Guild Wars Wintersday 2007 Contest

The Wintersday 2007 Contest offered one Guild Wars player the opportunity to make a significant and historic mark on the annual holiday celebration. Players were invited to get into the spirit of the season and create a piece of concept art for our traditional Wintersday giveaway: a splendid piece of holiday headgear.

This special seasonal hat is only available on the final day of the festival when Grenth, Lord of Death and Ice, and Dwayna, Goddess of Air and Life, vie for the support of the citizens of Tyria in the thrilling climax to their yearly contest. The winner of this heavenly battle rules the wintry weather in the coming months, and generously rewards his or her loyal supporters with gifts, including a brand new hat.

Players responded to the call for helm concepts with excellent ideas of all kinds. From literally hundreds of designs, the Guild Wars team selected six top winners and fifteen honorable mentions. All of the winners are listed below. You can find the rules for the contest and the list of prizes here.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the contest, and to Ideazon who helped support the prize offerings. We will contact the winners after Wintersday to distribute the prizes. Everyone is invited to see the grand debut of the two new Wintersday helms—including the player-designed* Grenth helm—at 12:01 AM Pacific time (-8 GMT) on January 1, 2008, and every three hours throughout the day.

Happy Wintersday!


Winners:
Grand Prize: Nian
Second Place: The Gnome Goddess
Third Place: Mamath
Fourth Place (Honorable Mention): Mike Nash
Fifth Place (Honorable Mention): Vulron
Sixth Place (Honorable Mention): Si Morris


Finalists:Anthony De Greef Buddy Cunningham Diana Birsan
Fox Tide Javic Dune Julia Peters
Kho Eraph Kieran Bramm Lisa Lemke
Mikko Piirto Morgana Le Fae Noom
Seer Skogul Shinobi Saosin Xydria Nostratus



*Note: The hat that appears in the game is based upon a player concept, but will not look precisely like the submitted idea. The art team sometimes makes adjustments to player art to assure the design is compatible with other game designs, and artists also often need to modify a design to properly adjust it to character models. For example, because of how character art and armor works together, a hat that sits on the top of the head will make the character appear to be bald, which naturally requires some amendment to work around. With all player-submitted designs, the art team chooses the winning designs and then adjusts them to fit into the Guild Wars world. http://www.guildwars.com/events/contests/wintersday2007/default.php