2020 Atlas Awards Intro & Discussion

[ChickPea]

Hi folks, it's time for the Atlas Awards to kick off once again!

If you're new to the Guild, the Atlas Awards are our 'Oscars', where we nominate and vote for the best maps made in the last year. All members are free (and encouraged) to nominate their favourite maps, and to vote once the poll opens.

I will shortly be posting the nomination threads for our various categories, and nominations will be open for four weeks. Before nominating, please read the instructions in the first post in every thread to be sure your nomination is suitable for that specific category. There will inevitably be some grey areas and overlap, but try to use your best judgement.

Some notes...

These are all the eligible contenders for the 2020 Atlas Awards.

VIEW ELIGIBLE MAPS

On the thumbnails page, if you click directly on the picture, it will show you only the picture. However, if you click on the title below the picture, it will take you to the thread. When nominating a map in the appropriate category/thread, PLEASE include a link to the THREAD, not just the picture by itself. This will save the CLs much time and effort when it's time to set up the polls. So your nomination should look like this:

The Smuggler's lair (Tavernier's tutorial) by - JO -
https:/ /www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=43158&p=391220#post391220

Simple as that.

You will be allowed ONE nomination per category, and you cannot nominate one of your own maps. If you nominate more than one map in any category, all nominations but the first will be deleted.

You CAN nominate the same map for multiple categories, if appropriate.

The categories will be the same as last year, with some clarification about what's appropriate to each category in the first post in the nomination thread.

Nominations will be open for four weeks, ending around Fri 14th/Sat 15th February (I'll confirm more precisely nearer the time). We'll need a few days to finalise the poll, so we'll update you again exactly when voting will start, but it will most likely be around 19th/20th February, give or take a day or two. Voting will run for one week.

If you have any questions, feel free to post them here. Please keep all discussion about the Awards to this thread only. The nomination threads are solely for your nominations, but you're welcome to post your thoughts here.

[QED42]

I seem to remember last year there was some discussion about awards for best tutorial and some sort of best project award being added, did those ideas get decided against or forgotten?

[Kellerica]

I seem to remember last year there was some discussion about awards for best tutorial and some sort of best project award being added, did those ideas get decided against or forgotten?

And as for the best project, I believe it was pretty much concluded that we'd most likely end up rewarding Vorropaiah's Atlas Elyden one year and be then left with very little to nominate after that. Like Chickpea said, we don't get that many new tutorials anymore, and project was maybe just a little too vague to make for a good category. I do still think we could maybe have a badge for honouring people with long endurance for ambitious projects, mind you.

[ThomasR]

It's not easy nominating maps for the Atlas.

Sometimes, you wanna nominate a map but there are already several maps by the artist who drew it and you know if you do it, you're gonna reduce their chances to win (and you really love their work ...). Some choices are heart breaking and I haven't nominated some maps I really loved (can someone, please, nominate more arsheesh's, ilanthar's and SteffenBrand's maps for me ?) but it's the game. Duty performed !

PS : I'm not sure my Best space, sci-fi or modern map nomination is eligible ...

[Wingshaw]

It's not easy nominating maps for the Atlas.

Sometimes, you wanna nominate a map but there are already several maps by the artist who drew it and you know if you do it, you're gonna reduce their chances to win (and you really love their work ...). Some choices are heart breaking and I haven't nominated some maps I really loved (can someone, please, nominate more arsheesh's, ilanthar's and SteffenBrand's maps for me ?) but it's the game. Duty performed !

I know the feeling. I had a very difficult time deciding between a couple of my nominations out of several contenders. Hopefully they'll be nominated by someone else soon...

Wingshaw

[ChickPea]

I seem to remember last year there was some discussion about awards for best tutorial and some sort of best project award being added, did those ideas get decided against or forgotten?

Sorry, I only vaguely remember this. The main problem is that there aren't enough new tutorials posted these days to justify giving them a category. We'd probably need at least one new one every week, and there's nowhere near that number. If someone does post an exceptional tutorial, or something similar, they can be rewarded with a Cartographers' Choice award (it's not solely for awesome maps!) but unless there's a big uptick in new tutorials, I don't see it happening. Sorry.

PS : I'm not sure my Best space, sci-fi or modern map nomination is eligible ...

Yeeeah, this is a tricky one. It's kinda stretching the defination. It would fit happily in Best Regional or Most Creative, but it feels a little like the odd one out in this category...

[Jerron]

I really hope that more people will find the time to go through the selection of finished works. There are so many more cool maps out there that deserve to be nominated.

[Naima]

Btw the eligible map page points to a different map for my skelcor map .

[ChickPea]

Btw the eligible map page points to a different map for my skelcor map .

Hey Naima, this is an issue with the thumbnail scraper. It tends to use the first image it finds in the thread. You have two images in your initial comment, and it's obviously picked the wrong one. We've tried various ways to correct this, where there is more than one image in a comment, but nothing seems to work.

Perhaps you could replace the incorrect image with a link (so that people can still see the image, if they want to take a look). There will only be one image in the thread then, and the scraper should show it correctly. I don't know what else to suggest. :/

[Naima]

Hey Naima, this is an issue with the thumbnail scraper. It tends to use the first image it finds in the thread. You have two images in your initial comment, and it's obviously picked the wrong one. We've tried various ways to correct this, where there is more than one image in a comment, but nothing seems to work.

Perhaps you could replace the incorrect image with a link (so that people can still see the image, if they want to take a look). There will only be one image in the thread then, and the scraper should show it correctly. I don't know what else to suggest. :/

I did but to me shows still a map not mine.