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Ideas for next contest


Diego

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One issue with "get it working by deadline" and "polish it off later", is the later won't happen as there isn't the same motivation anymore. Other priorities will supplant the revising and since it's already "acceptable" and played...

 

Since different people have different time constraints, I'm more a fan of the size/scope idea. This also might help inhibit feature creep. It doesn't have to be physical size, it could be number of entities/objects, treasure, main characters, objectives, etc.

 

I also like the idea of house building as a simple contest. Then, a follow up contest would be implementing those assets, it would be interesting seeing the results of different designers' implementations/stories.

 

PS: Link to the current contest? Am I blind to a pinned thread? Google is finding stuff from 2012.

"The measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out."

- Baron Thomas Babington Macauley

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Contest idea: map your home.

 

Mapper makes a medievalized version of their apartment or home. An exact and realistic copy is not adviced, but rather exaggeration and artistic liberties are encouraged.

 

The map should have only interiors, but mappers can make sceneries or skyboxes to peek from the windows or balconies, if they so choose.

 

For example, you could take your apartment layout, add an Iron Staircase and add another floor to it. Feel free to transform your kitchenette into a grand hall, and your tiny living room into a marvelously grandiose trophy room.

 

The plot is completely in the mappers hands: maybe it is a mini heist? Maybe it is an escape mission? Maybe assassination. Or maybe it is a problem solving mission in the spirit of the old graphical adventure games?

 

New mappers would be most welcome and small few rooms contest entries would be most doable even for people with low amount of time at their hands.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Sotha's idea would be pretty good to run with, as you will be living in your blueprint/diagram and thus hopefully the floor plan makes sense. I wondered about a most beautiful room contest, but that probably wouldn't work too well as what is the definition of a room in this sense, and what defines beautiful?

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My flat only has three rooms (living/kitchen/bath). Pretty boring for a FM.

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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But what about your whole block? If you make up new roles for surrounding buildings, you could come up with some creative things. Also it might be not just your home if it won't work, but maybe school or job or hometown or some place close to you. I think it has potential.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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LOL. You are really a poor guy ;)

 

@demagogue: It would still depend on what actually is in your surrounding. All the buildings around me are houses with several flats that all look the same. Booooooooooooooooring. I'm not sure whether it is a good idea to restrict the source of inspiration for an FM, and as there is no way to check the FM's against the "originals", it's hard to tell how to evaluate this specific aspect. Maybe we can flesh out and/or modify this idea a bit.

 

What about an "no ai" contest? Mappers have to create tension/fun without the usage of ai.

 

Or a horror contest?

 

An rpg/adventure contest: Create a FM whichs gameplay goes into the direction of a rpg or an adventure. Zelda, Alone in the Dark or Gothic may be good inspiration sources here. The goal of the missions should not be to steal something and sneaking around may have a lower importance, while solving puzzles and/or fighting enemies becomes more important.

 

Feature contest: Create a FM which implements a complete new feature and enhances the TDM gameplay that way.

 

Examples:

  • A street mission that starts in the early morning. But as you go, the sun starts rising and it is getting brighter and brighter.
  • A mission in which you play a different character type with different equipment. Maybe you are part of the city watch and have to ambush a smuggler's nest. Or you are a soldier of the builders who has to get into a castle or fort which is hold by some pagans.
  • A mission in which you play a mage which uses his magic abilities instead of gadgets or weapons.

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FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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Hmm, how about a contest that your FM should resemble or be inspired by a real world location, but leave it open so people can find something creative?

 

And as for judging how well the FM meets the restriction, either (1) the entry might include a link to google maps or photos to see the similarity or inspiration, or the place may be generally known very well so people can have an intuitive idea if it captures the spirit (like Venice or the Beijing Forbidden City), OR (2) Don't worry about it... The restriction doesn't have to be a judging criteria. It could just be a tool for getting people to be creative & thinking, and they write the place in their description so there's a certain level of self-respect unofficially policing the rule (you wouldn't want to say a place it looks nothing like), but there's no actual criteria to judge it a better or worse representation.

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What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Hmm, how about a contest that your FM should resemble or be inspired by a real world location, but leave it open so people can find something creative?

 

And as for judging how well the FM meets the restriction, either (1) the entry might include a link to google maps or photos to see the similarity or inspiration, or the place may be generally known very well so people can have an intuitive idea if it captures the spirit (like Venice or the Beijing Forbidden City), OR (2) Don't worry about it... The restriction doesn't have to be a judging criteria. It could just be a tool for getting people to be creative & thinking, and they write the place in their description so there's a certain level of self-respect unofficially policing the rule (you wouldn't want to say a place it looks nothing like), but there's no actual criteria to judge it a better or worse representation.

 

I love this idea.

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yw1i.png

 

*swims across, climbs the ivy, mantles onto the top, puts an ear to a door, picks the lock, slips inside and quickly ducks into a shadow...

"The measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out."

- Baron Thomas Babington Macauley

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I like the inspired by real world location idea too, and might be more welcoming for newer mappers than a non-standard gameplay theme (although creative ideas, the sunrise one I'd thought of previously, but also like the play as a soldier/Builder turn around concept: inspiring).

"The measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out."

- Baron Thomas Babington Macauley

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I really like Sotha's idea. That way you wouldn't have to spend time coming up with a layout for the map that much, and could instead concentrate on spicing up the level with detailwork and increased interactivity.

 

I guess if you wanted to go really crazy with that idea, it could be mixed up with the "community makes a town" one. Everyone builds a house based on their own apartment, then after the contest all those houses are put together in one map. The map objective could be as simple as "Get X amount of loot" and you would be completely free to go around the town as you please. A little Thiefy sandbox!

Edited by kyyrma
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Considering what has been said, and as a noobie mapper, I think if it's going to be a "noobie DR tryout" contest, it has to :

-be a contest (not plain community work) : more challenge, more motivation

-have a deadline: else it will take too long, never be good enough, and therefore never released

-have a simple scope/theme: those who don't have any ideas for now can use it as inspiration, and those who feel creative will find a way to meet the requirements anyway. I think the build a house (not necessarily yours) scope is good enough for me, and I think kyyrma's idea of making a community FM out of them after is great. You can also add focuses: architecture, atmosphere, AI (RITs), graphical storytelling, scripting... so that people who are slow can do that first and then improve the rest if possible. A theme could be "The underside of Christmas" for instance: snow, gifts, gold, family, decoration showoff, plotting... Just replace Jesus by the Builder, and it's good to go ;) . You plunder the houses, read people's notes, find about dissensions, creepy secrets, unlock bonus quests. Since TDM is kind of dark fantasy, it makes sense, and as you may know people go crazy for Christmas in real life sometimes!

My two cents.

Jared, is that you ?

Must be rats...

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I like that. We might even put them together for the contest, all down a street with the author's name on a sign out front (edit: or more like road sections separated by tunnels so it's portaled properly; there maybe should be a size restriction too), and it's very easy for players to go from house to house in one FM. I'd rather have open participation so as many as possible contribute & it's a long street, but a special award for best newbie house.

 

A Christmas theme so the houses are lit up & decorated would be fun too, and a category could be best lighting & decorations. And a deadline by sometime around Christmas. I think that's a great idea. And a house is so easy to build, so lots of people could contribute. I also agree it should be any kind of house, doesn't have to be real, if we go this route.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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I also like Sotha's idea. As he said, if you live in a 3 room flat... expand it. It doesn't have to be a 3 room ramshackled flat but it could be if you wanted or were pushed for time.

 

Another thing about this idea that ties in with the first. If we oNLy build interiors -- "no outdoor areas", i.e. you start inside and the mission is over when you go out the window/door. Then it would be pretty easy to tie all the houses together on unifiying streets, texture the outsides and add roofs later.

 

If we make outdoor areas, none of the surrounding sidewalks/streets/lamps etc will necessarily be able to be tied together later without being destroyed.

 

All of these together if say we got 30 entrants or more would tie nicely together to be a really unbelievable city map with similar outside matching textures and sidewalks/streets/lamps, etc. and "All Enterable Buildings!"

 

@Springheel

That snow effect outside is really cool...and ......HAHAHAAH! funny.

Edited by Lux
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When is it to be decided? If it's going to be house/Buildermas (=Christmas) theme, I'm so in! I already have a story and readables in mind. And maybe ideas for cross-storying with other houses (could be fun).

Also if the houses are to be used for a community map, some stuff should be cared for, to make integration easier, right?

- merging the objectives

- houses are not rendered simultaneously, or they don't use too much tris, etc.

- same player starting equipment (if I need the player to have a rope arow but X needs him not to have it => problem)

- same amount of snow on the rooves, details like that

- ... (experimented mappers would know)

Edited by Bastoc

Jared, is that you ?

Must be rats...

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The nice thing about a house is it's pretty fast to build, so we might get lots of participation. We might make the Christmas decoration optional, but the original idea of a house is still a good one I think. But I still agree opening up would be better, so it doesn't have to be your personal house if it's a boring one, and you have some latitude to use some imagination... although of course you can build your own place if you like.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Springheel, that was great!

 

Thanks for the show!

 

Looking to build!

 

m

 

ps for us newbies, would be convenient to have the link on how to use dark radiant would be good.

 

 

................. I just checked and don't think I missed it, but thought it would be good to provide a link on "how to build missions" on the main page, easily seen. Being up front would be a advertisement to do so for every one ( and every time) someone logged in. Otherwise would have to hunt for it.

Edited by Mr M
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Another idea would be to take the "Interior mission" concept and use, instead of your own house or something similar, a random plan of a historical house and build upon that reference (which means, the same idea about using it as a base and enhance it, instead of rigidly recreating it in DR). I could provide participants with a plan they would work with, it could be a good way of getting people to actually having to look at how a house works/worked at the time (something we might believe we know but really dont).

 

An example of a reference used could be this one:

 

Fig-41-South-Elevn.jpg

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Another idea would be to take the "Interior mission" concept and use, instead of your own house or something similar, a random plan of a historical house and build upon that reference (which means, the same idea about using it as a base and enhance it, instead of rigidly recreating it in DR). I could provide participants with a plan they would work with, it could be a good way of getting people to actually having to look at how a house works/worked at the time (something we might believe we know but really dont).

 

 

I like the idea. I built the outside of a house using pictures, but now that I have to plan the inside, I don't have a clue. If you have a plan for me I'll gladly start over and use it. Where do you find those, if I may ask?

Jared, is that you ?

Must be rats...

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How about coming back for "Thief" - that is stealing?

Let the common context theme be a "shopping street"-interpretation.

 

There are many ways to do this; you have upmarket posh ones of the rich in a big city;

medium or small town ones the thief my just be passing through;

every shop can be made special is some way, by architecture, loot, secrets, ministory, access, guard level or traps.

Some may design bubbly street life, which is to be avoided, or be of the more quiet kind.

You can have a tavern, a hotel, a small bank, carpenters, black smith ...

Don't model a "city hub" as such ... just the core of the shpping street, with nothing more than maybe a small back alley for "backside"-access to the shops here and there.

Just for the point of entering the shops there may be a bit of roof- or sewers-gameplay.

It could be interpreted as Venice- or Dutch-like setup, making canals and boats/merchant-/store-ships a major part.

Some of the gameplay could be made so that one has to transfer bigger loot to a horse-drawn "collection wagon" - and avoiding guards/people in the process.

The wagon could go down the street, following the thiefs nightly work.

 

This setting could be made quite interesting - a lot of interesting ideas and imaginative mission design could be brought together by a common theme.

Edited by Outlooker

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly while bad people will find a way around the laws." - Plato

"When outmatched... cheat."— Batman

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Someone picking up the Winchester Mystery House would be awesome!

But building that would be a challenge...

And even if you were able to get hold of the plans, they would be hard to understand.

1000 windows, 2000 stair-steps, 47 fireplaces,.....

Stairs and doors leading nowhere, since the last inhabitor was terrified about potential apparitions, etc.

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