Nominations are now OPEN :
http://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/2016ModAwards
Hey everyone I’m pleased to announce the 3rd annual Total War Mod Awards!
This year we’ll be celebrating some of the best mods of 2015-16 from Total War: ROME II, Total War: ATTILA and Total War: WARHAMMER.
The Total War Mod Awards were created to highlight the innovative achievements of the vast Total War modding community. This year there are 6 categories which players can vote for, plus the coveted CA Legacy Award which will be chosen by Creative Assembly staff.
The 2015 Total War Mod Awards categories are:
• Best Unit
• Best Overhaul
• Best Graphical
• Most Innovative
• Best Map
• Players Choice
• CA Legacy
The nominations will last until October 31st at 2PM GMT. Players can nominate their favorite mods (one nomination per category) and the most popular six in each category will get drafted into a final shortlist.
Voting for the final winners will then commence on the 4th of November by our judges panel. However, The Players Choice award will be thrown back out to be voted on by the community.
The only rules for submitting a mod for nomination is that is must have released within the last year, OR had a significant update within the last year and it may not contain copyrighted IP.
Nominations can be made now using the following link:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2016ModAwards
Alongside the Mod Awards, we here at CA are hosting the 5th annual mod summit at the studio. Some of the most prominent modders in the Total War community have been invited to the studio to discuss key areas of mod support for the future, in particular how new mods can be better promoted and to take an advanced look at some forthcoming tools.
Any questions let me know!
Below I’ve included what each category represents in more detail:
Best Unit Mod
Awarded for an outstanding mod that changes the way units work, look or introduces entirely new ones. This mod might expand existing faction rosters in new directions, seek to rebalance factions for a desired outcome or attempt to create interesting face-offs and influence campaign and battle behaviour by equipping factions with new recruitment options. It could introduce new armour styles, weapons or entirely new units all together, displaying excellent technical and/or creative modelling skills based on diligently researched historical reference, imaginative flights of fantasy or exciting ‘what-ifs’.
Best Overhaul
Awarded for a mod that subtly or dramatically changes the way the game plays or feels almost from start to finish. Though the largest mods are likely to be included in this category, the judges will give equal weighting to small mods and tweaks that intelligently and ingeniously alter gameplay through small or light-touch alterations. This includes mods that introduce new subsections of the time period, explore interesting ‘what-if’ scenarios or alter the flow of the game to introduce extreme and challenging circumstances or highlight specific historical events or areas of authenticity.
Best Graphical
Intended to celebrate a strong aesthetic vision, this award will go to a mod which is judged to best visually impact the game; either in a small but important area which introduces a striking effect or a wide-ranging modification that changes the entire look of the game from start to end. Regardless of the size of the mod, in particular the judges will be expecting a clarity of artistic vision and a strong focused sense of what the author seeks to achieve with their changes. While credit will be given to those mods that introduce minimal or well-optimised overheads to hardware requirements across the board, the judges will also be looking out for ambitious mods that make good use of higher-end hardware.
Most Innovative
This category seeks to celebrate those mods that think outside the box and add new things to the game in clever and ingenious ways. This includes the utilisation of the Assembly Kit in ground-breaking or unexpected ways, discovering new work-arounds, being the first to accomplish a new type of modification or open up new areas of the game to fellow modders. This award intends not only to acknowledge the inspirational work put into a specific mod, but also the good character and community spirit of the author, with the judges paying special attention to the manner in which the author promotes, communicates and shares his or her findings with the rest of the modding scene.
Best Map
For Total War: ATTILA only, the best map category focuses on innovation, creativity and polish when it comes to designing and creating unique maps to be played on. Both gameplay and aesthetics are taken into account here.[/SIZE]
Player's Choice
The Player's Choice award represents the overall collective best in the eyes of the player. Cast your nomination for what you feel is the best mod out there for Rome II, ATTILA and Warhammer released or updated significantly in the last year. Once all the nominations are through, we'll **** the most popular 6 mods back out for the community to vote on, to decide the ultimate Player's Choice Award.
CA Legacy
This award is a bit different from the others. The awards generally focus on ROME II / ATTILA / WARHAMMER as our most recent titles, but we would also like to make a special mention of the incredible mods that have been (and still are being) produced for our older titles. Feel free to recommend a mod from a previous game to us, but this award will be decided by a team of CA developers as a mark of deepest respect to a specific mod author or mod team who have gone above and beyond for one of our older titles.
-Darren
