MRT Screenshot Contest (2015)
| MRT Screenshot Contest | |
|---|---|
 "MRT Welcome Center", the winning screenshot taken by _Kastle | |
| Organizer | MRT Administrators |
| Dates run | February 7, 2015 – March 7, 2015 |
| Number of entries | 30 |
| Winning screenshot | "MRT Welcome Center" - _Kastle |
| Contest chronology | |
| Followed by | MRT Screenshot Contest (2017) |
The first MRT Screenshot Contest was held in February 2015 and organized by the MRT Administrators. It was the first screenshot contest to be held on the MRT Server. The contest was held to feature screenshots on the MRT's website.
The winner was _Kastle with "MRT Welcome Center", a screenshot of Central Park, Central City. Ryumitch placed second, cal76 and MinecraftYoshi26 tied for third, and lalaboy placed fifth.
Background
On January 11, 2015, an upcoming screenshot contest organized by the MRT staff was announced on the MRT website:
As you may have noticed, the website is looking a little bit... boring. And flat. And it used to have the pretty picture at the top and then it vanished when Gamma launched. 🙁
To fix that, we will be holding a screenshot contest! The details and submission process are coming soon, so DON'T send us emails with stuff yet... I promise, we will provide details as soon as we can.
Frumple likes pretty pictures, so it's your job to take pretty pictures of just about anything cool on the MRT. We love to see pictures of cool cities, random one-off builds, or special events. Your cities are a great place to start if you’re stuck. We will be taking a number of submissions and putting them up on the website!
- chiefbozx, 11 January 2015
On February 7, 2015, Frumple officially announced the MRT Server's first official screenshot contest would be held to feature screenshots on an image slider on the MRT's website. Participants of the contest also were to receive cash prizes in-game.
Format
The contest began following the February 2015 GSM, on February 7, 2015. Eligibility rules, as listed on the MRT website, were:
- The contest was open to all players who were of at least Member rank and at most Moderator rank.
- Each player could have made only one screenshot submission to the contest. If a player had already sent in a submission, any further submissions were not accepted.
Screenshots were required to be of a minimum resolution of 1024 by 768 and have their heads-up display hidden. Editing screenshots in any way other than rotating or cropping was strongly discouraged and could have led to disqualification. Screenshots were allowed to be taken in any texture or shader packs.
Entries were accepted through the MRT's subreddit. Submissions were accepted until 11:59 p.m. PST on February 28, 2015. First place received $5,000, second place received $3,000, third place received $2,000, fourth place received $1,000, fifth place received $500, all other finalists received $100, and all non-finalists were to receive $20. The screenshots that made it to the final were featured on the MRT's website.
Two "People's Choice" prizes were planned to be awarded but were cancelled. The two highest upvoted screenshot posts on the MRT subreddit were to be selected to win the prize, with each being awarded $500. The subreddit voting method was scrapped in favor of a Strawpoll, as the subreddit had a "low and unreliable number of votes". The Strawpoll was also later cancelled as the results were "inconsistent and rigged", as "some entries were at the bottom of the list for several days, and then shot up to the top near the end".
Voting
The four Administrators at the time, chiefbozx, computerghost, thomasfyfe, and Tom_Pairs, judged all submissions, selected the screenshots that progressed to the final round, and the final placements. As Frumple was facilitating the contest, he did not participate nor participate in the final round of voting on the submissions.
The criteria by which the Administrators judged the screenshots were announced as overall aesthetics and beauty, use of colors and contrasts, attention to detail, and depiction of "everyday life on the server". In the preliminary round of voting, the four Administrators each selected five submissions and submitted them to the owner. Frumple then selected a maximum of 20 finalist submissions from the Administrator's picks, which moved forward to the final round of voting. In the final round of voting, the four admins scored each of the finalist submissions from 0 to 10. The average score was taken to produce the final placements.
Participating screenshots
All screenshots are viewable together on a public Google Folder.
Preliminary round
30 screenshots participated in the preliminary round. The highlighted cities participated in the final. The results were revealed on the MRT website on March 4, 2015.
Final round
12 screenshots participated in the final round. The results were revealed at the March 2015 GSM on March 7, 2015. All screenshots were featured on the MRT website.
| Place | Photographer | Screenshot | City photographed | Average score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | _Kastle | "MRT Welcome Center" | Central City | 8.875 |
| 2 | Ryumitch | "Southern Vekta" | Vekta | 7.5 |
| 3 (tie) | cal76 | "Riverend" | Riverend | 7 |
| MinecraftYoshi26 | "Cytus" | Cytus | 7 | |
| 5 | lalaboy | "Kessler" | Kessler | 6.875 |
| 6 | AlikSong | "Kenthurst" | Kenthurst | 6.325 |
| 7 | Omricon | "Welcome to Central City" | Central City | 5.75 |
| 8 | CortesiRaccoon | "Airchester" | Airchester | 5.375 |
| 9 (tie) | kiwirainbow | "Mason City Waterfront" | Mason City | 5.0625 |
| ortem | "Calm Night" | Central City | 5.0625 | |
| 11 | Just_robinho | "Marblegate Centraal" | Marblegate | 5 |
| 12 | autobus22 | "Chokster City Borderline Airport" | Chokster City | 4.625 |
Notes
- ↑ The screenshot was taken at the MRT Marina, which is not considered a city.