Major Mapping Contest #4

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MangyCarface

Mapper
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Feb 26, 2008
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As with any other part of mapping it is the mapper's duty to find and respond to feedback, not the community's- gamedays being so available is not an excuse to not find private 6v6 feedback. If one cannot worm themselves into circles to receive proper feedback then they are skimping out on a part of mapping, just like if they were to refuse to detail because they could not find proper examples
 

Flame

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Jul 19, 2009
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As with any other part of mapping it is the mapper's duty to find and respond to feedback, not the community's- gamedays being so available is not an excuse to not find private 6v6 feedback. If one cannot worm themselves into circles to receive proper feedback then they are skimping out on a part of mapping, just like if they were to refuse to detail because they could not find proper examples

yeah man my circles pretty open, come worm into it
 

Terr

Cranky Coder
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Jul 31, 2009
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If one cannot worm themselves into circles to receive proper feedback then they are skimping out on a part of mapping, just like if they were to refuse to detail because they could not find proper examples

Speaking for computer geeks who hone their skills to create things with technology, it feels very unjust any time a case comes up where "who you know" ends up being the determining factor for success, utterly trumping the actual quality and effort of the work itself.

Not saying it's not like that in real life, but for myself there is a persistent feeling that certain kinds of work shouldn't be that way.

I mean, ideally it's a mapping contest, not a "who is already chummiest with the competitive community" contest. I know that's not quite what you said, but...
 
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Ezekel

L11: Posh Member
Dec 16, 2008
818
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i'm kind of sad that the "who you know and how charismatic you can be" card is getting played.

A: i thought the community was more interested in quality (i know, i'm a hopeless optimist despite several examples that say it's not true)
B: people don't necessarily have the time to network like you're implying when there's real life to deal with too.
C : the testing environment should have been available for people in this contest. it wasn't.
D : i would have thought the fact someone's in this community should have been enough to avoid needing to "worm your way" into another one.
E : that's very unfair on people who don't wish to be confrontational. (sure maybe life's unfair, but that doesn't justify it) - it seems you have to have quite the competitive streak combined with a brash attitude if you wish to have testing actually occur of an unfinished map on your typical clan's server(s)

also i should mention: the only testing i was able to obtain via this community mainly consisted of 10v6 for 20 minutes, with one team containing 4 engies camping their intel room and the other team being predominately scouts. ... you'd think mappers who are testing a map on a game day would be a lil more courteous to actually pick their teams/classes in a way that would actually allow useful feedback to the author.
 

Shmitz

Old Hat
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Nov 12, 2007
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C : the testing environment should have been available for people in this contest. it wasn't.

We had the riverbed, but no water to fill it. Which is to say, we had 6v6 servers but for ages nobody in this community actually wanted to play 6v6 to test maps. What little testing happened only happened because some of us had enough non-TF2M people on our friends lists that we could scrounge up 12 people. So again, it still comes down to being willing to play different modes (even if it's not your preferred way of playing) and being willing to find people on a regular basis who will do the same.

The staff could only do so much. For a regular 6v6 contest testing environment, it needed the support of the community, and there the community failed.
 

Geal

L4: Comfortable Member
Aug 16, 2009
162
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A: i thought the community was more interested in quality (i know, i'm a hopeless optimist despite several examples that say it's not true)

Well that's the thing; for this contest, quality is judged via a competative viewpoint, so in order to create a quality map, testing needs to be done with a competative group. And of course for that to be done, you need to network yourself into that group. Yeah it sucks, but TF2maps.net simply doesn't have the manpower for competative testing.

And of course, networking is definitely a huge help for any map. Getting your map popular can help get it tons of testing and feedback, which helps produce quality. It's not so much that you NEED to network, it just helps produce quality.
 

Ezekel

L11: Posh Member
Dec 16, 2008
818
245
Well that's the thing; for this contest, quality is judged via a competative viewpoint, so in order to create a quality map, testing needs to be done with a competative group. And of course for that to be done, you need to network yourself into that group. Yeah it sucks, but TF2maps.net simply doesn't have the manpower for competative testing.

And of course, networking is definitely a huge help for any map. Getting your map popular can help get it tons of testing and feedback, which helps produce quality. It's not so much that you NEED to network, it just helps produce quality.

actually my point was that popularity of the mapper shouldn't be playing an effect.
however, (and i don't mean any disrepect here. vile does have a good collection of great maps, it's just that mercy failed to meet the gameplay quality i would have expected from him) it's clear that popular people had a leg up in getting through the 1st round of this contest. and i use this as an example of a more general mindset, where the popular people tend to flourish over the underdogs. the popularity of the mapper, rather than the map is what get's the extra playtests.

if you're someone like me, how to get that sort of popularity is something of a mystery. since i try to be a friendly and helpful person, and generally communitative and chatty in communities. but even in my own clan it's always been nigh impossible to get a map tested and feedbacked.
 

Fraz

Blu Hatte, Greyscale Backdrop.
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Dec 28, 2008
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We had the riverbed, but no water to fill it. Which is to say, we had 6v6 servers but for ages nobody in this community actually wanted to play 6v6 to test maps. What little testing happened only happened because some of us had enough non-TF2M people on our friends lists that we could scrounge up 12 people. So again, it still comes down to being willing to play different modes (even if it's not your preferred way of playing) and being willing to find people on a regular basis who will do the same.

The staff could only do so much. For a regular 6v6 contest testing environment, it needed the support of the community, and there the community failed.

I agree with you, that being said: I would've enjoyed more of a partnership with a competitive audience, league or otherwise that could've all been set up before hand. People who would play in leagues, who would judge the maps and provide feedback. A lot of us were new-ish to 6v6 play, and a few of the lobbies I joined when there was 6v6 testing failed for some part, people rage-quitted, crashed or otherwise left us with uneven teams/3v3 etc.

The problem didn't lie with the mapper's or the contest's organiseation, it was the fault of both parties, equally. Having some sort of competitive players set up for judging the maps beforehand (maybe even getting a mini-tournament organised with all the submitted maps at the end)
While the authors could've lobbied more, and tried to get their map played more. I'd say those who tried, generally ended up with the better outcome (My favourite in this contest was bedrock, with deliverance and overlook second and third) and as far as I know, they were pugged at least a couple of times.

Either way, this competition wasn't the best, and now let us put it behind us and move onto the next.
 
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Feb 14, 2008
1,051
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The fact is that this contest was done with very little contact with the competitive community and by people who themselves had very little experience with competitive play. In addition, 6v6 CTF just isn't very good in itself. Sure I've had some fun times, especially with a particularly tense and fast-paced game on Converge, but ultimately 6v6 is built for and always has been built around 5 CP maps and I thought from the very start it was a grave mistake to change from such a popular game mode in 6v6 to one that has 1 map (Turbine), which at the time of the contest starting was played very infrequently and by the time it ended was dropped from most major leagues, mainly because everybody hated playing it.

On the subject of lobby tests, another fatal mistake I think was made. Firstly, 6v6 testing was done mainly by people who make maps and whilst this was all well and good, it ultimately didn't provide players who had much 6v6 experience (with the exception of flame, and dare I say it, myself), and hence any feedback given should have been taken with a pinch of salt. In fact, despite his anarchic reputation, and whatever people think of him, people should have paid attention to flame - because his opinions were representative of what the competitive community (particularly higher levels) would have said. Some people did this, and it shows in the gameplay quality of the maps.

Secondly, lobbies themselves didn't fill up quickly and weren't regular for sure, but very few people actually attempted to even use them. Again, the better maps in the contest had authors who actively used lobbies. On the subject of slow lobbies, it puzzles me why announcements weren't used to help this - there may have been announcement spam sometimes, but the reward from doing so would be much more frequent games. People may also say that the quality of player in such a lobby may be low, but most of us around here are just as much average joes as the next random player who joins from an announcement.

'Tis my opinion.
 

Ravidge

Grand Vizier
aa
May 14, 2008
1,544
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I have no ties to competitive communities, now or before the contest.
I couldn't get any pugs on my map.
I'm a nobody in the competitive channels and groups.

Here is the thing though: I spent time trying to overcome this since it was a part of the competition. It was "competitive ctf" not "make another ctf map". I was prepared to make these efforts before I even started my entry. And I was surprised to see that at one point we had 100 other authors that also came prepared! This really boggled my mind, either people didn't realize what the a comp oriented mapping challenge would entail, or we have a lot of determined mappers around. Though my bet is on the former option.

A normal ctf map takes no time to make at all, and I strongly believe we got at least 2 months extra time just to handle the 'outside hammer' aspect of this mess.

The extra effort was part of the deal, if the author doesn't have the time for it, don't participate :|
We all know things could have been better. But sitting around and waiting for it to happen isn't the way to go about it.
 

Trotim

aa
Jul 14, 2009
1,195
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We had the riverbed, but no water to fill it. Which is to say, we had 6v6 servers but for ages nobody in this community actually wanted to play 6v6 to test maps. What little testing happened only happened because some of us had enough non-TF2M people on our friends lists that we could scrounge up 12 people. So again, it still comes down to being willing to play different modes (even if it's not your preferred way of playing) and being willing to find people on a regular basis who will do the same.

The staff could only do so much. For a regular 6v6 contest testing environment, it needed the support of the community, and there the community failed.
who was the one telling people not to join S and T's team again
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
I agree with you, that being said: I would've enjoyed more of a partnership with a competitive audience, league or otherwise that could've all been set up before hand. People who would play in leagues, who would judge the maps and provide feedback. A lot of us were new-ish to 6v6 play, and a few of the lobbies I joined when there was 6v6 testing failed for some part, people rage-quitted, crashed or otherwise left us with uneven teams/3v3 etc.

Pretty much this sums up my thoughts.

Whilst i have no problems making the effort to organise PUG's and talk to competitive players, any positive response is no garauntee. Even people who approached me and volunteered to play test my map failed to do so when push came to shove. The same was even true of the comp contest judges. I don't think you can seriously tell me the organisers did everything they needed to do with the way things turned out, not unless you're trying to make me laugh. If the contest organisers failed to get the support they needed from the comp community, you can't legitimately chastise nor dismiss feelings of being short changed when contest entrants failed to get the support they needed either. I'm not normally one to use recrimination as a counter-arguement, but seriously, that's more than a little ironic. "Trying harder" is not a full proof method of achieving your goals and only would be if you could predict the future and where to dedicate your assets. Sometimes things just don't go your way no matter how much effort you input, this was a needless variable for such a community event. I imagine many people tried a lot harder than others to get support and still got less than others who put in less effort.

Simply that for the sake of a better contest it would have been sensible to organise a form of partnership or community collaboration because... well look what happened. No one knew what the hell was happening or what was really required of them beyond using hammer to make a ctf map comp that was comp orientated; many people still don't know, mods went awol, judges weren't who they were supposed to be and many maps didn't get sufficient support that they needed. All of which could have been avoided with just a little more careful preperation on the organisers part. Saying it's the mappers duty is a cop out. This is supposed to be a friendly community event... not the real industry.
 
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Terr

Cranky Coder
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Jul 31, 2009
1,590
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Then we had a dam, which willfully made it more difficult (next to impossible) to even fill the lobbies if me and trotim were in them!

The whooshing sound you hear is something going over my head, but I don't know what it was.
 

Shmitz

Old Hat
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Nov 12, 2007
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who was the one telling people not to join S and T's team again

Then we had a dam, which willfully made it more difficult (next to impossible) to even fill the lobbies if me and trotim were in them!

I never told anyone not to join your lobbies. People just learned on their own that if you were participating, they were a waste of time.

So thanks for making a crappy situation worse!
 

Icarus

aa
Sep 10, 2008
2,245
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Selentic was one of the few who gave enough shits to try and get 6v6s set up.

The only thing I noticed were some people trying to convince others not to join.
 

MangyCarface

Mapper
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Feb 26, 2008
1,626
1,325
Agreed, but I would add the following:

I don't get it, who was this in reference to

Speaking for computer geeks who hone their skills to create things with technology, it feels very unjust any time a case comes up where "who you know" ends up being the determining factor for success, utterly trumping the actual quality and effort of the work itself.

Not saying it's not like that in real life, but for myself there is a persistent feeling that certain kinds of work shouldn't be that way.

I mean, ideally it's a mapping contest, not a "who is already chummiest with the competitive community" contest. I know that's not quite what you said, but...

What a ridiculous thing to say... "speaking for computer geeks" look fucking around you, we're all in the same boat there. "Who you know" has nothing to do with making your map work for a certain audience. You either magically infer it in spite of your lack of social skills (which is what you're implying here) or you do the fucking legwork to network and distribute your map... it's not like there's a god damn trust fund to be born into in terms of mapping, you just have to meet people on your own if you want those people to test your map. How hard is that to understand
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
5,441
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What a ridiculous thing to say... "speaking for computer geeks" look fucking around you, we're all in the same boat there. "Who you know" has nothing to do with making your map work for a certain audience. You either magically infer it in spite of your lack of social skills (which is what you're implying here) or you do the fucking legwork to network and distribute your map... it's not like there's a god damn trust fund to be born into in terms of mapping, you just have to meet people on your own if you want those people to test your map. How hard is that to understand

I guess you missed my last post... he's saying that there were many complications that didn't need to exist, but they did anyway.

Doing "legwork" is all fair enough but you're relying on other people, not related to the contest, to respond. Authors could fish communities and appraoch friends of friends for weeks and never get a bite, so blaming authors for not making the effort is unfair. Remembering that most people considered our needs bothersome and didn't understand or didn't care what we were doing here. Whilst those that did were saturated by requests.

This was supposed to be a friendly community event, but instead there were so many outside variables that many people ended up in a disadvantaged position, irrespective and in spite of "legwork". IE many people arbitrarily had it easy and many people arbitrarily had it hard when it came to progressing their maps in the right direction. Which is something that should have been resolved for a more enjoyable and fair experience.

If it was something more professionally orientated, like we were competing for money or in a contest for a company, i'd totally agree with you. But considering the circumstance actions could have been taken to make this whole affair not wind up a joke.
 
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Jack Riguel

L10: Glamorous Member
Jul 19, 2009
721
254
Pretty much this sums up my thoughts.

Whilst i have no problems making the effort to organise PUG's and talk to competitive players, any positive response is no garauntee. Even people who approached me and volunteered to play test my map failed to do so when push came to shove. The same was even true of the comp contest judges. I don't think you can seriously tell me the organisers did everything they needed to do with the way things turned out, not unless you're trying to make me laugh. If contest organisers failed to get the support they needed from the comp community, you can't legitimately chastise nor dismiss feelings of being short changed when contest entrants failed to get the support they needed either. I'm not normally one to use recrimination as a counter-arguement, but seriously, that's more than a little ironic. "Trying harder" is not a full proof method of achieving your goals and only would be if you could predict the future and where to dedicate your assets. Sometimes things just don't go your way no matter how much effort you input, this was a needless variable for such a community event. I imagine many people tried a lot harder than others to get support and still got less than others who put in less effort.

Simply that for the sake of a better contest it would have been sensible to organise a form of partnership or community collaboration because... well look what happened. No one knew what the hell was happening or what was really required of them beyond using hammer to make a ctf map comp that was comp orientated; many people still don't know, mods went awol, judges weren't who they were supposed to be and many maps didn't get sufficient support that they needed. All of which could have been avoided with just a little more careful preperation on the organisers part. Saying it's the mappers duty is a cop out. This is supposed to be a friendly community event... not the real industry.

For those of you who tl;dr grazr, which is likely everyone, I've bolded what needs to b taken out of this.

If there is ever another competitive contest (which is likely seeing as a good deal of folks here have it stuck in their mind they need to please that 5% of the TF2 community) the NEEDS to be done.
 
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