Wait... if my math is right, there were only 23 votes for the people's choice?! I know the Quake community has become quite small over the years, but damn! As you're very much aware, your social networking skills leave a lot to be desired. For next year, I hope you find the right guy for that because you seriously need to rally the troops and probably go about it way more in advance. Did you even post at QuakeOne and other dedicated sites? Other id games' communities might be interested in participating too, so don't forget to post at Doomworld et al. You may also need to form a partnership with QuakeCon or something (does QExpo still exist? I can't find any reference of it beyond 2016). It would surely bring more exposure to the awards.

Regarding the names of the judges against the comments.
I understand your reasons for not disclosing them but they said pretty interesting things and I would have liked to know which comment belonged to whom (maybe you could share the info privately? I promise there's no hate mail to be received from me). I trust that the judges know enough of how the occasional troll/hate posting goes around here to be able to get over it. At any rate, you should ask them how they feel about appending their names to their comments...

I'm willing to include more categories for the people's choice in the future
I'm having mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I agree with Johnny Law that ideally there should be a people's choice in each category but on the other hand, Esrael has a point. Let's keep a single people's choice for QAwards 2019 and, if participation increases significantly, then you can implement Johnny's one-people's-choice-per-category for QAwards 2020. 

Sorry for double-posting but this literally hit me just a few seconds after I clicked on "submit"...

About rallying the troops, I wanted to add that you may wanna ask ArrCeee and other prominent Q1 youtubers to do some promotion for the awards. 

I didn't vote for the peoples' choice awards because there was absolutely zero incentive for me to do so, and I suspect it was the same thing for a lot of people. When you have a list of 70 maps that are entirely different from one another, no categories, only one map selectable and only one winner with no runner ups then there really is no point in voting at all because we all knew which map was going to win. This award was utterly pointless as it was. Not surprised with this turnout if these numbers are indeed for this award.

I definitely think that:
1- There needs to be the exact same categories as the judges' awards for the peoples' choice awards.
2- People should be allowed to vote for more than one map per category, the winner being the map that receives the most votes. 

People should be allowed to vote for more than one map per category, the winner being the map that receives the most votes.
I don't think emulating The Voice is a viable option: maps will then not win on their own merits but on the size of the mappers' social networks. 

Before skacky's comment is dismissed with "uuuhh... dont complain... *drools* if you didnt vote..." - I agree 100%, and I voted!!! 

Classic otp putting words in peoples mouths. Never change, friend! 

He certainly never, ever said those exact words on the quake awards channel of the episode jam Discord, my mistake. 

Before this turns into a shitshow I'd like to ask that people keep this civil and that we keep the suggestions practical.

@post 125, I probably did say that. And the intent is to use "negative reinforcement" to get people to engage with voting. It's effectively the same thing as saying "you gotta be in it to win it".

I'm not going to dismiss Skacky's opinion over a flippant comment.

Skacky, the focus on the awards (for me at least) was the judging by the judges. The public voting was to give the public a say as to which their favourite map was. It was the people's choice. In the future, maybe we'll include voting for categories for the public.

I wanted to keep the scale of these first awards fairly small and scale them up in future years if need be. I'm already on this track, and if it looks like the bulk of people want more categories, then we can do just that. I am very cautious about the scope of the awards becoming too large, so even if this is what people want, it might not be a quick or immediate change. 

anyways, thanks for the feedback @Johnny Law, @Esrael, @Mugwump, @Skacky and @otp

keep the feedback coming in guys :) 

ok sorry it was just the drool you put in his mouth as a constructive form of criticism. 

@Mugwump that was already the case given it was dead obvious which map was going to win. I'm not salty over Sepulcher winning it because it is a great map (though not my favorite by any stretch), but the way that award was conducted just did not work at all. 

What if the community nominated each category and judges picked winners from that pool?

Other than this notion I'd agree with every things Johnny brought up in #117. Especially this: I'd remove the technical requirements and encourage more descriptive categories:

Best Vanilla style map
Best Experimental map
Best Use of Secrets
Best Use of Combat

This kind of stuff. I came around to the Awards and for a dry run this turned out well.

I'd be happy to help with social media outreach next year or writing. When I take my time, I can write... uhhh .... good. 

Yeah it's hard to predict what will be going in a year from now, but it's likely that you could rope me into taking screenshots or doing write-ups.

P.S. a potential new category that occurred to me: best collection or episode. E.g. it would have been cool to recognize that retrojam 6 or jam 9 was amazing as a whole package. 

Just consider only whole releases instead of single maps, like the Cacowards. 

That would exclude some great maps like Sock's Grendel's Blade... 

Grendel's Blade is a full release, consisting of 1 map. 

"Whole releases" as in map packs/episodes/jams would be given awards as a whole. That doesn't exclude single map releases, since in that case the "whole release" is a single map.

I think that would have to be introduced as at least one additional category if all the categories weren't just changed. This year for example we saw the Best Gameplay award go to a jam map. If this category still exists in the next Quake Awards, and jam maps are to be considered, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to give the award to an entire jam containing maps by different authors which potentially greatly vary in terms of merits.

I think a best episode/map pack award would be cool.

I also agree with renaming Vanilla Map to Vanilla Feel (or id-style), and that splitting Best Gameplay into Best Combat and something like Best Exploration/secrets. 

Heya guys,

Just FYI, I've brought on board Dumptruck and Ionous to help with the administration of the awards.

We've looked at the suggestions and comments and have made some changes, some of which will be announced soon.

We look to hold the awards in March this year, then probably in January each year thereafter. By that time we should have the system and process much more refined.

I'm looking foward to this years awards, they should be good :)

Cheers,

Snaut 

 

So both events (yours and OTP's) are called "accolades" now? I thought OTP was asked not to use the word "award" to avoid confusion... 

 

One of them can be "honors" 

Preferably not the one that relies on having an A in the name... 

yeah, that was shambs being shambs