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'Dawn of New Britannia' Community Trailer Contest!

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by Berek, Aug 4, 2016.

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  1. Berek

    Berek Portalarian Emeritus Dev Emeritus

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    [​IMG]

    Get those eye popping trailer ideas ready, Avatars! This is your chance to show that Shroud of the Avatar is both the game, and community, that new players will want to experience next! The ‘Dawn of New Britannia' Community Trailer Contest kicks off today!

    You have until August 21, 2016 (11:59 PM CDT) to design a video trailer for all New Britannians to see and admire. Glamorous city districts, creative player-owned towns, luxurious housing, intense combat, majestic outdoor areas, and so much more is available to proudly show off. There’s a nearly infinite potential in creating a trailer that makes even the most hardy New Britannia cry in joy, and to want to share the video with others.

    Below are the details of this contest, including what you can win when creating an amazing video! Please only respond to this thread with general questions and interest in the contest. The Trailer Submission Thread is where you go to submit a trailer and to comment on submitted trailers.

    WINNERS & PRIZES

    Trailers will be judged by a team at Portalarium on the following merits:
    • Keeping to the Shroud of the Avatar world (Only SotA footage, audio, or your own (free/non-copyrighted) assets)
    • Overall originality and artistic flair (Don’t overdo it! Simplicity can work wonders)
    • Diversity of in-game areas presented (Outside scenes, inside homes, dungeons, etc.!)
    • Overall flow from opening scenes, buildup of in-game footage, and end scene
    • Seamless transitions, consistency, and smooth gameplay throughout
    • Will it make a fan shed a tear in joy? Brownie points here!
    Check out these great prizes for designing a great trailer!
    • Grand Prize: $1,000 Store Credit, SotA signed t-shirt, Sword of Midras hardcover book, SotA COTOs coin, and a specially signed congratulations letter from Richard Garriott.
    • 2nd Place: $500 Store Credit, SotA signed t-shirt, Sword of Midras hardcoverbook, SotA COTOs coin
    • 3rd Place: $250 Store Credit, SotA signed t-shirt, Sword of Midras hardcoverbook, SotA COTOs coin
    All Other Submissions: Everyone else that submits an eligible and feature complete trailer will have theirs included in a contest playlist on the official Portalarium YouTube channel for proudly submitting their work.

    Final entries and winners will be mentioned and possibly shown in the upcoming summer telethon on August 22nd! Keep watch on the main website for details on the telethon.

    SUBMITTING A VIDEO

    Requirements:
    • Resolution: 1920×1080, or 3840×2160 if everything looks smooth
    • Runtime: 1-3 Minutes
    • Assets: May only use SotA graphics, music, or your own (free/non-copyrighted) assets
    • Quality: For optimal game recording quality, set all game settings to their max
      Scale back game settings if framerate drops consistently below 30fps
    • Audio: Must have at least some music, sound effects as needed. Also consider how game sound effect levels are with the main music. You can also turn them off if you feel they are not needed.
    • Contains a “Created by:” message somewhere at the end scene, as well as a Shroud of the Avatar logo either in this same scene or elsewhere.
    Your video must be shareable on YouTube. Submit your trailer in the official forum Trailer Submission Thread with a title, description, why you created it, and a YouTube link to the trailer.

    VIDEO RESOURCES

    There are plenty of tools out there to use to put together a gameplay trailer! Some online web suggestions would be Animoto.com, Flixtime, and Stupeflix. Production tools include Adobe Premiere, Cyberlink Director, and Sony Vegas. As long as the trailer adheres to the requirements listed in this contest announcement, you can use any software at your disposal.

    Example Videos (check out other games and ideas beyond just these! Also, be sure to adhere to the contest guidelines, even if you do not see a requirement in one of these examples):

    SotA Trailer



    SotA Trailer v2



    Animoto



    Community (2015)


    There are many ways to create great trailers! We recommend you start by considering if you want any graphics at the beginning of the trailer to introduce it, as well as exit slides (including the necessary “Created by:” message in the end scene). One of the examples we provided above is a super duper fancy Animoto.com version, so don’t feel obligated to abide by that structure.

    You can download the SotA Media Kit that includes additional logos and items for your video.

    Ask the community for other tips and advice, such as how to reduce the appearance through transparency of the reticle, and adjusting of other in-game UI elements.

    While you are not required to save raw footage, we would appreciate you doing so in case we would like to reuse the footage in future videos. Please do not send raw footage until we ask.

    Poets' Circle and other community resources may also have game audio. Please ask for permission before using anything that is not official SotA music or your own work!

    THE RULES

    Since this is a skill based contest, a committee of judges will be formed at Portalarium, and any tie breakers will be resolved by the committee. Any concerns and disputes on who won must be sent to community@portalarium.com. Do not post in the submission thread or other public areas any disputes or challenges about the winners.

    Inappropriate/Vulgar submissions are prohibited and will result in disqualification. Submissions containing any of the following are considered inappropriate:
    • Any disparagement of a race/gender/group of people or ideals
    • Drug/alcohol abuse, sexual connotations, and other derogatory or disturbing imagery
    • Graphical bugs, or otherwise depicting the state of the game in a negative manner
    • Anything that would be a violation of the common Community Rules & Guidelines

    NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. MUST BE AGE 13 OR OLDER. ONE ENTRY PER PERSON OR HOUSEHOLD.

    THIS IS A SKILL-BASED CONTEST. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW. VIDEO FOOTAGE CAN BE FROM ANY SOURCE AVAILABLE TO YOU, INCLUDING YOUR OWN GAME ACCOUNT AND THIRD PARTY SOURCES. ASK FOR PERMISSION WHERE APPROPRIATE. AFFIDAVIT OF ELIGIBILITY / RELEASE OF LIABILITY / PRIZE ACCEPTANCE AGREEMENT MAY BE REQUIRED.

    ALL SUBMITTED VIDEOS ARE ABLE TO BE USED AND COPIED BY PORTALARIUM FOR PROMOTING SHROUD OF THE AVATAR AS PORTALARIUM AND ITS PARTNERS SEES FIT.
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2016
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  2. Amber Raine

    Amber Raine Community Ambassador (FR)

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    Quick Question - This may seem obvious to others but a little less obvious to me. So:

    "Videos will be judged on":
    • Keeping to the Shroud of the Avatar world (Only SotA footage and audio)
    "Submitting a video":

    • Assets: May only use SotA graphics, music, or your own customized assets
    These seem to contradict each other... You must use only SotA footage, you may use your own customized assets....

    Please Clarify... If they are our own customized assets, how are they Shroud only? Perhaps this will just dock us marks in judging if we create something that is not from within SotA but is SotA based?

    Sorry bit confused on the wording.
     
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  3. Berek

    Berek Portalarian Emeritus Dev Emeritus

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    Great question Amber Raine! I'll edit the top line to also add "or your own customized assets".

    Essentially, we want to ensure you're not adding in copyrighted material from somewhere else, or promoting other games in the video, etc. :)
     
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  4. Waxillium

    Waxillium Avatar

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    Selection group 91 places on the 24th after the contest closes.
     
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  5. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    Love these types of contests for our talented community!

    Wouldn't this be a good place to award additional Royal Crier in-game titles for participants?
     
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  6. Grave Dragon

    Grave Dragon Avatar

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    This is awesome @Berek! Love love love the idea and can't wait to see what the community comes up with. We have some super talented people among us!
     
  7. Berek

    Berek Portalarian Emeritus Dev Emeritus

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    We may have a closer-to-launch housing trailer contest too, so feel free to take footage of other peoples houses, towns, cities, etc., in the meantime. This is not a housing-only contest, so don't worry about not being able to participate!

    Interesting idea! I'll check with the team on this possibility.
     
  8. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

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    I'm a little fuzzy on this. Are you saying that you don't want voice overs or that you don't need them to participate?
     
  9. Berek

    Berek Portalarian Emeritus Dev Emeritus

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    You don't need them, and typically don't have them for game trailers. However, if you feel that it works for your particular idea, then go for it!
     
  10. Kabalyero Kidd

    Kabalyero Kidd Avatar

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    my video quality is subpar because my machine is not that good but I will still enter just for the fun of it... (。◝‿◜。)
     
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  11. Bubonic

    Bubonic Avatar

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    Well, it isn't a scene jam, but I'll take it ;)

    two questions:

    1) is there some sort of area where we can download sota music, and

    2) are we allowed to use non-sota-yet-public-domain music?
     
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  12. Womby

    Womby Avatar

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    Hi Berek, can you provide a link to official SotA music that we can use?

    EDIT: posted same time as Bubonic :)
     
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  13. Amber Raine

    Amber Raine Community Ambassador (FR)

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    Question: What is our target audience? People whom already play and love the game? people whom we are trying to market to? Convention? Target audience can help define a path that may open that was not thought of.
     
  14. Bubonic

    Bubonic Avatar

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    another question: are we allowed more than one submission?
     
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  15. Berek

    Berek Portalarian Emeritus Dev Emeritus

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    Great questions on the music! I'm not sure that we have any publicly listed as individual files. Anyone with more community history than I know where some might be for trailer makers? :)
     
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  16. Ronan

    Ronan Avatar

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    I hope Space Bards / Recap have time for this! Would love to see their twist on an entry!
     
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  17. amaasing

    amaasing Avatar

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    Soundcloud has a great selection of Shroud Music
     
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  18. Myrcello

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    Some Feedback from me to the Developers and to Berek.


    A) Very short time you give the Players to create a good Trailer with Ingame Content.
    3 Minutes is alot of "Content Recording". :) Often you record for a 15 Second Action Scene of 3 players maybe 30 minutes until something usable comes out of it. And then you need to pre organise them to come at this time at that spot.

    Do you still have the teleport option activated? This did make it more easy to get all the participants on one spot in a Dungeon to do recording.
    If not you need to wait until all did fight to the endmonster to record. And hope they do not get killed.



    Getting good High Quality shots of Ingame Action or Scenes you need alot of ingame content and because of the "No Free Camera during movement" you will frustrate players trying to create good video content.

    In this Video i made i had alot of fun because you could record your Avatar during fight and movement from all perspectives!



    Later it was not possible anymore. You changed the Movement System. The moment your Avatar starts to move you always have the Camera move behind the Avatar.
    This reduced the creative freedom and will reduce the creative freedom of the Community you are asking to create videos.


    I can only see a group of Players being able to make nice ingame shots with move variety.
    Or focus on sceneary Videos.


    In case you did install a Free Camera Movement then appology , i was not aware of that.

    But if not i highly recommend you update this option fast to increase the chance that your community is able to create good ingame Trailer content. Or to make the live of them more easy doing it so.

    - Cutting Videos was not the most work - but getting players together and finding good spots and recording good ancles did take up most of the time.
    "Hey do you have time - i want to record 3 of you walking down this way" - hey do you have time i wan´t you all to fight - but watch out that you do not stand to close to NPC or MOnster as this looks silly.


    So maybe ad more Days. Some are parents, have 8 hour jobs and family. 2 Weeks is not much considering that.


    The short time frame did demotivate me. Even so you give a nice award as an optoin. Very nice award to go for to be honest.


    I know the Space Bards did create within 24 Hours a very good Video and Music and such. But they are very experienced with this. They do it as a hobby long and had alot of pre experience and knowledge.




    This post is not supposed to make all look bad - just to create awareness of challenges and awareness that the time you give them is "tooo short"
     
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2016
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  19. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    All of the approved tracks for SotA music are here:


    Additionally, some sound effects are here:
     
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  20. Berek

    Berek Portalarian Emeritus Dev Emeritus

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    Thanks everyone for the music supplies!

    That is the challenge, you have only so much time :). Two and a half weeks with 3 full weekends should be enough to create a good trailer. If there are any concerns with not being able to do something in the game, let us know and we'll see if we can suggest any alternatives!

    Keep in mind that 3 minutes is the max. We allow you to create a video from 1-3 minutes. If you can dig up enough cool content and make a great video in 3 minutes, great! More isn't always better though, so don't feel obligated to fill that time.
     
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