Nominations - Age Community awards 2019

[LidaKor]

Every member of the community is welcome and encourage to nominate community members for the awards listed here. The amount of nominations a certain person can make is not restricted. A community member may not nominate his/herself or any project (s)he was involved in. Every nomination has to be followed by the reasons why a given person is nominated for an award (recommendations below):

• In the case of events, a description of the event and a list of notable participants. Recordings of memorable games. If the event was streamed, VODs of notable games.
• In the case of player awards, an overview of the nominated player’s career this year, including notable tournament results.
• In the case of streamer awards, a brief description why a given streamer would be an appropriate candidate for an award, including the projects (s)he was involved in.
• In the case of community awards awards, a brief description why a given community member would be an appropriate candidate for an award, including the projects (s)he was involved in.

Nominations may only be submitted until the nomination deadline. The nomination also has to be complete and include details listed above.

Nomination deadline: 10th December, 2019, 23:59 GMT

Nominees&voting: HERE​

 

[robo]

Community project of the year
Awarded to a project by one or more community members that heavily influenced the community in a positive way, and added significant value to the community.

WololoKingdoms. @TriRem @Jineapple @T-West and everyone else who has worked on WK have had the greatest impact on AoE2 since Scripter & Userpatch.

CaptureAge @Dico200 @SirLaurenceNZ @n0brain @abductedPlatypus @bowSwung @Emiel The insane quality of CaptureAge goes without saying.

Selfless contributor
Awarded to the person that showed high work ethics and outstanding quality of volunteer work for the community. The winner has done his/her efforts knowing that the personal return value is very low.

@TriRem Not only with his work on Wololokingdoms, but also behind the scenes work helping to set up the ECL lan, ensuring that offline wk, mods and everything was running smoothly. His efforts helped everything to run smoothly, and just generally being around to help out with any/every Age of Empires project.

Community Creator of the year
Awarded to the person who contributed to the community with content like scenarios, mods, maps, etc., that provided entertainment for a large amount of people within the community.

@T-West Creator/editor of numerous tournament maps for a variety of different hosts. Always willing to do whatever is necessary to make sure that a tournament has the maps that it needs. Did the lion's share of the work judging/organising the ECL map making contest as well.

 

[robo]

The vululu award – For converting people to AoE2 fans
Awarded to the streamer whose work has allowed the AoE2 community to grow with new members. The work of the streamer has motivated a large number of people from outside the AoE2 community to become part of it.

@T90Official I don't think anyone can deny the massive impact Tristan has had over the last few years. He constantly brings in new viewers who have never seen AoE before and gets them to stick around and filter through the community.

Spirit of the Law Although his viewership doesn't interact with us here on AoEZone he also brings in new viewers to AoE.

Rising streamer of the year
Awarded to a once small streamer, whose stream has improved significantly in quality and viewership during the year.

@Hera_ Off the back of some excellent YouTube content Hera has quickly climbed the viewer rankings and hosted his own tournaments & shwomatches.

Non-english streamer of the year
To honor the content providers who entertain a large number of non-english speaking viewers, this award goes for outstanding work as a non-english language content creator.

@Mundo AoE @Abraxas I know this isn't a single streamer, but the Mundo community have hosted so many excellent events this year (some of which I have had the pleasure to play in) and are constantly doing their best to promote and bring together the spanish speaking community and also integrate international events!

 

[robo]

Best 1v1 tournament
Awarded to the most outstanding 1v1 event of the year.

Hidden Cup 2 hosted by @T90Official Insane weekend event (+ qualifiers), new viewer highs, some insane games & upsets and general high quality all around

Best 2v2 tournament
Awarded to the most outstanding 2v2 event of the year.

Doubles Age hosted by @Lanchi Incredibly high-level 2v2 tournament, that also catered to lower levels by having a silver league (that full disclosure my team won, so I'm a little biased :P)

Two Pools Tournaments hosted by @LidaKor A new and interesting take on civ drafting that brought about some interesting strategies and plays from the teams.

 

[Tarsiz]

Best Team Game Tournament
Awarded to the best 3v3 or 4v4 event of the year.

The ECL Grand Final 3v3 was hands down the most epic day of AoE 2 I've ever had the chance to witness. The back-to-back five-games series that Suomi played will remain an astonishing performance, on the grandest live stage our game has ever had. Truly an unforgettable moment (also, Zuppi fan club represent).

Most improved player of the year

Awarded to the player that has shown the most improvement during the year, and managed to prove his skills by improving tournament-play.

TaToH has gone from being a top 10 player in 2018 to arguably the second best in the world in 2019. After a quarterfinal loss to the hands of TheViper in KotD 2, he reached the grand final of NAC 2, won ECL Middle East, won the Nomad Summer Showdown and reached the final of the Mangrove Shallow Cup. Cemented his status by winning the "Who is #2" event sponsored by Masmorra.

In tournaments wins, he is now second overall behind TheViper, and that speaks for itself.

The vululu award – For converting people to AoE2 fans

Awarded to the streamer whose work has allowed the AoE2 community to grow with new members. The work of the streamer has motivated a large number of people from outside the AoE2 community to become part of it.

ZeroEmpires, the driving force behind Escape and the man with the vision. Sadly, EscapeTV did not succeed in reaching their crazy goals (I invite you all to read Zak's long post on the subject, which I found very moving and inspiring), but Zak has always been pushing the game forward.

Community project of the year

Awarded to a project by one or more community members that heavily influenced the community in a positive way, and added significant value to the community.

EscapeTV, and mostly the organization of the ECL Lan. Sadly the project was probably a bit too ambitious, but what an ending in apotheosis. I will remember the few days spent at the LAN for the rest of my life.

Selfless contributor

Awarded to the person that showed high work ethics and outstanding quality of volunteer work for the community. The winner has done his/her efforts knowing that the personal return value is very low.

These are the true unsung heroes, and they all deserve praise for their work.
Lanchi for the organization of tournaments and the communication with the Taiwanese (and Chinese) communities. Huehuecoyotl for his multiple invaluable forum contributions, with the interviews of course but also keeping the "Highest rating achieved" list active and updated. Pumukel for his countless contributions on AoE zone as well.

Last but certainly not least, robo_boro is spending countless hours of his own time to do tournament organization and administration all accross the board. If you are running a successful tournament, chances are robo is one of your admins. Not to mention he's a great guy and a damn good player. Now go get that 2k rating.

Community Creator of the year

Awarded to the person who contributed to the community with content like scenarios, mods, maps, etc., that provided entertainment for a large amount of people within the community.

I'd like to give a shout-out to mungo_ for the AoE tournament-elo website, to Happyleaves for his work with the analysis of recs on Voobly (can't remember the webiste, sadly...), and jerbot for aoestats.io.

HenkDeSuperNerd, AlgernonR and Chrazini are probably the best map scripters in the community right now and their maps have given us countless hours of enjoyment, many of them becoming instant classics that will continue to be played for a long time.

 

[nimanoe]

Best 1v1 tournament
Awarded to the most outstanding 1v1 event of the year.

NAC2, hosted by Nili, was in my opinion the best 1v1 event of the year, it had a combination of some of the best players playing on LAN, while at the same time having a lot of fun on stream.

Player of the year
Awarded to the highest performing player of the year in a combination of 1v1, 2v2 and teamgame events.

No doubt that TheViper was the most consistent and best player this year, he dominated in 1v1, Teamgame and Deathmatch tournaments.

Most improved player of the year
Awarded to the player that has shown the most improvement during the year, and managed to prove his skills by improving tournament-play.

Hera has improved a lot last year, earning him a place in afterMath and while originally being their worst player (imo), improved to being one of the better players of the team.

Comeback player of the year
Awarded to the player that has shown exceptional skill after missing significant time playing AoE2. This award will only be given if there is an adequate number of reasonable candidates.

I'd like to nominate Vodka_L, he hadn't played since a long time, but has grinded a lot lately and improved his maximum reached rating. Unfortunately he hasn't played in tournaments so far, but I hope we see him performing well in Nations Cup with Italy.

Community project of the year
Awarded to a project by one or more community members that heavily influenced the community in a positive way, and added significant value to the community.

I'd like to nominate OpenAge, they've been working on a new version of Age of Empires for a long time now and consistently improved the product. I really hope that we'll get to see more of them.

Selfless contributor
Awarded to the person that showed high work ethics and outstanding quality of volunteer work for the community. The winner has done his/her efforts knowing that the personal return value is very low.

I think Gregstein has done a load of work, making converting from HD to Voobly a breeze and always helpful in Discord, AoEZone, Reddit or Voobly when someone has technical problems.

 

[Holleridudodel]

Best 1v1 tournament
Awarded to the most outstanding 1v1 event of the year.

Mangrove Shallows Cup The tournament basically introduced a whole new categorie of maps into competitive gameplay. The mix of RM and DM made it even more interesting. @MembTV and @Chrazini and the one's involved that I am missing here (sorry) did a great job making great maps/settings that both satisfied the sponsor (aoe_rotr) and entertained the viewers while working together with the players to balance the mix of water / land units.

 

[dux]

1v1 Tournament, Best Showmatch

According to the rules, I cannot nominate an event that I was a part of.

2v2, Teamgame Tournaments

ECL. Much has been said about the project. Nobody can claim that they spent more hours thinking, organizing, planning, and carrying out a tournament so massive (including all the stages, not just the LAN). And while the hype died down during the middle rounds, they tried to offer a consistent, year-round event.

Player of the year

Viper. Does it matter what the settings are? No, it does not. The man does not simply play "Arabia" or "Arena" or "Deathmatch". He plays it all. He wins it all. A true Age of Empires 2 Master.

Most improved player of the year

TheMax. Known to many as a great piece in the Suomi machine, TheMax has shown really great improvement in 1v1 tournaments. I cannot wait to see even more consistent performance from him.

Comeback player of the year

Jordan. For the memes. If he's still "Back" once the awards are settled, of course.

The vululu award – For converting people to AoE2 fans

As much as DE's release has been rough and bumpy, I would award this to Microsoft. Even a half-baked DE release has caused a marked increase in player numbers and stream viewers across both AoE and variety streams. I hope that those people stick around.

Rising streamer of the year

Hera. Went from "just another pro player just PoVing" to having a large community. He hosts events, coaches, and keeps engaged with his viewers beyond just showing his gameplay. I do not collect formal metrics, but Hera grew from 10ish viewers to being the 2nd highest dedicated AoE2 twitch channel in viewers on my sidebar.

Non-English streamer of the year

TaToH. I do not speak more than 10 words of Spanish, but I find myself lurking on his stream every so often. I usually do not say anything because it would be disrespectful to use English on a non-English channel. He has a soothing voice, great personality, and his viewers love him.

Community Project of the year

CaptureAge. Those guys are nuts. CA really redefined how we watch and analyze the game.

Selfless contributor

My nomination goes to LeglessAlex. The man has sponsored events, showmatches, and is an all around great dude. He did not do it to plug his channel (doesn't have one), he did not do it to build publicity around himself. He sometimes donates to a stream and doesn't even stick around for chat to shower him with love. Legs would probably frown at me for nominating him. He even sponsored things he knew he would not even be able to watch online. He would also expect me to make some kind of leg joke here, but I'll just stand him up on that.

Community Creator of the year

I MUST acknowledge Henk and Algernon for their insane work on new and exciting maps that do not start with Ar- or finish with -abia. They have been staples of the community for such a long time.
I will give my "2019" nomination to SpriteBlood. He is the creator of "Overreign", a hillarious adaptation of Age of Empires 2 into a "first person" game. It is not a complete game, more like a proof of concept, but SpriteBlood really thought outside the box when he came up with that idea - and was a madman enough to make something out of that idea.

 

[warmachine]

Best 1v1 tournament
Awarded to the most outstanding 1v1 event of the year.

The whole ECL tournament. While it was a mixture of TGs and 1v1s, most of the games were 1v1s. It was certainly the most influential AoE event in terms of price money, quality of games, proffesional standards... in recent years.

Best 2v2 tournament
Awarded to the most outstanding 2v2 event of the year.

I nominate @LidaKor's Two Pools tournament. Although I am not a big TG fan, I was impressed by clever settings, map selection and organisation and players seemed interested as well.

Player of the year

It's the Viper of course. He won almost every tournament he played in.

Most improved player of the year

MbL. Yeah, he was near the top for quite a while, but this year he made an argument that he is actually #2.

The vululu award – For converting people to AoE2 fans

SoTL. He has been the biggest "influencer" for the "casuals" for a while. This year however, he also started collaborating with some pro players, thus greatly improving the quality of his videos and presenting the competitive side of the AoE to his viewers.

Rising streamer of the year

Ornlu. He has grown a lot since he started streaming.

Community project of the year

Guys behind WK. This game wouldn't be growing without them.

Selfless contributor

@Huehuecoyotl22 He has posted so many interviews with (mostly) lesser known players and casters. I was especially impressed with the interviews he has done with Chinese guys because due to the language barrier we don't really know them.

Community Creator of the year

@Chrazini This category was created for him, right? :D. He has contributed so many maps, helped with organising tournaments... Without him, some of the biggest AoE tournaments in 2019 wouldn't be happening for sure.

 

[OLADUSHEK]

Non-english streamer of the year

I want to mention and promote my russian clanmate @GriN.
He streaming since 2013 for russian-speaking community (https://www.twitch.tv/mr_grin_). He streamed so many tournaments and his own play.
Also he making a lot of content on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/user/kiborg51).
He is one who keeping our community alive.

 

[EddVanced]

Selfless contributor

For the category selfless contributor I'd like to nominate @aureliusofrome .
Not only is he one of the kindest and most supportive persons in the community who always offers great advice and cheer, but he also supported the AoE2 streaming scene with hundreds of gifted subs to a huge amount of different channels, supporting bigger streamers as well as smaller and growing streamers, over the last year.
Which brings me to my next nominee:

Rising streamer of the year

@Moonfaller started streaming AoE2 one day before christmas last year together with his brother @Moonspring who taught him hotkeys and told him what to do. At that time he had pretty much no idea about the game, a single viewer (which was his bros account), a shitty microphone and nothing else but love for the game. From that day on he was streaming almost every day for this whole year (with a few breaks obviously), often grinding the game for 8h and more a day. His positivity and competitive view on AoE2 helped him gain more and more viewers and he eventually decided to organize tourneys for players that were around his level (~1600 voobly) and offering generous prizepools which was rare for these lower level tourneys.
Today he's managed to get more than 300 viewers and 100 subs and is still going strong, grinding DE for now on an 18xish voobly level.

 

[Collllin]

Selfless contributor
Awarded to the person that showed high work ethics and outstanding quality of volunteer work for the community. The winner has done his/her efforts knowing that the personal return value is very low.

RoxyC has been supportive in so many different communities by introducing new players to various channels and streamers, forwarding them to areas where they can learn more about the game and community. She has been an instrumental part in Hera's Potato Cup and Adopt A Noob Cup (still on-going so don't know if that counts) and I can personally thank her for introducing me to Hera's Discord and turning me from a lurker to an active member of the AoE2 community. I would never have made my first video without you! Thank you.

 

[Miral]

In the category 'Non-english streamer of the year ', I wish to nominate @oGN who stream in a very consistently. He plays as well as he casts, his stream is very fun to watch and gather a french active community that, I think, is growing.
I am amazed how oGN gathered hundreds of viewiers recently. Defenitely a growing channel. oGN dynamize the french AOE community and this is why I think he should be nominated for that Award.

 

[Der Zorn Gottes]

Most missed streamer: KillerB.

 

[Rey_Fer]

Can I nominate KOTD2 for best 1v1? I believe it happened in January 2019

 

[SuperskinnyBLS]

I can't choose betwen Twest and Chrazini. They both are just too good.

 

[abductedPlatypus]

I know some of these have already been nominated, I just wanted to add some more explanations.

Community project of the year
Wololo Kingdoms - They quickly adapt to changes in HD and are even working towards an update after (before) DE released.

Selfless contributor
Anda - They are involved in a large number of the most important modding projects without asking anything in return, including WK

Hszemi - He is constantly working on new picking up projects that need an update (like adding Chinese localisations to Pip's Captains mode), and is constantly updating his RMS repository website. The most important might be that he helps out a ton with giving feedback to other contributors as well and promotion.

Yvan - His work is the basis for many of the modding projects and is very careful about his working ending up in the hands of potential cheaters. (He's very unknown and I hope he doesn't mind me putting him here)

HappyLeaves - has recently reached a 1.000.000 recorded games added to his database that is publicly available and is doing some new types of analysis on them.

There are many others modders I would want to nominate, sorry guys <3

Community Creator of the year
HenkTheSuperNerd - He is the founder of the Random Map Scripting discord- while I could nominate many of the random mappers, I think that in the last year his efforts to bring together the mapping community have been instrumental in making new and creative maps. And then I didn't talk about his own direct RMS contributions yet.

P.S.For these peeps it's somewhat hard to put them in the right category.

 

[Rey_Fer]

Isnt WK from many years ago? Like Kotd1 was the 1st tournament with it so at least end 2017...

 

[roxyc]

RoxyC has been supportive in so many different communities by introducing new players to various channels and streamers, forwarding them to areas where they can learn more about the game and community. She has been an instrumental part in Hera's Potato Cup and Adopt A Noob Cup (still on-going so don't know if that counts) and I can personally thank her for introducing me to Hera's Discord and turning me from a lurker to an active member of the AoE2 community. I would never have made my first video without you! Thank you.

OMG youre just AMAZING! much love <3

 

[RAY]

I know Jordan was already nominated, but for the wrong reasons ("For the memes "),
Comeback of the year: Jordan - HC2 Qualifier G2 Jordan v F1Re: https://youtu.be/-oIB1krMLXs?t=875
Rising streamer of the year: Hera - consistent effort into content, great guides for players of different levels
Non-english streamer of the year: Mr_Grin (Russian) - twitch.tv/mr_grin_

 

[SirLaurenceNZ]

Best 1v1 tournament: NAC2
NAC is simply an extrodenary event and fills me with joy seeing people togeather.

Missed the 2v2:
Two pools (Seeing F1Re and Goku forget the sling nerfswas one of the funniest things I've seen in ages xD)

Best Team Game Tournament: ECL Lan fianls
First lan event I got to attend and had some truely incredible sets.

Player of the year: Viper
yeah...

Most improved player of the year: Hera & TaToH
Hera has cemetied himself in the top tier of players while TaToH has proven his consistency and stellar performance running deep into tournaments.

Comeback player of the year: JorDan_23

The vululu award – For converting people to AoE2 fans: T90
There's no other content creator that's pulled so many people into the game in the way that I enjoy it.

Rising streamer of the year: Hera & Moonfaller
They're incredible!

Community project of the year: WK
WK brought us all togeather on Voobly to enjoy AoE2 at it's best, encouraging innovation and proggresion within the AoE2 community. (also KOTD1 being one of the first major WK tournaments on Voobly was a memory I'll not be forgetting for years to come, ik it's a while back but they've continued and deserve all the priase they recive for their work in uniting the community.)

Selfless contributor: Anda, Happyleaves, Hszemi, Robo & T-West
Incredible people whom I've had the pleasure of meeting, working with, becoming friends with. These people and what they make are truly some of the most inspirational works of passion I've seen.

Community Creator of the year: Chrazini, HenkDeSuperNerd
These guys have made so many entertaining maps both competitive and community driven, and without their contributions Age of Empires 2 would've been so much more stale.

 

[Marteens]

Best 1v1 tournament: MSC
Best 2v2 tournament: 2v2 WorldCup (Nacho AoE)
Best Team Game Tournament: ECL

Player of the year: Viper
Most improved player of the year: TaToH
Comeback player of the year: JorDan_23,

The vululu award – For converting people to AoE2 fans: T90
Rising streamer of the year: TaToH
Non-english streamer of the year: MundoAOE,

Community project of the year: CaptureAge,
Selfless contributor: TriRem
Community Creator of the year: TWest

 

[Rey_Fer]

Comeback player of the year: yinghua

 

[emaculado21]

@LidaKor , if you want to be serious about this, can you please consider what the Asians have been doing? You understandably have bias towards the Western AoE2 community. Even teh non-English streams awards have no Asians. Have you asked the Chinese, Indians and Vietnamese for their stats? or who their casters are? Or are these Awards a West Only Show?

 

[Rey_Fer]

@LidaKor , if you want to be serious about this, can you please consider what the Asians have been doing? You understandably have bias towards the Western AoE2 community. Even teh non-English streams awards have no Asians. Have you asked the Chinese, Indians and Vietnamese for their stats? or who their casters are? Or are these Awards a West Only Show?

You are free to nominate them.

However, chinese have their own community and are not active in this one, so it is difficult that they get a community award