TF2M Annual Major Contest # 3

[grazr]

woops, that's my bad, supposed to be a *_c

But i got it working now. Still had some corrupt files from the original download that didn't overright on extraction from Owl's zip.

 

[Sgt.Sausage]

Not sure how the judges plan on using the ratings from the thread, but i have scene at least 1 member with 1 post rate the map. Surprisingly he gave great feedback, so props to that. But the only problem is, not that i assume any members are doing this, but it could be another member trying to buff their favorite/own map. I no this was a problem with the swamp theme where a huge chunk of the votes were from week old members.

Hopefully the judges decide on the some requirements on rating, like must have this many posts/levels along with being a member for a few months or so. I dont like the idea of members with so few posts and join dates so recent voting, if they give great feedback thats awesome, the map authors will thank you for that, but it might not be fair to the contestants.

 

[Jack Riguel]

Not sure how the judges plan on using the ratings from the thread, but i have scene at least 1 member with 1 post rate the map. Surprisingly he gave great feedback, so props to that. But the only problem is, not that i assume any members are doing this, but it could be another member trying to buff their favorite/own map. I no this was a problem with the swamp theme where a huge chunk of the votes were from week old members.

Hopefully the judges decide on the some requirements on rating, like must have this many posts/levels along with being a member for a few months or so. I dont like the idea of members with so few posts and join dates so recent voting, if they give great feedback thats awesome, the map authors will thank you for that, but it might not be fair to the contestants.

Understandably this is a problem, however I think with this method of voting will mostly nullify the issue for two reasons. First, people are required to review several maps from both sections to have their vote count. Second, inflating would be difficult without being obvious (example: all 5's on one map and and all 1's or 2's on the rest).

 

[MrAlBobo]

Not sure how the judges plan on using the ratings from the thread, but i have scene at least 1 member with 1 post rate the map. Surprisingly he gave great feedback, so props to that. But the only problem is, not that i assume any members are doing this, but it could be another member trying to buff their favorite/own map. I no this was a problem with the swamp theme where a huge chunk of the votes were from week old members.

Hopefully the judges decide on the some requirements on rating, like must have this many posts/levels along with being a member for a few months or so. I dont like the idea of members with so few posts and join dates so recent voting, if they give great feedback thats awesome, the map authors will thank you for that, but it might not be fair to the contestants.

I honestly think that if the guy with 1 post gave great feedback it should be accepted, that credential should be more then enough to filter out bs votes. I mean, if someone told me to go register somewhere and vote for something i didn't know anything about and i had to write 9 paragraphs I sure as hell wouldn't do it.

As long as there is scanning for generic comments or things stolen from others posts, or someone voting one map significantly higher then the other we should be fine.

EDIT: If the user with 1 post your referring to is Grim Tuesday, I can vouch for him playing the maps, he has shown up on the tf2maps servers a good deal recently

Personally im more concerned over people voting about maps they have only played once

 

[Sgt.Sausage]

Yes i was refering to Grim Tuesday, his feedback was excellent and glad to see he is active on the server.

You made a good point about just doing it without knowing, but the contest authors could bump their own entries up a little not all 5's or anything.

I guess its really not a huge problem with this system of rating, but it definitively didn't work for the swamp contest where its just a poll.

 

[MrAlBobo]

You made a good point about just doing it without knowing, but the contest authors could bump their own entries up a little not all 5's or anything.

I was under the impression authors couldn't vote for their own map?

And even so, a little bump will generally get eaten in the averaging

 

[Rexy]

I have a suggestion to weigh vote strength by post count of that user. This would eliminate those 1 post 'join-to-vote' members.

Take the user's post count and move the decimal two spots to the left, then multiply by the average of the collected ratings for a map.

For example, a member with 235 posts would have a multiplier of 2.35

That user scored a particular map: 4, 4, 3, 5, 2 = 18 / 5 = 3.6.

3.6 (average map score) would be multiplied by the modifier, in this case 2.35.

3.6 x 2.35 = 8.46.

This score would be added to each entry. This would make a considerable difference to weed out those people joining only to vote, as well as weighing toward long lasting tf2maps members. Granted post count doesn't mean everything, but it does have some merit. Perhaps instead of post #, you could do # of days as a member of tf2maps? or # of thanks a user has received?

 

[MangyCarface]

That means some of us have an enormous vote and post count != post quality

 

[Rexy]

That means some of us have an enormous vote and post count != post quality

Not to be elitist, which I do really dislike, but those would be the votes worth the most, don't you think? Those who've been around the longest would certainly have more experience in evaluation than those who haven't (in general).

In this case, I'd rather go with # of days as a Tf2maps member. That would be more accurate than post count.

 

[Ravidge]

I, atleast posted links to the contest tf2m page and the showcase videos to a lot of non mappers. If any of those players came here to vote (chances are they won't) it'd be kinda sad to see them get shutdown because of their postcount.

And weighted votes seems silly to me, though I have no better suggestions myself I'm sure there must be a better way.

 

[YM]

Rexy, that is the reason we have judges. Because there are a whole load of the public section that dont really know what they're on about

 

[Sgt.Sausage]

I was under the impression authors couldn't vote for their own map?

And even so, a little bump will generally get eaten in the averaging

Yes they cant vote for their own maps, i was talking about new accounts as in a mappers second tf2m account.

 

[Rexy]

I just assume the TF2M staff has it under control.

 

[Nineaxis]

Yeah, and as the last contest proves, we will take steps to prevent obvious vote statpadding.

 

[Tinker]

There are judges like last time, so I doubt it'll be a big problem. That said, the setup of 5 categories and an avarege from that kind of bothers me. For some maps in the contest, the detailing wasn't even really done yet, and can't be granted much more than a 2, but the feel and gameplay of the map were great - I wouldn't mind giving an overall mark as well, "FUN", because the average of the categories is not always the same as the feel of everything together.

 

[A Boojum Snark]

While that's true tinker, it's really just a matter of what we are after in these contests. We're striving for complete artistic and technical mastery. While fun is an important factor to a map, it's not really our focus. If we were to have such a rating then we would have issues of people who just plain hate the gamemode, and such similar things.

 

[grazr]

I think it's fair to assume that if a map meets all of the chosen criteria that its "fun", and a maps average "fun-ness" can be equated from its overall score.

If it flows well then +1 for enjoyment, if it's fully detailed +1 for enjoyment, if it performs well on your computer +1 for enjoyment, if its well balanced for teams and classes +1 for enjoyment, if it meets the TF2 theme then +1 for enjoyment. By marking a map on these variables one is essentially grading its potential fun-ness.

 

[Tinker]

Fair enough, I guess.

 

[Overheal]

Minimum rating reminder!

As of this posting the following people have not yet reached the minimum required rated maps. Next to each name is how many more they need to meet the minimum.

Chaopsychochick: 1 CTF, 5 PLR
Fearlezz: 1 CTF, 3 PLR
Jack Riguel: 2 PLR
Jonah: 2 CTF, 3 PLR
Labelmaker: 2 CTF, 3 PLR
Littleedge: 4 PLR
Lord Ned: 1 CTF, 2 PLR
Occlusion: 4 CTF, 3 PLR
Overheal: 1 PLR
Owlruler: 1 CTF, 1 PLR
Randdalf: 5 PLR
StuartPB: 1 PLR
Tapp: 4 CTF, 5 PLR
Westerhound: 3 PLR

Voters who do not reach the minimum requirement will have their votes discarded. (deadline will be around the middle of next week, final time should get posted tomorrow)

Done and Thank You. And to all the Mapmakers whos work I got the chance to play on this weekend! I tried Hammer once - I could barely get my head around building a box shaped room. Granted that was long before Source but I imagine it cant be at all easy. Well done to the lot of you!

The other thread is for votes, this one is for talking. - ABS

 

[Jack Riguel]

So is there an average estimate as to when the judge's ratings will be revealed? I remember reading somewhere that they were expected to do it in a week's time... but I couldn't imagine with the amount of maps entered that it will be the case, especially with the good Mr. Casali on the panel.