From what I have seen throughout that past week or so, SEN isn't producing much SC2 related content. Yes, I understand not even everyone on the site has the Galaxy Editor, but I think "mini-contests" would be a great way to motivate those who do have the editor to show what SEN can do.

I was over at StarcraftMapping.de, and I loved the idea of the series of terraining contests they are doing. I figured, we could do something of that sort, and hold a series of small competitions that focus on different parts of the editor with each lasting a week or so.

I would be happy to help run them, or in any other way possible.

What do you guys think of this?

<idea type="probably horrible">One thing I've always liked is basing maps off unusual things. So, here's my idea: Make a list of 20 or so random things (eg. mice, the Eiffel Tower, WW2, and computer viruses) and give bonus points based on the number worked in. Could be lulzy, which is k for a mini-contest.</idea>

EDIT: Another thing: Back in the SC1 modding community, ForTheSwarm and I got together something called "Super StarCraft Modders Brawl", which was basically a "design the most awe-inspiring unit possible and then fight other dudes units with it" contest. You were only allowed to use iscript (SC1-specific scripting language which was designed to control animations, but could be made to do other things with some work), though later a few other kinds of edits were allowed. It wasn't very successful, because of the small size of the community and modder's infamous ability to not finish stuff, but I think the idea was good. So, we could have people make a really cool SC2 unit, then make a map to show it off.

I like the idea of the terrain contests. We could do it like the old SC1 terrain contests that went on.

A while back, Aristocrat had a contest... They compiled a massive list of various blends and terrain tricks that hadn't (to their knowledge) been done before, and let everyone post blends. Each blend earned you one (or sometimes more) points, and everyone could earn points. In this way, it was like a contest, but the way it felt,... It felt like everybody was a winner -- some people just won more.

Something like that, but official, and with minerals instead of arbitrary points, would be neat.

We have contests every week on SC2Mapster. In fact, this last one we've partered up with scmapping.de and we're doing a Terraining contest, lawl.

That doesn't really contribute to this topic much, but thanks for the info anyway.

I believe that advertising is only allowed in one's signature and the like?

Contests have always have had the problem of VERY LOW turnout. Even in the 2009 Last Stand Rpg Challenge (which was a year-long contest) there was only relatively small turnout. I think to have a successful contest this needs to be addressed... maybe by making the reward a lot better than just "kudos" or a few minerals. Either that or lower the amount of work required.

Shorter contests would probably have larger turnouts because there's no commitment needed. I think we should have a continual rotation of week-long contests, somewhat mirroring Mapster's or what we used to do with SCI. One week we do terraining, 2nd week we do physics feat, 3rd week we do cinematics, 4th week we do best hero, etc, 5th week best AI change, etc. Maybe get IP to give the winner like $15?

That's exactly it.

As David said, give all of the contestants minerals/points, but scaled on how they all placed/how many votes each one got. If we went with a points sort of thing, each contest should be cumulative.

I actually really miss the old month-long contests we used to throw. A week-long one sounds great. I support this.