Hi hi guys, well good luck with the rest of the competition, I won't be around now so much for a while, I am focussing on my online jewellery store and my art diploma, and probably won't see the results until I come here again! Take care all and be good! See you all in a few months!
Love and cake
Cake xox

Good Luck Cake! Sending you prosperous wishes!!!

k x

fairycake89- Since you likely won't be here for the finale, let me say thank you for participating, being helpful, and being fun.
Best of luck with your endeavors! You go, girl!

I want scores up no later than the 19th! :D

Reminder: These lots are the shit. Consider uploading them!

Good luck to you! Thank you for all your help and expertise!

Good luck with your endeavours and thanks for your encouragement and feedback.

Bye! Have fun!
Does anyone know her website?

I don't like to fuss, but my lot for round 3 is still connected to the wrong person with these judges: Yellow, Green, Red, Blue and Pink. I have no 52 but my house is registered on no 51: IshigreenSA, for all of the judges except one. Please change this, it is important for me even if I didn't go through with the contest. Thank you.

And my round 3 lot is also connected to the person above me! I should be credited with The Simlan Church.

It has been fixed -- It will show your proper scores when R4 goes up

Any idea when that will be?

Are mine fixed too?

Thank you for your hard work in fixing this. I am sure it took time to track down the problem and to make sure that the scores were really with the right person or project, so I really do appreciate your hard work! I know I didn't score well, but still, I like credit where it should be due to the right people. Thank you very much!

I just wanted to update the contestants, as I've already let Q know, but I'm going through a family issue right now and am not able to get to your round 4 scores until sometime this weekend. I do apologize for the delay, but I promise I'll get to them shortly. Congratulations to everyone who made it through the whole contest (it was a doozy!) and anyone who participated. You all rock and I'm jealous of yer srs building skillzzz. *two thumbs up, would judge again*

Holy bold statements, batman.

I ran this contest. 2/10. Would not do again.
(If I DO do this again, someone remind me to allow no more than 40 people...everything was just so pretty T__T)

aww qbie, sorry that you didn't enjoy it. you inspired lots of us to participate and start uploading, me included, I tip my hat to you good q.

Aw. I thought it was fun, even with the monstrous amount of contestants. As usual, it did make me even more self conscious of my already horrid building abilities, but ya' know - them's the breaks.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the fun parts of it -- making that scoresheet was the devil, though. Trying to wrangle so many uploads into a time frame was bad as well...bleh. Scores soon, though, and I will write a nice little conclusion post thanking everyone and all that jazz

Maybe a group of judges and someone who is super organised with spreadsheets to support them? I couldn't have done it and I'm known at work as the one who gets Excel to do what I want (because I know my limitations and am more computer savvy than my colleagues ) but I bet there's someone out there who could do it easily and has the time to do it.

As contestants, the time is pretty easy - either we have time to do it or we don't: If we do, how we use it is up to us; if we don't, we either tell you and ask for an extension or decide not to take part/continue taking part. For you and the other judges, I thought of it like being on my sons' Scouts' committee - it sounds easy at first, but soon tries to take over all your time - and the analogy holds up when you think of how to make it better in the future - get the people who can do it and have time to do it to get involved, and delegate.

Every extension messes up the planned schedule for host, judges, and other contestants. One of the big reasons why I ended up dropping out, was the delaying of rounds, scores, etc. cause I then turned my attention to other things that eventually got in the way of participating on the last round.

Yes, I can understand that - and I'm sure other people that didn't finish the competition also did so because of the delays. I'm guilty of a late submission myself for round 4 though I later realised it was 1 hour late not 2 as I'd looked at something that wasn't allowing for daylight saving time when I typed it.

Actually, if QBuilderz and the other judges had said 'No, it's either on time or it's not judged', that would have reduced the amount of lots to possibly a more easily judged and added to spreadsheet quantity.

Maybe I should have just dropped out. I wasn't getting good scores, and it would have been one less worthless lot to judge.

But I just got addicted to it.

I was determined that I wanted to finish and try to improve my own building - I actually got worse scores each time and have paraphrased this for my lots by removing the word 'the'... Hey-ho,
i'll see what I get for round 4.

Your lots improve so much to my eyes over the competition! They start as ordinary houses and end up looking like story like super cool story boards for a cool new film! Umm, ok, maybe not the criteria for the competition and I had a comment from round 1 that 'This isn't a story competition', but they look interesting and flow with the landscape you've put them in.

But your lots were much better than mine. You started out much better at 79 to my 56! and your finale after three rounds is 229 but I'm at 196! On average, yours was worth being in the contest as where mine were not really good at all.

I found that there was a couple of Judges that took their critiquing very seriously. In a way, there was one imparticular that just seemed displeased with everything *meaning this loosely* on my lots. Honestly, I disregarded that judge by his/her comments on round 2 and most certainly on round 3. Just participating was outside my comfort zone. I had attempted twice to upload lots in the past here on MTS but they always rejected them, so I gave up. I turned into a lurker at that point until this completion. Am I upset that I am not awesome? No, I got exactly what I wanted from his, amazing creative ideas and this nagging spot in my rear end that now wants to mod new objects for the game. Trust me the hubby isn't happy with my desktop as cluttered as it is with designs and codes. it's quite a mess, but it makes me happy.

So, anybody that feels that OMG I just have to win, is not taking the experience these competitions are really intended for. Everyone created masterpieces in my opinion. They are all stellar no matter if I would have chosen those themes or not, if it makes you happy so be it. Now let's see if Rnd 4 is going to be the same. *chopping up the soapbox, and running away from the mob.

Believe me, I understand what you are saying. It's just hard to feel like you put a lot into something, like more than the previous, but still end up getting really low scores. I just means I'm not have as creative as I hoped I was, and that is a little discouraging to some point. The first round, I took with a grain of salt to grow by, but the third round, I really tried hard, but somehow, felt like the judges were weary by my entry. I didn't get any comments on it that were helpful for me to improve, and I also didn't get much encouragement. So, I kind of felt like I was just wasting space after that.

The fourth one, well, I have a competitive nature when I get started, and at least didn't want to be labeled a quitter on top of uncreative! I actually had fun with that one, though I couldn't do it quite the way I was thinking I wanted to. Still, I got an interesting story line out of doing it, so I'm happy about that, and I even made some personal computer-like devices for it, but the last three times I tried to upload something, I was told I was weird and basically, no my ideas are not original or they were too weird, so I didn't upload the computer designs for a (science study) computer on the human body and a security computer design even showing the outside of the facility because I was sure no one would be interested since I got such negative feedback on my attempted uploads, though to be fair, I know why one of the uploads might have been seen as weird.

I was highly tempted to disagree with that post! Obviously, I can't argue with the figures, but I do disagree with your interpretation of them - yes, I started with 78, but my round 3 score was 74 - at the rate I'm dropping points, I'll be lucky to get 70 for round 4: conversely with the rate yours are increasing from 56 to 78, you should be scoring in the mid 80s (based solely on the increases/decreases of our scores over the first three rounds, not taking into account any scoring criteria!) Both of us scored below the average for round 3 (as calculated by my printing out the score sheet, adding the aggregate scores for round 3 and dividing by the number of scored entries that I counted as 47), but that I would expect as looking at the scores for the previous rounds suggests that some highly skilled and experienced builders were taking part and continuing to take part - I am neither highly skilled or experienced and it was my second competition, and I'm guessing that you might say something similar.

Since we're looking at averages I also added together all the overall scores as at round 3 and divided by 93 (total entries for round 1), giving an average of 183.7 - so we're both higher than that.

I think as sahmormakmom said, our happiness is the important thing - did you enjoy taking part? Did you enjoy the building of the lots? Did you enjoy seeing others' lots? Are you happy with your personal learning over the competition?

I think the judges were getting overwhelmed with the amount of lots to judge - I was getting less comments as the competition went on, and though I haven't checked all the others, suspect that is a general case.

Please, can I have some attention. I am still wondering if someone that is in control of this contest can move my lot Stonehurst (3:rd round) from contestant number 51: IshigreenSA to my name, Marbi, on number 52. I dropped out because I felt discouraged and somewhat an outsider in the contest. Having my lot attached to another person doesn't make it any better.

I thought Q had said that the score sheet had already been corrected BUT won't go live until the Round 4 scores are added to it. So, I'd wait until the final scores go up and check then.

When do you think that will be Q? I'm not trying to rush you or anything, but I'm curious to see what I need to tweak on the Round 4 before submitting it for upload.

I should get my scoring done tonight! I need to finish an English paper first, though

I didn't understand that he answered me because the qoute included was for someone else. I have asked about this before and didn't get any answer that time so I wondered if I was being ingnored.

I replied to Nana because she was before you on the list, and she needed to be moved down to your position, so you had to be moved as well. Sorry for being vague.

Thank you for the update. Hope your paper went well!

Thank you for encouragement. I can accept that I'm not as creative as I thought, now, after the fact. I was just feeling a little overwhelmed, and to tell the truth, there were many great entries. Actually, this is the very first time for me to even consider building something more than a block and calling it a house, as you can see from my first entry. My first entry was a very typical 'block' house that I am used to making. Now, I'm trying different things, though I have to say, I still don't like the CFE or whatever it is called. It just really messes with what I'm trying to build, and I can get the space I want without the winding stairs that would most likely be the only real thing I'd use it for.

I think that trying different things was the whole point of the challenge (well, and obviously building!) so that means you have won whatever the score!

I quite like CFE and was highly frustrated to find the last but one patch (1.57) seemed to have changed the way CFE works as I couldn't do something in Round 4 that I'd done in Round 3 and that was the only difference I could think of. I get frustrated when I have an image in my head of something that I could make in real life or in lego but can't do in the Sims

(When I say 'I' could make in real life, I don't actually mean me personally...)

Thank you all for your kind words. Took my POP out yesterday, and am exercising the hand. All the builds are lovely. And thanks to all that sent me well wishes via PM. I did appreciate it all

FINAL SCORES ARE UP!

Congrats to everyone who made it to the end!

A Word from your Host

Woo! It is all over! Just a few months ago, 95 entries were received from members around the whole community (MTS, TSR, Reddit, Tumblr, and probably more) and this contest began. I would have never guessed at how many people would show up, nor how many top notch lots would be entered. It was truly something else, and I am so happy that there was so much participation. Each round I tried to stump you guys with some more difficult building techniques, such as basements, diagonals, and even the scary-as-all-hell CFE cheat, and yet, you thirty people were the survivors. You made it through and are truly all winners in my eyes. I hope you all had a ton of fun, learned some new things, and even managed to create some things you will upload to site! Thank you so much for playing along, and here's to hoping that next year's contest is just as good not as disorganized, and even better!


Did you Get a High Score in a Round? Consider Uploading!

If you scored over a 75, I would be willing to bet that you can get your lot approved on site, especially with the queue reform going on. Take some kick ass pictures of your awesome lot, make a nice post, and submit that stuff! I will be happy to coment on it (as a non-judge) and give my thanks and stuff! Not to mention, I can tell you now that some of these lots are pick and even feature worthy! You don't have to, but I think that there is a ton of talent shown in this thread, and the general public shouldn't be denied your wonderful lots


For the Judges who Lasted...

Scoring was difficult. You think building the lots was hard? At least you got to be creative! The amount of appreciation I have for these few people is off the charts, and I wanted to show my appreciation somehow. As you may know, there were two judges who had to step down due to personal life. As always, real life comes first 100% of the time. Even when their fellow judges needed to step down, these three awesome judges stuck it out, pitched in, fixed problems, monitored the thread, and were just awesome behind the scenes. There is, unfortunately, no "awesome judge" ribbons, but we do have the achievement system on site. So, I have awarded the "Have a Cookie" achievement to the three judges who lasted!



(Mind you, you still won't get to know which judge was which color, muwaha!)


And the Winners...

So, it was a close contest right up to the end! However, there is, in fact, a winner. Can we place have a big round of applause for...

Yogi-Tea!

...but...wait. Yogi already has a ribbon! This means that the winner is...

Sionelle!

...hold on...second place is actually a tie! So, that means, the winner is are...

Sionelle and Diwtay!

...hold up. Third place was only behind by one point? Only one? Well...that is just a rip off. Let's give it up for all FOUR winners:



These four contestants brought the heat each and every round. They showcased outstanding talent, impeccable direction, and more than copious amounts of creativity. After talking ti over with a few others (both staff, and in real life) I have decided to award ribbons to these people. Amazing job and well deserved!

Yay! Finally the wait is over..congratulations to the winners!!

Yay! First off I'd like to say thanks to Qbie for hosting such an amazing contest. It was a lot of fun and I'm really looking forward to next year! Secondly I would like to give a HUGE thanks to the judges. I can't imagine scoring all those entries was easy, but you guys stuck through it until the bitter end and you deserve to be thanked for it. Thirdly, I'd like to thank all my fellow contestants. To everyone who stuck it out, I feel honored to have competed side by side with such amazing people with incredible talent. To those of you who couldn't make it all the way, I totally understand. Life can be wonky sometimes, and extra-curricular activities like The Sims, are always the first things to fall by the wayside.

I'm really happy with where I ended up score wise. I can't believe my R4 build scored so well. It felt kind of hurried-up to me, but apparently the judges liked it :D

Anyway, congrats to the winners. You guys totally deserved it! I truly hope some of these lots get uploaded because there are some real gems in there!

Congratulations to all the winners! And to the judges for sticking it out

Much thanks to Qbuilderz for hosting and all the judges - those who were able to slog through to the end and those that were unfortunately struck by life - for their hard work here. We abused your generosity with deadlines and the like something chronic, and you were good to put up with us

The winners are definitely deserving, but everyone's creativity was amazing to see. I hope next time we come round to a competition, I have a little more time on my hands... but I'll probably enter even if I don't.

Whew! Thanks Q for the recognition. It's nice to get a cookie. I love cookies! And also thank you for the lovely contest.

To the contestants, whether you made it through all the rounds or not, your participation is much much MUCH appreciated. It was fun going through your entries and watching you, not only get through whatever bumps in the road Q threw your way, but to progress in your building skills. Everyone here did an amazing job and I hope to see some of your lots here at MTS for us all to enjoy!

Thanks so much for holding this contest, qbie. Its given me the confidence to start uploading after nearly three years of just downloading and hovering on the fringes on the sims community. To the judges for their honesty and effort in scoring the houses, its far more difficult to be objective than people realise. And to my fellow contestants, making my jaw drop from the get go with your amazing creations, and making me feel I could join in.
Congrats Yogi-tea, Sionelle, Ditway and FairyCake. your creations inspire us all. Right i'm off to create..... watch this space!! xxx

I couldn't agree with this more I also started uploading and becoming more active in the community because of this contest and I can't thank QBie and the judges enough for that This contest certainly got me out of my comfort zone. Well done to everyone who has made it through to the end and judges, I applaud you for sticking through with this slightly mad undertaking of 90+ application entries! That cookie is well-deserved.

Gratitude and hat-tipping and back pats to our host with the most, dear Qbie!
The behind-the-scenes work that you did for continuously updating the 1st page and the scoring docs was phenomenal!
And just look at the inspiration you've given... truly an accomplishment! Bravo!

To all the contestants-- Well, now that this contest is over, I can pick my jaw up from the floor once and for all.
You've all won me over with your creativity and diligence. Thank you for keeping this contest such fun!
I hope that you keep building and having fun in your game.

To the winners-- Woooooo! Congratulations! Take a bow! *throws roses*

Fellow judges-- Whew! Nice job!

Awwww, Q! Thank you for the cookie, though I eated it immediately. (I never met a cookie I didn't like.)

Congratulations, Yogi-Tea! And congrats to Diwtay and Fairycake89! And congrats to everyone who made it to the end!

Thanks, Qbie for the second place ribbon, which was awfully nice of you to give. I am all right now. (My coworkers are staring at me like I've lost my mind, but that's nothing new, so who cares?) Part of the reason is because honestly, I often don't care if I win, place or show, but all of the lots by everyone in this contest were SO DAMN AWESOME that I feel like it's quite an honor for my lots to be among the higher scores. Even though I am quite sure that I would have been somewhere in the middle of the pack if all of the other contestants had made it to the end-- I'll take it!

And I second all of the encouragement to people to upload their creations. I never felt like my lots were worth uploading, because I look at them all the time, so to me they just look like "meh, another house, and MTS is chock-a-block with great houses, so who needs my stuff?" Turns out quite a few people can use them. So I'll bet that if any of you who are debating with yourself whether your lots are worth uploading, you'd find that a lot of people will like them and use them in their games. (Because as noted above, your lots were SO DAMN AWESOME.)

Congrats again to everyone, and a HUGE thank you to the judges and Qbie for all of your efforts. The contest was a ton of fun, and had so many wonderful ideas in it.

Congratulations to Yogi-Tea, Sionelle, Diwtay and Fairycakes89! You are all inspirations to newbies like myself! Thank you to everyone that entered, judged, and last but certainly not least, to you Qbuilderz, for hosting this awesome contest. Everyone pushed me to be better with each round, and as a result, have already uploaded two of the challenge lots and they were accepted!!! Round 4 turned out to be my highest scoring lot and I am in the process of getting it ready for upload! Thanks for the inspiration, encouragement and tips, hints, and tricks to building better and lots!

Congratulations everyone! We all survived.
Huge well done to the winners and especially to the judges and Qbie for keeping this contest together.
Until next time. :D

The contest was a real eye opener for me. I have sooo far to go to become any good. No wonder My stuff will always be turned down for upload. Oh well. At least I learned a little bit.

Thank you for suffering through my unworthy lots and judging them just the same. It must have been a bear to have to score my lots when there were others much more fun to score. Thank you so much, judges!

bugger!!! I am stunned! I gets a ribbun!?!

Good heavens, give yourself at least a LITTLE MORE CREDIT!

No one's born as a 'perfect' creator, making things is always a process of learning, trying new stuff, tearing your hair out, and so on. There are NO unworthy lots, or other creations. Who likes what the best is ALWAYS a matter of opinion.

I wanted to "nag" more about your words, as they kinda made me sad, but instead, I'm just going to say I really hope you keep that "at least I learned a little bit" and build on it! This site is full of great tutorials, forums for learning things, helpful people, and you can always get feedback on your work at the creator feedback forum if you feel like having second opinions. And if you don't think that is enough, just look outside the box called MTS; there are plenty of sims sites around, big and small, and even more helpy tutorials and such - just search! But it's all up to you and I won't tell you you HAVE to do this.

Finally, your houses look like houses, so duh. If you had intended them to be chickens, THEN you might consider yourself failed.

ps. judging is NOT fun. You have the faith of another creator in your hands, and you have to be fair and square, put your personal feelings towards the people aside and so on, and just look at the creation. (Big thumbs up for the judges who lasted!) It's a big big job, and while I have judged my share of contests and will still volunteer if asked/needed, I would always rather partake than judge.

Give yourself some credit by golly! You stuck it out to the end, you made some truly cool lots AND your scores consistently improved!!!!! Silly Simmer! Looking forward to competing with you on the next build contest

This was a lot of hard work, but really fun to see what everyone created from the same foundation. Congratulations to the winners! Those builds were most impressive. Thanks Q and the judges for sticking with us through thick and thin. You guys helped all of us improve and Q pulled off a great contest. Now I'm sure you all need a beach spa weekend! And my fellow contestants, I am still inspired by all of your beautiful works to get better at building. I'm so glad I was apart of this! :lovestruc

I really want to go and try to make Baba Yaga's house now!

WTH!!! Ahhh, okay I undersatnd having points off for being late, but COMPLETELY IGNORING IT!!! Sure, I handed mine in like a week late, but the scores were poster 3 WEEKS AFTER!!!! Not only am I pissed off, but I seriously would be screaming and throwing tables if I wasn't in school. GOD what the hell.

Thank you And grats Yogi-tea, Sionelle, and FairyCake. It was a good competition. There were a LOT of really great lots that were produced by a ton of creators.

As for my next project Think princesses, castles, and rescues <3 Back to tomb building for me

IT WAS SUCH A CHORE TO GRADE YOUR HOUSES OMG I HATED IT. Is that what you want to hear? You progressed a lot and I hope you learned some new stuff! I have 9 rejections on site -- it really isn't a big deal, dear. As Armi said, give yourself some more credit, friend! You have talent!



Don't be mean -- I just didn't see your post is all. I'll add it to the scorecard and ask the judges to peek in right quick.

Congrats to the winners and to everyone who participated in the contest! And well done to the judges for dealing with that workload, too!

I'm pretty happy with how my scores increased across the rounds, and how I finally realised I need to use more clutter, although I'm dreading going back through every item in my last entry before I upload to work out what EPs I used...

@ Ishi: I don't think you are giving yourself enough credit. Your lots were not bad. I thought they were quite good, especially since you are a new builder. I'm a fairly new builder myself, and although my stuff was not even close to the caliber of the top scoring entries, I am very proud of what I produced given my lack of skill. Don't beat yourself up....otherwise, it gives others the opinion that you are not proud of your work, and I know that isn't true.

@morgaroni: I'm sure there are other contestants that would like to have their late work graded too, but I don't see them complaining about it. There was a deadline for a reason. I'm sorry if that comes off harsh, but we all had the same deadline.

@Qbie: You and the judges did a fantastic job, and although it took quite a while to get the final round scores, the contest had a deadline for the entries to be submitted. Nowhere in the guidelines of the contest did you say the scores would be posted within a certain time frame. IMHO, if you add Morgaroni's late entry, you will have to add everyone else's that didn't make it by the deadline, but submitted it anyway for everyone to see. Then you will have to re-calculate the scores, etc. etc. etc. I for one don't believe it would be fair for the rest of us.

yea round 4 was my best score Just wish i'd had comments so i knew how it was better. Ironically i built it in 2 days after spending 2 weeks bangin my head against a wall with a house more like my other builds

So sorry, had a bad day! Thanks so much!! It just I put a lot of time into it, and i was stressing about school, ect.

Just wanna say that it was an honor judging this contest! I'm so glad to see how each and everyone of you all improved by each entry and I'm proud! Now here's the thing -- don't stop here! You all have potential to become some outstanding creators! Don't let some judges opinion get you down (after all, it is a competition! ) Each creation and entry was unique which makes you all very talented, so please don't leave here with a dull heart and loss of inspiration because you didn't win. Keep at it and I promise you won't regret it!

With that -- I had a lot of fun (even though Q might have been aiming some canons at me during the judging period!) Happy Simming

one again just to thank everyone and let you know my first competition lot has been accepted for upload!!!!!!! Thanks for the encouragement.

That is awesome! Congratulations! :D