The concept for the Nossies came about rather suddenly and on impulse. It was the night of the 80th Annual Academy Awards and I realized that while publications like InQuest and other organizations in the gaming industry had bestowed honors on V:TES over the years, I had never seen a formal or informal fan award from within the V:TES playing community.
Recognizing the best player rankings has long been a part of V:TES, and within the past year we’ve seen the introduction of the V:TES Player Hall of Fame, but a fan award for the best cards released in the past year had never been done before. On a spur-of-the-moment impulse, I figured I could at least create one and publish it online. I posted a message to the V:TES usenet group, soliciting player suggestions for possible nominees and categories to honor.
Calling the awards “The Nossies” was also impromptu. While it would most likely be the Toreador who go to the trouble of praising creativity, the combination of the Nosferatu’s nickname and the visual of a Nossie’s head on an Oscar-like statuette was too good pass up. Since the Oscars and Grammys have more categories to read through than letters on an eye chart, I felt that simplicity should be stressed to keep the awards light and fun.
Jeff Thompson (www.TheLasombra.com) was very helpful in advertising the nomination process further in other online V:TES forums. After a week of taking in submissions for nominees, these seven categories were selected along with a list of nominated cards:
I was very pleased with the level of support players gave to the voting process each year and I was able to do this the past three years.
The 2009 Nossies
The 2010 Nossies