Welcome to the Ayreon/Arjen Lucassen 2017 Survivor Prediction Contest, everyone! Before you (maybe) go ahead and read this lengthy wall of text, please take a few seconds to read a note from me as the contest host. The note is posted right in the next paragraph.
Note from the organizer (me): before I begin with all the contest rules, eligibility rules, prizes and other sections, let me just address one thing. As an organizer, I’d like to encourage everyone to vote in all the polls to come as if this Contest doesn’t exist. Since this Contest offers real prizes to the winner, I guess some of you guys may consider the idea of the voting beneficial to your predictions. I have no means to prevent that, as it is your own vote and you’re free to do with it as you please, but if you’d like to play it fair, just make your votes based on your usual Survivors strategy, without taking anyone’s predictions into consideration. I don’t want this Survivor to be built around this Contest; but I’d like to have something different and exciting running along the Survivor, which would encourage more people to participate, have fun, and maybe discover more Arjen-related albums.
To learn what this whole thread is about, just keep reading section by section.
Ayreon/Arjen Lucassen 2017 Survivor — Prediction Contest
General Rules
- This Contest was discussed with and approved by Nick, the biggest Arjen fan on DTF, and also an established member of mod-team.
- The main goal of this Contest is to draw more attention to this Survivor and to Arjen’s music, make the active participation in it more meaningful, and add the additional layer of fun and friendly competition between the participants.
- As an organizer, I do not seek any profit from this. Well, just in case that wasn’t clear.
- The goal of the participants is to score points by making right predictions for every Album Survivor, Consolations, Finals and Grand Finals. The predictions and the scoring system both have their own sections below in this thread.
- The participant eligible for the main prize with most points in the end of the competition wins the main prize. The main prize has its own section below in this thread.
- While you’re free you use your vote as you wish (remember the note in the beginning?), I’d like to stress that rigging the polls is prohibited—and I’d also like to mention that I hope it won’t come to that. Everyone is encouraged to post their votes in the actual thread; if there will be a strong suspicion from the participants that the polls are being rigged (like, the fan-favourite songs on the album going out first in a spectacular one-sided way, or something else), the poll will be restarted and the votes will be counted manually through the posts in the thread.
- This contest will start only if we have five eligible participants or more.
Eligibility
- To participate in the Contest, you have to fit all the eligibility criteria in the following list:
- Only the players whose post-count is 500 or higher are allowed to compete for the main prize.
- Only the players whose accounts are at least 6 months old are allowed to compete for the main prize.
- You have to actively participate in at least three Album Survivor threads to be eligible to compete for the main prize. In this case, active participation means posting at least in more than 50% of the related Survivor threads. - Even if you aren’t eligible to compete for the main prize, you can still send me your predictions. You will appear on the scoreboard, and you will be able to track how well you’re doing. In case the non-eligible person wins the Contest, the prize will go to the highest-scoring eligible person.
- I don’t mean to sound like a dick, but there are people on this board I don’t want to have any deals with, so I reserve the right to decline any person to participate in the Contest without further explanation. I can invoke this right only before the first Album Survivor (The Final Experiment) begins.
Predictions
- The participants will be asked to predict the following Survivor results:
- For each album Survivor: you have to predict the Top 3 songs in order
- For Consolations: you have to predict the songs that will make it out to the Finals in no particular order
- For Finals: you have to predict Top 5 songs for Ayreon Survivor Finals and Top 3 songs for Arjen Lucassen Survivor Finals, all in order
- For Grand Finals: you have to predict Top 5 songs in order
For you convenience, there is a survey in the next post you can fill. - The participants should send their predictions in secret to the organizer (me) via PM on DTF, Facebook (if we’re friends there), Skype or e-mail.
- The participants should send the predictions for all the Album Survivors, Consolations, Finals and Grand Finals except for the upcoming Ayreon album #9. If you don’t make the prediction for any Album Survivor, Consolations, Finals or Grand Finals, you’re still eligible to win the main prize, but you (obviously) won’t get any points for the Survivor which you didn’t predict.
- The predictions for Consolations, Finals and Grand Finals can be changed right before the related Survivor begins; however, if you decide to change them, you will receive fewer points for each of your right predictions (more on that in Scoring Points section).
- The predictions for Album Survivors usually can’t be changed. However, you can change your predictions for one Album Survivor of your choice without any point loss. You can use this either to change your existing prediction, or to fill the blank prediction you sent me before. You have to do it before the related Album Survivor begins.
- The predictions for Ayreon album #9 will be gathered before the beginning of its Survivor.
- The predicted songs for each Survivor won’t be revealed until the Survivor finishes, partly to keep suspense, and partly to discourage the players to vote against someone’s predicted songs.
- The deadline for sending the predictions is January 25th, 6 P.M. GMT.
Advice: don’t leave any of the predictions blank. At least look at Wikipedia or the Results post and pick the tracks, even if you don’t know them at all. First of all, it’s fun! Second, even with this kind of blind-guessing, your prediction may end up being correct!
Scoring Points
- Points are scored for every correct (or, in some cases, almost correct) prediction.
- All Album Survivors yield points as follows:
- 5 points for predicting the correct album winner (#1)
- 3 points for predicting the correct album runner-up (#2)
- 2 points for predicting the correct album third place song (#3)
- 1 point for predicting the correct song in the Top 3, but in the wrong spot
Example: my prediction for The Human Equation is: 1. Mystery / 2. Vigil / 3. Sign; and the result is 1. Mystery / 2. Sign / 3. Pride. I get 6 points total: 5 points for correct prediction for Mystery, and 1 point for predicting Sign in the Top 3, even though I didn’t get its place quite right. - Ayreon and Arjen Lucassen Consolations yield points as follows:
- 10 points for predicting each song promoted to Finals if your prediction is unchanged from the beginning of the Contest
- 3 points for predicting each song promoted to Finals if your prediction was changed in any way
Note: if you change your prediction in any way, even if you swap one song and leave the other two, you will get only 3 points for each of them. - Ayreon Finals yield points as follows:
- 15 / 12 / 9 / 6 / 3 points for correctly predicting #1 / #2 / #3 / #4 / #5 songs respectively, in case your prediction is unchanged from the beginning of the Contest
- 10 / 8 / 6 / 4 / 2 points for correctly predicting #1 / #2 / #3 / #4 / #5 songs respectively, in case your prediction for the particular songs was changed from the beginning of the Contest
- 1 point for predicting the correct song in the Top 5, but in the wrong spot
Example: Let’s say I predicted 1. Connect the Dots / 2. Computer-Reign / 3. Vigil / 4. 2084 / 5. Chaos. When the Finals rolled in, I realized that Computer-Reign and Connect the Dots are both eliminated, so I changed my prediction to 1. Web of Lies / 2. Waracle / 3. Vigil / 4. 2084 / 5. Chaos. The actual result ended up to be 1. Web of Lies / 2. Magic Ride / 3. Waracle / 4. 2084 / 5. Chaos. That means I get 10 points for Web of Lies at #1 (changed prediction), 0 points for #2, 1 points for #3 (wrong spot), 6 points for #4 (unchanged prediction) and 3 points for #5 (unchanged prediction), making it 20 points total. - Arjen Lucassen Finals yield points as follows:
- 12 / 8 / 4 points for correctly predicting #1 / #2 / #3 songs respectively, in case your prediction is unchanged from the beginning of the Contest
- 6 / 4 / 2 songs respectively, in case your prediction for the particular songs was changed from the beginning of the Contest
Example: see the one for Ayreon Finals. - Grand Finals League yields points the same way Ayreon Finals do.
- If you get every single prediction correct, you will get 140 (Album Survivors) + 30 (Ayreon Consolations) + 20 (Arjen Consolations) + 45 (Ayreon Finals) + 24 (Arjen Finals) + 45 (Grand Finals League) = 322 points total.
The Prize
- The winner (the eligible participant with most points scored) gets the full prize described in this section.
- The winner can choose to pay the shipping costs himself or leave it to the organizer (me). Paying shipping costs is non-obligatory, but it’ll help me to lower the cost of this whole contest. The prize will be shipped from Russia in maximum two months after the winner is determined, probably earlier.
- The prize includes:
- The Theater Equation Deluxe Edition Artbook (2CD, 2DVD, Blu-ray), unpacked from the plastic wrap but otherwise not used;
(https://i.imgur.com/5PDBV4M.jpg) (https://i.imgur.com/iJp2Osu.jpg) (https://i.imgur.com/7EiCvPa.jpg) (https://i.imgur.com/3khcHXx.jpg)
- The Theater Equation Deluxe Show Program (was available only at the show and in the pre-order bundles before the show) with information about every performer and their roles in the show;
(https://i.imgur.com/xiHV6q8.jpg) (https://i.imgur.com/rGVrfFw.jpg) (https://i.imgur.com/5mMDGiJ.jpg)
- Avantasia A2 Ghostlights poster (folded, that’s how it was in the Deluxe Ghostlights boxset);
(https://i.imgur.com/PIEk54C.jpg)
- The bonus Avantasia 10” Vinyl (Side A: Mystery of a Blood Red Rose / Side B: Draconian Love);
(https://i.imgur.com/6kSLU3J.jpg)
- The Russian-pressed CDs for the cost of ~$60 (the cost may change due to the future economical situation in Russia), winner chooses the CDs;
- Whatever exclusive merchandise I will be able to grab at Ayreon Universe show in September in Tilburg, Netherlands;
- Some surprise prizes from me (including some obligatory Russian souvenirs) I won’t mention here to keep the suspense;
- More prizes will possibly join the list depending on the answers I get to a few messages I sent around;
- Cat pillows aren’t part of the prize. - In order for me to deliver the prize, the winner will have to send me his/her full shipping address.
I will sign you guys up (if anyone is even interested in that kind of thing) after you get your prediction to me. I will answer any questions you have either here in the thread, via PM, Facebook, Skype, E-mail or if you can catch me in that DTF plug-dj room (I'm there right now).
I know I probably left some points unclear or totally screwed up somewhere, so let's hear your feedback / questions / whatever.