Contest Discussion Topic (2.0.X)

Just to give my 2 cents on the matter of people entering the contest to win.

The most significant reason I can find for entering the OLDC, is to get good critciism from the community as a whole on your maps. If you win, then hooray you get a bragging rights title. But the competition for me (and I imagine, many others) as a way of having your maps shown to the community and getting high quality criticism to help improve your level design style.

The assumption that the devs are the only ones here that will outbalance the map is flawed. Neither Spherallic nor Ezer.Arch are devs, I doubt many devs could outdo them consistently.

I'd also like to add that while devs do have more understanding of SRB2 behind-the-scenes, this does not mean they are the only ones capable of making a good map...
If anything, collaborations (when done right) have a better chance to win than maps made by developers (most maps in SRB2 are at least partially the result of a collaboration). This is because when collaborating effectively, you can make up for the flaws in another's style and then contribute your own skills.

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"Scouting for new talent" seems presumptuous. Every developer I know has abilities beyond mapping. Neither do I understand why a dev winning the contest means that the others won't be honing their skills.

You want to solidify your mapping status? Well I won't deny this is a prime motivator for joining this contest. Except I found out personally that the contest isn't the only way to really achieve that kind of status. Many users here have a reputation beyond the contest (I believe that includes you, fawfulfan).
A contest winning level does not necessarily win you my esteem. Many levels that end up winning the contest are actually not that great... being a contest it only needs to be better than everyone else's.

fawfulfan said:

Oh, dang, I hadn't thought of that. I was more concerned with this contest than the last one.

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They were made devs BECAUSE of their high-quality contest entries, among a few other reasons.

fawfulfan said:

It's not as much that I desperately want the user title as that I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory last time, thought that this level would stand a much better chance, and now it's looking like the one time I produce a really good and well-thought-out level, I would get beaten out by a professional. The mind works in mysterious ways...that sequence is enough to make me a little bitter.

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I will remind you that nobody on the SRB2 dev team is professional. We're all amateurs doing this as a hobby. The user title of the people entering the contest means nothing in that regard other than some people were taken onto the team because we thought they'd be helpful to have around for making the game proper. That's all it means.

While I generally win when I enter, that doesn't mean that I'm some kind of pro or anything. All it means is that I've been doing this a while and have refined my art to the point where it's pretty decent.

fawfulfan said:

And, yes, I know I'm jumping to conclusions here. I don't know how Blade's level will play, I don't know how people will rate my level, and I don't know how people will rate Blade's level. So don't call be out on that stuff...I know I'm jumping the gun.

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If you think his level outclasses you visually, it's not too late to fix that in your map, you know.

If you think Blade is kicking your ass at the OLDC, then I suggest you look at what he's doing because he's doing better than you at it. There isn't some magic upper class of developers here who win every time because of their status. Blade is winning a lot because he's good at this.

I know. I'm not saying that the winner selection is politicized--you'd have to be a blind, vitriolic nincompoop to think that. I'm just saying that many developers became that way because they are good, and thus many of them are far more likely to do well in the contest.

Look, I know many parts of my argument are flawed, and I know that nothing I can say will ever change this stuff. In retrospect, I wouldn't even want devs banned from the contest. I was just blowing off some steam...in fact, I almost wanted to hear people rebut my argument, because I believe that hearing what's wrong with my opinions can make me a better person.

And I will go back and give my level another look.

This discussion reminded me again how few really devoted and helpful reviewers we have in there. I noticed again when looking back at some old contests to see opinions on some maps. I noticed how I searched for the posts of a few select people and only read their reviews. I know that making helpful reviews is very time-consuming though, but it really pays off for the level designers. After all, ratings are second nature, content is the thing that helps the most.

*inb4 "We know, go away"*

Wow, I didn't think me posting some screenshots would start this. Seeing as you sent me your level a while back for me to beta test, I'll have to say it's fairly good. It has a few flaws, but the theme is unique We need more special stage themed levels.

And about last contest, part of the reason we won was because there wasn't many good entries entered.

Blade said:

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Why so many spike chains? Enough is enough, and I saw plenty of chains last time I tested your level!

:(

You can't see it that well in that pic, but there is a gap you can use to be out of their reach.

Blade said:

Wow, I didn't think me posting some screenshots would start this.

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My sincerest apologies, Blade. I was acting like a spiteful, jealous child. Your level looks awesome.

Blade said:

Seeing as you sent me your level a while back for me to beta test, I'll have to say it's fairly good. It has a few flaws, but the theme is unique We need more special stage themed levels.

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Hey, thanks! And I've actually made dramatic improvements to it since then. Here are some screenshots of Wacky Tesseract Zone:

(Sorry if I missed something, I haven't read whole topic.)

Is this a SP/Coop map?

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I ask because Tails players will love it ^_~

(something is telling me there's a bit of "Mill Citadel" in that screen)

Blade said:

You can't see it that well in that pic, but there is a gap you can use to be out of their reach.

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Is he speaking of Spinning Maces? If there's a fairly good gap between them so the player can stand still safe, I don't see any problem there. I used 4 Spinning Maces in a narrow corridor and seem good, at least to me.

JEV3 said:

Neither Spherallic nor Ezer.Arch are devs, I doubt many devs could outdo them consistently.

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YAY.

EDIT:

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I can hear the walls. They're telling me "We need texture variation, badly". D:

All right, then...how about this instead?

Ezer, the map is Race, not single player. I've also desided to remove the middle mace.

And yes, Mill Citadel was a bit of reference for that level. :P

Uh, Doesn't that level already have a name?

I haven't made any custom content for SRB2 in quite some time. However, for this contest I submitted a CTF map that had been sitting on my hard drive for several months and a match map I threw together on a rather slow weekend.

Here are some screenshots of the match map:




http://imageshack.us

It needs more texture variation for walls and flats.
Why are there so many textures along the right border in the first screenshot?
A bit more Thing scenery would be nice, and so would making one of the areas more cavernous by adding a lowered celing.

fawfulfan said:

All right, then...how about this instead?

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A world of difference: now the players will have better sense of depth and direction.

Wow! All of these levels look interesting. And why do I have a feeling that there are gonna be only 2 or 3 SP entries?

fawfulfan said:

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Who came up with the idea of using half light blocks for death pits? Was it Shuffle? Anyway, I'm really thankful for that, it turned into a very cool-looking and very popular effect. People, please keep using it :o

EDIT: It was SRB2-Playah.

ComRante said:

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THANK YOU. I was wondering when people were going to start using the purple rock for outdoor levels.

A minor gripe, though. Do you think you could get rid indentations in the middle of grassy sectors? It just feels really weird to suddenly have a block of rock-hard grass you can stand on. Either bury the player's feet, or just set all both sectors to the same height.

DAWN OF THE FINAL DAY

Current map count so far:

Singleplayer: 5
Match: 2
CTF: 2
Race: 1

The last day tends to see the most entries, so hopefully we'll see some more multiplayer maps before 7PM today.

Well, I just submitted Aquatic Relic, a match map that's even more of a rush job than Amber Ravine (and they both share the same abbreviation): it was made in 7 hours, probably less.

no screens because imma be lazy