⚜️Iron Hideout Competition #13 | 1000$ Prize Pool | Theme: Outside | Final Competition⚜️

► Name of the hideout: Chateau Fleuri (Castle of Blossoms)

► Competitor's name: VedaGuru

► Story of the hideout: The city's filthy streets bustle with activity. Diverting from your usual route, you stumble up on a narrow alley at the far end of some forgotten street. At the end of the dark, stone-littered corridor you step over the ruins of a collapsed wall to find yourself on the precipice of a lush garden. Life blossoms at every corner.

Inspired by French Chateaus.

► Download link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hmQ0dPLHW0VT3eFoicdqz7YriK7Blbmr/view?usp=sharing

► Video of the hideout(Optional):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf1ZNVQHC6I

► One link to all your content: None

► What is the force* that you draw power from? Arcane

► Do you want your entry to be shown on the showcase stream?: Yes


I will miss these competitions; they've inspired some truly special designs. Thanks for hosting.

► Name of the hideout: Spirit Lake's Shrine
► Competitor's name: Graoully
► Story of the hideout: An isolated shrine slowly taken over by its encircling lake and the spirits gathering inside. This is a small and functional - utilities are hidden in the outer circle - hideout that I tried to make look cozy and soothing despite being in a glacial environment and few colors.
Hopefully some of the effects aren't glitchy on other configs, water is great for the setting but was more importantly used to endarken the area and scatter lights while Stained-glass Windows' backsides were preferred over Blocking Volumes as they are slightly less dark. Sorry if weird things happen!
► Download links: Dropbox | Pastebin | Google Drive
► Video of the hideout (old PC and low FPS, sorry): Youtube
► One link to all your content: None for now.
► Force: Arcane
► Do you want your entry to be shown on the showcase stream?: Yes.

Screenshot:


Second and last submission from me, the low framerate mixed with the current heat gave me headaches but it was still fun to build nonetheless; thanks for hosting this competition, PegasusRider!
I hope you'll stick around after this finale competition, whether it is to make hideouts, do non-competitive showcases, play PoE 2 or anything else that might be interesting to you, always a shame when game communities shrink (although a fair choice, obviously).

► Name of the hideout: Children, don't look at him!
► Competitor's name: Kougno
► Story of the hideout: In a medieval village at the start of winter, a man has been taken to the other side for tough questioning. "We don't know why the adults won't let us see him".
► Download link: Google Drive
► Video of the hideout(Optional): YouTube
► One link to all your content: none
► What is the force* that you draw power from? Raw Iron
► Do you want your entry to be shown on the showcase stream?: Yes


3 zones: village - questioning - map device

Results announcement will be extended, to I honestly don't know when. I'm moving again, 4th time in the last 2 years. I will post more news soon. Thank you for your patience.

► Name of the hideout: Crystal peak
► Competitor's name: moonretealoud
► Story of the hideout:
There is a location of the same name in the game Hollow Knight, but in a different color palette, which became the basis. I wanted to complement this idea with a magical lake and some kind of vegetation.
► Download link: Download
► Video of the hideout(Optional): Video
► One link to all your content: https://www.youtube.com/@moonretealoud
► What is the force* that you draw power from? (Fire, Lightning, Arcane, Celestial or Raw Iron[No Effect]. The force you choose will be displayed on your entry in weekly and winners' videos we make.): Arcane
► Do you want your entry to be shown on the showcase stream?: Yes

"

I'm moving again, 4th time in the last 2 years.

Good luck with moving, must be exhausting to do it that much in such a short time.

"

Results announcement will be extended, to I honestly don't know when.

Is that strictly for the results or did you mean the competition itself? Would be nice if more could join in the meantime although understandably that would demand extra work to you and the jury.

"

Graoully wrote:

"

I'm moving again, 4th time in the last 2 years.

Good luck with moving, must be exhausting to do it that much in such a short time.

"

Results announcement will be extended, to I honestly don't know when.

Is that strictly for the results or did you mean the competition itself? Would be nice if more could join in the meantime although understandably that would demand extra work to you and the jury.

Thank you! It is just for the extension of the announcement, submission times stay the same. Competition results announcement will be 2 days later than originally planned, on the 10th. The plan is not to open any boxes but to vote first in my case😊

"

VedaGuru wrote:

I will miss these competitions; they've inspired some truly special designs. Thanks for hosting.

Thank you very much for your kind wishes and being part of them. I will miss them too!

"

Christopher93 wrote:

and I just wanted to say thank you for making the competition for our poe community, I have been a silent back viewer/supporter of the hideout building thing and I admire your effort, lets make poe 1 out cherished memory just like this hideout

Thank you too. I just wish the community would have more voices so hideouts can keep on improving. There are threads, Reddit posts, a lot has been shared, yet the huge majority of them have been neglected by GGG so far.

"

Graoully wrote:

Second and last submission from me, the low framerate mixed with the current heat gave me headaches but it was still fun to build nonetheless; thanks for hosting this competition, PegasusRider!
I hope you'll stick around after this finale competition, whether it is to make hideouts, do non-competitive showcases, play PoE 2 or anything else that might be interesting to you, always a shame when game communities shrink (although a fair choice, obviously).

Thank you for your kind wishes! I want to stay on the building side going forwards. I think I have made a unique and unexpected welcome-back with Pick Your Poison to the PoE realm, and I want to keep on doing the unexpected, if possible.

Note: I really don't want to dip into the showcase realm as GGG has been doing them regularly for years and it has been Iron Hideout Competitions who brought them back, they were never the focus of our competitions. But here is how and why, since it came up;

Before I took Iron Hideout Competitions and made Competition #5 years ago, there were 11 months with no single hideout showcase, as there were only a few creators who kept on going. Before those 11 months and the competition, showcases used to happen regularly every 3 months, but were dead for 11 months. Then I put up Iron Hideout Competition #5, and GGG did a showcase at the end of that month on 28/06/21. I made another competition but there was an official competition, so the next showcase came 6 months after the last, again at the end of the month of Competition #7 on 27/12/21. Then they made the next showcase 3 months later this time on 30/03/22, once again at the end of the month of competition #8 and it included the work of one of the competitors, and the hideout community started to revive around those times. With competition #9, another showcase happened on 06/07/23. At this time, the hideout community has already made a long process on the way to reaching the activity of the old times. From this point, Hideout Showcases were done almost every month, from 06/22 to 06/23, skipping March, May, August and November, and they made 2 showcases in 2023 June. The next competition number #10 had the winner hideout in the 10/22 showcase. Also, this competition is where they stole our theme idea and applied it to their last official hideout competition. Number #11 had one in 01/23's showcase and three out of five in 02/23's showcase. And for a long time, people who entered the Iron Hideout competitions have been dominating hideout showcases. Now GGG is back to their 3-month schedule in terms of hideout showcases. And I think there were more than enough to do it monthly especially for the last one.

I actually have reached GGG for making Iron Hideout competitions public and supported on the main page, but they have declined. Where are their competitions? God knows. The last one came 2 years after the previous.

"

I actually have reached GGG for making Iron Hideout competitions public and supported on the main page, but they have declined.

I assume they didn't want to appear to rely on a third party rather than have someone host things in their name. I don't doubt your honesty and I suppose they don't either but they probably were wary of claims about bias and rewards, even if there's no wrongdoings competitors can still say whatever they feel like and competitions bring the worst out of people sometimes, GGG could be forced into a drama.

Personally I only see two paths. Either they have to invest time by tasking an employee - or a trusted benevolent from the community - to handle showcases/competitions and a few others employees (designers if possible?) as jury then reward the best builders, it makes the judging consistent but need workforce.
Or the second choice, implementing a system to let the community judge and reward. Users could give thumbs up on the forum (or also when visiting hideouts when trading but plagiarism or using a popular hideout would make it terrible) and since accounts are linked already, different top x% on a certain recurring time period could get things in-game, the lows receive hideout decorations and the high cosmetic items or boxes for example. The cons would be beggars, bots votes, popularity voting (streamers joining), could cause a flood of low quality or plagiarized hideouts and people trading currency for votes but it might be pessimism.

Anyhow, I don't think they care enough but in doubt, we can use the old trusty: PoE 2 will fix it.

► Name of the hideout: Tainted Swamp
► Competitor's name: Butifarra
► Story of the hideout: Hidden deep in the depths of the basalt columns, this long abandoned Vaal Shrine seems to have been the place of a ritual, that corrupted this once lush forest into a foggy swamp.
► Download link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/161rsKhGRHE0irG6qhOS5MlxoobDjT3Aj/view?usp=drive_link
► Video of the hideout: https://youtu.be/e2l4JMwf2ac
► One link to all your content: https://www.youtube.com/@butifarra6501
► Force: Raw Iron
► Do you want your entry to be shown on the showcase stream?: Yes