Map competition from Team Interrobang

impulsenine

L1: Registered
Aug 7, 2009
3
3
Hey all, I'm [!?] impulse nine from Team Interrobang (TF2 Wiki entry). We've been around for about 16 months now, with over 100 active members and 6 TF2 servers, and while we're very happy with/at our servers, we wanted to get more involved in the TF2 community at large. we decided a map-making competition would be a good way to go about that. Is there a good way to work with TF2Maps to bring in people to this?

The very short version of the contest is:

  • It's open to everyone
  • Maps should have a theme of "Verticality," however the maker decides to execute it
  • We'll provide a server to test maps on
  • Maps will be judged on specific metrics
  • We've gathered $300 for 3 top prizes ($200/$75/$25)

The full list of rules is here.

Again, we don't want to interfere or distract TF2Maps' community of builders. We just want to see more awesome maps and want to get as many quality entries as possible. Please let me know if this is possible; I am available via a variety of chat clients and, of course, Steam.
 

Trotim

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Jul 14, 2009
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Hm. I gotta admit, I only skimmed through the text, but the Team Interrobang "underwriting notice" seems pretty forced. I don't know... things like these don't help immersion in my opinion, and to be frank I never heard of your community before. It's not like creators ever add their names to (proper) maps, either.
Would it be accepted to make a version with the notice and another without it?

All that legal mumbojumbo is exaggerated too if you ask me - when you release a map it's pretty obvious that everyone is allowed to host and play it wherever and whenever they want? Or did I miss something there? Is the map exclusive to your servers then?
 

Ida

deer
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Jan 6, 2008
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This seems like a cool contest, I'd love to enter, since my existing map in development (Mud Bath, in my signature) has a theme of verticality already. The rules seem mostly fine, but...

Use includes running the map on game servers, redistributing the map so other servers may use it, and using elements or the map in total as a foundation for other works.
Sorry, I will not let anyone take parts of my map and use it in their own. This would be fine if I just made a little scene or room as a prefab, but I'm not cool with a map I'm going to spend months on being picked apart and reused.

In an area regularly seen by all players, space must be available for to place an underwriting notice as provided by Team Interrobang. This notice will be approximately 1/2 the size of a standard resupply and isavailable here.
I don't like this one either. If I'm going to place an ad for Team Interrobang in my map, I'd practically be dedicating my map to you. I'm not even in the group, so I have no reason to do that. If you were to replace this with something subtle, I'd accept this rule. The current TF2Maps PLR/CTF contest has a rule stating that you must place signs for calculatedChaos and TF2Maps in your map, but this is fine because they're subtle and don't directly advertise either site.

I'm not requesting a rule change, I just want you to know that if you were to change these rules to something more acceptable, I would definitely enter.
 

Micnax

Back from the dead (again)
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Apr 25, 2009
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Q: I'm confused by the by the licensing section, who am I giving what?
A: You're simply giving Team Interrobang the right to operate, modify and redistribute the map without restriction.
That put me off. Sorry, but like Muffin said, I wouldn't be willing to let a hard worked map get modified and redistributed.
 

impulsenine

L1: Registered
Aug 7, 2009
3
3
Awesome, this is exactly what I needed to know. I'll bring these concerns back to the team and see what they think:

  • Apparently, 'signatures' aren't common in good custom maps.
  • Obvious parts are obvious (anyone can host, etc.)
  • Licensing language forced and sounds bad

The 'brought to you by Team Interrobang' thing was a way of getting our name out there; besides wanting to play on awesome maps, that is the reason we can justify putting money down.

I don't like this one either. If I'm going to place an ad for Team Interrobang in my map, I'd practically be dedicating my map to you. I'm not even in the group, so I have no reason to do that. If you were to replace this with something subtle, I'd accept this rule. The current TF2Maps PLR/CTF contest has a rule stating that you must place signs for calculatedChaos and TF2Maps in your map, but this is fine because they're subtle and don't directly advertise either site.

We actually discussed how to use the contest to get our name out quite a bit, but we came to two conclusions that may be erroneous:

First, we figured putting up a small poster would be easier with $200 in the mail.
Second, while we realized that people could probably integrate Team Interrobang's URL into their design, we were more concerned with people making awesome maps. Having a standard VTF guaranteed both that it wouldn't distract the map-builder nor cause the headache of defining how subtle "too subtle to ever be noticed" is. Figuring out what the best map is will hopefully be subjective and difficult enough without us having to consider that. And I know I want to give the award to the best map without having to think about that.

Now, I didn't write the licensing language, so I don't want to interpret them and put words in the mouth of the person who did (that would be [!?]Arcanus), but knowing him I can say with total certainty there was some good reason for it. I'll get back to you guys about it.
 

Arcanus

L1: Registered
Aug 8, 2009
2
3
This competition is somewhat my brainchild and I'd be glad to change terms to make it work. A previous poster rightly points at that he or she has never heard of us. That's kinda the point, we're not a TF2 resource site, we're simply players trying to run a contest to promote map creation in an area our membership considers under-represented. Clarifications:

Right to redistribute - is required for us to be able to post the map for people to download. Without the right to redistribute it'd be like having a piece of art and not being able to show anyone or buying a book you couldn't relend. The fact that it's non-exclusive means the author can do what ever he or she wants with it as well. This isn't like a photography contest where the image taker loses rights.

Redistribution without Restriction - Joodude mentioned this put him off. My intention here was that the submitter wouldn't have the right to say "you can give it to anyone but x". We can change that to "the submitter has no right to specify to who or whom the map may be redistributed".

Underwriting Notice - I'd be fine with a sign. I'm in no way familiar with the mechanics of map creation and if we could bang out a semi-unique notifier of some sort that'd suffice in my book.

Part of this comes from my ignorance of maps. As I said before, we're merely players. If maps go through a compiling process maybe I need to specify that terms only apply to the completed bsps and that map artists aren't given away their secret sauce. Submissions would be free but not open source if that's a reasonable comparison.
 

Icarus

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Sep 10, 2008
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Regardless of all the legal hooplah, I'm still very skeptical of the success of this contest.

I don't believe that maps that focus on vertical combat can ever be more than mediocre.
 
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impulsenine

L1: Registered
Aug 7, 2009
3
3
Regardless of all the legal hooplah, I'm still very skeptical of the success of this contest.

I don't believe that maps that focus on vertical combat can ever be more than mediocre.

2 thoughts:

1: How long do you think we should give people to work on this stuff? We plan on hosting servers for testing, so maybe a very long development time would be best?
2: I think a contest would be a good way to find out.
 

Arcanus

L1: Registered
Aug 8, 2009
2
3
Verticalilty was pulled as the theme as on asking an array of players, that's a mechanic players thought maps implemented poorly. If you think it'd be valuable, we can repoll, ask what other basic game actions are underdone. Most map competitions seem to have a graphical theme. I was looking for something more detailed regarding player experience.

Another one I was chewing on was "fog". I haven't seen a map such that players had a short range of view but not a short weapons path with a terrain that would require communication.
 

Icarus

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Sep 10, 2008
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I know it's kind of late to suddenly change the contest entirely, but why don't you try doing the same thing we're doing and have a contest based on a game mode?

For instance, I keep hearing that the map pool is seriously lacking some good 5CP or Attack/Defend CP maps.
 

Terr

Cranky Coder
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Jul 31, 2009
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It sounds to me like a lot of "verticality" in maps is primarily a Scout/Soldier/Demoman thing. Most other classes don't benefit much from it or lack the same ability to reliably use it. Maybe that's what you're goin' for, I dunno.
 
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MrAlBobo

L13: Stunning Member
Feb 20, 2008
1,059
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i don't really see much of a problem with verticality...
but then maybe I am thinking of it in a different sense, I don't see it as a skyscraper, attacking people above and below you scenario. I just see it as the map having multiple heights it can play at, with each having various advantages and drawbacks.
 

Waif

L7: Fancy Member
Mar 22, 2009
412
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i don't really see much of a problem with verticality...
but then maybe I am thinking of it in a different sense, I don't see it as a skyscraper, attacking people above and below you scenario. I just see it as the map having multiple heights it can play at, with each having various advantages and drawbacks.

Yeah, it adds a whole new aspect and variation to standard play.
I guess its also good for rocket/ sticky jumping and scouts in comp.
 

Radaka

L420: High Member
May 24, 2009
491
244
I'm working on an A/D cp map right now that focuses on verticality, and I just read this. If I wanted to enter it into the contest, do I have to stick some sort of logo for your clan in it?