So I've been thinking on something like this for awhile, and I don't think we need any additional mechanics for these two ideas in particular, as long as everyone plays fair.
Anyways, I've been looking for more reasons to play differently than I normally would - and I have a couple ideas to that end, but they'd only be worth doing if there was a fair amount of interest.
So for challenge one:
You have to make a new character. You can only trade/party with people also participating in the challenge; you cannot trade with your other characters. The character must be otherwise independent. If you die (excluding death through falling through the world, or otherwise unavoidable deaths), you're out of the league.
Leader-board is based on notoriety. Edit: Plus endurance & lore, for a total score. Characters can prove creation via /age, and screen shot other stats when they die.
So the challenge is simple; live long enough to gain as much notoriety as you possibly can. When you die, post in the guild/community thread what your notoriety was, and what killed you.
Signed up:
1) Hood
2) Vzi
3) ProfessorCat
4)Aedorn
I'm currently attempting this challenge, with my first character dying fairly early to a stupid mistake (see page 2).
As a final addition for the sake of clarification - You cannot pick up items off the ground or buy items from the used-by tab. The only way you should get items is from your own work (or trading with another person participating in the challenge).
It's actually pretty fun, even the tutorial island can be lethal if you're not careful.
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And for Challenge two:
Each player is assigned a random animal form; you cannot trade (but you may party) with people not in this challenge. You cannot dispel this form. I.e. you cannot, through any means, acquire materials like lumber, or otherwise craft goods yourself unless an animal can get that particular skill.
The exception is endurance; you may unlock this through whatever means necessary (i.e. getting lumber from an alt for the NPC and a word of power to talk to her) as this skill is a necessity.
Edit: Illusions, including the spider illusion, are not allowed except for Endurance training. This challenge is not competitive, but rather endurance; how long can you play a character under these restrictions?
Signed Up:
1) Vzi
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And a third bonus challenge:
Gain as much notoriety on a new character as possible (without high level help), within an hour of its creation.
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Anyways, that's what I've got so far. Again, we'd need a fair few people to make these challenges worthwhile. Prizes and incentives would make this more appealing as well, I'd imagine (*cough cough*), but it's mostly just to mix things up. For the most part, we'd need to assume that people wouldn't cheat, but I believe very few people actually would, given it's entirely voluntary anyway.
So anyone interested in something like this?
Edit: Post here or let Vzi (me) know in-game if you're interested!
Edit 2: If you'd like to add additional rules, post 'em below and I'll update the main post. People in that challenge can vote on any rules that are particularly controversial.
Edit 3: Before we can work on the issues (i.e. the honor code), it's important we muster enough interest! So please post here and let me know what challenge you're interested in!