April House Deco Event

[dillingham]

it isnt allowing me to vote anymore, ive only voted 1 time ?

same

[Omnipotent]

Why are people blocking the gate tile then locking their house portal so your stuck at their house. If i have to recall from a house they wont get my vote.

[Draconomicon]

You can lock House Gates?

[Thorgal]

You cant block access to house gates and you cant set security on them, so maybe its just a few teles inside the houses that are blocked. If so tell me which, cause thats against the rules!

[Thorgal]

After dozens (plurial) of pm's i received telling me (and those were'nt pm's from contestants) they wont vote because this isn't a deco contest anymore but a popularity contest, i had to act. At first i wanted to balance things out by adding a 5 choices option, which was bugged, people who had already voted couldn't add the remaining votes to their already existing one, and i couldn't get +Colibri to fix it fast ennough (him being away for a few days), so i decided after talking it over with gm's to simply change the voted decision to a juried one. But who could be 100% un-bias and judge without favor? Gm's could! So +Chaos offered me help to decide which house deserves to win regardless of who the owner is!

This isn't a decision that pleases me, changing the rules near the very end, but i wanted to hold a good, fair and fun event for everyone and let all excelsiorians discover the nice houses that were out there! I just hope that after this event is over and the winning house is announced, that others out there tempted do hold an event will take my rookie mistakes and learn from them and hopefully manage to make a better and maybe more thought out event!

Thanks to all that voted, and the winning house will be announced on may 3rd!

Remember that you are still all invited to visit the contestants houses. The house gates will remain accessible until the third.

[luxe]

I'm cool with these changes. Granted, the back and forth is not the preferred way for things to go, but you did your best with unforeseen circumstances and problems. That, and you were willing to roll with it when enough people approached you with the same issue. Good for you.

I really, really enjoyed the event. Seeing everyone's houses was a blast, I toured them probably 2-3 times total, with friends and by myself. I was excited for people to come see what I did with my own place, I had just been finishing it as the contest began and wanted to show it off a little.

I definitely hope there'll be another event like this in the future. I have a few cool ideas for deco-y events that I might try to do myself, even.

Another thanks to you, Thorgal, for all the work you did and all the hassle you endured trying to keep this efficient and fair for all involved. Top 3 winners get free hugs from me! <3

[Ceara]

I still want to buy the house gate from you once it's over. I don't expect a reduced rate, but I'd rather recycle an existing item over getting a new one and help you get some gold back that you spent on the event.

[Thorgal]

Well +Colibri confirmed me he would take all the gates back after the event but i can keep one for you if thats what you realy want!

[Starion]

Thorgal, would it be possible to post a few images of the winners house to give others and myself inspiration for the next contest, I'm hoping there will be another.

Good job mate.

[Thorgal]

Well for posting images of a house it takes a lot of work since i dont use razor so i would have to make several just for a house and since there were 37 entries i dont think i will have the time or patience to do this! but you can still visit them, i left 3 runebooks on a table where the gates were with all of the entries.

[hungover2]

I've been playing UO almost 18years now......
This is a perfect example on why these type of contests should not be held. Everyone has different views on what they like/dislike.... just because someone thinks one house/costume/name/guild is the best, doesn't mean another person or bunch of people will agree with them. Its like art... what one person considers is art another 10 people could think its garbage or vice versa. So in a nutshell... these types of contests are never fair, next to impossible to be judged fairly, and should not be allowed in the game.

Stick with hunting events or spawn events... that way u win if u work hard or r just lucky!(just remember that newbies do like enjoy events also so they shouldn't all be death bowl events either)

I'd say less whining would be had too..... but that will never happen!

[Thorgal]

Here are the three winners;

1st place goes to Draconomicon
2nd place goes to Luxe
3rd place goes to Georgia

Now i know there were changes made to the decision process, it didn't please everyone, but know that the houses were judge to the best of our capabilities and i stand by the choices made. Some of you might not like the outcome of this, i sure dont like the fact that i had to do all of this! So like i said on a previous post, next time rules will be different and wont change!

Congratulation to the winners and thanks to all who submited your houses.

Until next time... be well!

[Melkor]

Congrates to the winners and to all participants.


But most of all thanks to Thorgal for putting on this contest with great intentions. Sorry it turned out to be such a headache for you.

[LadyKaliska]

Thanks Thorgal! It was a lot of fun. Everyone had great houses to look at! Thanks everyone for sharing! =)

[Ceara]

Thanks for doing this.

Although I wish we all would have received something to show that we participated. Like how we got the little orange house after the Halloween deco contest.

Many houses that were in the contest are going to be locked up and no longer publicly available for others to tour and gain design inspiration, which was the main purpose of this contest, was it not? Yoda and Draco said they couldn't wait to make it all private again. My house remains public.

Maybe the GMs would be so kind as to make a kind of plaque or something for all participants, considering the amount of entries.