2015 Custom House Design - Transparency on scoring

[Cash is King]

With the countless hours and many mils/DC of items that it took for all of us who participated in the custom house design contest, I'd like to simply ask for transparency on the scoring/ranking of all contests.

After the winners were announced, myself and another top contender (who didn't place top 3) had 8-10 messages each from people who couldn't believe we didn't win or even place top 3. I built my house which I submitted so I obviously have a biased opinion but I ask anyone reading this post to go look at all the houses in the contest thread - you can't say that myself, Liberty or Fay's designs were not top 3 in this contest.

I'm not saying this nor am I having an opinion but: I've heard from multiple people saying to me that "it's all fixed, the winners of these contests always go to the friends of the staff or big donaters". Keep in mind that this is what the people who are regulars in this game are saying (I heard from at least a dozen myself). There's no faith in the community for these contests being fair. I'm personally done participating in these contests unless there is a clear scoring/ranking system.

The contest was being judged on:
- decoration inside
- your creativity

So this contest should have been judged out of 10 on both the decoration inside and creativity in the design for a total scoring out of 20. Then we would see how all of the contestants ranked and there will be some transparency and accountability. It would only take 20 seconds to write a number out of 10 for two criteria to score each house. Also, it will be easy to see how realistic the rankings are because the community can read check out the houses themselves to vet the scores. I know this is just some uo house design contest but keep in mind that there's a lot of time and effort that goes into designing/decorating a house and some of us really like doing it but this kills any motivation to bother trying.

Going forward the criteria should be established at the at the outset, then each submission gets scored/ranked. Not too much to ask and it is minimal extra work for the organizer to rank each criteria out of 10 for each submission and at the end post their scores in order - very easy and clearly defined.

 

[SidX]

A lot of the entries were great, but mainly just rares and dono items locked down all over the place. That's not really impressive IMO. Sure it may have cost mils upon mils or thousands of donos for the items, but it's just a spew of rares all over the place.. not really a creative design. Statues, random floor or bush tiles, etc..

Not saying this directly applies to your design but I see a lot of people who don't win mention the same thing... curious how they didn't win after spending millions of gold on items and expecting to win.

IMO the winner's design was the best in terms of creativity. It was very, very well done and was very well decorated. There weren't too many rares since it wasn't necessary, just great decor. That's what it's all about.. it was a well laid out home with functional design so it won IMO.

Your design was awesome though and I'm sure the community will agree.

 

[Violence]

I particularly enjoyed the part where Kazinon entered IRC and promptly stated that everyone elses entries were "shitty ass houses" and sucked in comparison.

It was a tough competition, and you won't please everybody, but I am absolutely stoked and surprised to even get a top 3 place. FWIW, I too got messages from various members about how I should have ranked 1st etc etc, but I disagree. A bit of humility goes a long way.

Congrats and well done to all the contestants. Best of luck for the next competition.

 

[Cash is King]

@Violence you had an awesome design and congrats. I'm not trying to say who should or shouldn't have won, I'm not looking for anything at all personally - I'm looking for some foundation of criteria for the decisions and scoring/ranking of future contests. How do we know what the decision was even based on in this contest except that they went to each house walked around and then made a decision? So going forward score and rank the contestants.

 

[Thinktank]

While I don't think transparency is a bad idea (I'd like to know how i personally measured up in the judge's eyes, and would love to know in which areas they think I could have improved), There is obviously a lot of subjective views on those two criteria anyway unfortunately, though I still see transparency on ranked/rated criteria would go a long way to removing people's doubts and displeasure.

I'm glad in the end it wasn't judged to go to the largest displays of rares or expensive items be it donation items or not however.

I tried to build my house to the two criteria you mentioned, I believe I decorated well and feel I lead the way for creativity personally, but based on a large number of people's opinions I can say a lot of people don't agree with that. And I can't hold that against them. I value consistency, constraint (ie: no statues placed randomly amongst other rares not fitting any theme) and originality highly, whereas some players place higher value on x, y or z.

The 3 winners were all in my top 4, you can probably guess the other , but again, that is another opinion.

All i wish to do is thank Andre for the contest. Everyone who entered as a result now has a house they likely are happy with themselves.

 

[Vince[Tharakus]]

I've been MIA so i didnt see who won. I did see alooooot of truly awesome homes. But I've said several times that Libertys home is one of the best UO homes I've ever seen.
Who won?

 

[Winston Smith]

This was a competition on house design, making it an art competition. Art appreciation is a subjective matter. What do you think the scoring criteria should be? To me the houses that won all served as functional houses that didnt stray too far from the idea that we are playing a medieval game.

 

[JoeB]

Entered a competition, lost, Cried. Typical. This competition was held exactly the same way as all past house competitions. Andre was the sole judge of the houses on this competition. We respect his decisions as we gave him the chance to run this one. No other staff members participated in the direct judging of the homes. The finalists were his decision. He has no frame of reference as to who donates and who doesn't. Crying corruption will get you and your ideas very far every time something doesn't go your way.