Mapping competition 2003/4

(DG) #81

Well, response from mappers wasnt exactly overwhelming without SD involvement. Bit strange really, a big bone of contention was that we would actually be beta testing them and wanting any significant bugs fixed.

(G0-Gerbil) #82

Really? That’s really quite tragic.
I’d say it’s a ‘good’ thing since people who can’t be arsed to do those things probably wouldn’t make it anyway, but that assumes it leaves enough entries…

Erm, I guess the ball is in your court, but I’d love for it to still happen?
Perhaps the sites concerned could do a quick poll to see who is still interested in it?
I’d hate for the competition (which is badly needed) to fade away, ironically enough because SD couldn’t pull their finger out (how’s that for a sign of support eh, both from mappers and them?).

(G0-Gerbil) #83

BTW I’d vote for venice in it, even if the ‘final’ already has been released.
The more I play it, the more I like it - currently my #1 fave custom map!

(chavo_one) #84

Thanks Gerbil! High praise indeed! :slight_smile: I would have loved to enter the map into this competition, but I couldn’t wait indefinitely before releasing the final.

(MuffinMan) #85

just reminding of this thread again although I don’t think it’s worth the typing actually

just plz give me one answer - is there any chance that the contest will actually come to an end or can we just forget it?
I think most people here will be glad to hear anything…

if there’s no chance we could do a vote like the 1024 competition and make an unofficial mappack, I’m sure I’m not the only webadmin who would try to host it

(DG) #86

I’d like to know myself :zzz:

Seeing as I’m the only one of the “organisers” (and not the lead organiser) even replying here my assumption is it’s basically off, at least unless someone suitable wants to step forward and manage it (a much more troublesome, “political” and time-sucking task than it might seem).

(G0-Gerbil) #87

Hmmm I dunno - I’d be interested in shouldering some of the responsibility, but I wouldn’t claim I have the time to do it all myself.
Anyone out there prepared to help? I assume from your replies DG you are still interested in this happening, would you still be prepared to help organise it?

What about you two - Muffinman and Chavo? :wink:

(MadJack) #88

I might be interested… Need more info though. PM or post here.

(MuffinMan) #89

I’m actually organising lots of stuff at the moment so time is short as usual but I’d do what I can. what did you think of? I only thought of some forum poll here with a given time limit and after that we’d pack the best together and announce the pack whereever we can, host it if necessary, aso. besides that the mappers should get a date for their final versions. did you have any bigger plans? I can host and write a page for it as well but I won’t get a new domain

(chavo_one) #90

What would be involved? It seems that this particular contest got mired in politics. I’d be willing to help out if there was a clear set of objectives from the start. I was never clear on what the goal was of this particular contest. It seemed to change halfway through. Is the desire to release an official mappack?

(G0-Gerbil) #91

That’s where the politics went wrong.
Initially the competition was to be four large european mapping sites banding together to try to make this map-pack a go-er (IE lots of uptake, as official as a non-official thing could get).

Then SD said they’d look into making it ‘official’ which would of course help the end result immensely.
And then… nothing. No-one can seem to get any form of feedback from SD at all, even though some of them still frequent this forum. It would appear the whole thing is being actively ignored, which of course is not much good.

DG’s comments are basically due to SD keeping quiet, the other organisers of the competition have (understandably) lost interest, meaning new people would be needed to promote it.

Now ironically enough, if these big map sites have lost interest, that actually leaves the competition in a worse state than it was originally - not only is it not official, but it’s not supported by the people who can at least try to push it into being a standard map-pack.

So I’d say our first goal is to find out which of the map sites are still interested - either as an active participant or are prepared to give us publicity, host the final map pack and generally say ‘oi get that, it’s really jolly good’.
Second goal would be to widen the search to include big ET sites from anywhere in the world - I recall US sites weren’t aware of the competition originally - obviously the more that get behind it the better.
Thirdly, and only then, we work on clarifying the rules. The reason I’d say generate interest first is because without that it’s dead in the water. Not to mention most people have a rough idea of what is required. Basically we are after maps that undergo rigourous testing and revision so they are as bug free as possible.

Over the next few days, let’s see if anyone of the original lot post here (DG already has - remains to be seen if he’s still interested but I know his help would be appreciated, especially given the efforts he’s made already). Pack would be good, and of the others I can’t recall (time to trawl the thread from the beginning methinks).

I suppose someone could, in parallel, try to persue SD again, since it being ‘official’ would help a great deal. But not to the point of holding up the competition any more for it, otherwise we’ll be back where we are now, which is ‘nowhere’.

so let’s see who’s still interested in promoting it first, and just (for now) chuck along the already stated provisional rules, loose though they be since they are just aimed at getting high quality maps, not limiting otherwise really.
Possibly we split the competition clearly down the middle, clans and public maps, but that can be decided later I’d say, pending people’s thoughts (IE people who are actually going to enter, not clanners screaming ‘we need more clan maps’ which we already know).

Again, thoughts?

(MuffinMan) #92

ok then, let’s find supporters! for a start I will crawl the web for ET map and community pages and contact adresses aso.

(DG) #93

utterly trivial or obviously essential requirements suddenly become major sticking points for various people. like, youve no idea what an apparently HUGE problem it was that we were requiring beta testing. and THEN they figured out this might even mean having to fix bugs… This was by far the biggest reason for mappers not entering, but there was plenty of other things people could somehow decide to find a problem with.

it wont be official map pack, neither SD nor anybody else appear to want -or at least be able- to get involved.

@ gerbil, nop, organisers gave up well after everybody else :slight_smile:

(MadJack) #94

Alright then, let’s move on with it and call it “The Un-official map pack” until we either get SD’s approval and it becomes the Official Map pack or they don’t want anything to do with it and it stays that way.

What say you?

(G0-Gerbil) #95

Well, I think a firm stance now on SD-ness will allow us to at least see if it can be resurrected.
I’d agree with madjack - we state catagorically it won’t be official and the competition is run that way - since barring some unforeseen miracle it’s not going to actually happen.

@DG yeah I know evil rules like beta testing and stuff are nasty, but if someone refuses to enter because their map will be publically criticised and expected to be sorted, well, it only reflects badly on them. The beta testing HAS to be a rule or we may as well chuck out any old shite, which goes against the grain of the idea behind it all.
DG - would you be prepared to ask the other old-stylee organisers / web sites if they’d at least be interested in promoting it? Support will make or break this competition easily as much as not enough decent entries. I know you are probably sick of this whole thing, but you obviously still care about it or you wouldn’t be posting here still :wink:

(MadJack) #96

What I think SD is doing is waiting to see if it can be pulled together without their intervention and then they might give their approval. It might just be bad timing at the time and since they’re developing the next game based on D3, they’re just too busy to read each and every post.

From what I could see anyway that thread was semi-comatose until recently so it might have gone through the cracks after theiir initial semi-quarter endorsment.

(DG) #97

Most have a email for news submission etc, I suggest check round a load of sites, make a mailing list, and send out the info when important stuff comes up. I think pretty much all newsposters would post news about it if they found out. The clever bit though is making it easy for them to post good things :stuck_out_tongue: i.e. instead of “hi m8s heer is my nwe map for wofensten!!1”, make it a proper press release type thing which gives them something to talk about and is convenient to quote. Newsposters like linking to websites or at least the “official thread” so people wanting more info can easily find it. Sounds lazy but it’s just basic PR - like I can never fathom why people always post screenshots etc and never bother with something simple like FSAA to tart them up.

Hype is important imo, especially since probably the most important start is to get mappers thinking it’s worth entering, and once done most important is to get players to think it’s worth trying out :slight_smile:

Might want to make a habit out of trawling round community forums occasionally too.

I really suggest getting everything planned well before publicly announcing, otherwise it makes it look half-assed, and if there doesnt seem to be much enthusiasm from the organisers people will just think it will end up dying, and basically this will result in it doing so.

Likewise, not having objective etc clearly known from the start just confuses everybody. Note the shenangians over maps being suited to clanwar, because we didnt emphasise this subtly enough and mappers assumed this meant all maps had to be totally designed for clanwar, mappers didnt seem to understand that a good clanwar map = a good map that aint huge (major sticking point #2). Wether you or the mappers like it or not, you WILL need maps that are suited to clanwar play if it’s to actually be popular. I’d go so far as to say easily >50% of players wont think of downloading unless they think clanbase/twl/etc found it at least worth considering.

(blushing_bride) #98

yeah I know evil rules like beta testing and stuff are nasty, but if someone refuses to enter because their map will be publically criticised and expected to be sorted, well, it only reflects badly on them. The beta testing HAS to be a rule or we may as well chuck out any old shite, which goes against the grain of the idea behind it all.

Sorry to intrude but i just want to ask how will it be tested. To really test a map properly it will need to be played alot. Who will be testing the map and how. I think the biggest barrier that mappers have to making a good map is getting enough seroius feedback from neutral people. Im sure most seroius mappers would welcome critercism be it negative or positive it it turns their dodgy beta map into a fantastic popular map that gets played alot.

(MuffinMan) #99

I know some clans (included my own) who would be willing to help testing, I am the admin of our gameserver and I would run some customs, distribute them to the testers, kick them to give feedback and so on…
there will definitely be some more clans, everybody of us could try to contact them and ask for help, they could do proper testing with other clans - which is easier than with public players - everybody who would take the task could post the comments at some central forum for all the participating mappers then

btw: there are already tested maps for the competition, the wolfproject-map bergen is already tested thoroughly for an instance and will be released as final soon if this competition doesn’t come to an end

(G0-Gerbil) #100

I don’t think testing is a problem - we have plenty of people and clans on here that have volunteered for testing maps, and we have plenty of friendly server admins who would be willing to dedicate servers at least part of the time for these maps.
Anyway, I’ll have a trawl through the thread and see how we can revise the rules detailled earlier to make it clear.
Personally, given the way people were confused about clan maps etc, I’d suggest we split it clearly, IE a section for public maps and a section for clan maps.
Although, off the top of my head the only real rule difference would be time limit - clan maps <=15 minutes maximum.
I’d still say ‘no dual objectives’ though, even for the public maps - they just simply kill a server once they are in rotation. Those kind of maps, if any good, demand a dedicated server, not being part of a rotation or a map-pack.