Idea of the week (MA Invitational Teams)
 

wife will kick me when she reads this, but oh well..

So, all of the MA Invitational teams got a packet with the MA Open quests and puzzles in there, and I know for 1, I have not even looked at them, let alone taken them out of my car...

So, with that being said, who is up for a semi-competitive, non-official, Mini MA meet for all us invitational teams to do the Open Tournament?

We can do rules on the fly, or agree on them here.... just thought it would be a good way to do a sunday meet at the park....

thoughts? opinions?

Sounds fun!!!!!

I love this stuff, so YES!

What about us MA virgins who are dying to give it a shot?

I'm up for this, but how soon? I don't think I'll be ready for that this weekend.

Mousepod - I'll make a copy for you (without looking at it too much).

LOL, DEFINETLY not this weekend, i was talking in like a few weeks or so, maybe into April even, depending on peoples schedules... :)

what works for everyone?

Sounds good to me!!! Maybe sometime in April or May.

Sometime when I can feel my ankles like normal people do.

Did everybody get a copy of the answer key for the Open at the BBQ? If so, don't peek! ;) :D

Hey CP, can I have a copy of the MA too? I have only read about it, including yours and GD's most breath-taking account of your recent championship, of course!

We're in England for the rest of the month, so I won't be able to join you guys to play it in person, at least not for the rest of March.

...and other LoT swankers who were not able to attend the just happened Spring 2005 MA. I would love to participate in this.

I like mhrc4's idea of a "semi-competitive, non-official, Mini MA meet"! We just have to make sure those of us participating in this are honest and don't get the answers from others who already competed in the Open MA! ;)

Gee, hmmm. The passing out of the Open quests was really meant as a bonus just for the Invitational teams. I'm a bit uncomfortable with the xeroxing and passing out of the MA materials to those who did not sign up and pay for the event, ykwim?

I totally kyym.
If you're saying that the Invitational participants shouldn't share, I'd probably disagree. The challenges were clearly time-sensitive and are no longer useful to the organizers.
But as someone who didn't participate in MA, I'd actually have no problem tossing a few bucks toward MP (I'm a fan of the tip jar at cool sites, anyway). Clearly, I wouldn't get the benefit of all the "day of event" work that the folks who put it on gave, but from a karmic standpoint, I'd be all for paying my way.

Jesse, you could be on our team.

But, I'm not sure if it's you and Heather coming down.

I'm pretty sure Steph will remain on the East Coast for this one.

i originally posted this for the invitational teams that already killed themselves in the new format, for us to get together again, make a day of it, dinner or something together to recount the stories of the event, and also to do the mini meet / open tourney - for fun.

Now that the topic of non-MA competing teams has come up, i would be wary of the toes we would step on with the organizers at MousePlanet, and the fees that people payed to play in it, Invitational or Open.

Does anyone else have any opinions on this? I would hate to be exclusive, but I understand where the concern from the MA Organizers come from.

What about the option of each team member that didnt already play in MA, kick in like $5 per person?

Anyone else have any ideas?

I really like the idea of having our own unofficial contest with the invitational people involved (and perhaps those who wern't on an invitational team could join one with extra slots) but no extra teams could be formed.

I think it's a true bonus that we were given the quests and key (I didn't get one, I wasn't at the ceremoney). I think charging anything more than the cost of the copy (if they give us permission to do so) is a bad idea too unless the money was going to the MA organizers (which would be a whole other can of worms). I don't want them to not do this again.

Mhrc, you have a great idea and I'm sure that there is some way us invitational teams can *play* against each other for fun. We just have to figure out how, and whatever we do there can be zero profit other than fun from it.

My thoughts:

New people can play as additions to other teams. As this wouldn't be super serious, I'd be up for allowing another couple to join GD and I unless he disagrees.

No fees or charges of any kind.

If new people want to donate to MP, they may.

I can talk to the staff at MP before we do anything at all, once we've come to a consensus about what this would entail.

No prizes, but perhaps we'll make up some certificates?

No claim at all that we have created this game. No renaming the game. It's "MousePlanet's MouseAdventure Open."

We don't need a staff to run it, do we? I guess this depends on what kinds of quests it entails. Hey! Perhaps Ponine and other Open participants would want to be a skeleton staff?

The Mouse Adventure quests are clearly MP's intellectual property, they own the copyright. It's really up to them if and how those quests should be distributed.

That said I'll PM Alex a link to this thread and let him voice his opinions.

Thats what I was thinking it was going to come to, because like i said above, I didnt want to be "exclusive" with just the MA Invitational members who have their Open packets we were given, however, I did, at the same time....

Oh well, look forward to hearing Alex's take... I am all up for throwing a few bucks the way of MP if Alex wants it for us doing this....

I would think that since we were given these packets to keep as a bonus there would be nothing wrong with those who were given the packets all showing up at the park on the same day at the same place and start working on them at the same time and ending at the same time. However I think we need to wait for final word (which is what we're doing).

OOooh!!

Wonderful idea!!

Alex, Lani & Sheila are all members here. Let's wait to see what they say (Sheila has already voiced concern). I won't do anything against MP wishes.


WAIT! Did I just say that???????? ;)

I .........

Ohh never mind, that would be just too easy. :)

Anyone up up for Swinging Swankers?

Great Googly Moogly!

:thwacks the monitor to check the display:

What strange, bizarro universe have I wandered into? I must return now to American Idol-watching while I ponder this. I may have to place a call into Art Bell's radio show tonight.... ;)

It is all OK. I am banned, remember. No trouble-causing activities for me. ;)

Frankly, this is why we've resisted in the past letting people leave the event with still playable versions of the game.

You guys own the physical copies you have, and while we definitely ask that you not make additional copies we can't control to whom you show the ones you have and if you all gather and play it together.

We're not happy with the thought of a semi-formal organized competition because we're not enamored of the idea of anybody saying next time "well, we don't need to sign up, we'll just get in on the post-game round." MouseAdventure doesn't make a lot of money for MousePlanet but it does make some and I'm protective of that.

I know nobody here meant ill will in the suggestion or was looking to undermine us, but this highlights for us why we hadn't done it before and likely won't do it (at least not in the same way) again. You guys were polite enough to ask and to also determine that no money would be involved.

I appreciate that respect but don't know if we can expect it from everybody.

Cool I'm in! I couldn't have done worse in the open, so I'd have to be good at something else right?

Ponine?

Keep me in mind if you think you want help...of course if MP gives their blessings.

Well put. How can I argue with that?
I absolutely respect MousePlanet and understand where you're coming from.
I'm so glad that you didn't couch your response in legal "intellectual property" arguments but instead shared your attitudes in a mature and thoughtful way.

Perhaps this fall, I'll do a MousePod show "live" from the MA.

...now I will spend the rest of the evening clicking on every sponsor banner on the MP site... :)

Choke, cough, cough, choke.

I don't think anyone here was thinking they wouldn't play MA the next time. No semi-formal competition can hold a candle to MA. I know I can't speak for everyone and the group here doesn't speak for the rest of the people who have the packets.

I know that if you asked us not to do this *I* wouldn't participate. If you asked us to not include anyone who wasn't in the invitational I think we can and should respect that. I think it was great that you guys gave us the packets and the key and I wouldn't want to do anything to abuse that so you don't do it again (even though it sounds like you won't be because of this).

~HBTF

Mousepod, meet Alex. Now you know why we love Alex. :)

More on this later - this needs to sit for a bit, I think.

;) Are you calling us easy?

I hope we all can dig where Alex and the folks at MP are coming from. The awesome game is owned by them, and we don't want to step on their toes. So please, let's have no more discussion of any kind of organized game of the unplayed Open, and no heretic talk of producing or distributing any of MP's materials.

If you cats want to jam on down to the Park and casually run through the version of the game that you didn't get to play, then there's no stopping you - and I don't think there should be. But we have to leave unto MousePlanet that which is MousePlanet's.

For us out of towners it would be fun to have a copy of the mouse adventure material from games gone by. Since each one is different I could only think that it would encourage more people to make it for the real thing. On the other hand, they could also charge some small percentage of the original fee and allow us to download PDF's of the game.

Great idea, but you'd be better off pursuing this at MousePad than on this message board.

Errr, ummm, that's ok. I think I'll just drop it.

Just to briefly answer your questions, MP has never handed out game packets up until this MA, so there would be nothing available to download. The answer to your final sentence is something that might likely be addressed in the future (but not in the near term). Nice and vague, huh? ;)

Hard answers to your questions may or may not be answered over at MP. :D But although you've already declined, anybody else who has questions really should post it over there.

could be an excellent way to raise a dollar per copy(you may be able to get more) for nothing more then allowing a download. just a thought, and any of the MP folks reading this can take this idea and use it as their own idea. you own the game, sell it.

Not exactly true - at our first MA (Fall 2001) they gave us a copy of it on a floppy, along with our team pics. It's in PDF form. I think they let us keep the hard copy that year too. Since then however, they haven't allowed us to keep any of the materials.

In fact, that's how my team got interested in the game ... they gave out the entirety of the game before and we went thru it. Was fascinating stuff, and so we signed up for the next one (and the rest, as they say, is MouseAdventure history!)

I guess there's no trouble in getting participants nowadays, but back then it was a great promotional tool.

I stand corrected. :) Thanks for the info.

See, reason enough right there to reconsider the policy :evil:

I've considered attending MA, but as I don't live terribly close, it would involve a bit of committment, both time and funds. And since I don't have access to any samples, I really have no idea if it's my kind of gig or not. It sounds like something I'd like, but airfare/hotel/admission are too expensive for me to sign up without knowing more.

We can tell you in detail what the traditional MA is like. There are plenty of threads over at MP talking about each and every quest since the Pad came into being.. We know MA - we can answer any question you have.

PM me if you like. :)

Just so you guys know, we've made a bit of a reversal on this one.

http://mousepad.mouseplanet.com/showthread.php?t=39143

We're going to sell the open packets for those who would like one, as an experiment this time around.

Wtg, Alex! I think it's a fantastic idea- maybe it will be the Beta test for the home game version?:snap:

Count the number of light switches in your living and divide by the number of Disney characters visible when standing in your front door.

Lol- smartass.:p