[Saxon]

Let me throw in some game champion contenders.

The guys who put together Play by Web have to get an immense about of credit. Playing humans makes this game approximately 1000% more interesting and they have made it easy for many people to get together. Perhaps this should run in the best utility Category. (sorry Matryx!)

Closely linked to them is Geoschmo. Not only has he arranged tournaments and had lots of good postings, he ended up being a moderator on this board. Getting to be the moderator has to indicate both his good nature, his hard work and his love of the game. Even if he didn’t like what I said about Afghanistan after Sept. 11, he still gets my vote. Oh, I also liked his Space 1999 scenario.

Suicide Junkie has consistently posted informed and detailed replies to Posts, wrote some entertaining fiction which was posted on Hadrian’s site and created a little known mod known as Pirates and Nomads. Look at the number of Posts and the continual reappearance of “It’s a Pirates life for me” to get an idea on the strength of this mod. I think he builds some odd ships (internal bulkheads making a ship unkillable?) but his creativity and ability to implement his ideas deserves high commendation.

Alpha Kodiak, previously mentioned, gets my vote for creating AI races. For a while, the Rage were the benchmark by which all others were evaluated and he then came out with a second strong race. While my knowledge of the early days is misty, it seems that he pioneered a lot of the early AI techniques and many of the great races which came later are based upon his discoveries and experiements.

Deathstalker gets the Literary Award, as I went and hunted down the Deathstalker series and have been enjoying it.