Something I've been pondering lately is why Team Fishing Contests have been virtually untouched since they launched. 7Seas is a very social activity, and folks certainly have formed friendships through it -- we aren't a bunch of lone wolf fishers who never talk to each other. So why has the 3-man team variant of contests not been too popular?
Some guesses:
Problem A) The need to have team crates or team motorboats rezzed. You need enough space at your fishing area to have the crates rezzed, and space in SL is at a premium. Sure, you could double 'em up by saying they work as ordinary seats during non-contest times, but also they're cartoony and likely wouldn't match the aesthetics of your area.
Problem B) The seats don't allow you to lock in a specific set of three people. If someone gets up from their seat, another person can hop on and occupy it forcibly in a sort of quasi-griefing.
Problem C) When the contest ends, if one of the three teammates is MIA, that person doesn't get the prize. People not getting prizes is no fun.
Problem D) Doesn't work with auto cash payout plugins (since the contest board only knows the team name, not the actual participants).
Problem E) SLers are innately lazy and don't wanna take the whole four minutes or so you'd need to organize up three people to fish as a team when you could just show up at a solo contest, turn on your autocaster, and go get a sandwich.
Insurmountable? Hardly!
While I plan to keep the crates the way they are -- having an "open team" is important for casual fishers who may drop in or out of a contest -- I'm going to add a new toy to the works which should solve all the problems above (and revamp motorboats to use similar solutions).
My current plan is to introduce a FREE (Copy+Trans OK, share with your friends) "Captain's Hat" wearable object. This hat serves the same purpose as the crates or motorboats, in that it lets you establish a team during fishing contests -- and like motorboats you can give your team a custom name.
Solution A) You don't need rez permissions and you don't have to reorganize your fishing area to set out a bunch of crates. The object is a wearable -- and since the script itself is gonna be Copy+Trans and OpenSeas based, I could see the community coming up with its own hats or wearables using the system. (Maybe sell a complete set of gear? Captain's hat and first mate and swabby? Matching bowling shirts? Etc.)
Solution B) Since this is a wearable hat controlled by the hat owner, and not a generic crate set someone could "claim" and then grief by dominating it, I can add "lock in" controls so the hat owner defines who they want to fish with and nobody else can get in on their team. No seat-occupy griefing, and it only takes a minute to get up and running!
Solution C) Since you've registered your two teammates with your hat, as long as the hat owner is in the area when the contest ends, everybody gets the prize. If they leave, it's fine, because the hat remembers who was on the team (unlike crates, where if you leave, the crates forget who you were)
Solution D) I'm not sure I can solve this, but I'll look into it. Surely there's a way to tell plug-ins who was in the winning team.
Solution E) Don't be lazy.
Thoughts? Are there any other issues with Team Fishing Contests that I'm overlooking, any ways I can improve upon this concept to make it appeal to you more?
EDIT: Bumping this to the top of the forum (or rather, testing to see if editing the OP will bump the whole thread.)