"Cash" competitions

[JackRbbt]

For hardcore competitors, why not a competition's system, inspired by poker tournaments. An entry fee (50 or 100 em$), a 10% rake for EW and the rest the prize pool. According to the competitors' number, a percentage scale for winners (let's say for 5-10 competitors, 1-st place gets 50% from prize pool, 2-nd gets 30% and 3-rd gets 20%. For 11-20 competitors, 1-st 40%, 2-nd 30%, 3-rd 20%, 4-th 10%. And so on...). Everybody "wins": EW gets the rake, the em$ "hunters" plays that type of comp and the rest of us, we're fighting for trophies and small change.

[Darvich]

I was going to post this suggestion a few weeks ago, but a quick search showed that it was suggested before and pretty much shot down immediately

Don't know why though. Like you say, EW would make more money, and players have that extra spice added to competitions. It'd be totally voluntary, so nobody needs to feel like they're being turned over financially. In my version, I was giving EW 30-50% of the take (to make it worth their while organizing etc) and the rest divided amongst the top 5 competitiors (but I reckon like yourself, that exact amounts/number of prizes would depend on number of entrants).

Anyway, long story short, I'm with you Jack. In fact, I think this could be done with or without EW's support (although far better if it is official).

[JackRbbt]

Thank you for your support, Darvich!

Impossible to be done without EW's, as long the em$ can not be exchanged between players (a good thing!).
My math is simple:
- assuming 50 em$ registration fee and 25 registered players, that means 1250 em$.
- EW takes 10%=125 em$ (a prize for a regular competition)
- prize pool is 1125 em$
- 1-st place takes 40% from prize pool = 450 em$
- 2-nd place takes 30% - // - // - // - = 338 em$
- 3-rd place takes 20% - // - // - // - = 225 em$
- 4-th place takes 10% - // - // - // - = 112 em$
The prize for 4-th place is bigger than 1-st prize in a regular competition, not talking about the rest...

And as you said, is totally voluntary!

[Darvich]

Hmmm, I thought you could buy em$ as a gift.

Anyway, doesn't matter now. What's important is that we brainwash, I mean, convince our fellow hunters that this is an idea at least worth discussing! Your prize breakdown is sweet, although I'd personally round up/down some of the figures, but that's just me. E.G. with a pool of 1125em$, I'd suggest maybe;

• 1st - 500em$
  2nd - 300em$
  3rd - 200em$
  4th - 125em$

but yeah, that's just me being anal about rounding up/down Still, I think this could fly. Those who don't have a problem helping to fund the Hunter's ongoing development have another way to help EW. Those who don't like the micro-transaction model can either a) just not take part (it won't affect their Hunter score, ability to complete missions, blood pressure etc), or b) look at it as a way to maybe win some cash back

[JackRbbt]

Honestly, i don't try to convince anyone! It's just a starting point, for a possible friendly debate. And many improvements can arises, if many brains are working together. If this will go somewhere or not, is beyond my knowledge or power.

To hard facts now: yes, you can buy em$ as gift, but you cant buy only 500, 1000, 1500, 2000, 3000 and 5000. How to send 125 to someone, as prize? That's why i said that EW must be involved in this. The prizes values can be set in any imaginable way, so your rounded-up scale or my percentage scale are just another starting point.

[Darvich]

Yeah, I was just kidding about the "convincing". And I had a quick look at the store and agree with you - 500 is too much for most people to pay. Except the big gamblers For some reason, I thought you could buy amounts of 100 em$ but I was clearly thinking of something else.

Another point worth noting - just like all other competitions, you don't have to enter all of them. So far, I've only tried multi-species comps for example. So if (again, this is just an example) there was a mule deer "cash comp", or a long shot one, I might decide to give them a miss. But the following week there might be a multi-species cash comp and I would decide to play. So it shouldn't be considered like an ongoing expense - only pay when you want to play!