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

[thebigh]

Yes, sounds good to me as well. Cheers!

[Goldwell]

Works for me as well!

[Goldwell]

I've been playing around with a lot of the new 2.10 features and have implemented a few into my contest mission. So far i've added in the new cameras, volumetric lights, the new secret system and i've setup the guis of my FM to be compatible with the new method that we're using moving forward.

 

It's all really great (especially the dmap optimizations) but I was thinking, either I rip all of that out, release my mission for 2.09 to meet the contest deadline and then wait until 2.10 drops to patch everything back in. Or I just wait until 2.10 drops and release my mission then,

 

However that might push me over the contest deadline, depending on where the release date for 2.10 lands of course.

 

This has put me in a bit of a predicament as I want to be apart of the contest, but I don't want to release my mission for 2.09. Rest assured my mission will release regardless of whether it's a contest mission or it's a standalone mission. But I just wanted to give a heads up to let y'all know where i'm at.

[Wellingtoncrab]

It still kind of makes sense to me for the contest deadline to be the 2.10 release - that still accomplishes the goal of testing 2.10 as there are still all the contest missions in development for it and eventually being beta tested.

Then 2.10 also comes out of the gate with hopefully a bunch of new missions.

Not just saying that as I want more time for my mission or anything….

[Dragofer]

I believe the idea was that if your FM contains 2.10 features you'd release it only to players who installed 2.10 dev builds, while other players would wait until 2.10 is out. Voting would still be open around the 2.10 release. Well, maybe the contest deadline and estimated 2.10 release date are quite close together now.

[thebigh]

Well, my mission contains 2.10 stuff and I don't feel like making two versions of it, so it'll just be for the intrepid 2.10 pioneers at first.

[nbohr1more]

2.10 beta is out ( dev builds are no longer needed ).

You can release the mission as requiring 2.10 beta and get extra contest points for doing so.

If you want an official mirror, I can upload the missions to Moddb.

[Geep]

On 10/27/2021 at 9:55 AM, nbohr1more said:

Did you check out the Moddb release articles?

https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-dark-mod/articles

@nbohr1more, I added a line at the start of the wiki's "What's New in TDM 2.09", which could also be included with future What's New pages. It reads:

For a more visually-compelling treatment of the improvements to each TDM release, see [https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-dark-mod/articles The Dark Mod’s articles on ModDB].

[nbohr1more]

Now that I think of it, if the 2.10 beta missions have the:

Required TDM Version: 2.10

string in the darkmod.txt then we can just publish them to the mission database.

If a player avoids reading about the mission and just installs it, they will be greeted with an error that tells them

they need 2.10 to play the mission and they can then update to the beta if they cannot wait to play the mission.

[SeriousToni]

5 hours ago, nbohr1more said:

they need 2.10 to play the mission and they can then update to the beta if they cannot wait to play the mission.

 

Or they get confused since only 2.09 is officially out only

[kingsal]

I would suggest we don't put the missions in the downloader until they can be properly played in the release. Everything in the downloader should be rock solid, otherwise people might get confused and/ or frustrated. 

Im not sure what the plan is, but it seems reasonable for authors to create their own mission release threads as usual but with a (BETA 2.10 ONLY) tag or comment somewhere in the OP with this link :

Once 2.10 is released, we can get them in the downloader and rocking to encourage people to play the latest and greatest. 
What do people think? 

[nbohr1more]

My original plan was to host them at Moddb, clearly labeled as requiring 2.10 beta.

I still intend to follow that path.

That said, if the mission appears in the downloader as

2.10 BETA <name of mission>

as well as in the missions list then that might be enough to let players know what it is for

and we can easily edit the darkmod.txt and mission database once 2.10 is out.

[Goldwell]

Unfortunately due to RL constraints I will need to withdraw from the contest.

 

Good luck to everyone else!

[thebigh]

That's a shame; I really like your missions. Hopefully we can still get to see it, even if not for the contest.

[Goldwell]

47 minutes ago, thebigh said:

That's a shame; I really like your missions. Hopefully we can still get to see it, even if not for the contest.

 

Thanks!

 

I do plan to release my mission as a standalone release at some point in the future

[nbohr1more]

6 hours ago, Goldwell said:

Unfortunately due to RL constraints I will need to withdraw from the contest.

 

Good luck to everyone else!

I don't suppose another deadline extension would help?

[Goldwell]

18 minutes ago, nbohr1more said:

I don't suppose another deadline extension would help?

 

I appreciate the offer but I don't like the idea of extending the contest deadline just to suit my schedule. It's not fair on the other folks who have worked hard to have it in by the deadline.

[thebigh]

20 minutes ago, nbohr1more said:

I don't suppose another deadline extension would help?

If we keep putting out extensions we'll never finish. I was just about to post a beta test for my mission, aiming for a release on the 31st.

[nbohr1more]

4 minutes ago, thebigh said:

If we keep putting out extensions we'll never finish. I was just about to post a beta test for my mission, aiming for a release on the 31st.

The deadline is January 28th but I will also offer to extend to the 31st if that is required to keep you in the running?

[thebigh]

9 minutes ago, nbohr1more said:

The deadline is January 28th but I will also offer to extend to the 31st if that is required to keep you in the running?

Nah, that's OK. I'll release on the 28th, but thanks anyway.

[Oktokolo]

On 1/20/2022 at 4:55 AM, kingsal said:

I would suggest we don't put the missions in the downloader until they can be properly played in the release.

Missions can state the minimum required TDM version in their Darkmod.txt.
They are not started by older versions then. And iirc they aren't offered to older TDM versions for download either.

[Dragofer]

26 minutes ago, Abusimplea said:

And iirc they aren't offered to older TDM versions for download either.

That would be worth testing. I believe Perilous Refuge requires 2.09, so could be tested by reverting to 2.08.

[kingsal]

4 hours ago, Abusimplea said:

Missions can state the minimum required TDM version in their Darkmod.txt.
They are not started by older versions then. And iirc they aren't offered to older TDM versions for download either.

Right. I just want to avoid the case where players download them, get excited and then have to jump threw hoops to run the missions . 

[Oktokolo]

On 1/22/2022 at 7:36 PM, kingsal said:

Right. I just want to avoid the case where players download them, get excited and then have to jump threw hoops to run the missions . 

Just state the required TDM version prominently in the anouncement, so direktlink clickers know what they get themselves into. Getting more users to install the beta is good - more testers means a better TDM with less bugs faster for everyone.
The Beta seems pretty stable to me. So it isn't likely, they get a worse experience by playing on the newer version anyways.

[kingsal]

On 1/19/2022 at 7:55 PM, kingsal said:

Im not sure what the plan is, but it seems reasonable for authors to create their own mission release threads as usual but with a (BETA 2.10 ONLY) tag or comment somewhere in the OP with this link :

That seems to be the best plan.