11 réponses à ce sujet

[serenai]

I'd like to give something back to the creative community of Dragon Age, so I've been tossing around the idea of a Creative Celebration. It's sort of like a contest, but there wouldn't be any voting per se - I don't want it to turn into a popularity contest. It would be open to fan fiction writers, artists, YouTube video creators, and cosplayers. Dragon Age would be the main theme, of course, and would run for a couple of weeks before and after the release of the game to (1) give everyone time before the game if they need it and (2) give them time after if they'd like to wait to be inspired by it.

 

The submissions would be featured on my website, and everyone would be entered to receive something as a thank-you-for-being-part-of-the-dragon-age-creative-community in a random drawing after all submissions are in.. probably around Christmas or the week prior. The dates I was thinking of to run it are Nov 3-Dec 15. The thank-you's would be a 6-month membership to Deviant Art, a 1-yr membership, and a 1-yr membership plus a Deviant Art backpack. The memberships could be substituted for an equivalent commission from one of our lovely DA artists who have agreed beforehand that they would be available for commissions, for those people who wouldn't be able to use a Deviant Art membership such as our YouTubers (thanks for the suggestion, Lola ). That way they have an artist to choose from, depending on what kind of art they prefer.

 

I've spoken with 4 artists so far; 1 does not do commissions, the other 3 would be happy to. I still have a couple of others I'd like to ask and will be sending out notes in the next couple of days (and if anyone reading this does commissions and would like to offer, please PM me or mention below, the more the merrier!).

 

I'm actually still up in the air about having voting or not.. not sure if voting or random draw out of a hat is the right way to go with it. The reason I'm kind of against it is that it may make people think their creation isn't "good enough" when this is supposed to be a celebration of everyone who is driven to create because of the games - no matter if it is "good" in someone else's eyes or not. I don't want anyone to feel as if their work will be judged. 

 

Thoughts? Ideas on more groups of people to include? Ideas on anything else? All would be welcome

 

[CuriousArtemis]

I think it's a lovely idea myself, though I'm not really in the business of fanfic-writing these days  

 

I'm only a little bit confused on how this is supposed to celebrate fanfic writers and artists if it's basically asking them to write/draw...? It's like, "We love you so much... now make more stuff!"

[serenai]

Well I kind of figured they were either going to be making stuff anyway (many never stop making more and more things) or they could send their favorite(s) of something they've written/drawn/cosplayed from one of the games. The more they send, the better their chances at the drawing, and the more good stuff gets showcased

 

Although in that case maybe I'd better limit it to one entry per day. I know we have many people who have created tons of things. hmm

[serenai]

Judging from the lack of responses here, though, there does not seem to be any interest.

[MacyNell]

This sounds like a great idea! Keep me posted. 

 

Also, I'm not sure that people know that they can just join the group themselves, without an invite or anything, so that might be why the responses did not immediately start to roll in!

[serenai]

I hope that's why.. although I did mention it in my second posting, I'll add a "news announcement" thingy here and repost it in the thread Thanks!!

 

Any suggestions on how to make it more interesting/fun?

 

I have to run for a bit but will check back later

[Lieutenant Kurin]

Hmm.... make it open to 'any and every Dragon Age fan'? I'm none of the acceptable entrants, but I might decide to do an out of the box thing, like record a monologue based on a character from a comic that hasn't been voiced yet. Or write a song, or display a storyboard.

 

This is a fan thing right? So open the flood gates. Instead of citing what to enter, cite how to enter. Acceptable tags on deviantart/archive of our own, what video-sharing site to use, or simply state that forum posts=an entry.

[CuriousArtemis]

Oh, we could enter stuff we've already written?

[TeganJ]

 

This is a fan thing right? So open the flood gates. Instead of citing what to enter, cite how to enter. Acceptable tags on deviantart/archive of our own, what video-sharing site to use, or simply state that forum posts=an entry.

 

I like the idea.  I think opening the flood gates is a good way to go, as is doing a drawing rather than having voting (which would make it more of a contest than a celebration, imho).  Definitely make it clear how people can send in submissions and if you're looking for past and/or new content only.

 

As far as fun/interesting...maybe have categories or prompts, or group submissions into themes?  It might 1) get people thinking/creative juices flowing and 2) be a way to organize submissions on your site for everyone to view.

[Lieutenant Kurin]

I like the idea.  I think opening the flood gates is a good way to go, as is doing a drawing rather than having voting (which would make it more of a contest than a celebration, imho).  Definitely make it clear how people can send in submissions and if you're looking for past and/or new content only.

 

As far as fun/interesting...maybe have categories or prompts, or group submissions into themes?  It might 1) get people thinking/creative juices flowing and 2) be a way to organize submissions on your site for everyone to view.

I'd say if you were to do categories, do it based on media. Vids, pics, written, etc. Keeps everything free! Prompts is good, but may end up limiting things depending on the prompt. 'What is Tevinter' looks a lot more free that 'tell a Chantry story'.

 

Doing a draw is preferable to voting (judging is only fine if you can get actual devs to participate). Voting also means that some submissions get overlooked, i.e. receive no views, and thus auto-lose depending upon the number of the forum post.

 

Although you could always do both.

 

And I'd say limit entries for the draw, or make it new stuff only, as some people have been working on DA stuff FOR YEARS, while this feels like it's meant to include anyone whether or not they have made a creative thingy before.

[serenai]

Some really good ideas, thanks for posting.. and sorry, every time I tried to sit down to reply yesterday someone was interrupting.. lol

 

Looks like most everyone prefers the random draw, which is cool. I wonder if I could offer for others to pitch in and give a draw prize.

 

Hmm.... make it open to 'any and every Dragon Age fan'? I'm none of the acceptable entrants, but I might decide to do an out of the box thing, like record a monologue based on a character from a comic that hasn't been voiced yet. Or write a song, or display a storyboard.

 

This is a fan thing right? So open the flood gates. Instead of citing what to enter, cite how to enter. Acceptable tags on deviantart/archive of our own, what video-sharing site to use, or simply state that forum posts=an entry.

 

Yeah.. see I would have never thought of a storyboard or monologue and both would be perfectly acceptable as a submission. I certainly don't want to place a limit on the creativity, so whatever someone wants to come up with (wall mural on their bedroom wall or an 'altar to DA' they have set up in the living room with figures and such that they take a picture of would be fine, too). 

 

I don't think ff.net uses tags but I'll double check - if they don't someone could always send me an email with a link to it. Tags as a way to enter would be cool. Tumblr, twitter with a link, and Archive of Our Own you said uses them. Even a song with the lyrics made into something DA related would be fine (like what was recently done for MD about Blackwall) in a forum post but I'd definitely need to be emailed the link to it as I'd never see them all. We would want to see anything & everything

 

Oh, we could enter stuff we've already written?

 

The way I want to do it, yes, I just don't want the older stuff (of which there is a boat-load) to out-flood anyone new getting in now that Inquisition is coming out; see below.

 

As far as fun/interesting...maybe have categories or prompts, or group submissions into themes?  It might 1) get people thinking/creative juices flowing and 2) be a way to organize submissions on your site for everyone to view.

 

I can only imagine the mess if I didn't organize them into categories, definitely.. they'll be pretty open ones, maybe Writing, Artwork, Video & Sound, etc. I would have no idea how to do a prompt, though. Themes might be good.. hmm maybe character / location / portraiture / comic / ? I don't know. I'll have to think more on that, maybe we can come up with some themes to get people thinking like you said.

 

I'd say if you were to do categories, do it based on media. Vids, pics, written, etc. Keeps everything free! Prompts is good, but may end up limiting things depending on the prompt. 'What is Tevinter' looks a lot more free that 'tell a Chantry story'.

 

Maybe a theme set inside a category set, although that may be drilling down too much. So like in the picture/artwork category, there would be themes like above of character / location etc.

 

 

And I'd say limit entries for the draw, or make it new stuff only, as some people have been working on DA stuff FOR YEARS, while this feels like it's meant to include anyone whether or not they have made a creative thingy before.

 

Yes, it's meant to include everyone.. so how about limiting prior creations to 2 (technically because there are 2 previous games but they could be about the same one?) and having the rest be new as of Nov 3 and only limited by the one-per-day limit? 

[serenai]

I had a couple of health things over the last couple weeks so have only been able to get on sporadically. 

 

Thanks for everyone's thoughts on this. After thinking about it and also some input from R2, I think I'm going to wait on this until after the holidays and a lot more people get a chance to play. That way submissions wouldn't have such a large potential spoiler factor.

 

Also starting this the day Bioware ended their own art contest would have just been.. awkward. I don't think it would appear to anyone that the dates were entirely coincidental. Hopefully by the time the holidays are over I can get this going.

 

If anyone thinks of any other ideas please do let me know