In light of the recent developments with the contest forum, I think I should have a go at hosting one.

My ideas so far...

Length: One month. No time extensions, period. I am unwavering on this.
Genre: No genre. Movie map, campaign, total conversion, RPG, what have you. If it's in SC:BW and you can run it with or without any measure of third-party programmes, we will be judging the final product.
Mods: Yeah, sure, but they're not required or anything.
Theme: Should we have one? Up to you guys. I prefer 'no theme' but if you guys think there should be a theme, we'll add it to the list of discussion topics, eh?
Teams: No teams are allowed, though if you're lucky enough to know a voice actor, music composer, modeler, what have you and you want to enlist their services for your project, that's fine. As long as the contestant is doing all the map and mod work and the audio/visual work done by other people is done during the contest's spanning, you're good to go.
My stance on past work: No past physical work will be accepted. This means that no direct physical copying of anything other than extended terrain blends like ramps and such from places such as Falkoner's Terrain Compilation or your own past maps may be accepted. All physical work must be done in the map. Just so we're clear, copying a ramp or a doodad from your old map or a terrain compilation is okay. Copying an entire base area or an entire quadrant of a map is not. This might seem arbitrary, but it's to promote fairness. Compilation maps are there for you to use and manipulate; the full terrain layer of your past maps are not. Triggers cannot by copied directly, but concepts and trigger systems from other maps can be remade fresh. This means that if you made a kickass inventory system in an RPG beforehand, and you want that system in your new map, you have to hard-copy it in, trigger line by trigger line. How will I make sure this happens? I won't. I'll pretend you guys don't understand the concept of cheating; I'm also pretending that we're all mature adults (legal or not).
Other: Let's have mandatory weekly updates. Check in once a week, at the least, and give us a status update. Did you finish? How many maps are you done with so far? What's the progress of your RPG's terrain? Why are you dropping out? etc. etc.

NOTHING IS SET IN STONE. However, because I want to stimulate the growth of the user-created-content community again...



Winners will receive books from Christie Golden's The Dark Templar Saga; alternatively, winners can choose a cash equivalent.

FIRST PLACE: Entire trilogy - all three books, paperback. Alternatively redeemable for 30 dollars.
SECOND PLACE: Two books of the three, paperback. You choose which two books you get. Alternatively redeemable for 20 dollars.
THIRD PLACE: One book of the three, paperback. You choose which book you get. Alternatively redeemable for 10 dollars.
That's a total of 60 dollars I'm shelling out (wooh so expensive go meeeee) for the contest. When the scores are finalised within the week after the contest's end (I intend to get my judging done as fast as possible), I will contact the winners before announcing them in the thread and ask them which prize they want.

IF you live outside the mainland 48 states of the USA, and you want your prize to be the books, we will co-ordinate via FedEx or UPS or some shit.
IF you live within the mainland 48 states of the USA, and you want your prize to be the books, we will co-ordinate via FedEx or UPS or some shit.

JUDGES: Pr0nogo, Jim_Raynor

Who's interested?

I'm maybe in.

Good to see you make a contest that suits your demographic. One month seems like the appropriate amount of time for a modding contest.

Quote from Pr0nogo

No time extensions, period. I am unwavering on this.

Quote from Pr0nogo

No past physical work will be accepted. This means that no direct physical copying of anything other than extended terrain blends like ramps and such from places such as Falkoner's Terrain Compilation or your own past maps may be accepted. All physical work must be done in the map. Just so we're clear, copying a ramp or a doodad from your old map or a terrain compilation is okay. Copying an entire base area or an entire quadrant of a map is not. This might seem arbitrary, but it's to promote fairness. Compilation maps are there for you to use and manipulate; the full terrain layer of your past maps are not. Triggers cannot by copied directly, but concepts and trigger systems from other maps can be remade fresh. This means that if you made a kickass inventory system in an RPG beforehand, and you want that system in your new map, you have to hard-copy it in, trigger line by trigger line.

I liked these parts especially. I don't think it's arbitrary at all.

Also, if you wanted to compete in this or a similar contest, it shouldn't be too hard to find someone to judge in your place. Of course, they might take six months to actually start doing any judging, depending on who you chose.

Thanks, Az. I will be judging so that I can ensure a quick reward for the contestants.

For late entries, I suggest docking professionalism points (more points for each day) for the first week, and disqualification after a week. We don't want everyone to have to wait for one person to finish for everyone to get judged.

Quote from Pr0nogo

Length: One month. No time extensions, period. I am unwavering on this.

Tentatively beginning from 12:00 AM July 1st, to 11:59 PM July 31st.

Not exactly what I mean. Not a time extension, just docking points for lateness. With an extension, no points would be docked. Is your idea just to kick them out if late instead? Could work but seems a bit harsh.

I can see points being deducted, I suppose, but at most you'd have three late days; ten points off your maximum of one hundred points for each day. After the third day, you are disqualified.

How does that sound?

Sounds fair enough to me. How would the judging itself be set up? Like what score sections, etc.

I would personally borrow the outline used by Angel; the one from the Campaign Creations contest of 2009. That's how I've judged maps in the past (for stuff like Rampage).

Here's a blank outline that I modified slightly, including pieces of the judging outline of Rampage itself. I might use this instead of the Campaign Creations contest one.



http://www.staredit.net/?p=shoutbox&view=1719
I think I agree with this a bit more. No deductions. You can release it up to three days after the deadline, sure, but you won't be eligible for prizes. I'll still judge it, though.

With this in mind, the contest would look more like this:
12:00 AM, 7/1/2012 -> 11:59 PM, 7/31/2012 -> 11:59 PM, 8/3/2012 for no cash/physical prizes.

Alright, that sounds good to me.

I will be posting the contest thread on June 27th. This will give people three days to sign up, ask final questions, and begin preparations.

Of course, in the three days leading up to the 27th, you're free to continue asking your questions and commenting on things here.

I myself have one final query; would anybody be averse to the idea of me simply purchasing 30 dollar, 20 dollar, and 10 dollar Amazon gift cards for you to use? The books themselves are only $7.99 each and I can either purchase Amazon gift cards or send you cold hard cash. Course, if you're not in the US, best bring the money to an exchange bank... Nonetheless, I won't be purchasing prizes until the winners are announced (between August 3rd and August 10th) and I figure out which prize they want. So, for prizes so far, Amazon gift cards or cash. You can use either to purchase your own copies of the Dark Templar Saga books, which will cut the middle man of shipping with FedEx or UPS or some shit, and keep the costs low for both of us. Besides, if you don't want to buy the books, you can use the gift cards/cash to purchase cocaine and strippers.

Thoughts?

Doubt I'll win, but this will hopefully give me some incentive to get started on a thing I've wanted to do for a while. Consider me in.

Also, going to vote against themes.

I hope it all works out for the best.

Themes is looking like a no-no. Once the contest begins, I'll have a list of contestants and their project names (if they're named).

Judges will solely be Jim_Raynor and myself.

In addition, graphics from the past are allowed, from static Maplantis to your own personal creations of yore. The same goes for sound bytes and other media that's usable in-game. As long as you have permission of the original author, they're authorised. Thanks to Biophysicist for asking for clarification.

There is a one week contest during this time frame that some of us are taking pretty serious. Any chance of delaying by two weeks?

hm, probably a good idea. There seems to be a lot of contests lately.

I am allowing submissions to that contest to be built upon and submitted after polish, updates, and continuations for this contest. Read as: if you made a map for the one-week contest, you can make more maps in that series and/or update your submission and release it here. If you plan on doing this, I will require that you 'sign up' as it were when the one-week contest concludes.

I'm participating with The Tyrant's Reminiscence. You already know personally that it's my campaign, so no need to explain.

Remember that you'll have to begin from scratch. Planning and plot is fine, but the physical map-work must be done during the competition.

No problem.