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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jlhorner1974" data-source="post: 1989083" data-attributes="member: 8628">Perhaps I should clarify what I mean by "it will happen over the internet".  What I meant was that it won't be held at a physical location, like at a con or something.The basic idea is this.The contest is a marathon puzzle solving competition where you compete against the other teams.  All that you will need is a bunch of friends, a copy of the three core D&D 3.5 books (Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, Monster Manual), and an internet connection.    Puzzles will be given out either by e-mail or posted on a web site.  (Traditionally, with the MIT hunt, either new puzzles are posted at regular time intervals, or solving puzzles unlocks other puzzles.)  You can print out the puzzles or just save them to your computer and work on them off-line -- you will not actually be solving the puzzles on-line.   To answer the puzzle, you will either send an e-mail to a specific e-mail address, or type the answer into a form on a webpage.  In either case, e-mail, IRC address, or an instant messenger contact will be provided for communication purposes so that teams can ask questions.  Also, I will contact the teams every so often to provide hints, announce corrections/errata to puzzles, or provide further instructions.Ideally, the contest is set up as a number of "rounds," each consisting of several puzzles, and a metapuzzle, that uses the answers from all of the other puzzles in the round.  To finish the round, you must give the metapuzzle answer for that round.  It is possible to solve the metapuzzle without solving all of the round puzzles (however, the contest is usually set up so that solving more of the puzzles gives an advantage later on).  It is also possible to solve a round puzzle by "reverse engineering" if you know the metapuzzle answer (this is called backsolving by the MIT folks).  A team will need all of the metapuzzle answers in order to get the metametapuzzle.  Solving the metametapuzzle traditionally gave the teams their final puzzle of the contest, a runaround puzzle that led them around the MIT campus to the location of the hidden item (a coin or some other object).  The first team to find the coin was the winner.  Given that a final runaround will be physically impossible, I will change the format a bit.As far as time goes, I know that the time commitment will be difficult.  I welcome suggestions on how to work out the details to allow more people to compete.  In my experience in trying to get people together, I think it would be easier to have it start  Saturday morning (I am in the GMT -05:00 time zone) and end late Saturday night or early Sunday morning.  Teams from Europe and Asia may be at a slight disadvantage here because of the time zone difference, and I'm sorry about that, but there isn't much I can do.  For this to work, I have to be in front of the computer almost continuously during the contest so that I can verify answers and answer questions.  Because of that, it probably will have to be compressed into a smaller timeframe, as I can't do this during the week.More info to come.</blockquote>

Verification