Major Mapping Contest #4

[Ezekel]

i really don't like this idea of elimination without feeback/scoring.

i, and i'm sure every other mapper who submitted to the submission thread have put a lot of time and effort into building, testing, updating based on feedback and beautifying their maps. we've all worked hard. if that were to suddenly come down to a case of "sorry, you just don't make the cut" then that really would sting.

i also worry that the bigger names, and more popular people will have a better chance to safely get through such a down-sizing effort. at the very least, because they are better known, they have had more leverage to publicise their map. i posted up WIP threads for mine all over the place, but i don't actually have the connections with server admins, nor am i online/available when the bulk of tf2 activity happens (timezoning and all) to try and encourage people to give my maps (and i'm not just talking contest maps. this is a general truism here) a shot.

in the past 2 contests (pl and plr/adctf), i have submitted admittedly quite poor entries. one from lack of experience and the other from lack of time to work on the map (and it's underlying concept). however in both cases the feedback i received from the judges was invaluable to me. i really relish those long feedback posts, if not from the very least because getting forum/typed feedback for me is VERY hard.
now though i have no illusions of grandeur (i think i have made strong entries and have followed all the rules, but there's quite a few high calibre entries to contend with), even if i don't win, at least i can rest assured i'd A: get exposure and B: get high quality feedback.

people who have followed all the rules, researched the paradigm of 6v6 comp play (which despite what people say, i remember being in the original announcement, because i planned and researched around this idea before even starting any mappping for the contest) should get something out of this... feedback and a number next to their map on a leader-board list (even if you're at the bottom of said list, there's still some pride/prestige involved in that).

i know that i, like most others, have pointed out a reluctance to the idea of cutbacks without actually offering any alternative. and the truth is, we're all biased in some regards. equality is a brilliant idea, especially when your not the one having to work to make sure it's implemented. so what i'm saying is that i have great respect for the higher ups here, who have put in all the work and effort (and for free, mind you) to arrange these contests for us in the first place.

well one thing i'll say: asking to remove all alpha version submissions won't really make a dent. i thought there actually wasn't any alphas, turns out there is one... so that'd only cut it to 25, and i'm sure Grim Tuesday would probably be a lil upset about that. since i'm assuming he submitted it at least for the high quality feedback that submitted contest maps have received in the past.
so can people please stop calling out this suggestion. it won't fix things. and neither will "people who don't think they can win should step down" - i doubt any entry in the contest was submitted by people who didn't expect to win... i know i didn't enter my submissions without believing they can stand up against the other submissions


i think i'll end on this note:
the tf2maps competitive CTF contest has become almost a microcosm for britain's current economic and political situation.

 

[Icarus]

Either we cut down the number of maps to a more manageable quantity, or we force people to vote on all 26 maps.

The latter is going to end up with massive amounts of half-assing that helps nobody.

Honestly, I didn't even bother voting on previous contests that had 20+ entries.


I have faith in the admins to carry out the prelims as fairly as possible.

 

[Geal]

Random idea that's probably not the best in the world but I figure I might as well throw it on the table.

We could have every who successfully submitted a map be required to give commentary on and rate all other 25 maps. That way each contestant is guaranteed at least 25 scores in the public grade.

Of course getting accurate reviews for 25 separate maps is probably too difficult to expect from the average person, as not everyone has the time to devote to such testing. And the fact that not all maps are always available on a server with enough people for decent results. Like I said earlier, just figured I'd throw the idea around, can't really hurt.

 

[Ezekel]

Either we cut down the number of maps to a more manageable quantity, or we force people to vote on all 26 maps.

The latter is going to end up with massive amounts of half-assing that helps nobody.

Honestly, I didn't even bother voting on previous contests that had 20+ entries.


I have faith in the admins to carry out the prelims as fairly as possible.

not sure if "having faith" in something means quite the same when you're not even affected about it either way (since you decided to pull out of the contest)

 

[Randdalf]

http://vanillatf2.org/2010/05/competitive-ctf-contest-final-entries/

 

[The Political Gamer]

I much as I have to say it flame/Icarus etc. have a very good point when it comes to the shear number of maps. I really don't like the idea about booting out people but I mean lets be honest here; can you really review all 26 equally and fairly? Thats means having played every single one of them in more then one 6v6 game and voting on them biased off that and not 12v12.

 

[MangyCarface]

Y'all talkin behind my back holler to my bros for defending me a bit~ I've always tried to help anyone who asked... not sure where everyone gets the arrogance thing from. And just to clarify one thing to littleedge, not a teenager and haven't been for a few years.

I think that finding out how to get your map run and then performing the tests needed is a huge part of mapping. You can't crawl up into hammer and then expect your map to garner testing of its own accord... you have to spend the time to meet people and make contacts just like in any aspect in the world.

I do agree that without a preliminary the judging of all the maps will be rather widely spread and can't result in indepth analysis, just too many for everyone to fully pick apart... but, I really hate the idea of peoples' maps getting excluded without much reasoning, and I remember having my maps tossed aside before, it's really crushing after so much work.

One way that might alleviate this is to simply have everyone rank the maps in order of how much they like them (everyone = either judges or contestants or the public or everyone), and then tallying up the #s for each map, and ordering from lowest (most popular) to highest. It means everyone is pretty much guaranteed the satisfaction of knowing that people played enough to rank them and it's not a binary thing where they're either excluded or not, until the judges decide to take X off the top as the next round of contestants... It's pretty shitty that in contests someone has to lose, because I think we're pretty much all friends to some degree in the community, and we want the newcomers to feel welcomed too...

...But, I'm not really able to participate in the community right now so take my words as you will.

 

[Ezekel]

well the problem with your suggestion mangy is that there's simply so many maps, that well it'd take 1/2 a day of non-stop playing just to play all of them once. in other words, some maps will see more play than others. especially if the rotation means that some come up during times of low activity (night times, school times, etc). - afterall all the maps last for 1/2 hr no matter how many players or captures, which means that every map will come up 2 times a day, shifting by 1/2 an hr on the clock each day.
we could quickly see a case of a small group of maps getting lots of thumbs ups, whilst a fair number will receive little-to-no-attention at all.

on the note of rotation, i think also that having the rotation be randomly mixed up (or shifted by 6hrs) every 24hrs might be a good idea - so that during peak playtimes there will be different maps coming up.

 

[Flame]

Y'all talkin behind my back holler to my bros for defending me a bit~ I've always tried to help anyone who asked... not sure where everyone gets the arrogance thing from. And just to clarify one thing to littleedge, not a teenager and haven't been for a few years.

I think that finding out how to get your map run and then performing the tests needed is a huge part of mapping. You can't crawl up into hammer and then expect your map to garner testing of its own accord... you have to spend the time to meet people and make contacts just like in any aspect in the world.

I do agree that without a preliminary the judging of all the maps will be rather widely spread and can't result in indepth analysis, just too many for everyone to fully pick apart... but, I really hate the idea of peoples' maps getting excluded without much reasoning, and I remember having my maps tossed aside before, it's really crushing after so much work.

One way that might alleviate this is to simply have everyone rank the maps in order of how much they like them (everyone = either judges or contestants or the public or everyone), and then tallying up the #s for each map, and ordering from lowest (most popular) to highest. It means everyone is pretty much guaranteed the satisfaction of knowing that people played enough to rank them and it's not a binary thing where they're either excluded or not, until the judges decide to take X off the top as the next round of contestants... It's pretty shitty that in contests someone has to lose, because I think we're pretty much all friends to some degree in the community, and we want the newcomers to feel welcomed too...

...But, I'm not really able to participate in the community right now so take my words as you will.

i love you

 

[Tinker]

Best would be to contact some people who haven't seen the maps ever, at all, and invite them to play a few scrims on them. That way, it isn't just defined to one clique.

To expand on this a little:

How hard would it be to have get a medium-sized group of people who play competitive TF2 - not necessarily top division or crazily good at the game, but enough experience to know how teams work in 6v6 and how the map should support that - and have them play random-teamed 6v6s over a period of time? There are a lot of people who play competitive, don't underestimate it, and making a few advertisements on gotfrag and etf2l forums should get you quite a few people ready. Then, have this group play a few matches on each map (if it has enough people, this could be done in a reasonably short timespan), and have them each say whether they like or dislike the map or are neutral about it. Remember, preliminaries are about eliminating those who are not going to win, not rate the maps. In an ideal situation, it would be similar people having seen the each map at least once and rated it, and a group composed of people who haven't been near this contest at all and are seeing all maps for the first time.

It seems a fair way to do knock-outs to me - however, I don't know how feasible something like this is.

 

[Flame]

im gonna be blunt and "flame-like" and say some of the maps dont deserve full public voting.

judge writeups for the dropped maps im sure can be done, or at least id be down to do it on a per-map basis, but asking the players and the "staff" to do full analyses on 26 maps is preposterous

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Although Flame is correct, the issue is in choosing which maps are not up to public voting. And no, I would rather not have flame do it him self.

 

[Tinker]

im gonna be blunt and "flame-like" and say some of the maps dont deserve full public voting.

judge writeups for the dropped maps im sure can be done, or at least id be down to do it on a per-map basis, but asking the players and the "staff" to do full analyses on 26 maps is preposterous

well, that's kind of what I'm trying to say here

have fast and easy knock-outs and then, if the map creator wants it, they could always ask for feedback from a few specific people, but nothing forced

 

[grazr]

In the last annual contest (with 16 entires) public voters were only expected to vote for half the ctf and half the plr maps for their votes to get counted. I thought this was a good way of motivating people to play as many of the maps as possible so that their votes would be taken into account in the scoring process; but did not require them to seriously go out of their way. Most people voted for way more than half anyway which just goes to show member willingness to get involved.

13 ctf maps isn't so bad... Whilst the official judges knew they were going to have at least 20 maps to deal with if judging the plr/ctf was any hint to the TF2maps contest popularity. People knew there were going to be more and ctf just made it easier for more people to enter beta stage maps since it's such an easy and smaller map (generally rotated layouts) to map for. If you asked to become a judge and are complaining about the number of maps to review then i have little sympathy in that. Maybe you should have thought way more seriously before jumping in head first and donating X amount of your time. Sorry if i sound like a douche but that's just the way i feel about it. Being an official judge is a privilage not a right and you should treat that position with respect and honour.

 

[Ezekel]

asking people to look at 13 maps isn't really asking much over the entirety of the voting-peroid. i think grazrs suggestion might be the best one so far

 

[Grim Tuesday]

I agree with grazr as well. However, the only issue comes down to the fact that people might only play the well known and advertised maps, thereby being only 13 maps with loads of votes. I do feel that the judges should vote on all maps, and give all even amounts of feedback. They asked for it.

 

[Shmitz]

Being an official judge is a privilage not a right and you should treat that position with respect and honour.

Privilege is a really odd word to use here. It would be far more accurate to say it's a responsibility. It's not that judges asked for the responsibility so much as offered to take it. Yes, they have to demonstrate that they are qualified, but you present a rather one-sided view. Don't forget that if we saddle the judges with too much work, they'll either say screw it and leave, or the quality of their assessments will suffer. Either way it hurts the contest.

Judges themselves are not the only ones who need to view the position with respect.

 

[Icarus]

You guys are treating the judges like machines :/

 

[HeaH]

The judges are machines

 

[Tinker]

Being a judge would be a privilege if they got paid for it

it's purely voluntary, that means you shouldn't put days of work on their shoulders