2025 Homecoming Base Contest Winners!

[Easter Bunny]

Hello again, everyone - we made it!
 

We’re thrilled to finally unveil the winners of the 2025 HC Base Building Contest!
 

To every builder who poured their heart, time, and talent into an entry: thank you. You turned this contest into a true celebration of everything we love about this community.
 

I can't even begin to tell you how many judging records this contest broke. The number of eyebrows raised, double takes taken, and jaws that hit the floor - all completely off the charts! I'm not exaggerating when I say that many of these showdowns were truly hair-splitting (and yes, hare-splitting, too).
 

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In the spirit of growth and transparency, we’d like everyone to know that we're offering participants the option to request a copy of their judging evaluation.
 

If you’re interested in receiving constructive feedback and using it as a tool to sharpen your skills - we’re happy to share your evaluation. This can be a great opportunity to understand how your work was received, and where you might grow for future events.
 

That said, a gentle reminder: no matter how thoughtfully given - critique can sometimes sting. If you know you’re likely to take the feedback to heart in a way that may cause more hurt than help, we encourage you to consider whether requesting your assessment is right for you. This offering is meant to support, not discourage.
 

If you’d like your feedback,  just DM @Easter Bunny, here or on Discord.
 

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And now, finally, without further ado...

Let’s meet your 2025 Champions!
 

 

Spoiler

2025 Base Building Fantasy Champions:
Awarded 250 Prismatic Aethers each
 

@Laucianna | @Wispur | @Zaldra
Elysian Temple
DIVINE-29035 | Excelsior

The first ever winner of our Base Building Grand Champion title
& 2025 Base Building Nature Champions:
Awarded 250 Prismatic Aethers each
 

@Squidget | @Dropout | @Juxion
The Cascades
GARDENS-18790 | Everlasting

2025 Base Building Novice Champion:
Awarded 750 Prismatic Aethers
 

@Lunar Shade
Ethereal Wanderers
ETHEREAL-14692 | Torchbearer

2025 Base Building 'Other' Champion:
Awarded 750 Prismatic Aethers
 

@Allatum
Absolute
FORMS-32911 | Everlasting

2025 Base Building Realism Champion:
Awarded 750 Prismatic Aethers
 

@Lukester
Midtown
MIDTOWN-29367 | Everlasting

2025 Base Building Sci-Fi Champion:
Awarded 750 Prismatic Aethers
 

@Shard Warrior
The Watchtower
PARAGON-15105 | Excelsior

But wait! There's MORE ...

 

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Introducing The Base Building Spirit Awards!

Capturing the Heart of Base Building on Your Shard

 

The Spirit Award honors one recognition-worthy base on each shard that, while not a top winner, stood out for its passion, creativity, and spark. It’s not just about polish or technical complexity - it’s about showing up, playing along, and creating something memorable.
 

This award goes to a base that may not have taken the top prize but made the judges stop and smile, saying, “Now this is what base building is all about.”
 

We define base building spirit as:
 

• Creativity: Doing something unique, unexpected, or clever with your space - even if it’s not perfect.
• Effort & Enthusiasm: A sense that you enjoyed the process and poured yourself into the build, no matter your experience level.
• Shard Personality: A build that reflects the community, humor, or style of your shard - intentionally or otherwise.
• Participation: Showing up. Submitting a base when you didn’t have to. Playing along. That counts more than you might think.

To all our Spirit Award recipients: thank you for showing up and sharing your passion. Some builds whisper instead of shout - and still manage to echo.
 

Spoiler

Base Building Spirit: Everlasting 2025
Awarded 250 Prismatic Aethers
 

@Aalya
Dryad's Tree
DRYAD-20249 | Everlasting



 

Base Building Spirit: Excelsior 2025
Awarded 250 Prismatic Aethers
 

@Electronuts
The Black Tower
THEBLACKTOWER-32812 | Excelsior



 

Base Building Spirit: Indomitable 2025
Awarded 250 Prismatic Aethers
 

@Ms Recoil
Clumsy OAF
TEXT-8505 | Indomitable

 

Base Building Spirit: Reunion 2025
Awarded 250 Prismatic Aethers
 

@Robot Henri
New Dawn (Cyber City)
ALFIE-4931 | Reunion



 

Base Building Spirit: Torchbearer 2025
Awarded 125 Prismatic Aethers each
 

@SupaFreak | @Nymloir
Zynavia
NOV-3012 | Torchbearer



 

Base Building Spirit: Victory 2025
Awarded 250 Prismatic Aethers
 

@Lemming
Protectors
VICTORY-248 | Victory

 

To our winners: you earned this. We’re in awe of what you built - congratulations!


 

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Special Thanks

Huge gratitude to our judging panel - BBB, Deep Six, Garbage Wizard, Gem, and Interrabang - for your time, passion, and thoughtful evaluations. And thank YOU to everyone who participated, supported a builder, or toured the entries. You continue to make this contest something truly special.
 

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What’s Next?

If you didn’t win this year, don’t let that discourage you! The skill, artistry, and fun on display this year has us inspired - and we hope it inspires you, too. We encourage everyone to keep building, keep experimenting, and keep sharing your creations with the community!

 

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Until next time - 
Happy Building!

❤️ Easter Bunny, Dacy & the 2023 Base Building Champions
      BBB | Deep Six | Garbage Wizard | Gem | Interrabang

Edited 9 hours ago by Easter Bunny

[Laucianna]

Woohoo!!!!!!! 💛 Big thanks to @Wispur @Zaldra5 and the rest of the Elysian Guardians 💛

[Wispur]

2 minutes ago, Laucianna said:

Woohoo!!!!!!! 💛 Big thanks to @Wispur @Zaldra5 and the rest of the Elysian Guardians 💛

 

Congratulations!!! 🎉

[ZamuelNow]

Congratulations to all the winners!  As a fellow entrant, I've been slowly working through the complete list and been enjoying what I've been seeing.

[Allatum]

Thank you for the contest! It was a joy to see a lot of these entries, and the variety of vision and work from the build community as a whole. We can only go up from here!

[lemming]

I always enjoy touring thru the various bases during these competitions and always get some good inspirations for modifications to my own set of bases.

[Matsiyan]

The creativity and effort in the bases submitted was absolutely amazing. It’s a real joy to see the visions and implementations people come up with.
 

You can share your appreciation by leaving comments in the Base Directory Guestbook.

Edited 18 hours ago by Matsiyan

[Apocalyptical]

Amazing stuff folks! Congrats! All these bases are absolute works of art! 🔥🔥

[ScarredSilencer]

Wooo!! Grats to the winners, yus! :3 All very cool bases!! Will be checking them out later! =w =

[Goblinman]

Time to make characters on all the servers so I can see the winners!

[Mini-Nukette]

Congratulations to all the well deserved winners!

[Conviction]

Congratulations to all the winners! I can’t wait to see them!

[Bigwheela]

Congrats to all the winners!!!  so many fun bases to see

[Dacy]

I'm late to the party, sorry! I just wanted to note that Novice bases actually got a separate evaluation from the judging scorecard. I will be sending those out, they are not scored, but each has two different advanced builders commenting on different aspects of the base, from the technical to how you used the space to some of the artistic.  I will be sending those out to all who registered as a Novice base; if you want your judging evaluation scorecard, you need to request that.

[CaptA]

How do we request the scorecards? I entered in "Realistic". 

[Dacy]

You basically just did. 🙂 I'll let EB know, if he's not already seen this.

[particleray]

Congrats everyone. Count me in as someone interested in their score card as well

[Lunar Shade]

I would like my grade card as well.  thank you 🙂

[Suenamiii]

I would like my evaluation. Thank you.

[GM Impervium]

Just a note/reminder to all our winners: You have to log in after a maintenance day to be eligible to be granted your prizes! This isn't a policy thing, it's an "evil spaghetti code won't let us" thing. Thanks... and again, Congratulations!

[Laucianna]

4 minutes ago, GM Impervium said:

Just a note/reminder to all our winners: You have to log in after a maintenance day to be eligible to be granted your prizes! This isn't a policy thing, it's an "evil spaghetti code won't let us" thing. Thanks... and again, Congratulations!

Now we have to log into the game to get prizes! Outrageous!

[SupaFreak]

I was fortunate enough to catch @Laucianna in-game one night when I was touring the Arcane/Fantasy competition with a character I no longer played that was transferred to Excelsior.  Had a brief conversation and told her that I felt hers was the one to beat in the category (and maybe overall).  Looks like I was right.

Elysian Temple is what prompted me to do 20+ hours of upgrades/modifications to ours in hopes of standing a sliver of a chance against it.  Such a beautiful base and her passion and creativity is well deserving of the win for the category.  Doesn't hurt that she was also super friendly.

Congrats goes out to all the winners, though.  I actually had a personal list of each category and my quick tour scoring, and the winners were all either my top pick or in top 3.  Some were so close, I would've had to flip a coin or spend a lot more time analyzing their bases to decide.  So, kudos also goes out to the judges for all the time dedicated and creativity they took in.

I absolutely toured each base (at least briefly), and I can honestly say the competition was amazing.  All participants should be proud of their creations at this point and encouraged to build upon their solid foundations.

Knowing what I know about base building now (+ the new tools given by HC)... part of me has wanted to start over from the hybrid base we created back in the early HC years... but I ultimately decided to just expand upon our foundation to get what we have today.

 

Edited 7 hours ago by SupaFreak

[CaptA]

Is there any chance we could get the Base Final Cumulative Total for each winner? 

[Dacy]

Sure! The winning scores were 423, 405, 373, 353, 349, 348. Meaning there are a lot of awesome bases, even high scoring bases, that did not win an award. If you're looking at your score in dismay, please remember, first of all, the rubric was never meant to be a ruler by which a base must measure up, it was meant to assess all the possible ways builders could go when building, and so, no base will ever score perfectly.  And clearly, you can have an excellent base without having the top base in that category.  And low scores are disappointing, I know, but with the rubric, you can clearly see what areas can be improved upon.

 

Judging was as fair as we could make it; it is difficult to compare the beauty of a gorgeous landscape with a space station with a castle with a fantasy land, but having a rubric gives us structure and makes sure everyone is comparing the same things, at least. Unfortunately, competition being what it is, and being FIERCE, we will only have a few winners. And the judges, wow, they had to go through over 100 bases, and I know that people didn't get the tours we'd all hoped would happen, but the amount of time and energy the judging team had already put into judging was already huge, and just know that at least, all the bases were evaluated on the same basis and all were given whatever time it took to make sure all of it was seen.

 

The novice evaluations that my team and I did will hopefully give some feedback to builders; we chose the novices because some novices were just starting out and really wanted feedback more than anything, and we wanted to work up an evaluation that worked well. The one we had for this was okay, but Easter Bunny and I've reworked it even more, with an eye for being able to have a structure in place to evaluate a base when someone asks for feedback, and perhaps, if the Council approves it, be able to offer recognition awards based on builder skill, not just for those with the highest score in a category. It would still be something you'd have to work to earn, and have the skills to earn, but the skills can be taught and there are lots of resources to teach you about them.