playback at 20 (for 10x speed), it compresses the video for you too (the divx compression at 100% quality is decent).
E: I fail at linking.
No I don't, I have no experience with anything other than a screenshot that records the screen. I've also seen alot of crummy videos with hypercam 1&2, so I'm kinda sceptical about using it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I was the second person to use the avatar I have. The rest took it from me. The first I asked, he said yes.
I know what I'm doing. I plan ahead, or get tired and screw up everything.
This is absolutely briliant, but I am not going to enter, I just don't know how to do any form of video recording thing at all . If it wasn't for that I would be trying so hard to do this. I actualy could have some use for another acount. Could anyone provide some help?
Do you have Hypercam 2? You can set it to record at something like 2 FPS and playback at 20 (for 10x speed), it compresses the video for you too (the divx compression at 100% quality is decent).
E: I fail at linking.
No I don't, I have no experience with anything other than a screenshot that records the screen. I've also seen alot of crummy videos with hypercam 1&2, so I'm kinda sceptical about using it.
Just a few questions:
Is it OK if the game lags like HELL? 1 fps when loading world and 10-15 when just playing & recording at the same time? Also, is it OK to pause the game at the beginning for 10 mins just to load the world [better fps?] Thanks.
EDIT: Oh, do i HAVE to speed up a 1:20 video x8? Because if i do, i have no idea how. Step by step tut with windows movie maker, anyone?
I'm rendering my footage already.
Stupid creepers.
I'll have the video up once it uploads to YT.
Oh, and I used Hypercam, so expect a bad framerate in the recording. Expect a really, really terrible AudioSwap song as well.
EDIT: HERE IT IS FOLKS
The AudioSwap is still pending, and the video is processing.
Just a few questions:
Is it OK if the game lags like HELL? 1 fps when loading world and 10-15 when just playing & recording at the same time? Also, is it OK to pause the game at the beginning for 10 mins just to load the world [better fps?] Thanks.
EDIT: Oh, do i HAVE to speed up a 1:20 video x8? Because if i do, i have no idea how. Step by step tut with windows movie maker, anyone?
If the game lags like hell, try resizing the window. Also, enable fog and put rendering on fast.
You don't have to speed up any video that is less than 11 minutes.
I'll post some instructions later on how to do it with Windows Live Movie Maker, but you'll have to have Windows Live Movie Maker, not Windows Movie Maker (different product).
Quote from Mr_Pirate12321 »
I'm rendering my footage already.
Stupid creepers.
I'll have the video up once it uploads to YT.
Oh, and I used Hypercam, so expect a bad framerate in the recording. Expect a really, really terrible AudioSwap song as well.
EDIT: HERE IT IS FOLKS
I don't know how to embed video. Halp.
The AudioSwap is still pending, and the video is processing.
To embed it, change the url tag to say youtube.
Watched your video. Lol, first cave you went into, man. What texture pack is that?
Quote from Vetrano »
Can we add voice overs to the game? As in, if we want, can we narrate what is going on.
Yes. Feel free to add your own audio. Even vuvuzelas are acceptable.
Stupid forums, ate my post 7 times, and now servers are overloaded... seriously?? Ok. so yes, i already do everything to improve performance, tiny view distance, fast graphics, gamebooster, fullscreen etc. Also, since im using win vista, i only have the normal win movie maker and not the live one. Is there a free program that can do the same thing thats free? Also, the framerates were estimated so it might be better/worse. And as i understand, i can escape just as i generate the world and pause the rec to let the world load a bit. I guess i will start tomorrow, then. Thanks for the help.
Story
I, like many people, played classic to begin with. And I, like many people, have spent mindless hours in classic building. Eventually I started my own server (Puppy) with my coworker. This server wasn't the most popular server, but I believe it went pretty well. I developed a small community of people who would look after the server in my absence.
Eventually (after infdev) I purchased Alpha. Like many people, I have spent mindless hours in survival single player. Unlike many people, I don't particularly care for survival multiplayer yet. I created a SMP server anyway. (private, sorry, can't give away the IP.)
There have been a few times I've gone back to Classic to check out my server and my ex-coworker's servers, but classic really seems dull to me now. It got really bad, as I've basically abandoned my community (sorry guys), so bad that I saw a server a few weeks ago that was called "Poop On Puppys". My guess is that it was an op from my server sick of long server outages due to me not checking on it too often and it crashing.
Anyway, on Dec 28th, @Kappische gave away a Minecraft code at about 5AM GMT-5. Fortunately for me, I was awake, due to a harsh software development deadline I had to meet (the next day, I did meet it). I immediately logged into my alt account and snatched up the code. I intended originally to give this account away to my brother-in-law, however, he doesn't have a computer to use it at the moment.
I mulled it over in my head. "What is the best and most entertaining way to give this account away? A contest to be sure." So I designed the contest rules around my style of playing Minecraft SSP. Unfortunately for you players of classic, this contest is open to those who already have a premium account. Sort of made you do a double take, didn't I? You have to have a premium account to win a premium accout? Yep. Thems the rules.
Unfortunately, minecraft classic is too unstructured to be capable of holding a good contest. Spleef matches are pretty lame and building with an infinite amount of blocks is too easy. Therefore, in order to win this premium account, you'll have to play with a premium account. If you win, you win the account. Then you can do whatever you want with it. That means trade it for something else, give it away, keep it for an alt account, etc.
Contest
Minecraft Survival Contest - The Life Of A Minecrafter.
RULES:
1. The contest begins now and ends at Midnight on 01/08/2011.
2. The user will capture their entire play session using a screen capture tool like Expression Encoder, FRAPS, Gamecam, Hypercam, whatever.
3. The user must verify they're on HARD mode. They will, at the beginning of the video, go into the options panel and show their mouse pointer over the difficulty option while it says HARD. If it doesn't say HARD initially, the player must change it to HARD.
4. The user must record themselves clicking the "-empty-" button to create a new world. If they don't have a slot open, they must delete a world (sorry, new worlds only) and create a new world.
5. The user will survive in this world until they die once.
6. While surviving in the world, the user must engage enemies if they see you. This doesn't mean you can't be strategic. The user may optionally engage enemies who don't see them. You are allowed to heal, armor up, and all the regular things you do, like building traps, extensive bases, etc.
7. Upon death the world they created for the contest must be deleted. (Aka Hardcore mode).
8. Should a player reach 1 hour and 20 minutes of gameplay time, they will quit to the menu and be allowed to keep their world. (this doesn't automatically qualify you for winning.)
9. All videos over 10 minutes should be sped up to 8x speed (Windows Live Movie Maker has a feature for this, don't know about other programs). Preferably you'll have audioswapped some song in for the duration of the video, so users don't have to watch a silent movie. Or if you have the original audio, great. Or if you want to add in voice narration or your own soundtrack, awesome.
10. Videos should be posted to your youtube account. After which, the video should be posted to this page.
11. The user may make multiple entries, but must split them between posts, so each post can be easily linked back to. Note, however, that this may split their votes between their own videos.
12. The community will rate the videos and decide on a winner.
13. The first 5 videos will be exempt from having to vote on other videos in the thread, but after 5 videos, the poster must include a vote for their favorite video in the thread besides their own.
14. Once a vote is entered, it is unchangeable. Instead, vote again, just not on the same thing.
15. People who are not participating in the contest may also vote on their favorites.
16. During the contest, I will tally the votes. There may be a delay in me logging a vote, but it won't matter since at the end of the contest, the tallies need to be made anyway.
17. The winner will win the Minecraft account. I will PM the user asking for their email so I can change the email settings over. After I receive the email address from the poster and get it updated on Minecraft.net, I will send the login details for the account to that person. You'll be free to do what you like with it. (Maybe give it away to a friend? Or perhaps another, better contest) It is highly recommended to change the password to the account at this point. I also will not keep your email information, I will simply delete the PM after I'm finished with it.
18. If any of these rules are broken and a video is posted by a user anyway, said user's video will be disqualified from the competition. They may try again with a different video.
</RULES>
Phew. That was quite extensive, but I believe it makes for a fair competition. Good luck,
EDIT!: I forgot to mention, please title your youtube video with "The Life Of A Minecrafter" in the title. This will help create a trending topic and generally benefit everyone involved with youtube discovery later on. This is of course, optional.
EXAMPLE VIDEO
Link Removed
Available in 1080p.
Entries
1. Mr_Pirate12321 Link Removed (Vote exemption, voted anyway.)
2. diargon Link Removed (Vote exemption)
3. reissem Link Removed (Vote exemtpion)
4. Om Nom Nom Link Removed (Vote exemption)
5. Thermistocles Link Removed (Vote exemption)
6. AznColaz Link Removed (voted)
7. maximdymok Link Removed (You must make a vote to have your video count)
8. TheMusicness Link Removed (You must make a vote to have your video count)
9. Sniwer Link Removed (You must make a vote to have your video count)
10. vitric Link Removed (voted)
11. sniff Link Removed (voted)
12. MitchyMonster Link Removed (voted)
13. Dazanan Link Removed (voted)
14. PrancingLion Link Removed (you must officially post your entry to this thread, you must also vote to have your video count)
15. Blue_A10 Link Removed (voted)
16. PlasticSoda Link Removed (voted)
17. woodensword Link Removed (voted)
18. woodensword Link Removed (voted)
VOTES
Om Nom Nom 14 - voters: adorablepuppy, vitric, AznColaz, sniff, Blue_A10, dylloop, Syntria, Amaranthin, Newbunkle, migael, fireblade, Dazanan, DooM Marine 99, PlasticSoda
Thermistocles 7 - voters: secret1962, Delons, MitchyMonster, Sniwer, Newbunkle, Arcalamus, woodensword
reissem 5 - voters: chrisrisk, p0wnt1m3, Mr_Pirate12321, adorablepuppy, Newbunkle
Dazanan 2 - voters: adorablepuppy, stevo420
sniff 1 - voters: Thermistocles
Sniwer 1 - voters: bunnymilk (Will not count unless Sniwer votes.)
Blue_A10 1 - voters: DooM Marine 99
MitchyMonster 1 - voters: Android0891
Mr_Pirate12321 1 - voters: woodensword
woodensword 1 - voters: adorablepuppy
@adorablepuppy
You're allowed to pause the game by hitting escape, at this point I recommend to pause or stop your recording until you're ready to begin again. However, you're not allowed to completely quit the game, due to tools that could be used to edit your save. When you come back to your game after pausing, make sure the screen recorder records you unpausing the game. Then you can make it seemless during the editing process.
Remember, the whole thing needs to be completely from beginning to end. Nothing should be cut out of the recording with exception to context menus or GUIs of the recording tool when you're going to stop it.
Also, it should be noted that 1 hour and 20 minutes is the upper limit of the contest footage (1 hour 20 minutes at 8x speed is 10 minutes.) Therefore, if you play for 1 hour 20 minutes, stop recording and submit your video. Accounting for a small amount of trim, you won't be discounted for quitting up to 5 minutes early.
You can also add text narration if you wish, but I would rather you stay away for special effects. I'd like to stay true to the general feel of minecraft.
@adorablepuppy
You're free to use it as an alt or give it to someone you know, or even hold another contest for it.
The thing is, only people with premium accounts can participate. You can win the account use it or not use it however you see fit.
@adorablepuppy
It would be quite entertaining to see any future contests that pop up for this account. I might enter a future one just for the sake of starting another contest. :smile.gif:
@adorablepuppy
CURSE YOU MINECRAFT! I want my sleep back!
...ohhh a coal vein, i wonder where this leads....
Question: What happens if there's a draw?
You can duke it out on SMP
OR
Another vote will be held.
I recorded 40 mins of SSP recently and it took up nearly 800 MB. It was also 720p video though. The resolution and the frame rate of recording will determine your end size. I don't imagine 320x240 or whatever will take up that much room.
@adorablepuppy
I was the second person to use the avatar I have. The rest took it from me. The first I asked, he said yes.
I know what I'm doing. I plan ahead, or get tired and screw up everything.
Another good option is Microsoft Expression Encoder. The trial version lets you record up to 10 minutes of unwatermarked video, but you have to encod it after recording it, which can take a lot of time.
I usually record my vids at 15fps, 720p resolution. If i'm speeding it up to 8x, I just send it through Windows Live Movie Maker and goto the edit tab after clicking my video, then I select 8x.
@adorablepuppy
No I don't, I have no experience with anything other than a screenshot that records the screen. I've also seen alot of crummy videos with hypercam 1&2, so I'm kinda sceptical about using it.
I was the second person to use the avatar I have. The rest took it from me. The first I asked, he said yes.
I know what I'm doing. I plan ahead, or get tired and screw up everything.
Game cam and fraps are another option.
@adorablepuppy
Is it OK if the game lags like HELL? 1 fps when loading world and 10-15 when just playing & recording at the same time? Also, is it OK to pause the game at the beginning for 10 mins just to load the world [better fps?] Thanks.
EDIT: Oh, do i HAVE to speed up a 1:20 video x8? Because if i do, i have no idea how. Step by step tut with windows movie maker, anyone?
Stupid creepers.
I'll have the video up once it uploads to YT.
Oh, and I used Hypercam, so expect a bad framerate in the recording. Expect a really, really terrible AudioSwap song as well.
EDIT: HERE IT IS FOLKS
The AudioSwap is still pending, and the video is processing.
If the game lags like hell, try resizing the window. Also, enable fog and put rendering on fast.
You don't have to speed up any video that is less than 11 minutes.
I'll post some instructions later on how to do it with Windows Live Movie Maker, but you'll have to have Windows Live Movie Maker, not Windows Movie Maker (different product).
To embed it, change the url tag to say youtube.
Watched your video. Lol, first cave you went into, man. What texture pack is that?
Yes. Feel free to add your own audio. Even vuvuzelas are acceptable.
@adorablepuppy
I'll change the video to actually be embedded on this page then.
EDIT: Didn't work.
@adorablepuppy
Cool.
I'll edit my original post.