Rules and Regulations

This laundry list will detail all of the official mumbo-jumbo involved with this here competition. If you have any questions, chances are it’s here somewhere.

Before we begin, I’ll let you know that there is no entry fee to play. But let’s be straight: you can scan your TA account as much as you want if you’re a TA Pro account holder, so that might help you out if you’re trying to grab some extra score on Saturday nights. Up to you, though. It’s not a requirement.

I’m sick of waiting already! When do we go??

The servers will kick on at midnight Pacific (8 am GMT) on Thursday, February 9, 2012. (Date subject to change.) At that time, the competition server will do an initial capture of the TrueAchievement stats for each participant.

Before you ask, yes, the host team is competing, but we won’t be eligible for any of the prizes. More for you!

Okay, so how do I get in on this thing?

• First, every team must have THREE (3) Gamertags. No more, no less. Three is the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shall thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out! Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then goest thou to the signup link and submit thy entry.
• Each Gamertag must have either earned an achievement prior to January 1, 2011, or have registered for TrueAchievements.com prior to January 1, 2011. You have to be this old to play.
• Each Gamertag must have a minimum Gamerscore of 30,000 as of the last day of registration. Experienced gamers, please. To be fair to your teammates, don't sign up until you have 30,000 Gamerscore in case you don't make it. If you’re missing some Gamerscore, you still have a little bit of time to catch up!
• All team members must apply by the deadline in order for a team to be considered for entry. Sorry, “fashionably late” means late in any language.
• All team members must have an Xbox LIVE account and be registered on TrueAchievements.com, as well as have internet access. After all, we have to be able to scan you, right? Any costs involved with these are the responsibility of the participant. We’re furnishing prizes, not paying to have your neighbors crib off your wireless router.
• All teams must join the appropriate leaderboard on TrueAchievements.com so that we can score you. It’s also so that we can send you important, earth-shattering life-and-death PMs. If you don’t join, we can’t score you, so we’re going to have to disqualify you. Don’t be left out. All the cool kids are doing it!
• The GSPM leaderboard can be found here: Gamerscore Super Pwnageddon Marathon!
• The Contest Organizers reserve the right to invite any player at their sole discretion. That’s up to us. Begging just makes you look weak, and being the weakest link is not sexy.

This is the part where we tell you why you can’t play:

• If your Gamertag has been reset for cheating, you’re Gamertag non grata. Cheaters never prosper, and they don’t win our competition.
• If your Gamertag has been removed from TrueAchievements.com, you’re also Gamertag non grata. If you’ve messed up your TA privileges, then we can’t score you through TA, can we?
• If your Gamertag has been modded, you don’t get to play. Seriously. Why would you do that anyway?
• If you’re on more than one team, we’re going to DQ every team you’re on. One team per player. That includes alts. You can play more than one hand at the blackjack tables in Vegas, but we’re not in Vegas, and this ain’t blackjack.
• In addition to the above, the Contest Organizers reserve the right to refuse any entry for any reason, especially ones we can’t think of right now but that are definitely deserving of a good spanking. Yep, it’s in there. Don’t make us do it.

Yeah, yeah, so how does this thing work, anyway?

Phase One!

• Every week on Sunday morning, at 12:01 am (PST), our sooper dooper competition computer will grab every player’s TA statistics.
• The weekly scoring will be based on the total TrueAchievement change for the team during that week.
• The only factors for ranking will be TrueAchievement points. What that means for you is that if the TA server can’t scan a Gamertag for whatever reason, it’s possible that some points may not count for that week’s scoring. Make sure your tag is scanned early!
• Based on each team’s weekly rank, that team will earn weekly competition points.
• The points will be distributed to the teams as follows:
  • 10 points: 1st place
  • 9 points: 2nd through 10th place
  • 8 points: 11th through 25th place
  • 7 points: 26th through 50th place
  • 6 points: 51st through 75th place
  • 5 points: 76th through 100th place
  • 4 points: 101st through 125th place
  • 3 points: 126th through 150th place
  • 2 points: 151st through 175th place
  • 1 point: 176th through 200th place
  • 0 points: Below 200th place
• In the rare event that multiple teams tie for the last place in a bracket, all teams with that score earn the points and the next lowest bracket will be made correspondingly smaller. For example, if three teams tie for 50th place, each will receive 7 points and the 51-75 bracket will shrink by two gamers.
• In addition, the team with the highest TA ratio for the week (minimum weekly team gain of 1000 gamerscore) will earn two (2) additional points for the week.
• Scores and rankings will be posted as soon as data can be collated.
• The host team will earn points normally but is ineligible to win prizes.

Phase Two!

• After the scan on Sunday morning, September 30th, 2012, the teams will be split into two tiers: Gold and Silver, based on the number of points accumulated to date.
• Only teams in the Gold tier will be eligible to win the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place prizes.
• Points are still awarded across all teams as they were in phase one, so teams in the Silver tier can 'steal' points from the Gold tier teams.
• The top 75 teams from phase one will be placed in the Gold tier. All others will be placed in the Silver tier.
• In the event that there is a tie for the 75th place, the team that has earned the most TrueAchievement points throughout the entire competition will be declared the 75th team. In the event that teams are still tied, the team with the highest overall TrueAchievement ratio for the competition (as calculated on September 29th) will be declared the 75th team.
• If the Host Team is one of the top 75 teams, a 76th team will be selected for inclusion in the Gold tier.
• All team scores will be reset to zero for the second part of the competition.
• Phase Two of the competition will begin on Sunday, September 30th, 2012, and the weekly scan on September 30, 2012 will be the first scan of Phase Two.
• The contest ends on Saturday, December 29th, 2012 at 11:59PM. Final rankings at that time will determine the winner.
• In the event that there is a tie at the end of the competition, the team that has earned the most TrueAchievement points throughout the entire competition will be declared the winner. In the event that teams are still tied, the team with the highest TrueAchievement ratio (as defined by total Trueachievement score as of the final scanning divided by total Gamerscore) will be declared the winner. If that STILL doesn’t work, the tied teams will engage in a high stakes game of rock-paper-scissors. Bring your A-game.
• In the event that TrueAchievements.com or Xbox.com are unable to provide data for a given week, no scoring will occur. Scoring will commence on the first available Sunday after an outage, and all TrueAchievement points earned during that period will determine the rankings for that period. Points will be awarded as if only one week had passed. Outages will be determined by the Contest Organizers and, once deemed necessary, the decision will be final. Outages during either the final week of the first phase or second phase of the competition will cause the competition to extend until such time as such outage may be resolved.

The Penalty Box

• Cheating of any kind will not be tolerated. If we find evidence of cheating, your team may be DQed. The definition of cheating is like the definition of pornography: we'll know it when we see it. If you want a clearer definition, look at the Microsoft Terms of Service or the policies on TrueAchievements.com. If you think you're doing something that would be considered cheating, you probably are. Stop that.
• If a participant attempts to cause a TrueAchievement scan to fail (especially against a competitor), disqualification is in order, based on a decision by the Contest Organizers. No wascally wabbits.
• Leaving the contest leaderboard may be grounds for disqualification of the entire team. You must remain on the leaderboard in order to be scanned. Don’t know why you’d leave the leaderboard, but if we can’t scan you, we can’t rank you. If for whatever you leave the leaderboard and want to rejoin, you’re going to have to have a good reason because we’re going to have to re-add you manually.
• If Microsoft resets a Gamertag’s Gamerscore, if a Gamertag is branded as a 'cheater', if a Gamertag has their achievements removed from the TrueAchievement website or a Gamertag exhibits any evidence of modding, that participant’s entire team will be disqualified. No soup for cheaters. Police your own team, or we’ll have to do it instead.
• Should any participant (or participants) of a team decide to withdraw from the competition, the entire team will be withdrawn. A team that ceases to earn points shall not be deemed to have withdrawn; such withdrawal must be stated clearly in writing. Withdrawals are deemed final. Not sure why you’d do this, but you just never know.
• Any disqualification will result in that team being ineligible for any prizes. That may be obvious to most, but it’s here just in case.
• Once the competition has begun, no substitutions will be allowed. When you sign up, please make sure that your team is set at that time.
• Decisions made by the Contest Organizers with regards to elimination and disqualification are final. An appeal may be issued and reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Appealing will not be automatic, and very likely be dismissed. We will not disqualify teams lightly, but once we do, that’s it.
• Anything that cannot be scanned by TrueAchievements will not be counted toward your team's score, such as unscannable games. If we can’t scan it, we can’t count it, can it?
• Gamertags may not be changed during the competition without prior consent of the Contest Organizers. Changing a Gamertag during the duration of the competition without prior consent will likely result in the disqualification of the entire team.
• The Contest Organizers reserve the right the refuse entry and/or remove a team from the competition at any time without notice. Such decisions will not be made lightly, but are final.

Hey! I want to help out with the competition prizes! How do I do that?

• All prizes will be furnished by the Contest Organizers. That being said, we’re certainly not going to refuse any donations that anyone may choose to make to the competition. That would be really, really cool.
• All prizes donated will be used for the sole purpose of awarding prizes to participants and/or teams in the competition.
• Donation(s) to the competition are welcome, but are voluntary and not required for entry.
• Donation(s) to the competition will not factor into any awarding of prizes or weekly scoring.
• Any conditions on how donations will be awarded are excouraged, and the Contest Organizers will make attempts to award prizes based on the criteria of the donated prizes. If any individual would like to donate a product to be awarded for a particular victory condition, please specify the criteria.
• Products should be in reasonable condition (for example, used games are acceptable, as long as they are playable).
• Donations should be sent to a Contest Organizer.
• Please speak with a Contest Organizer before donating a particular item.
• The quality or condition of prizes offered by the community is not guaranteed by the Contest Organizers.

Gabbing about the competition

• The Contest Organizers will create forums for the community to discuss the competition.
• Under no circumstances are participants or observers allowed to insult, belittle, intimidate or otherwise flame any other user. Such conduct may result in disqualification from the competition. We don’t like it, and neither should you.
• Any content on the forums that is considered unsportsmanlike, which is defined to include, among other things, obscene, racist, sexist, ageist, homophobic or which endorses illegal activity will not be tolerated, and will likely result in a disqualification of that participant’s team. Such decisions will be will made under a strict no-tolerance policy, and will likely never be allowed to be appealed. The decision to disqualify a team under these conditions is final. We’re serious about this, folks.
• Accusations of cheating in any public forum (including forums other than the competition forums) will be considered unsportsmanlike, and as such may result in the participant’s team being disqualified. Yeah, just because you do it someplace else doesn’t mean it’s cool there, either.

Offline Gaming: Argh! I can’t always be connected to the internet when I play!

Earning achievements while offline is extremely frowned upon, however sometimes it is unavoidable. (Almost all of us have been disconnected at some point without realizing it.) We understand this. However, we will be excluding offline achievements from the competition. If you earn achievements offline, they will automatically be excluded through the software on the site. You have to be connected to Live for scoring to count for the competition. Sorry, but them’s the facts. And yeah, those Saw and You Don’t Know Jack cheeves... gotta earn those when you’re online as well.

Secret Achievements

The competition will have certain Secret Achievements that will unlock when the criteria are met. The prizes will be announced... but you won’t know what the requirements are. Trust me, this is going to be really cool.

So, uh... what do we win if we, uh, win?

The following prizes will be awarded to each member of a team finishing in 1st, 2nd or 3rd place:

• 1st prize: Choice of Xbox 360 S console (any region) or GAEMS G155 case
• 2nd prize: Choice of Kinect Bundle or two 360 games (price not exceeding US$120)
• 3rd prize: Choice 1 year of Xbox LIVE Gold or 4000 MSP

Also...

• In the event that prizes are not available, other prizes of similar or lesser value may be substituted.
• Prizes are subject to availability.
• Prizes will be shipped as soon as possible after verification of winners.
• The Contest Organizers are ineligible for any prizes offered. We’re doing this for you, because we love you that much.

Contest Organizers (that’s us!)

Sashamorning
InigoMontoya80
Cheese Touch

Stuff we kinda have to put in here

• Xbox LIVE, Xbox and all other Xbox LIVE terms are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft Corporation is not affiliated with the organization or operation of this competition.
• This contest adheres to the TrueAchievements.com Contest Guidelines to utilize TA's data feeds. This site, contest, and all prizes are not affiliated with TrueAchievements.com. No affiliation inferred. TrueAchievements.com is copyrighted by Stonecold Software.
• Score information is based on TrueAchievements.com, and the Contest Organizers do not guarantee or make any warranties as to the accuracy or completeness of this information.
• The Contest Organizers (us) reserve the right to substitute prizes of equivalent value. It’s not like we really want to... I mean we really don’t want to, but a year from now is a long time, and we have no idea what’s going to be available by then, so we have to put it in here, just to be fair.
• This contest is subject to end without notice. Yeah, that would majorly suck and it’s also something that we’d only do if it was absolutely necessary, but our legal guy made us put it in here. Blame him.
• All rules subject to change without notice. This competition falls under the jurisdiction of the laws of the United States of America, and is void where prohibited.