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DWeird -> RE: =Elemental Championships= OOC 2008 (Applications Phase) (7/11/2008 18:44:13)
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I wrote up a longish post this morning about the history of EC, but Ronin's post made some of it sort of unnecessary... (Also, note: it would be gall to show up as a competitor in a tournament I'm hosting myself, then judge myself the winner and take whatever prizes there are, and then ban anyone who calls that unfair from the boards. You should be happy I successfully resisted those urges).
So, here's a rewrite, with linkage (some of it has already been posted):
2004: The very first EC, started by a guy named warlord. From that one, some people splintered off, and had their own EC, run by Vephoma. I've not too much information about either of these, except for the fact they happened. If RoD or anyone else can fill in here (or whereever else, it'd be much appreciated).
Well, as for Vephoma's "EC Rebellion", that was half hosted on the then java-client accessible IRC chat on Caelestia from a link on the main page. This handled all of the roll aspects, but it was still an overly strict method of going about it, and honestly was as much a mix of Roll Play as Role Play. The fact that the system was scrapped is a blessed thing, trust me. The "EC Rebellion" made it to "Finalists", at least in the manner of Finalists we consider in today's EC, but no further. I happened to use Ronin then and make Chosen of Water, which was referenced ICly in the 2006 run of the same character. ~Ronin
Later that year, I was made moderator for the RP and OOC boards (the RP section didn't have their own OOC boards at that time), and as part of my moderatorship, bravely liberated the EC idea from, um, its original creators. <.<;
The RP boards were in a wee bit of a mess that time, and the idea was to create an RP contest that would showcase the best roleplaying there is. And since combat roleplaying is the only thing that you can (easily) make a contest out of, I went with that. To help establish this as a quasi-official event an in-game prize was promised - 100,000 gold, a hefty sum at the time. Doubt it really attracted anyone who wouldn't have played anyway, but it did make the whole thing seem more serious. XD
<DW hosted 2004 EC Dropoffs>
As RoD mentioned, EC initially had a very different format. Warlord's and Vephy's were essentially a series of heavily mathematical system (stats, rolls, etc.) based duels. The addition of a mass-melee dropoffs in the EC I hosted was to serve simply as a filter to determine, out of a mass of people, those that would be 'good enough' for a similar system of duels. My EC system was seemingly pretty 'rigid' too, but (if I remember right, which I probably don't), various limitations (you *had* to belong to one of three classes: Figther, Mage, or Rogue, there were limitations on movement per post/turn, etc.) were more flexy, because I just couldn't be bothered to do all the math. XD Anyway, the duels never really took off - I can't remember one that actually ended ('xcept when opponents went inactive). Also, at this point, the EC was not completelly authoritarian - there were a panel of five or so judges, all respected roleplayers who voted on who should advance from the Dropoffs, and similar stuff (the vote of the 'head', i.e., me, was only different in that it would act as a tie-braker).
Despite bold statements of "We're going to finish this yet!" and continuous prodding of inactive duelists and judges, the whole thing fizzled down...
Yes, you'll notice that was the EC I took a vacation. Warlord's, mentioned above, actually being before my time on the boards IIRC. ~Ronin
2005: ...which is why I was fairly surprised when I heard people liked the whole thing, and wanted more. So more they got. :D
Most rules stayed in place. Dropoffs as a filter for the 8 Champions of an Element, then a series of to-the-death duels, judged over by a judge, to determine the for realsies Champion.
<DW hosted 2005 EC Dropoffs>
EC's pretensions to have a rigid system behind it were dropped... But, the Finals' duels had some odd changes as well. In this years' EC, the eight finalists would turn into ArchBeings, superpowers of their own element who could essentially rip continents apart. I've said it before and I'll say it again, that was a baaaaaaaaaaad idea from the start, and I proved to be right! Even if I was looking forward to it at the time... ~Ronin
(This year is also responsible for the "there must be actual fighting" rule! A certain extremelly funny character played by Xyphos Celestin became ArchBeing by virtue of slapping someone with a fish... The runner-up for Fire was not pleased.))
(What was worse was that a mildly amusing catman wound up doing all of climbing the Pillar of Earth to snooze in its branches during the Dropoffs and managed to humor his way into the Finals without even throwing a single blow. Such judge controversy led to latter changes in the judging system alongside the obvious rule addition. ~Ronin)
The ArchBeing system also involved a pretty refined judging system - contestants were judged and evaluated from 1 to 5 on three different bits assumed to be constitutive of "RP quality" (Awe, Story and Style), and differences between the two contestants' scores would take away bits of a set amount of "hit points" they had. Even when some of the contestants were active (which sort of was the case!), this system, which essentially divorced the actions of the players' characters' from what really affected these characters, and therefore was confusing, and therefore was irritating. This system was scrapped.
At that point, with my other projects failing and exams coming up, I resigned from moderatorship...
2006: ...only to be brought back in by more EC requests.
This time, an actual working, stable system was created (the one we're playing with now, even! ^_^). Took the only part of the whole process that worked - the Dropoffs, and created mini-versions of it: The Cellar, Sky, and Spike Arenas. The Finals would also work in a Dropoffs-esque, not duel format: the eight finalists would be dumped in a free-for-all melee in the former Dropoffs, now Finals Arena. People could be removed (either due to inactivity or because they were judged away) without significant loss of roleplaying flow, which meant that Finals could actually happen. :D
<DW hosted 2006 Dropoffs, Fountain>
<DW hosted 2006 Dropoffs, Cellar>
<DW hosted 2006 Dropoffs, Spike>
<DW hosted 2006 EC Finals>
By this time, the in-game prizes were mostly secondary to the fun and honour associated with the EC... But RoD, the first real Champion, still got a spiffy new unique weapon (actually a recolour of a pre-existing model, but what can you do (Actually, Raynar's was a recolor of Grace, but neither myself nor anyone else actually found this out for the longest of time. Grace was in the DB first! ~Ronin)). I also still owe RoD a finishing "crowning" post on the se Finals. >.>; So yeah, this lamb be lazy. Yeah, you ARE lazy! So am I and technically so is TD, though...you don't hear about his weapon due to part of lazy and part of "I forgot to get in what I needed to." ~Ronin
2007: RoD takes over, system essentially the same. Two new additions: the Sky Arena and the Spectators thread.
<RoD hosted 2007 Dropoffs, Fountain>
<RoD hosted 2007 Dropoffs, Sky>
<RoD hosted 2007 Dropoffs, Cellar>
<RoD hosted 2007 Dropoffs, Spike>
<RoD hosted 2007 Spectators thread>
<RoD hosted 2007 EC Finals>
Well, there was one or two tweaks behind the scenes too. The 'Wildcard' concept was tried, in an effort to try and bring up competition quality across the entire elemental structure, and was sadly *utilized* for Fire. Despite feeling like I should do that again, it got people asking for a Void Pillar, and I outright refuse to tarnish the *Elemental* Championships with any Void references...it just isn't proper. So that concept is scrapped. ~Ronin
2008: This one here. The EC we're about to take part in is the seventh of all ECs, and the fifth year of the EC project.
And that's about it! If someone wants to add some more info I forgot (especially links or texts of older ECs), please post here or PM and I'll update this post accordingly.
Why did I write all this? I'm a very, very vain person. Also maybe because some of you will find this useful or at least interesting. But mostly because of the vanity, really.
A good bloodbath to you all.
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