MapCore Challenge Discussion (Old)

[KungFuSquirrel]

Hey guys, just a reminder to cast your vote for the 20 Brush Challenge if you haven't already. We got some great entries including some great work by some new faces. Submissions are here: viewtopic.php?f=57&t=15843 with links to the voting threads.

I also wanted to see how people thought about trying to run more of these again? I know it's something we've done in the past with mixed results, but I had a blast on this even if I did just build 20 floating hexagons, and I think there's some fun options to run new ones. Some thoughts I've had:

1024 Challenge - resurrecting an oldie but a goodie: build a level inside a 1024x1024x1024 cube

Geometry challenge - All geometry, flat texturing. Like the classic Q3 GeoComp

Old School challenge - HL1, Q1, Unreal, etc.

Art Pass - similar to what Valve ran for TF2

I think in the future it might be neat to have guest judging panels and the like (I'm sure we can all find plenty of people to help out), but I do like maintaining the "Challenge" part of the title vs. "Competition" - no prizes, just being creative and working within fun limitations.

Any other thoughts? Good idea/bad idea?

[Vilham]

I like the idea of those challenges. I didn't spend huge amounts of time on this challenge but it did motivate me to learn geometry tools and the material editor in unreal (even though the map I submitted didn't make use geometry tool and minimal use of custom textures, another map i was working on did).

Future comps sounds good, as long as they are well space apart, ie not every month and have plenty of warning/long deadlines as lot of us obviously have active lives.

[Mr. Happy]

I really wanted to enter but lost track of the date and didn't have time anyway, so I would love it if there were more small fun challenges like the ones you mentioned. It's like a break!

[Skacky]

I love those contest ideas and I will definitely consider entering one in the future.

[sarge mat]

Like the idea of running 1024 first one was before my time

[Chimeray]

Definitely looking forward to more, unfortunately due to exam work I couldn't make anything :/

[Sentura]

mapcore definitely needs this, perhaps once every month if people can muster the support for it. i know other forums have been doing such challenges, so why not us?

i would also like to see another 1024 dm contest, as those seemed to kick the most ass. the 20 brush challenge was fine, but there were too many categories to vote for in, and for me that made judging an issue. and i can imagine it's going to be an issue on how to tally all the votes together. keep it simple.

[sarge mat]

Yea world of level design runs them a lot and get a great turn out.

[KungFuSquirrel]

I think the 1024 was one of the best we had, and I also have an interest in not failing to complete something like I did for the last one That might be a good one to roll out as the next one, but I think we should let things settle for a couple/few weeks before we go after anything else.

Sentura brings up valid points on voting; and I think we should try to simplify voting in the future. I also feel like more of an "approval voting" style might be better for future challenges - if we allow people to vote for up to, say, 3 entries, and then tally based on those totals. Voting for one in each category was hard enough, and voting for just one in a single category might be torture

[Mazy]

Voted earlier, some great entries. Think it's great with these competitions, feel bad that I was too lazy to participate. The 1024x1024 one sounds like fun, think I also participated in one of those once (or at least one with very small maps).

[Serenius]

Would love to see more of these, and actually participate when time allows. These kinds of challenges really show off the talent of designers since everything's not covered in a bajillion meshes.

[Sentura]

actually, i should add that there should be a few different suggestions for contests, but that they should all fit the general theme of being small and manageable. 1024^3 is no doubt the flavor of the month, but i am sure there would be other attractive modes that would need to be tried out. perhaps a suggestion thread is in order?

[KungFuSquirrel]

Please, suggest away! Small and manageable is always good.

[Minos]

Please get back regular 90 minutes competitions!! It was so fun playing all the levels with everyone who participated in the same day!!

[Lunaran]

The Quake1 crowd had a contest about a year ago to design a single player map that was constrained on x and y to 768x768, but not limited in Z. Made for some cramped maps, so maybe 768 was a little low, and it'd be interesting to see maps constrained on 'any two axes', or even any single axis.