[CONTEST] Write a V2 AAR - 110.000 Blue Coins to win!

[Alerias]

Wow, this is exciting! I have not followed the judging very closely, but someone I know called me to tell me it was ongoing and that I was top 5! Now and its Top 3?! I can scarcely believe it

This show of faith is really gripping. I need to get off my lazy butt and post the closing updates... Thank you to everyone involved in judging. I've only written a couple of AARs before, I guess I tried extra for this one. And I appreciate the effort being recognized! Since English isn't my primary language, it's all the cooler to get ranked so well for something I wrote in this language.

[SAS]

I find it odd that I'm only a judge but have been watching this thread for a while now in anticipation.

[Alexspeed]

Woohoo! Thank you very much, Alexspeed, for the great contests, and to all the judges, who took the time to read our AARs!
Of course, now I have to pay for DW myself.

Thank you naggy! DW = Divine Wind?

Wow, this is exciting! I have not followed the judging very closely, but someone I know called me to tell me it was ongoing and that I was top 5! Now and its Top 3?! I can scarcely believe it

This show of faith is really gripping. I need to get off my lazy butt and post the closing updates... Thank you to everyone involved in judging. I've only written a couple of AARs before, I guess I tried extra for this one. And I appreciate the effort being recognized! Since English isn't my primary language, it's all the cooler to get ranked so well for something I wrote in this language.

You got called ... thats great

And its about time you show up Mr.Alerias, you are the suprise of the contest (i guess)

I find it odd that I'm only a judge but have been watching this thread for a while now in anticipation.

I find it odd that i write novels for the last 3 ... but i am allmost done, halfway through the first.

Posting with the final 3 incoming soon!

[Alerias]

You definitely have my attention now I'm chilling a decent bottle right now cause third place (which is my guess) is still worth very much celebrating

I'd like to thank everyone in the judging process as well. I expected that rating so many entries would be a task for titans.

[naggy]

Thank you naggy! DW = Divine Wind?

Yup!

[Forgiven]

Hmm, interesting point that primary language thing, now I wonder how many of the contestants and judges are from english speaking countries. Not sure if it makes that big of a difference, I personally think I probably read and write english bettern than my native finnish, mostly because I've ended up reading all those books in english since, well, translations are not all that good, and they come out sooo much later. So after 15 years of reading more english than finnish I'd be my english is actually better. Still, I suppose it's possible as surely some of the judges aren't native english speakers whether it's even good thing to say, 'use large vocabulary' that would just have them annoyed and force the use of a dictionary?

[SAS]

I had to redo my numbers several times before submitting them since each one had something great. I must say the quality of the AARs was very high.

Edit: if the writer was not a native speaker I couldn't tell.

[Alexspeed]

Given the hour i am posting this, i decided i post the last 3 alltogether:



Alerias - The Legend of the Marble Emperor - Hellenic AAR

Your AAR ranked number 3, Congratulations!

You also won my 3rd Prize! 20.000 Blue Coins on Gamersgate.

So there we are, and you made it to the Top 3!
That struck me as a suprise, you even fought hard for Place 2,
but lost it in the end.

I personally followed your AAR quite closely, and i really liked it alot,
but i wouldnt have thought that so many judges would agree with my opinion.
I thought you would end in the Top 10 somewhere before i had any scores.

But when the scores came in, you where up in the top 3
and you defended your place with every score update that came in
You where never leading, you where place 2 quite a while and
in the end you where on the 3rd Place.

You are the second AAR in the contest that brought me to play a nation,
gratz to that, but my Greece game was way less glorious than yours

Maybe its the fact that you semi-finished your AAR that helped you stay on top,
or it was also the common love for Byzantium that many share.

That you wrote a awesome AAR with great Pictures,
an impressive Story and interresting gameplay
might have helped you too of course

I hope you can find the time to write the conclusion chapter for your AAR.
A Place 3 AAR deserves to have a propper ending!

You did get two 99 scores from the judges, and i think you deserved them.

Dont stop writing AAR´s, it would be a shame not to have you as a autor here!

I thank you for competing, congratulate you to your 3rd Place, and i wish you all the best!

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Communitarian! - Letters from an unquiet August - A Middle Kingdom AAR

Your AAR ranked number 2, Congratulations!

You also won my 2nd Prize! 30.000 Blue Coins on Gamersgate!

Irv my friend, you did sign up as the first for my contest
and now you come in as a second!

You deffinatly have no reason to be sad to miss the first place,
because you managed to get some superlatives with your AAR!

You did get 5 times the 99 points from the judges!
If that dosent say anything then i dunnow

You also wrote the largest updates overall.
But this could also have been a small penalty to your AAR for some judges.
I had deffinatly to plan extra time in for your AAR to read it,
not everyone will be able or willing to do that i guess.

When it would go only for storywriting & characterisation,
you would be very likely the first.

Your memorable characters are worthy of getting read and
you made playing China really interresting with your narrative.
I doubt strongly that i would do even half as well with it than you do
If any of the AAR´s has touched my heart and mind yours would be the one!

Also your cheerfull personality and open attitude towards anything
truly did inspire many and not only me.
Your little ramblings all over where a great thing.

You brought alot of life in this contest just by participating
and i have to thank you for that!

Also you didnt shy away from commenting on nearly all (or all?)
other contesting AARs, and that with valuable insights most of the time.
You visiting a AAR is guranteed that it will cheer someone up, thank you!

Your AAR was the only one besides Tanzhang´s that was leading for a time,
And i was suprised that he was able to overtake you and come in first.
When more scores came in you had even to fight Alerias for your place.
That battle you won, but it was closer than the end result may make it look like.

Thank you that you showed up and brought life and a great AAR to this Contest!
I hope to read alot more of you in the future and that you will stay here as a writer till the end of time

I thank you for competing, congratulate you to your 2nd Place, and i wish you all the best!

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Tanzhang (譚張) - Onze Plaats in de Zon: The Rise of Frederik de Grote (van Holland)

Your AAR ranked number 1, Congratulations!

You also won my 1st Prize! 60.000 Blue Coins on Gamersgate.


Well, there we have it, you think nothing bad
and the Netherlands just roll over you.

It wasnt suprising that you made a Top 3 place,
but it was suprising that you where able to overtake Communitarian
even tough you had less 99 scores than he got.
Congratulations for that

Neverthless you, and your AAR, are surly are a worthy winner of this contest!
Overall your AAR was all the time in the "Big League",
you did really invest alot in your updates, i could feel that when i read it.

What you have written with your AAR is the best combination
of gameplay, characterisation and story in the whole contest!
Along with great images and pictures you really shine as the golden winner

You also did write alot, but not so much to be a burden on the reader,
and your updates came fast and on time.
Your detailed interludes about the elections where a delight to read,
that spiced up the allready great coctail that your AAR is.

Your story was belivable and logical, and still stayed interresting all the time.
You frequently interacted with your readers alot,
maybe more than most of the other writers.

You also did comment alot, nearly as much as Communitarian did, and i appreciate that too!
Seems like communication is a good way to get a great score

If i had to find something i dont like on your AAR... i would be in trouble
There is really not much to critique on it i am afraid.
Its pretty much how a reader like me wants a AAR to be.

You did get three 99 scores from the judges,
as i said only Communitarian got more,
but you got higher scores from the rest
and that secured your first Place.

Thank you for beeing part of this contest and for your AAR!

You need to be chained to the AAR Forum and have
to write great AAR´s for us readers for the rest of your life now!

I thank you for competing, congratulate you to your 1st Place, and i wish you all the best!

[SAS]

Congrats!

[Forgiven]

Well, finally.
Congratulations Tanzhang and you all.

[Alexspeed]

I thank you all who accompanied me on my Contest Finale,
it was a fun, great (and long) day for me

I am both happy and a little sad that its over now
But check the forum, the next contest is allready on its way!

I will post now the scores summary in some minutes.

[Qorten]

Many many congratulations to all the writers and especially the top three! I'd like to thank Alexspeed especially for organising this whole contest. It was an honor being a judge for the contest. Thanks to them and also to Paradox Interactive for handing out a nice small extra prize to the top 10 writers.

As I said earlier I'll continue later today personally congratulating the top 10 and informing them of how many points I gave them and the place they got on my list and some reasons why.

Now it's over 4 AM and time to go to bed.

[Mr. Capiatlist]

Congratulations to all the writers, I really enjoyed judging.

7 of the AARs I chose in my top 10 made it to the top ten, so I am happy. All 3 of my top 3 made it into the winning spots, however my order was a little different.

[scholar]

Congrats on earning virtual money, possibly enough to buy DW, guys! And Thanks for making such wonderful AARs, they all ranked highly in my book.

[Alerias]

It's a shame that my liquor store doesn't accept blue coins as payment, because I just opened a nice Crown Royal Whiskey to celebrate the 3rd place

Thank you for your kind words. Hard to imagine I was close to 2nd!

[Alexspeed]

The score Overview!

Click the image to open it in a bigger view:




Also here, a Download of the Excel file + the jpg with the scores
if you want to view it that way.

DOWNLOAD

The .zip-File contains:
- 1 .xls File made in Excel 2003
- 1 .jpg of a screenshot of the scores


The Judges names are intentionally not included.

Every judge is free to announce and comment his scores
but has no obligation to do so.

I would like to read alot of your judging reports
if you have the time for it please post them!

A writer can grow with good critcs, they are valuable!

Again thanks to all participants and judges!

---------------------

Alerias, Communitarian! & Tanzhang

Please contact me in the next days via PM,
so we can work out that thing with the prizes from Gamersgate.

You will need to give me the email that is connected
to your Gamersgate Account so i can gift you the prizes.

--------------------

To all of the Top 10

Tanzhang, Communitarian!, Alerias, naggy, Planck,
scholar, Polar Mongoose, Forgiven, TekcoR, Poh

To claim your prize from Paradox,
please contact Kallocain via PM.
She will get you your DLC Prize.

You are of course free to gift it to someone else if you allready have it,
or ask Kallocain to change it to another DLC that you dont jet have.
She said something about that this should be possible

[Alexspeed]

The only thing that is missing is some conclusion and a ranked listing.

I will look into that tomorrow.

Keep commenting, i am happy about your responses, thank you all!

[TekcoR]

Congratulations to all!

Check out the next upcoming contest in the Crack the Code threads!

[SAS]

If you look at Alexspeed's score chart my scores are judge number 4.

EDIT: I hope Alexspeed gets something for being such a great host.

[Tommy4ever]

I'll admit I'm suprised and a little dissapointed that Communitarian didn't win. I still stick by my belief that his AAR was head and shoulders above the competition. However the only other AAR capable of even coming close to his was of course Tanzhang's. So if Communitarian wasn't to win then it had better be Tanzhang and in the end it was.

Congrats to all those who competed and especially to those who won something!