User:Jonnay23/Competitions

(well okay, not exactly an original meta-game, but this is to illustrate a meta game concept that contains original content)

The basic idea is to get a group of players together, pick a theme and goal, and work towards the goal. Each player judges every other player based on criteria around that goal. For instance, the competition theme might be "Mining", and the goal might be "Mine as many ore as possible". You would be judged based on both subjective and objective criteria: How much ore you got (objective) and how well laid out your mine was (subjective).

The competition is split into 3 general phases, design, playing and judging. The design phase, all the players get together and choose a theme/goal, and its judging criteria. during the play phase, they are actually in the game. For the Judging phase, each player takes part in judging every other players attempt at the theme.

Design
All the players will need to agree on the theme, goal, rules, and judging criteria. Hopefully your judging criteria will contain both subjective, and objective points to judge on. Here are some examples of the kinds of competition you could play, and how you could judge:

Best House
Try and build the best looking and most functional house you can. This theme is more subjective then objective.

Some possible criteria are:
 * How accessible is the house from the spawn point
 * How Aesthetically pleasing the house is
 * How functional is the house towards other goals (i.e. does it have a stairway to a mine? does it have a built in compass? etc.)

Best Spawn Point
A variation of the "Best House" competition. You can only go 20-60 blocks away from the spawn point. Optionally, disallow the building of stone pickaxes.

Best Mine
Build the most functional mine, and extract as many minerals as possible. This has both subjective and objective criteria.

Subjective criteria

 * How Easy it is to navigate the mine
 * Can you find your way out?
 * Can you find your way to fresh areas of the mine?
 * How functional is it - Crafting tables, furnaces, etc.

Objective Criteria
You can give each player a number of points based on the number, and type of minerals they have mined. The chart presented below is only an example.

Best Farm
Build the best Farm, and gather the most plant based resources. This has both subjective and objective judging criteria.

Subjective

 * How easy is it to farm materials?
 * How aesthetically pleasing is the farm?
 * How little space does the farm consume?

Objective

 * A count of each of the different growable resources. (wheat, cactus, trees, sugar cane)

Playing
It's fairest if all players use the same map. This can be done in a couple of ways:
 * All of the players choose the same seed for a world map.
 * A SMP server can be used. In this case, it can be handy to assign each player a direction, and then tell them they need to build x number of blocks from the spawn. I.e. Player 1 gets north, and must build 200 blocks north of the spawn.  This is so players don't step on each others toes while building and gathering resources.

Each player is given a set amount of in game time (i.e 3 hours) to complete the task determined by consensus by all the players. It is also advisable to set a realtime limit to complete the task (i.e. next week).

Whether or not death has any consequence is up to the players.

Judging
Each player shows off their creation to the other players, explaining any relevant nuances. After each creation is shown, all players cast a secret ballot score from 1-5 as to how well the other players did on their subjective criteria.

Other Ideas

 * Best Player Death Trap
 * Best Mob Grinder