At last D&Co presents the Final Fifteen (what ??? not ten) of the 6th Bi-annual Housing Week in Middle Earth contest !
It’s time for everyone to sit down with a pen and paper (and maybe a drink) and tally up the points for their favorite Kinship Houses in this edition of “Semaine du Housing” (SdH, Housing Week in French) !
First of all I want to warmly thank every single one of the entrants who decided to participate in this summer’s contest ! There were 53 total entries this time around which is a new record ! The very first SdH contest held the record until now with 44 entries. The difference is more striking when you consider the fact that the first SdH was a contest of personal houses, not kinship houses.
Of course, this is the first edition which we have opened up to all servers instead of only the French server, Sirannon, so that also accounts for the high number of entries 😉 I hope that our numbers continue to get higher going forward !
Again, thank you to everyone who participated.
Unfortunately, as is always the case, choices had to be made. Holding a contest with 50 houses is simply not possible. I considered extending the list to 20 houses instead of 10 and, after reflection and consultation with the other jurors, decided to present a list of 15 homes with descriptions and pictures. It is very complicated to organize a contest with numbers beyond this.
However, I want the 38 home owners whom I could not select to know I appreciate their participation very much. My decisions are often based on a number of different criteria but everyone had some nice and unique things to show. I found wonderful ideas in some of the unselected houses as well and I will be presenting those very soon !
So here they are, 15 houses from which a single one will be chosen to rule them all ! As always, a photo report has been created for each house but I strongly encourage you to visit them all yourselves if possible. Take your time in exploring them, tally up the numbers, cast your votes, and enjoy !
Note : the name of the neighborhood is not necessarily very similar depending on the language used in the game, so the language of the client (launcher) is specified each time under the address.
The Final Fifteen
#1 : Flying Dragon
Thorin’s Hall Homestead - Brandywine
#2 : Sanctum
Bree-land Homesteads - Evernight
#3 : The Loners' Guild
Bree-land Homesteads - Evernight
#4 : Foghollow Mushroom Society
Shire Homesteads - Landroval
#5 : Maison Cromley
Bree-land Homesteads - Sirannon
#6 : Les Capes de Laurelin
Cape of Belfalas Homesteads - Sirannon
#7 : Fortes Fortuna Adjuvat
Shire Homesteads - Brandywine
#8 : Grammarians of Seirian Rhain
Falathlorn Homesteads - Brandywine
#9 : The VIIth Gate
Cape of Belfalas Homesteads - Laurelin
#10 : Durbatuluk
Cape of Belfalas Homesteads - Laurelin
#11 : Dorren
Thorin’s Hall Homestead - Crickhollow
#12 : La maison Durefer
Bree-land Homesteads - Sirannon
#13 : Radix Lecti
Bree-land Homesteads - Laurelin
#14 : L'Auberge de l'Ogre Gourmand
Shire Homesteads - Sirannon
#15 : Order of the Enduring Song
Cape of Belfalas Homesteads - Laurelin
With regards to the voting….
Housing Week in Middle Earth would not be what it is without your (the public’s) thoughts and participation. Thank you for your time in considering the final candidates and submitting your votes.
The Jury is made up of the following people :
- Prunaprismia : co-founder of D&Co du Milieu and owner of cosmetic blog « Trolls and Rags » (Trolls & Chiffons).
- Edward : the famous Ferret of Gondor !
- Kaels : LotRO’s Khalès from JeuxOnLine !
- Yao : that’s me !
The voting system :
- Each house is given an average score from 1 to 10 made up of the public’s and the jury’s votes
- The weighting is as follows : 30% for the Jury, 70% for the public
- The Jury determines the winner of the Jury Prize : Expert Gardener
- The Rewards are listed here.
The rules :
- You have until Sunday, July 1st, 5:59pm Eastern Daylight Savings time, to vote.
- You can rate each house anywhere from 1 to 10
- You can vote for one or more houses, there are no restrictions
- One vote per person (I'm watching you :p!)
You can vote for yourself if you like.
Play fair !
- Votes like "I give myself a 10 and everyone else a 1" will be refused. You can give yourself a 10 but intentionally lowering the average score of other houses will not be considered.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask !
~Yao
D&Co du Milieu
Just coming on the english side of the website to wish good luck to all the contestants; I’m eager to visit each one of your Kinship Houses !
(even if that means spending my evening creating a new character on each server :p )
I’ve already started my visits, and got my firsts thrills. I’m eager to see all of your houses. I’m gonna love this week.
I ask the jury to show me there houses plz
Most of our houses are on Sirannon (French server) and mine are on Landroval. If you have any char on those server; I’ll be glad so share the addresses.
Hum did you miss looking at our Kin House?
Hello Zaktar,
I did take a look to your Kin House but unfortunately, choices had to be made :/.
I loved the bear in the pool though !
~Yao
Im realy dont lıke all house maybe total lıke 2 :S ı dont know why select this house ???? İnsteresting ! Beauthy is simple not a gold or darkness ????
One man’s meat is another man’s poison. 😉
I have to agree with the comments here. I am sure it will be looked as sour grapes by those that didn’t place and at the end of the day we simply wanted to share our kin house design with more people but the winners have left me more than confused, it ranges from plain, to un-aesthetic, to ‘let’s strip the slots in 3 rooms to make 1 really cool room’, this idea does not make for a well rounded design. But I guess to each their own.
“To each their own” (“Les goûts et les couleurs”, in French), you’re right.
Nevertheless, I tried to be as objective as possible, knowing that some people would be disappointed, as always.
That’s what you think, and I think otherwise! And it is, moreover, totally subjective. 😉
I do not agree at all, but I respect your opinion.
I think – and the votes, the jury, the comments, and the hundreds of houses visited since the creation of the website, let me think that I am not totally alone – that the 15 selected houses deserve it.
The 38 unselected houses also had a lot to show, and I’m sorry I could not take more!
Why don’t you share your Kin House’s adress, so we can take a look even if you haven’t been selected ? ^^
Zaktar, I second Khaotil. You can share your address and I’m sure a lot of people, including me, will go and visit it.
Cape of Belfalas Homesteads
Neighborhood Name: Arvirion
House Address: Island of Tol Lochu
Server Evernight
Looking forward to good or bad comments
Zak
The yard is what I was hoping to win, just place in the top 10/15 was what I felt the house could due
Zak, you said you’re going to let it go at this point but maybe after the voting/judging is done the convo can continue about how different people judge the houses. There are subjective and objective aspects and I know that there have been houses on this site (in other competitions, etc) which I didn’t necessarily think much of at first but then, when I took a closer look, realized that the designer had done something really unique and creative which I had missed. Same thing when I look at art in general.
In the end everyone would have picked a different list depending on their tastes, what they noticed, etc. I liked your house and hopefully you will vote on the ones that have been selected and also participate in future competitions. I think the point of this is to have fun decorating, get ideas from others, and see what cool new things you can come up with over time. And also, as you mentioned, share what you’ve created with others.
Running this site and trying to choose from among the entries must take an enormous amount of time and I’m glad there’s someone (Yao) out there doing it.
PS- I feel like I’ve heard the name Zaktar and The Blade Reforged before…. no idea where or when. You play on Brandywine at all?
Zaktar, I visited your house and it is really good. I liked it even more than some of the selected houses. But still there were houses which seemed to me more interesting. Each house is good in its own way though. I can not even imagine how difficult it was for the jury to make its choice. And I want to thank Yao for the competition, so I had the opportunity to visit so many beautiful houses.
JUST GOING TO LET IT GO AT THIS POINT, TY FOR YOUR COMMENTS
Thanks for sharing Zak. I will visit as soon as I am able.
I just voted for all the houses except my own. Can’t compare mine (which I’ve been staring at for the last 3 weeks straight) to other people’s. It was a lot of fun visiting these and I wouldn’t mind visiting all of the ones that weren’t selected if you post their addresses as well Yao 😉
I will (next week)! 🙂
No houses selected from Landroval, I guess I don’t need to vote since that server is not represented!
#4 : Foghollow Mushroom Society
Shire Homesteads – Landroval
There is a house on Landroval as Yao pointed out but even if there wasn’t, why couldn’t you vote? You could vote based on the pictures or, if you have the time, make characters on the other servers and visit them and vote.
It seems like we’ve travelled in Time (and Servers) and we’re back to the first Housing Week on Sirannon few years ago with the merry-happy comments ????
Hang on Yao, you’ve done this before ????
Congrats to the everyone ! And please, remember that Yao (and other members of the jury) spent a lot of hours to bring everyone this special event ????
Nice idea. Thanks for all your hard work. I followed link here from lotro beacon. I wish I had seen this sooner. I would have loved to enter ( 5 Waterbank Road, Torn en Aduail neighborhood, Falathorn estates, Gladden server ) Best wishes to all.
Thanks 🙂
Awesome! I’ll visit!
Hello! I just wanted to make sure our House was in the original list (and some glitch didn’t get the application through)!
Congratz to all the nominees and thanks for having such a grand contest and all the time effort put into it!
Benwhalebutler Wrongtrousers,
The Eldar,
Evernight,
2 Silver St, Alagaer Belfalas Homesteads
Hello and thanks 🙂
I have indeed visited your house !
The unselected houses will be presented next week 🙂
~Yao
I very much enjoyed visiting the homes. (I even made myself a document so I would remember why I liked/disliked some!). Thank you to Prunaprismia for responding to my mail and helping me find the Sirannon homes 😛 Oh yes, I did find Khaotil’s Cape Rd house and visited that too while I was around – very creative.
Overall I took some notes and some screenies when I saw cool ideas. Now time to evaluate what changes I may make to my homes 😛 (which you can visit next week when the non-finalist list is released, I had entered The Thirteenth Order and I have several homes in the neighborhood).
Good luck to the contestants!
Hey, so you found my house ? Glad you liked it, I’m always happy when I get some visitors 😉
Maybe it would be a good idea someday to have a place to submit our house’s address, in order to let everyone pay a visit if they want to ^^
I’m looking forward to see all the non-finalist homes !