Event ideas?

Armadillo of Doom

Group Founder, Lover of Pie
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Oct 25, 2007
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As you may or may not know, moderator Ryodoan (aka Paul) has been running our gamedays practically since their inception, and done an exemplary job. However, real life stuff always comes first, and he's become quite busy. So I'll be taking over gamedays, and any other activities we schedule. Which brings me to the point of this thread. What can we do besides play testing maps for a few hours each weekend? Now obviously we're not a clan in the traditional sense. However, I don't think this means that we can't get together as a community once in a while. What I need to hear from all of you is the kind of things you'd like to see us hosting. Don't be afraid to throw your ideas out if you think they're too complicated or narrow-focused.

Some events that cross my mind are what we did prior to having this lovely website. Namely, ingame discussion/chatting on various mapping subjects. Basically just flying around the Valve maps and seeing how the pros do it, examining specific parts about building and style choices, etc. A similar idea I had that is less mapping related is to go over strategy for the various maps. Obviously both of these can be done outside the game, but I think it really helps when we can see first-hand what is being talked about.

Anyways, that's all I got for the moment. What kind of events would you guys like to see happening?
 

Shmitz

Old Hat
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Nov 12, 2007
1,128
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Given that the focus of gamedays is usually on testing new maps, even if they might have significant flaws, I think an event that just lets the community have fun might be a nice compliment to that. We could pick a handful of the good custom maps that have come from this community over the last year and play through those for a couple of hours. We could even pick a different theme for each event. One week we might have attack/defend maps. Another might be capture the flag, or gravelpit-style maps, etc.
 

Vander

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Feb 16, 2008
506
215
I second the motion! It would be really cool to have a "best-of TF2Maps.net gameday". We could even have members vote on which maps are included in the rotation.
 

l3eeron

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Jan 4, 2008
593
88
I would love to shout some ideas, but I feel rather hypocritical, considering I've only been to one gameday. Disconnected would also be a good word.....

Are we talking about "knee slapping" fun?

or

Inquisitive type of nocliping and wireframe type of educational fun?

I am an events coordinator over at theville. We have done a few good events as far as "just for fun"

But, I'll assume we're talking mapping fun, so here's my idea:

You could award some good participants here on the site...

Ask a special few to pick one map to dissect.

For example, I would love to pick apart highabovecranes

..or Youme's hoodoo :)
 

Dox

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Oct 26, 2007
588
62
I like all the things we do do, we kill each other and test maps for gamedays, we have awesome mapping contests, we've a GREAT tutorial section, and have even done some collab projects (I think)

We kind of do MORE than clans do..

Only thing I can think of is more collabs but since we have all our own projects we're kind of busy.
 
T

The Asylum

I don't know if anyone's familiar with this, but on one server I was on recently, by typing !rtd you could get yourself a variety of randomly selected affects. Sometimes you'd get noclip for ~10s, have a timebomb tied to you and explode after a countdown, get a brief time in God Mode, or get put on drugs.

I'll have to find that server again. Shit was crazy.
 

Arhurt

L6: Sharp Member
May 7, 2008
315
140
mapping-wise we can have speed run events. Works like this, we set on a timeframe and a theme, say... Vertical arena map, 3 hours.

We log on steam and start doing the project, each finding his own dificulties and talking on steam, sharing an posting wip images to get comments on. After the time period, if we have something we upload to the server and hop on the wips to talk about what went well, what didn't work and share experiences.

It is, though, a demanding task. But could be fun and instructional, help old farts think out of the box and the newbies get some cool tricks of the trade realtime.
 

cornontheCoD

L420: High Member
Mar 25, 2008
437
70
Well, for Tf2 Custom Gamers, we were thinking of doing a "gameday" type thing of finding out which custom maps are good.
 

TheDarkerSideofYourShadow

L10: Glamorous Member
Apr 12, 2008
792
286
I like Shmitz' suggestion. Do 3-4 finished custom maps, and just test our in game skills against one another.
 

AWESOME-O

L10: Glamorous Member
Mar 20, 2008
779
132
I like arthurt idea, we also can do a mini-podcast only about mapping :)
 

AWESOME-O

L10: Glamorous Member
Mar 20, 2008
779
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if we get volunteers to help. (+ a teamspeak server, or a vent server?)
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
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Teamspeak sounds pretty neat to me. Or vent..

Steamchat does have voice but it's a pretty messy business, especially if someone has a dodgy mic.

Of course we'd need to set one up. I've been talking to a couple of my "irl" friends about setting one up since there all a bunch of nerds. I'll look into costs etc..
 

AWESOME-O

L10: Glamorous Member
Mar 20, 2008
779
132
Ah, we can use my clans teamspeak, 20 slots, so some can hear it live :)
 

drp

aa
Oct 25, 2007
2,273
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i can set up a speech client on the tf2server
that shouldnt be an issue.

if you guys need something, let me know, i can probably arrange it.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
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I suppose the question would be would anyone/enough people use it to make it worth while?

Perhaps we should create a poll to find out?

edit: pepper posted before me :p

You could set up ts2 along with the game server?
 
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AWESOME-O

L10: Glamorous Member
Mar 20, 2008
779
132
btw, if where doing a #-weekly podcast, we also need to know who would like to help
 

Armadillo of Doom

Group Founder, Lover of Pie
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Oct 25, 2007
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Good stuff so far :) I think a podcast would be pretty neat, though once a month seems more reasonable. A speed-mapping thing is also a definite possibility. And there's no reason why we can't just set some days for everyone to hop on the server and play. On that note, I'm going to begin the arduous process of cleaning up the server; removing old gameday tests, and adding some of the newer finished maps. And we can always just dick around while we're playing; all melee, sniper contests, etc. I think we're off to a good start :)
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
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Just a suggestion, on the side of things.. but a little heads up on project competitions would probably be a good idea. An announcement of a competition a fortnight before it starts perhaps. Not necasserily outlining rules etc, where people might unfairly decide to get a head start before the competition. But simply "A mapping/model/texture competition will ensue on XX/XX/XX for approximately X amount of days; rules TBA". Rather than "here's a competition, it will run untill the end of the month", in which someone without projects can possibly produce many more admitions or something of greater quality than someone who enters it late. Hopefully this will produce fairer results too.

In my experience, a suggestion is normally made in steamchat, considered by admins, and then it's thrown into swing on the forums in a matter of a few days, with little more than a deadline.

Though it was a fairly long running competition I found it hard to get involved in the "building" competition whilst creating my own map. But i didn't much want to put aside the near completion of my current map for a small competition. I produced half a building that wasn't worth admitting, and turned out to be somewhat of a waste of time.

I know it seems a bit fussy but a heads up of a competition would allow people to better time manage their undertakings when they can expect the workload ahead of them. To be able to perform in both the competitions and their own projects, as well as with life things.

I understand that ultimately the competitions are for fun and encouraging the production of custom material in the community, but the competitions seem somewhat open and hairy.

I'm not sure what anyone else thinks..