Level Design Question Regarding Map Contest

[Swift-Brutal-Death]

Hey TWI, I have been discussing the mapping contest with a handful of mappers and players over the couple weeks and a couple quick questions have arisen with no clear answer. Regarding this statement as posted in the contest rules thread: "The maps will be judged in two phases based on the ranking that the community has chosen to be of the top of each category."

So I'm curious how the voting will take place.

Are you guys planning on using the MODDB voting system? My understanding is the voting system has always existed regardless of contests and whatnot for people to vote on various modding uploads and has no built in safe-guards against someone setting up many fake accounts to cast votes for the same upload if they wanted.

My other concern regarding MODDB voting would be the extra time earlier submissions had to receive votes while the maps that mappers spent more time working on have less opportunity to receive votes since they were turned in later.

These issues make me believe that the MODDB voting system will not (hopefully) be a part of how the voting takes place.

Good luck to everyone that entered! I saw a lot of really cool projects. A lot of talent has shown up and it's going to be great to see the mappers grow with this game as it develops and offers us more mapping assets!

EDIT:I'm also curious how multiple entries into the same category works. Are we allowed to enter multiple maps? If so, is someone allowed to win multiple times in the same contest phase with multiple maps? For instance winning a 3rd place with map X and a 5th place with map Y.

 

[liamtranzig]

Yeah, that was my concern as well. Although, I have no anticpation of making it farther than phase one due to the tech difficulties in my map (& the incredible talent in the competition), I cannot help but feel that if the first Phase is truly based on Community voting that not only do the earlier released maps have more opprotunity & time to accumlate votes (falsified or real) but also those that are more socially connected (FB, reddit, Twitter) can collect votes from many people who do not own Killing Floor 2 & haven't actually played any Grindhouse entry maps.

I'd much rather hear that it was handled by play-testers in a live studio with direct rating feedback to the TWI devs. Or that you all at TWI took a week off after the next big update & played & judged all the maps with your map-devs being the primary judges. I know those are not as practical but almost anything could be more reliable than an open indirect Community vote filter. Phase 1 filter, if anything, should be elimination of contestants based on contest content rules - or at least that's my opinion.

Anyway, it has been cool to see the first wave start coming to an end. A lot of last minute entries coming in and a lot of interesting, fun, & well-made projects adding a lot of life to the Killing Floor (2). I've been too busy with life & daily map updates to play all the entries but what I've seen so far is amazing! I'm glad I made it in time to enter. Great job to all my fellow contestants & here's hoping for a fair "fight"- may truly the best maps win!

Ah, & here's hoping I get my new build rendered & published before the deadline! Huzzah!

 

[LiquidArrow]

Shame you haven't chatted with me about it

"
JUDGING
The judging of the submitted Maps will be done by individuals employed or selected by Tripwire Interactive. Judges will choose from the entries of each Wave and will select the top Maps to receive the awards and prizes. Tripwire Interactive and the Judges reserve the absolute right to disqualify any Map that they believe may be in violation of these rules, applicable laws or the Killing Floor 2 EULA, if the information in their Entry Form and Release cannot be verified or if the Entrant is unable or unwilling to execute whatever additional agreements are deemed necessary by Tripwire Interactive or any other contest Sponsors. All decisions of the Judges, Tripwire Interactive and/or the Sponsors, are final and not subject to review, appeal or challenge in any form."

The judging of the submitted Maps will be done by individuals employed or selected by Tripwire Interactive.

This is sounds good and all but the explanation Swift, myself, and many others is for this.

Judges will choose from the entries of each Wave and will select the top Maps to receive the awards and prizes.

How will the entries get picked? What does it mean by top maps?

As Swift said. The Moddb system is VERY lacking and the voting and even format to host maps leaves much to be desired to others sites like Gambanana.

I am sure they will update us soon, probably tomorrow.

 

[liamtranzig]

Speaking of contest maps... anyone know a good server that hosts all/most/a good portion of the most current Grindhouse maps?

 

[liamtranzig]

How will the entries get picked? What does it mean by top maps?

Judging CriteriaCriteria for the main

 

[[TW]Swag]

Hey everyone, I wanted to put this up here as a matter of clarification on how we will be judging the maps and what part the ModDB voting system plays in our decisions.

Firstly, we will use the ModDB map voting system as a type of barometer. If a lot of people vote favorably for map X then we take it that the community likes the map. Using that thought train, if a map is voted unfavorably we will take it into consideration as well. For maps that got entered "late" in the competition due to development time and don't have many votes favorably or unfavorably rest assured we will be looking at them too.

At the end of the day, we will award the winner of the best map based on how awesome we feel it is. The technical requirements we stated help the level designer know the basics of what we are expecting from the maps.

I hope this helps clear things up for you all.

Regards
Keith
Lead Level Designer

 

[LiquidArrow]

Hey everyone, I wanted to put this up here as a matter of clarification on how we will be judging the maps and what part the ModDB voting system plays in our decisions.

Firstly, we will use the ModDB map voting system as a type of barometer. If a lot of people vote favorably for map X then we take it that the community likes the map. Using that thought train, if a map is voted unfavorably we will take it into consideration as well. For maps that got entered "late" in the competition due to development time and don't have many votes favorably or unfavorably rest assured we will be looking at them too.

At the end of the day, we will award the winner of the best map based on how awesome we feel it is. The technical requirements we stated help the level designer know the basics of what we are expecting from the maps.

I hope this helps clear things up for you all.

Regards
Keith
Lead Level Designer

I am wondering if the community needs to be made more aware of this because not many maps have that many votes. i know mine has been in there since it started and only has 4 total votes for a whole month with 400+ downloads.