MapCore Challenge Discussion (Old)

[ReNo]

I'd love to see more contests. Can't guarantee always entering but keeping them intentionally small scale and not focused on putting out loads of custom content makes them extremely tempting prospects!

To add another idea to the pot, how about something riffing on the Halo forge style of level editor? Provide some standard terrain and let people build on top of it but not actually edit it. Similar in ways to the art pass idea, but instead of having the focus on the art, it's more on how you integrate your own layout and brushwork with the restrictions of the existing terrain. Sadly that would probably mean restricting entries to a single engine though, which I think these days in a community like ours could be a bad idea.

As for the voting method, I'd put my weight behind allowing more than one vote, as I think it spreads out the voting more. Having just one vote each can lead to the strongest entries hogging all the votes while others sit with none, which is a shame as sometimes they have plenty of merit and charm of their own, just not enough to win around somebody's sole vote. If voters could pick a 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice - with more "points" going to the entry based on that ranking - I think it would lead to more interesting polls with more of the entries competitive. Not sure its possible within these forums technically though.

The multiple categories question...I actually quite like splitting it up as it has been this time around. The current difference in leaders in each category attests to it's value in my opinion. It lets maps be celebrated for what they do well, regardless of failings in other areas. CJ's barragan map for instance has horrible gameplay (no offence, but you said so yourself!), but it has a really nice atmosphere and is the map that most makes you think "I'd love to be there", for which it is rightly winning votes in the visuals category. I'm not sure we then need an "overall" category though - maybe just adding the totals of all other categories would be sufficient.

[Pericolos0]

how about a 3 texture challenge. Make a whole map with only 3 512x512 textures. I think some interesting stuff could come from that!

[madgernader]

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.

That sounds like it could be really fun, especially with the vertical aspect...

Otherwise the 1024 contest always seemed like it'd be fun, same with most of these ideas I'm hearing.

[Campaignjunkie]

If I had my way, small 512 x 512 x 512 single player maps for HL2 vanilla (so it's compatible for Ep1 and Ep2 too) and then we put them all in a mini map pack at the end. LONG LIVE SINGLE PLAYER!~

[Pericolos0]

512x512x2048 dm map compo .

[Sentura]

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

the problem was that nobody wanted to participate

i also think that the 3 texture challenge sounds like a good idea

[KungFuSquirrel]

Here's a brutal one for you - Triathlon. First week, Source/HL map. Second week, Quake map. Third week, Unreal map.

Speedmap stuff would be great to try again, but it's hard to sustain things like that. I wonder if we might have better participation/results by mixing those sessions in between larger challenges?

[luque]

I'd love to do the 1024 challenge, sounds like fun.

[Vilham]

Here's a brutal one for you - Triathlon. First week, Source/HL map. Second week, Quake map. Third week, Unreal map.

Speedmap stuff would be great to try again, but it's hard to sustain things like that. I wonder if we might have better participation/results by mixing those sessions in between larger challenges?

There are two problems I see with that challenge.

People might not have one of those engines to work in, I know I personally don't have any Quake games (unless we are counting CoD4).

If someone has a very busy week on one of them they might miss part of the competition, what was good about the last challenge is the long time scale.

[insta]

how about a 3 texture challenge. Make a whole map with only 3 512x512 textures. I think some interesting stuff could come from that!

I like that idea!!!

[General Vivi]

GC - The Door (Let me know what you guys think, I think this could be a lot of fun and could show some interesting results)

I had a Gameplay challenge thing that I never got around to starting publicly.

It was a scripting challenge mostly, but you had to figure out an interesting way to get the player to open a door. Most puzzle type games have a similar puzzle so consider this the basics that everyone should learn at some point . My entry took about 5 hrs, this includes grabbing a voice actor / playtesting a few times with different people.

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I had a whole set of rules typed up. Obviously this can all change at any moment.

Basic Idea :

- Everyone starts with the same prefab (which they can expand on and adjust)

- Player has to get a door open

- Figure out an interesting way

- keep the gameplay short, sweet , interesting

- try and think outside the "box"

Submissions :

- contestants must submit a hosted video of someone playing through their map

- contestants must upload their map for others to play and judge.

- Keep custom content to a minimum, If you do use it, please pak it into the bsp.

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Main Prefab

MY FINAL ENTRY

[Serenius]

That's pretty good, Vivi! Wasn't the solution I was expecting at any point in the video up until the end.

[insta]

Screw pericoloso, that's even better!!

[Skjalg]

that is a brilliant suggestion!

[ReNo]

I think my personal preference is more on the 3 texture idea, but that sounds pretty cool too, and would certainly be a bit different to the other contests I've entered.