Spring Deco Contest

[+Nyx]

I am hosting a spring deco contest beginning March 6th. All players are welcome to participate, within the stated rules below.

The theme for this deco contest is:
Spring Sanctuaries

Houses should be decorated to a theme of the player's choice within the overall stated theme of the event. 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.

This contest will differ from the previous incarnations in that you will be able to choose which judging bracket to participate in. The brackets will be judged separately and have different rules & expectations. Choose wisely! You cannot change your bracket selection after you've placed a rune - even if it was an accident. Pay close attention to which box you've chosen before dropping your rune!


Bracket 1
This bracket is meant for players of modest to moderate means, newer players, or those with less time to dedicate to decorating.
Bracket 1 Rules:
- Participants may decorate a maximum of 2 house plots to be considered for the contest.
- Participants who are of the wealth & time investment for Bracket 2 who submit to Bracket 1 will have 20 points deducted from their score.

Bracket 2
This bracket is meant for players of wealth, older players, and/or those with lots of time to dedicate to the contest.
Bracket 2 Rules:
- Participants may decorate a maximum of 4 house plots to be considered for the contest.
- Participants who opted for this bracket but were not of the proper means will still be judged against the bracket 2 participants.

Overall Rules:
These rules are subject to change at any time.
- If your rune is marked further than 10 tiles from the entrance of the entered plots, you will be disqualified. If your entry plots are combined with more than the allowed entry plots for your bracket, 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. If available during the judging period, +Requiem and +Jade will also be invited to vote.
- 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 May 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. The houses will not be judged until the end of the contest.
- Drop the rune into the Sign-up chest in TC for the bracket you have chosen. Be careful, you cannot change the bracket choice after you've dropped your rune! NOTE: The drop box will be available on or before March 6th.
- Decorate your house, complete it and make it open to the public before May 1st.

At Contest's End:
On May 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 May 6th.

Special terms for this contest:
- Any player whose decorating skills strike me as outstanding will be considered for building their own structure in Elysium. I am keeping a running list of these players, and when I'm ready to begin this part of the project I will contact these players directly. Structures built by invitees will become part of the permanent landscape in Elysium and the player(s) will be credited on the buildings themselves.

Prizes:
- First, Second, and Third in each bracket will receive a prize.
- Prizes will include (but are not necessarily limited to) ED & a banner for each winner.
- Exact prizes to be announced at a later date (closer to the end of the contest.
- People's choice voting may or may not be implemented for this contest. I'll announce if so.


Happy decorating!

- +N

[EndeR]

I must say that is very cool that the contest has changed to include bigger plots if desired.

[Mystic]

Thank you for running this contest again.

I just wanted to seek clarification on the categories. I'm pretty sure I fall into Bracket 1 (single plot, player of moderate means, less than a year playing), however I do log a lot of hours online so have plenty of time for decorating. Is the time on it's own enough to push me into Bracket 2 or can I safely enter Bracket 1?

Thanks in advance

[+Nyx]

It's okay if you have a lot of time but think you're bracket 1. I more meant that bit as a guideline, some folks in the past have said that they thought they could've been more creative or done a better job if they'd had more play time. If you're of moderate means and plan to enter 1-2 plots, then bracket 1 sounds like the right choice for you

[Disposablequeen]

I was wondering if we would lose points for making the basement level of a sunken house off limits? I'd like to deco the ground level up, and use the basement as storage. TYIA!

[+Nyx]

No, that's fine. You don't have to use any specific number of the floors of a plot. You can use just one, or all of them, at your discretion.

[Disposablequeen]

Finally getting around to saying thank you for the info!

[onemoregenius]

If I submitted a rune to one of my houses, but want to pull it out, is that at all possible?

I bought a second, bigger house, that I spent more time and resources on and submitted.

Thanks +Nyx, +Requiem, and +Colibri for this contest! It's been super fun so far.

[+Nyx]

I haven't had a chance to close out the deco contest and put up gates yet, so I'll try to get to that tomorrow. Once the gates go up, the judging period will begin and winners will be announced within a few days.

[+Nyx]

Here are the results of the spring deco contest. This was a fun one, we had a handful of really excellent entries and that made voting very fun this time around.

We also had a lot of people who ignored the rules and just slapped some deco on their normal house design. I didn't disqualify most of these for this round, but next contest it will be a disqualifying factor. It's just not fair to everyone else who puts in effort to build something custom for each contest, which is the whole point of them.


Voting criteria: This round, +R, +V and myself voted. Each voter had 25 points to assign across their top 3 houses for each bracket.

Bracket 1
1st Place - Keth'laa - 30 points
2nd Place - Mystral Star - 23 points
3rd Place - Storm a Dara - 22 points
Honorable Mention - Noodle


Bracket 2
1st Place - Disposable - 28 points
2nd Place - Sethra Lavode - 27 points
3rd Place - Ra'Met - 20 points

Rewards will be going out later today. I hope everyone had fun!

[Disposablequeen]

Doing a happy dance over here! There were some awesome entries. Thanks so much for hosting this, +Nyx and all the admin for their involvement!

[LordNoodle]

Same here. Thank you for this great opportunity. Im still new to the shard and cant wait for the next contest

[Mystic]

Congratulations to the winners and to everyone who participated. It is lovely to see all the beautiful houses and really lifts the overall appearance of the server by encouraging people to get their decorating done by a deadline.

Extra congratulations to Disposable for the well-deserved first place in her bracket, as I know she put in so much care and creative flair

With regard to people entering their regular house, I'd just like to offer another perspective on that. My 10 year old daughter entered her house and spent much effort placing plants and flowers to make it Spring-like. She really wanted to enter the competition as both my husband and I were talking about our entries and there was also talk in guild chat and teamspeak. However, her skill level is such that, despite actual tears over the difficulty she was having making things go where she wanted, hers is probably one of the entries you're talking about. I could have taken over and directed her work or told her she was not allowed to enter, but we have enough trouble getting her to choose UO over other games that I wanted to keep it fun!

[patrix]

Congrats everyone, i really enjoyed looking at all the houses and am especially delighted that 2 OrB guild members Dispo and Mystral won for their efforts. I know how much work they did.
Perhaps a category for younger players under 15 might be good. I also know how keen Mystic's daughter was to be in the event and the effort she put in.. anyway just a thought
Michi

[Kethlaa]

What a surprise. I'm more than happy. :D
My heartfelt thanks to you for holding this event, and thanks so much to all the participants for sharing this wonderful experience.

Now, I can tolerate bad behavior of those wicked Fairies on St. Patrick's March Quest who devoured me all over!