theHunter Classic Forums

COMPETITION GENERATOR



WHAT IS IT?
It's a competition generator. I started working on it a few years ago when I began hosting my own competitions, and realised how much work it would be to manually create forms, validate scores, and check to make sure participants followed the rules. I had big plans for it and even went as far as writing Android and iOS apps for score submission, leaderboards and various other useful stuff such as push notifications and calendar integration, etc. Life got in the way however, and other business commitments had to take priority. In the end, development stopped and I decided just to use it for my own competitions and a couple of others, hosted by other community members.

When I started doing consultancy work for Expansive Worlds I stopped hosting competitions altogether. However, community competitions are a very special part of this forum for me. They are what got me involved in the community and I think they add tremendous value. Community competitions are, in my opinion, much more interesting and rewarding than the official competitions, so I very much them to continue and for more and more community members to host their own. With the help of Tod, our lead moderator and one of the founding members of White Out Hunting, I take great pleasure in announcing that the competition generator is slowly going to be opened up for public use.


HOW DO I HOST A COMPETITION WITH IT?
At the moment there is still some work involved in getting a competition configured and running. This part of the process requires access to the UHC Apps server and all of the source code. For that reason, and until such times as a more automated version of the application becomes available, not everyone can have access to the core system. However, everyone is free to request that their competition be put on the system and hosted on the UHC Apps server. Tod has kindly agreed to manage the competition generator and although his time is not unlimited, he shares the same passion for community competitions as I do and has kindly volunteered his time to community members looking for a more robust platform on which to host competitions.


WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS?
The main benefit of using the competition generator as opposed to an alternative such as Google Sheets, is flexibility and automated verification of scores. The system communicates directly with theHunter API and uses a number of functions to validate submissions. This enables hosts to forget about manual validation of scores, a process that can take a significant amount of time and result in human error. The system is able to check a huge number of variables and alert participants if a part of their submission is incorrect or fails to meet the rules or criteria of the competition. The system can also keep track of attempts, time limits, and even more complex things such as shot placement (which organs have been hit) and how many points a rack has, or horn length, etc. This affords competition hosts more flexibility and accommodates more imaginative competitions which might otherwise be prohibitive using manual entry and validation systems.


DO I HAVE TO PAY?
No, there are no fees to use this system. All you have to do is remain cognisant of the fact that it is being run and managed by volunteers who have other commitments, so it may not always be possible to host a competition exactly when you want to. If hosts want to include em$ prizes in their competitions, then this is the responsibility of the host.


I WANT TO HOST A COMPETITION - WHAT NOW?
In the first instance, please contact Tod. You can find his forum profile here. He will discuss your competition idea with you and try to agree a suitable timescale for preparations, so you a convenient date for the competition can be agreed.


SUPPORT
Support is provided by volunteers, so please be patient. Holidays, sickness and other real life events can and will from time to time result in delays and an inability to accommodate the needs of hosts. I will continue to work closely with Tod on the development of the system. Improvements and updates will be communicated in this thread.


QUESTIONS
If you have any questions feel free to post them below, or send a private message to Tod or me (or both).





Thank you for your interest in the competition generator, and a big thank you to Tod for giving up his free time to help improve the system and enable others to host competitions. I look forward to seeing many more competitions hosted on it in the future.

UHC Apps | White Out Hunting | Current Competition Schedule

Wow David, this is REALLY cool! The amount of work that you've done here is amazing! Hopefully this thing starts cranking out some awesome community competitions soon!

Congratulations to us and thank you thank you my man! This is wonderful and amazing news to see. You know my feelings on it and have always been hopeful that somehow some day this might become a reality.

I completely agree with your thoughts pertaining to being a special part of the community because for me, especially as a new guy, I really had an amazing time and your past comps in particular have truly been some of the most memorable moments because of how it brings us together and the fun and good times it serves. Your comps always challenged us to step out of the box and always managed to wish I could strangle you but in a loving way .... I've kind of been in need of some inspiration as life is just busy right now and I've really stepped back in relation to my normal playing habits. Actually I've just been taking it easy to let XEODragon try and catch up, she's a competitive thing ...

So Great news David! It warms my heart brother~ There's just no end to your awesomeness is there? ....

We shall revisit my "All in a Day" comp in the future, I have hope now

Excellent news! Thank you Caledonian, for this awesome opportunity to have a comp generator, that can be used by the community. With great appreciation, I thank thee wholeheartedly. Peace.

BCKidd.

Radamus wrote:I've kind of been in need of some inspiration as life is just busy right now and I've really stepped back in relation to my normal playing habits. Actually I've just been taking it easy to let XEODragon try and catch up, she's a competitive thing ...

When I enter community competitions, I don't necessarily do so to win the overall prize. I just like seeing my name higher on the final scoreboard than Radamus'. And let's be honest, if I didn't have to jump back into my work routine a couple months ago, I would have greatly surpassed your hunterscore by now

I was a stalker on this forum for a while before I joined it, reading everything and saying nothing. Even now, I prefer to sit on the sidelines rather than comment on every little thing. The community competitions were the single thing that really drew me towards the forum and therefore the community and they're the key reason I finally went ahead and made an account here. I don't really participate in the official competitions as I don't play much singleplayer and I bore quickly of the idea of grinding for the biggest animal or the longest shot. Community competitions tend to be much more unique, and because they occur here on the forum there's a good bit of smacktalk to go around and that just further drives the urge to want to compete with the people you've come to know really well through the forum. So any tool that is going to simplify and expedite the scoring process in community competitions and possibly encourage more members to host their own competitions is an awesome one in my eyes.

I thank you and Tod and anyone else who may have a hand in this fancy technological babble for all of your hard work and invested time. I'm sure it will be put to great use by the community and I look forward to seeing it in action.

Nice, David.

Like xOEDragonx, one of the biggest motivators for me were the community comps, and the Whiteout comps. (I always strived to beat Largeone, rather than place at the top. our own personal rivalry )

For the past year or more, we've been using google docs to manage competitions, which works fine but it's a complicated process for both the person setting it up, and for the users.

UHC offers a much simpler process for the users, and a much more versatile solution for comp hosts & programmers setting them up. It's a bit more complicated on the setup side, but we're streamlining that process with every comp.

There is currently one comp running now, a private Whiteout comp, and 3 comps ready to go in the near future. Check them out at http://www.uhcapps.co.uk/competitions/.
I'm working on one of my own in the background, and also working on streamlining the process of creating them. I'm also planning on implementing a calendar to make it easier to schedule community comps so they don't overlap too much. But I am available to get a few more going in the near future here, so if you have ideas and want to host your own competition let me know. The sky is the limit as far as setting up the rules, requirements & scoring for your comp. Just let me know what you have in mind, and we'll work it out.

I look forward to seeing more community hosted competitions, and maybe even taking some of your em$

Be Well

Awesome stuff, David and Tod - thanks for the work, time and dedication you put into this! And it's good to see that a number of old and new players are hosting community competitions in the near future!

xOEDragonx wrote:I just like seeing my name higher on the final scoreboard than Radamus'.

C'mon, it's time to set some real goals, dont'cha think? Everyone can place higher than Len!

Thanks, David and Tod! It was about damn time!

Tanngnjostr wrote:...

xOEDragonx wrote:I just like seeing my name higher on the final scoreboard than Radamus'.

C'mon, it's time to set some real goals, dont'cha think? Everyone can place higher than Len!

Marc, you made my day!

Wahou !!! Very good job David, thanks for this.
And a big thanks for Tod1d too

Wow. Great job, dude