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Mazin

Idea for a New Pirates Contest - Unofficial Sets

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Hi everyone!

I've sent this message to a lot of You, but since getting a reply takes a lof of time I'd like to share this with everyone in this topic.

I'be also gratefull if our mods and admins could take this topic serious and let us discuss it, perhaps give their own suggestions, "legalize it", or make a poll or something so that we could all decide whether we'd like to have such contest or not.

So me and a couple of guys were thinking about kicking some energy into everyones megablocks as it's a little bit boring here lately and had a disscusion about making a small & easy contest... There's no official Pirates contest at this time, no TOR no RvB from what I know, so i figured out we could think of someting.

So...

I dont know if we can start something unofficial here on Eurobricks, or do we need to have a clearance, but if so, well, here's what I'd like to do:

The basic idea is to have a "build an unofficial pirates set" contest instead of traditional MOC/STORY constests.

What I mean is - most of official contests created and run by Eurobricks are time thiefs.

Like with comics - one have to think about dozens of things when preaparing them - script, bulding, composition, light, cropping, editing, etc etc

So generally it takes a lot a lot of time and effort to make something for the first round, then second and so and so... one have to give a lot of energy and passion to create thing, when it's not that clear that he/she will get any attention, support, criticism, prizes... ( there's been a world that no prizes were given to last TOR winners, is it true? )

And of course, this contest takes a lot of time - time to get an idea, time to create, time to vote... etc etc

With the type of a contest i'm proposing now we could go for a fast and easy and highly enjoyable tournament, where one would have to create simple "unnoficial sets" of his own pirate theme idea, week by week, starting with tiny sets, army packs, small boat, small island... and getting bigger and bigger with each round.

Each round would consist of a couple of minirounds... where a contestant would have to propose his "unofficial set" covering a specific problem ( like a horse cart set, a chase scene set, a landing clash set, a battle at sea set etc ), showing his idea of factions, and developing his theme with every round and miniround.

Making the contest this way would make it easy for everyone because everyone would have to create traditional uncomplicated sets and NOT MOCs.

It would NOT require a lot of skill, the only requirement would be to have certain amount of bricks and minifigures needed to participate.

At the same time the speed of contest - WEEK BY WEEK minirounds - would actually force people to speed up and focus on creating these small sets.

Look - not everyone has a month and that much of patience and energy to build a highly complicated MOC or a lego story/comic.

On the other hand - it's much easier for anyone to come back home after work and make a small carriage, or a group of soldiers, or a small fort, and then something bigger on the weekend.

Also sets would get bigger with each round, so then additional days would be added.

Here's how it could look:

1 round - "minimal" sets - week per miniround ( army pack, boat, horse carriage etc ),

2 round - small sets - week per miniround ( big carriage, war clash pack, element of the fort/base, bigger boat ),

3 round - medium sets 10 days per miniround ( even bigger carriage set, even bigger fort set, bigger island set, small ship set etc ),

4 round - large sets - 2 weeks per miniround ( larger ship, larger fort, larger island etc)

5 round - extra large sets - 3 weeks per miniround ( big ship, big trading post, big island fortress etc )

So all of the competitors would have to participate in certain minirounds - competing in building certain sets, getting more and more into it, and finally creating the Big One.

Best sets and best project overall would be voted for, and the winning project or those similar could be combined and edited into a nice packaging and proposed directly to the Lego Company, or as a Lego Idea.

This way it would be something new, attractive, and with a PURPOSE.

So let's do something innovative, enjoyable and easy! :wink:

Oh and about the prizes - most important thing. There'll be NONE guaranteed - but the jury and organizers could decide other way later - if they'll find something real that they could actually give :)

The only prizes "guaranteed" would be having fun, WINNING, getting a special badge, and that the winning projects, or best sets combined would be digitally turned into packages and officialy proposed to Lego Company or Lego Idea, what may turn into something big and a real Lego theme in the future :classic:

Well, in short words, i think it's a lot better way to build something for a contest and enjoy it, than spending weeks on designing that "official" Eurobricks Pirate subtheme were only moderators were actually able to make any real designing decisions.

Ok. That's it. Thanks if You had enough patience and interest to go trough all of it.

And tell me what You think if You'd be interested.

Regards

Mazin

Edited by Mazin

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Hello,

As I said, I like your ideas. I would suggest to make it in the near future. We should not discuss it weeks. Thats the main problem here in our forum. I would make a max bricks rule in every round.

Make it hard and fast.

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Thanks, thanks indeed pirate_classic.gif

the more of us support this idea here, the more chances we get to convince moderators and start the whole thing pirate_wink.gif

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Thats the main problem here in our forum. I would make a max bricks rule in every round.32.gif

Edited by gjiashica

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so we have to votes for max bricks rule

i'm not much of a fan of being too strict, still, if this works we could think of some margins, i guess that it's possible to check what number of bricks those classic and new sets usually have, some of our members are probably already experienced in this matter

still, a lot of people will never count the numer of bricks used, this would take a lot of focus from having fun, would require to check things, do some rebuilds and stuff... I am just concerned that it woudln't work well with someones need for freedom and creativity

still, as said, i guess that a lot of us are rather experienced in this matter and could guess the number of bricks just by looking at a certain set

another things - bricks DIFFER, ones are twice or ten times bigger than other ones

and so there wil be always questions like, if one should consider a shark to be 1 brick or 2 bricks, same with a monkey - is it 1 brick or 5 bricks ( a body + 4 paws ) and so on...

still, there could be a rule of how many figures and animals one could include within a certain set, like say "create a set with 4-5 minifigures, and 2-3 animals of Your choice"

well, there's a lot of stuff to discuss... but someone has to start

any other ideas? pirate_classic.gif

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Maybe instead of max bricks, you could have the MOC fit within a 8x8 plate or 16x16 or 32x32, etc. Maybe no height limit. It'll be easier than counting pieces.

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I'm afraid plates would be harder to get for a lot of people than minifigures. It's not that these are not available, it's just that most of us focus on getting figures or certain sets, plates usually come at the very end of one's wishlist ;)

Other thing is that if we make this plate rule the same plate will be probably used more than once. And we don't really want that. We won't diversified sets, minifigures or certain bricks, parrots, sharks, can happen more often of course, but i don't want to but two sets with the same kind of plate.

Also, a lot of novadays sets don't really use plates, and still offer a lot of fun, like this one:

image1_79010-big.jpg?l.r=1630165227

So i woudln't bother.

Rules could be more specified in the matter of a subject, like "create a ship vs an island fortress set"... making too many technical rules would kill the whole thing, enrage amateurs :)

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I meant the MOC should fit within a specified area rather than having to build it on a plate. An example would be the Turtle contest that LEGO had. To prove all the pieces fit within, take a picture of the MOC on top of the plate (or ruler) afterwards.

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Ah ok. Ruler sounds much easier pirate_wink.gif

Still, it could work with some of the sets, not all the sets. As i said, rules could change a bit from time to time, to make the whole thing more diversified pirate_blush.gif

Height limit woudl be rather hard to conform, well because of the masts mostly. Buildind an extra tall tower or castle is one thing, but it's somewhat justified that mast are considerably tall. And attaching them to an island, or a ship would make them even taller, so pirate_classic.gif

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If this is supposed to be a set idea kind of challenge, then the restriction should be a part count range per field. A min-max limit for each size range using Lego's actual sets as a guide is more appropriate.

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Instead of a size restriction or a piece limit, maybe a piece target would be best. Say, we are aiming for 300 pieces including minifigs, but there is a large allowance--50 pieces, for example, at either end, so you could use anywhere from 250 to 350 pieces. It would allow the most flexibility in style and size while still being more or less accurate to the set design process that official sets follow in order to hit specific price points.

Edit: ah, I see that gedren_y just posted practically the same thing.

Edited by rodiziorobs

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Ok, so there is some discussion about sizes and a number of bricks.

What about a number of rounds and minirounds?

Can we statistically divide Lego themes into type of sets?

I mean, my idea of 5 rounds is just a quick proposition, made only on some observation, but perhaps Lego has some clearly strict rules about types of sets they are doing - considering range of prize for example.

And so what types of sets would You like to see in this kind of a constest? Let's name them pirate_classic.gif

Starting with mini sets perhaps?

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The unofficial sets could be voted upon utilizing most of the criteria an actual set is reviewed such as Design, Minifigs, Parts, and Playability. Each voter giving 10 points in each category.

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Could be. A lot of votes to count though, still, worth a thought pirate_satisfied.gif

Categories seem right. Well, that's what we are all always looking for pirate_classic.gif

I'm not sure only if the number of points is not too big. 1-10 always makes a lot of people to lose it at some point. They'll forget their own criteria, giving a lot of hight notes for nor reason really.

It's just like with giving points to movies. A lot of viewers think that 6-7 is already a pretty good note. And a movie needs to be masterpiece to get 9-10. They're just curious when judging something.

While many other, especially younger viewers give most 10s or 1s just because thye've liked something or not.

So this way some of the creations would end up getting way too many points, because of different ways of judgemenet.

It doesn't sound fair.

Making 1-5 would make it much easier, I guess. pirate_classic.gif

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