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RabidChild
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icon The Tenth Annual People's Choice Awards: Winners! (+20)  
Running the 2014 Deadlies has certainly been a learning experience for me. I'd like to share with you some of the things I've learned.

1. Making custom monsters is hard.
That must be why so few people attempt it. RuAdam, however, makes it look easy by including multiple scripted monsters in his hold, Tower of Din. As such, his hold has been recognized by the community for its scripting excellence. Congratulations to RuAdam, winner of this year's award for Technical Design Excellence in Scripting for Tower of Din!

2. Everything is better in miniature.
blorx1 obviously knew this already, and felt compelled to enlighten the rest of us. His hold, A World in Miniature, is a collection of tightly compacted puzzles which prove that bigger is not always better. Congratulations to blorx1, winner of this year’s award for Technical Design Excellence in Layout and Aesthetics for A World in Miniature!

3. Metapuzzles can be fun.
Every required room in Dischorran's Hypercube is trivial to solve. Solving them in the right order, though, that's tricky. What could have been an exercise in frustration proved to be an enjoyable diversion thanks to Dischorran’s architectural ability. Congratulations to Dischorran, winner of this year’s award for Technical Design Excellence in Concept for Hypercube!

4. Cake is delicious.
Well, okay, everyone knows that, but who knew a hold about cake would be equally delicious? Kwerulous took all the ingredients necessary for a quality hold and mixed them up into a delightful confection. Congratulations to Kwerulous, winner of this year's award for Creative Design Excellence in Storyline for Beethro and the Cake!

5. mxvladi is not a robot.
Contrary to popular belief, mxvladi is not some sort of DROD-solving machine, but is, in fact, a flesh and blood human being. In addition to being a dynamite optimizer, mxvladi is also a very talented architect, as demonstrated by his latest hold, The Pile of Puzzles. Congratulations to mxvladi, winner of this year's award for Creative Design Excellence in Difficulty for The Pile Of Puzzles!

6. Cake is de- oh wait, I already did that one.
What more can I say about Beethro and the Cake? Congratulations to Kwerulous, winner of this year's award for Creative Design Excellence in Entertainment for Beethro and the Cake!

7. Diamonds are a smitemaster’s best friend.
Even when not in doily form. bomber50 demonstrates that very effectively in his first hold, Diamond Dungeon, a multifaceted collection of puzzles in an aesthetically pleasing setting. Congratulations to bomber50, winner of this year’s award for Most Promising DROD Hold for Diamond Dungeon! (Diamond Dungeon has since been released, so check it out!)

8. The future looks bright for DROD RPG.
At least as long as architects like komachi keep designing quality level sets like Great place. Now if only we could get a few more level sets out of Architecture and onto the Holds board. Congratulations to komachi, winner of this year’s award for Most promising DROD RPG Level Set for Great place!

9. A hold doesn't have to brain-breakingly difficult to be fun.
Case in point: Beethro and the Cake by Kwerulous, winner of no less than three awards this year! Congratulations to Kwerulous, winner of this year's award for Hold of the Year for Beethro and the Cake!

10. DROD RPG is not dead.
After a multi-year drought, 2013 saw the release of not one, but three new DROD RPG level sets. The best of these, by an overwhelming margin is clearly The Forgotten Castle by Suwako. Congratulations to Suwako, winner of this year's award for Level Set of the Year for The Forgotten Castle!

11. Past success is often an indicator of future success.
Last year’s winner for Most Promising DROD Hold, The Intelligence by Lucky Luc continues to enthrall the DROD community who are themselves a pretty intelligent bunch. Congratulations to Lucky Luc, winner of this year’s Novice Architect Award for The Intelligence!

12. Sometimes just being eligible for something is an accomplishment.
It feels wrong to hand an award to someone just because no one else qualified. And yet, the eligibility requirements for the Erik Hermansen award are so high that few will ever meet them. This award requires a long term commitment to architectural excellence, a commitment that mxvladi has certainly demonstrated through the creation of no less than fourteen holds, including this year's winner for Creative Design Excellence in Difficulty, The Pile of Puzzles. I think no one would question that mxvladi's accomplishments are deserving of recognition, so it is fitting to award him this year's Erik Hermansen Award for Lifetime Architectural Achievement. Congratulations to mxvladi! You can find all of his holds here.

Congratulations to all the winners! I can't offer much in the way of prizes, but any of the winners who reply to this thread will receive five shiny new rank points.

[Last edited by RabidChild at 07-26-2014 05:32 AM]
07-20-2014 at 07:10 PM
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Kwerulous
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icon Re: The Tenth Annual People's Choice Awards: Winners! (+26)  
Well, three awards for BatC, that can't be bad! :hooray (x3)

Thank you very much to all who voted! Now that I know my work is at least good enough to win hold of the year maybe you will see some more architecture from me in the coming months...

I'd like to congratulate the other deserved award winners for their excellent holds, and also give thanks to RabidChild for running the ceremony even throughout the hype of the TSS release - you've done a great job!
07-20-2014 at 11:22 PM
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disoriented
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icon Re: The Tenth Annual People's Choice Awards: Winners! (0)  
I wish there were more holds with the difficulty level of BatC. They're fun without being brain-melting.

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07-20-2014 at 11:52 PM
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Dischorran
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I'm really happy that Beethro and the Cake did so well. It's a solid hold with a story that's enough to provide a sense of progression but not overdone. More importantly, despite being decently long it remains approachable by mere mortals, which is always nice. It's nice to see that holds like this can win when we don't have an SmS dominating everyone's attention.

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07-23-2014 at 06:29 AM
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blorx1
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icon Re: The Tenth Annual People's Choice Awards: Winners! (+5)  
I guess I'll post here or something. I'm pretty happy with winning something for A World in Miniature. I tend to leave level art to the last, so I guess having small puzzles made it pretty easy to include some sort of art for the hold. It's rather funny how few people have even played past the first level (well that's cause it's a very tough hold) or even rated the hold though.

I also think we may want to recognize mxvladi for the Erik Hermansen Award for Architectural Achievement even if he was the only person eligible. It takes a lot of continued contribution to even be eligible and as such we probably want to recognize him for the award even if we didn't vote on the category because of the lack of other nominees.

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[Last edited by blorx1 at 07-23-2014 07:21 AM]
07-23-2014 at 07:19 AM
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mrimer
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icon Re: The Tenth Annual People's Choice Awards: Winners! (+1)  
I agree. I'm totally looking forward to granting mxvladi this recognition and a lifetime of CaravelNet.

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07-23-2014 at 03:13 PM
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Lucky Luc
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icon Re: The Tenth Annual People's Choice Awards: Winners! (+5)  
Just posting here to get my rank points :whistle

Nah, kidding. Glad to see my early architectural career was worth another Deadly, even though it didn't stand a chance in the main categories. Thanks y'all! :D

I think all the winning entries deserved it, and especially BatC has deserved the appreciation, a hold that shows puzzles don't have to be super tough to be interessting.

Still, I'm a bit dissapointed that there were again relatively little published holds last year; I mean, I don't know it differently, but I've heard there was more activity a few years ago and it makes me feel like I've missed the best times. Well, maybe it gets better again now that TSS has been released :)

Also, kudos to RabidChild for hosting this whole thing. :thumbsup
07-24-2014 at 03:49 PM
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RabidChild
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icon Re: The Tenth Annual People's Choice Awards: Winners! (+2)  
I did feel bad about not awarding the Hermansen award this year. It's certainly not an easy one to qualify for, so if mrimer's in favor, I certainly have no objections. I've updated the first post to include the new award.
07-26-2014 at 05:38 AM
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Jacob
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icon Re: The Tenth Annual People's Choice Awards: Winners! (0)  
Isn't blorx1 a she?

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07-26-2014 at 09:47 AM
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blorx1
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icon Re: The Tenth Annual People's Choice Awards: Winners! (+1)  
No.

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07-26-2014 at 02:27 PM
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Jacob
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icon Re: The Tenth Annual People's Choice Awards: Winners! (0)  
Oops, dunno why I thought that.

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07-26-2014 at 11:42 PM
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mxvladi
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icon Re: The Tenth Annual People's Choice Awards: Winners! (+10)  
It's really awesome to get 2 awards when I didn't expect to get any, and kinda given up on building holds. Guess I should go build some more stuff then, especially now that TSS is out with new fun elements ^^

Really really hope that architectural activity will increase after TSS release next year there will not be cases where only one person/hold is eligible for something (or, even worse - none are)!

[Last edited by mxvladi at 07-27-2014 10:44 PM]
07-27-2014 at 10:41 PM
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Blondbeard
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mxvladi wrote:
It's really awesome to get 2 awards when I didn't expect to get any, and kinda given up on building holds. Guess I should go build some more stuff then, especially now that TSS is out with new fun elements ^^

Good to hear :) And perhaps at some time even an RPG hold. Also: I kind of missed your name among the highscores for TSS.
07-28-2014 at 11:12 AM
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