Winter Holidays 2008 Themed Mapmaking Competition

Topic Subject:

Winter Holidays 2008 Themed Mapmaking Competition

Enginerd
HG Angel

posted 10-28-08 04:35 PM EDT (US)

With such great interest in having another mapmaking tournament we won�t waste any time in getting the next one started. This one will be a bit different in that it will be a �themed� event. What does that mean??? Well, basically, I will pick a theme (but I�ll need help on ideas), maps will be made based on that theme. There will be a time limit for the maps to submitted and there will be judging. So�. Here�s the starting framework

Themes, two categories.
1 - Festive Winter Holiday theme For this theme your map must have something to do with the Winter Holidays like Christmas, New Years, etc. Be creative and have fun, it will be intersting to see if we get a SP Santa story delivering preasants all over the world of if we get a frosty the snowman or something else.... I'm sure you guys can come up with something

2 - Historical theme Your map must be related to something historical. The recent map by AW called an Ode to Van Vogt is particularly inspring in this regard and makes a great benchmark. Feel free to do anything historical that peaks your interest. Again, be creative and original and have fun.

Maps will be judged based on some simple criteria (standard stuff mostly) but creativity with the theme will be an important factor.

Maps can be of any mod, any size, any type.

Timing � All maps must be turned in by midnight on Dec 31st ET
If timing gets rough for folks I can be persuaded to extend it a little bit into January. We've got about 6 weeks left and many have already started. For now we'll stick with the Dec 31st.

Judging � Something new....
I want to try something new this time other than our 3 person panel of judges. (One of the reasons is I am actually starting to work on my very first original map). I want to include you in the judging process so I'm going to try and work out a way to do a poll or a combined judge piece and public piece (like all those dance and singing competition shows out there). Anyways, I'll ask for more feedback on that but for now I just want to try something a little different. New Comments on Judging:We will have two types of judging take place this time. We have a couple celebrity judges (thank you Pawel and Zsaber) who will judge each map and give it a score (1-10), their combined score will make up 50% of the total. I'm working out the details right now but we hope to include the comments from the judges in a thread (possibly a small chat session that gets recorded), once the judges are finished judging (it will take a couple weeks) I will open the threads for comments and all of you... the forum members will cast your votes (scores of 1-10) for each map. The combined average of the member's score will make up the other 50%. I'll then summarize the scores and announce a winner. Stay Tuned for more details on the judging and right now have fun checking out the new maps and get ready to make your scores available, in the mean time feel free to leave comments on the maps in the downloads section.

Register your map
Just enter the name of the map and what theme, upload it to the website and that will take care of it.

Festive Winter Holiday Maps
1... Toy Wars by Skout77 - (uploaded)
2... Snowflake by ThePreachr - (uploaded)

Historical Maps
1... Andelin's Quest by Enginerd (uploaded)
2... War of 1812 by Froster (uploaded)
3... Mene in Venezuela by Slipkyes (uploaded)
4... Capture the Flag by Arctic Wolf (update pending upload)
5... World of Paradise by Skout77 (uploaded)

Please post your comments below and as decisions are made the main topics above will be updated.

Let the fun begin!

[This message has been edited by Enginerd (edited 01-04-2009 @ 03:51 PM).]

Author

Replies:

sKout77
Member

posted 11-21-08 06:50 AM EDT (US) 31 / 88

Uploaded "Toy Wars" and I'd like to register it to the Festive themed category.

Small map, probably going to be my only submission for this tournament as I want to continue work on the large MP map I'm making.

Thanks

Gandalf theWhite
Member

posted 11-21-08 01:29 PM EDT (US) 32 / 88

Quoted from dazzle94:
but the campaign might outweigh single maps by its storyline. Just a thought but I generally don't mind.

I might actually not be suitable person to advocate this idea, because I'll be one of the authors of joint campaign. but I'd say you shouldn't worry about this; it depends on what the new judging system will be like, but I don't think that judges will favour campaign so much just for sake of its campaigness. Single maps are equally competitive in my opinion... for example in the 2007 Summer mapmaking contest there was a campaign submitted for SP, but it was bested by two scenarios.

dazzle94
Member

posted 11-23-08 01:45 PM EDT (US) 33 / 88

That's fine, I was only putting the point out there to see whether anybody else wanted to say anything about it. I'll submit my map whether or not the campaign goes through so doesn't affect me.

This is a dignified place for dignified people, young man. Top hats and monocles are not only recommended, they're required.

Black Hound

Gandalf theWhite
Member

posted 11-24-08 02:30 AM EDT (US) 34 / 88

Hmm, I know that the judging system isn't decided yet, but I still find it odd that the competition was announced and there are no news about on the main page

Enginerd
HG Angel

posted 11-24-08 04:30 PM EDT (US) 35 / 88

Yeah... I put a note in the SM pages for a news post... There was a brief comment in the last post about upcoming tourneys... maybe I'll do a newspost and update on the 1v1 tourney and competition.... hmmmmm.... (ideas popping into my brain

)

Oh.. since no one objected I'll update the header and add a note about having joint submissions for maps, it's ok to join forces for the maps.

On the Judging... I've been talking to Swolte about having a poll or something and that gets complicated quickly so I'm sure to come up with something even more complicated... I'm leaning towards this type of idea.... (since my wife enjoyed that Dancing with the Stars show) to have a small panel of "experts" (two or three respected community members as yet unidentified) give their feedback about the maps, and they give their score (1-10) and colorful comments in a post. If I can arrange it then I'm hoping to maybe IM and open a chat room somewhere and record the conversations with the judges and mapmaker and post it all. Then when the judges have reviewed all the maps we open a thread and let people vote for their top pick in each category, establish a combined score using some crazy math that only an engineer would understand (yes, I'll still meddle with the judging) and then we have the winners. See... that's not so complicated

(but it is something different).

Slipkyes
Member

posted 11-25-08 09:57 AM EDT (US) 36 / 88

Sounds like a real cool judging idea, Im guessing that in your Engineer math (Im less than a year from being one too, I could understand lol) you would make the judges score much more strong than the public score right? cause if not you can always bring a bunch of friend that will score you 10s all the way, am i right?

Enginerd
HG Angel

posted 11-25-08 09:27 PM EDT (US) 37 / 88

Yes, the official judges scores will be weighted very so that they are comparable to the public scoring. I haven't figured it out precisely, I do want both groups to matter though, I'll figure it out.

dazzle94
Member

posted 11-26-08 03:36 PM EDT (US) 38 / 88

I would enjoy that method, that way it makes everybody feel like a judge, I've always enjoyed judging...

This is a dignified place for dignified people, young man. Top hats and monocles are not only recommended, they're required.

Black Hound

Arctic Wolf
Member

posted 11-27-08 05:30 PM EDT (US) 39 / 88

My Quasi Historical map "Capture the Flag" has been uploaded.

Really the only thing historical about it is the history lesson in the description.

Hope everyone tries it at least once.

Angel Draco
HG Lawgiver

posted 11-28-08 01:05 PM EDT (US) 40 / 88

I updated the original post with Arctic Wolf and Skout77's maps. AW, I don't see your map in the DL's list yet.

� Age of Wonders 2 Heaven � AoW1 Heaven � City Building Forums � Halo Wars Heaven
� Complaint Heaven

[This message has been edited by Angel Draco (edited 11-28-2008 @ 01:07 PM).]

Arctic Wolf
Member

posted 11-28-08 08:49 PM EDT (US) 41 / 88

I'll give it a day to see if it pops up. If not I'll resubmit.

Enginerd
HG Angel

posted 11-28-08 11:23 PM EDT (US) 42 / 88

Yeah, give it a couple days. I think Swolte was going to be a little busy during Thanksgiving, don't worry, they'll get to it.

sKout77
Member

posted 12-01-08 01:20 PM EDT (US) 43 / 88

Would a map that tells the story of several aow factions in a specific region, provided with historical events, chronological placement in the aow history and a "historical feel" to it be accepted to the Historical Theme category?

CrazySlyHawk
Member

posted 12-01-08 04:51 PM EDT (US) 44 / 88

Probably not but hey, do some research and gather some information and you could produce "something historical" as it says

Token Irish Gamer!

sKout77
Member

posted 12-02-08 01:58 AM EDT (US) 45 / 88

I'll just submit it without registering it to the competition then

[This message has been edited by sKout77 (edited 12-02-2008 @ 01:58 AM).]

dazzle94
Member

posted 12-03-08 10:59 AM EDT (US) 46 / 88

My map is going to be quite obvoius that it is related with Christmas, I've got an outline for it, but would a map where a man who has been leaving items all over the map and has been kidnapped count as a map for the Festive category? I reckon it would but I want to check.

This is a dignified place for dignified people, young man. Top hats and monocles are not only recommended, they're required.

Black Hound

Arctic Wolf
Member

posted 12-03-08 08:18 PM EDT (US) 47 / 88

To Skout

I see no reason why a 'historical' map couldn't be an AOW historical map. I say submit it as such and let the judges decide.

To Dazzle

See my comments re Skout. The more maps the merrier. In both cases the story element would have to carry the history but both will probably be better suited to the competition than my Capture the Flag map. Which still has not surfaced in the Downloads section.

I'll give it a few more days and then resubmit.

Enginerd
HG Angel

posted 12-04-08 11:26 AM EDT (US) 48 / 88

I'll ask Swolte to look into your map that hasn't shown up.

Yes Skout - a historical look at AOW isn't what I originally intended but go for it.

Dazzle - if your story of leaving "presents" around the map ties into the Santa story line then feel free to make that your holiday theme, I see no reason why it can't work.

Arctic Wolf
Member

posted 12-05-08 01:21 AM EDT (US) 49 / 88

I resubmitted it so hopefully it shows up.

It looks very doubtful that the minicampaign for the holiday comp will finish in time as Gandalf and I seem very busy with work. But we'll see...

Gandalf theWhite
Member

posted 12-05-08 01:12 PM EDT (US) 50 / 88

Quoted from Arctic Wolf:
It looks very doubtful that the minicampaign for the holiday comp will finish in time as Gandalf and I seem very busy with work. But we'll see...

Well, I'm working on the map for the third mission, but I admit it goes slow. I lost most of my work on it due to recent PC crush I mentioned in PBEM absentee topic, and I had to start it again recently (yes I know I should have kept some backup outside my PC - I didn't make it because the map was newly begun, now I see should have made one). I hope to finsh this before the next Friday or so, hope it's not too late

Doomraider
Member

posted 12-08-08 06:42 PM EDT (US) 51 / 88

hello everyone I have a question about the mapmaking contest. I made a scenario about 2 months ago and just recently found that there was a contest. It is not historically themed or winter themed. Should I just wait until the spring when theres a new contest?

-Doomraider

Froster
Member

posted 12-08-08 07:55 PM EDT (US) 52 / 88

I would, unless you want to change it to a historical or festive theme.

Jim Brannen
Email: branneji@yahoo.ca
Skype: jim_brannen
Timezone: -5 GMT (New York Time)

Enginerd
HG Angel

posted 12-08-08 08:17 PM EDT (US) 53 / 88

@Doomraider.... upload it now so we can all enjoy the new map.... don't register it with the tourney as it doesn't fit the categories this time (and no guarentee it will in the future either) and then make a new map for the next tourney.... that way we get to enjoy your fabulous map now.... and another new one later

Even better.... try and finish a new map that fits the theme in the next 3 weeks!!!!!

Doomraider
Member

posted 12-11-08 04:51 PM EDT (US) 54 / 88

Alright, I submitted my file like 3 or 4 days ago and it still hasnt shown up on the multiplayer maps. Well, some details on my map... ive been making lots of changes to it and will continue to post updated versions. Any idea on when my map will be available in the MP section?

Enginerd
HG Angel

posted 12-11-08 06:44 PM EDT (US) 55 / 88

Swolte and Chow Guy are the ones that manage the downloads section. Sometimes it takes a few days for them to get to it. Don't worry, it will show up soon (I'll bug Swolte about it).

Enginerd
HG Angel

posted 12-20-08 11:00 AM EDT (US) 56 / 88

Doomraider's map has been uploaded so it's now available (sorry it took so long).

How is everyone doing on their maps? I'm struggling but I think I'll get mine done in time, I've got lots of freetime the next several days so I'm going to have to just knuckle down and finish it

Looks like we might have 5 or so maps.... are there more out there that I don't know about? Still time!

Gandalf theWhite
Member

posted 12-20-08 11:18 AM EDT (US) 57 / 88

I know Arctic has made two maps for his Christmas minicampaign, but I haven't heard from him for some time, so i can't give more detail; I'm now finishing third mission for this (for it's a joint mapdesign project

).

Also I wanted to make a historical mini-campaign for the competition, but I couldn't find time to begin, and now it's too late

I have started making a scenario for the Winter theme category, but I'm wondering if it fits - it's about Orcs invading a peaceful Halfling community, and the action takes place in Winter, when the solistice and New year are coming; is this enough?

Enginerd
HG Angel

posted 12-20-08 12:07 PM EDT (US) 58 / 88

@Gandalf - go for it with the Orcs and Halflings.

Arctic Wolf
Member

posted 12-20-08 10:57 PM EDT (US) 59 / 88

Hi Gandalf

I'm swamped at work. Its the stretch run to Christmas at the store, and after that Boxing week. All projects are on hold.
Sorry.

Gandalf theWhite
Member

posted 12-21-08 03:50 AM EDT (US) 60 / 88

That's a pity, I really enjoyed working on a campaign with you

Well, I hope we may finish the campaign in future (for next Christmas?).

@Engineerd - so I'll go for it.

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