Scavenger Hunt

''This page is about the site-run contest. For the game, see Rogue's Scavenger Hunt''

Scavenger Hunts are a yearly (sometimes bi-yearly) team event held on Aywas. Players compete in groups of up to ten or twenty members to complete a large number of goals in a short, usually one week, time span. Tasks are the same for all teams and include both on-site and off-site activities. Tasks can range from very easy (Adopt a pet from the adoption center) to extremely difficult (Between all team members, own a complete set of site pets) with a variable number of points assigned to each. Each team attempts to gain the greatest number of points possible by the end of the Scavenger Hunt, and are awarded prizes based on where they placed amongst the other teams.

Tasks
The difficulty and points of each task are related, with more difficult, expensive, lucky or exoteric tasks awarding more points. Scav lists tend to feature a lot of writing, art, and crafting tasks, making those highly desirable skills for team members. The majority of the tasks can be assigned into one of the following categories:
 * Art (design a new hybrid)
 * Writing (write an Aywas themed 50k word novel)
 * Crafts (sew a plush of an Aywas character)
 * Buyable (donate 200k BP to a random user to keep)
 * Time (Post once an hour, for 24 hours straight)
 * Luck (Win a prize from a scratch card)
 * Skill (Score 500 or more on hangman)
 * Programming (In VB or C++ create an "Aywapedia" stand alone application)

Partial points can be awarded for tasks where 100% completion isn't achieved, such as pet collection or writing. Completed tasks must be properly documented, usually either through photos or screenshots, according to the rules outlined for the hunt. Based on past hunts, the username, team name and user ID on a sign in the shot is required for photographs (not edited in later), or username/time & date visible for screenshots. Tasks where the original can be submitted (such as digital art) require only a username/team name and user ID.

Sample Task lists can be viewed for the June 2010, January 2011 and July 2011 events.

Teams
Team size depends on the Scav Hunt, but past events have been for ten or twenty members per team. It is not necessary, though beneficial, to have a full team in order to compete. All teams must register with a team name and team leader, who is responsible for ensuring their team abides by all the rules of the hunt. Cheating or otherwise falsifying task completion may result in the entire team being disqualified. Many established teams compete year after year and start recruiting for any open positions well in advance of the actual event opening.

Prizes
Prizes are awarded to teams based on their total score, which is compared to the Tiers or Ranks. Prize Tiers are weighted, determined by the total number of teams and total points scored, thus it is not possible to know the minimum score necessary to qualify for a particular prize tier ahead of time. Prize tiers stack, thus each team member receives their tier prizes and any prizes from lower tiers as well. Teams that rank in the top spots (1st through 8th in the July 2011 hunt) receive their rank prizes and all the tier prizes. SP, when awarded, is given only for the top ranking tier achieved. Amongst the standard item prizes, first place in a scav hunt also awards Game Master status, changing the player's username to orange (unless they already have a Mod/Admin designation). In the July 2011 hunt, individual effort prizes made their first appearance, awarded for outstanding quality on a single task.

Typical prize distributions include custom making items (the only source of Platinum Claws) and Scav Paints), Breeding Coins of various types, SP, and GP. Previous prize lists can be found under the individual hunt listings, at the bottom of this page.

Origins
The scavenger hunt originated after slash held a few on site scavenger hunts in December of 2009. These were more of a "find it" task, where players were asked to find images hidden around the site, and were awarded with prizes if they were the first person to post that they had found them. See December 2009 Mini Scavenger Hunts for more details.

First Scav - June 2010
In June of 2010, the first Biannual Site-Wide Scavenger Hunt was held. It was announced at the end of May (to start the 1st of June) as a team task-completion event. Users were given a list of tasks, and the team that gathered the most points by the end of the week would be declared the winner.

The amount of tasks and the number of members per team depends on the month the Hunt is held. The June Hunt was considered to be more of a "feeler" for how the next ones would be played out. There were 10 members to a team with 200 tasks to complete. The tasks ranged from owning a complete collection of Gaels to composing a horrible Aywas theme song to creating a Titbird snowman. The prizes were what everyone was excited about. First place winners would win fantastic prizes such as a Breeding Pendant and 100 GP per person, and places 2-8 would win nice items as well. There were also prizes based on "Rank", so if users gained a certain number of points they could get a rank of A through D, and get the prize (GP) corresponding with the rank.

The Scavenger Hunt was a great success in its first run, with a total of 54 teams participating. The average score was 636, with 1,081 being the highest score and 80 being the lowest. The successes and mistakes of the first Scavenger Hunt helped shape all Hunts that came after it.

Mini Scav - January 2011
In January of 2011, the second Scav Hunt was held, and all Mini Scavs are believed to be set each January. This was called a "Mini Scavenger Hunt", because the teams only could have up to 10 members (the full Scav Hunt will have 15-20 members), and there were only 100 tasks to complete throughout the week. The tasks still consisted of onsite and offsite things such as making a fairy themed custom or making a Chiro using only pizza.

The prizes were not as desireable as the first, larger Scavenger Hunt in June, but they were still impressive, including items such as Breeding Coins and FU Pendants for the winners. There was again a Ranks system, where users could win prizes if they got a certain number of points. Users were also given a participation prize of a Scav Paintbrush, Scav Skull, and Scav Paint (if they got at least a certain number of points, and some depended on rank). Other prizes for the hunt included Raw Blue Crystals, Blue Custom Orbs, Raw Gold Crystals, and Gold Custom Orbs, given out based on the tier a team had scored in.

Following the January 2011 Hunt, many users were displeased with the consolation prizes given out and argued that they did not match up to the cost of completing many of the tasks, so Slash tried to come up with a new consolation prize that wouldn't ruin the economy. . Several of the tasks in the hunt had cost decent sums of site currency in order to complete, such as task 9 which was to "[c]reate a SCC and send it to a user not on your team (to keep)." This led to the creation of Scav Paint, later renamed Gold Scav Paint, which could be used to create any of the Scav Silvers.

On January 23, 2011, the Scav Paint was thus released, allowing players to upload customs on any of the linearts created for the "Create an SCC species design. Release the lineart and shading PSD for free use." task. Ten Scav Paints were sent out to the leaders of each team that had scored 100 points or more on the Scavenger Hunt. Team leaders were to distribute the Scav Paints received out to members of their team. Some teams had less than 10 members and thus got more Scav Paints then members.

The January Scav Hunt was also a big success. 58 teams competed, with the average score of 636 and the winner scoring 1089.5 points and the lowest score being 20 points. After the end of the January Mini Scav, the Scav Bites weekly contest was created, and a few details about the Full Scavenger Hunt were released.

Scav Hunt July 2011
The Full Scavenger Hunt returned in July of 2011. This was the biggest Hunt so far, with 300 tasks (in one week) with 20 members per team allowed.

Scav Paint
See Metal Scav Paint, Blue Scav Paint, Gold Scav Paint

During both the January 2011 and July 2011 Scavenger Hunts, there were tasks for teams to create SCC linearts and offer them to all users for free download and use. On January 23, 2011, the item Scav Paint item was added to allow users to submit customs made using the free SCC linearts offered from Scavenger Hunt tasks. During the July 2011 Hunt, the previously released Scav Paint was renamed Gold Scav Paint and two new items were added, Blue Scav Paint and Metal Scav Paint.


 * January 2011 Scav Paint Species
 * July 2011 Scav Paint Species