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Hero Contest #8
Artists & Coders Unite!
TAVERN Series
You may remember THW's successful series of Hero Contests... This time around though, we're kicking it up a notch and trying to involve multiple aspects of the site in one tremendous contest of skill. Both artists and coders will unite together to enter into this contest: the artist will choose and create aspects of the hero's graphics while the coder will provide the hero with spells. With good teamwork, the end result will be worthy of taking a spot in the Neutral Taverns!
You may choose to create a hero for any non-primary Faction (i.e. not Alliance, Horde, Scourge, or Sentinels). You are to create the ninth hero for the Tavern, including skills fitting of that hero and the Neutral Heroes in general. You will need to consider how that hero balances with the other heroes in the Tavern and how it impacts the metagame of melee as a whole. It might sound scary, but with solid teamwork and design you can pull through with a winner!
Contest Rules:
- Everybody is allowed and encouraged to enter, as long as they follow the rules.
- Two people per team, one artist, one coder.
- No entrant can be a member of multiple teams.
- One entry per team.
- No submission may violate the Hive Workshop Rules and Spells Rules.
- If you are both a skilled artist and coder in one, you cannot perform both tasks and be your own team. Choose to team up with another individual who needs a partner and do that part of the tasks.
- All entries must be designed specifically for this contest, there will be no previously-made work allowed. Exception: The Hero you make for the Techtree Contest #11 can be used for this Contest (and vice versa)
- Any submission must follow a Work In Progress (WiP) image, before it is published and labelled as the final piece.
Hero Requirements:
- Your hero must be a hero for the Neutral Tavern.
- The hero must have only 4 spells, no innate abilities (aside from Shadowmeld for a Night Elf).
- Your hero must have one "Ultimate" and three "Level-able Skills".
- Your hero must be designed with a max level of 10 in mind.
- At least two of the hero's skills must be trigger enhanced, but you may trigger more than two of them.
- You are not allowed to make purely cinematic spells. This means you cannot pause the hero, use cinematic mode for any spell, or anything of the sort.
- You are not allowed to use the spellbook ability as any of your spells. Heroes have 3 normal abilities and 1 ultimate no matter what, no bypassing it.
- The hero must have a distinct Theme. This Theme is an important part of hero design, your artwork and spells must fit into its Theme. There is no defined Theme for the contest, but your team must create your own Theme.
- The hero must have a distinct Role. This Role is an important part of hero design, your abilities and playstyle must fit into its Role. There is no defined Role for the contest, but your team must create your own Role.
- The hero should be balanced qualitatively and quantitatively as if it were a tavern hero in standard WC3 melee games.
Specific Group Requirements:
Artist Rules:
- The artistic team member must choose to do at least one of the following:
- Create a custom texture(s) for a model. (Unit models with >1 texture may have all non-effect textures changed)
- Create a custom hero model with either in-game or custom animations.
- Create custom special effect models for any number of the hero's spells and/or the hero's attack.
- Create custom icons for the hero's spells.
- Perform any one of the above another time for a hero's summon.
- Perform any one of the above another time for a hero's alternate form.
- Any combination of up to 3 of the above is permissible, any more than 3 used in a single entry will result in disqualification.
- You are allowed to make a custom unit icon for your hero.
- You are allowed to import an attachable hero glow effect model for your hero.
- If you pick to texture or model a hero that is already present in the melee game, you may reimport the model with different texture paths to prevent model and texture collisions.
- If you make a texture, it has to be at least 90% freehand.
- You must post at least one WIP shot of your artistic contribution to the contest before deadline.
- All artistic work used in this competition must be made exclusively for this competition, no previous work will be accepted. Exception: The Hero you make for the Techtree Contest #11 can be used for this Contest (and vice versa)
Programming Rules:
- You can use any type of coding method you'd like (JASS / GUI / vJass) in designing your spells. (Specify in the entry topic)
- All spells for the hero must be designed specifically for this contest, there will be no previously-made spells allowed.
- You may use any script or system from a Wc3 Modding-Site's database for your map. This means if you want to use a system you, yourself, have made, it will have to be approved and in the database before the contest's beginning.
- You are allowed to import and use a dummy unit model with a single bone and the 'origin' attachment. This can be useful for some projectile spells and therefore it is allowed. (Pitch dummies with 180 degree vertical rotation are allowed as well)
Submission Rules:
- All submitted entries must use (4)TurtleRock.w3x as the test map. (Modified as necessary, but not with any drastic changes)
- Submitted maps may be no larger than 1400kb.
- The map you submit your hero in should be set up as a melee map so the hero can be tested in a standard melee game; that means no cinematics or other extraneous additions, aside from:
- Your custom Hero, it's custom spells (and any triggering/OE-work necessary to accomplish them), etc (your submission, essentially).
- Triggers which should be provided to allow a single player to test the hero individually with ease and without having to build an altar and gain experience.
- An in-game map name in the format:
[HC8] <MyHeroName>.w3x
Example: [HC8] Paladin.w3x
- All submitted entries must have a filename in the format:
- [HC8] <MyHeroName>.w3x
Example: [HC8] Paladin.w3x - When the hero is complete, either upload it to a Pastebin or a post in the primary Contest thread, and send the Host a private message with a link to the Pastebin/post. The Private Message should have "[HC8]" in the title so the Host can locate it easily.
1st | 50 reputation points & Your Entry on the award icon. |
2nd | 35 reputation points & an award. |
3rd | 25 reputation points & an award. |
Finished Entry | 5 rep |
- DESIGN Judge(s)
- ARTIST Judge(s)
- CODING Judge(s)
- Each Judge shall receive 5 Reputation Points
- 75 % of the winner shall be determined by the contest's appointed judge(s).
- 25 % of the winner shall be determined by the results of a public poll.
Judging Criteria:
- If more than 3 teams enter, the contest will enter into a public poll where users can distribute two points among the contestants.
- The teams with the highest points after the public voting stage (Up to 5 teams, depending on how many entries) will move on to be judged based on code, art, and overall hero design by a team of up to "3" judges.
- In the poll, users will have to rank the heroes from best to worst, ignoring any of the entries that they want to.
- Clear instructions on how to vote will be posted the day the poll opens.
- The votes will then be processed using the (Modified) Borda Count Method.
- The teams with the highest ranks (Up to 5 teams, depending on how many entries) will move on to be judged based on code, art, and overall hero design by a team of up to "3" judges.
- All points earned in each section of judging will be scaled to 1000 points and then weighted equally in the final tallying of points.
- Judges will grade the final (up to) 5 heroes points, and must use the provided Criteria without modification:
Design Criteria
| Theme/Form | How well the skills, aesthetics & design fit together in a thematic manner such that they feel like they belong on the given hero (i.e. frost mage with frost spells, warrior with martial abilities, etc). A cohesive Theme complemented by well-fitting & polished aesthetics will be graded well; poorly-considered or lacking Thematic elements will result in a poor score. | 15 |
Role/Function | How well the skills of the hero work together to achieve the tactical synergy & gameplay style the hero has (i.e. ranged assault, tank, support caster, etc). Comprehensive, well-though-out Roles which complement a cohesive playstyle will be graded well; ill-considered, insufficient or over-compensating Roles will lose points. | 15 |
Balance/Integration | Includes how well the hero's Theme, & Role fit into the melee environment in terms of balance, theme, style, complicatedness, and so forth. Overpowered or Underpowered Heroes will result in a poor score; properly balanced elements will mean a good score. | 10 |
Creativity/Originality | How original the design of the hero is in terms of creative ideas, clever implementations, or new concepts. Innovation and creativity will be rewarded; re-use of existing spells and such, or extensive un-originality will result in a poor score. | 10 |
Total points:
| 50 |
_______________________________________________
Coding Criteria
All Criteria must be interpreted as being 'in regards to the language it is written in'; e.g. GUI code should not be compared to similar (v)Jass code in terms of it's Efficiency, Cleanness, Reusability or Robustness, or vice versa
Interface with Computer | How well the coding works & communicates with the system (i.e. Warcraft 3); is it Leak-Free? Is it Efficient & Robust? Etc. | 15 |
Interface with User | How well the coding works & communicates with the user; is it Clean & Easy to Read? Is it Reusable, and does it provide for User Modification? Etc. | 15 |
Total points:
| 30 |
_______________________________________________
Artist Criteria
Submitted art should be graded based primarily on the criteria listed in the corresponding resource submission rules for that entry type (i.e. model, texture, animation, etc), in conjunction with:
Concept & Style | How well is the Hero's Concept reflected in the art? Did the artist's Style aid or detract from it? | 10 |
Implementation & Execution | How well were the art decisions implemented? Do they come across correctly/appropriately in the final product? | 10 |
Relevance | How well does the final product fit within the standard Warcraft 3 game? | 10 |
Total points:
| 30 |
:BEGINS: | :ENDS: |
Monday | Monday |
July 11th | August 29th |
2016 | 2016 |
| 11:59:59 GMT | |
You have 7 weeks, 49 days, or 1176 hours to complete your submission. |
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