Christmas "Connections" Contest 2021 - [ Winner "Iris" ]

[nbohr1more]

Hello all!

It has been too long since a contest has been organized so this is an overdue proclamation.

 

Part 1: The theme of this contest is "connections".

This means that the mission must in someway relate to the story or characters of another existing TDM mission.

For example, you could create a mission that creates a side story that connects a Thomas Porter series mission to a mission in the Penny Dreadful series. You could also create a mission that tells the story of what happened to a side character in a Thomas Porter mission before the events of a subsequent Thomas Porter mission.

If you are the author of a mission series, you are free to create another entry in your existing series but are encouraged to somehow connect that new mission to a different author's series.

If you are not the author of the series, it will be up to you to decide how strongly you describe or imply that your mission is connected to the series.

Feel free to make branch stories of the main TDM campaign missions or be more adventurous and branch out from a unique gem like Blackgrove Manor.

If you do intend to strongly associate your connected mission to a mission not created by the TDM team or Crucible Team, it may be best to reach out to the original author of the mission for approval or guidance.

You are only free to create "official sequel" missions for a series if you either created that series or have approval from it's author. For example, should you decide to create a new Chronicles of Skullduggery mission and call it "COS 4: Sneaky Snacks" chances are that Bienie would not approve of this unofficial sequel and we could not host it or allow it to compete.

It is safer if instead you create a mission that tells your own story but incorporates location names, characters, and story elements from an existing mission.

Further, when incorporating these elements they should remain largely untouched.

You can have your character discuss where Thomas Porter was going (etc) but you should not change Mr Porter's sexual orientation or conjure some story about his desire to quit his adventures to become a hot-air balloon operator. ( Unless the author Sotha approves of your fanciful divergent version of Mr Porter )

More "safe" ways to "connect" your mission to an existing mission:

• A story book (readable) that tells a fable version of what happened in a different mission.
• A character who hates the protagonist of a different mission for some reason.
• A character who has visited a town from another mission.

The "connection" attribute will add to the "story score" and will be voted on. ( Ranging from 1 added perfect vote to 5 added perfect votes biasing the average. )

 

Part 2: 2.10 OPTIONAL Dev Build Bonuses

To help promote the 2.10 beta process and encourage more testing, additional points will be added for using features from the latest TDM versions.

This will be a risk \ reward scenario since cutting edge features may need to be changed or even removed by the final 2.10 release.

We will work hard to ensure that features that are critical to the design of these missions are maintained and improved but we may not be able to guarantee 2.10 beta features will be considered stable for production.

Mission authors are free to release a two versions of their mission ( 2.10 and 2.09, or 2.10 and 2.07 etc ) if they want to allow players who don't want to use TDM 2.10 beta ( Dev builds ) to play their mission.

This isn't just a 2.10 initiative, you can see below that we are also awarding authors who use features from 2.07 to 2.09 as well. The newer the feature, the greater the reward.

The reward for using a new 2.10 graphic or game-play feature will be 6 perfect votes added to your voting average.

The reward for using a new 2.10 asset ( texture, model, sound, etc) will be 2 perfect votes added to your voting average.

The reward for using a new 2.09 feature will be 5 perfect votes added to your voting average

The reward for using a new 2.09 asset will be 2 perfect vote added to your voting average

The reward for using a new 2.08 feature will be 4 perfect votes added to your voting average

The reward for using a new 2.08 asset will be 2 perfect vote added to your voting average

The reward for using a new 2.07 feature or asset will be 2 perfect votes added to your voting average

 

These points will be averaged into either the graphics or game-play section of voting depending on what you add.

I will attempt to identify what features are being used but will kindly ask that authors declare which features are being used in their submission thread.

 

Standard Contest Scoring:

Total Points = (gameplay * 3) + (Appearance * 2) + (Story \ Theme * 1)

Max Possible = Total Votes * 5 (Outstanding)

Category Score (%) = Category Points /Max Possible * 100

Total Score (%) = Total Points /Total Max Possible * 100

 

The vote count was equal in all categories for everyone so:

TotalMaxPointsPoss (TMP) = AllCategoryVotecount(ACV) * 30

Full Weighted Score (FWS) = (Gamescore*3 + Visualscore*2 + Storyscore) / TMP

 

Pre-existing maps:

The contest will be for newly created missions.

Authors can use modular assets and prefabs and limited pre-made map sections.

If you wish to use an existing WIP mission, you will need to declare this in your release thread and other participants will need to agree that your mission should be allowed to compete. Otherwise, if multiple authors with WIP missions decide to join we can create a separate scoring for those missions.

The submission deadline will be Christmas Day ( but we can extend the deadline if all participants agree to the request. )

=================================

 

Final Contest Entries:

 

Winner: Wellingtoncrab "Iris"

97.08%

 

Second Place: Bikerdude, Amadeus, Dragofer "Written in Stone"

95.28%

 

3rd:  Kingsal "Hazard Pay"

95.06%

 

4th:  Down and Out on Newford Road - thebigh

81.01%

 

5th: Paying the Bills 0: Moving Day - Jedi_Wannabe

77.64%

[thebigh]

Oooo! A new contest. Count me in.

I'll put my current mission on hold for a while and get started on this. I already have a few ideas...

 

Regarding the bonus points for using new stuff, is it possible to earn all 23 points or do you intend to cap it somehow?

Edited September 21, 2021 by thebigh
question

[stgatilov]

Wow!

Given that 2.10 beta testing will most likely start at the beginning of December... it would be a busy month

[OrbWeaver]

Good luck with the contest, but I think the first post could do with some formatting. It looks like it was copy-pasted from a text document with hard line-breaks and multiple empty lines, making it somewhat difficult to read.

[nbohr1more]

5 minutes ago, OrbWeaver said:

Good luck with the contest, but I think the first post could do with some formatting. It looks like it was copy-pasted from a text document with hard line-breaks and multiple empty lines, making it somewhat difficult to read.

I think this is a @taaaki comment since I used the native poll creation feature. That said, it would probably look better to write out One Star, Two Starts etc given the current design.

[nbohr1more]

4 hours ago, thebigh said:

Regarding the bonus points for using new stuff, is it possible to earn all 23 points or do you intend to cap it somehow?

The bonus cap will be:

Two feature awards ( based on the highest two TDM versions used ) ( added to either game-play or visuals )

One asset award ( based on the highest used TDM version ) ( added to visuals )

One "Connection" award ( based on voting for how connected the mission is to other missions 1 - 5 ) ( added to story )

So 6+5+2+5 = 18 perfect votes biasing the average.

 

Side note: One easy thing to add to get a feature score is to add an EFX 2.0 reverb definition as that was added in 2.07

[DeTeEff]

My body wants to participate, but I don't know if my mind will join in. I am working on my main mission yes, but a part of me would like to start a new one, better planned from scratch. The positive thing would be to do just that, set goals from the beginning and create a nice, small mission... But will my energy be burnt and the main mission set on too much hold? Too bad prior work isn't allowed

On a side note, definitely not to sound cocky, but isn't it too easy to rake in all extra points just by adding a few extra, random models here and there from every new version? I don't know from memory exactly what model is from which update but aren't there at least one small and unassuming piece of the world in each? 

I think the added asset should have at least some significance to the story to count. 

[thebigh]

15 minutes ago, DeTeEff said:

On a side note, definitely not to sound cocky, but isn't it too easy to rake in all extra points just by adding a few extra, random models here and there from every new version?

It does seem like the scoring is going to be from 21 to 33 instead of from 3 to 15.

[DeTeEff]

Assets from 2.10 you say... Seems scary to add stuff from an not-yet-released version? How do people go around that? Do they install two separate versions of the game? I feel like I'm the only non-computer guy here

As a side note, what features are available in 2.09? I see a bunch of coding fixes and assets but no direct "feature" Maybe I'm just tired from night shift...

I can see mr Bohr's steamy eyes wanna lure me into this I want to, but I don't know if my main mission would love to be put aside again...I hope it's not mandatory for a contenstant to announce their participation in this thread? One could lurk with a mission and poke around in DR and when you feel you're having something to come up with, you chime in, right?

[nbohr1more]

23 minutes ago, DeTeEff said:

My body wants to participate, but I don't know if my mind will join in. I am working on my main mission yes, but a part of me would like to start a new one, better planned from scratch. The positive thing would be to do just that, set goals from the beginning and create a nice, small mission... But will my energy be burnt and the main mission set on too much hold? Too bad prior work isn't allowed

On a side note, definitely not to sound cocky, but isn't it too easy to rake in all extra points just by adding a few extra, random models here and there from every new version? I don't know from memory exactly what model is from which update but aren't there at least one small and unassuming piece of the world in each? 

I think the added asset should have at least some significance to the story to count. 

The objective is to get mappers to use newer features.

The Asset bonus is capped to 2 perfect votes averaged into the visual score. I was considering only awarding bonus points for code features ( game-play, visuals ) but the Asset bonus allows mappers to decide (risk) only to use one code feature or none at all and still have a little buffer against others who use them.

Hopefully the vote participation will be high so that the bonus bias won't be too exaggerated anyway. ( I may need to add a scaling factor if 18 additional votes is half or more of the overall vote participation. )

 

I ask you to consider joining the fray as you always add stellar submissions to contests!

Otherwise, please consider joining "in spirit" and adding story connections and 2.07+ features to your WIP and targeting the 2.10 release window.

 

There is no obligation to declare your participation before submitting your entry.

 

Yes, for 2.10 features players will need to install a 2.10 Dev Build or Beta version:

https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20824-public-access-to-development-versions/

they can either use this as the primary TDM install or install it separately.

 

As for 2.09 "features"?

You're right, I guess I should say "feature" as the only player exposed feature is the new physics based particle setup:

https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Particle_collisions_and_cutoff

 

[OrbWeaver]

3 hours ago, nbohr1more said:

I think this is a @taaaki comment since I used the native poll creation feature. That said, it would probably look better to write out One Star, Two Starts etc given the current design.

I'm referring to the first post in the thread, not the poll itself. Is it really supposed to look like this:

Perhaps it's just a problem on my particular browser/OS combination.

[thebigh]

It looks like that to me as well.

[STiFU]

Live the idea of the contest!! Very good!

  

14 hours ago, OrbWeaver said:

I'm referring to the first post in the thread, not the poll itself. Is it really supposed to look like this:

Perhaps it's just a problem on my particular browser/OS combination.

Nbohr's posts always look like this these days and I always wonder how he does it. @nbohr1more do you write your posts in some other editor and perform manual linebreaks (and maybe even have different lineendings than what the forum expects)?

 

Edit: I just copy pasted the post to notepad++ and enabled showing of whitespace characters. What are you doing there mate?

[Oktokolo]

2 hours ago, STiFU said:

Edit: I just copy pasted the post to notepad++ and enabled showing of whitespace characters. What are you doing there mate?

Better use your browsers inspect function.
But there indeed are paragraphs consisting of only a non-breaking space between the lines.

I too wonder, why nbohr1more did the extra work leading to a longer and less readable post.

[Bienie]

On 9/21/2021 at 6:50 AM, nbohr1more said:

You are only free to create "official sequel" missions for a series if you either created that series or have approval from it's author.

For example, should you decide to create a new Chronicles of Skullduggery mission and call it "COS 4: Sneaky Snacks" chances

are that Bienie would not approve of this unofficial sequel and we could not host it or allow it to compete.

 

I don't know about approval, but it would definitely give me a good chuckle!

Exciting that there is a new contest out, haven't had one of these in a long time! I like the theme of connecting storylines too. We'll see if I have time to participate, been rather quiet from me lately unfortunately, but I am well on my way creating a prequel to the CoS trilogy. If all goes smoothly with that perhaps I will have time to flesh out an unreleased 3-mini mission campaign I've put on the shelf for this contest, but I would definitely have to put my nose to the proverbial grindstone to make the deadline.

[stgatilov]

On 9/22/2021 at 12:49 PM, STiFU said:

Edit: I just copy pasted the post to notepad++ and enabled showing of whitespace characters. What are you doing there mate?

Some time ago I also got excessive linebreaks on the forums, although in my case whole lines were never broken into pieces, just the newlines that I put became way longer. I could remove them after-the-fact by editing my post twice. In the end I noticed that I accidentally disabled javascript via browser extension. I enabled it back, and now everything works perfectly.

[duzenko]

On 9/22/2021 at 8:49 AM, STiFU said:

Live the idea of the contest!! Very good!

  

Nbohr's posts always look like this these days and I always wonder how he does it. @nbohr1more do you write your posts in some other editor and perform manual linebreaks (and maybe even have different lineendings than what the forum expects)?

 

Edit: I just copy pasted the post to notepad++ and enabled showing of whitespace characters. What are you doing there mate?

I think I first noticed it here https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20169-the-history-of-bloom/&do=findComment&comment=446309

It looks rather cool, mostly because he's a no-nonsense person and his formatting kinda underscores that in my mind

[thebigh]

So, my mission is coming along nicely.

Is anyone else participating? I'm hoping to get an honourable middle-field placing in a field of strong competitors, just so there'll be lots of cool new Christmas missions for me to play.

 

Ho ho ho

[Dragofer]

I know of at least one other mapper who intends to participate.

As for myself, I'd like to participate - I quite like the idea of connections - but my participation is uncertain given what other projects I might take on in real life up until Christmas. Also need to do some more work on some of the new 2.10 features, specifically finishing (security camera overhaul) and documenting (xrays) them. Furthermore, we should have a list of what was added in recent versions.

If it works out, I do have an idea for what I could build, just need to find something to connect to.

[Wellingtoncrab]

I am really hoping to use the occasion to "encourage" me to finish this WIP in time, but admittedly not quite sure I will make it. Will definitely make use of that added pressure though!

[Heuli]

Looks great I'm looking forward to it

[Goldwell]

On 10/2/2021 at 6:29 AM, thebigh said:

Is anyone else participating?

I will be participating in this contest too! Sounds like it'll be fun

[Mezla]

On 9/22/2021 at 12:39 PM, Bienie said:

but I am well on my way creating a prequel to the CoS trilogy

Oooh, can't wait!  Luv your missions, and hold dear my memories from a great time while beta-testing your CoS3: Sacricide - fingers crossed for your creativity during the contest! 

Edited October 4, 2021 by Mezla

[thebigh]

Join the contest Mezla! The more the merrier.

[nbohr1more]

Bikerdude intends to join!

He is planning a story addition to "The Elixir".