Author Topic: AME Golden Dragon Award Finalist Announcements  (Read 8858 times)

Legacy_AndarianTD

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AME Golden Dragon Award Finalist Announcements
« on: August 03, 2011, 12:11:29 pm »


               The Academy for Modding Excellence is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2010 Community Contribution Award for Neverwinter Nights!
  • The Neverwinter Nights Podcast -- The only podcast devoted to the Neverwinter Nights roleplaying games, it does absolutely invaluable work in creating a sense of a community that is still thriving, still producing things, and still worth getting excited about.
  • NWNCQ by Chico400 -- This amazing piece of work completely revamps most of the default Bioware tilesets. An essentially "drop-in" update, it allows modders to quickly, easily, and radically update and improve the look of areas built using them the default game resources.
  • The Custom Content Challenge -- This outstanding contribution has breathed new life into the NWN community, inspiring and encouraging both CC veterans and beginners alike to produce custom content on a regular, nearly monthly basis for themed compilations of brand new, high quality work.
Congratulations to all of the finalists! The finals review for this category should be complete and the winners announced at the end of September.

The Academy for Modding Excellence is actively recruiting for new members to help us in our mission to give recognition to the content creators who keep this great community alive. Thanks to those of you who have already answered our Call for Volunteers, four of our NWN1 2010 Awards categories have now been able to enter the finals: Community Contribution, Veteran Author (Modules), Veteran Author (Custom Content), and Best Tileset. In the coming days and weeks we'll be posting the rest of the finalists for those awards, new categories as they are identified, and, of course, the winners.

We do, however, need just a little more help. In particular, we could really use a few more active players of NWN1 modules to reach the "critical mass" of voters and nominators required to get those awards fully back on track again. So if you are an avid NWN1 player, modder or reviewer, and think you might be interested in helping with the AME's mission, then please feel free to contact me (andarian at ame-gda dot net) about joining or learning more about the AME panel.

Andarian
Chairman, the Academy for Modding Excellence (AME)
               
               

               


                     Modifié par AndarianTD, 03 août 2011 - 11:18 .
                     
                  


            

Legacy_olivier leroux

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AME Golden Dragon Award Finalist Announcements
« Reply #1 on: August 05, 2011, 05:08:43 pm »


               The Academy for Modding Excellence is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2010 Veteran Author (Modules) Award for Neverwinter Nights!
  • Baldecaran -- Author of the highly acclaimed Hall of Fame modules "The Cave of Songs" and "Honor Among Thieves", he's been providing the community with quality modules since 2003. His chef-d'oeuvre, the continueing "Prophet" series, features one of the most clever and intriguing plots ever seen in a NWN module, the equivalent of a perfect page-turner.
  • Fabien Cerutti -- His genuinely original and extensive series about "The Bastard of Kosigan" (translated from French by Ginni Swanton) steeps in a real knowledge of and appreciation for European history, with lots of complex ideas, roleplaying opportunities and witty dialogue. He's seriously committed to the series and his enthusiasm and dedication shine through in all of his work.
  • Andarian -- "Sanctum of the Archmage" is not "only" an ambitious story within a rich setting that's heavy on character interaction and believable romance - another of its prominent features is the ongoing support and high level of polish. Although further installments of the series are still in the works, Andarian constantly upgraded and also completely overhauled the available chapters over the years with the inclusion of some of the community's best custom content available.
Congratulations to all of the finalists! The finals review for this category should be complete and the winners announced at the end of September.

The choice isn't easy, of course, as all candidates deserve to win the award - and every vote counts. So if you're familiar with these module authors and have an opinion who should be the Veteran Author of 2010, you can help us give them their due by joining the AME now!

Olivier Leroux,
Team Leader NWN, the Academy for Modding Excellence (AME)
               
               

               
            

Legacy_NWVaultQSW

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AME Golden Dragon Award Finalist Announcements
« Reply #2 on: August 15, 2011, 08:47:07 pm »


               The Academy for Modding Excellence is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2010 Veteran Author CC Award for Neverwinter Nights!

  • Lord of Worms is widely recognized in the NWN community as one of the finest CC builders in its long and illustrious history. He's a three time GDA finalist for:Undersea Tiles in 2006Seasonal Forest in 2007,



    LOW's Creature Pack in 2008, and winner of the NWN 2007 Best Tileset GDA for his legendary Seasonal Forest tileset.

  • Six_Six_Six –Gavin "Sixes Thrice" Jones is in the forefront of excellence of tileset building in NWN. He works tirelessly and diligently to produce the finest work in NWN and is the author of:





    Wildwoods, Wildlands & Wildlands Winter



    Undead Redux 2



    Colossal Arena / Spectral Woods / Rural Interior



    Dwarven Chasms / Catecombs / Dwarven Lands / Deep Dungeon /

    Undercity Sewers

  • Helvene –Helvene has shared her work with the NWN community since 2006 - a lot of it tileset-related (original, reskins, merges and fixes) but also placeables (very nice texture work0. Her 2006 reskins of (and additions to) BioWare's Castle Interior tileset, namely White Marble Castle and Arcanum Castle. Her Maze (2006) is a limited set with few tiles but it's the best looking maze we've seen so far, with beautiful mosaic textured walls, and she also offers a version with a mini map of empty squares that prevents the players from cheating their way out.



    Among other things, she is the author of the famous Wood Elven Interiors tileset (2006/07) that's also

    part of CEP 2 now and you might have come across the Suspended City (2008/09) tileset, too.

Congratulations to all of our finalists! The finals review for this category should be complete and the winners announced at the end of September.

The Academy for Modding Excellence is actively recruiting for new members to help us in our mission to give recognition to the content creators who keep this great community alive. Thanks to those of you who have
already answered our Call for Volunteers, four of our NWN1 2010 Awards categories have now been able to enter the finals: Community Contribution, Veteran Author (Modules), Veteran Author (Custom Content), and Best Tileset. In the coming days and weeks we'll be posting the rest of the finalists for those awards, new categories as they are identified, and, of course, the winners.

We do, however, need just a little more help. In particular, we could really use a few more active players of NWN1 modules to reach the "critical mass" of voters and nominators required to get those awards fully back on track again. So if you are an avid NWN1 player, modder or reviewer, and think you might be interested in helping with the AME's mission, then please feel free to contact (andarian at ame-gda dot net) about joining or learning more about the AME panel. '<img'>


QSW (Queenilverwing) AME Member.
               
               

               


                     Modifié par NWVaultQSW, 15 août 2011 - 08:03 .
                     
                  


            

Legacy_AndarianTD

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AME Golden Dragon Award Finalist Announcements
« Reply #3 on: August 23, 2011, 01:03:46 pm »


               Wow -- tough crowd. '<img'> No one has any thoughts or feedback? Suggestions for new nominees or thoughts on new categories, perhaps?

We've tried to come up with some new one-time "Special Recognition" categories that open up the field of nominations to works published in previous as well as recent years. After our finalists for Best Tileset are posted (coming soon), We'll share some of those categories with you. In the meantime we'd be interested in hearing suggestions for such categories from the rest of the community. What would YOU like to see as a new "Special Recognition" category for NWN1?
               
               

               


                     Modifié par AndarianTD, 24 août 2011 - 01:21 .
                     
                  


            

Legacy_FunkySwerve

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AME Golden Dragon Award Finalist Announcements
« Reply #4 on: August 23, 2011, 11:16:14 pm »


               Well, since you asked...I kept my mouth shut when you posted this, but I was quite surprised that AME considers its own members, which seriously undermines the credibility of the outfit. The Academy would like to thank the Academy... This would be less an issue if voting was by the public, naturally.

Funky
               
               

               
            

Legacy_AndarianTD

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AME Golden Dragon Award Finalist Announcements
« Reply #5 on: August 24, 2011, 02:17:51 pm »


               

FunkySwerve wrote...

Well, since you asked...I kept my mouth shut when you posted this, but I was quite surprised that AME considers its own members, which seriously undermines the credibility of the outfit. The Academy would like to thank the Academy... This would be less an issue if voting was by the public, naturally.


Since I did ask for feedback, let me try to address these points.

First, regarding "voting by the public" -- we've never turned down a request from a member of the community to join the AME and participate in the awards process. You could offer to join and participate, for example, and it's not as though we haven't been plastering the forums with calls for volunteers. If anyone thinks the process would be better served by greater participation from the community, then why not participate?

There are plenty of options for what you're probably thinking of as more "public" voting already in the community, including the Vault voting system and the MOTYs. Those systems have both well-known advantages, and also well-known problems, which I doubt that anyone needs me to elaborate on here. The AME was formed was to provide a complementary alternative to those systems, and to the Reviewer's Guild, one in which members who take NWN modding seriously enough to participate in a structured awards nomination and voting process can do so.

Part of the reason I've been posting threads here on the BSN for months now was to solicit -- in addition to new members -- ideas, thoughts, and suggestions from the community regarding possible nominees. Then there are our forums, which have been online for years and on which anyone can post feedback or suggestions as well. Despite those efforts, we've seen little or no activity or feedback at all so far. So I do hope that anyone who thinks that our activities are insufficiently "public" will consider helping us in our attempts to address this.

Regarding the nomination of other members for their work: that's been a feature of the AME since its inception, and we have very stringent procedures in place to prohibit conflicts of interest in that regard. Any of our current or former AME members will tell you that we take those procedures very seriously. (Members may not nominate or vote for themselves, and must immediately recuse themselves from further participation in any category for which they are nominated as soon as they are.) The AME has nominated and awarded individuals who have served on the panel for years, ever since Ragnarok_MR4 won Best Custom Content for his ACP animations back during our very first cycle.

If you soberly consider the fact that our core mission is to try to recognize the best work produced by the modding community, you may see that it would be problematic to try to accomplish this without at least allowing for members to be nominated for their work. The AME panel consists of a synergistic mix of experienced players, builders, and reviewers, all of whom bring their own particular skills, knowledge, and perspectives to the awards process. That is one of the core things that makes the AME what it is, and without which we would not have the experience mix needed to undertake such a mission.

The AME's current and former membership list includes some of the finest builders in the community -- people like BGPHuges, Ragnarok_mr4, Sixesthrice, Pstemarie, Quillmaster, Carlo One, Qkrch, Bannor Bloodfist, nereng, and Estelindis, just to name a few off the top of my head. If such award-caliber builders were not eligible, then what would our awards really mean? "Here's the best Tileset of 2011, except it's not because the really best tileset happened to have been made by someone who was on our voting panel so we couldn't nominate it?" I wouldn't take such an awards announcement seriously, and I wouldn't expect anyone else to do so either.
               
               

               


                     Modifié par AndarianTD, 24 août 2011 - 01:27 .
                     
                  


            

Legacy_Pstemarie

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AME Golden Dragon Award Finalist Announcements
« Reply #6 on: August 24, 2011, 02:24:48 pm »


               To Funky...

Having been involved as a panel member for a brief time (leaving only because of time constraints), I can vouch for the AME, when Andarian says they take careful measures to endure that an AME panelist nominated for an award has NO say whatsoever in who receives the final accolade.
               
               

               
            

Legacy_WebShaman

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AME Golden Dragon Award Finalist Announcements
« Reply #7 on: August 24, 2011, 02:33:48 pm »


               I can actually understand what Funky is pointing out - I don't think that he was suggesting that the AME is biased, but by allowing it's own members to be nominated and win does leave that open to question, doesn't it?

Sometimes, appearances are more important than what is actually taking place.

It would be like if someone won an Oscar, and was on the panel that decides who wins...not a pretty picture, regardless of whether or not the integrity of the panel is top-notch.

By not allowing such, one is above such accusations, of course.  Which tends to lend a more...importance to the award, does it not?
               
               

               


                     Modifié par WebShaman, 24 août 2011 - 01:34 .
                     
                  


            

Legacy_AndarianTD

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AME Golden Dragon Award Finalist Announcements
« Reply #8 on: August 24, 2011, 03:02:43 pm »


               

WebShaman wrote...

It would be like if someone won an Oscar, and was on the panel that decides who wins...


Why do you think that a member of the Academy for Motion Pictures can't be nominated for an Oscar?

In any event, let me stress that no one who is nominated for a GDA is allowed to be on the panel that decides who wins. AME members can't nominate themselves, and those nominated are excluded not only from voting for themselves, but from any further participation in the entire category they were nominated for.

I do understand the question, though, which is why the AME has always placed such a strong emphasis on maintaining the integrity of our procedures and our membership, and explaining them to the community when asked.
               
               

               


                     Modifié par AndarianTD, 24 août 2011 - 04:52 .
                     
                  


            

Legacy_Quillmaster

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AME Golden Dragon Award Finalist Announcements
« Reply #9 on: August 24, 2011, 07:57:46 pm »


               The Academy for Modding Excellence is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2010 Best Tileset Award for Neverwinter Nights!

Wild Woods by Sixesthrice -- This is a truly extraordinary NWN tileset, both in terms of visual quality and creative use of effects. Wild Woods is gorgeous, effective, and has an efficient design that doesn't try to be everything -- allowing for greater depth to the design as a result.

Senemenelas' Underdark Tileset -- This tileset package brings Terror back to BioWare's tamed Underdark, along with both claustrophobia and agoraphobia. Vast halls and caverns or deep dungeons, large or narrow staircases, well of souls and irradiating mushrooms - Senemenelas' tileset finally offers us a convincing impression of what the Underdark really must feel like.

Roman City Tileset by Zwerkules -- Part of the November 2010 Custom Content Challenge, this tileset looks good and has a number of original features in it. Zwerkules tilesets excel not just in how they look, though, but how well they play. Form and Function are well linked in his work.

Congratulations to all of the finalists! The finals review for this category should be complete and the winners announced at the end of October.

The Academy for Modding Excellence is actively recruiting for new members to help us in our mission to give recognition to the content creators who keep this great community alive. Thanks to those of you who have already answered our Call for Volunteers, four of our NWN1 2010 Awards categories have now been able to enter the finals: Community Contribution, Veteran Author (Modules), Veteran Author (Custom Content), and Best Tileset. In the coming days and weeks we'll be posting new categories as they are identified, and, of course, the winners.

We do, however, need just a little more help. In particular, we could really use a few more active members to reach the "critical mass" of voters and nominators required to get our awards fully back on track again. So if you are an avid NWN1 player, modder or reviewer, and think you might be interested in helping with the AME's mission, then please feel free to contact Andarian (andarian at ame-gda dot net) about joining or learning more about the AME panel.

Quillmaster
Member, The Academy for Modding Excellence (AME)
               
               

               


                     Modifié par Quillmaster, 24 août 2011 - 06:58 .
                     
                  


            

Legacy_WhiZard

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AME Golden Dragon Award Finalist Announcements
« Reply #10 on: August 24, 2011, 10:28:29 pm »


               

WebShaman wrote...

I can actually understand what Funky is pointing out - I don't think that he was suggesting that the AME is biased, but by allowing it's own members to be nominated and win does leave that open to question, doesn't it?

Sometimes, appearances are more important than what is actually taking place.


Then there is also the problem when a great contributor and member of the awards outlet, may, even quite unintentionally, create standards based on his excellent contributions.  The greatest parts of these excellent contributions would be looked into for future nominations, and the lesser parts of the excellent contributions may well be ignored or devalued when looking into future nominations.   It is easy to evaluate when the standards for quality are locked in stone, but, when they are locked, it is hard to re-evaluate the standards to see if they fairly reflect quality in all circumstances.
               
               

               
            

Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist

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« Reply #11 on: August 25, 2011, 12:07:20 am »


               Actually, as a former member of the Academy, we argued this entire subject out for months.

Should a member be allowed to submit his/her own works for consideration?  NO, was the final answer.

Should a member be allowed to vote in the category that one of their submissions was considered?  NO, was the final answer.

Should a member be EXCLUDED from any consideration for submission?  NO, that would be completely unfair to that member.  By volunteering to HELP the community,, why should they be excluded from contributing content to that community?  Why should their content be excluded?

Higher standards for Custom Content is what the AME is all about.  No one gets excluded from those standards simply because their work doesn't measure up either, each bit of content is reviewed, tested, and compared with the general content that is released by the community at large... ALL of them.  Do they all deserve a 10?  Surely not.  Do they all deserve a Zero?  Again, surely not.

The purpose of the AME was to help raise the standards a bit, and to congratulate those folks that spend the extra effort to make BETTER content.  Shoot, take a real look at CEP.  That hak pack is loaded with stuff that no one uses anymore, simply because it was all that was available when the CEP first started.  Does all of it deserve a high score?  Absolutely not.  Does a large portion of it deserve a high score?  Absolutely.  If we, as a community, were to individually vote on each and every item, placeable, creature, etc, in the CEP, a large portion of it would be removed at this stage of things, since our own standards has risen as a community in general.  Our computers are better, they can handle a bit higher poly count etc.  Better texture artists have contributed to the vast array of textures available for use by CC folks in general.  Most of the stuff being released in the past 2 years far exceeds the quality of stuff that came out when NWN was first released.

The AME is attempting to help alleviate the fanboy vote status on the vault.  They have raised the minimum standards by a large extent, but only by the extent that MOST cc folks can accomplish if they actually spend the time to do so.

The AME is a small group of folks volunteering a huge amount of time to review works created by the community, and they have to have certain minimum standards for creations to even be considered.  I know I can slap a mod together in just a few hours.  It would suck for sure, but it would be a working mod.  Would something created that quickly, with the few skills I have in scripting etc, be worthy of a Golden Dragon?  Absolutely not.  Most especially when there are folks out there that have spent months/years working on a module or series of modules, that have spent the time to create/write an excellent story line, filled in custom NPC comments, spent the time to search for OR create, that special tileset/group/feature to make their story come alive, and give each of us a special joy in playing.  THAT person(s) deserves the credit, attention, AND award given by the AME much more than something that was slapped together in a few hours using stock content, dialogs etc.  

In my particular case, I stepped down from AME membership when CTP was being considered for the first release we made.  To avoid the possible conflict of interest that some would perceive or state.  I can tell you though, that the current members of AME are beyond reproach.  They stick by their own, internal rules (which have been posted on their forums) and they observe strict, VERY STRICT, adherence to the belief that a member can not vote on the entire category that is being considered, if that member has anything of their own in the submissions list.

Anyway, my fifty cents worth of comments can be taken or left behind, but I do believe, 100%, that the members of the AME are beyond reproach in how they handle things.  Most especially considering that no one is getting paid for all the vast amount of time that is spent reviewing content.  Heck, I can remember doing spell checking on modules that were being considered.  Minor thing, sure, but in the huge amount of dialogs in a given module, it can take a large amount of time.  Checking for visible gaps in any given mdl, be it placeable, creature, tile etc, things that are fairly easy to fix, but get ignored by folks when doing things too quickly.  These, and many other things are tested, reviewed, and considered in a given submission.
               
               

               


                     Modifié par Bannor Bloodfist, 24 août 2011 - 11:07 .
                     
                  


            

Legacy_ffbj

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AME Golden Dragon Award Finalist Announcements
« Reply #12 on: August 25, 2011, 12:23:29 am »


               Congratualtions to all the nominees, and yes that is a tough crowd.  Not to get into the if, ands, or buts, but I would just like to express my personal thanks to the AME for all the difficult, great work they have done over the years.  Maybe you guys should just give yourselves an award.  I think you have accomplished, and continue to accomplish, what you set out to do, which is to draw attention to some of the best works done in many areas over the years, by outstanding contributors.
Thanks.
               
               

               
            

Legacy_FunkySwerve

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« Reply #13 on: August 25, 2011, 07:55:26 am »


               Nothing I've seen posted in response to my remark has much bearing on it. It still looks like self-dealing, unavoidably so.

AndarianTD wrote...

Part of the reason I've been posting threads here on the BSN for months now was to solicit -- in addition to new members -- ideas, thoughts, and suggestions from the community regarding possible nominees. Then there are our forums, which have been online for years and on which anyone can post feedback or suggestions as well. Despite those efforts, we've seen little or no activity or feedback at all so far. So I do hope that anyone who thinks that our activities are insufficiently "public" will consider helping us in our attempts to address this.


It's not your 'activities' I think are insufficiently public, it's your nomination and selection process. And I *am* helping you to address it, by raising the issue. Simply joining the AME would NOT address the issue, because it'd do nothing to relieve the appearance of self-dealing. Not that I would have any interest in joining an organization that operated in such fashion.


Bannor Bloodfist wrote...


Should a member be EXCLUDED from any consideration for submission? NO, that would be completely unfair to that member. By volunteering to HELP the community,, why should they be excluded from contributing content to that community? Why should their content be excluded?


They wouldn't excluded from contributing content. They would be exluded only from giving themselves an award for it. Oh, while we're on the topic: I've decided to start up my own award-granting organization: The Higher Ground Acedemy for Persistant World Excellence. Guess who won this year?

More seriously, I understand the difficulty you face - the skills needed to evaluate contributions overlap those needed to make them in the first place. Still, though, I think the community is perfectly capable of making their own evaluations - unlike you, apparently, based on your remark about correcting for 'fanboy' votes. I guess that's where we fundamentally disagree - you set this up as an alternative voting system NOT for the public. Small wonder that you're having trouble attracting interest or feedback, as Andarian bemoans. Really, though, you've replaced one flawed system - the Vault's - with another. Why not revise the voting system instead, and solicit votes? I once emailed Max about revising their system as a 'vote for' instead of the current setup, by adding the rating, rather than ranking on average rating and max votes. That setup avoids a number of pitfalls of their system, and lacks the self-dealing issue as well. It might well help in drawing more feedback, as well.

Funky
               
               

               
            

Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist

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« Reply #14 on: August 25, 2011, 08:18:44 am »


               

FunkySwerve wrote...

Nothing I've seen posted in response to my remark has much bearing on it. It still looks like self-dealing, unavoidably so.

Bannor Bloodfist wrote...


Should a member be EXCLUDED from any consideration for submission? NO, that would be completely unfair to that member. By volunteering to HELP the community,, why should they be excluded from contributing content to that community? Why should their content be excluded?


They wouldn't excluded from contributing content. They would be exluded only from giving themselves an award for it. Oh, while we're on the topic: I've decided to start up my own award-granting organization: The Higher Ground Acedemy for Persistant World Excellence. Guess who won this year?

Simple reply to the troll post that this actually was.

It has been stated, over and over again, that ANY submission by an AME member EXCLUDES that AME member from beign able to affect the voting in any way.  They are completely excluded from voting on ANY content in that particular category.