TF2 Newbs (Team Fortress 2) Blog

There were piles of entries, and it took me a while to sort through them all…

Why are you looking at me funny?

…

Cut it out.

…

Ok, there were barely a handful of entries, and I went through them all in an hour or three. Happy? Moving on…

THE MAPS

“First, find a map that is not already installed on #10 that you think SHOULD be installed on #10 and put into the rotation. Best map (as chosen by me with a multitude of criteria) wins! You don’t have to have made the map.”

There were eight maps submitted for the contest, and no two were really all that alike. This is a good thing.

Judging the maps was a three stage process. In stage 1 I evaluated the maps from one purely technical standpoint:

Would the map work with round timers (if any) removed and win conditions disabled?

I came to the conclusion that three maps would not, in fact, work under those circumstances. Incidentally, the LAST three maps submitted. In order of submitting:

cp_towerdefense_beta, submitted by NFreak, is too tied down to the base gameplay. There would be no easy way to make it so that the map would function without the control point enabled, and the kill zones are problematic to say the least. What good is a map to goof off on if you are literally walled off from the enemy by killzones?

plr_vegas_b01, submitted by Binjin, is a multi-round payload race map. Since the winning condition would be disabled in the first round the multi-round part alone would not function, and enabling all spawns despite rounds would cause issues with players never finding each other in some cases, I came to the conclusion it just wasn’t going to work.

sg_portal_b3, submitted by Bacon, is more of a single player map. Basically, learning to take out semi-attended sentries. There is no way I can see to make it multiplayer-friendly, even after removing the “spawn ten bots to randomly spawn, drop a sentry, and upgrade the sentry” components.

This left five maps for stage 2, wherein I ran the maps at work to make sure they wouldn’t crash out lower end computers. Over a remote connection, no less. All five functioned in that environment, so I moved onto stage 3, my personal opinion on them.

At this point I am actually ranking maps, so lets go from worst to best.

At the bottom of the list, holding the title of “worst Team Fortress 2 Deathmatch Map CmptrWz has EVER had the displeasure of installing,” dm_hangemhigh_tf2, submitted by Chase. None of the must-have elements of a TF2 map, IMO, are there, and there are hints of more interesting things since removed for whatever reason. The only way I could see this working is if a true deathmatch mode were ever made available in TF2. It will not be installed on #10 until such a mode is made available, if then.

Next up, ctf_moonwalk_v2, submitted by DracoEx. When looking over this map I had the feeling that the battles for intel in the middle, low gravity area, could be EPIC with the right teams. Since nobody really needs to care about capping the intel on #10, and that was the only thing I found interesting about the map overall, it gets a fairly low score. By association with dm_hangemhigh_tf2, though, it is good enough to get a place in #10′s rotation.

In third place we have rats_tequila, submitted by Banhammer. Visually interesting, capture points that will likely be fun to cap even if you can never actually win, and enough stuff to goof off on/around scattered all over the place, the map should be a solid addition to #10. The only way to make it better would be if it worked well with gravity turned down, but certain parts of the map freak out a bit if you do that.

Coming in second, the only map submitted with music in it, cc_capture_cube, submitted by Andy. While the name may seem a bit redundant, as I think the cc stands for Capture Cube, the map will likely play a lot like dm_biosphere. Just with the added catch of being able to claim the cube for your team AND fight over the music. The map lacks visual interest in many ways, though, and a couple of issues I have with it kept it from the #1 spot.

Finally, in first place, ctf_hoops_beta, submitted by Jigen. I don’t know what the most amusing part will be for people at first. The voice-command spamming to the stands from the spawn rooms, the giant basketball hoops you can get to via a number of methods, or trying to get the scoreboards to read 69. As an added bonus, it still works in low gravity mode, should I decide to enable that on the map.

THE REMIXES

“Second, find a song (from OCRemix) that is not already on #10 that would rock on #10. Best song (as chosen by me) wins! You don’t have to have made the remix.”

I got a lot of people wanting to give me music from everywhere BUT OCRemix, for varying reasons. Still, got a good number of entries, even though there was griping about the only good songs being taken already a couple of times. At least one person decided not to enter because their choices were taken by someone else, or so they said.

The remixes were a lot harder to rank. First, I evaluated them on technical merits, namely format compatibility with TF2. They all passed, which didn’t make ranking them any easier.

I then tried to eliminate any song I wouldn’t mind hearing once, but would have problems with if it repeated. I figure a good submission should either make me mentally scream “NO, NOT THIS SONG” on the first play through or be suitable no matter how many times I play it. Unfortunately, I don’t think there is a single song on OCRemix that would fail this test, so I was still stuck with ranking them all.

So I threw them all into a playlist, in order of submission, and looked over the screenshots, took a second look at the maps, and then looked at the screenshots again.

Once I was done with that, I went back and started moving them around in the playlist, ordering them from best to worst. Unlike the maps, I don’t really have concrete reasons as to why one song is better than another.

In the end, I came up with a top five submissions, and then went and dug up the information on who submitted them. They are, from best to worst:

sephire, SGX’s Mario Paint: Intense Color submitted by Medic Lobster
djpretzel’s F-Zero: Mute Radiology submitted by Banhammer
blind’s Final Fantasy IV: Golbez ‘N Goblins submitted by Medic Lobster
HappyBivouac’s Jet Set Radio: Late Night Sneakin’ submitted by Chase
Jivemaster’s Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine: Blobby Blob Disco submitted by NFreak

All five, will end up on #10. I will likely add more, plus some songs of my own pick, as well.

THE SCREENSHOTS

“Third, provide me with a screenshot from #10 that makes me laugh the hardest. You DO have to have made the screenshot (or rather, have had your game make the screenshot), and old screenshots don’t count.”

“Old” screenshots, in this case, would not have had the distinctive orange TF2Newbs.com in the lower corner of the screenshot. That would also apply to any screenshot taken somewhere other than #10, providing an at-a-glance pre-check for me. This was stage 1 of the judging, and I did so as the submissions came in so that people could make/submit new ones.

I did not specify what format, size, etc the screenshots should be in. TGA, PNG, and JPG are no-brainers. Static GIF files would not have been bad. Animated GIF files were stretching it, but out of desperation I included them too.

Yes, I said out of desperation. Not for entries, but for funny. See, before I took into account the animated GIF files I hadn’t even smirked at the screenshots, let alone LAUGHED.

Unfortunately, after I took into account the animated GIF files I was left wishing I hadn’t. They didn’t help.

Either my sense of humor is broken, too refined, or just plain not in tune with the rest of those who play on #10. In some of the screenshots I couldn’t even determine what the person taking it thought was supposed to be funny. Others I had to think about, which is a sure way to ruin a laugh, and I am still not sure if I got it right. The final group I could tell EXACTLY what the funny part was supposed to be, but either due to over-exposure or just finding it stupid from the first time I saw it or something similar didn’t find it funny myself.

Still, I thought, there are entries, and I need to pick a winner. Or did I? The contest was to provide a screenshot, taken on #10 in the contest period, that made me laugh the hardest.

As I didn’t smirk, smile, or even grin at the screenshots, let alone LAUGH, I hereby disqualify the whole lot for not meeting the criteria set forth in the contest.

THE RESULTS

The grand prize for each contest is a copy of L4D2 and a copy of Borderlands. Recipients of the grand prize are as follows:

Map contest: Jigen
Remix contest: Medic Lobster
Screenshot contest: NO WINNER

Wait, I have three contests, three prizes ready to go, and only two winners! Well, that won’t do. I have a quarter here, and I am going to flip it. Heads for Maps, tails for Remixes. Best two of three flips. I don’t have a camera handy, so you will have to trust me on this one.

Flip 1: Heads
Flip 2: Tails
Flip 3: Tails

Tails it is, remixes! Second place in remixes was…Banhammer. Thus, our prize winners are:

Map contest: Jigen
Remix contest: Medic Lobster and Banhammer

I will be in touch with the winners to determine where to send their prizes in the next day or so, either via Steam Chat or forum PMs.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 24th, 2009 at 1:17 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.