Contest [HAMMER] General Category Voting

The culmination of the HAMMER mapping contest is upon us! We have 18 entries, here you'll vote for your favorite out of all of them. A companion poll will also be available for the themed voting. We have some fantastic maps to choose from and I would like to thank each of the creators for their contributions. Great job guys!

Please vote based on the merit of the map, taking into account how fun it is to play on, quality of design, and aesthetics, among other factors. Take some time and play on the maps before you vote! They are all hosted on my server, see my signature for details. You can also load them manually and play them by yourself, see Beepo's handy post for more details.

Please do not vote based on clan affiliations, whether or not the person is your friend, etc. Obviously I can not enforce this, so I leave it up to you to vote fairly and honestly. Please do not try to game the system. Yes, I know there are ways you can do this. I'd like to think we're better than that as a community. //I, however, can enforce it. I am watching you. Right now. Be good and play fair or... ~fbb

Finally, it turned out that all entrants into the contest already had Gold status! Because of this, I will randomly select three voters who do not have Gold status to receive a key. To be eligible to be entered into the raffle you must post in this thread or the other thread for the themed maps stating that you have voted and somewhere in the post you must have the tag [HAMMERTIME] (exactly like that, in brackets, no space, I don't care if it's bold, just put it in your reply's main body somewhere). Obviously we can tell based on your name if you're Gold status or not, but this makes it easier for me to do a quick search to compile my list. Gold users who vote will not be entered into the drawing for the key (not even for your friend who is non-Gold - they can post to enter), but your input is valuable! Please vote to make this contest a success!

One last note - there are two entries titled "Fractured". One is by Gonf (large hill with multiple divides), one is by PhirePuncher (multi-layered with lots of ladders). They are two completely different maps in separate categories.

Now, without further adieu, here are the entries:

GENERAL
Beepo - Stairs Land
Dandyking7179 - Qwack
Gonf - Fractured
Ne3zy - Archipelago
PhirePuncher - Table Fighters
Reyman - Dig or Die
Kouji - Valley
Demon_Jester - Middle Earth ***DISQUALIFIED***
Ej - Countrary

THEMED
Beepo - 3D Arena
Dandyking7179 - Egypt
Feet - Metro
Gonf - Parthenon
JacKD - Valia Ruins 7
Ne3zy - Persian City
PhirePuncher - Fractured
Reyman - Milvius
Kouji - Ruined Castle

 

First one to vote... uh oh awkward. ^_^
From judgement, all of these maps are brill! An excellent addition of maps from other's creative ideas.

 

This is gonna be tough!

 

@FBB, RE: Edit:

 

I voted!
I don't have any Gold account, and I'd really enjoy one.
[HAMMERTIME]

 

im typing this to get updates on inbox or alerts thingy...
Wish u all good luck

 

Wait... Someone voted for Qwack... What. The. Fuck. xD

 

Guessing Ducko did.

 

I liked the Archipelago. It's nice to look at, looks natural and easy on the eyes. Somehow, it also gives me a vibe of a Clonk map.

 

Last day to vote! Please get your vote in if you haven't! :)

Also, hogawd, how am I going to pick my favorite... good maps here.

 

if only this was Australian time :L

 

wow, that's a shame, I was really rooting for Demon :S

 

I'm really unhappy that it was even an issue. :(

 

ummm.... ok then
</br>--- merged: Jan 5, 2013 9:26 AM ---</br>
O well, Ty for everyone who voted for me anyway :)

 

That is crap that you got disqualified. They should just take off the fake ones.

 

1) We don't know exactly how many votes were falsified. What we do know is there was an enormous burst of growth in votes for the particular entry in a very short timeframe. From the time I checked this morning around 7:30 AM PST to when I checked at the end of work at 5:00 PM PST I saw the entry go from just a little behind (by one or two votes) to ahead by a significant amount. It could be the "vote for the leader" effect, but it is very unlikely. A significant chunk of votes appeared during this time. I'm not saying they were false, but I can't say they're not either.

2) Even if we did know the amount, I don't believe it can be modified directly. I asked a lot of questions about the capabilities of the poll system before putting these up.

3) In my opinion, if you take a soft stance on this sort of thing it sets a poor precedent and increases the likelihood of bad behavior continuing or emerging in others in the future. It also punishes those who play by the rules. I don't believe that Demon_Jester needs to be punished, nor do I think he requested this form of "assistance", but unfortunately he did know this was happening and failed to bring it to my attention. Had I had early warning that this was happening I might have been able to work with him in some way - at this point the situation is utterly beyond salvage.

I discussed things at length with FBB and I could see no better solution because we now have entirely unreliable data for Demon_Jester's entry.

Frankly, I'm really mad that someone decided that they should cheat in a contest intended to provide content to the community with prizes funded at pure cost out of my pocket (with the exception of the generously donated Gold keys). I'm going to be honest folks: I really don't make that much, so this is a significant investment for me. His friend may have just as well reached into my pocket and handed my money to Demon_Jester, likewise stealing it from someone else. Now I'm left with a mess I specifically called out ahead of time as being something I hoped we could avoid and clearly my trust in at least one person was misplaced. As for the rest of you who acted like mature and upstanding human beings, I thank you.

But that's life - some people are scumbags. Demon_Jester isn't, in my opinion - he didn't do it himself, and he admitted that he thinks he should have brought it up but that he let the prize cloud his judgement. It happens to the best of us. He put a lot of work into that map and it shows, and clearly at least a fair amount of people thought it was good. So he's getting the short end of the stick here because his friend decided it was okay to cheat. You can imagine how much this rankles me when I'd much rather reward hard work.

I will not, however, eliminate him from the random game drawing. I'll let you all in on what I intended as a surprise - I bought a few more games to supplement the couple I had hanging out in my Steam inventory. EVERYBODY who participated will get a (cheap) game of some sort. A "thank you" of sorts to those who made this contest possible.

That's pretty much all I have to say on this topic, but if you'd like to discuss it further you're welcome to bring it up with me personally via PMs.

DISCLAIMER: This is my personal stance on this topic. The opinions expressed in this post are in no way representative of the feelings or opinions of the administrative team or any other person.

 

Just to clear things up. When i woke up and checked the poll thingy i saw that the persian city was leading by i think 4. I went on kag and to a rtdm to 'create' awareness of this contest. Knowing that it is pretty much an american thing i knew that my fellow friends/australians on kag would help out (out of their own free will). I lead by 2 votes during this. Then the shit storm hit and it became a cluster.

As bio said i was aware of john's misfortune, however. I became aware of this much later then i would have hoped. I forgive him as i know it was only to help. But cheating is cheating. As i became aware so did another player 'anonymous' and quickly jumped into act before i could bargain/talk to him about how to go with this information. I got so pissed that all my hard work was heading straight to ruin that i jumped on rome total war and went on to rape ppl and blow of steam, losing the chance of redemption.

I just want to let you guys know that i did not want to cheat to win... i may be african but im not like that xD
As i said to bio in a pm (some time back) all i wanted was a total war rome pack and was wondering about the pin point end date of the contest, which would have ended long after the discounts expiring date. The contest became like an achievement waiting to be won. Yes the prize would have been nice but i got what i wanted from steam.

But as you can see, there was no other way of consulting with this matter. What is done, is done.