Spring Awards
The Spring Awards is an event in which members of the community are recognized for their contributions to Virtual Paradise. As of 2023, the 2024 Spring Awards are currently planned to be underway later on with a date to be determined after bids.
History
The origins of the Spring Awards date back to 2016, when tension between the AW and VP communities were at high points. The idea to host an awards show in a smaller community was originally suggested as a joke, as AW's regulars wanted to bring back the CY Awards, which could not happen due to inactivity. The Courier, over on VP, decided to create a knockout-style event that could compensate for VP's smaller base. The Spring Awards would also be hosted by one of VP's major cities as a home.
2016 Spring Awards
The City of Victoria laid host to the first Spring Awards, which was done in the format of a single-elimination tournament. First and second round votes were decided through Strawpoll, while the finals were decided via voting through Google Forms. Originally, there was going to be a fourth category for Best Town, but there were not enough nominations to warrant the inclusion.
In the field of Best User, newcomer RyanLion would steamroll the competition to the finals to beat Sarah, the underdog of that particular competition, due in part towards his contributions of building and activism within the community. Best Build would see drama as RichieG's long-lasting Church in New Cypress Hollow somehow avoided a presumed upset by a stunning recreation of Amsterdam by bnb. Meanwhile, OptimumPx's greatest work at the time, a recreation of LA's Town Hall, would find an easy path to the finals where it defeated yet another underdog in the competition that likely had no real business being in the running. Most Innovative Project would also become a de-facto award for "Best World" as the two worlds of VPTV and Vagus fought on the battleground of the finals, where VPTV would be annihilated by the up-start space RPG world.
Best Town was discontinued as a category in the interests of combating potential bias on the part of Victoria hosting the inaugural event as well as only three participants (Victoria, NCH, and NH) being nominated. It will be resumed in 2017 as a category.
2016 Spring Awards bidding results
| City | Votes |
|---|---|
| Victoria | Unanimous (no other city bid) |
2016 Spring Awards results
| Category | Winner | Runner Up |
|---|---|---|
| Best Community User | RyanLion | Sarah |
| Best Build | OptimumPx's Town Hall | RichieG's Church |
| Most Innovative Project | Vagus | VPTV |
2017 Spring Awards
Due to the success of the 2016 Spring Awards, the next SAs will happen later with nominations lasting from January 1st to the 15th, and voting to take place during a undetermined date. The event will be hosted by the city of Summerville after defeating New Huntington in a hosting bid by 7 voters against 6. Six categories were announced at 12/23/2016 on the Facebook group, with two returning categories and four new categories.
2017 Spring Awards bidding results - 12/15/16 to 12/16/16
| City | Votes |
|---|---|
| Summerville | 7 |
| New Huntington | 6 |
| NCH | 0 |
| Phoenix City | 0 |
| Gabrielleville | 0 |
Best Town Knockouts
On 12/26/2016, the eight towns (Summerville as host, Victoria, Phoenix City, Gabrielleville, NB, NCH, NH, and Lapis) selected in the bracket were chosen due to their development, activity, and general impact within the world they resided. Five towns (Rezdog, New Ave, Panthera, Chaffeeville, Nineties Town) were disqualified due to either being joke towns, or were too underdeveloped to compete. Rezdog in particular was left out despite being the capital of the Lemerican Federation and having much more development, due to it's major inactivity and questionable future on the part of it's mayor. The five disqualified towns will compete in a separate, single poll to win the Participation Trophy.
At the start of the competition, Summerville and Victoria humiliated their opponents at the first day of voting, although Phoenix City had a close lead against Summerville in the initial minutes. Lapis Vidrium would continue on to face Victoria later in the start of the new year, eventually losing to Victoria which at this point was continuing merger discussions with New Beachfield, while the host city would lose to New Huntington. The two cities of NH and Victoria would duke it out in a close matchup between powers of central Blizzard, but it would end in a victory for the capital of the Victorian Republic on Feburary 2017.
| Quarter-Finals | Semi-Finals | Final | |||||||||||
| New Beachfield | |||||||||||||
| Lapis Vidrium | |||||||||||||
| Lapis Vidrium | LOST | ||||||||||||
| Victoria | WON | ||||||||||||
| Gabrielleville | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Victoria | 14 | ||||||||||||
| New Huntington | LOST | ||||||||||||
| Victoria | WON | ||||||||||||
| Summerville | 11 | ||||||||||||
| Phoenix City | 3 | ||||||||||||
| Summerville | LOST | Third place | |||||||||||
| New Huntington | WON | ||||||||||||
| New Huntington | |||||||||||||
| New Cypress Hollow | |||||||||||||
Best Community Leader
At the start of 2017, the category for Best Community Leader was given an official bracket due to multiple names getting repeated as well as filling in the minimum requirements.
The start of the competition would see tight races for everyone with the exception of Edwin, whom blown out his competition, Melody Minifig, and secured a semi-final spot. The Courier would fall to the defending champion of best user, RyanLion, while GSK would fall to Edwin. The battle between RyLy and Edwin wasn't even a close final, being one of the more lopsided final rounds of the entire knockouts. Edwin would win and get vengeance for his loss to Sarah in the last awards.
| Quarter-Finals | Semi-Finals | Final | |||||||||||
| RyanLion | WON | ||||||||||||
| Legion | LOST | ||||||||||||
| RyanLion | WON | ||||||||||||
| The Courier | LOST | ||||||||||||
| The Courier | WON | ||||||||||||
| trooper | LOST | ||||||||||||
| RyanLion | LOST | ||||||||||||
| Edwin | WON | ||||||||||||
| Edwin | WON | ||||||||||||
| Melody Minifig | LOST | ||||||||||||
| Edwin | WON | Third place | |||||||||||
| GSK | LOST | ||||||||||||
| Tom | LOST | ||||||||||||
| GSK | WON | ||||||||||||
Unfinished Builds
At Jan 12 2017, the category for Unfinished Builds was given an official bracket. Unfortunately, the results for the knockout were lost due to a crash, although the winner would ultimately be Rezdog. There was controversy in the inclusion of Ground Zero, which was undergoing massive renovation due to an impending visit from the popular streamer Vinesauce.
| Quarter-Finals | Semi-Finals | Final | |||||||||||
| Rezdog | |||||||||||||
| New Rockford | |||||||||||||
| Sunset Gland | |||||||||||||
| Parliament Complex | |||||||||||||
| Rezdog | WON | ||||||||||||
| Whalen International | |||||||||||||
| GZ | |||||||||||||
| Third place | |||||||||||||
| Gov's Mansion | |||||||||||||
| Blizzard Road Network | |||||||||||||
Best Build
At Jan 14 2017, the category for Best Build was given an official bracket. Best Build became the first to announce a true semi-final matchup for all it's contestants as all had a dominating victory over the competition within the first day of voting. Best Build was the quickest of the categories to be given a finalist, resulting in the terrorist bowl between the Tower of Terror and the World Trade Center recreation (both being under minor construction at the time). The winner of the bowl was the Tower of Terror.
| Quarter-Finals | Semi-Finals | Final | |||||||||||
| Summerville City Hall | 13 | ||||||||||||
| The Church | 2 | ||||||||||||
| Summerville City Hall | |||||||||||||
| World Trade Center | |||||||||||||
| World Trade Center | 12 | ||||||||||||
| Eden Bar | 3 | ||||||||||||
| WTC | LOST | ||||||||||||
| TOT | WON | ||||||||||||
| Victoria City Hall | 14 | ||||||||||||
| PC Towers | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Victoria City Hall | Third place | ||||||||||||
| Tower of Terror | |||||||||||||
| Tower of Terror | 14 | ||||||||||||
| Leo Interiors | 1 | ||||||||||||
2018 Spring Awards
The 2018 Awards were the first time that a single user, Graystripe, dominated every category. It was also the last time that Victoria, Cannaville, and Phoenix City would compete under the flag of the Victorian Republic, due to it's dissolution, although the three cities were still represented under the former Victorian banner.
Summerville ended up winning the award for best city.
Graystripe's House was the winner for best build.
The Builder's Supply Content Yard was the only category winner to not be exclusively Graystripe's, and was shared between Gray and ryanlennon as a joint project.
Graystripe was declared the winner for best community leader.
2018 Spring Awards bid results
The bidding for the 2018 Spring Awards began in 2017. As Summerville was the host of the previous competition, Victoria regained eligibility to run for bidding in the 2018 awards. Cannaville fully qualified as an established city to participate in the bidding process. The city of New Huntington was the host of the 2018 Spring Awards after winning a 7-1 bid.
| City | Votes |
|---|---|
| New Huntington | 7 |
| Gabrielleville | 1 |
| Victoria | 0 |
| NCH | 0 |
| Cannaville | 0 |
2019 Spring Awards
The 2019 Spring Awards were a planned event to be hosted by New Cypress Hollow but was cancelled by event organizers due to lack of activity in VP at the time. This is the only Spring Awards to never take place as planned.
2024 Spring Awards
The 2024 Spring Awards were confirmed by The Courier to be under development with bid voting announced on 12/3/2023. This is the first time in six years since the 2018 Awards that an event was confirmed to be underway.
Venue Controversy
Initially, the city of Pine County won the popular bid at 4 votes among a heavily divided contest, however the leaders of Pine County opted to back out of the bid and allow one of the runner-up communities to host instead due to that city's leadership having projected time constraints. The communities of Summerville & Cannaville made a quick agreement that Cannaville would be allowed to have the honor due to Summerville's prior hosting of the 2017 Awards. These series of events officially made Cannaville the fourth city to be given the honor of hosting the Spring Awards, however Zeke, the mayor of Cannaville, would also shortly withdraw his ability to host for life-related reasons, sending the awards back into chaos.
New Cypress Hollow, Sparta, and Altes Antiguo all offered to take up Cannaville's bid, but it would be decided by The Courier that Altes Antiguo would take over due to that city already establishing a venue with the interest of the awards in mind, hopefully ending the grand venue chaos for good.
2024 Spring Awards bidding results
Although Pine County won the popular vote, Cannaville was given the bid due to discussions between PC & the runner-up communities. These votes are left recorded for the public record.
| City | Votes |
|---|---|
| Pine County | 4 (won, but overturned) |
| Cannaville | 3 (backup bid, later turned down) |
| Summerville | 3 |
| NCH | 1 |
| Altes Antiguo | 1 (backup bid) |
| Sparta | 1 |
| Lynnfield | 0 |
| Victoria | 0 |
| New Beachfield | 0 |
Town Knockouts
The top bracket was dominated by cities within the Victoria region (with the exception of Lynnfield), but Altes Antiguo would end up surprising everyone in the quarterfinals by upsetting the presumed power of LF by 2 votes. Victoria would make a clean sweep against its neighbor Sparta with 8 votes. The bottom half of the bracket housed the defending champions of the 2018 Awards, Summerville, as well as newcomer Pine County. Summerville would make a clean sweep against Cannaville by 8 votes, while Pine County largely also dominated its competition in the quarterfinals. Of more particular interest to the community was the semi-finals, as the remaining four cities (two of them having won the award previously) all had significant development made to them since 2018. Victoria and Altes Antiguo would remain tied for a large chunk of the semifinals until the last day when Victoria got a one vote edge, sending Vicky to her second appearance in the Town finals. Pine County made clean work of Summerville, sending the county to its first ever appearance. It is the first time a newcomer city (Pine County) has made an appearance to the final and the first time that a prior winner (Victoria) has the chance to win another title.
| Quarter-Finals | Semi-Finals | Final | |||||||||||
| Altes Antiguo | 5 | ||||||||||||
| Lynnfield | 3 | ||||||||||||
| Altes Antiguo | 3 | ||||||||||||
| Victoria | 4 | ||||||||||||
| Sparta | 0 | ||||||||||||
| Victoria | 8 | ||||||||||||
| Pine County | |||||||||||||
| Victoria | |||||||||||||
| Pine County | 6 | ||||||||||||
| NCH | 2 | ||||||||||||
| Summerville | 2 | Third place | |||||||||||
| Pine County | 5 | ||||||||||||
| Cannaville | 0 | ||||||||||||
| Summerville | 8 | ||||||||||||
Build Knockouts
Test.
| Quarter-Finals | Semi-Finals | Final | |||||||||||
| Third place | |||||||||||||