Retainer Ad-Venture Contest (EU) - Discussion Thread

[EU_Community_Team]

Please feel free to use this thread to discuss the Retainer Ad-Venture Contest and practice submitting your entries.
Please remember, you cannot edit your entries in the entry thread once you have posted. Your entry must not exceed five hundred (500) words.

The full contest details and rules can be found here.

When you are ready to make your entry, please do so by posting in the entry thread.

[BreathlessTao]

Here's an issue that might be a bit on the side, but one that's gonna become not-so-subtle especially with this contest: the forum still has a character limit of 1000 per post. I know it can be circumvented, I know it's even very easy to do so (which, to be honest, only makes it even more of an annoyance, like, what is its point then?)...

Yet now once again, we see a very long and detailed post of the rules (over 10k characters, apparently!), and we are asked to post entries that will potentially consist of double or triple the amount of characters the current limit allows. I can't be the only one to feel that this is a little backhanded. I'm aware of past events that made the restriction necessary back then. How long ago was that? We even left 2.x behind since; could we please, for the love of Menphina, have the character limit abolished as well? Especially with such contests being held? Have a captcha check or some such for long posts, for example. Or at the very least, increase that limit to 3000. Anything. Please. Just get out of this ancient restriction. I mean, even Twitter is considering to move beyond 140 character now.

[Isala]

I seem to have made a grave error in posting. And cannot delete it due to the no editing. I failed to realize the exact locations specified were not all inclusive, and submitted something I was not qualified to submit.

[Serilda]

I somehow gained a * in the middle of my entry and can't edit it to remove it. I just wanted to post here to apologise for the weird *. Sorry. IT was a copy/paste error in my excitement at actually being able to enter a competition.

Incidentally, the character limit doesn't seem to apply in that thread and I'm really anxious about my word count which is, I believe, 499 >_>;

[Isala]

Jeeze, I really failed at reading comprehension, as excited as I was to enter. Not only am I not a valid participant, but it's WORDS, not Characters... I was pounding my head against a wall, trying to figure out how to write a Retainer story in 500 characters.

[Serilda]

That sucks, Isala, it must be really disappointing to work on it then realise you can't enter. I liked your (unofficial) entry though!

It would be really hard to write a story in so few characters. I usually struggle to write a post on the forums with fewer than 500 characters...

[TheTen]

I feel really bad for clogging up the thread with two posts because I made a copypaste mistake in my first attempt, and can neither edit nor delete that post. I hope the mods can clean it up.
I have also seen several others before me having to double post because of errors they found in their first attempt. I understand why we cannot edit our posts to prevent possible cheating, but it would be great if we could at least delete our own entries, to keep the thread clean and avoid any confusion.

[StrejdaTom]

I feel really bad for clogging up the thread with two posts because I made a copypaste mistake in my first attempt, and can neither edit nor delete that post. I hope the mods can clean it up.
I have also seen several others before me having to double post because of errors they found in their first attempt. I understand why we cannot edit our posts to prevent possible cheating, but it would be great if we could at least delete our own entries, to keep the thread clean and avoid any confusion.

I have made a few huge grammar mistakes but I believe moderators don't look at that.
IMO quality of the story will be number 1 thing when deciding who wins or not.
If you made somehow good and funny story, I wouldn't really worry with a few errors if I was you.

[Austratus]

I might be inspired to type something up just for the heck of it, even though I'm not able to enter anything (not being in the EU, of course!). Whether I actually do is another story...

[Kaylie]

ive made a story 499 words but just checking does the word limit include details?
such as name server