Melee Map Making Contest #1

[Ken-E]

Rules:

• No submission may violate any of the site rules.
• If a submission does not follow the map submission rules the creator will be disqualified.
• All submissions must follow the current theme.
• Your submission must be posted before the deadline. The post containing your final submission must also contain the following:
  • Several screenshots of terrain and gameplay.
  • The file in the appropriate format.
• You must show at least one unfinished preview of your submission, before the deadline, as proof that its yours.
• Your submission may not be started/made before the official launch of the contest.
• Judges may not participate.
• Your final submission must be bug free.
• Teamwork is not allowed.
  • Finding testers to help you with your submission is not considered teamwork.
• Imports may be used in the map, however they must all be credited.
• All multiplayer maps must be under 5mb.

The Judge:
*PKCrafty

The Participants:
*Blood Raven
*Filmting
*normalice
*Ken-E
*eubz
*AYF
*Remixer
*sonofjay
*Erkan
*Shadow Fury
*BaiLang
*DED1
*imforfun

Criteria:
Map originality - 30
The map must be original, CnP of terrain from another map is not allowed. Map mirroring is allowed.

Terrain/Layout- 25
The map layout must be balance, also the design and the overall outcome of the terrain must follow the contest theme.

Creep camp and neutral buildings - 20
Placement of hostile creep camps and neutral buildings must be balance to all players. The creep consistency may fall to this category and smarter neutral buildings are better.

Item drops - 15
Must be complex and most of all balance, green creep camps are not suppose to drop Level 8 items right?

Map presentation - 10
Efforts are given to map presentation, screenshots, lore and etc.

Total of 100
And remember, it's always Gameplay>Terrain


NOTE: That criteria description and quantity may be subject to change depending on judge and majority of contestants.

Currently awaiting for the replies of other potential contestant. The reward will be definitely be + rep and have their names on a ranking lists.
Top 3 winners will receive a commendation or merit ribbon from the Melee Nation which would entitle their map with pride, quality and awesomeness.

Contest will start: October 16th and end after: November 14th
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Take a look of the possible award banner for you and your map!

Sample Judge Banner

Sample Winner Banner

 

[PKCrafty]

Nice job getting this setup, looking forward to playing/testing some well-made balanced and beautiful player made melee maps.

 

[normalice]

question. is the criteria going to be mostly terrain or gameplay?

 

[PKCrafty]

Gameplay, as in competitive gameplay where high skilled level players could play the map and his/her opponent doesn't have an advantage over him/her, and vice versa. Must be balanced in that aspect, like a blizzard map. But you can make yours more appealing, different scenario, however you would like it to be. You can make your point of interest for your map terrain, but that doesn't make up for the map lacking in other forms, if it is. The main focus is overall balance, keep that in mind when making your map. Contact me if you have further questions! You can contact Ken-E as well.

 

[Blood Raven]

Awesome! I will surely be joining this!
When will it begin?

 

[Ken-E]

October 16th would be great, then deadline would be on November 14th. Still rounding up some people to compete. And remember people, 1v1 only, any tileset is allowed and imports are allowed as long as credits are given.


EDIT: eubz has entered the contest!

 

[normalice]

what is map mirroring?

 

[normalice]

sorry, but I might have to withdraw from the contest. I am about to be too busy to put a map together, and don't have any fresh ideas anyway :-/

Or, if it hurts nothing to leave me in, feel free to do so. I suppose there is always a chance I'll get a few free days. Who knows :-D

 

[Ken-E]

@normalice
I'll just leave your name just in case. I think map mirroring is a method that editor use to create a perfect symmetric copy of one landscape to another, it's basically CnP terrain of the first of land then copy it to another side of the map to create a mirror.

Example would be when Red Player island is CnP to create Blue Player island, this way it creates a fair and exact copy of the land.

 

[normalice]

um, out of curiosity, 'where' do we show our unfinished previews? or will that be revealed when the contest officially starts?

 

[Ken-E]

You could post it in the thread or send it to the judge. If you mean preview which is a map, you can send it through via pastebin or map section for the judge to see.

 

[Filmting]

Gonna make a timelapse video of making of the map. But until that happens here's a sneak peak preview proof early wip screenshot thingy.

Screenshot

Plan is to make an high elven themed horizantal symmentry map.

 

[StoPCampinGn00b]

It reminds my of Echo Isles so far, minus the interesting looking white tile.

 

[Remixer]

I think you can count me in, I'll take a look if I can manage to do anything.

 

[Ken-E]

@Remixer
Already added you to the contestants.

 

[sonofjay]

I'll try to come up with something. But the time deadline isn't really favoring me. November is always a busy day for me and my family(lots of b-days and stuffs).

EDIT:

click

Also about the rewards since there isn't anything specified yet. Instead of the cliche +rep reward we should probably make a thread and put the contest winners inside it and just update the list for further contest winners.

Example:

Melee Map Contest #1

Rank 1 - X
Rank 2 - Y
Rank 3 - Z

Melee Map Contest #2

Rank 1 - X
Rank 2 - Y
Rank 3 - Z

At this point of hiveworkshop. I don't really like competing just for the petty reps.

Hidden to not stretch the page.

 

[Remixer]

Started my own map, expect a map that has something to do with jungle and swamps, and maybe even something evil...

 

[sonofjay]

Welp. I already have a solid idea of what I want to do for my entry. It will be the 5th LP themed melee map that I'll be making and I'm actually kinda excited to work on it since I'll try a new technique and style that I haven't tried yet on my previous melee maps. It won't be filesize heavy but still heavily reliant to custom resources.

 

[Filmting]

Another WiP screenshot.

Screenshot

Properly gna do some adjusments to base to make it more open and to be able to add more trees. Also want the merc camp area more jungle/trolly, gna do some pathing changes there, and still need to figure out how to best do the temple thingy in the middle.

 

[Ken-E]

@Filmting
You're really the most progressive contestant yet, hope to see more from the other guys.
Here's my wip so far...

WiP

 

[PKCrafty]

Looking good guys, can't wait to see more from you!

 

[Remixer]

Indeed Filmting seems to be ahead of every one else but every one ought to remember that it's not a speed mapping contest.

 

[Filmting]

Properly still gonna do some updates, since a long ass time for contest, but here it is:

http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/maps-564/sanctum-258601/

Screenshot

 

[Remixer]

Am I allowed to review other contestant maps? ;D

By the way sonofjay:

Anyway about the gameplay, I really love the Swampling guy, I trained a few knights and some riflemen and attacked it with my level 7 Blood Mage and thought I can take it down until the moment when he summoned some Thunder Lizard that raped my army.

And fuck orcy for reviewing this first. I was here for a good damn 30 minutes writing my sexy review. ;p

AND YOU DIDN'T PLAY WITH MR. SWAMPLING ORCY??! PLAY THE MAP AGAIN!

He might just make a comeback, not exactly sure yet.

 

[PKCrafty]

Yeah... not surprised Filmting would be done already... Even though you are done I will NOT judge until the time is up for creators to make/finish their maps. This way it is fair for all contestants. I will however give you a tip, just by judging off that screenshot I see what might be a pathing problem with your two mercenary camps. If you click to see the image you will see that I drew a line for the pathing if a player went that certain direction. I believe the units would run in close proximity to agro the creeps - now where I circled the areas in red if you added some trees there that should fix the problem. (if this is actually a problem, I could be wrong, once again just judging this off the screenshot.)

click

 

[sonofjay]

He might just make a comeback, not exactly sure yet.

Will he more powerful than before? He destroyed many of my army's after that. *cries*

And.... a WIP from me.

Click

Wondering how I was able to pull this while I have a cold.

 

[Ken-E]

@Remixer
You may review other maps in the contest but will not be credited when it comes to judging since you're too a contestant not a judge.

@sonofjay
It's looks really hot and sexy for a WiP, can't wait for the map itself!

 

[sonofjay]

@eubz
It's looks really hot and sexy for a WiP, can't wait for the map itself!

Eubz posted a wip? D:

 

[Ken-E]

Oh shoot! I was drunk when I posted that, sorry sonofjay.

 

[Remixer]

As every one else already uploaded a picture I thought I could just aswell.

Reveal

 

[Arrr]

since a long ass time for contest

Busy people,
but i agree, pretty long time for a 1v1 map

my wip, for now

Hidden

 

[Filmting]

Looks awesome AYF

 

[Remixer]

I really have to say that AYFs map looks really really Blizzardish from the screenshot.

What I especially like is the Gnoll Assassin on the left side of the screen shot. - Rawr

 

[Arrr]

^the gnoll has not been used yet tho, made the screenshot while thinking where could i place it

 

[Filmting]

Thought it might be funny to watch some progress. Also timelapse video is kinda maybeish planned, but didn't record the entire thing so might be something else.

Screenshot 1

Screenshot 2

Screenshot 4

Screenshot 4

 

[sonofjay]

Overview of the terrain since I just finish it. Actually very happy of the result since I didn't mirror the terrain. I also like how the minimap turned out.

Click

 

[Filmting]

How to get black editor ;o

 

[Remixer]

Using not-blizzard cliffs can turn out a bit problematic as it breaks the melee balance. However it's definitely looking interesting.

 

[sonofjay]

I already thought of that that is why I'm using sight blocker instead of pathing blocker. Some might hate it since you lose the height advantage but honestly though, do you think you can hit something from that kind of height(my terrain's custom cliff is really high)?

 

[Arrr]

wont sight blockers block vision from higher height aswell?
I think you could make everything a bit smoother and just leave it as raised terrain, then block with trees or something (in my opinion)
cool concept btw

Not yet finished, but i have a playable-ish version of the map now, link to the pastebin (many things still may change, terain, creeps, items..)

Hidden

link to pastebin:
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/pastebin.php?id=8mitee

 

[Remixer]

Indeed sight blockers also block sight from above which is not recommended. It's not a good idea.

In my map Elder Lands, I actually put a blizzard cliff but I covered it with large rocks so players can't see there is a cliff. Also used height tool so it did not look like there was a blizzard cliff.

 

[Arrr]

I don't get all the hate towards blizzard cliffs, they are very functional and do not look as bad as people make them

 

[sonofjay]

I have no problem with blizzard cliffs since I use them in some of my maps but they're just not look that good if you bring in some advance terraininig. Also don't reply about this cliff thingy anymore. This thread is for the contest.

 

[Ken-E]

WiP

More wip from my work.

 

[normalice]

um, for the WIP portion, I just saved an earlier version of the map, after the initial terraining and neutral building placement. Is that okay? I'm nearly done with it now..

I 'think' i sent a message to PKcrafty asking how to send it to him, but if a simple screenshot will do, I can do that instead..

 

[PKCrafty]

Hello guys. Every contestant can post a screenshot of their WIP, and I will give every contestant one tip based off of that WIP screenshot on how you can improve your map. It does not matter what stage the map is in. Just remember I will only give one tip to help improve your map before final review. (When time is up.) When you post your WIP screenshot, let me know that screenshot is the one you want me to give you your tip on.

Sorry for just now informing you of this, it came to mind when I saw you guys posting your WIPs, and the fact I had already given Filmting a tip. Just seems fair everyone gets 1 tip solely based of a screenshot before final review. Remember the tip could be useful, and then again it could not be. Because I'm just judging from a screenshot, so the tip could try to solve a problem I think is there, but may not be.

I'd suggest having me give you your tip when you think your finished with your map. But your tip expires the day time is up for making your map. Nov. 14th

 

[A Void]

seriously this should have been posted in the actual forums. Group template is just terrible...

 

[Ken-E]

@normalice
WiP is WiP so as long as the judge see this as a proof of your creation, I think it's okay.
@PKCrafty
Fair enough. Tips are useful indeed, it is really up to the creators themselves whether to take it or not.
@A Void
Since this is a group dedicated contest, I think its best to stick it here for a while.

 

[normalice]

Here is a preview. some things to head off so I don't waste my 'tip' on them:
-there is plenty of building area in the starting locations. It doesn't quite look like it, but I was able to build to tier 3 and 100 night elf army with the space given
-a later rendition of the map allows space for lumber mills (or equivalents) next to high-density tree areas in the corners
-a later rendition of the map does not put 'natural' pathing between bases through creep camps (i.e. it's possible to run from base to base hands-free, without worrying about creeps interfering).
-obviously, what is shown is the initial creep camp 'template'. It has been symmetrically filled and slightly revised since then.

WIP

also, does this meet the "WIP" requirement?

 

[Erkan]

Hi, just a quick question: If I want to join the contest, is posting my WIP here enough or I must do something else ?

If it's ok, here is my WIP:

WIP

If it's not, what shoud i do ? (Also sorry for my english)