Monday, July 13, 2009 @ 7:24 PM

Rock's submission for event

I submitted an exactly 500-word long essay for the event "Voice Out Loud!".

Since I did not get shortlisted, I shall just post it here for the benefit of my readers. :) But the 500-word limit is too short D: I'm going to continue editing this, so watch out.

I just kind of complained. Blah. :P Sometimes I wonder WHY I even bother participating in all these competitions, when I am aware that I'll probably end up with a lower self esteem (for a few minutes) than before. -_-

Made up my mind, not going to participate in the Black Magician Fan Art Contest thing. I'll rather post the pictures here :)

Hehs, did not have much hope for the essay either. Rushed it out in 2 hours. D: Had to cut it down from 1000+ words, but lost a lot of content in the process. ):

Copied from the MapleSEA website, in case no one knows what I am talking about.

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Dear Maplers,

We are inviting Maplers to give their thoughts and constructive suggestions for the MapleSEA Community. If you think you have what it takes to be the active voice of MapleSEA, step out and take the lead!

Event Name: Voice Out Loud! for MapleSEA

Starting Date: 7th July 2009

Ending Date: 12th July 2009

Prizes

5 winners will be selected. Each winner will walk away with the following prizes:

• 1 x Porcupine Pet

• 10,000 MaplePoints

Redemption codes for the prizes will be sent to the winners’ Qbox within 7 working days.

How to Participate

• Write an essay of 500 words that comprises of 3 parts:

1) An introduction of yourself.

2) Give a brief description on MapleStory and why you like the game.

3) Your thoughts and suggestions to improve MapleSEA gameplay and community.

• Please include your name, email address, mobile phone number and character IGN for contact records.

• Relevant screenshots may be added to the essay to capture the attention of the judges.

• The essay should be of good grammar and easy to follow.

• Send your essay to events.maple@asiasoftsea.net
with email subject “Voice Out Loud!“.

• Shortlisted winners will have their IGN and essays posted up in the forums for a final voting on the 13th and 14th July 2009.

Judging Criteria

• Content – 60%

• Forum voting – 40%

Availability

Contest is open to all Singapore and Malaysia gamers.

Terms and Conditions

Entries that do not follow the rules and regulations will not be eligible for this event:

• All personal details stated in your Asiasoft Passport must be valid. (e.g. national ID and address)

• The essay must be original creations. Plagiarizing of contents is not recommended and nor allowed.

• The essay must be suitably appropriate (i.e. no political, offensive, sexual, abusive representations etc.). Failure to adhere to the rules will result in disqualification.

- MapleSEA Administrator

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And below is my essay, so prepare for lots of whining:

~START~

Hear! Hear! Gather around fellow Maplers! My IGN is RockOwnerXD and I am a Priest in Cassiopeia. I enjoy playing MapleStory!

MapleStory is a Free-to-Play 2D side-scrolling MMORPG. Gamers can opt to spend real life money in the Cash Shop for aesthetic purposes, or to enhance the gaming experience. MapleStory is an adventurous world where players can also choose to advance into distinctly different jobs, defeat monsters and make friends along the way.

I like MapleStory because the game graphics are exquisite and distinctly cute. From the detailed, breath-taking graphics, I can only imagine how much time and effort the creators took to produce such a wonderful masterpiece. There are also numerous social features, such as having an online “family”. While many who play Maple find it harder to level up as they progress, these features make Mapling more fun; it also shows that playing MapleStory is also about making friends.

I feel that the MapleSEA community can be improved by changing the mindsets of some; a misconception held is that lower levels cannot be trusted. A few Guilds have a level limit for the ranking of Jr. Master, whose role is second only to the Guild Master. In order to satiate the appetites of those power-hungry, some Guild Masters implement a level limit, so as to encourage members to level up faster. This rule is set on the premise that only a person of a usually higher level can attain that ranking; it discriminates against lower leveled players. A Jr. Master generally has to be trusted, but by setting this level limit, it is assumed that lower leveled players cannot be trusted.

I feel that GM events can be held to promote the fact that lower leveled players are not necessarily less trustworthy than their higher leveled counterparts. I feel that there is a growing need to solve this problem, as there are increasing numbers of people who feel this way. Whilst some may feel that this is simply an innocuous act to encourage members, I feel that it is also a rather discriminatory act.

I feel that gameplay can be improved by allowing the changing of the “Screenshot” Hotkey to a different key on the keyboard, instead of the current position on the Scroll Lock button. Like many laptop users, I find taking screenshots onerous. A combination is required to press the Scroll Lock button for many laptop models; more often than not, these screenshots are of scenes where players battle a boss monster. By pressing the combination keys, this leaves players susceptible to being killed, or being unable to help others in that split second of vulnerability.

Whilst I am aware of the technical difficulties involved in enabling this, I feel that it will certainly enhance gameplay for many laptop users. This change may even entice non-Maplers who are daunted by this to consider playing MapleStory. Thus, MapleStory can effectively appeal to both users of desktops and laptops.

On this note, I conclude my essay. Thank you!

~END~

Bleh. :P Heh, now I know why it did not get shortlisted.

But on the other hand, those are extremely pertinent points. I mean, the Screenshot hotkey is SO important! How else can we capture those wonderful memories of days long past?~

Ok, so I do sound a tad sarcastic, regarding the screenshot part as mentioned. But anyways, wish the contestants the best then. :)

Good luck! :D

P.S. Just realised I'm a sore loser too. Now let me link this back to the previous post on "The Art of Losing Gracefully". Unfortunately I have not mastered that art. ):

Now, let me state down here the symptoms of Sore Loserdom, since I myself had and am going through this currently. Luckily it's probably a five minute phase. Phew.

1. (If participating in a competition) You have lost, but you keep checking the results again and again every 10 seconds. Hopefully staring at it repetitively will help alter the names on the list. ("By using the power of Sight, let the names change!")

2. You keep convincing yourself that your submission is good, your submission is good, your submission is good, your submission is good, your submission is good...etc, etc.

3. You try to find faults in other people's submissions. If you are participating in an Art competition, you will start trying to find traces of water colour paint in other contestants' work if the stated contest medium is acrylic paint. Nit-picking grammatical or structural errors is common in essay-type competitions. ("Argh! It is 'I am', not 'I is!' Disqualify! Disqualify!")

4. You will keep re-reading the contest rules and regulations over and over again, and compare it to a contestant's work. E.g. if the rule states that it is a 1000 word essay, you may start screaming loudly and hollering at the top of your voice and jumping up and down and saying: "ahh! That person wrote 1001 words! 1001 words! One! Word! More!"

5. You tell yourself that the competition was not too important anyway. ("Oh, it was no big deal. What's all the fuss about?") LIVING IN SELF DENIAL DOES NOT HELP. If you have volunteerily participated, the contest IS important to you to some degree.

6. You try to find faults with the judging system. E.g. if the contest results are purely based on internal judging, you start to wonder whether they rigged the whole thing, or that it is a whole publicity ploy. OR if audience poll counts, you start to wonder how much the contestants paid to bribe people to vote for them; the list does not end. It is exhaustive.

7. You put off doing homework to write out long posts concerning sore loser-dom. (Applicable only if you just realised you did not win anything/lost a game) Absolutely! I agree with this point :))

If you are currently experiencing any of the aforementioned symptoms (note: applicable only after realising you did not win anything in a contest, or after losing a game), or suspect you may, kindly consult your inner soul. I strongly believe everybody has an inner soul, so kindly look deep into yourself, and think long and hard.

Pretty soon, the answer will come to you. Or hunger pangs will reach you first. :X

Well, regarding the homework part, I am experiencing that currently.

With that, I suppose I should stop refreshing the poll results every 10 seconds and better get on to doing my homework.

Once again, I wish to congratulate those who have been shortlisted on being shortlisted (okayy, weird phrasing. But you all get the point (: ).

I also wish to encourage those whose work has not been shortlisted (which, according to proportion, should be the majority) to keep up the good work, and not give up.

别灰心！(It basically means, "don't give up" in Chinese. Literal translation: Don't [have a] grey heart! But don't look at the literal meaning, look at the first one. -_-)

Word of advice:

Not being selected does not mean your work is no good. It just means that your work is not the one the judges are looking for. It really is up to them to choose, to decide. However, their decision should not affect how you react to it. How you react under certain circumstances cannot be controlled by anybody. Do not let their decision control you, control your emotions. Because only you have the right to do that. The right to control how you feel.

On this note, let me wish everybody a happy week ahead!

Cheers!

`ROCK[:

Labels: My 10 Mesos' Worth, Rock