Results of Secret Santug Holiday House Swap 2016!

yes. I am the "C" of DVC {Daemora, Vasciagio, Ceyarrecks as the moniker was coined}

text, without additional qualifiers, has an interesting way of conveying information without emotional context, i.e. it is just data.
without said emotional context (which in verbal communications, usually can be gained), it is possible to misunderstand;
(and imho, with all the slurring and contractions in use currently, this is not only possible, but guaranteed to cause confusion due to the lack of understanding.)
I personally choose to take people at the face value they present and I have found it possible, over time, to see past the "masks" presented; I usually find little to no differences in what was initially presented.
to coin a phrase: "out of the fullness of the heart,.. does the mouth speak"
if there be jest, if there be sarcasm, then let there be pre-qualifiers, i.e. /e sarcastically states....
then all may understand WITHOUT anything being taken for granted, yes?
good

I'll just add ... I think we all feel insecure about our decorating from time to time. I've thought about quitting too, especially after I published my first house, that I worked on countless hours for almost a year and was super proud of, and like three people (besides my friends) came to see it. But what I realized is that while it's awesome when people come look and like a house I worked on, that's not the primary thing for me. I decorate because I love spending my time in game doing it, it's fun, and it makes me happy! (Ok, except when floors and walls eat my items, grrrrrrr.) Some people want to endlessly grind PQs or whatever, and that's not for me. I have a ton of fun decorating, and love participating in the community, and likes or awards (especially with the broken system we have - door to guild hall still #1!) are icing on the cake if they come along.

Anyway, keep up the decorating. I am glad you are here!

/sigh

This is why I wish the whole decorating leaderboards would just get a revamp. Its sad when an in game system that should promote community actually tears it apart. Its sad when people withhold votes on a great work, and upvote an empty house with crates because its in a guild they belong to (seem that happen on stormhold back in vanilla).

Popularity should never have played into getting trophies. Time published should give the achieve to everyone in my opinion. There should be a category just for special events, so these houses can be appreciated (not to mention found easily). There should be a category for sales crate/portal houses, so those who don't decorate do not fill the board with empty houses that are for convenience not beauty. There should be a category just for legit designs people want voted on and are willing to subject themselves to healthy competition. There should be a category for publishing with no votes allowed for those who just want to show their work without the stress of rejection if they don't get liked. These categories don't exist though, sadly, and the beautifully creative people who publish these houses can devastate each other with hurtful comments and gameplay choices.

I am sorry to see this happen because I admire so many designers. Wizzam I love your work! Please keep publishing. I hope everyone just can step back, turn the other cheek and move forward. Its hard to see my Housing Heroes upset and grumpy at each other =/

::blink:: What's up with the door to the guild hall? The (admittedly very few) times I've bought and used an All-Important Door to the Guild Hall, I've never had issues with them. /shrug

Issues with other things IN the Hall, now...portal thingee to my alts' houses that I'm an auto-Trustee for, but still won't let me go there unless we're actually listed in the house in question, I'm looking at YOU... :-/

Uwk

Sorry for being unclear - the #1 house on LB Hall of Fame on Skyfire is (or at least was for ages if it is not anymore) a house that is just "door to guild hall" ... it's just a house, with a guild hall door, for people to use for transportation purposes.

Very well spoken and I agree with you wholeheartedly!

About as bad as the place I had Published only for the ease of my alts and guildies to get to my Frostfell Mistmoore...had eight items in it, most of which included the three crafting stations, a fuel depot, a harvest depot (both just for FF stuff), and three Hedge Seeds/dividers/etc. things that blocked off the wings and the balcony. Apparently (how, I'm not sure! ;->), there were enough visitors to the place that it got a Hall of Fame trophy (had no intention whatsoever of doing anything even remotely fancy). :-/

Uwk
/still_puzzled

I saw the video for Lilybloom's new kitchen & dining area while I was on vacation, and I let out a big SQUEE! when I saw Niboota in Lily's kitchen. Hehe. I love my new kitchen & dining room. I spent some time in there today just flying around and trying to figure out how the windows were done. They were so pretty! Thank you, Sylvanae!

I just listed the house on the large homes leaderboards.
Lilybloom's Frostfell 2016, by Silvanae

I am so glad you liked it! I have been on pins and needles knowing I was decorating for one of my housing heroes. The windows were simple, actually. I used two cloud tiles, stacked to create a rectangle and mounted the window over it! The room was intended to coordinate with your foyer, so I copied the double layered curtains using yellow instead, to change it up and to bring in your favorite color. I had a lot of fun doing it and wanted to respect the house not fight it!

I've made a comment on this a couple of times, and been met with rudeness and hostility about it by those who do it. Given, people are free to do whatever they want with their homes, but I'm also free to be annoyed when I go touring a couple times a week, and have my time wasted several trips by visiting homes that I think are going to be decorated, only to find a GH door or a plant. It's even worse when the home is deceptively named something like "Mary's Magical Garden" or "A Cozy Little Home" or something. It's just frustrating and feels a bit like an exploitation of a tool meant for decorators, in my honest opinion.

As for the whole trophy situation....I have never viewed the leaderboards as a competition, though it's becoming increasingly clear to me that some people do, and take it more seriously than its' intended purpose. I've always looked at the leaderboards as a way for decorators to showcase and share their work, and possibly inspire other decorators. I always have a lot of fun touring new homes and even older ones, and never begrudge anyone if their home is "better" than mine. We all have different likes and styles anyway, right? A shiny trophy to display for your hard work and creativity is just a bonus, not something to prove you're any better than someone else. (Otherwise why would we all get the same exact trophy, and why would all of our homes end up in the same Hall of Fame. Unless there's some No Shanettes Allowed Hall of Fame I'm not aware of! )

This whole situation with the "don't publish any more homes until I receive my trophy" is just asinine anyway. It's clearly a republish, so they've clearly already received their trophy once. I should know, I've done several renovations on older homes and a republish will hit the HoF board in no time at all. It was just their bad luck and misfortune to republish during one of the busiest and most popular decorating times of the year.

I won't even get started on the whole "SSHHS club not being fair" as that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever read. And I've already rambled on about the topic way more than I meant to! lol ok done derailing the thread....that's my 2c!

I'm always in the corner of my fellow decorators. Keep on keepin' on and all that jazz. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a 3000 published houses per week quota to meet.

I still laugh when I see that, before they decorate it, it was nothing but a plain o room with just a guild door. and yes it's still 1#

I guess simplicity is popular...

Uwk

Hmf. I agree with you, but by the same token, what with the dozens of alts I have, I have to be particular in what houses I check out. I'll see my buddies' stuff, and if something really catches my eye that I've seen screenshots of here, but frankly, I'm pretty swamped/lazy, and for the longest time just relied on others' videos! ;->

Amen to that; plus, it's a way for me to FIND stuff in the first place (though I still dearly want a proper Search function!), and a way to get there if I'm the "wrong" alignment. On the other hand, given the aforementioned dozens o' alts, there's usually at least one Good and one Evil of mine on every server I'm on. ;->

ROFL! Ninety-nine times out of 100, every house I've toured is better than my stuff, just about. Upside is, I learn a lot. ;->

????? If she was on the forums -- heck, if she was just keenly watching the chat channels, since we're not exactly shy about it during sign-ups, anyway -- then she, too, could participate, even if it was just a room or two, and see what it's really like. ;->

Seriously, though, it isn't a contest or competition, or even anything new; just us trying to do something nice for someone and provide a gift that doesn't require shipping.

Oy...good luck! ;->

Uwk

this place is still in Hall of fame ...but its not just a door now they have alteast made it look pretty i suppose ... but i agree with kelvani there should be better categories and a search function that can search for names or titles or house name ect

I must admit, when I came back to the game this summer after a couple years' break, and I decided I was finally, after 12 years of off and on playing, going to finally, finally try to do houses and decorating, that I was completely baffled by the leaderboards. (I can hear my English prof saying, watch those run-on sentences).

I would try to search the HoF for specific houses by address like 2 Lucie Lane (or whatever it is) or by style (Freeport inn room) and then I'd find nothing. An empty house, or a house with only a door or a few portal items in it. I was like, Whaaat? This is in the Hall of Fame? Whyyyyy? After a while, by lurking in the Homeshow channel (which I didn't even know existed till this summer) that lots of people publish a house just for quick port to various places. Well that's nice. But maybe they should have their own category then. I don't know how you'd enforce it, but a house that isn't decorated as a house, museum, gallery, zoo, event, or other such like things, shouldn't be on the HoF. Sure, some portal houses are decorated awesomely, boy howdy are they, but it's still a portal house and gets republished often, with the side effect of skewing the leaderboards.

Most of the people I see in this forum, on the homeshow channel, in game, etc., are totally into creating fun and beautiful houses and scenarios. Bravo! I envy all of you. I am impressed by all of you. I want to learn to do what you do.

*puts on flame-proof suit*

Okay, I know I am new here, not one of the established designers, not a long-time player (12 years but only off and on) and I am a housing newbie, but, I have been confused and frustrated by the complexity of the Housing system, rankings, search and etiquette. As a newbie, this is my takeaway...

Doesn't matter if you publish just to share, show off, have fun or are ravenous for trophies. Portal houses, GH door houses and storage houses with a hoard somewhat artfully arranged, if at all, should have their own category and not interfere with the intended playstyle and fun of the Housing leaderboards.

They shouldn't even be called leaderboards. It should just be House Showcase. And perhaps once a house earns a trophy, republishing doesn't get you more trophies. Yes, sometimes a republished house has had significant changes but maybe it should have a version number or require a new name and go back to zero likes and getting one more like doesn't automatically place it back on the HoF.

The competitive people enjoy the challenge of the competition, and there's nothing wrong with that. Until someone forgets to be a good sport and good etiquette and spouts off something hostile and unfair. It's going to happen. As long as the HoF can be a competition and not just a way to find awesomely designed houses.

Housing leaderboards and the HoF need a revamp.

/endrant

I want a trophy that looks like a gnome.

LL
AKA
Ware

I totally agree!

But I do want to apologize to folks because I think I've derailed this whole thread with a side-comment about the LB. I really wanted to just encourage people to keep up the good work, and keep up the great community. Decorate because it's fun and satisfying! And (at least speaking to myself here) don't do it for the likes or trophies in-game, because the system is broken.

Thank you so much for this message! I am glad I am not alone. I am getting better at not freaking out when I see something that should be read out loud to people and hopefully after a few more videos I can be like this is me so I am going to do my best keep on a truckn.

Nods I totally get the clamoring cuz there is so much awesome stuff in this game it is so hard not to be overly excited and want things now now now. I did take 2 days off for the holidays and after all was done I did take long breaks off from the game. I will totally think of your message whenever working on a project.

I also wanna say thank you to everyone that has posted or sent me private messages that were so positive and wonderful. I really appreciate all of the support and love even tho I tried to stay silent for a week or so now. This community is the best. Love you all so much! Even though the event was lots of work it was so amazing to see all the love poured into the houses and see the community get together and help each other out. It is awesome to see others stepping up and doing events so it is not the same person/group doing all the events. Thank you to everyone that has being doing/done contests and events for this community.

I do want to do videos on a bunch of the houses people have posted recently to try and help Niboota out so at some point she can get caught up on her list to tour. It is uber hard not to say some of the things she commonly says during videos cuz I watch ALL of them and loved them all so dang much...NOT trying to replace her at all (she knows how much I love her) but just helping out when I can...I mean I am touring the houses anyway right. I am going to go slow tho and will be out of order I am sure but that is okay . I do want to finish up some projects and do some videos of my houses too cuz I want to share with some friends/family that don't get what I do in game.

Ocarinah, you did a fabulous job and I thoroughly enjoyed your videos. it was clear you were having fun and showing true admiration for the projects you were showcasing. It made it fun to watch. You keep doing your thing and we will keep enjoying it! /hugs

Warehouse

Always dies and gets stuck in houses