Alright everyone, this is long overdue. I'm very excited to announce my event plans for the Nintendo Direct Speculation thread. I hope that these are well received.
As a reminder, the new Nintendo Direct Speculation thread will coexist with the Nintendo General Discussion threads. On January 1st,
@Skittzo will post
Nintendo General Discussion |ST4|, and I will post
Nintendo Direct Speculation |ST Q1 2022| the same day. Once a Nintendo Direct is announced, the hype season will be over and shortly thereafter my thread will close. If no Direct is announced before March 31st, my thread will end anyways and we'll all go home sad.
Now, let's get into everything I've been planning to really make this thread an event.
#1: Direct Speculation League
Very loosely based on Fantasy Critic League, Direct Speculation League is a somewhat simplified forum game otherwise of my own invention that may or may not be fun. Here is how it will work. Everyone gets draft slots (tentatively seven) and, like Critic, one counterpick slot. What are we drafting? Announcements, of course! Or, more precisely,
games that you think will be featured in the Q1 Nintendo Direct. Quality and hype have nothing to do with it, mind you. Your only objective is to have the most games present.
Due to the different nature of Direct Speculation, drafting will be a little different as well. That is, there will be none. Everything will be done by auction
here, on Famiboards.
Later this week I will announce the starter nominees, and when the thread starts the auctions will start.
Everyone has been given 1600 Wii Points for Christmas by Uncle Raccoon. Jewish people will also receive 1600 Wii Points. Muslims as well. Christmas is sort of a secular holiday now, so everyone nonreligious gets the Christmas Wii Points. Other religions can have the secular Christmas Wii Points too. Regardless,
everyone has 1600 Wii Points, and the first round of auctions start at 200.
Auctioning will take place in the thread, but I think that b3llydrum would be mad at me if my entire shiny new Direct thread was just people saying "Zelda for 300!" and "600 on Kirby!" These sorts of posts will be prohibited by me as Nintendo Direct Speculation OP. Such is my right. So how will we auction? It's simple really.
Every bid must be included in a regular Direct thread post. They're really really easy, trust me. You could share an opinion, make a joke, a shitpost, or just say that you're hyped.
But I will not recognize bids that stand alone.
The first bidding period will last an excruciating three days. Following that point,
anyone can request that bidding start for another game. Unlike Fantasy Critic which is bound by reality, you can request literally anything and the following day I will start the bidding for it. These requested auctions will start at 0, yes
zero, Wii Points.
This will be very valuable as rumor season kicks off.
Oh, and the counterpick.
Once any auction period, including the starter set, ends, you can counterpick the awarded game, which basically means that you'll get points if it isn't in the Direct. These will be awarded first come, first serve, so be sure to be around if you want to snatch up a counterpick.
Here's the last rule: Opinions.
For every game you pick up, you should have an immutable Opinion shortly after winning the auction (these, by the by, will make a very good bid padding as well). An Opinion can be anything from a specific release date to unknown details about a game. I'll keep track of these, and they will be used to break any ties.
Oh, and lastly (this is important), please @ me in any of the following posts:
- bidding for a game
- requesting a counterpick
- requesting a new auction
- establishing your Opinion
Oh wait, one more thing.
Did I mention you'll get 20 USD (or local equivalent) of eShop credit for winning?
I'll have a more formal explanation of the game up in my thread's original post, so please look forward to that.
#2: #TeamDirect
[EDITOR'S NOTE:] I feel like I'm going to get a bunch of posts right away, so here's a reminder that none of this starts until January 1st, and it'll all be confined to the new Nintendo Direct Speculation thread. Moving on.
These are gonna be simple, and probably more fun. In the first week of the thread, you have to pick a team: #TeamJanuary, #TeamFebruary, or #TeamMarch.
This alignment cannot be changed later. The members of the winning team will all be entered into a raffle to win 5 USD (or local equivalent) of eShop credit.
Please @ me in the post where you officially declare your team, following the below format.
@Raccoon
I, (username), vow my allegiance to [#TeamJanuary, #TeamFebruary, #TeamMarch], til by Direct do we part. I will cherish my brethren in my Team, and we shall be super annoying to people on the other teams in this thread and the rest of the site. Amen.
Or you can just @ me and say what team you want to be on, that's fine too.
As a bonus, if you change your forum tag to your team (#TeamJanuary, #TeamFebruary, or #TeamMarch exactly) when you make your alignment, leave it that way for the duration of the thread, and happen to win the raffle, I'll bump your prize up to 10 USD (or local equivalent).
#3: Direct Dailies
Golly Raccoon, this sure is a whole lot of crap to keep up with. Well indeed it is little Jimmy, but that's nothing new for the Nintendo Direct Speculation thread. We've always received complaints about being too abstruse, too hard to follow, and too much like a personal Discord for the most active members of this community. To make this thread easier to participate in, I present the Direct Daily,
a nano podcast companion to the thread.
Every day at a set time (TBD), I will upload a short, roughly five minute update on the thread. Think of it like a sports radio broadcast. Every morning (again, TBD) I'll recap the thread's discussion from the previous day, vaguely allude to any rumors that have cropped up (without making specific reference to the maligned people who share them), summarize any bidding in progress, and announce what bidding is starting that day.
My goal is to make this thread as easy to follow as I can to raise participation, even if that participation means way more work for me (oh no).
#4 Traditional Podcast (TBD)
Also in development is a more traditional, regular community podcast. Unfortunately hosts, content, and release schedule are all TBD, but I'm very excited for it nonetheless.
While I would still like to keep it relatively short, this could be a great avenue for elevated discussions, more detailed reasoning, and even guests from the community. I'm hoping to have more details about this initiative prepared in January, so please stay tuned.
So yep, that's everything. I hope that more of you are excited than are rolling your eyes. I think all of this could be really fun and could encourage even more speculation.
And finally, everything above is subject to change, especially at your request!
If you have ideas for tweaks to improve the ideas listed above, please share them with me, and I'll be happy to take them into consideration.
Thank you for reading this very long post.
(
@Suswave oh titan of the abyss, please bless me with a threadmark)
