NotJomonay wrote:
Can someone who isn't mortal enemies with msleeper just run it by her to check if it's OK?

Why should it be her call if we want a contest here? I can understand if we did a Summer contest like TWP does now annually, but if we host one in the winter, why would it concern her?

Plus, I'm sure it will end up being a contest among ourselves, anyway.

reepblue wrote:

NotJomonay wrote:
Can someone who isn't mortal enemies with msleeper just run it by her to check if it's OK?>

Why should it be her call if we want a contest here? I can understand if we did a Summer contest like TWP does now annually, but if we host one in the winter, why would it concern her?

Plus, I'm sure it will end up being a contest among ourselves, anyway.

He was referring to the advertising bit, which is cool with me either way.

We should feel we have a damn right to run any contest whenever we see fit, summer OR winter.
I resent the mere suggestion that anything we do has to be run past anyone outside of the forum.

Naturally, as I'm not a mod or admin, I cannot talk for the site. But knowing the community, I'm pretty sure you share my sentiments on this.

Kizzycocoa wrote:
We should not refer to other administrators, witches or demons about our own contests

We should feel we have a damn right to run any contest whenever we see fit, summer OR winter.
I resent the mere suggestion that anything we do has to be run past anyone outside of the forum.

Naturally, as I'm not a mod or admin, I cannot talk for the site. But knowing the community, I'm pretty sure you share my sentiments on this.

Guys, calm your pants. Nothing is being run by msleeper except whether or not we advertise the goddamn contest there or not. It's taking place come hell or high water.

p0rtalplayer wrote:
Guys, calm your pants. Nothing is being run by msleeper except whether or not we advertise the goddamn contest there or not. It's taking place come hell or high water.

good. I just disliked the mere thought we're bound to another's whims. especially as this is pretty much the only portal community I can be in that's friendly.

everyone wrote:
Overreacting

Looks like people didn't read Cam's and my post on the previous page before responding to Jomoray

Don't count on me to ask her about advertising, my existance isn't of a big enough importance. ^.^

I may break out this post as leverage if she proves uncooperative.

Frankly you'd get more buzz by flooding the Workshop, though that does bring along it's own problems. Unless you enjoy barely competent PTI mappers, that is.

msleeper wrote:
Ya'll can do whatever you want, but yeah, click-thrus to other Portal map hosting sites is never been something that I've allowed.

Frankly you'd get more buzz by flooding the Workshop, though that does bring along it's own problems. Unless you enjoy barely competent PTI mappers, that is.

After looking at the draft again, it says nothing about puzzle maker maps being allowed or not. Not sure if that P0p will allow puzzle maker maps or not, or have a separate category if so.

So I'm bored at work and I decided to do some margin notes on this thread and your ideas and what we've done, why we've done it, what works and what fails and why.

As far as time limit, the shorter the better. You don't want to give people too long because for one, the majority of outsiders are going to totally forget. But also, the people who are going to dilly-dally and waste time and faff about are going to do that regardless if you give them 2 weeks or 2 months. Having a shorter time limit means that the people who are serious about winning will enter and win. 2 weeks is more than enough time to develop a puzzle and detail your map, and I've got like 300 maps from the past 2 contests to prove it.

Really the entire point of having restrictions (time limit, conceptual limits, etc.) is to both keep people from going apeshit and coming up with a ton of ultimately fruitless ideas. And to test the artist on their ability to do what they're being asked. Yes, anyone can come up with tons of ideas. But nobody cares about that. What people care about is finished content.

You pretty much need to expect to spend as much time judging as mappers are going to have to map. The last 2 contests we've had both ran for ~2 weeks, and judging took just about as long. Also, anyone who judges, expect them to be completely burnt out on Portal by the end of it. If they're not then they didn't judge right. The 2011 contest, I played something like 150 maps in the span of 15 days and I didn't want to think about Portal for almost a year.

You'll do better if you pick specific judges for a reason, rather than “hey bros you're all cool, you should judge my map.” Our general guideline for who would be a good judge is A.) someone who is a well versed and competent mapper (with high quality, and preferably highly praised, RELEASED works), or B.) someone who has other artistic talents whose experience lends itself to being able to accurately rate a work of art, IE a map.

Or, to put it in less nebulous terms, our judges fall into three basic groups. People I trust to make good decisions, IE staff. People who are experienced and have vetted themselves, IE community contributors. And people who know what they're doing, which includes graphic artists, professional level designers and game artists, and other widely known Source contributors.

Making your friends to be judges is literally the worst idea ever; most of my friends wouldn't know what makes a good map or a good game if it slapped them in the mouth.

The reason we had a filesize limit was because we were pushing for Workshop integration, and the Workshop has a filesize limit. Like I said, if you want to reach the broadest audience possible, going through the Workshop is your absolute best bet even with the restrictions that come along with it.

Really I think you need to figure out what your focus is. Who you want to enter and what you want to be produced as an end result.

msleeper wrote:
You realize that you can upload Hammer maps to the Workshop, right?

Yeah, I think only P2's puzzle maker maps were disqualified.

msleeper wrote:
You'll do better if you pick specific judges for a reason, rather than “hey bros you're all cool, you should judge my map.” Our general guideline for who would be a good judge is A.) someone who is a well versed and competent mapper (with high quality, and preferably highly praised, RELEASED works)

If only having widely-recognized Source engine output made a good judge. Oh, the lament of omni.

msleeper wrote:
The reason we had a filesize limit was because we were pushing for Workshop integration, and the Workshop has a filesize limit. Like I said, if you want to reach the broadest audience possible, going through the Workshop is your absolute best bet even with the restrictions that come along with it.

Something I hadn't really thought of.

msleeper wrote:
Really I think you need to figure out what your focus is. Who you want to enter and what you want to be produced as an end result.

I'm actually a little confused as to focus; there seemed to be a drive for custom content (be it artwork in the form of new gameplay, sound, or visual aspects), but now it seems to have suddenly become 'make us a map durr' (to me, anyway; maybe I'm confused) I liked the custom content idea because we have so many modders on this site (not necessarily Portal, but usually revolving around Source).

The Forum wrote:
We want to put up a post somewhere on your website that says we're giving away free stuff in exchange for awesomesauce entries.

msleeper wrote:
no

ok.

To support my custom content idea (I can't make heads or tails of the current one), I present a mock rubric:

[list:2wrqaom1][:2wrqaom1]To Qualify, all custom content must be:
[list:2wrqaom1][:2wrqaom1]Clear in its purpose and fully functional; no garbled sound files, overly high-or-low-res textures, broken gameplay, or testing elements that is simply an overcomplicated vanilla element[/:m:2wrqaom1]
[:2wrqaom1]Contributed to by a mix of team members; an entry cannot consist of 1 or 2 mappers and a content artist.[/:m:2wrqaom1]
[:2wrqaom1]Made by a team member and not by a third party.[/:m:2wrqaom1]
[:2wrqaom1]Debuting with its entry; it and the map may not have been released, even as bits of content, anywhere else before the contest.[/:m:2wrqaom1][/list:u:2wrqaom1][/:m:2wrqaom1]
[:2wrqaom1]Entries will be scored as follows:[/:m:2wrqaom1]
[:2wrqaom1]Attractiveness (up to 3 pts total); The custom content should be crisp, clear, presentable, and professional.[list:2wrqaom1][:2wrqaom1]Sound should not contain profanities and should not be garbled or incomprehensible except where needed by the map[/:m:2wrqaom1]
[:2wrqaom1]Textures and models should not graphically portray profanities and should not be blurry or blocky except where needed by the map.[/:m:2wrqaom1]
[:2wrqaom1]New (non-vanilla) testing elements should portray an idea that exploits portals and is fun to use. The content should be challenging without being overly so.[/:m:2wrqaom1][/list:u:2wrqaom1][/:m:2wrqaom1]
[:2wrqaom1]'Meshing' (up to 2 pts total); all custom content should fit well with vanilla content that is used with it and should be justifiable (make sense to the player) that it could or does exist in the Aperture universe canon or in the Perpetual Testing Initiative.[/:m:2wrqaom1]
[:2wrqaom1]The custom content should be an integral addition to the map (up to 2 pts total); custom content that is difficult or impossible to find may cause the map to be disqualified.[/:m:2wrqaom1]
[:2wrqaom1]Overall Map Quality (3 pts total); the map should be fun to play for players at the intended skill level and represent a short to medium map size (Chambers 16-19 in Portal are a good example); it should not use engine or portal glitches.[/:m:2wrqaom1]
[:2wrqaom1] Content-Specific Judging (4 pts total); I don't have anything specific right now but it'd be stuff like if your music was dynamic or if your gameplay was mindblowing. If you had more than one type of custom content, then your entry would be scored in this category as the mean average of all the different content types' scores[/:m:2wrqaom1]
[:2wrqaom1]BONUS 1 PT!!!! OMG; use the myApertureInnovations logo in a visible part of the map, placed in such a way that it is both attractive, professional-looking, and justifiable in-universe.[/:m:2wrqaom1][/list:u:2wrqaom1]

Max Points allowed: 15

Couple points
- I did mean to disallow PTI maps, yes. I also want to emphasize using the features of the site as it is doubling as something of a promotional tool.
- I still really don't know what's happening with the time limit. I was going to have it start now and run till the end of the year but I wasn't really sure about that and your advice is also making me rethink that plan. Since everyone here seems to be on board anyway, I might have it start now and run till November, or something.
- Same uncertainty with judging. I'm in favor of my earlier mentioned community judging plan if there is a high turnout, but if there's not then I will probably ask some trusted, experienced peers who did not enter into the contest, I have a few in mind already.
- The emphasis was shifted away from purely custom content because it puts artists or people with connections to artists at an advantage over people without those connections. The judging criteria are intended to give an idea of what we're looking for - high quality maps with creative gameplay and aesthetics.

At this point I was trying to prepare based on the draft ruleset I outlined earlier, but I am entirely open to change based on people's feedback if it'll help make the contest better and more enjoyable for everyone.

Retroactive comment, seeing as Van posted a follow-up while I was writing this post:
Van, I like the idea, and with some tweaks I would be willing to accept that as the new ruleset. I'm interested in other people's comments, first.

p0rtalplayer wrote:
I might have it start now and run till November, or something.

I'd suggest over a commonly-used week for winter break or something unless we have back-to-school-or-work vibes.

p0rtalplayer wrote:
I will probably ask some trusted, experienced peers who did not enter into the contest, I have a few in mind already.

I swear to St. Donny I will quit Portal if you set up omni as a judge.

p0rtalplayer wrote:
The emphasis was shifted away from purely custom content because it puts artists or people with connections to artists at an advantage over people without those connections.

My solution is to require every team member to participate in the mapping process in a measurable way. We may want to add some kind of accountability for this and for custom content. Having little signs saying 'vanSulli mapped this part to this part' would be really annoying, but I think a text file that lists custom content is a must simply to rule out anybody complaining that their map has custom content and that we were too dumb to see it.

The Forum wrote:

BONUS 1 PT!!!! OMG; use the myApertureInnovations logo in a visible part of the map, placed in such a way that it is both attractive, professional-looking, and justifiable in-universe.1

I Agreed up to this point. I think they should get praise for using it, but not actual points, as that makes it so: "hey if you use our content, free points! Everyone who can't due to their map design, duck you."