Rapid Age development competition

[Grogyan]

Ahem, I am not the best of the best, not by a long shot, but i'll give it my best shot

[Chacal]

I would also like to point out there NO WHERE on this forum, the tutorials, and that includes the Alcugs ones too, is there any explanation about what a FCAL is, why it is needed, etc, etc. We have Kierra's short form letter for applying for one, and that's it.

Actually, it is mentioned as some places, such as here.

As to what you can do... I don't think anyone here will make a fuss if you submit an Age without a FCAL. That's a job for Cyan's lawyers, and I'm sure they have more pressing problems right now. Still, it is considered polite to go about asking for a FCAL.

[andylegate]

That is actually great Chacal.

Now, we need to move that to HERE. Why? Because we jumped up and told lots and lots of people over at MOUL to come join us HERE. To learn how to create fan Ages using the GoW Wiki.

So that's what I'm saying, is we need to have something about it here, that is not nested down in a bunch of other posts, or Listed else where. Let's get it posted on the Wiki.

Just think of how Cyan would react with a ton of new FCAL's applied to them.

And yes, I've sent off a application for every Age I've done, including the one I'm submitting for the contest. All done, in Cyan's ball court now.

[Lontahv]

I think we should try to work something temporary out with cyan for the moment. But for the longer term... I think we should make some kind of deal like;

"If an age is made by us and doesn't contain <blank><blank><blank> then you will grant that age a FCAL, and if you(cyan) choses to stop this deal that's perfectly ok. "

We just have to send them something for the short term right now, something like;

"We have this age writing competition <blahblabla etc. etc.>"
Just explain about what we're doing in a friendly kind of way. I'm sure they'll have no problem with it.

Oh and I forgot to add, we(the judges) should sign the email to cyan in blood. JK


~Lontahv

[Dot]

Oh and I forgot to add, we(the judges) should sign the email to cyan in blood. JK

Waah! That wasn't part of Grogyan's original request!

[Trylon]

Got the contest ulm version ready.
http://contestlibrary.hbyte.net

Yeah, it has a maintainers skin, live with it!

[Lontahv]

Do these sound like ok categories for the writers to judge ages in?


1) Stability:
--ingame testing
--Looking at the model


2) Quality:
--ingame testing
--Good Mesh
--looking at the model
--good textures

3)Economy:
--ingame testing
--looking at vert-count, texture size, and overall file size.

4) Content
--ingame testing

5) Creativity
--ingame testing

6) Quality
--ingame testing

7) Functionality
--ingame testing

8) Aesthetics
--ingame testing


I think that the maintainers will judge mainly by how it looks in-game and the writers will judge mainly based on the way the age was made in blender.


How do those categories sound to you? They cover all the maintainers ones and some writer-specific ones too. If you want me to delete some of the maintainer-overlap ones so that the maintainers have 3 maintainer specific categories, I will.


~Lontahv

[Dot]

There's nothing to stop Writers from judging ages from the point of view of ordinary explorers, is there?

I would say keep all the categories in for all the judges. Where there is overlap, the Maintainers will be looking at that aspect from a different viewpoint. To my mind that increases the depth and value of the judging.

[Lontahv]

Ok, then you should also judge and inspect all the points I listed above.


I think we'll know what the award-able aspects in an age will be when we've judged a bit.

I was thinking about swiftly judging the ages and how some kind of IM would help a lot. And then I remembered; on the maintainers site I saw a live chat feature--we can use that.

EDIT: And about how the maintainers will judge technical age aspects--If you have a REALLY bad mesh it should be easy to see in-game, and if it has lots of verts that should be visible in in download size, this is also true for large textures.

~Lontahv

[andylegate]

Have a question about the vert count.

What do you consider too high? And, is it based upon the size of the Age? Larger Ages with much content will tend to have a higher vert count and texture amounts, than say a much smaller Age. To what standard will you be bouncing that off off?

The reason I asked is that while making our Age, my team and I have been trying to keep the vert count low, but not at the sacrafice of realism. I want that boulder to look smooth, not jagged. But at the same time, we try to make sure that the Age seems to run smoothly on low end machines too.

Just curious.