posted 01-26-09 11:34 AM CT (US)
The first month of January is almost at its end and 2008 is soon only in our memories. Admitingly, the past year has been relatively inactive compared to earlier years, if you count the releases in the Blacksmith. But in fact, there's been quite a lot of activity in the Blacksmith during 2008; we've got a new category for all competition entries, and there's been several competitions held druing the year. Although the supposedly returning Annual Cut-Scene Contest remained absent, we've experiensed both a second Mini Game Competition and a Defend the Spot Contest, of which the latter was only recently finished. We've even seen the return of the old traditions of the Pretty Town Contest, which spawned some amazing marvels in designing.
And we should not forget the many other good designs that were released during the year. To make sure we don't, this event has been hosted, to allow the public to select their top favourites from the past year. These are, according to public opinion, the best games of the past year. I gladly bring you the Game of the Year Awards, AoKH's answer to the Oscars.
Placement: Scenario/Campaign/Member name (authour)
When speaking about Age of Kings creations, the term 'gameplay' is a very vague one, especially if you're reviewing a scenario. Gameplay includes anything from possible bugs to lag to how well the game worked as a whole. The biggest and most important thing about gameplay is the question; Did you have fun playing the game? That's the core of the term gameplay, and the winner of this category is the game that people enjoyed playing most of all; and the winner this year was given a clear majority of the votes. Night Conqueror's
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Honorable Mentions: 2475 - Birth of the Uruk-Hai (morgoth bauglir), My Fort - My Empire (Lord Basse)
While everyone likes something really pretty to look at, in most scenarios the map design isn't in itself the major part of the scenario; unless, of course, the scenario in question is a Pretty Town Contest entry. This year's winner of this title is a winner already, and comes from a designer that normally stun us with his beautiful, minimalistic designs. Can you gess who, and with what? Julius999's
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Honorable Mention: The Dogs of War (Night Conqueror)
A badly told story can ruin the best of scenarios, and an atmospheric story can improve the weakest of campaigns. Stories may not always be in the center of focus, but when they are, and succeed in their aim, they can provide some of the best scenarios you get to play. This year, the Best Story category also provides us with the first tie in the results! With both winners receiving three out of seven votes, we have two worthy winners; Andanu Trisatya's modern era set story about love and regret,
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Honorable Mentions: Adventure Series X The War (Jas the Mace1), The Tower of the Moon (Lord Basse)
While music and sound effects aren't neccesary to make a good scenario, using these wisely and picking the most fitting tracks can enhance the atmosphere greatly. The winner in the category this year went against the norm in two ways; first, the scenario was set in the realm of Middle Earth, and yet it used no music from the Lord of the Rings movies, and second, all the dialogue was sounded out through voice acting, done by the author himself, morgoth bauglir. The big time winner is
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Honorable Mentions: The Dogs of War (Night Conqueror), The Tower of the Moon (Lord Basse)
The custom made AIs in Age of Kings and our beloved Blacksmith may be good when training and improving your skills, but you can't escape the fact they're all stupid AIs, programmed to do their thing and nothing more. If you look for thinking opponents and proper competition, multiplayer is what you're looking for! This category brings the second tie of the results, and what's even more special is that both winners are from the same authour; Impeached! The winners are his two scenarios
Honorable Mentions: GTA San Andreas (Lol Hahaa), RPG: The Lords of Normandy (kykexx), Real World Europe (kyriakos_xasapis)
Since the creation of AoK Trigger Studio, the Blacksmith has been receiving minimalistic maps with simple gameplay, some times even regarded as a short story or novellette version a full campaign. These mini games have become quite aphenomenon, spawning two Mini Game Conpetitions, two years in a row. The winner this year comes from the author of the winning entry to this year's competition, but the winner itself is an arcade style defend the spot style scenario, with a very nostalgia-glorifying story. As it's authour I, Lord Basse, am very thankful for all the votes
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Honorable Mention: The Tower of the Moon (Lord Basse)
Stepping over the the designers' section, we start out by giving you the strongest newbie designer of 2008, according to the public. With crazy and creative scenarios, the winner has charmed a lot of visitors and created at least one laughter fest of a scenario, I Hate Snow. Congratulations to the winner,
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No one of the master designers we know started out as good as we know them. Berserker Jerker, Ingo van Thiel, Crasher, oliver, the list is long; all of them started out as newbie designers once. And with every new project, we all improve and learn new things to implement to out designs, and works in real life. The winners, all three, have proved themselves to have become even better designers over the past year than they were before, and for that we applaud them;
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This award is given to whoever the public finds the best designer of all of the past year; be it their productivity, their high quality design or their creative ways of innovation; the public decides. The 'top three' has a total of six people in it, as a result of the close competition. Though it was close, one came out on top; yours truly,
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And with the results out, I say my thanks to you for having me as your host once again. Not that you had much of a choice, but hey. And now, a toast. To a good past year, and to a new, more productive year! Cheers chaps!
*clinks Pepsi glass*
The
OF | [/ \] |¯| [/ \] | ME
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The Relics of Athalën (5.0) | AoK Opus - 100,000+ downloads | StormWind Studios | "I consider the conversion of Basse to be one of the great triumphs of my modding crusade" - Matt LiVecchi
[This message has been edited by Lord Basse (edited 01-26-2009 @ 11:34 AM).]
