AGS Awards 2010 - changes & caveat

[bicilotti]

Good afternoon lads and lasses!
This years is slowly passing by, I have to take a few decisions on the AGS Awards 2011. Let me sum them up, feel free to voice your opinion.

Categories

Last year some categories were quite low on nomination/vote count. Those were:

-Best Tutorial or Documentation
-Best Programming in Non Adventure

I think it's right to scrap them from AGS Awards 2010.
Best programming in an adventure game would then become best programming full stop, a category open to adventure games and non adventure games.


Ceremony

Last year's ceremony was held on IRC. In 2007 and 2008 SSH made a downloadable game ceremony. I'm calling for a plain vote here: state which one you prefer in this thread, I will organize things accordingly.


Caveat

If you'd like your game to be nominated and voted for the AGS awards 2010, remember to add it to the big database!

[Igor Hardy]

1. I much prefer a downloadable ceremony to the IRC! I loved the 2008 edition.

2. I don't mind scrapping the best tutorial/documentation award because I was never much into those things, but I'm not sure about scrapping the best non-adventure programming award. We have quite a few real great non-adventures this year. Also, personally I'm always very impressed by what a variety of things you can code with Adventure Game Studio and believe emphasizing it in the Awards is beneficial for promoting the engine.

[Peder 🚀]

Ceremony:
I think the IRC one went very well and vote to have the same done for the 2010 awards!

Would be cool if in the future we would be able to actually arrange a real event though I guess that will never happen... unless some rich AGS member arranges it .

[Vince Twelve]

-Best Tutorial or Documentation
-Best Programming in Non Adventure

An award I've won in the past, and the only award I had a chance to win this year!  Damn!   

[bicilotti]

A note: of course, if we were to scrap those, all non adv games would have the right to compete in best programming.

[Radiant]

Hm...

I like the award for good documentation. Few games bother to make it, and I think it deserves recognition if they do.

I don't really see the point of "best programming in a non-adventure", that's really a niche award. Non-adventures tend to be judged by their programming anyway.

And I strongly prefer a downloadable ceremony because everyone can see that, even a month later, whereas an IRC event will surely be missed by some people who have a busy schedule or simply are in the wrong time zone.

[Snake]

Vince, I'm going to burn you at the stake for saying such ridiculous things. You've still got "Best Non-Adventure" to at least being a nominee in, JACKASS!!1 

[Igor Hardy]

A note: of course, if we were to scrap those, all non adv games would have the right to compete in best programming.

Is this a good idea? What would you have to code into an adventure game to win over any sort of non-adventure title?

[tzachs]

Ceremony

Last year's ceremony was held on IRC. In 2007 and 2008 SSH made a downloadable game ceremony. I'm calling for a plain vote here: state which one you prefer in this thread, I will organize things accordingly.

How about combining the two?
If we can use Dualnames game with a full blown server, and create a room especially for the comp with a podium & stage and everybody would be able to login, I think that could be awesome!

[bicilotti]

A note: of course, if we were to scrap those, all non adv games would have the right to compete in best programming.

Is this a good idea? What would you have to code into an adventure game to win over any sort of non-adventure title?

To add more meat to the discussion, previous "programming" winners (before it was split in 2 categories):

art of theft
linus bruckman
Adventures in the Galaxy of Fantabulous Wonderment
5 Days a Stranger
Maniac Mansion Deluxe
Kings Quest 2 VGA Remake
Pleurghburg: Dark Ages

It seems adv won a fair share of it but I see your point for sure.

Ceremony

Last year's ceremony was held on IRC. In 2007 and 2008 SSH made a downloadable game ceremony. I'm calling for a plain vote here: state which one you prefer in this thread, I will organize things accordingly.

How about combining the two?
If we can use Dualnames game with a full blown server, and create a room especially for the comp with a podium & stage and everybody would be able to login, I think that could be awesome!

I thought about having this and that, but my work-life in the first few months of 2011 is for sure going to be miserable, so I think it's safer to choose one and only one (or to have more hosts )

[Ponch]

How about combining the two?
If we can use Dualnames game with a full blown server, and create a room especially for the comp with a podium & stage and everybody would be able to login, I think that could be awesome!

Massively Multiplayer Online Award Show (MMOA)! Man, that would be awesome! And a first, I think. Everyone could log in, create an avatar, and then experience sitting in polite rows while the stars of the AGS community take the stage and give speeches that go on for far too long.*

Someone needs to make this happen!

Barring that, I vote for a downloadable game like SSH did. I just find them to be incredibly neat.

- Ponch

[bicilotti]

Massively Multiplayer Online Award Show (MMOA)! Man, that would be awesome! And a first, I think. Everyone could log in, create an avatar, and then experience sitting in polite rows while the stars of the AGS community take the stage and give speeches that go on for far too long.*

You're missing an asterisk somewhere, don't you?

[Dualnames]

I'm sure it won't be much to code such a thing. I will of course, if we decide that its the way to go, some hard working testers. And so far, it has only be possible via Hamachi. Cause none of us has the money/equipment/resources/will ecc. to set up a server.

It sounds bloody neat.
It may as well be possible.

A. I need lots of beta-testers to fix any chances of bugs that might ruin this.
B. The coordination of this might be hard. Possibly impossible without a proper server and the usage of Hamachi.
C. I'm not against some hard-work.

[Calin Leafshade]

Hmm having only been a participant of one years worth of awards my opinion should be taken with a couple of handfuls of salt.

However I really enjoyed the IRC ceremony last year. It was a fun community event.
I did watch the 2008 (or 07 i cant remember) ceremony and for me it just wasnt as good.

I agree with bici on those awards being scrapped providing there is obviously still a slot for Best Non-Adventure.

something to consider is perhaps a 'Best Module/Plugin' award and possibly splitting the game award into Drama and Comedy.

Just food for thought.

[Iliya]

If there is a category for the best boring demo - I'm in!

[Radiant]

If there is a category for the best boring demo - I'm in!

Ah, you mean bringing back the P3n1s award?

[LimpingFish]

No offence to SSH, but the "in-game" award ceremony is dreadfully anticlimactic. I love the sense of occasion live IRC-ing brings to the awards, and you lose that by just having the download. Plus the whole thing is logged, so an edited game-based version could be made for people who missed it.

Best Documentation always struck me as rather redundant, since only a handful are usually fit to qualify. It's also a little arbitrary. Is the best documentation one that's slickly produced, or one that explains the objectives of the game in a clear and concise way (something you can accomplish with a plain text file)?

I think best programming should be a single award. I'm also generally against splitting awards into too many niches.

[Snarky]

I much prefer the in-game ceremony, though see the drawbacks and I like the dynamism of the live event too. I'm just not that fond of chat rooms in general, I guess, and I always have to install IRC and figure out how to connect to the right server and all that again every time.

A live multi-player AGS game would be awesome.

Best documentation might become more relevant if it included in-game hint systems and other more modern ways of handling documentation, but unfortunately qualified nominees would be even fewer.

[Ali]

I'm also a big fan of the in-game version. Perhaps that's because I've never used IRC and don't 100% know what it is. Perhaps it's because Nelly was so much bigger than all the other characters. Who can say?

[Ponch]

You're missing an asterisk somewhere, don't you?

Yes I am. I had something very witty I was going to footnote the post with, but I suddenly had to get back to work. Then when I came back, I couldn't get the forum to work. And now I've forgotten what it was I was going to say.

Also, I'll never forget the sight of an enormous Nelly terrorizing all the other little sprites. It was quite an award ceremony that night.

- Ponch