WINTER MAPPING CONTEST '08 RESULTS






FOURTH PLACE


The Battle Of Hoth


ORIGINALITY 7/10

PROFESSIONALISM 5/10

FUN FACTOR 6.5/15

THEME 5/10


TOTAL 25.5/45

Comments:

The Negative

The map was basically a 'Helms Deep' on Ice. It has very few new features except a few uninteresting spells. There were serious balance issues and if you combine the terrain and the amount your troops are spread out it was almost impossible to rally them together to make a fortified defense.

The Positive

The theme was different, normally it's just Orcs vs. humans or defending an egg from sperm. This time it had Darth Vader! The heroes were fun to run out with and lay waste to poor defenders and stupid attackers, Luke tried to undress me with his mind but was unsuccessful.


THIRD PLACE


Reindeer Breeding


ORIGINALITY 9/10

PROFESSIONALISM 6.5/10

FUN FACTOR 6/15

THEME 7.5/10


TOTAL 29/45

Comments:

The Negative


The map is rather dry in the breeding time, you move two units to crystals, out pops a reindeer, then you repeat the process. There aren’t even any sexual noises! You spend a lot of time just waiting there for spring, then you run around chopping up humans and wolves and trying to get enough minerals to repeat the 'step to crystals out pops baby' cycle. I think it would have been nice if there was a different weather pattern that happened and could affect the hunting, maybe you get a deformed baby once in awhile or a mother dies giving birth, something to spice it up.

The Positive


There was a decent variety of reindeer and things to hunt, you had plenty of enemies and there was competition between herds. It was funny to watch reindeers eight times the size of humans rape everything around them in an angry rage. There was also fresh incest fun!


SECOND PLACE


Battle Dome


ORIGINALITY 8/10

PROFESSIONALISM 7/10

FUN FACTOR 10.5/15

THEME 4/10


TOTAL 29.5/45

Comments:

The Negative


The map has a decent amount of balance issues and it's kind of annoying to have an air unit flying around that you can't kill, I don't really understand the point of giving them a dark templar AND a arbiter, it seems like the unit would be better in a different combination. It's sometimes hard to figure out how your hero works, for instance no one in the game knew how to get the firebat out of the Marksman hero. If you run out of scan while vsing a cloaked hero it's pretty much GG, you also can't watch if you lose which is kind of gay. The theme was very low because it had nothing to do with winter except the title and the tile set.

The Positive


The hero variety was excellent, no heroes were too much alike. The terrain was nice for a small zone to fight in. It was a lot of fun if you did not end up getting the bad end of a counter, like witch vs. the tank hero. Having different game styles like tournament and team match were cool, the game was always different, random and being able to nullify certain heroes before the game starts was also interesting. Random spawns was great. You never knew where your enemy first was.

And finally, in first place we have..
LOST CITY




ORIGINALITY 8/10

PROFESSIONALISM 6.5/10

FUN FACTOR 12/15

THEME 8.5/10


TOTAL 32/45

Note: -3 for being late on the deadline.


Comments:

The Negative

The map still had some glitches even in the patched up versions, most of which didn't really affect the game play however. The names of units and things looked like they had 0 effort put into them and at one point you pick up a 'Battery' which turns out to be a key... the 'zombies' had very poor Ai and would follow you around or just walk towards you then back to their spawn location, not being able to decide to run at the person that’s shooting them or flee in the other direction. Simple errors like a siege tank shooting over the wall and doors not functioning properly docked points from professionalism. There were wavs that didn't fit in the map but were used anyways also the whistling clip of about 5 seconds of the same thing gets annoying. Large amounts of walking too. The terrain also was not that great.

The Positive


The map's game play was generally good, there was a large amount of missions to do and places to explore. There was a quick action drop ship inventory and the boss's were cool. The cut scenes were good and being able to choose your weapon was nice. The storyline was good and you couldn't really tell what was going to come next. Zombie's instantly make this game awesome. Custom sounds made by the maker of the map showed effort and originality. Micro and teamwork were completely required, which is fun. There was a good intro and professionalism with things like text and cut scenes. You had to constantly be on your toes which gave you the feeling of suspense. The game takes place in a winter environment and fits very well with the theme. The map wasn't overcomplicated so we should see some of dem pubbies playing it in the future.



Mineral prizes will be given out by minimoose2707, Thanks for entering guys and congratz to T-Virus and ETEFT


Note: I had colors in everything but when I copied it into Word it got rid of them, sorry for post being ugly.

EDIT: The judges were myself, Kaias and Lethal_Illusion. If you think either of them are unfit to judge go stick a screwdriver in your eyeball.

Who made these maps? I'm too lazy to find out myself

You have way too much empty space... remove some enters... also you guys were tough judges, these maps were all pretty poorly rated, but saying that you had possibly two of the most 'we love complex shit' people I know as judges, and then one complete newb who hangs out with them...

Your judges should of been better selected to say the least.
Me and Lethal were going to enter a map, but i had to move....

Lethal and Kaias are bad judges!?

Yes, because they are into complex maps and maps that arn't at all convenient and not about actual gameplay. They would sacrifice gameplay in a second if only it made the map more technical...

I definitely agree with that last part.

QFT

Have you played the maps? Only two of them (out of only four) were worth seriously considering- Battle Dome and Lost City. If you actually look at the ratings you'd see that their score was primarily lost in Theme- I couldn't care less about the theme, but I didn't make the rubric, it was a Winter Contest and none of them fulfilled this very well. Needless to say, most were killed in a section that hardly makes the map. Realize further that we had to skew the scale a bit to fit and work with two good maps and two substandard maps.

Lethal and I volunteered because no one else was- we weren't selected.

That's a ridiculous conjecture. We don't care if is amazingly intrinsically complex, only if it's well made and fun. Lethal and I may make a concept map/system just to see if we can or if something is possible, but complexity does not make the map. Every system or function made is weighed against the sacrifices that come with it, how convenient it is, comprehensible or practical.

That's the dumbest thing you've said between these two posts.

Battle Dome and Lost City were both marked down in professionalism for bugs/flaws, as well. Our 'Endless' game of Battle Dome ended after a couple rounds in when the map bugged and didn't begin a new round.

I find it rather funny how devilisk is so childish he flames the post just because I didn't like his map as much as LC, It's really annoying also that shocko calls me a newb because I pwn him in temple siege whenever we play. I really wish you guys would keep your personal things to yourself, I'm not a noob. I help people on b.net all the time with triggers, suggestions, terrain and testing. Seriously. Just because I don't anwser every UMS help topic like falkoner or nuderaider doesn't mean I'm not helping people. Shocko, I haven't seen a single map or help posted by yourself. And devilisk puts no effort what so ever into his half assed maps. I don't think either of you are qualified to call me a noob.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 13 2009, 3:06 am by Doodan. Reason: removed flame

I didn't flame. I was agreeing with one. It was a true statement anyway.

Also, it's obvious that "fun factor" is purely subjective, but you have a clear bias towards LC and a clear bias against BD because of your relationship with each of the mappers. I'm sure you'll say you tried to be fair about it, but you did not distance yourself from the contestants as well as you should have. You can't deny the ties and attention you had to LC during the contest.

There's also the issue of allowing late submissions. While I don't think that's completely wrong (because you want all the entries you can get) the problem is the completely arbitrary point deduction that you used. When you don't state the exact penalty beforehand you just give yourself an excuse to bias the results with an X factor that no one is aware of.

You may not have intended to actually do that, but the presence of this issue and other things just detracts from the overall way you have conducted this contest.

I knew all of these things beforehand so I wasn't intending on winning, hence the lack of effort in my submission. I was even debating whether to submit the map, but I did anyway just to support your little contest which failed regardless.

That's true that I put no effort whatsoever into my half assed maps and I don't think anyone else puts effort into half assed maps. You are just stating the obvious. The lack of effort put into a map is what makes it half assed. If I had put effort into a half assed map then that would be an oxymoron.

But I was just picking on the wording of your statement. You are stating that I have made half assed maps, but can you name one of my completed maps that is half assed? There's a reason why Battle Dome doesn't have a showcase topic and why it's called incomplete. Have you even made any quality maps yourself? Honestly, I'm more than qualified to talk about your competence as a mapper and therefore a judge of mapping.

Ah, I'm sorry that interrupted your playing experience and likely detracted from it. If I ever revisit Battle Dome and intend on finishing it then I'll definitely look into that. Although the presence of a bug doesn't really surprise me at all, given the level of completion the map is at, the time working on it, and the lack of testing different scenarios.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 13 2009, 3:23 am by Mayor.

Lost City has a higher fun Factor than Battle Dome?! This is seriously BS.

But that doesn't affect the voting, Battle Dome scored higher in some places then lost city. But was boring at times when your random the same hero over and over. Then you're on a win streak and someone gets a unit you have no chance against. There were lots of imbalances and things that could have been improved. Kaias and Lethal have no affiliation with virus and ETEFT almost at all. We all voted and if they truely liked battle dome better then LC then it would have been 2 to 1, and you would have most likely scored higher in the categorys. Lost city is a better map the battle dome. The majority agrees. GG

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 18 2009, 4:44 pm by Mini Moose 2707. Reason: Trolling

This is beyond inconceivable. I never thought grown men (I would hope so) would act like this over an internet contest about SC Mapping. ClansAreForGays, please stop slab lagging. We read what you had to say in the first topic, you have the need to say another absurd comment? As far as Shocko, he has the right to his own opinion, it doesn't really matter though at this point of time. Devilesk, I understand where your coming from and it's cool, I feel you. Bottom line is though LC obviously stuck out a bit more than BD, well atleast in the judges mind. (Which is the only thing that really should matter in this WTC thread.)

Like I said in the other topic, congratulations to all who placed.

Ha, you call me the asshole? I'm sure if a third party were to read our conversation they'd have different opinions on that. And I'm sorry that "random" isn't "random" enough for you. There's always the setting to choose your hero.

Anyway, I'm not saying that the judges are wrong. I completely respect Kaias and Lethal's decision, but I also know that they aren't the final authority on which map is better. The majority of judges may think LC is better than BD, but that's just the opinion of 3 judges. Disregarding the controversial "fun factor" category and the useless with regard to a better overall map "theme" category, then BD actually did score higher. I'm not entirely sure how you can relate each map's originality, but you called it equal so whatever. The problem was the unknown point deduction and the inherent bias and subjectivity of fun factor.

Also, there seemed to be a lot of bugs with the original submission of Lost City which you even let them fix. It's questionable how exactly you took that into account in comparison to my map which seems like it only had one bug.

Originally, Kaias and I thought that Battle Dome was better than Lost City (which was plagued by bugs initially). After we played it for a bit longer, the game lost its initial flavor and soon became pretty bland (not to mention imbalanced at times). The gameplay at one point consisted of my running in a circle to regaining energy and to escape Kaias (this went on for about five minutes until I finally killed him). After Kaias's and my duel, we decided to let Pigy_G in on the action. The fun-factor of the game, at least in my opinion, decreased dramatically with this new round. Whenever someone died, he had to wait (without being able to see anything with the exception of the occassional scanner sweep) for the other players to finish. I remember one instance when I was forced to wait about two to three minutes for Kaias and Pigy_G to kill each other (and I had already used up all my comstat station's energy in the first minute, so I had to wait for a good minute or two doing absolutely nothing).

So, overall, I enjoyed Lost City much more (especially after all those blasted bugs were removed!) primarily because there was more to do. I have to admit, though, that I did enjoy Battle Dome very much the first time I played it, and, if we had judged the maps based on the first five to ten minutes of gameplay, Battle Dome would have probably won.

I have one final point that I would like to add. Pigy_G had previously warned that late submissions would be deducted points. It was T-Virus(U) and ETEFT(U)'s decision to update their map and get points taken off (a move that ended up saving their map). They were penalized three points for their late submission.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Jan 13 2009, 4:25 am by Lethal_Illusion.

I think that's a big issue. Basically T-Virus and ETEFT were able to submit their map and then they released it to the general public, got a whole bunch of feedback about the bugs, fixed them, and resubmitted with hardly a penalty. I also think pigy's involvement and favoring of LC came into play here since he's a judge that was playing, testing, and providing feedback on the map before the actual judgement and before their submission was final.

The bugs and criticisms you and Kaias pointed out are things that if I had heard of earlier I could have easily addressed. Of course, I too could have released the incomplete map to the public, but that's where the unknown penalty factored in. It's much more fair to be able to weigh the pros and cons of keeping your entry as is or resubmitting it if you know what the penalty actually is. The decision becomes unfair when the penalty could be anything and you don't know what it would be because you can't compare the weight of the bugs to the weight of the penalty.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you test Battle Dome with people before it was finished? Isn't that the same thing that happened with Lost City? Isn't that common for most maps? The only difference I can see is that T-Virus(U) and ETEFT(U) got a few more days at the price of some points.

Only thing that I can say is that no contestants knew what the penalty was, and, quite frankly, no one asked what the it was. Pigy_G, Kaias, and I decided that a map would lose a point for each day it was late (or, in this case, re-submitted).


That's all I have to say right now. Just tell me if something needs more elaboration, and I'd be happy to explain further.

I think he's referring to the bias Pigy would have towards LC. Just from reading Pigy's responses, it seems his judgments were based somewhat on the bias he had towards devilesk and T-Virus and ETEFT, effectively rendering his scoring void. Bias is difficult, if not impossible, to recover from, and Pigy makes no attempt at even hiding his blatant dislike or like for the contestants.

I really only did a few 1v1's with a couple people. As I said before I wasn't able to test all the different scenarios which would include things like more than 2 people in the game or different modes. That's why I didn't account for the fact that in a 3 player game the first player to die wouldn't get to see the rest of the round and would have to wait.

Minor point, but you're also wrong in saying "finished"

Well I think it should be on the part of Pigy to fully disclose all of the information pertaining to the contest if he's trying to have a well run contest.

Also, I did ask about what type of penalty there would be. The way pigy worded his response deterred me from asking what the actual number would be, because he wouldn't say what the penalty was.

I can't answer for Pigy_G. The only person who can answer for him is, well, himself. I suppose that's the reason there were three judges.

At the end of the day, Kaias, Pigy_G, and I all came to a solid agreement with the scores. We each had our own biases (albiet some more than others), but, in our own ways, we balanced each other out.