Write Your Way to NWN Diamond Edition Contest

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As the release of Neverwinter Nights 2 approaches with the introduction of a new era for the Neverwinter Nights community, NWN 2 Warcry is proud to announce the FIRST in a series of contests for the Summer of 2006. Called "The Perfect Character Contest", this is story-based and is a great chance to let the writer in you shine! If you have ever had a 'dream character' in mind, this is your opportunity to put words to your dreams. Not a writer? Stay tuned for our second contest to let the artist in you shout out.

* Entries must be between 800-1000 words. Describe your character, his or her backstory, motivations, or chronicle an adventure highlighting your character.

* A PG rating should be considered. Some violence is acceptable but gratuitous sexual content will result in the entry being withdrawn.

* Characters resembling well-known figures (Elminster, Drizzt, etc) will automatically be disqualified.

* One entry per person. Entrants must submit a valid email address, legal name, date of birth, and a mailing address. Ages 18 and over only.

* Entries should be submitted between Monday, June 12, 2006 and Monday, June 19, 2006 to nwn2news@warcry.com Entries should be submitted in one of the following formats: TXT, RTF, DOC

Go here for more information.

 

Hmm, interesting.

I may give it a try, but I don't know if my English is sufficient.

 

Any guarantee this info won't be used for ... um ... marketing purposes? I can see why you'd need all that for the winner, but for every participant?

 

How do you propose they notify the winner if they do not have his or her email address? Or do you think they cast a divination spell to know the winner's data in advance?

 

Lol, maybe for demographic study purposes?

 

Tal, read the "Legal" part on the website. Then ask again why they need the additional data.

 

I did check it, and I still couldn't see any good reason why the mail address and the "legal name" were neccessary. There's no way they can connect the name you give to the address provided, especially if the contestant lives overseas. There's no way they can tell if a person is underage or not, unless a valid proof of ID is provided, like a driver's license number or credit card information, and they will definitedly not be getting those.

This makes me wonder what happens with overseas participants... Will they be getting a localised version of the software, or will they be disqualified because of the shipping cost of sending them the game? I couldn't see any of that that in their legal stuff.

 

Agreed, it's not much of a protection, but they want to make sure that no one of the team will participate. I think it's a normal safeguard every contest like this has to have.

 

@Colthrun: If there's no deal with publishers, I doubt anyone will have anything to do with the hassle of obtaining localised versions. The simplest way is to send the software to the address provided by the contest winner himself and be done with it. Most contests are limited to the USA and some also include Canada, but this isn't the case with some of those.

If there's no notice in the legal stuff, it means the regulations of the jurisdiction where the contest is held apply (no matter that some strange countries believe to have jurisdiction over basically everything everywhere ), which is hardly giving a free hand to the contest holders.

Requirements like legal age, valid address etc serve to disclaim liability for things. For example, if a minor says he's 18, you shouldn't be required to go to cosmic lengths to make sure it's true. It's just the minor has no claim on you in so far as he can't benefit from his own lie. Same with people who give bogus addresses: they just won't get their prize and the contest holder will have sent it to the address provided by winner, so if the winner gives an invalid address, he has no claim if he doesn't get the prize.

At any rate, before the winner is known, you only need a way to contact participants to tell them they have won. I've actually written the code for one of such contests, so I can tell you you basically just record the e-mail addresses of the right people and you pick the winners, draw them randomly or whatever and you contact the winner for his address where to send the prize. Of course, you don't need his phone number unless for confirmation, you don't need his credit card for anything whatsoever. You don't need his name in an absolute sense, but post is normally addressed to a person and it takes a real freak to be paranoid about giving out his name when being sent a free game. Again, this is only true for the winner himself because the names of the other people are completely irrelevant to the contest.