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TDM Beginners Contest


Sir Taffsalot

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There will be at least one more mission, soon. ;)

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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Haha, no need for despair my friend (leave that to us! :( ), its not like I can rush my beta testers, I have to wait on the feedback to release a bug free mission. It will be here as soon as we all agree it is ready. ;)

Edited by RPGista
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Hello there RPGista, I really appreciate it that you put that much efford in your mission but I also have to say my view on this (I am a honesty person) and I hope my english is good enough to express my feelings on this in a correct way without making you feel bad ( I don't want to harm you or something) but:

 

I remember your postings in the early phase when you promised a lot of cool stuff to happen and neat places to look at. You showed of your artwork to make sure we know that you're really working on this map and putting much efford in this. At this point I looked at myself. Staring like you with nothing but the tutorials and the help from the forums. I hoped I could make it to the end with a mission that is acutally playable. You seemed (for me) to be a person who is really persistent working on his tasks and creating a miracle FM. After getting really into making a first FM (with all that stuff that is hanging on this) I realized how hard it is and became thinking about if you could ever put all your ideas into action..

 

You know my great wish was that there will be 10 mappers who release their missions at one day so the players will not know where to start first in their luck and have a great time. But it came that there were only two people left who released their missions even at not the same date. I was very sad. There was a party going on, but I felt a bit alone.

 

I tried to fit the rules. Did a first beta test. Players were pleased, but I wanted more. Did add some more rooms hoping it won't break the rules. I was really suprised seeing jysk's mission which was much bigger than mine remembering the 10 rooms rule! I even added some details in the last week before the deadline. But it wasn't about adding extraordinary things into my mission. It was all about learning DR, TDM and its engine. I did some effords on modeling and texutring or sounds, yeah. But mainly trying to fit the rules. All the more I was dissapointed as there wasn't the great "release day" when everyone (at least the people remaining) released their first try.

 

I hope my english is good enough to explain, but all I wanted to say was, that I am very sad that this Beginner's Contest didn't happen in a way that everyone shows his work proudly letting the players enjoy, but in struggling with times and conditions making the most exaptionally map possible, regardles the time frames and conditions.

 

I know it sounds like complaining and blaiming. I don't want to let it sound like that, really! But I am really desperate about the progression of the contest -sorry :( Don't take it as an assault please!

 

jDSNMK66QOpIl.jpg

"Einen giftigen Trank aus Kräutern und Wurzeln für die närrischen Städter wollen wir brauen." - Text aus einem verlassenen Heidenlager

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As one of RP's beta-testers, ST, I'm part of the reason for the delays for his mission. It was a real honour to be asked to beta-test, but even if there hadn't been loads of RL commitments at my end, I'm nowhere near the fastest TDM player on the planet - sorry.... :( There were a couple of serious bugs which would have made the game unplayable; just had a run-through of the latest release though, and as far as I can see it's looking good...

 

I know you've felt let down by the response to the contest, ST, but I can confidently say (being in the privileged position of having now played all three new FMs), the quality of everyone's work is a real reason to celebrate!

 

And on that note, I definitely AM going to bed now....

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I understand completely SeriousToni, you needent apologize. There are two things to keep in mind in MY case though, and I'll come back to your point later - when the contest started I had already designed (with a lot of bold choices, of course! :) ) my map, which would be coming before I even knew about it. It wasnt meant to be included inside this tight time frame, but at there were talks about the contest in the forums and I thought it would be a good way of discovering new talent so I decided to adjust my ambitions to the time available so that I could be one more participant, as we needed examples to attract others. My mission is not inside any rules. It is just my first mission, and I wanted to make it from the start a bit different from the norm and exploring things like physical puzzles, linear but divided paths, relatable characters (with a sad tone) and some more complex AI behaviour than your generic go here, go there, go here, go there guard. I ended up with a HUGE amount of stuff to learn, and I can safely say, now that the mission is completed, that I spent 70% of the time trying to learn, figure out, reverse engineer stuff in the game, rather than actually tweaking or implementing it. And I spent a LOT of time creating my architecture, so you can imagine the number of hours lost just to get to know the engine. I believe its a mistake to say you can make a tdm mission in a couple of weeks, like it is sometimes suggested. The examples used to show that come from guys with huge knowledge of the engine and/or map making (Greebo, Melan, Fidcal, etc). It takes a lot of time to understand this stuff, let alone design and make it interesting. In my case, working mostly 10 hours a day, your left with weekends which can make it really hard to keep up the progress.

 

The mission is ready right now, and has been for several days, just solving issues and waiting for reports from betatesters. As for your point, Im not surprised many people gave up along the way, I imagine after being confronted with this very difficulty I just spoke about. You guys should be happy you kept at it and you had the capacity to create your vision and also respect a set of rules and a deadline. And from what i see, coming up with awesome products! So you guys should be proud and happy, regardless. I didnt enter the competition to really "win" or to "compete", it was mostly an excuse to map and to give me a defined structure, Im actually glad I finished it when I did or I would have spent many more months doing essentially the same, as the mission is pretty much how I imagined it. Anyway, sorry if you felt my mouth was bigger than my actions, I was trying to keep the whole thing interesting during these months, but I dont think I ever bragged I was doing awesome, if anything I was always pointing out all the problems I still had to solve and that it was going to be pretty hard finishing it. Well, with help from a lot of knowledgeable guys, its finally done, and I hope you and others will find it interesting.

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@SeriousToni: Dude, you can't be "serious"... The contest has been a great success. Your completing and submitting a mission (apparently somewhat inspired by RPGista) that is and has gotten tremendous praise is proof of that. And jysk's mission came out already too!

 

It looks as if the contest has also the promise of eventually bringing out maybe 2-3 more missions (and these have been, in advance, spoken of well by a couple of the veteran FMAs)...

 

The contest has been a great success. Your mission has been a great success. You've accomplished much.

 

You didn't seem "sad" that day. Not at all. Rather "giddy", you were. So, try not to get distraught and negative about this now, eh?

 

If RPGista inadvertently (or even intentionally) spurred you on, then that's a good thing! You are now an author because of it!

 

...

 

Even if you don't win the contest (which, yes, should, at this point, be just down to the 2 of you (you and jysk))... you've still won. And so have we.

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But yeah, Simplenoob is right, time to rest man... Im wasted. Tomorrow I'll release it (whenever I get confirmation there are no more errors), so lets just say Im finally coming to the party, fashionably late. ;)

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I hope I'm not offending anyone but I think it's only fair that this contest is now just down to ST and jysk.

 

I was expecting some people to drop out but not as many as acually did and that is a shame. On the other hand I wasn't expecting anyone to make such a high quality FM for a first attempt. But I'm glad to see that the standard of the FM's I've played so far completely exceeded my expectations. We have 3 very impressive FM's come out of this and 3 FM authers whos later work we can all look forward too. The third I'm refering to being RPGista. Late to the party but wow will his FM blow your socks off. Hopefully Xarg will produce something soon that will continue the high standard of releases so far.

 

I guess I'm trying to say that quality over quantity is what matters at the end of the day. And that is what we have.

  • Like 3

"I believe that what doesn't kill you simply makes you... stranger"

 

The Joker

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Done some more work on mine tonight, I feel bad dropping out of the contest like I did (been working late every night this week - and by late, one night I got home from work at 3.30am) but I didn't wanna keep mentioning it because it'd sound like excuses. Rest assured that progress IS being made. Detail passes are coming along very nicely, I'm quite happy with some of what I've done here. Not going to promise a date for release, just that will be a release.

 

After about.. mid-week or so, I'll have more free time to do this again. Currently have to go in to work tomorrow (Sunday, and out of principle I do NOT work on weekends), then full steam ahead on Monday, Tuesday, and possibly Wednesday as well. After that, my schedule should return to normal. Gotta spend the weekend practicising for a Trial of Position for Monday morning, so there goes all my weekend time as well, heh.

Edited by Xarg

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I really think RPGista's mission deserves to be in there, and accepted as an entry. Let's not be dicks about exact deadlines.

Edited by Melan

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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Good heavens, if the mission comes a few weeks late, who cares?

 

Let it be in the contest. This isn't dead serious business, you know. For contestants, I am sure it is better to lose in a contest where there are more than two contestants than win when there are only two.

  • Like 2

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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This isn't dead serious business, you know.

+1. While I can understand SeriousToni's disappointment (and BTW, ST, being "too optimistic or idealistic" is nothing to be ashamed of :) ), I think it's much better if FMA's enjoy and feel supported in the process of getting their work completed and released, rather than getting stressed and pressurised by trying to meet a deadline that, in the overall scheme of things, is (sorry, SirT and SeriousT) pretty meaningless.

 

The quality of all these "beginner's" builds is gob-smackingly good, and hugely encouraging. (I can tell you, when/if I finally get round to building my first FM - do not not NOT hold your breath - I fully expect it to make the T2 'Bestest FM' series look like Rose Cottage & Seven Sisters & the Rocksbourg series combined :rolleyes:.)

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It isn't a dead serious process, exactly.

 

Which is why the two entrants that got in inside the contest rules should be the ones eligible to win the contest.

 

The others can still take the contest part of it less seriously and rejoice and bask in the much greater side of it all: that they have concieved and created a mission and, in so doing, become fan mission authors! They should of course still put up threads (with polls if they'd like) wherein their missions will certainly be praised (I've little to no doubt their missions are going to be praiseworthy).

 

This is the fairest thing to do. AND it relieves the pressure the "late" authors might be feeling to rush even the slightest bit.

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