Khalsa's Mapping Competition

[khalsa]

O Hi, fancy seeing you here. Well I like maps and such, but there are so many maps (and mapping competitions) that are just about eyecandy, but in actuality horrible horrible maps, that I thought I should do something about it. Say hello to the newest mapping competition in town - MINE!

So gather 'round children, make your maps, call your friends, win some stuff and everyone goes home happy (or else!)

Rules:

• No textures used from the 1.1 default maps. (other textures from same sets ok, just nothing used in 1.1 allowed)
• Must be enjoyable and playable (no seizure-inducing crap)
• Should aim to balance the map for 4v4 through 7v7 (8-14 players)
• Should be a NEW, never before seen map, not a port or other such nonsense
• Must be your or your teams work, no one else’s.
• If your entry is not from one individual, ALL contributors must be credited
• You must signup by the signup date or cry to your mother (no exceptions - you must do one of these)
• Must submit the map by the due date and time.
• Can submit as many maps as you want – no limit!
• Must include .map in the pk3 submission
• A KhalsaCola machine *must* be somewhere in your map. (or any other KhalsaCola product)

Judging Criteria

• Balanced as well as possible for 1.1 and for MGDEV
• Gameplay Gameplay Gameplay
• Gameplay
• How well your maps plays
• User experience while playing your map

Judges

None of your business, they know who they are and you might find out later. They are welcome to speak up if they like.

Tips:

DO NOT - Make a box map: Box maps are lame, boring, and do not have good gameplay.
DO - Make a cool creative balanced map: No durrr idiot, this is how you WIN
DO NOT- Make a symmetrical map: pretty much same as above
DO - Suck up to Khalsa and the judges: Just like real life, sucking up might get your somewhere! (probably not though)
DO NOT - Break the rules: Are you stupid or something?
DO - Bribe the Judges or Khalsa: I accept cash, checks, money orders, paypal, WoW gold, land, oxen, women, and hand-made quilts
DO NOT - Completely ignore how the map looks for the sake of gameplay: Just cause the focus is on gameplay, doesn't mean we want shitty untextured maps with no eye on design
DO - Beta test your maps: Lots of fun public games gives you a better idea of how to fix your maps


Prizes

****Overall Winner****
Buy you a Mofrag Shirt + 1 year webhosting + 2 months free tremserver + Something else I haven't thought of yet
****Khalsa's Choice****
 1 year webhosting + 1 month free tremserver
****Secret Criteria****
 1 month free tremserver

Signup

You must signup stating your intention to create a map no later than Friday, February 6th 2009 5:00 pm CST. Send an email to Khalsa+contest @ ioquake.org with your name, or the name of your Team+members. *****If I do not receive 7 individual and distinct signups, this competition will not move forward. I'm not going to waste my time, the judges time, my money, those cool prizes, and the communities mindshare on a crappy little contest with only 2-3 maps. The internet is serious business folks!

Submission

Email your final submission as a complete and final PK3 to Khalsa+contest @ ioquake.org . The file name must be in the following format: Yourname-Mapname-Khalsacomp.pk3 Substitute your teams name for yourname appropriately. The pk3 must include all sources used in the map (.map, sounds, textures, etc.)

Due Date

Final Submission Due Date will be announced within the next couple days, will be about a month out.
No late maps will be accepted. <--Period (seriously)

Releasing

You are highly highly highly encouraged to create a thread in the mapping release forum documenting the updates and changes to your map. You are highly encouraged to create alpha's/beta's as much as possible and distribute them throughout the community to garner feedback. The only thing we ask is that you DO NOT release the .map and/or other sources untill after the contest winners have been announced.

Legalese

All maps must be licensed  under an open and free license. Khalsa reserves the right to do whatever the fuck he wants with your map and .map. (Yes, that means I get to make sick sick love to them whenever I like, and there is NOTHING you can do about it!) (In all likelyhood I will do nothing, since I know jack squat about maps and .maps (other than the source file to a map is called .map)) This small text is a bit hard to read, isn't it? Maybe I should make it a little larger, no - on second thought all you sharp-eyed mappers should easily be able to read this. Also, I reserve the right to change anything and everything in this post as I see fit, when I see fit, how I see fit. (I'm looking pretty fit eh?)

[tuple]

Hi folks.  As a long time fan of new maps, and maps in general.  I was pretty happy to hear about a mapping competion.  I've loved the beta maps for a long, long time
and promise not to do anything vulgar to them this time!

To help mappers test their maps, and give everyone a place to play/test them as they progress I've recreated a server I used to run called
MapMadness, a server I have had much fun on in the past!  I'm doing this to give mappers a place to test maps in the event they don't have one.

Mappers who want to put maps on the server for testing/playing can contact me on IRC in freenode (name of tuples). I'm always in #tremulous and #mercenariesguild though I'm not always watching it, so patience is appreciated You can also email me at tuples@mercenariesguild.net or PM me at tremulous.net.  I'll also add any maps I recieve to the MG repo to make it easier for others to check out your map.  I'll try to remember to post a link in this thread to the most recent versions of any submitted maps so that admins of other repo's can grab them as well.

I will warn you though, if you ask me to upload 27 different versions of your map everyday for a week, I may finally succeed in creating a device to stab people over the internet!

For now, MapMadness plays a selection of non-default maps which I have picked almost randomly, so don't think they represent anything that a judge is looking for.  As soon as I get ahold of some maps, I'll start cutting down the list until the rotation is nothing but competion maps.  Lets say 4 to 6 maps   I'll also update the map rotation in this post as it changes.

That will change as soon as YOU change it

I really look forward to getting some matches going on non standard maps!

One last thing, if the player experience begins to suffer on MapMadness, let me know and I'll see about upping the bandwidth and increasing its capabilities.  All things I couldn't do without knowing it needs to be done

edit: fwiw, the first mapper to submit some work can select any 2 other maps to put into rotation.  Those 2 maps will come out of rotation as other mappers submit work.  Thanks Knowitall66 for getting me thinking about it, and no thanks to Khalsa for kickin me   

[Plague Bringer]

Just clarification for any mappers, are there any size requirements for the KhalsaCola machine? Must it be player accessible, or only be able to be seen by a player, or, perhaps, only seen by way of noclip? Does it matter? Thanks for the competition, perhaps it will inspire some new maps to throw in to server rotations.

[khalsa]

There is no restriction on the KhalsaCola Machine. You can have it accessible by noclip only (especially if it doesn't fit in with the rest of the map), you can have it HUGE or can-size. Doesn't matter really, just has to be there.

Obviously I'd like to see it coke-machine size


Khalsa

[Kaleo]

KhaslaCola - Because Khasla's ego just wasn't big enough.

[Archangel]

KhaslaCola - Because Khasla's ego just wasn't big enough.

You know what, right as I read that, that's *EXACTLY* what went through my head.

[Zero Ame]

What if we make it into like a door?

like this

[Archangel]

stolen idea

[Kaleo]

No textures from the 1.1 default maps.

Are you sure you don't mean "No texture sets from the 1.1 default maps".

If not, that is incredibly restrictive, since textures from many sets were used in almost ever vanilla Tremulous map.

[CreatureofHell]

*every

sorry, just have to be picky

[khalsa]

Are you sure you don't mean "No texture sets from the 1.1 default maps".

If not, that is incredibly restrictive, since textures from many sets were used in almost ever vanilla Tremulous map.

Actually I barely know the difference - basically I don't want to see any of the textures from the 1.1 maps. Other textures from the same sets are perfectly OK.


Khalsa

[your face]

I don't think that's such a good idea.  (Nexus base textures FTW?? )

[Evoc]

Are you sure you don't mean "No texture sets from the 1.1 default maps".

If not, that is incredibly restrictive, since textures from many sets were used in almost ever vanilla Tremulous map.

Actually I barely know the difference - basically I don't want to see any of the textures from the 1.1 maps. Other textures from the same sets are perfectly OK.


Khalsa

So, basically, you are forbidding us from even touching the default map texture sections and using any of the default map textures that may show up in other maps' sets?

Also: this competition sounds GREAT!

[Bissig]

King Khalsa wants you to slave over some new textures or at least use http://www.google.com to find some fresh ones (only if they are free as in "free" or at least have a matching CC licence of course).

[mooseberry]

KhaslaCola - Because Khasla's ego just wasn't big enough.

You know what, right as I read that, that's *EXACTLY* what went through my head.

You guys are both failing at sucking up, it's in the rules!

Also good idea, I wish this competition well, I can't wait to see, (and play) what it produces.

[Kaleo]

The problem is, most free texture sets have already had elements taken from them and used in some of the stock maps. I've seen elements of almost all of Evilairs textures, and most of Soc's Tech1 set, among others, in the stock maps.

[Bissig]

The problem is, most free texture sets have already had elements taken from them and used in some of the stock maps. I've seen elements of almost all of Evilairs textures, and most of Soc's Tech1 set, among others, in the stock maps.

I'm pretty sure the Quake engine series is not the only game engine with textures.

[your face]

KhaslaCola - Because Khasla's ego just wasn't big enough.

You know what, right as I read that, that's *EXACTLY* what went through my head.

You guys are both failing at sucking up, it's in the rules!

Also good idea, I wish this competition well, I can't wait to see, (and play) what it produces.

that's if they participate.  (I'm definitely not )

[Zero Ame]

I was planing on joining into this but a little to restrictive for me, personally, I think some of the default maps have very 1337 textures and would love to use them.

[rotacak]

I like that rule "no default textures". It's boring to see in any map still same textures.

[CreatureofHell]

I was planing on joining into this but a little to restrictive for me, personally, I think some of the default maps have very 1337 textures and would love to use them.

same here.

[Kaleo]

I was planing on joining into this but a little to restrictive for me, personally, I think some of the default maps have very 1337 textures and would love to use them.

+1

[khalsa]

That's the problem, EVERYONE wants to use them. I've seen to many maps using those textures, kind of sick of them now

Never thought it would be such a big deal, seeing as there are like 1.2 million other textures out there available for use. Stop being such lazy mappers!


Khalsa

[your face]

I don't entirely appreciate that attitude. ...

[tuple]

Take no offense, he's just being glib.  Calling a mapper lazy is like calling them impatient, if you're either you quit after your first map attempt ( like I did ).

[your face]

I know, but it still burns.

[Zero Ame]

That's the problem, EVERYONE wants to use them. I've seen to many maps using those textures, kind of sick of them now

Never thought it would be such a big deal, seeing as there are like 1.2 million other textures out there available for use. Stop being such lazy mappers!


Khalsa

lol? Its not called being lazy, and we know there are other textures out there, the problem is 1: Collecting a mass amount of textures you want to use. 2: Writing up the shaders for your textures. 3: Finding pre-made texture sets.

And since TRaK is the only person around actually making textures for tremulous, its not exactly like we have a great amount of textures open to us. And for most pre-made texture sets that can be found on the web can only be obtained through suscribing to some site and paying for it, no one is going to do that.

A great deal of the default textures are of very good quality and look VERY decent.

[CATAHA]

Ye, wanna offer other competition after this one! =)

Rules:
No textures used in any maps before. No models! No triangle brushes!
Must be awesome! Rly for real!
Incredible gameplay also need.
You must make map ALONE.
Must include .map and complete description of every used trick (video and one-hour comments per trick must be included!)
A 'CATAHA and her ultimate-competitions - RULE!' text must be at least in four points of ur map. USE BIG LETTERS! No 'secret rooms'!

Judging Criteria
I will choose best map from all. I can call any map 'crap'. Even all of them. I can do anything.

Judges
Me!
---------------------------------------
BTW... its just joke. =D

But... piece of truth in every joke. Too restrictive for me also. Using 'unique' textures cant guarantee good texturing work, btw. Anyway... not inspired at all.

[Bissig]

I'm with Khalsa. Except for a few examples most maps are just look-a-likes. BORING.

Some people have created creative maps like steampunk, sokolov. They at least don't look like a stock map.

[Kaleo]

Sokolov used almost exclusively from Soc'd Tech1 set. So did Uncreation.

You don't need never-before-used textures to look original.