Mapping contest by et-scene.de

(chosen) #1

Hey,

i’m chosen, from germany, and i’d like to announce you something for all the mappers and those, who wants to get it.
I’m the german and european esl admin and i cooperate with clanbase and my admin team to announce you a nice mapping contest.
After i tryed to contact etmaps.de for a partnership and they didn’t response, i’ve found et-scene.de and swine.

You can find all english information on the following, international community site:
· http://www.xfire.be/?x=news&mode=item&id=1545
· http://www.xfire.be/?x=article&mode=item&id=271

For german people, please visit:
· http://forum.et-scene.de/showthread.php?p=105692

Updated - RELEASE INFO:
1st official deadline is: 25.02.2006 (first playable version or msg an admin)
2nd deadline is: 20.03.2006 (first playable version, first beta, or msg an admin)
Final Release until: 10.04.2006 (final deadline for the map)
If the time is not enough for you, you can message the admins in #et-scene and tell us, if you need more time for your map

For questions, join #et-scene in irc.quakenet.org and message swine or chosen.

As price, the mapper will get 1 bnc sponsored by killah - #a.toon - the map will be added to the european and german esl mappool, to some 1-day-cups and, if it gets success in theire, it will become an official clanbase map.

It would be nice to get a good response on this contest a some nice feedback from the mapper community around the world, so please post this in your homeland’s newspage and give us some support - we realy need it, for et!

cya
chosen

(EB) #2

Why don’t you just make a map ? Or…maybe you’ll get lucky and find someone with one partially finished.
…shame that you think good maps can be made in 6 weeks.

(kamikazee) #3

Ok, I once thought I could make a pretty FP in two weeks, so no offence to him. (Didn’t succeed due to a lack of time)
Making a truly good map in 6 weeks is nearly impossible, or you should have huge amounts of time to spend.

Allso note: immediately saying things like “a blend of this and this map would be good” is not that good to set out a contest imho, it kills creativity.

(chosen) #4

Well, i think you know, et isn’t that alive anymore, and i didn’t said, that i think so.
Its hard work to make a map, i know it, cause i did one in ut99, and gave it up after some weeks of realy hard working.

A good maps takes time, thats why i said the thingie with the new one.
If u ever made a map, for any public server or so, which is good for competitions, edit it (its enough time to have 6 weeks here) and submit it :slight_smile:
Thats why we have so “easy” rules there about creating a map and stuff.

Another problem is, that we have to show: This map is good for competitions to clanbase. So we have to add it to some cups and have to promote it.
And yes, this takes most of the time until cb will decide to select this map.

cya
chosen

(Ifurita) #5

FWIW, and I have (or did) actively support the comp community in Europe, NA, and Oceania with mapping.

  1. 6 weeks to plan, create, and test a map to comp standards is extremely aggressive. This includes tweaking maps previously released or in progress to play well for comp. I consider myself to be a pretty fast, experienced mapper, and I don’t think I would take on the deadline.

  2. Based on my experience with the comp community, I have 0 faith that you/CB can or wil actually make mappers play the winning map. Leagues I supported across all three continents had a hard enough time adding new maps that were being designed with community input and testing. Until leage admins prove via actions that they will force teams to actually compete on a map, in a match that “counts”

Ultimately, the players will whine and the league will cave, as they all do. So much for getting the map played.

  1. Based on #1 and #2, what I believe you are asking for is a lot of hard work with 0 payoff. Not much of a proposition if you ask me. Sorry if I seem harsh, but that’s basically what the comp community has said to all of the mappers who tried to work with them.
(EB) #6

I agree.

(nikita) #7

may i suggest add more time i agree 6 weeks are nothing…
i assume we all busy people here and dont have all day to do it

(Higgins) #8

Sounds more like you want some one to make a map for you, so that clan base can award you with a great prize. Sounds a bit fishy.

(]UBC[ McNite) #9

Iffy said it all… nice idea chosen, but doomed right from the start considering my experience with
a) comp gamers (whine/ no interest in new ideas),
b) playtests (offered several to UK comp community, had to do all of them with my clan and friends),
c) feedback (like: map sux… or: played it 5 mins, the objectives didnt show up by themselves, so i didnt like the map… )
The best i got was an official playtest by the GA community (respect to rogue for organizing that)… only it seems that like half of the players didnt know the map, so one team got screwed over… what do you expect? Of course its the map that sux…

(EB) #10

All 500 comp. community players want 500 different things.
-TBH…I do not know how Ifurita dealt with it for so long.

(]UBC[ McNite) #11

All 500 comp. community players want 500 different things.

Hmmm i d rather say its like 750 diff things cuz half of them change their mind after a bit (and i know why i didn’t write “after thinking about it”). :bump:

(chosen) #12

Well thats realy wrong.
My aim is to get a competition map, where mappers can look a lil bit around, what players want.
My aim is to hold ET as long as possible alive. Cause its my hobby.

I DON’T WANT to become the man who release this map, i’m just one of 10 guys who will test the maps and who will select 5 maps of them.

The main prize the mapper will get is, his name around clanbase and stuff.
I’m esl admin, i don’t care about cb.

You are the mappers, i don’t know that much about it, so don’t blame me for this.
i think manny people like to have a bnc.
I think its just your hobby to create maps, so it would be nice to have some success with this hobby and to create a map for it.

I don’t care about the map you will create, but it has to be a competition map, and you have to think it works well in europe. If it doesn’t your work isn’t priceless, cause its your hobby and can publish the map whenever you want without our influence.

Tell me:
How manny time you need (average) for a first beta.
How manny time you need for a final release (average).

Its a contest to do something for et, not for me, so stop whine because i’m posting here and in manny other boards, i just want to get a result after i’ve finished it, and don’t want to get flame because i’m using my nick to support this game.

cya
chosen

(Ifurita) #13

BTW, I certainly don’t have any doubts that you have only the best intentions regarding this contest, but I’ve simply lost any faith that the community itself will actually change it’s behavior, which is too bad, because they always bitch about having to play the same maps over and over and over. If you look at past history and the effort it takes to make a map (150-200 hours for me), you’re asking for a lot of work in exchange for, IMHO, no benefit, unless you count all of the bitching you have to put up with.

There have been many attempts to get the community to adopt new maps. CB Showmatches, TWL/CAL regularly ran new maps in preseason, blah blah blah … the general result is usually a season of Oasis-Goldrush-Supply Depot. Wheeee!

McNite is a great example of what mappers have to put up with. He put in hours making, modding, testing, and tweaking a map, specifically for the comp community. Spent the time getting his clan and friends to playtest, offer suggstions, which were then incorporated into the map … the end result? As far as I can tell, he’s mostly been ignored. No negative feedback, not positive feedback, just silence. Way to provide positive feedback to someone who’s trying to help you all (the collective you all) out.

(Shaderman) #14

I really appreciate your effort chosen but I think it won’t work this way.

I played (very active) the 6on6 ladders of ESL Europe, ESL Germany (which is dead IMO) and Clanbase Europe myself up to the day where the community was split hard by a few league admins which decided to cut off the “leveling system” of ET. My clan left those leagues/ladders because our beloved game was gone.

Side note: I still don’t understand why those admins didn’t make two ladders - one “old style level up” and one “RTCW style” to make everyone happy again but ok - I have to accept it like it is.

I’m astonished how “mighty” a few people can be and how easy it is to dictate lots of gamers how they have to play their favorite game.

Saying this, my suggestion is as follows:
Make use of your admin power and dictate those whining guys out there which (well chosen) custom maps they have to play. There are mappers out there which tried to support the community with their work and which deserved a “thank you” IMO.

And once again: I really appreciate your effort!

Shaderman

(blushing_bride) #15

Why dont you promote an already existing map. There are plenty to choose from that have either never been played or were played for 5 seconds and then dismissed (im talking about maps made specifically for sw ET competition play). There is no point in any mapper spending lots of time making a map as getting the clan community to play any new maps is near impossible. You can lead a horse to water but you cant make it drink.

(EB) #16

I don’t want to forget to mention this little escapade:
Thalakos (CB supervisor)came to recruit for a mini-map for CB/Nations cup…
A few people started maps for him…He was never to be found again. He even ignored personal E-mails !!!
http://www.splashdamage.com/index.php?name=pnPHPbb2&file=viewtopic&t=13528

::yeck::…as far as I am concerned: CB’s ET staff has screwed with ET mappers for too long, tell them to learn to map.

(]UBC[ McNite) #17

How manny time you need (average) for a first beta.
How manny time you need for a final release (average).

a) To a first playable which looks crap but has all objectives and no scripting errors: 4-8 weeks (remember most ppl got a job/studying so u can only map in a bit or spare time)
b) For both TheRiver II and TheRiver II Redux i did 6 or more playtests to check on gameflow, and its not like you do a playtest and next day u have incorporated all the feedback.
c) To a final which looks decent: about another 8 weeks.

And I strongly agree with blushing_bride… check out existing maps, there are quite some out there. I read your comments on other maps (dubrovnik, rochelle, sd2 etc.) on the etscene forum. Well… there is no perfect map. If you do a map according to some wishes, it will always have a flaw according to other wishes. Take dubrovnik: some ppl opted on having the roofs accessible. Of course that results in lower FPS than u d get if you dont have the roofs accessible… etc etc etc… so i think admins should rather show some backbone and not listen to every whining because that leads to happy gr oasis sd2 seasons again n again…
Don’t get me wrong, chosen… i appreciate effort and initiative from admins, operators etc… I just think the vast majority of comp gamers has no interest in new maps you need to spend more than 10 mins on to figure out the objectives (apparently none of them knows in the Limbo menue you can click through a list of them…) and they can’t own on after having played it once…

(Shazam) #18

Yep, good initiative Chosen, but by experience, competition community is like that. :frowning:

Like blushing_bride said, promote or modify existing map. We have already 800 maps in ET’maps Bank (etmaps.de :p).
Maybe with EtPro script…
There are lots of map with small bug (spawntime for X-posed for ex.)

(B1indside) #19

I agree that chosen has good intentions, but it is rough given the ‘stage’ that ET is in.

I also understand about not playing the same “original 7” (I include Supply).

I am one of the head admins for the World Pie League (WPL) in N.A.
With the help our moderator, McCreary, the two of us continue to look long and hard about any and all maps that could be made competitive for our ET league. Have we used them when it counted? Rovieni Farm, Rommel_ga, among others were in our regular season. Rovieni Farm was also the first round playoff map, with sw_oasis selected as the finals map for this past season. Sure it is oasis, but I felt, at the time, enough changes were made to make it play differently.

Granted the one advantage we have is that we are a invitation only league. But I make strong attempts to find maps that have been looked over by the other leagues, and consider all suggestions from our players. Quite frankly, McCreary and I have discovered many more maps that would be great if simple adjustments such as spawn bugs could be fixed. We keep a seperate forum section keeping track of all the maps that have been reviewed to date, that count is at least 200+.

Point to all this? Search what is out there, there is more than what you think if you are looking to add something to league. To all ET mappers: The WPL is more than happy to try and give maps of yours competitive playing time that it deserves.

Thx for your time,
~ -7-ArchEnemy
Competition Manager, WPL

(chosen) #20

Yes, i totally understand your point of view, but i’m not a thalakos or something, i work for et about an year, i am stable and playin active too.
Well, some of you already said, its only something for myself, what i want, thats a little bit right, i want a new map :slight_smile:
But there are other admins like spu (et-cup), swine (et-scene/get-liga), fart fall cup admins, cb admins and so, who’d like to have some new things. And there are players, who want a new map too.

Its no problem to check all the 800 maps, i visit the german etmaps.de site (wich still doesn’t reply to my mail…) often, and i see manny new maps there almost every day.

I don’t care about you opinions of guys like thalakos, i don’t care about such stupid people.
I announce this contest at as manny sites as possible to show you, there is something which needs your support.

About the river: i didn’t check this map yet, but i’ll do, and maybe i can send you in pm something about it, what would be nice for a competition map.

The main problem is easy:
You don’t want to create new maps, cause my time is not enough yet - but you want to have an aim when u create a map (i hope)

If you now have the chance to publish your old, already created map again, maybe in a tournament edition with some addons (after talking to some people maybe), go and do it, submit you map in #et-scene (qnet).
It would be very nice to have some support of you, cause its to hard for 1 person, to select possible competition maps out of a pool of over 800 maps for testing them.

Another propose would be, to set the release date for the map to the middle of march 06.

cya
chosen