Major Mapping Contest #4

[YM]

Sorry guys, we were less than a week from the deadline, that isn't really the time to be having critical tests (ie you should have already got gameplay down) so no exception is made for any post-update-server-break.
The outage did not last long enough to warrant an extension as I've said before. Extending the contest by just a day or two to match the outage would not have been sensible since it offers extra margin for people to get confused and miss the deadline. If the outage had lasted longer we'd have given a lengthy extension of a week or more and made damn sure everyone knew when the new deadline is.
Not changing the deadline is the safest bet, since no one can suddenly miss it and say "Oh I thought it was extended 3 days not just 2".

THE DEADLINE - CLICK ME

oh yeh, are we allowed to submit entries as .bz2? cos the instructions say zip file, but both submissions so far have been in bz2

I want zip but no one ever gives a toss what I ask for and gives me all sorts of assorted filetypes. The important thing is that 7zip can open it and it has a bsp inside. If it can't be opened by 7zip and/or has no bsp in it it'll get booted.

 

[Engineer]

I have a 9600GT too.
So thats why it is crashing so often :facepalm:

But thats ok, I already quit the contest some time ago.

 

[DaBeatzProject]

Yep, it happens in the L4D2 Authoring Tools's hammer as well. I already emailed valve about it, but without any response. Maybe more people should point them at it?

 

[Ezekel]

Sorry guys, we were less than a week from the deadline, that isn't really the time to be having critical tests (ie you should have already got gameplay down) so no exception is made for any post-update-server-break.
The outage did not last long enough to warrant an extension as I've said before. Extending the contest by just a day or two to match the outage would not have been sensible since it offers extra margin for people to get confused and miss the deadline. If the outage had lasted longer we'd have given a lengthy extension of a week or more and made damn sure everyone knew when the new deadline is.
Not changing the deadline is the safest bet, since no one can suddenly miss it and say "Oh I thought it was extended 3 days not just 2".

THE DEADLINE - CLICK ME




I want zip but no one ever gives a toss what I ask for and gives me all sorts of assorted filetypes. The important thing is that 7zip can open it and it has a bsp inside. If it can't be opened by 7zip and/or has no bsp in it it'll get booted.

alright. well i only really raised it cos one of the posts (mangy carface's) was postedby you and is a bz2. well i'll stick with bz2, since that's what i've already uploaded.


also as an aside: hammer's been crashing more frequently for me too lately. chiefly, i've had it crashing a few times when browsing the materials browser, which it's never done before for me. i'm using an nvidia geforce 8800 gts

 

[grazr]

stuff

Yea, i wasn't asking for more time, i just figured there were more pro's than con's regarding a weekend extension. But you're the one running it so...

 

[Noggin]

So just to make sure... you just have to have the map posted in the contest entries sub-forum for it to be judged?

 

[YM]

No, in here

http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=12822

 

[littleedge]

I find your logic terribly flawed, YM.

You say people will get confused, but if you change the date in the Rule's thread, you've done nothing incorrect - people should be checking it. Mappers lost nearly two days, and depending on country or sleeping habits, they could have missed closer to three.
The excuse of somebody to say "I thought it was three days extension, not two" is dumb and just as bad as saying "My dog ate my homework." It's the mapper's responsibility to submit their map in time. If they fail at putting it in in time, it's their fault, too bad.

Sorry guys, we were less than a week from the deadline, that isn't really the time to be having critical tests (ie you should have already got gameplay down) so no exception is made for any post-update-server-break.

Understandable.

I want zip but no one ever gives a toss what I ask for and gives me all sorts of assorted filetypes. The important thing is that 7zip can open it and it has a bsp inside. If it can't be opened by 7zip and/or has no bsp in it it'll get booted.

Be the judge. No .zip, not accepted. People should follow the rules.

 

[Noggin]

Thanks YM.

 

[drp]

Mappers lost nearly two days, and depending on country or sleeping habits, they could have missed closer to three.

5 months to finish. That's roughly 150 days. For argument's sake lets say you missed 3 full days.

Thats 2% of lost time. ~2%.

 

[Geal]

5 months to finish. That's roughly 150 days. For argument's sake lets say you missed 3 full days.

Thats 2% of lost time. ~2%.

Oh heavens no. Won't someone think of the children? :O

 

[littleedge]

For argument's sake...

You told us we had the five months. So 100%. We lost 2 days. We only had 98% of the total time that you said we had. We should be given 100%.


Don't get me wrong, I get what you're saying, Drp.

 

[drp]

For argument's sake...

You told us we had the five months. So 100%. We lost 2 days. We only had 98% of the total time that you said we had. We should be given 100%.


Don't get me wrong, I get what you're saying, Drp.

i understand. And if it was because of us that you lost time in hammer, YM would likely agree to extend.

Final word is no extension.

Good luck to everyone who is entering.

 

[grazr]

For argument's sake...

You told us we had the five months. So 100%. We lost 2 days. We only had 98% of the total time that you said we had. We should be given 100%.


Don't get me wrong, I get what you're saying, Drp.

What's more the impact was a lot more destructive than just losing 2% of access time to hammer. The ramifications go further than that and being so late in the contest its negative affect is only amplified. I'll get a beta out no problem (i hope) and i don't doubt this has not ruined anyones chances, but i could have had a better map out if it wasn't for that delay and no extension. The fact it's 2% is largely irrelavent, if it had happened on the last 2 days of the contest there would have been a lot more complaints and i think an extension would have had to have been given, but that's still the same amount of down time (and the same amount of "confusion").

I'm not trying to complain or whine here, i'm just saying I do agree with Little on this point; and that "people would get confused" is not really an acceptable reason for not going ahead with an extension. A deadline is a pretty important thing and if you arn't paying proper attention to it you deserve to be disqualified. "we didn't think there was a need for an extension" would have sufficed "we didn't want to confuse people" just seems silly.

 

[YM]

Forgive me for not simply saying "it's not worth it"

I wasn't trying to pass off our reason for not giving a short extension as it being confusing.

Now we're all here making a point of getting the time right, so WE will, but all the people (and there will be many) who aren't following this closely. We've had late entries to every single contest we've run, I don't expect this to be any different.

From my view, I can only see more people with late entries (or feeling short changed by two days if they didn't realise there was an extension) for an extension of a day or two.

For a longer one we would have enough time to shout about the new deadline, and more importantly everyone would have a longer time to absorb the new deadline.


Just stop wasting time discussing it and go make up the lost time already!

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Hey, how are you guys gona deal with the coming out of the engie update during the testing? Wont it skew maps so people think they are too easy to defend if everyone is playing engie?

 

[Geal]

If that's a problem, server admins could just place class restrictions on the servers being used for testing. Limit number of engies to 1 or 2.

Of course this won't effect people who test them on their own servers.

 

[Rikka]

Hey, how are you guys gona deal with the coming out of the engie update during the testing? Wont it skew maps so people think they are too easy to defend if everyone is playing engie?

This is a competitive CTF contest. Most of the testing should be done in 6v6, so engies overuse shouldn't be a problem. As for any testing done in bigger play counts, you just have to hope people are smart enough to realize any map breaks with class imbalance.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

I agree with class limits, but unless TF2M pulls something out of their ass quite quickly, almost all the testing is gona be done in 12v12 pub...

 

[grazr]

TF2maps has temporary 12 man servers, i hardly think they are unprepared for 6vs6 judging sessions, even if 6vs6 testing was a shambles.