So, how about this:

We'll open sign ups to sign up and collect money and resources to use for two weeks before the competition starts. We will allow you to use a store or a lined animal so long as they being with 0 points and start at 2/3.

So, maybe there could be 4 "categories" this time. Horse (tickets & shows), Horse (no tickets & shows), Dog (tickets & shows), Dog (no tickets & shows) - so people could sign up with their category and then maybe even people could switch from no tickets to tickets within the contest, but not from tickets to no tickets.

It could be judged:

- 40% points
- 10% Name Creativeness (by vote)
- 20% Best Picture/Picture Creativeness (by vote)
- 20% Best Story (by vote)
- 10% Overall Most Popular (by vote)

That way, points matter, but the MAJORITY of the stuff comes from the other side of things. So you'd still have a prayer of winning even if you didn't spend an arm and leg on tickets and shows.

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The rules and details could be:

And then we should have more mini-contests and challenges this time, kind of like cutthroat kitchen (but, you know, less insane). So we could do small contests for mascot-specific entries and they could win either points, or shows, or tickets, or money, or upgrade time (anything to get them closer to the goal). And then, I dunno if anyone would be up for challenges? Like "1 Day without tickets!" or "Everyone loses 5 mill!" ? I'll let everyone weigh in on that one.

And then mostly same rules as last time, but with the above changes: 

1. You must start with a store-age animal, with 0 points. Can be store or lined.

2. There are two categories. The first category can use ANY MEANS POSSIBLE to reach the highest score. This means you can use tickets, private shows, club registries, prize points from contests, anything. The second category CANNOT use tickets and private shows, but can use anything else. Both categories are allowed to buy extra energy.

3. Each animal has to have a name before the contest starts, and must have a story and a NEW picture by the time the contest ends.

Other notes:

Since part of your score is popular vote, it would be a good idea to “advertise” your animal so that you can get the popular vote.

You can get money from either what you have now, but you will also have two weeks to raise it, reserve tickets and shows, prepare, make teams, etc. This time around the cash shop is actually ready and you can use points, HPD, or USD for these items so that should make this all a bit more exciting!

We need at least 3 people/groups/animals in each category for the contest to run, otherwise it won’t be exciting enough. We would prefer if you made teams of at least 3 people, however, we understand that this might keep some people from entering, so I don’t think we will require it, although it would be MUCH easier in a team.

I am also grappling with people being able to enter more than once? So they can enter one animal for each category if they are wanting to? Let me know what you think of this.

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For prizes:

There will be two in each category, one for horse and one for dog. Grand Prize Winners are first place in each category. Second place in each category will also get a prize. And then there will be bonus prizes!

Grand Prize Winners (Tickets & Shows) Will Receive All of the Following:

- A one year upgrade (to be divided however you want)

- A store mate for their animal with the exact same amount of points as the winning animal

- A grand prize winner achievement (for all team members)

Second Place Winners (Tickets & Shows) Will Receive All of the Following:

- A custom store mate with 350,000 points on it

- A 6 month upgrade (to be divided however you want)

- A runner-up achievement (for all team members)

Grand Prize Winners (No Tickets & Shows) Will Receive All of the Following:

- A one year upgrade (to be divided however you want)

- A store mate for their animal with the exact same amount of points as the winning animal

- A grand prize winner achievement (for all team members)

Second Place Winners (No Tickets & Shows) Will Receive All of the Following:

- A custom store mate with 350,000 points on it

- A 6 month upgrade (to be divided however you want)

- A runner-up achievement (for all team members)

All Contestants Will Receive:

- A participant achievement.

BONUS PRIZE:

The person with the overall highest score will get their animal and it’s mate aged back to the store age (3 for horses, 2 for dogs). This will be overall, since each category will be judged on it’s own scores, so the ticket category could have the winner have a 90, but the no tickets category’s winner could have a 100.

BONUS PRIZE TWO:

If an animal makes it to the top of the overall rankings and stays until the end of the contest, they will get 500,000 points added, as well as permanent extra energy (if they do not already have it), and a resurrection pass to use after it retires. If a horse AND a dog make it past #1, then whichever of them got the highest overall score will get the prize.

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What do you think of this/ Any suggestions or improvements we could make? I was thinking the contest length could be 6 weeks for training and stuff again, or maybe we should make it a little longer? Let me know what you want! Also, please post here if you want to participate, what category you want, and if you want a team or not, so we can sort of start figuring out if we have enough interested people to run it!

I know it's all a slightly different set up, but I want this one to be a little more even so that everyone can participate if they want to, and I want it to be more based on actual mascot worthiness, and finally, I want it to be fun so that no one gets bored (hence the challenges suggestion)!

id be intrested to go as a team so if anyone intrested i can provide shows and tixs

This sounds great!! i would definetly partcipate (:

id be interested team wise (horse or dog)
have 4 accounts and utilize assoc/club shows before reguar shows

I'd be interested in joining a team! I don't know how much help I'd be in getting points, I've only actually been playing for a few months, even though I signed up years ago...

BUT

I can certainly help out with the creative side - I'm a digital artist, creative writer, and editor. The manips I've made for HP are here: http://spirit-of-the-fire.deviantart.com/gallery/49392464/Horse-Phenomena 

If anyone's interested in partnering up, let me know. I'm not picky about breed, but do prefer horses over dogs just because I don't have a lot of experience with dog manips and already have a pretty big library of horse stock to choose from :) 

Ohhh! I want to do this as a team :D

I like the idea, however maybe one without the extra energy? I feel like for anyone who is new/returning, it would be quite a turnoff. You honestly cannot compete if you're a new player and don't want to pay RL money to get the extra energy. I'd love to participate, but I dont think i'd be able too with the extra energy boost. 

Just my two cents though!

You can get extra energy with HPD or with achievement points, you don't need to spend USD to get it!

Yes!! :D 

This sounds like a lot of fun!  I would love to group up with a couple other people!

I think... I'd totally wanna try, just for the fun of it! Sounds awesome! Working with a group would be great.

I'd be interested in the no tickets/shows for horses!  :)

Sam, what exactly do you mean by story? Like, how we came up with the name/why we decided to do that breed?

It's like the back story of your mascot.  You can read the one Freia and I wrote last year for Invincible who was the runner up. :)

http://horsephenomena.com/home.php?id=20568

Will the bonus prizes be for each category?! Ppl not using tix or pshows wont get as high as ppl using tix and pshows...

And lined animals dont start with 0 pts unless you manually change them to 0

Looks good! My only 'issue' is a carry over from the last one..

The custom store mates with points on them.. I feel like most people will train a mate for the animal anyway since they aren't guaranteed to win and otherwise would be unable to breed their entry.. So rather than giving them a new horse/dog with points added, I'd say for 1st prize, we'll make the mate (that you've already been training) points the same as the entry and 2nd prize, we'll add 350k to their current points.. A 9 year old store mate with 350k is pretty unimpressive haha.. it would actually behind target to get to just 1 mil..

^That works.

And Aza, we will reset it to 0 if it's a lined horse, or just subtract the born points since they are on there now.

I'm in :)

Question though, how do we *know* if someone doing the normal shows and no tickets isn't sneaking private shows? I know it gets obvious when they are racking in a ton of points but is there a way to regulate this?? Even 5 private shows puts you at an advantage without it being really noticable (you could say you are hand training daily and being very picky about shows)  Just curious!!

I know about the USD, just wondering if that would turn any new members off from joining. This is because starting out, you really don't have much HDP or achievement points. Then some are just unable to afford USD. It's fine though, that was just my perspective. Im still interested as my achievement points can help me, but in case this was targeted at bringing in new members or something, that was the problem I forsaw :)