fretboardfreak wrote:The idea is that we could post on the forum here to say that our alliance will be running such a contest and FretBoardFreak (or whoever) will be collecting and distributing the entry fees and prize resources. Thus, the one person who is doing the collecting and distributing would be exempt from the push/pulling rule only once for the sake of the contest.

I don't think posting it in the forums saying "so and so" will be collecting and distributing the entry fees and prize resources. Just imagine how many players will hunt that one person. Yeah I know, you probably don't really think anyone would do that . Might want to think of another way to let admin know like maybe sending them direct mail or something. Just sayin

Thats both a good point and a good idea, Witchywoman.

The suggestion of using rubies instead of resources is definitely one I expected. Personally though I have never even used any of the ten free rubies you get when you join. Also, most of the benefits that rubies provide are temporary. To make rubies worth while we'd need at least 100 as a prize. In contrast a few million in resources can go a long way to increasing the points of a player, whether they use it for ships, a level or two of some buildings or to shore up defenses. But thats just my point of view.

100 rubies as a prize? That's a LOT of rubies for a repeating contest, considering that most ZE Plus features last a week and the most expensive one is only 20. 100 rubies is 6 euros or $8.50, which again is a lot IMO to be giving away for a recurring competition like this.

I know that when I was in the training alliance Twin Runes way back in ancient times, there was a reward system for the alliance based on point growth over a set period, and rubies were awarded by the leaders. That seemed to work well, and is very similar to this. If done this way, it would be kept within the alliance and the pushing/pulling/milking rules and all that jazz wouldn't be relevant.

And that's why I suggested rubies.

As an alliance leader (and student) I cannot afford to give rubies as prizes.

7 days of 25% production increase is small compared to the permanent benefit of a level or two increase in ones mines.

Resources are easy to come by - with or without rubies - half a day of raiding can net me enough res to use as a reasonable prize let alone the amount of res that could be collected with a modest fee for a contest.

I understand the want/need of the moderators/admins/owners to sell rubies and I sympathize. However, the ability to use res as a mode of encouragement could create some fierce competition, both within and without of the alliance. Competition which would greatly benefit the game, especially in the speed universe where there is an extremely large spread of points between the top 30-40 players and the rest of the server.