Neverwinter Nights contests: The DRM Monster and the Treasure of GOG

To celebrate yesterday's release of Neverwinter Nights Diamond Edition, we've teamed up with the NWN community and The Neverwinter Citadel Project to launch two contests for all Neverwinter Nights fans (and those who will become NWN fans ;)).

The game provides players with very an useful and extensive set of tools to create their own quests and adventures. We encourage gamers to create a NWN module entitled "The DRM Monster and the Treasure of GOG" :). For those of you who are skilled enough, we encourage you to take part in the second contest where you have to create a model of the evil DRM monster. From all entries we will reward the authors of the 5 best quests and the author of the best model of the DRM monster with free GOG games, plus we'll post a special mod spotlight highlighting the winning entries.
All guidelines and rules for both contests are listed below and on the NWN community forum.

The Contests:

1. The Tale of the DRM Monster and the Treasure of GOG
Make a module with the above title. It is that simple. Be as creative as you like. But obviously, the title should match the plot. See later section for module guidelines.

2. Make the DRM Monster
Dust off that copy of 3DSMax (or your tool of choice) and give us your best Dr. Frankenstein impression. We’re dying to know what a DRM monster should look like.

The Prizes:

What are the prizes? For the module contest, the top five entries will be winners and their authors get five free games each. For the model contest, the top entry will earn the winner three free games. That is a total of 28 free games being given away!

Module Guidelines:

1. 3 Areas: an interior starter area, an exterior transition area and a final interior.
2. No custom content. You can only submit a module file (no haks), a character file (see #5) and screenshots (see #8).
3. Up to 3 friendly NPCs
4. No more than 10 hostile creatures
5. Include a premade character capable of surviving the module
6. No more than 5 conversations
7. 10-20 minutes playtime.
8. Include 2 to 5 screenshots

Rules:

1. To keep things simple, the judges will review all entries from both GOG and the NWN communities and choose the 4 best modules from each community. From the chosen modules, judges will pick 4 winners while the 5th one will be chosen in a poll on the GOG forums and be awarded the title of "GOG community's favourite module".
2. The Contest ends on November 24th. That is four weeks folks, so get cracking.
3. There will not be a point scoring system that reflects the numerous elements of the module (i.e. plot, conversations, area design etc.). Instead judges will be instructed to choose the module whose overall presentation appeals to them the most.
4. The winning modules will be posted to the vault and become the property of the NWN community. There will also be a special mod spotlight on GOG.com which will highlight the winning modules.

DRM Monster Model Guidelines and Rules:

1. Submit a hak file that contains all the needed files for the monster to appear in the game.
2. The creature should have animations. It is acceptable to take an existing NWN creature and modify it. However, it should not substantially resemble the original creature. It should reflect the personality of this monster: it’s DRM’ness
3. The Contest ends on November 24th. That is four weeks from now.
4. The judges will choose the entries that appeal to them the most. No point based system will be used.
5. The winning modules will be posted to the vault and become the property of the NWN community.


How to Enter the Competition:

You have a few options for distributing your files to the judges.

1. GOG ftp – log in to GOG ftp (host: ftp.gog.com, username: upload, password: goguser), create a new folder and put the files in this folder. Then just send an email with the folder's name to users@gog.com. Your files will not be shared with anyone but the judges.

2. If you don't want to put the files on GOG ftp, you can suggest your own solution. Put the files somewhere where the judges can go and collect them and send an email to users@gog.com with instructions how to get them.