Overall I think the ruleset for the map contest is very good. Some feedback:
- I would keep the anonimity, I think it's better if judges go into every map without any preconceived notions like "oh it's a PizzaAtomica map, it will probably look good but be too chokey". And like SoScared said you'd run the risk of people thinking the judges could be biased or could think things like "this person allready won last year so I'm gonna let somebody else win now".
- I think the scoring factor for playability, balance, etc should all be equal so that we won't get any "I think this or that category is more important" discussions.
- As for the public vote, I'm unpleasantly surprised by the low number of people that voted. Only 14 people in 2 weeks? SoScared has three times as many viewers in one evening! I don't know if the voting needs to be promoted more or if just very few people care. And hell, if you don't have time to play the maps in depth, they have screenshots! Just judge the book by it's cover!
- Just a preemptive comment, if Tiberian Sun ever comes into the map competition, I think it needs to be completely seperate from the other 3 mods (so seperate judging and seperate prizes).
TS maps offer both way more options for aestethics and way more options for gameplay (with raised bridges, tunnels, and other interactive terrain) so it would be unfair to compare them to RA/TD/D2K maps.
On a side note, I wouldn't mind being a judge, except I love to make maps myself so that's not going to happen.
P.S. Really how does a 7 player map not get top marks for originality? On one sheet I even saw a RA2 map remake with a higher originality score
"tomorrow I am becoming a married man and leave for honeymoon"
Congratulations, noobmapmaker!
If we can get a shortlist, I wonder if one of the server hosts could be persuaded to set a few of them up to run exclusively map contest maps on random rotation. This would create another route for people to get hold of the maps organically, and would also increase visibility of the map contest.
Many thanks for hosting the Map Design Contest and congratulations to the winners! It was pretty fun to be making some maps for OpenRA. (I would have voted, but as I registered for the contest, I was not eligible.)
As for my suggestions...
1.Completely revamp the categories. There will be the main Mod category (Red Alert, Tiberian Dawn, Dune 2000), but then there will be the subcategories for each mod. This way, maps are compared to maps from the same mod and not across mods, such as Tiberian Dawn to Dune 2000. (As a short example,, there are separate 1v1 categories for Red Alert, Tiberian Dawn, and Dune 2000. This is in contrast to the shared 1v1 category across all mods of the present MDC iteration.)
Also, list the top 3 for each subcategory. There may not be enough maps for all 3 slots to fill up in said category, but that is fine.
As for subcategories...
Mod Winner (The best overall map for the mod.) 1v1 Competitive
1v1 Casual
2v2 Competitive
2v2 Casual
Big Map
FFA
Other (Includes 2v1 and maps that do not fit into any other category.) Mission (Includes Co-Op missions as well as Single Player missions) Modded Multiplayer
Aesthetic ("Most Beautiful Map")
Difference between Casual and Competitive: Casual - The map is mainly played for fun, focusing on creativity and aesthetics. Competitive - The map is played as a measure of skill, focusing on balance and replayability.
2. I would like to keep the Anonymity as it does balance the playing field and serve as a safeguard against bias.This is especially the case when dealing with the actual judges. However, I am not against Anonymity being an option or removed completely.
My ideal method would be to keep it as an option, and when the map submission closes, an "Anonymous" version of all the maps are created for the judges to look at. The only issue here is if the judges go online and end up playing a Map Contest map that is not Anonymous or if a player spoils who made the map.
3. As for map submission, allow for unlimited revisions. The final submission date should be the cutoff and not an arbitrary "one revision only" rule. Players looking at the maps should not that the version shown may not the the final one until the submission date is passed.
While I would like to add in maps previously made, I think the competitive is more fair if everyone has to make new maps for the Map Design Contest. So, I believe the rule that old maps from the Resource Center are not allowed to be suitable. (Maps created by a mapmaker but not uploaded to the Resource Center should be handled on a case by case basis.)
4. As for the timeframe for the Map Contest, my revised 3 month schedule would be...
Map Submission - 1 Month (To lower the total amount of maps. Two months is a little too long.) Map Testing - 1.5 Months (To allow for proper playtime for the submitted maps.) Map Voting - 2 Weeks (Same time as it is now. Technically, players can still test during this period, they can just vote later.) Final Results
5. As for the Public Polls, I would make the public act as a "single judge entity" instead of just being used for the Popular Vote. So, voters will determine their Top 3 of every category, and all of the public votes are compiled together to form the "Public Judge" vote. Extra weight is given to the #1 spot than the #2 spot, and so on.
As an example...
Sire's Red Alert Mod Winners:
1. Six Below Zero (3 pts)
2. Polar Disorder (2 pts)
3. Mountain Pass (1 pt)
Red Alert Fan's RA Mod Winners:
1. Sirocco (3 pts)
2. Six Below Zero (2pts)
3. Frontier Duel (1 pt)
Public Judge's RA Mod Winners:
1. Six Below Zero (5 pts)
2. Sirocco (3 pts)
3. Polar Disorder (2 pts)
4. Mountain Pass (1 pt)
5. Frontier Duel (1 pt)
[Repeat this process for all the other categories, such as Tiberian Dawn's Mod Winners, Red Alerts 1v1 Competitive Winners, and so on.]
Note that the "Public Judge" sorts only by popularity of the top 3 per voting participant and does not use the traditional scoring system (1-5) of proper Judges.
In addition, for voting eligibility, I am fine with limiting votes to users with an account created before the contest. However, I would like to an exception to be added for mapmakers who joined the message boards for the map contest and have submitted their maps. I would have voted, but as I was ineligible, I could not do so because I registered after the contest started.
6. I agree with the notion that the MDC could use more judges. I think four or five should be sufficient (not counting the "Public Judge" suggestion I proposed above).
7. MDC Spotlight - I suppose this is similar crlf's shortlist idea. If we take my proposed MDC timeline up above, then I suggest having a spotlight after a month of playtesting.
The spotlight will highlight popular maps and maps with great potential to draw interest from players. Those creators lucky enough to have a map featured in the spotlight may enjoy good feedback for future maps (or revisions after the contest is over). If a creator does not make it into the spotlight, look at the maps that did and try again next year!
This way, players will have 2 weeks before voting opens to really narrow down the quality maps and help those map creators. Those dedicated can still play even during the 2 week voting period, as long as they vote before the submissions close for results.
Blackened wrote: ↑Quick question was Anjew unwilling or unable to judge? His scoresheet seems to be blank.
Just for clarification since no one has asked me this question.
I printed my judging sheet out and filled it in offline. I assumed that the last day of March was the 30th and that the competition would be announced at the start of the new month rather than the 31st. By the time I was going to put my results in, NMM had already posted this thread and I didnt want to throw off the calculations.
Usually I have plenty of time, but tomorrow I am becoming a married man and leave for honeymoon.
Congrats man! Congrats!
-Don't have RAGL right after the map contest, have the map contest after RAGL
But only if tehre is enough time in between. There has to be time to finalize maps, not consumed by competitive play.
-Get rid of #1, #2, #3, replace with all category winners. Replace them with "Best map of 20XX", "Most Aesthetically Appealing," ,"Most Creative," "Best Custom Map," "Best Casual Map", "Best Competitive map," etc. #1-3 is too subjective
Agreed.
-More judges and mod specific judges e.g TD (judges) judge TD maps, RA (judges) judge RA maps.
That would be nice. However conflicting with above. Maybe assign a judge to find the "Most appealing map" cross mod, another judge to find "Best Competitive map" cross mod etc. Also spreads the workload for the judges a bit.
- we want the best maps, how to create a system where mapmakers can improve their maps?
- we like the best maps to win, how to assure the 'best' maps to win?
-Have a k.o. system for the maps (at least in pop. vote).
i.e. Day X, the maps have to be submitted. X+2 Weeks time for popular vote to find the best maps. The Y least popular maps get knocked out.Then first Revision period ~1 week. Repeat once so only 20 maps or so survive. Judges and players then have a smaller pool of refined maps they can play and vote for. And map creators can implement feedback in the 2 weeks+revision period.
-Dont require people to have accounts on resource center and sleipnirs and gamereplays to participate. maybe you can narrow it down to sleipnirs only.
-Use a map naming system that makes contest maps easy to select in the map browser. i.e. "[mc2] 1v1 #15: Portent"
Oh yeah. And spam advertising for your contest on streams, gamereplays.org, in the chat lobby, in openra IRC!
Very Few people I asked to play contest maps actually did know your contest existed :S
Thank you NMM for organizing this event, and big congratulations to all the winners.
My suggestions for the upcoming contest(s):
Split the contest in:
- 1v1 competitive maps (
- other maps
By splitting the contests you are capable to give the maps more airtime, streamtime, time in general to perform test and check out playability. It also provides room for 'specialized judges'.
One more suggestion:
- Can the winner of the mapcontest get a garanteed spot in either RAGL or the official mappool?
I'm confused. Do category winners get anything? I don't really care about the money, I'm just wondering if prize money is exclusively for the three (two) winners and the Map Category winners get nothing.
Also, reading through the comments, I agree that there should be judges for each specific game.
Quick tune in: many excellent comments. Im not sure yet how, but I think we should revamp the contest into something similar, but better. Nothing from the setup is sacred so curious how it will evolve.
@Edward: keep an eye on soscared's stream for the category winners lottery.
Playlist with ALL games of the Dark Tournament Youtube.com/CorrodeCasts Consider supporting OpenRA by setting a bountyor by donating for a server
On one sheet I even saw a RA2 map remake with a higher originality score 
