Contest idea thread!

Yeah 65 pages, I've only read the last few at most.

I think Koth is liked generally, definitely more than arena. Would be easier for people without a lot of experience to get involved and learn. testing would be quick. (maybe have test days of just these with 2 round limits).

it's a small map, so good for a short time period.

'giving up' your source map would just be in the spirit of the comp. Nobody should be too attached to a small fairly simple layout. And in the end they would still be listed as co-creator. Layout artist or whatever. So it's not as much giving it up as sharing it. And if you can't detail your own layout then you're not attached to that as your ideal layout for a specific project.
(Like I have an idea for a map I want to do now, fairly specific in layout and details, so I wouldn't build that for a contest like this)

There hasn't been a koth_contest. (afaik)

I like the idea of making our own artpass.

I always feel like I'm the only one on TF2 that actually enjoys Arena.

ardysqrrl said:

map battles with a "secret ingredient" would be better in fact I am strongly considering sponsoring it

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Indeed.
I sometimes suggest a 4 hour mapping contest just like Iron Mapper, no one seems to have the want. My only guess is that it's a burnout for 3-4 hours straight. Pheh.

Actually I find I do my best mapping if I can dedicate 4+ straight hours of doing it. I think the primary problem of a 4-hour contest would be aligning time zones and schedules for maximum participation. For that reason I think a 24-hour time period at MINIMUM would be reasonable I think.

For a map battle, I think this is what I was thinking.

Get a bunch of people who want to enter and create a round robin with people pairing off. People don't know who their versing, they only know if they're red or blue. Start off the first round with something simple, maybe an arena.

Each of the contestants is given a template map with the middle section of the map, the control point, some red and blue dev textures for where the map has to join up (a.k.a a player has to be able to run both ways across this line) a spawn room and the boundaries of the map.

They have to make a map that follows the following rules.

• You must only build on your side of the map
• Your map must join up to the main area where marked
• You can only use a certain selection of entities (needs to be decided)
• The player must be able to access all parts of the map from all the map joins (e.g. you can't have a map join, then a ledge which you can't jump up onto, or you can't have a map join, which doesn't travel down to spawn)
• The map must be made in a week from the time the template is released
• You may detail it in any way you choose.
• You can't create any map errors (e.g. leaks)
• Probably more important rules that I can't think of

After this is done the players all upload their .vmfs named after the contest and themselves (e.g. battle_red_flame586) and someone combines the maps together according to the round robin and deletes any parts of the maps which aren't allowed.
A day is decided when all the maps are played. The map is played a certain amount of times with teams switched after each game and scrambled after each round.
The half of the map with the most wins wins the comp and moves up to the next round. The looser is disgraced.
In the case of a draw, it goes to a vote of which map looks the best.

I would be very happy to help adjudicate, judge or run this contest if necessarily. Also, ardy, what's your secret ingredient???

flame sorry I have to say I dislike your contest idea on several grounds, the primary of which being that it ignores holistic map design and instead focuses on map design as a series of rooms, which is a bad philosophy to take, I think.

As for the "secret ingredient", it would be a bit of brushwork that contestants would have to incorporate into their map. The more creative the implementation, the better!

I understand the problem that my contest isn't holistic.

The point is more of an investigation, not into individual mappers skills like most contests (we know YM is an awesome mapper and I suck, it's going to be the exact same result in every contest we have), but as an investigation into how certain design aspects in maps work for or against layout, map balance and the flow of a map and how people play it in general. Consider it an experiment if you will. I understand people mightn't like their contests like that, but I thought it could be an interesting change from the norm and we could get some interesting results from it.

I think the problem combining maps in that way is there is no possible way to balance them, so after the test round they are basically (probably are at least) unplayable.

poly count modelers do something similar to map battles, but they just challenge each other. Set criteria in a thread (ie: Wow ork, 5 days, 2000 polys, diffuse map only) and everyone on the forum can watch the progress.

That works good because it's not formal, it's just between a few people and they can set it up to their schedule.

Any timed battle on a large scale is going to be hard to fit everyone's schedule. Maybe if it's a week long it would be better. But something so short won't lend itself to very good or playable maps imo. Sure, maybe some mappers could whip out an entire map, or control point area or something in a week. But it doesn't give much time for testing/refinement.
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Secret ingredient might be OK, but seems wide open and generic. Possibly quite gimmicky too. I guess it depends on what the ingredient is, right now it's a vague idea.
It could also be a limiting factor on decent maps.
Say I'm making a space based plr map and the ingredient is a pond. How would that work? Or would the ingredient be given first and everyone ends up with a pond in their map?

Sgt Frag said:

Secret ingredient might be OK, but seems wide open and generic. Possibly quite gimmicky too. I guess it depends on what the ingredient is, right now it's a vague idea.
It could also be a limiting factor on decent maps.
Say I'm making a space based plr map and the ingredient is a pond. How would that work? Or would the ingredient be given first and everyone ends up with a pond in their map?

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The "secret ingredient" would be a piece of somewhat abstract brushwork which is open to interpretation and specific detailing. One man's bridge is another man's support structure is another man's tunnel. "A pond" would not be a very good secret ingredient for that reason...

Sgt Frag said:

Koth 2 stage collab contest (no not 2 stages of koth, 2 stages of contest)

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This sounds like fun! Best to wait until a few weeks after the current contest ends so more people would be willing to participate.

I rarely ever participate in the major contests, don't know why..

Sgt Frag said:

Secret ingredient might be OK, but seems wide open and generic. Possibly quite gimmicky too. I guess it depends on what the ingredient is, right now it's a vague idea.
It could also be a limiting factor on decent maps.
Say I'm making a space based plr map and the ingredient is a pond. How would that work? Or would the ingredient be given first and everyone ends up with a pond in their map?

Click to expand...

This is why I told ardy I'll do a test run for him... I'm looking for something like this to do...

Let me be a guinea pig ardy

I will let anyone be a guinea pig I just need to make the ingredient

Bring it oooonnnn...

Count me in as well, I guess. Depends on if I can find the time.

ardysqrrl said:

I will let anyone be a guinea pig I just need to make the ingredient

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Asdfasdfasdf
I'm in.

Sure, why not.

I think a good contest idea would be a new game play mode, Payload Tug-O-War.

Basically a PL map with the cart in the very middle of the map and a team has to control it back to their base. The more people on it, the faster it moves.

Watch out for the other team with a demo+krit medic. Wipe out the entire other team, then jump on it and bring it back towards your side!

I think it could be really fun.

DrkEagle said:

I think a good contest idea would be a new game play mode, Payload Tug-O-War.

Basically a PL map with the cart in the very middle of the map and a team has to control it back to their base. The more people on it, the faster it moves.

Watch out for the other team with a demo+krit medic. Wipe out the entire other team, then jump on it and bring it back towards your side!

I think it could be really fun.

Click to expand...

http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=4432

wasn't exactly perfect as a gamemode so i'm not sure if it'd be interesting or fun to have a whole contest about

Best castle themed map, any game type, just has to have the med-evil theme.