Summer Deco Contest

[+Nyx]

I am hosting a summer deco contest for the month of July. All players are welcome to participate, within the stated rules below.

Players wishing to participate will place a rune to their house in the chest in TC. You may submit your rune at any time, even if you are not yet finished with your decor. The houses will not be judged until the end of the contest. Houses should be decorated to a theme of the player's choice. The theme should be obvious to the judges simply by viewing the space, however it is allowed for a participant to add further information into a book that is locked down in plain sight at the entrance. You may opt to decorate any way you desire, but your deco should have some directed theme beyond just "visually pleasing". Clever and elegant decoration will be rated much more highly than a house that has simply slapped down some addons or put deco willy-nilly around their plots.


Rules:
These rules are subject to change at any time.
- Participants may decorate a maximum of 2 house plots to be considered for the contest. Houses may be combined as part of a larger plot, but must be easily accessed via a rune marked within 10 tiles. If your rune is marked further than 10 tiles from the entrance, you will be disqualified. If your entry plots are combined with more than the allowed 2 entry plots, you must put up walls to delineate which plots are not part of the contest entry. Failure to properly define the space entered for the contest (when that space is directly connected to other plots not entered) will result in disqualification.
- If submitting more than one plot, they must be combined plots. You cannot submit 2 castles or a home in one area and another placed elsewhere. You also cannot submit a plot on the west side of a 10-house compound, and the other plot on the east side. They must be connected directly to each other.
- The submitted property must be owned by the person who signed up by dropping the rune.
- One entry per account. Any attempt to circumvent this rule will result in disqualification.
- Deco must be shard-appropriate, and to a clear theme. Be creative!
- Pre-made addons may be used, but may detract from the overall score if used in lieu of actual decorating skill.
- The administrators (+Veritas, +Colibri, and myself) will judge the plots.
- House location will not be taken into account when scoring the properties. This is decoration only, so those with plots in the stars or other 'special' places will not receive any special consideration for environmental perks they did not design, just as houses in less attractive locations will not be marked down due to their placement.
- Any infractions resulting in jail during the course of the contest will disqualify that player. NOTE: This means infractions above 'warning' and/or jail tasks above 10.
- Houses must be "open to the public" from August 1st - 6th, as all participating houses will be displayed for everyone to visit during the judging period.
- If you enter the contest you must actually participate - if you submit a rune and then all you have is a couple of misc deco items on an otherwise not-to-theme house, you will be disqualified.
- If you are disqualified for any reason you will not receive a participation reward.

To enter the contest:
- Mark a rune close to the house you will be decorating for the contest. You may submit the rune at any time, even before your decoration is completed.
- Drop the rune into the Sign-up chest in TC
- Decorate your house and complete it before August 1st.

On August 1st, the rune box will be removed and gates to the houses will be made available for the public to visit the participants' submissions. The administrators will visit the submitted houses and score them according to the criteria outlined in the rules. The winners will be announced on or before August 6th.


Special terms for this contest:
- The grand prize winner will be permitted to build a structure in Elysium and decorate it. This structure will become part of the permanent landscape in Elysium and the player will be credited on the building itself. The winner will have a window of 3 weeks to build, during hours when I am available to 'babysit' and assist. If the player is unreachable or fails to complete the project within the 3-week time frame, their project will be scrapped and the opportunity will be extended to the 2nd place winner of this contest.
- This month's deco contest will also include a voting system for players to vote for their favorite. The "players' choice" winner will receive a special prize, to be announced at the time of awarding. Players' choice voting will begin on the day the contest is closed and gates to the entrants' plots are made available, and will end on August 5th.


Prizes (subject to change):
1st place - 400 ED + banner + opportunity to build & decorate a permanent structure in Elysium
2nd place - 200 ED + banner
3rd place - 100 ED + banner
Players' Choice Winner - To be announced


Happy decorating!

- +N

[Agony]

We sooooo love you Nyx! This is awesome!

[+Nyx]

Someone paged to ask a very good question that I forgot to elaborate on in my original post.

The winner of the contest will be granted access to a private server duplicate of Excelsior, and given limited staff powers to build their building from scratch.This is reliant on +C completing some minor adjustments before the project can begin.The winner will then be able to utilize nearly any items/walls/etc in the game, and not be held to the traditional requirements of the house customization menu. There will be some stipulations set by me - the location and size of the building, overall 'feel' of the design (I will be tying this location into various quests, and therefore it would need to match the quest in some way - no use having a dungeon if the quest is about flowers.), and so on. Their design will then be imported into the actual server when I finish the Elysium map edits and release the booster patch.

[Kip]

Thanks +Nyx!

Quick and thorough response FTW.

You guys are the best.

[Ornias]

Thank you for the opportunity to decide on our own theme. I also like the idea of player's getting a chance to vote for their favorites. Looking forward to participating.

[+Nyx]

Thank you for the opportunity to decide on our own theme. I also like the idea of player's getting a chance to vote for their favorites. Looking forward to participating.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the different themes that people come up with, should be a lot of fun to score the entries this time

[Papertiger]

Hello
Im still very new to Ultima Online. I have now being playing just over two month. I have build my house and just really started decorating it. You said it was theme based. I believe it has to be summery. Love the idea, but not shure if my deco would qualify. Is it ok to pop my rune in the designated box and you may deside if I could qualify at all this time? I know I would not win but taking part would mean alot to me.

[+Nyx]

Yes, of course. All are welcome to participate so long as they do actually decorate their plots

[scuba]

when blocking off the extra houseing slots for entering 2 house slots of a larger area do i need to use walls from the customization tool or can i use objects that block access to the non contest entered areas. i ask because it takes me hours to make even small edits to the house using the customize tool not sure why but it makes my screen go grey for a few miniuts then it loads and i am able to edit 1 tile then it repeats with the grey again. sorry seperate issue lol. :D PS: thanks for the awesome contest :D

[lestatzero]

From my understanding you don't need to use walls specifically but they have to be totally seperated from any other housing IE yard wand (which is what i used to wall off my entery area ) (you could make the surrounding housing private as well i think (and put up walls still ) ... and sorry to hear you have such an issue with cusotmization mode ... that has to be a pain ... I do not see any reason why it would have such delays ... i never expierenced that issue except for when i was using assistuo (and the like ) with certian options selected ... Not sure of your set up ... ( and also if you try to deco a house while it s sunk you get some lag so make sure it s not sunk when u cusotmize for best success ) ..

Hope this helps.

Lestat

[Birko]

I know I would not win but taking part would mean alot to me.
That is the spirit.

[lestatzero]

You can never count yourself out of the running when entering a contest ... you would be quite suprized at what some of what the "underdogs" can acutally come up with .

[Cornbread]

It's somewhere on the wiki, but I think it's the cache.dat file you can delete and it will probably fix the customizing thing.

[Mystic]

Thanks so much for running this contest, it's great to run through and see how creative people can be. There really are some amazing entries :)

[lestatzero]

I have to say Some really creative enteries . Great idea +Nyx doing a choose your on theme this time around. !

Thanks !.

Lestat