Mini-Game Mapping Contest #5 - Defense

[Vengeancekael]

Defense
Contestants are challenged to make a defense map.
Users are free to pick between Defense/Survival, Tower Defense and AOS.
However the main objective of the map would be to defend a target unit.
Examples:

Hidden

Tower Defense - Build towers close to the target
AOS - 2 Sides spawning units, one team has to get the target to his base (=Illidan Mission)
Defense/Survival - No AI ally, players pick a hero and defend the target

Warning these are examples, not restrictions!

• Your map may not be made with WE Unlimited (JNGP is allowed)
• The map may not be protected!
• 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. If any model does not fit, a moderator will tell you as soon as possible as to avoid confusion.
• 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 it’s 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 and voice actors 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 8mb, so they are playable on Battle.Net.

• First Place: 45 reputation points and your entry on the award icon
  
• Second Place: 30 reputation points and an award icon
  
• Third Place: 15 reputation points and an award icon

• Apheraz Lucent

Checking Field	Explanation	Points
Originality:	Map must be original, a simple copy of another map might get less points for the gameplay and originality, but if the terrain and everything are fine, then you would still have some points. We want to see unique things and cool ideas.	You can score up to 15 points here.
Map Presentation/Design:	Author name, map name, category, type, description, links ingame on loading screen, messages ingame are very important. How good the map preview or the loading screen image are, check tooltips, quest menu, icons all around (hero/unit stats, interface, tooltips etc). Same colored icons and spell effects as well as models (like green for poison hero) are better than random ones. Passive icons on active ones or vice versa are bad. Check UI and game constants as well.	You can score up to 10 points here.
Terrain:	Please take care, some maps use a generated terrain (created with triggers), thus the preview image may show an empty map. Negative things are empty, plain, single-tile terrains, without environmental doodads or any kind of terrain style. Good things are special effect doodads (to make the terrain a little animated), lighting, fog, terrain styles or custom resources.	You can score up to 25 points here.
Triggers/Efficiency/Performance:	Bugs, errors and performance issues will reduce your score. (Everything created with triggers is usually the case) However if there are just small bugs/errors, then you probably won't get a lower score. Memory leaks are the main problem, systems and spells should be more or less lag-free/errorless. Even protected maps can show how good the user's triggering skills are, for example check if there are any performance issues when units are spawned.	You can score up to 10 points here.
Object Data:	Units' size ingame, selection size, how good creeps look like. (small skeleton with sword, normal with bow and another one with axe is better than ogre, gnoll and murloc -> Creeps should not be completely random and very different from each other). In other words check how good abilities and stats fit to units. Maps with a huge file size are horrible, no one will wait 2 minutes long to download a map on battle.net. (unless single player) That's why we need to check imported resources. MP3 files can be edited, the quality can be reduced and thus a lot of space can be saved, simple effect sounds without voice can be reduced even to 32 kbps in some cases, for voices don't go below 50. Maps with a file size of 8MB and only 1 sound effect/music file are not acceptable. Also check if only a part of a song is used and if it has been cropped. Same thing goes for textures, if you can reduce the quality from 100-75% and thus the size will go down from 40-70% in some cases.	You can score up to 10 points here.
Gameplay:	The gameplay is the main aspect of the map. Game modes, game difficulties, special events, systems(not how well they are made, but if they make the map more fun) etc. Everything else that is left unchecked can go here. Please check how balanced the gameplay is, check how long the game lasts, if the map can be finished without any major problems.	You can score up to 30 points here.

• 70 % of the winner shall be determined by the contest's appointed judge(s).
• 30 % of the winner shall be determined by the results of a public poll.

The contest shall begin on monday, the 5th september and conclude on wednesday, the 12th october, 11:59 GMT

 

[-Kobas-]

Contest Judging and Voting will be changed soon, I must try something first.

 

[Vengeancekael]

Also, I would just like to take this opportunity to tell you, that I am hosting and judging this just for the rep and fame. I don't care about anyone else. Thank you.

Also Kobas may or may not judge, so second judge may already be taken, but I'm pretty sure there can be 3 judges.

 

[KayS]

Mmm... I don't want to join this. Simply, it is not my style

 

[Gausslander]

So, simply a map.where i have to protect a single unit? An rts with assassination rules would be
okay?

 

[Vengeancekael]

I hereby declare the troll fest officially started.

 

[Hubcool]

i MAY JOIN THIS, I'm new to photoshop and I feel like testing my skills.

 

[D a w n]

I'd so gonna join that one

"MlP: Defense of Equestria" is MINE

 

[-Kobas-]

Thread will be edited tomorrow and everything will be 100% ready to go, Kael hosted this time and I wanted him as judge as well to avoid lame situations.

Btw contest is official we just used submission thread because Kael don't have power to post this in The Arena forum.

 

[Foronisus]

i really dont know what to do or should i join

 

[Magtheridon96]

I might actually join this and make a TD
Don't bother looking at the code, I use Lua for object generation and ugly but efficient vJASS XD (U jelly GUIfags?)

Guys, "Lebanon TD" is mine!
You hear that Joe?

 

[Foronisus]

Nah i dont know name anyone for my Castle Defence???

 

[SA Dashie]

Megtheridon96 if I join this contest I will beat your coding officiantcy with my ultimate GUI skills

 

[Magtheridon96]

Megtheridon96 if I join this contest I will beat your coding officiantcy with my ultimate GUI skills

Ok ^^

lol


If you use Dynamic Indexing in GUI and lots of custom scripts, you would beat most of the vJASS spells/systems on the site btw

 

[SA Dashie]

Hell yeh =)

 

[-Kobas-]

You can create MUI spells without Dynamic Indexing and Hashtables in GUI really easily. Will show you how

 

[Bugz]

Joining

 

[Vengeancekael]

@Foronisus, if you have time then join the contest and think about the map's name later when you've finished it.
Also the contest is not started yet, no cheating kids.

 

[-Kobas-]

But guys we must wait for Pyritie to allow this, also wait to see how will judging look like before you start working on your map, for example going green will be removed from now one and replaced with few other things, another example is terrain, it will be judged as well...! So I suggest you to just start brainstorming!

 

[Vengeancekael]

There we go:

Checking Field	Explanation	Points
Originality:	Map must be original, a simple copy of another one is bad. We want to see unique things and cool ideas.	You can score up to 15 points here.
Map Presentation/Design:	Author name, map name, category, type, description, links ingame on loading screen, messages ingame are very important. How good the map preview or the loading screen image are, check tooltips, quest menu, icons all around (hero/unit stats, interface, tooltips etc). Same colored icons and spell effects as well as models (like green for poison hero) are better than random ones. Passive icons on active ones or vice versa are not acceptable. Check UI and game constants as well.	You can score up to 10 points here.
Terrain:	Please take care, some maps use a generated terrain (created with triggers), thus the preview image may show an empty map. Negative things are empty, plain, single-tile terrains, without environmental doodads or any kind of terrain style. Good things are special effect doodads (to make the terrain a little animated), lighting effect doodads, fog, cool terrain styles or resources.	You can score up to 25 points here.
Triggers/Efficiency/Performance:	Lag, bugs and errors, everything created with triggers is usually the case. Memory leaks are the main problem, systems and spells should be more or less lag-free/errorless. Even protected maps can show how good the user's triggering skills are, for example check if there are any performance issues when units are spawned.	You can score up to 10 points here.
Object Data:	Unit's size ingame, selection size, how good creeps look like. (small skeleton with sword, normal with bow and another one with axe is better than ogre, gnoll and murlock). In other words check how good abilities and stats fit to units. Maps with a huge file size are horrible, no one will wait 2 minutes long to download a map on battle.net. (unless single player) That's why we need to check imported resources. mp3 files can be edited, the quality can be reduced and thus a lot of space can be saved, simple effect sounds without voice can be reduced even to 32 kbps in some cases, for voices don't go below 50. Maps with a file size of 8MB and only 1 sound file are not acceptable. Also check if only a part of a song is used and if it has been cropped. Same thing goes for textures, if you can reduce the quality from 100% to 75% and thus the size will go down from 40% to 70% in some cases.	You can score up to 10 points here.
Gameplay:	The gameplay is the main aspect of the map. Game modes, game difficulties, special events, systems etc. Everything else that is left unchecked can go here. Please check how balanced the gamepaly is, check how long the game lasts, if the map can be finished without any major problems.	You can score up to 30 points here.

 

[-Kobas-]

Change font size to 1 in 2nd column to reduce size a little.

 

[Wraithling]

Just a thought. How about a quick round of weekend mapping madness before the next mini mapping contest? I'm waiting for one of those. We could use Defense as the theme as well if most contestants agree.

 

[Vengeancekael]

Hmm good idea, I'll talk to Kobas.
edit: Hmm although I'm not so sure about the amount of points you can get for the terrain, seems a bit too much. We could pass 5 points over to Originality

 

[Gausslander]

I agree. Terrain isnt that important in a defence map.

 

[-Kobas-]

Actually it is, terrain define defense map, for example strategic positions in tower defense or castle defense map. Shape of terrain is really important. Terrain isn't everything about awesome lightning and high res doodads ^_^

 

[Foronisus]

can i make like Team TD or something???

 

[baassee]

This seems... funny. Pretty messy theme though, everything is possible lol. (Maybe that's why it's great ... heh) as it's a mini-game I might come up with an idea although my objectmerger is totally f-ed up so dunno how my triggering skills will be.

 

[Bannar]

baassee - you don't need to worry about your triggering skills, every time I look on your scripts, they are just brilliant.

 

[Gausslander]

Actually it is, terrain define defense map, for example strategic positions in tower defense or castle defense map. Shape of terrain is really important. Terrain isn't everything about awesome lightning and high res doodads ^_^

Shape should go under map design, terrain is typically considered to be a maps aestethics.

 

[Magtheridon96]

he size will go down from 40% to 70%

Epic fail

Terrain

I lost

Triggers/Efficiency/Performance

This needs more points cause if I were a judge testing a game that lags like hell, I would be quite pissed
You could take out 5 points from Gameplay and put them here

 

[Vengeancekael]

You're not actually expecting completely laggy maps from this contest are you?
People who are going to join this contest probably know enough about triggers to not make the map lag as hell or they probably can't make a good map, in which case it won't matter if the map lags.
The gameplay is the main point here.

 

[D a w n]

well...I kinda now nothing about triggers and stuff so I'd would have to learn the basics I need for this contest :v

 

[Foronisus]

ok im in i will be making TD...

 

[Vengeancekael]

well...I kinda now nothing about triggers and stuffa dn would have to learn the basics I need for this contest :v

Better get started If you have any trigger related questions let me know.

 

[D a w n]

will ask when the time comes
for now I'll try to create a few more models that I might need.

Edit: a small question: what would be a recommended map size for a defense?? 192x192??

 

[-Kobas-]

he size will go down from 40% to 70%

We wanted to say that you can reduce size of some resources from 40% to 70%.
You know, instead of 1000KB you can reduce that size to 600KB or even 300KB.

This needs more points cause if I were a judge testing a game that lags like hell, I would be quite pissed
You could take out 5 points from Gameplay and put them here

Well maps that lag like hell won't be accepted at first place. After all map must be playable.

Shape should go under map design, terrain is typically considered to be a maps aestethics.

Well honestly whole terrain can go into design, but I wanted to split those two. There are few reasons for it and I will keep it that way.

 

[Gausslander]

Hey not to be off-topic or anything, but someone earlier mentioned this would be great for week-end madness, and I'd like to second (or third) that motion.

 

[Skycraft]

Edit: a small question: what would be a recommended map size for a defense?? 192x192??

Depends what kind of defense you want to make, but I would go with 128 x 128 just because it is a nice size.
But it is really your decision how big/small you want to make it.

 

[Magtheridon96]

We wanted to say that you can reduce size of some resources from 40% to 70%.
You know, instead of 1000KB you can reduce that size to 600KB or even 300KB.

OH So when said 40% to 70%, he was referring to a range xD
I thought he meant that we could increase the filesize xD


Guys, for TDs, I'd recommend anything between 64x64 and 128x128
For AoS map, go with 160x160 or 192x192

Well maps that lag like hell won't be accepted at first place. After all map must be playable.

My attempt to change the criteria in my favor has failed xD

 

[SA Dashie]

If I join I may use some actually imported models for terraining as it seems that my skills in terraining gets to marked down because as it appears the reason for this is that I am using all default models :v.
This will be new to me so if all terns bad with the terrain I will switch back to default models:/.
Also finally some judging that I will have an advantage at so this may be the time for me .

 

[Foronisus]

This will be the First contest im going to do so ill do my best

 

[Bannar]

Okey, thats what I'm thinking about:

Orginality	15
Map Presentation/Design:10	10
Terrain:	20
Triggers/Efficiency/Performance:	18
Object Data:	10
Gameplay:	27

Since Gameplay is defined with:

The gameplay is the main aspect of the map. Game modes, game difficulties, special events, systems etc.
Everything else that is left unchecked can go here. Please check how balanced the gamepaly is, check how long the game lasts, if the map can be finished without any major problems.

It should have at least 25% of total score, although I gonna defend triggering part here:

- Don't favourite terrainers since map SUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKS badly if you don't use your own stuff (meaning trigger something - something new that isn't it OE), and if you want to keep constests participating (and even get more - to make such contests more popular) you can not restrict contests only to part of community (and yes you do by giving so many points there, followed by negating triggering.

I know that terrain has big impact on the map, but you know what? It is gamaplay that has impact on a player and triggers can just make that aspect more powerfull.

 

[Magtheridon96]

- don't favourite terrainers since map SUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKS badly if you don't use your own stule (meaning trigger something), and if you want to keep constests moveing you can not restrict them onlty to part of community (and yes you do by giving so many points there, followed by negating triggering.

Stick it to the man !

Triggering does need a higher score in my opinion (Yeah, im a jassfag)

 

[Bannar]

Edited post 245 times.

 

[-Kobas-]

There is no point to rate how good someone write code, after all you can download and copy all systems and spells to your map from any other. That's why we gave you here max 10 points. Also don't expect max score here without so far unique system, even with perfect codes.

Also don't worry about terrain, even average one will gain from 10 to 15 points so I don't see problem here, create something cool, import few resources, improve some shit here and there and you will gain a lot of points almost easily

 

[Vengeancekael]

@DonDustin, if it's just a survival map without any bases, 128x128 would be ideal.
If it's an AOS/TD, you would need a bigger map (192x192).
@Gausslander, yes and I think that one will start before this one, however we're waiting for Pyritie to show up.
@DeathChef, you could go for a single player map, that way you could import as many models as you want.
@Foronisus, good luck

edit: Added a contestants table to the main post, god I hate BB codes.

 

[baassee]

I have some stuff that I thought about during the day.

• Title says: Mini-Game Mapping Contest #5, yet the contest is a "mini-mapping" contest.
• What is a "Mini-Mapping Contest" anyway? Is it any size obligation that we must follow or as it's not the map size (in kb/mb) that seem to matter.
• Is it possible to make some kind of "Uther Party" like map with only defense themed games? (Had about 3 games in mind if it has any difference)
• This one goes with the point below as well. - Are you going to open the maps themselves and look around?

• The file in the appropriate format.

  If a map is protected, is it still appropriate? Else it will be two files which should atleast be mentioned in the rules.

• Your final submission must be bug free.

  Waaaiit a minute! This is kind of a pointless rule as it most comes down to the triggering part and guess what, I found this small line there:
  

  Lag, bugs and errors, everything created with triggers is usually the case.

  Will this mean that I will be disqualified or just get reduced points in triggering?

• Imports may be used in the map, however they must all be credited.

  Don't know if this is already stated in the site rules but may we use resources from xgm.ru?

• Map must be original,a simple copy of another one is bad

  Can it be a good copy?
• Just because I found it so funny
  

  Everything else that is left unchecked can go here. Please check how balanced the gamepaly is

  

Yeah my questions might be stupid but I need some information

 

[Vengeancekael]

Title says: Mini-Game Mapping Contest #5, yet the contest is a "mini-mapping" contest.

There's no 'game' image

What is a "Mini-Mapping Contest" anyway? Is it any size obligation that we must follow or as it's not the map size (in kb/mb) that seem to matter.

You usually only have a month, while normal mapping contests usually take longer.

Is it possible to make some kind of "Uther Party" like map with only defense themed games? (Had about 3 games in mind if it has any difference)

Well ->

However the main objective of the map would be to defend a target unit, that is moving around the map, either to reach a destination or just defend him until a timer is over.

However if you guys really don't like that, we could just simplify it, so that you just have to make a defense themed map.

This one goes with the point below as well. - Are you going to open the maps themselves and look around?

Yes.

If a map is protected, is it still appropriate? Else it will be two files which should atleast be mentioned in the rules.

If it's protected then we can't look at the triggers, unless you want us to deprotect them ourselves.

Will this mean that I will be disqualified or just get reduced points in triggering?

If there are only a few bugs, your rating won't be changed, if the map really has big issues and bugs, then yes you will get less points.

Don't know if this is already stated in the site rules but may we use resources from xgm.ru?

Not specifically, so I guess you can.

Can it be a good copy?

You'd get a lot of points for the terrain and triggering, the gameplay part maybe less.

Just because I found it so funny

¨
Pretty sure Kobas wrote that

edit: Although... Mini-Game would mean that the map is really casual and simple :/ Hmm LOLOL I DUNNO I JUST CNP THE LAST CONTESTS TITLE

 

[-Kobas-]

The file in the appropriate format.

Map file must have w3x extension.

Your final submission must be bug free.

Bugs that cause game crushing or de-sync.

Lag, bugs and errors, everything created with triggers is usually the case.

Here come small bugs, for example, dummy unit isn't removed after spell effect etc etc.

Imports may be used in the map, however they must all be credited.
----------------------
Don't know if this is already stated in the site rules but may we use resources from xgm.ru?

Main site rules override contest rules, so no you can't use them.

Map must be original,a simple copy of another one is bad

It can be bad as well, but your score will be low.

Everything else that is left unchecked can go here. Please check how balanced the gamepaly is

I copy and pasted that for kael, he can edit it as well as everything else to be more understandable to anyone of you..
Sorry for typo -.-

Mini-Game because you work on map alone for short time and working within theme borders.
Real project require more attention and usually people as well as time and testing.

We expect simple but good quality maps here, don't bother 2 much with god know how complex systems or importing 10000 resources. Maps should be simple, fast and funny.

 

[Vengeancekael]

Main site rules override contest rules, so no you can't use them.

I don't see that rule :<

Mini-Game because you work on map alone for short time and working within theme borders.

Yet mini-game is also a map type, a casual and simple map like Uther party with a lot of mini-games.
However in this case Mini-Mapping would fit better, some people might make a really big and very polished map within a month. YOU NEVER KNOW

I copy and pasted that for kael, he can edit it as well as everything else to be more understandable to anyone of you..

ლ(ಠ益ಠ)ლ

edit: There I edited the table (Main post). I just noticed that some of the points are copy&pasted from the new review template
Also it feels like the sentences are directed to the judges.