***2015 Annual Challenge Voting***

[TK.]

Just some sort of apologies to everyone...this got me kind depressed a bit I couldn't work sooo much more on it for the Challenge.

I had a LOT of work this last month and had to travel all over the place for I had no time at all. It's been almost 2 months since the last time I was home >.>

I'd like to thank everyone that participated in the Challenge and everyone that commented and expected the maps to come alive...seeing soo much talented and inspired people around really boosts the desire to improve and participate in this community!

Sorry that my "map" was one of the most if not the most incomplete of all of them. I sincerelly want to keep working on it and hopefully finish it!

My humble thanks!

[Ilanthar]

No need to apologize TK! We're not "no-life full time cartographers" (or so I think ). And you're more brave than me, since I'm really not ready to keep working on my unfinished one!

[AzurePlanet]

Finally I decided to vote for "The New World" by Diamond.
Even though the cartouche is not properly finished, I like too much this kind of mapping style.

[Coriolis]

I guess my expectations for this were too high; I was expecting to be mind-blown by magnum opus entries. The results are certainly impressive, and some of them have very strong potential to be mind-blowing maps when complete, but I've seen more impressive maps in the shorter-duration challenge categories. Most of the maps for this year's challenge seem to fall into two categories: Ambitiously creative and unfinished, or finished product that didn't push the envelope. The best two pieces (in my opinion) seemed like standard maps for the two artists in question. They got my votes, but there were four or five others that probably would have taken it all if they were complete.

Perhaps a re-structuring of this challenge could improve it? I like the idea of having an annual challenge that stays active through the year with regular votes on various aspects of the entries at several points in their development. With two months or so between each vote, the participants could focus on a single aspect of their map development and give it the "magnum opus" treatment. This could also maintain a steady interest in the competition throughout the year and encourage participants to get involved early and stay involved throughout. You could break down the stages of map development all kinds of ways. Here's one:
Vote 1: Early in the competition, the participants have their concepts and rough drafts in. After 2 months, people vote on whose concept is the most interesting/exciting.
Vote 2: By this point, participants should have the "lay of the land" defined. People vote on whose terrain is the best-looking.
Vote 3: By this point, participants should have national borders, city icons, roads, buildings (for city maps), and internal clutter (for tactical maps). People vote on who has done the best job of marking the human-centric components of their map.
Vote 4: by this point, participants should have their maps labeled. People vote on the best and most-creative labeling job.
Vote 5: By this point participants should have a compass rose, legend, and scale (or other components that give users the context of the map). People vote on whose are the best.
Vote 6: In the final vote, participants should throw in any finishing touches. People vote on who has the best overall map, and this vote could count double or triple.

In the process of this contest, you could have mini-prizes for the in-progress voting categories, as well as the big, grand prize at the end. Anyway, that's my suggestion for the CLs.

[ascanius]

I guess my expectations for this were too high; I was expecting to be mind-blown by magnum opus entries. The results are certainly impressive, and some of them have very strong potential to be mind-blowing maps when complete, but I've seen more impressive maps in the shorter-duration challenge categories. Most of the maps for this year's challenge seem to fall into two categories: Ambitiously creative and unfinished, or finished product that didn't push the envelope. The best two pieces (in my opinion) seemed like standard maps for the two artists in question. They got my votes, but there were four or five others that probably would have taken it all if they were complete.

Perhaps a re-structuring of this challenge could improve it? I like the idea of having an annual challenge that stays active through the year with regular votes on various aspects of the entries at several points in their development. With two months or so between each vote, the participants could focus on a single aspect of their map development and give it the "magnum opus" treatment. This could also maintain a steady interest in the competition throughout the year and encourage participants to get involved early and stay involved throughout. You could break down the stages of map development all kinds of ways. Here's one:
Vote 1: Early in the competition, the participants have their concepts and rough drafts in. After 2 months, people vote on whose concept is the most interesting/exciting.
Vote 2: By this point, participants should have the "lay of the land" defined. People vote on whose terrain is the best-looking.
Vote 3: By this point, participants should have national borders, city icons, roads, buildings (for city maps), and internal clutter (for tactical maps). People vote on who has done the best job of marking the human-centric components of their map.
Vote 4: by this point, participants should have their maps labeled. People vote on the best and most-creative labeling job.
Vote 5: By this point participants should have a compass rose, legend, and scale (or other components that give users the context of the map). People vote on whose are the best.
Vote 6: In the final vote, participants should throw in any finishing touches. People vote on who has the best overall map, and this vote could count double or triple.

In the process of this contest, you could have mini-prizes for the in-progress voting categories, as well as the big, grand prize at the end. Anyway, that's my suggestion for the CLs.

I think Coriolis has a point here. I really think this challenge suffered from a serious case of procrastination, It did for me at least. I think it may be a good idea to have such a update system like above or each submission needs to have at least 4 progress updates to count towards the final submission. They did this in another forum with a challenge, participants needed to submit 2 working versions for the final to be counted, and they had to be substantial. it's something to consider.

[Deadshade]

Surprisingly no map but Chick's and Tainotim's was finished.
It's like if almost everybody posted a sketch or an idea in january and then did little to nothing untill december. This is disapponting because like Coriolis I was expecting some chef d'œuvres with 12 months of available work time.
It is then indeed hard to vote so I chose 2 categories 1 finished and 1 unfinished.
The finished vote went for Chick because I never liked much town maps.
The unfinished one went for Chashio for originality - no other map tried such an ambitious, demanding and original handdrawn style.

I also wanted to vote for Diamond just because I like the consistence of this very "mappy" style but then clicked on Something and my vote was closed. Sorry Diamond but I'll rep it.

[Goombac]

Thanks for the rep comments and everything from you guys! I wish I got to finish mine too, I actually forgot it was supposed to be done for Dec 1, otherwise I probably would have used the map I made a template my final thumbnail. But yeah, I created an entire map to make my actual map which took a lot out of me. And then with school starting shortly after and all sorts of other things coming up, I never really got a chance to continue it so pretty much every time I was available to work on it I didn't feel like it, and every time I wanted to work on it I was busy. But it sounds like a lot of other people had similar problems.

Regardless, I'm gonna try and still complete the map I planned (although I always say that, but hopefully this does get done within a reasonable amount of time), and glad other people made some really good stuff, particularly Max, Diamond and tainotim. Maybe next year I'll be able to get something done.

[ChickPea]

Just in case anyone overlooks it, there's a thread where we're asking for your thoughts on the format of the annual challenge. So if you have opinions, feel free to share them.

http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...ad.php?t=32499

[arsheesh]

Congratulations to tainotim for winning this year's annual challenge with his City of Hills map! Now we have to decide upon which badge to award you Please allow us a little time to sort this out. We'll get you that shiny new badge soon.

[J.Edward]

My apologies Tanotim - I slacked off here and didn't get the annual badge poll up yet.
Trying to get that sorted. We'll get it rectified as soon as possible.
And congrats to you.