Contest's Campaigns

(June 6th, 2009 - June 15th, 2009) Completed: July 31st, 2009
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thebrowncloud
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Re: Contest's Campaigns

Post by thebrowncloud »

tipereth wrote: I made all my shit happen out in the boonies specifically to avoid you crazy lore people, and then I realized I'd still missed stuff so I had to go back and throw in explanations. I'm sure someone will still complain about something anyway.
There is nothing wrong with making it about something that isn't necessarily "important." In fact, pretty much all the stories in the graphic novel are about seemingly random topics that don't really have anything to do with the greater whole of the universe. However, they still give you some insight of what is happening where. If you manage to make something completely unrelated to the rest of the lore yet still adhere to the capabilities of each race and their technology, good for you! :)

But if you decide to go completely on your own and just do whatever you think seems interesting and don't check it with lore, you might as well be making your own game seperate from SC. The editors are our playgrounds. We can do what we want with them, but StarCraft itself is a standard. We can make whatever we want, but creating something that is StarCraft-quality requires more attention to detail than anything else.
Krazy wrote:
thebrowncloud wrote: The idea of us having been able to toss in any story and the only real challenge being triggers makes it seem like we wasted our time. :-\


Triggers, map functionality, map beauty, professionalism, and text (including story). 

A lot of people put a lot of time into one element that isn't directly related to the scoring... something like half the submissions had mods, something like half had custom voice work.  These things can take as much time as any given whole category, but they are instead bundled into "Professionalism".  Unfortunately, being a contest, it is not tailor made to fit any one contestant's strengths.  Ultimately, if you're not doing it for fun, then you probably were wasting your time, considering the last time I checked you can buy SC2 beta keys on ebay for like 50 bucks a piece and the board game for 50. 

If you enjoy a job at pizza hut, you could probably make that much in a week, let alone 2 months, and have more fun doing it. 
I didn't say we didn't have fun making what we did. Despite it getting hectic at times, we had a lot of fun! But we also came into this contest with the intenet to win. We enjoy competing against other people and their stories in this contest. However, it's the thought that we may have brought a spoon to a fork fight that gets me worried and feel we might have wasted our time. To be honest, I don't even really care about the beta keys anymore. Sure, it would be nice to be able to play the beta and try out the editor, but I am more concerned with the quality of content we are able to produce. I've been waiting for StarCraft 2 since I was 6 years old. I am more than capable of waiting a little bit more time for the chance to play the sequel to my favorite game. I wanted to do this contest to compete and attempt to win. Sure, the beta keys were the bait, but that doesn't even really matter to me anymore.

EDIT: My apologies for bringing this thread off-topic. My views are my views and this was hardly the place to express them. In short, did we screw up by trying to make our story adhere to the lore too much? I will cease my ranting.
Last edited by thebrowncloud on Mon Aug 31, 2009 9:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Contest's Campaigns

Post by Ricky_Honejasi »

As always, lore is always one of the tricky situations when it comes to campaigns. Fortunately, despite my aptitude, Lavarinth will probably be more favor in lore-related aspects that I would do in addition that I did imply it is only MY position alone.

However to explain further my position (regardless if I am right or wrong in the grand scheme of things) ...

I guess my position is more based that if we start considering EVERY lore aspect possible from ALL novels, there easily can have no end in "who's right" for the more trickiest parts of lore.

For example, one novel would say X hero died at Y time under Z conditions then W consequences followed for Q following events and the other novel says the same thing but in other Z conditions and other W consequences.  Who's right for that part? The first book because somehow the author overall is more "legit" (closer in terms of Blizzard relations vs the second author) worldwide or the second book because the other author is much more known due to popularity? That's yet another aspect that can be contested in addition of all the sub-aspects that comes out of it thus it can easily become a nightmare ...

Meanwhile, while more restrictive, everyone will agree to the basic Starcraft/Brood War lore.
BadManners! wrote:Lore isn't just a part of it, it's the main ingredient. You can't afford to produce something that disregards lore if you want to win. Cheapest way to get up-to-date is read the wiki. Sure, it takes time, but you want to win, right?
I guess that's perhaps where interpretation of rules and the contest might possibly go very wrong.

Yes, it would be perfectly logical to think like that considering the contest's titles and the mention of lore in the professionalism aspect. With that train of thought, lore would have much more importance overall.

Personally, I did interpret the campaign's lore-aspects as in avoiding lore conflicts and you would be fine while inserting and respecting much more lore would help your campaign's scoring but lore wouldn't be the end-all. The only disqualifying aspect in my opinion would be if your campaign isn't set at all after Brood War (implying also at least some minor ties with the official storyline) while it doesn't go too much into Starcraft 2's timeline.
PROFESSIONALISM: Overall, your completed project will not solely be played because it was created. It must be presented properly and professionally to your potential players. Introducing someone to your project with a quick synopsis with a download link will quickly attract more players than a title and download link. Inside your project, players will continue playing if you follow through with your pitch and your attention to detail of it. In this situation, are you following the lore properly and are you getting a good grasp of the characters and how you are presenting them. This criteria also has a few points dedicated to weekly update to define professionalism in keeping your potential players updated. This criteria is judged from a 1-10 scale, 10 being the highest score.
Based on that, it gives me the impression that lore would count for 2 to 4 points in professionalism out of 10 (thus 4 to 8% of global score). Ultimately, it will depend on how Lavarinth will exactly score lore. However, that's to explain that lore likely won't have lots of weight otherwise there would be a lore main section for itself worth 5 points or something if lore was truly a main focus of this contest.

In fact, if there any big focus in this contest, it would be the campaign's terrain since if we combine both main sections (both worth 10 points) related to terrain, it's a whooping 40% of global score for that alone.
In short, did we screw up by trying to make our story adhere to the lore too much? I will cease my ranting.
In all honesty, if you neglected the campaign's other aspects (especially terrain) too much in favor of lore, yes.
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Re: Contest's Campaigns

Post by Legion »

Ricky, man, I hear you, it's tough.

But then again, if lore is always tricky, then don't make it a requirement. Tipereth, dimissing us as 'lore people' is uncalled for seeing as how this could have been about any aspect of the contest that - because it's tricky - gets pushed to the side a little bit. What I tried to say was that you can't have a contest primarily about story aspects and then say that lore is less than half the score. That's misleading. Because people who went out of their way to try and stick to official sources as much as possible (and thereby possibly excluding "brownie" points or even other points that would have made a difference) are now faced with a reality they weren't prepared for.
Ricky_Honejasi wrote:
PROFESSIONALISM: Overall, your completed project will not solely be played because it was created. It must be presented properly and professionally to your potential players. Introducing someone to your project with a quick synopsis with a download link will quickly attract more players than a title and download link. Inside your project, players will continue playing if you follow through with your pitch and your attention to detail of it. In this situation, are you following the lore properly and are you getting a good grasp of the characters and how you are presenting them. This criteria also has a few points dedicated to weekly update to define professionalism in keeping your potential players updated. This criteria is judged from a 1-10 scale, 10 being the highest score.
Based on that, it gives me the impression that lore would count for 2 to 4 points in professionalism out of 10 (thus 4 to 8% of global score).
My point exactly. This contest started out as something that pushed people to create contest entries that would adhere to canon. To me that means lore should be counted at least 50%. Judging by the name of this contest, I'd say that's about fair. If I'm hosting a chocolate cake baking contest, you can bet your behind I'm going to make the quality of the chocolate count big time.

Of course, reading every piece of material available for the SC universe would perhaps be too much, but if you're going to use Raynor in your contest-entry campaign, there's other sources to do some research.
Last edited by Anonymous on Mon Aug 31, 2009 10:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Contest's Campaigns

Post by Legion »

Laconius wrote:
thebrowncloud wrote: Anything on the wiki (and therefore every piece of lore) should be taken into account on the judging. Some of it (actually, the majority of it now) takes place during the four year period between 2501 and 2505, so to completely ignore that and start from scratch really gives no guidelines to people as to what is really going on and therefore everyone's story is equally as plausible as the next as long as they payed attention to their SC2 info and actually played SC vanilla and BW.
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Ricky_Honejasi wrote: Meanwhile, while more restrictive, everyone will agree to the basic Starcraft/Brood War lore.
Spoiler
LOL!

Means people are gonna hafta read the novels, then! ;)

Doesn't end the discussion, though.
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Re: Contest's Campaigns

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I mentioned already in the past canon lore (including the books) would be taken into account, and that most likely Ricky would skip over it since he's not familiar with it.
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Re: Contest's Campaigns

Post by Ricky_Honejasi »

But then again, if lore is always tricky, then don't make it a requirement
It's Lavarinth that decided that requirement and I took zero part of that decision. Lavarinth made the basic rules and I just follow them as closely as *I* expect the rules' underlays to be and their *likely* outcomes to the best of my judgment (edit : which I can be wrong at times).
This contest started out as something that pushed people to create contest entries that would adhere to canon. To me that means lore should be counted at least 50%.
I am sorry but you simply focus just too much on lore's worth even if this contest puts some value on lore. While lore adds value, it doesn't make the campaign (although it can make the book). At best, if a campaign contest was re-organized with an emphasis on lore, I would expect it to be 20-30% max on lore. 50+ % sounds a better criteria if it was a fan fiction contest with a very obvious emphasis on lore in it.
but if you're going to use Raynor in your contest-entry campaign, is it really too much to look him up on SC wiki to see if what you want could actually fit in?
Personally, I am not confident in relying on wikis for that. Sure, you can find the information although is it correctly written or the wiki forgot that detail or two that contradict/changes everything?

Although, pretty much like Lavarinth said, I am skipping lore-related aspects for testing thus it's Lavarinth and Dread that would do it and much better that I ever would anyway.
Last edited by Ricky_Honejasi on Mon Aug 31, 2009 11:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Contest's Campaigns

Post by Legion »

Ricky_Honejasi wrote:
But then again, if lore is always tricky, then don't make it a requirement
It's Lavarinth that decided that requirement and I took zero part of that decision. Lavarinth made the basic rules and I just follow them as closely as *I* expect the rules' underlays to be and their *likely* outcomes to the best of my judgment (edit : which I can be wrong at times).
This contest started out as something that pushed people to create contest entries that would adhere to canon. To me that means lore should be counted at least 50%.
I am sorry but you simply focus just too much on lore's worth even if this contest puts some value on lore. While lore adds value, it doesn't make the campaign (although it can make the book). At best, if a campaign contest was re-organized with an emphasis on lore, I would expect it to be 20-30% max on lore. 50+ % sounds a better criteria if it was a fan fiction contest with a very obvious emphasis on lore in it.
but if you're going to use Raynor in your contest-entry campaign, is it really too much to look him up on SC wiki to see if what you want could actually fit in?
Personally, I am not confident in relying on wikis for that. Sure, you can find the information although is it correctly written or the wiki forgot that detail or two that contradict/changes everything?

Although, like Lavarinth said, I am skipping lore-related aspects for testing thus it's Lavarinth and Dread that would do it and much better that I would ever would anyway.
I wasn't trying to criticise you, Ricky. I understand where you're coming from. I understand where everybody's coming from.

But yeah, I guess *I* (and possibly more) thought of this as a fanfiction contest. I can't see - and I really can't - how you can ever focus on lore too much when you're hosting a contest based on lore. From the top of my head, people like Laconius, TheOracle, thebrowncloud and some others I forget now due to my bad memory and doing several things at once here did a great job making their works fit into the lore. Get it straight, I don't want any points taken AWAY from people -- I just think the rules were a bit unclear in some cases, resulting in people making decisions they wouldn't otherwise have made.
Ricky_Honejasi wrote:
but if you're going to use Raynor in your contest-entry campaign, is it really too much to look him up on SC wiki to see if what you want could actually fit in?
Personally, I am not confident in relying on wikis for that. Sure, you can find the information although is it correctly written or the wiki forgot that detail or two that contradict/changes everything?
By the way, in that post you're quoting, I took out that reference to Starcraft wiki even before Laconius posted his reply, but you quoted it anyway. Technically, you're misquoting me! ;D Although I do think that the Sc wiki is fairly reliable, so leave it.
Last edited by Anonymous on Mon Aug 31, 2009 11:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Contest's Campaigns

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I saw a WinMPQ of Vile Egression 2 on Laconius' start bar! Sweet! So are you just working casually on it/in the planning process or are you seriously into it now? I look forward to that!  :)

But anyway, I think people doubt the wiki far more than is reasonable. People who make wikis aren't just people who are bored and want to talk about shows or games that they like. Those kinds of people are the ones who LOVE the topic that it is about and wouldn't neglect to mention anything that isn't as minor as "Jim Raynor fell on the ground. This made him sad." It has literally EVERYTHING you need to know about the lore and is all correct. The admins are passionate about their work on the wiki and check all the changes made to every article on a daily basis for correctness, clarity, and professionalism. Making the "school board" excuse that, "since anyone can edit it, it can't be trusted," is a bit..... dated? Honestly, admins and passionate users watch those articles like hawks. Every time that something is changed to anything incorrect, off topic, or just vandalism is undone or moved so that it is in the right place.

I guess my words kind of fall on deaf ears to people who aren't members of its community or just flat out don't give a crap about lore (the latter of which seems to be a prominent number of people). However, for the select few that are willing to listen, hear me when I say that the wiki is one of the MOST reliable sources you have when it comes to lore.
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Re: Contest's Campaigns

Post by thebrowncloud »

Krazy wrote: And although this may not be a "who has the best voice overs", it IS however a "custom CAMPAIGN" contest, not a "blizzard fanfiction" contest, and I think it makes a ton of sense for 3 of the 5 categories being directly related to the production of the campaign maps and game elements.  If lore was the #1 concern, and not an organizing theme, then this would have been a fanfiction contest. 
I think you underestimate how important the story is. Yes, having a lot of the judging being on the quality of the gameplay and look of the maps is good, but what makes a campaign different from a regular scenario map that you just play with your buddies for fun is the story. And that very story makes it a FAN FICTION. Campaigns are fan fictions. And that would mean that lore is supposed to be important. I'm all for making maps for an innovative, unique gameplay experience, but a map like that without the story isn't a campaign. And making it specifically a contest that has a designated timeframe means the story should be more important than really anyone seems to acknowledge. I'm spitting into the wind here, I know. Whatever. The judges can judge however they want. If it that isn't the way that would benefit people like me the most, that's the way it is.  :-\
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Re: Contest's Campaigns

Post by Lavarinth »

Why are you all arguing over this? Answer me that. The rules are there. What's the big deal. Ricky's not the deciding factor in this, I am. I made the rules. Settled. Now you don't need to answer.
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Re: Contest's Campaigns

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Krazy wrote:
thebrowncloud wrote: I think you underestimate how important the story is. Yes, having a lot of the judging being on the quality of the gameplay and look of the maps is good, but what makes a campaign different from a regular scenario map that you just play with your buddies for fun is the story. And that very story makes it a FAN FICTION. Campaigns are fan fictions. And that would mean that lore is supposed to be important. I'm all for making maps for an innovative, unique gameplay experience, but a map like that without the story isn't a campaign.

I didn't estimate how important *story* is one way or the other.  I explained my interpretation of how the judge's posited its importance. 

And whose campaign are you saying doesn't have a story?  Those be fightin' words round these parts, son.

Rawr.
Hehe, no, sir! Not you! I actually haven't played yours yet. I didn't want to come off as trying to say that somebody in the contest didn't have any story. Quite the opposite, in fact. Everyone has a story and they are all different. The uniqueness of each story and how they are portrayed, as well as how plausible they are should be a major concern in the judging because this actually IS a fan fiction contest, but not one that you just write about (or at least I think that's what we were supposed to do  :)).

Meh, this whole thing kinda got blown out of proportion. My apologies for responding in a way that ended up making it an argument. That wasn't my intent. I just wanted to know what will the lore judging be based on. I know you said the books, but does that include the graphic novels and comics?  :-\
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Re: Contest's Campaigns

Post by Legion »

Lavarinth wrote: Why are you all arguing over this? Answer me that. The rules are there. What's the big deal. Ricky's not the deciding factor in this, I am. I made the rules. Settled. Now you don't need to answer.
But I will.

Who's arguing? I prefer to think of it as a discussion and people clearing things up occasionally.

The rules are there yes, but what I think started this all is this-- Some people didn't know that story was only just another aspect like triggers and map beauty for instance. They thought it was the overaching theme of the contest, as implied by the title and original explanation of the contest. So there was a bit of confusion. Nobody was trying to bash Ricky that I've seen, and the fact that you are the deciding factor doesn't necessarily end said confusion.
Krazy wrote: If lore was the #1 concern, and not an organizing theme, then this would have been a fanfiction contest. 
It is. That's been my point all along. Stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work.

Also, this is not the second time we're having this discussion. The first discussion was about the timespan ("4 whole years or somewhere in those 4 years?") and this is just some people who seem to have interpreted the rules differently. No harm done. Happens every day.

Good night! :D
Last edited by Anonymous on Mon Aug 31, 2009 1:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Contest's Campaigns

Post by thebrowncloud »

BadManners! wrote:
Good night! :D
It's bed time where you live? Are you from Europe?
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Re: Contest's Campaigns

Post by Krazy »

BadManners! wrote:
Krazy wrote: If lore was the #1 concern, and not an organizing theme, then this would have been a fanfiction contest. 
It is. That's been my point all along. Stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work.

Don't tell me, tell The Deciding Factor.
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Re: Contest's Campaigns

Post by Legion »

thebrowncloud wrote:
BadManners! wrote:
Good night! :D
It's bed time where you live? Are you from Europe?
I am, yeah. You all have a really good Monday, USA!

Edit:

Lol, thanks Krazy! I guess I got a little carried away here. Pff. Discussions. I never win any, so that probably explains some things.. :)
Last edited by Anonymous on Mon Aug 31, 2009 1:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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