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#1 User is offline   Wily Duck Icon

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Posted 23 June 2011 - 05:01 AM

As I look at the activity in this forum, I'm reminded of my original opinion of the Map Competition forum from when it began: map competitions have become trivialized, even moreso than before this forums' existence.

Where are the Poseidon's and Asylums? These are common mapcycle worthy maps, made in a week. Here, no care or serious attention is paid. This forum is simply reclusive, obscure, a graveyard of what was aspiring ideas.

There's a lot of "Let's Do This!" and "This would be cool so come on!" chatter. Then once the initial fanfare quickly fades, so does the interest. It reminds me of Fark.com when the photoshopping fad exploded - the posted images were thought out, fun, articulated design that was meant to compliment a small community, not pepper the digital realm with mockeries every couple hours until there was no longer any identity or meaning behind the art. That is what this forum was designed to do whether intended or not.

You want a real map competition? Find 2-3 members of FS that will sponsor a competition, that is already laid out on paper for their review, meaning you've done your homework, and find 5-6 committed, preferably veteran mappers, who will subscribe to the cause. Then, open the competition to other contestants. By now you should have worked out a date range with your frontline that works best for them, and the rest can follow. You have your subject material, rules, submission points, judging, public relations, etc, all in order. You can guide the mappers and entertain the spectators.

Obviously no map competition needs to be cookie-cutter either. Issue points in three stages, or last mapper standing, or dual mapper teams, etc etc. However just like anything else as a rule of thumb, if you can't imagine yourself having a blast 80% of the way through, your idea probably sucks. Then if you can imagine more than 20% of the contestants becoming irritable or disinterested before the contest's end, your idea sucks. Sure people may drop out due to r/l commitments, but that does not count against your idea.

Here are some general considerations to keep map competitions interesting and strong:
1. Absolutely no more than 1 competition every 3 months no matter the length of the competition.
2. Once the groundwork is laid and supported, it would be in everyone's best interests to prominently announce the competition.
3. Eliminate any confusion beforehand by working with your frontline outside of public view.
4. Have fun, act professionally, but do NOT try to micromanage, or strangulate mappers with strict control, or there will be no fun and thus no interest.
5. Map contests breed innovation! Capitalize on this!

Perhaps you will agree with me, or perhaps my flaming will fall upon deaf ears. Regardless, the current net result of this forum speaks for itself. The UrT content stream is weak. A far better structured competition (without the rigidness) can rekindle wavering interests.


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