[discussion] Upcoming New Mapping Contest

[Hellkeeper]

Almost a year has passed now. What about starting a new contest?

[UnrealGGecko]

Time to brainstorm contest ideas again, eh? This seems to be our yearly tradition now.

[Hellkeeper]

New ideas, why not, but if we don't find anything, the 512k concept is fine by me book, it was challenging and new. I loved the kind of emulation we got out of this and the many quality maps we ended up with.

[EvilGrins]

Howabout maps with lots of booby-traps in them? Those're always fun!

[Dr.Flay]

ChaosUT
...well I would say that.

How about picking a versatile deco and/or texture pack as a theme ?
Hourances texture packs are as stunning as they are underused.

Or how about featuring our new mod in some food inspired maps ?

[Hellkeeper]

Howabout maps with lots of booby-traps in them? Those're always fun!

Nah, it's frustrating. I hate being killed by the level designer when I could be killed by the opponent.

Not sure about the texture theme either. One of the great things of the 512k contest was that the limitation was tight but we had full freedom apart from it. A texture pack limitation is much narrower IMHO.

[papercoffee]

My 2 Euro-cents...

A restriction by size or theme is ok but don't make restrictions which will hinder other player to play a map because they miss X or Y package.
Those maps will never be played if they are bound to a specific mod or texture pack...It's naive to assume that everyone has this packs.

If you want to make maps for FF's BurgerCTF for example... Build them like a regular CTF map, but put into the exact centre between both flags a simple pathnode ...no powerup and no weapon spot. The mod will replace all the UT weapons itself and will take the pathnode in the centre for the Burger-spawn.
The big advantage is ...this maps are still playable by people who don't own the mod.

[sektor2111]

How about picking a versatile deco and/or texture pack as a theme ?
Hourances texture packs are as stunning as they are underused.

These are underused because... some of non-stock are so "cute" and nobody trust them, see viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6400#p75390.
I did not see to much non-stock stuff done correctly after all.

loved the kind of emulation we got out of this and the many quality maps we ended up with.

Quality ? I'm wonder why some of them are in contest since I read rules and some of them did not accomplish conditions for participation, stupid modification in some PlayerStart which doesn't make any sense, fake translocation, etc... For sure you did not play them with Bots to see what kind of "quality" has been done - some of them I can say that doesn't even include any wacky Bot support being mainly a guess. I found 2 of them good for me (and later I discovered them as being exactly WINNERS - RESPECT!). Others a bit designed were modified properly for my private playground as long as I'm not interested anymore in hosting stuff messed up. The most of stuff modified is now smaller and more navigable . At least I'm agree with such contest because it comes with mainly with better works than some garbage previously hosted at NaliCity (author saying "known bugs: None" and they were visible in less than 3 minutes) for me contest should continue (even if later a stuff revision might be recommended).

[Dr.Flay]

I would rather see people limited by their imaginations, rather than their fear of what may or may not be.
Size is the biggest limitation factor, and we just did that, so lets think bigger.

My short answer to the problem of missing resources;
Don't be stupid and forget something your map needs. You made it, you are responsible for it.
MyLeveling is always allowed.

I only used the Hourences packs as an examples that contains a good range of surface types.
There are others. viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4258&start=0
sektor2111, which texture pack is generating that error ?

Quality is subjective, and is a lower consideration than how much fun a map is to play in a competition, unless the competition is to make the highest quality map.
Making a technically perfect map does not make it fun.
One of my favourite maps to play probably breaks a world record for BSP errors.

BTW. If you insist that a competition is for players rather than the mappers, then you cannot use the full UT GOTY as the standard.
About 3 quarters or the servers and players are using Steam and GoG. They do not have a complete GOTY.
All they have that makes it GOTY, is that it is v436.

If you want the competition to focus on the mappers, then pick a theme, not a limitation.
Who are the competitions for ?

[Hellkeeper]

Quality ? I'm wonder why some of them are in contest since I read rules and some of them did not accomplish conditions for participation, stupid modification in some PlayerStart which doesn't make any sense, fake translocation, etc... For sure you did not play them with Bots to see what kind of "quality" has been done - some of them I can say that doesn't even include any wacky Bot support being mainly a guess. I found 2 of them good for me (and later I discovered them as being exactly WINNERS - RESPECT!).

Yes, some maps were crud, that's to be expected. But many maps in there were really good. And if the ones you liked ended up winning, then it seems everyone kind of agrees with you.
I played them only with bots since I almost never play online, and yes, many were really good and fun and I liked them. I'm not saying everything was perfect, but most maps tried to have at least a fun gimmick or something interesting. You can't say Frag's maps weren't at least interesting in their concept, the winning CTF was intensely fun. I know I worked my ass off to have an interesting layout in Qesh and I remember this castle-in-an-aquarium map which was very cool. Yes, some maps had no work put into them, but it wasn't even the majority.

I'm a bit bitter with some of the maps overlooking the rules too, but yeah...

Question: did you provide feedback for the maps during last year's contest? It's a very important part and very rarely done (and even more rarely correctly done). If a new contest starts and you're not satisfied with something, jump in to say what's the problem.

[papercoffee]

Maps can only get better if you provide proper feedback to the mapper.

[sektor2111]

Maps can only get better if you provide proper feedback to the mapper.

Wasting time? Anyone having eyes open can see what was here and there (mapper included) but nobody speaks or... are lying with fake appreciations which is not my style. I forgot to mention, it was about DM subject - in CTF I did not make any study yet.

sektor2111, which texture pack is generating that error ?

That was the question - strategy in finding that "material". Blindly seeking the needle in the dark... I recall one Rock or such as for the rest... God knows for sure because mapper was clueless anyway...

PS Info: Try to avoid a confusion, I'm not whinning, I'm broadcasting - some admins need real and valid informations for sorting quality not fake smilies. Testing them takes too much time to gain proper results.

I forgot to send feedback about info-content coming with stuff - some of those read-me were pretty fun.

[papercoffee]

Wasting time? Anyone having eyes open can see what was here and there

And still ...sometimes even masterful mapper miss the forest for the trees.
Because, if you are too much involved with a problem in your project and a ticking deadline approach closer and closer, you'll getting blind for the minor bugs. And feedback from someone else outside the project can help to prevent this blindness.

[memsys]

*pops into existence*
I agree with paper for the simple reason that it's true. sometimes you are so absorbed into your projects you miss the obvious (and the not so obvious) until someone points it out and you feel stupid for not noticing it.

Sadly I am drawing a blank when it comes to ideas for a theme for the next contest. It's hard to come up with something that does not limit creativity in some way.

[Chamberly]

Hacking map contest? That sound like a cool idea!