Rules & Information
- This contest is a continuation of the previous one-month contest. It finishes approximately January 31st, midnight, PST. Check the countdown timers to manage your time properly. Procrastination is punishable by death in SEN. No seriously, it is. Moose will come for you.
- At the conclusion of this contest, if your map is incomplete you will be ineligible for the prize. If there are multiple maps of exceptional quality, I may be compelled to reward multiple prizes. I doubt this will happen however... surprise me. There will be no further extensions.
- You do not have to make a new map for this contest, you can pick up where you left off with an incomplete project. However, if your map has had a significant amount of work already put into it, it may not be eligible for the prize.
- The map must be of the RPG genre, or similar.
- No third party programs required to run the map (no mods, no EUD enabler).
- It is strongly encouraged that you create a thread for your map in Map Productions. This is a good way to build awareness for your map and to keep fans updated on your progress.
- The recipient of the prize will be determined based solely on my subjective opinion. We all want to play RPGs, and we enjoy making them - so let's make some! You should look at the prize as a bonus. I don't care about 'fair', I don't want to put mappers on some ordinal gradient, I just want a bunch of great RPGs to play. Let's not fool ourselves with all these templates and ratings you see in other comps, judging maps is a qualitative not quantitative experience.
- Things that will impress: innovation is always good, pushing the editor to its limits like creating a shooter type thing like RUSH, or screen tiles like Fallen Memories. Extended terrain is nice, and systems! Spell systems, item systems, character progression, boss battles dynamic monster spawning, day/night, shuttle/dropship menus, in-depth storylines, puzzles, eud, vhp, dds, etc.
- The recently discovered NeoEUDs by Biophysicist have opened up a plethora of options for mappers. There have yet to be any maps that utilise this brand new feature and yours might well be the first!

Participants
Middle of the Ocean 3 by Leeroy_Jenkins
??? by FoxWolf1
Lesser by Samsizzle
Broken Dreams by Kusari
Oblivion RPG by MetalGear
??? by ultraIsPink
Eternal Ash by TF-
Hallion by ImagoDeo
Stygian Sun by Chia_Tyrant
??? by Pyro682

The Priiiiiiiiiize
First place can choose a computer peripheral around the $100 mark. Here are some of the more popular brands, have a look for yourself.
Razer
Steelseries
Logitech

How will I get it?
After I choose the winner, send me the details I will ask for and then it will get shipped out to your address/PO box.
I will make every stage of the process visible (I can black out personal info) so no one can accuse me of foul play if something goes wrong.

What will increase my chance of winning?
* Producing a high quality map with impressive/various systems, engrossing storyline, and great fun value.
* Anyone can complete an RPG if it's 62x62 with preplaced units and two triggers. But completing a high quality RPG takes commitment and skill. Your perseverance will be rewarded.
* Innovation can be good but a really polished map with little to no innovation can be just as good if not better.

Example RPGs to get me inspired?
Rush, Deep Blue, Deep Six, Legacy of Haen, Arcane Arts, Spellsword, Death Knights 3, Cataclysm, Lost Souls (Cecil), Lost Souls (Ultimo), Wonder, Essence, Fallen Memories, Middle of the Ocean, So it Begins/Webs of Fire, Dwellers of the Depths, Autocracy, Tenebrous.

Make yourselves proud.

Post has been edited 25 time(s), last time on Apr 1 2013, 5:52 pm by Oh_Man.

Is there any deadline for registration? I have a map that I started working on for the 2011 RPG contest, but never really made much progress on, and was considering resuming it (though I have some non-SC projects that must take priority). If I do, though, I wouldn't want to sign up for the contest until, say, 30 December, so that I won't have to bother with the monthly updates .

I suppose not. I don't see how you could hope to compete with those who were working on their maps for the entire duration of the event, however.

The whole point of the monthly updates is to deter people from wasting all their time and only working on the maps at the very last second. Which is what happens in a lot of contests and the main reason people ask for extensions.

EDIT: Sorry I read that wrong, I thought you were saying you weren't going to start working on your map until December because you had non-SC commitments, not that you were just trying to skip the monthly updates. Well no, don't expect to get the prize in that case.
The monthly updates are progress checks, so I (or the public, if you prefer) can see how you are progressing on your RPGs. Whether it be huge progress, little progress or no progress at all. If you plan on only working on your map at the last second, then don't expect to get a prize, in fact - don't even bother entering the event. This event is for people who are passionate about making RPGs and want to make great RPGs that the SEN community gets to play.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Sep 16 2012, 7:16 pm by Oh_Man.

Don't worry, if a project does not meet my (rather demanding) standards, I won't hesitate to make it disappear rather than releasing it. In fact, that's part of why I don't like commitments such as monthly updates-- I'd rather be able to make a project vanish cleanly, as if it had never existed, if I find that I'm not able to scrape together enough time to be satisfied with the result.

Really, my interest in the contest has very little to do with the prize. I doubt the map I will be making would win anything, anyway, since I will be making the map entirely to my own, occasionally unorthodox ideas of what it ought to be like. My reason for being interested in entering the contest is that, given that my free time is not infinite, and the amount of time I'd need to make a map worth releasing is considerable, I don't want to invest the time without some reason to think the map will actually be played.

So it seems to me that, before even entering this contest, you have doubts that your project will be completed to your demanding standards by the 31st of December, so you want to skip the monthly updates so you that when you fail, you can do so 'cleanly' . How defeatist is that? Then you also go on to say that you don't want to invest time on this project if you don't think people will play it. OK, there are several things wrong with your reasoning here:

1. You said you don't care about the prize, and you don't expect to win. So why would you stop working on the map once the contest ends (assuming you fail to complete your project come December 31st)?
2. Even if you failed to complete your map in time for the Event deadline, you obviously can still keep working on your map and release it whenever you DO finish it, be that 2013, 2014, whenever. So it's not like the time working on the map during will be wasted.
3. That's actually one of the BENEFITS of the monthly updates. You can release what you've done on your map each month, so people DO get to play it, even if you fail to complete the project.

So...which one is it? You gave two entirely different answers of the intent of monthly updates.

Thats what the "edit post" button is there for.


My personal opinion...

Its clearly stated in the rules of the contest that you are required to upload your map monthly and provide an update log with it. If you can't handle that then this contest isn't for you. On another note, the couple maps I have played so far don't look anywhere near completion and I highly doubt they'll be finished by the end of the year (unless they degrade the quality of work). Either way, good luck to all.

Sure, I could work on it without it being a contest entry, but why would I bother?

A map released on its own, at some random time, is unlikely to be played. If it's for a contest, then maybe there'll be a few people out there who decide that they want to see all of the contest entries for themselves...though even that may be a lot to ask.

They aren't contradictory. Both of them are true.

I am making them mandatory so as to deter procrastination. They are also progress checks so I can see how you are going on your RPGs. You (the map maker) can also use them to say, proudly, what work you have accomplished on your RPG and what you hope to have completed for the next update.

Well they've got three and a half months left. It really depends how much of that time is spent on working on their map. In both the previous one week contest and one month contest most of that time was not utilised at all. The maps I looked at did not appear so large in scope that they would take longer than this.

And if you are a newcomer then you should set your goals for your project to fit what you expect you can do in three and a half months of work. And I mean three and a half months, not a couple of days before the deadline, as has happened in most other contests.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Sep 16 2012, 8:55 pm by Oh_Man.

Well again, I ask, why bother working on the map at all if you don't think you are going to complete it for the contest? Your whole mentality is defeatist.
"I don't want to do any monthly checks because I don't think I'll finish my map in time for the contest and I want it to cleanly disappear."
"I don't want to work on my map after I fail to complete it for the contest because less people will download it."

I mean... really... come on.

Wow. Awesome. This is exactly the kind of extension I needed. Sign me up with Middle of the Ocean 3

*sigh* Fine.

As much as it runs painfully counter to my natural inclination towards secrecy, I'll give you your damned updates. Just don't expect the systems to mean much until the map really comes together.

I'm still calling the project off if I can't get it done on time, though. It just doesn't make sense to me to put in the kind of time we're talking about without some reason to believe that someone other than me will ever actually see a significant part of the result.

...seriously? The contest is actually going to have a three month extension? I thought you were joking... No way I'm going to be able to get anything more done on my map this year.



Ffffffff I wanted a new keyboard

In terms of secrecy, as I stipulated in the OP, you can send your monthly updates to me in a PM. No one else will see these.

"It just doesn't make sense to me to put in the kind of time we're talking about"
And again... such a defeatist mentality. So you doubt that even if you work efficiently in the next three and a half months you won't be able to complete the map? And if you don't finish it in time then you will abandon it? Never to be played by anyone?

Why even make a map if you never plan on releasing it? Even if you fail to complete the map in time for the contest, and end up releasing it as a stand-alone project, you will still get downloads...

@Leeroy.
There is no 'sign up'. I am only adding maps to THE HUB that have threads attached to them, so people can click on them and see what the RPG is about.

So... I strongly recommend everyone make threads detailing to the public what their map is about.

Sign me up with Lesser

I'm not putting anything on THE HUB unless I have a thread to link to.

Make some threads people!!

EDIT: OK I am going to make it until January 31st to take advantage of the holiday period.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Sep 16 2012, 10:29 pm by Oh_Man.

i'm dissapointed, I worked very hard in the very last days of the old deadline to get it nearly finished, and now gets extended for... 5 months more
but well, i'll think again about it... jan 2013...

When I played your map only a portion of the Dark Templar campaign was complete, the Sarah Kerrigan campaign wasn't even accessible.

Now you have plenty of time to complete all those things. I don't see why you would be disappointed about that.

I know, but now I ran out of strings/locs with only the first campaign semi-complete. Will you accept two maps with the same gameplay? (I mean, I would put both characters on the same but I don't have strings/locs to put all the triggers together)... so would be like playing the same map, but with a different character set(quests/skills), all the remaining things would be kept intact.
In the worst case I'll cap the game to the dark templar guy, its a lot of work anyway.

Maybe you should just do the DT then, but I have to ask, are you recycling your strings?

I have 2 questions. When is the submission date? And how strict are you with the 3-player limit? What about 4 players?