SEHS23 (with a challenge!) Official Announcment

So it was decided earlier this year that I would host the SEHS23. Well I have asked Xxtacii if she would like to co-host this years' SEHS with me and she has accepted! To try to keep the event flowing smoothly Xxtacii will be handling all of the assigning and access duties and I will mostly be advertising, organizing, and setting the dates. However, feel free to send a tell or mail to either of us with any issues or questions!

For newcomers to house swaps, contests, and challenges : The SEHS is called the Summer Event House Swap. It is a culmination of what used to be strictly a Tinkerfest themed swap but was repurposed to include the other super fun summer Norrath holidays : Scorched Sky and Oceansfull. (Believe it or not, those didn't used to be holidays!) But now they are, and they've enriched our summer decorating fun.

The past couple of years the SEHS has been fairly straightforward : You or your decorator chose a holiday or a combination of holidays and went wild.

This year, not so much. We would like to throw in a twist, just to keep things interesting and lively.

This year it will be known as the Summer Event House Swap Challenge.

As of now the event is open to ALL servers...yes, ALL.
(See below for who to give access to on your server!)

Read below for the rules!

As always with house swaps, here's what we need from you when you sign up :

· Server Name(s):
· Homeowner Name(s):
· Home Type and Location (if prestige):
· Home City and Address (if not prestige):
· Challenge Requested :
· House Size Preference (if no preference, please put ANY):
· Name of Server(s) you will be decorating on:
· Name of Character(s) you will be decorating with:
· For this swap you're only allowed to provide one home, because it is also a "challenge."

Please send all of the above information to ever.quest@ymail.com.

AFTER you have selected your home and signed up, here's what we need from you :

• First and foremost you will need to give trustee access to the home you have chosen to be decorated the organizer for your server. (See below.)
• Please place a Guild Hall door in the home for your decorator.
• Place portal pads if you would like to provide them for your decorator to break out.
• Apply house item expanders to the home if you would like your decorator to have max item and building block count to work with.
• Place a personal home depot in the house so that they can store things as they go without overburdening their inventory or needing to use the moving crate.
• If your home is not a prestige home, please make sure all rent is paid up for at least the duration of the swap, or place treasure hoards in the home to remove the need to pay rent.
• If you would like your decorator to scale furniture to the size of your character, please place a customized house actor as your character near your book. If you would also like your house actor to be used in the theme, please state so in your book.
• And finally, place a book with an introduction to your character, which holiday and / or challenge you have requested, and anything else you think your decorator may want to know or find useful while decorating your new home for you.

Below you will find the organizers' name you need to give trustee access to on your server after you've signed up :

• Maj'Dul - Xxtacii
• AB - Xxtacii
• Skyfire - Xtaci
• HoF - Xxtacii
• Thurgadin - Shanette
• Test - Shanette
• Varsoon - Shanette
• Kael Drakkel - Shanette
• Isle of Refuge - Shanette

Now ... on to the challenge!

For this years event we thought it would be fun and exciting to add a little twist and make things a little more challenging. Variety is the spice of life after all!

For this event the challenge is called the Pop Culture Challenge.

How it works :

As a homeowner we are going to give you the option to choose from a category of Pop Culture References. Your decorator will then need to stretch their creative legs and try to meet that challenge. Luckily there are a wide range of options that will be acceptable in this particular challenge.

Once you have selected the choice you would like to "challenge" your decorator with, please state it in the book that goes in your home, as stated above, under "Challenge Requested."

After some discussion, these are the Pop Culture Challenge categories we think will be acceptable :

1. Television
2. Movies
3. Game Shows
4. Board Games
5. Books
6. Comic Books
7. Music
8. Theater
9. Fashion
10. Celebrities
11. Anything newsworthy that isn't politics or religion related.

As an example : You as the homeowner select Movies as your Challenge. You can either leave it that broad as a selection OR request something a little more specific like "Romantic Comedy."

However, keep in mind, both as the homeowner and the decorator that you still must incorporate, however slightly, one of the SEHS holidays : Tinkerfest, Oceansfull, or Scorched Sky in some way, shape or form.

If there are any questions regarding the swap / challenge whatsoever please feel free to contact Xxtacii (ever.quest@ymail.com) or Shanette (shanettesnow2004@yahoo.com.)

READ CAREFULLY - SIGN-UPS ARE EXTENDED!!!
The dates for this years SEHSPCC will run from June 13th (a week into Tinkerfest) until August 31st (a week after Oceansfull ends.) Sign ups will close at midnight on June 12th midnight. so get your emails in! And may the odds be ever in your favor!


ETA Naming Rule (Homeowners, please read!) : This year there will be no need to include the full swap title when naming your homes as you publish them. I know it's rather hard to give a swap home a good title when you have to use half the title for the Swap or Contest name. So this year please name your home whatever you like, whether it's something you chose or your decorator calls it, and if there's room, and you wish for your decorator to have credit on the leaderboards, please add "by Soandso." . At the end of the swap, after you have published your home, please post in this thread the following information.

Your characters' name :
Your characters' server :
Name or Title of the Home :
Leaderboards Location of the home :
Who decorated it :
Holiday and / or Challenge selected :
Any other information you find useful or worth pointing out (IE your favorite parts etc.) :



Also please keep an eye on this thread for any updates, new info or changes!

How specific can a homeowner request be? If they choose some book I've never heard of and have to read is that ok??

or just broader range aka your romantic comedy example

Good luck to everybody.
I won't participate myself but can offer help with crafting, or rares on Antonia Bayle.

So as an example. Let's say I'm the homeowner. I would request "Books. Something like Lord of the Rings or similar."
Now you - as the homeowner - CAN request Lord of the Rings specifically - but let's say your decorator has never seen or read Lord of the Rings. (I cried a little typing that.) .... therein lies part of the challenge. They can either read lore to find something to create, watch the movies, or ....read the books. Or they can rely on fellow Norrathian friends to help them.

Also as an alternative perspective : You can chose, let's say "Game Shows" and let them have creative license as the decorator and then learn something interesting after the challenge!

Gotcha!

Thankfully, there are specific Wikis out there (in the format of/done by the same people? as the one for EQ2) for, at the least, the movies; possibly even for the books, though I'm not sure about that.

Likewise, if something massively specific is chosen, like, say, the song (from Music) "Octopus's Garden" from the Beatles, it's really easy to find the lyrics online.

Uwk
who's read the books starting in junior high; used to re-read them every year, except for the second half of The Two Towers, which got re-read every 3 to 5 years, just for completion's sake (and actually liked how the movie version handled it, cutting away to each third of the split party [WINCE] back and forth)...

Refresh my memory about Actors: can Trustees tweak the dialogue and actions of Actors, or can only the person who originally made/bought them in the first place do so? Because I don't mind my Decoratee being able to do that as appropriate.

And thanks for picking this up, Shan and Xx! I can now stop waiting with bated breath! /happy_kitteh_dance

Uwk

Unless something was changed recently, all trustees can dress / change actions and dialogue / and freely move actors. As far as I'm aware the only things that are "owner only" are changing their race and picking them up.

I just wanted to add the servers with my characters name that have alts there so that you can send them mail as well! I can't wait to get started!!!!
Maj'Dul Xxtacii
AB Xxtacii
Skyfire Xtaci
HoF Xxtacii

<3 Xx

There are changes to the dates and access rules, Read above please!

I am and will not be entering the SEHSPCC, but I can help out some rares and crafting if level is not high enough! I am on Maj'Dul with Sandx so please let me know if I can help!

Oh, nooooo! PUBLIC TEST?? Now they tell me...

Is it too late to change my entry?

(And, what if there aren't any other entries for a given server? :-/)

Uwk

If at least 2 people don't sign up for any given server by the final few days of the sign-up period, sadly we'll have to close the swap for those servers, as we'll have no one to swap you with.

Put me down for Sky.

Send me your info Quiarrah, please

Xx

Sent to the email above

Sent email

Me too! ;-D

Hope you get a kick out of the idea, Shan...

Uwk

2 more days to get those sign-ups in! Sign-ups end at midnight on Monday, June 12th!