[CS:GO] Exotic Places Contest TOP 10 FINALISTS

[Guest Zobias]

I just wanna say that without these kinds of things, cs wouldnt be cs. Wouldnt have these new maps... All the other games have certain maps that stay amd are from the devs but cs has THIS...    :')

[Serialmapper]

It is amaizing what 15000 USD can pull out of people. Pushing yet again the source engine to a New level. 

[Mr.Kinch]

Congratulations to all finalists. I'm excited to play test the maps.

[blackdog]

For those who haven't seen it yet

 

[Oliver]

Great to see youtubers covering this contest, it will help all the mappers getting more feedback 

[Adenis]

Amazing work. Well done everybody!

[Lizard]

39 minutes ago, Tynnyri said:

So I checked Graveyard and yep, there is still no texture on the big ship. It's basically greybox? I would love to know how that got into finalists.

It got a higher score in other categories? 

[blackdog]

1 hour ago, Tynnyri said:

So I checked Graveyard and yep, there is still no texture on the big ship. It's basically greybox? I would love to know how that got into finalists.

Why so bitter all the time?

There's nothing in the rules about dev textures, in fact potentially you could have a dev-textured map as finalist. The map just needs to be playable to qualify for the deadline.

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Submission Deadline

Your playable map must be entered by February 1, 2020 at 11:59 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST).

you get more points if the map is arted up properly.
In this case I say the scale and overall vision can make up for some missing textures... plus the ship is gonna be grey anyway is not like it's a weird orange block in the middle.

[Guest Tynnyri again]

2 hours ago, blackdog said:

There's nothing in the rules about dev textures, in fact potentially you could have a dev-textured map as finalist. The map just needs to be playable to qualify for the deadline.

you get more points if the map is arted up properly.
In this case I say the scale and overall vision can make up for some missing textures... plus the ship is gonna be grey anyway is not like it's a weird orange block in the middle.

Over three fourths of the points come from theme and visuals. Considering this map isn't finished on either aspect, logic dictates it could not have beaten other maps in the list on those fronts.

Let's look at the mathematical problem in detail:

25 points: Fun Factor (how well-designed is the map)

25 points: Originality + Relevance to the "Exotic Places" Theme (Exotic meaning it's normal definition as well as "locations seen infrequently in CS:GO")

25 points: Visual Presentation (how aesthetically pleasing and sophisticated is the map)

25 points: Overall Polish (bug-free maps; maps with Soundscapes; maps which run smoothly; other determinations relating to quality)

Fun Factor and what we can presume is half of the Originality + Relevance categories are based on non-visual factors, while Visual Presentation, Overall Polish and what we can presume is the other half of Originality + Relevance are based on visuals.

The fact is as follows, on 3 out of 4 categories, this map could not have gotten full points: Dev textures aren't really relevant to this topic and doesn't reflect well on visual presentation and overall polish either. 

Considering the above, we can safely assume most maps beat this map on those fronts quite easily. This means the only way Graveyard could have gotten more points than other maps is if the score in Fun Factor alone was considerably higher than the average points for every other category.

In order to understand how unlikely that is, if the amount of points Graveyard got from the one and half non-visual categories would be a perfect 38 with another 38 as an optimistic half of the max to every other category, then the overall average points on Graveyard would be 64. Graveyard would have been 64% of the maximum points.

In another hand that means only 10 maps in this whole competition got over two thirds of the max points. Do you know how unlikely that actually is?

[Oliver]

Even if the ship has an overall gray texture, or is unfinished does not mean it has no visual presentation. In fact, the composition is so strong, the theme so unique that they can easily carry the map on the visual categories. I would assume this map scored very high on Theme and Visual Presentation (40-50 points), and also I wouldn't be surprised if the judges found the gameplay to be somewhat fun and the polish to be acceptable (maybe an average score of 13 for both those categories). Graveyard then probably scored between 66-76 points which for top 10 is likely I would say. 

Tynnyri, you should be really excited that a mapper didn't make another "mirage clone" but instead you choose to focus your attention on a splinter in someones project instead of the whole scope. 

[Guest Tynnyri]

1 hour ago, Oliver said:

Tynnyri, you should be really excited that a mapper didn't make another "mirage clone" but instead you choose to focus your attention on a splinter in someones project instead of the whole scope. 

I just find it interesting how backwards that thinking is. Instead of wanting the map with the best overall polish to win, you seem to be more interested in wanting me to accept a map with unfinished assets to get the spot over pretty unique maps that get honorable mentions instead.

Also I really cannot be interested in that map because it's slanted some 17 degrees which makes it playable for no more than few minutes, which I thought would have been quite a simple negative for the game's score. 

But overall, my point stands. The theme of "dev textured shipwreck" is pretty exotic yes, but not really in a good way. It has potential to look good, but that's not what anyone is talking about.

Really, it's baffling how unplayable it's head-hurting slanted ground, unbearably long, empty roads to bombsites and visual whiplash between parts that play normally and places that have slanted ground for the "fun factor" really are.

[JimWood]

How the hell is polish based solely on visuals?

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Overall Polish (bug-free maps; maps with Soundscapes; maps which run smoothly; other determinations relating to quality)

Yes, it may cover visuals, but it clearly isn't solely based on visuals. It's based on sound, clipping, optimisation, and many more things.

[Guest DrJ4Y]

Some inspiring maps. Great work everyone involved. I can see the Bar has been well and truly set. 

 

[blackdog]

16 hours ago, Guest Tynnyri said:

I just find it interesting how backwards that thinking is. Instead of wanting the map with the best overall polish to win, you seem to be more interested in wanting me to accept a map with unfinished assets to get the spot over pretty unique maps that get honorable mentions instead.

I share the points of all the above posts in reply, Oliver in particular expanded on what I meant in my post.

You’re complaining as if the map had won the contest. The competition is still very much open.

Its also been said the scores are gonna be shared so I say hold your horses before riding off against the windmills.

[mr.P]

If I knew it would be this upsetting I would have made 2-3 more maps - thought Graveyard was a pretty modest submission, although completely different,
Every since the introduction of Flying Scoutsman I've been wanting to piggyback of those mechanics, I really want to test a defuse map in low gravity, would it be competitive? Who knows. Would it be fun? Who knows. 
Been a few super cool outside-the-box concepts that didn't make it all the way, like that space station and underwater map,

I've really enjoyed the theme and premise of this competition, hopefully it wont be the last! Would be cool to have a dz contest