this contest smelled funny from the start, hopefully the next contest isnt so stinky (ew) (yuck)

My great grandfather used to play on Stigma when he was a kid, it just always finds a way back into our lives.

Im looking forward to seeing my kids play on Stigma v12.6 when they grow up.

IMO the map selection for this contest was poor at best. I only think there was 2 maps that are actually GOOD though out all of testing and 3 which that I could say was OKAY. Which ones. FIND OUT ON OUR NEXT EPISODE. LOL

Yeah most of the people I've spoken to that submitted maps to the contest just threw something in. I for one threw in a classic settings KOTH map (Hoodlum) and a 2v2 map that could sort of kind of but not really support 4s (Bleak), both maps play fine for their respective purposes, I'd know since they were both tested pretty extensively, but I felt no reason to create a new map since other people that had the opportunity to submit maps which have been tested for months on end, that was already discouragement enough and some of the maps were even considered for mm and tested even heavier, that and the fact that the contest was slayer only limited the potential of many maps I'm sure. Overall, it took too long to judge and caused me and many others to completely lose interest and even forget about it entirely; but I don't hold that one against the judges too much considering it's difficult to get a lobby to play consistently for 4s but people shouldn't have EVER been allowed to submit preexisting maps. The purpose of contests should be to encourage a stream of new content, not further prove the quality of maps that have already been made and tested.

One thing that triggered me about the 1v1 contest was that certain judges publicly announced how "bad" the pool of maps were. Not only is this completely unprofessional and unnecessary, it is immature to throw out such a snide remark to 99% of the people who created something. Some people can't handle the position of being a judge and the power that comes with it. I guess people get caught up in the illusion that by somehow shitting on maps makes them a more superior level designer which is just silly. So to see we are already following the same trail as the 1v1 contest makes me pretty upset.

Onto the execution of the contest, it seemed like a chore for most of the judges. Obviously we all have priorities in life that come before a video game, but from the blunt to near absent feedback on certain maps, the lack of communication with the community through out the whole process, to me tuning into the stream last night, only to hear someone in the lobby say they didn't know where the power weapons were...? After 6 months and being in the final stage of judging, it is inexcusable that a player had no such knowledge. Regardless of whether it was a judge who said this or a random player, the problem is that the final round of judging took place within an uncontrolled setting. Players at this stage should be familiar with the maps to promote the most accurate testing. Like @CertifiedChamp said above ^ the contest took way too long to judge, and allowing preexisting maps with a high level of polish shouldn't have been allowed. Everyone should have x amount of time to create something new to keep time more of a controlled variable, and encourage a stream of fresh content. Overall the judges should have made it a priority to control as many variables as possible.

Which leads to me to my next point, how do we elect judges? Obviously it should be voluntary, however the selected judges should acquire a competent level of understanding of how to play the game (which was questionable at some points watching the stream), and have at least one map that is publicly very well received to play well for that specific player count (4v4 in this case), to support the level of understanding necessary to be in such a position. Hence why I think @Foge was the best candidate for this contest. I haven't seen enough from the other judges to distinguish themselves from the rest of the community. @Sethiroth has 2 maps in this game, neither being 4v4. @Ascend Hyperion has a lot of unique maps, however none being tested rigorously. @Max Extra has awesome testing lobbies, however this doesn't ensure competent understanding of level design.

Overall I just want the best for future contests and was disappointed with how this was run. Perhaps in the near future voting for judges might be worth considering. They should also get paid $$$

In terms of how I have said I dont think there where that many good maps. Yes maybe that was a bit "UNPROFESSIONAL". I am sorry that I might have offended someone. But I have always been known to state what I think. Maybe it was a bit harsh. I can agree there and I am sorry. In the past I have always avoided saying stuff on forums in terms of my thoughts on something because I can be vary blunt. Thank you for calling me out on this. I know that when I am in chat I talk one way but I should hold myself better standards on public forums. I had this slip up and I apologize.

In feedback sections I have left many constructive/positive comments on many maps. You will be able to see them all. I have wrote a pretty detailed report about every map in the contest and its on the trello. I will link it to you. I completely laid out all my thoughts about every map after we played them. https://trello.com/b/VkcS3BPh/4v4-slayer-forge-contest. You can read everything I have ever said about my thoughts on every map.

Both Me and Max had to move and it took quite some time. We have said many times that we didnt have access to internet. So thats the main reason it took so long. Holidays didnt help either. We are vary sorry it took so long for this to get around, we truly are. But we wanted to play ALL THE MAPS. Not look at them in forge and go OH heres your winners. It took time to get lobbies together. So if you felt that it was better that we didnt play the maps and just rush it then I disagree

In terms of allowing new maps and old, that was something we stated before the contest and no one complained then TO MY KNOWLEDGE and I could be wrong. In a ideal world I agree, new maps would have been awesome. Also 4 of the 8 top 8 maps I would classify as brand new because there where released after the announcement. There really wasnt that many new maps to began with also. BUT so happens at least half of the top 8 is actually new maps.

In terms of how judges are selected it is mostly Voluntary. In the past people have volunteered me and I have been asked many times. I have always declined because judges also get put into a bad light no matter what. I got asked again this time and I was like sure why not. I am sorry if you feel that I didn't meet your standards. PLUS I have made 4 of my own maps and co forged/helped many more.

THIS GOES OUT TO EVERYONE. If you didnt like my feedback or want to ask me why I said what I said about any particular map, please DM me here and I am more than willing to get up with you in FORGE to go over anything that I said and can have a productive conversation.

I'm going to disagree with pretty much everyone, lol.

I don't have a problem with contests allowing previously built levels to be entered. I also agree that it's counter-productive though, as it doesn't really engage the community. Contests where previously built maps are allowed should be ones where the winners are going into matchmaking, because one of the primary goals of such a contest is to procure content for the entire player-base. I purposely refrained from submitting anything to this contest because I hoped that a newer design would be rewarded (even though I also don't think I had anything good enough to win).

I think that the judges responsibility should be to judge the maps, not to provide feedback on them. Feedback should be sought out prior to submitting content to a contest. It should be provided by the community at large. Putting that responsibility on the judges only serves to slow down the process, and create ill will against the judges. The more feedback you provide as a judge, the more people get upset with you and question you.

Speaking of slowing down the process, I disagree with playing all of the maps. I know that probably sounds ridiculous, but in my experience there's no reason to play about 75% of the maps that get submitted to contests, assuming you're actually qualified to judge them. I literally can't recall a single time where I looked at a map I was judging, thought it had no chance of winning, and then was proved wrong after playing it. If a person is competent, there's no need to play anything outside of the top 25% of designs. I say this only because the other 75% have VERY obvious flaws.

If you're not sure, sure...go ahead and play it. Don't play all of the maps just to say you played all of the maps though. The job of the judge is to find the best maps, not to make everyone happy. It's a misnomer to think that giving people what they say they want will actually make them happy. And this is coming from someone who submitted maps to contests as an unknown forger years ago, and knew that they never got tested (so I understand and have experienced the frustration that creates).

I hope this doesn't bother any judges. I understand it's a complicated job, and I don't blame anyone for doing any of these things I've said I'm against. I'm against the approach, not against any of the people involved in the process. I've held this opinion for many years, and the more times I see contests play out, the more convinced I am of my perspective. I realize that virtually nobody shares my perspective, and that's perfectly okay. Just figured I'd throw it out there as food for thought.

We decided to let all maps enter because for so many years people where like " Hey where is the 4v4 contest". It came kinda late and we felt bad. We wanted to play all maps to be play to make everyone happy for sure. At least thats my personall reason and I can see what you mean by it in terms of taking extra time. But the reason this contest took so long was not the amount of maps we had to play but because of, you know moving and no internet. Holidays didn't help. I personally love giving feedback and maybe that was the part that took us so long at the beginning that maybe pervented us from doing round two faster. Its for sure possible that that time would have been better getting to the next round faster for sure. I don't take anything you said chuck personally. Being on this side of judging has for sure opened my eyes to a few things that I never considered before as a competitor. I can see where your coming from for sure.

For sure we cant please everyone and maybe thats where we went wrong. Someone will always not like what you have done and trying to mitigate that might have added some extra time but I stand by the fact that the living conditions me and max had to deal with after the contest started didnt help and is the main culprit.

it doesn't really matter now how the comp was ran sure they had irl problems and sure there may have been other thing as well that slowed it down but theirs no point crying over spilled milk now. they know what they could have done better when it comes to over seeing the comp and judging it. i'm sure they them selves are unhappy with how it went as well. no real need for us to put them on blast.

anyway now that the judging is over. how much longer until yous announce the results and finally close the 4v4 comp.

also are yous going to add the scores for each map?

'There's no point crying over spilled milk now'? Are you actually serious?

You think, the people should not think critically about the obvious issues and confront the people in control of the contest? Brain checks out.
You don't know that they know what they could have done better in every detail. A naive statement, it'd be like the teacher not telling his/her students their grades, 'as they know their mistakes anyway, no need to tell them and their parents'.

If nothing is said, then observers and potential future judges/contest organizers come to the conclusion there weren't any problems. In this situation, the community is doing everyone a favour to not be silent, as forge contests should always be improved upon.
The scale of the public reception for this contest or Halo 5 in general does not matter here, in case anyone wants to make such a point. It is about individual progress, learning from mistakes and applying them later on. This leads to better results and knowledge in the future, not just for the people involved, but also for observers on the outside.

Good thing you mention the Trello Board and its horrendous handling. Just from looking at the descriptions of each round's section and then at your and only your thoughts already sums up everything. It looks like the judging panel consists of Seth and the others following suit. About 90% of comments on the board are by Seth with the occasional 'escapable' by @Max Extra and one or two comments by @Foge and @Ascend Hyperion . If you have the idea of putting the judging progress on record and actually laying out the judging structure, both on the Forgehub thread and on the board, then you should also use and fill out that structure.
This is independent from what @a Chunk said, as you made the decision at the beginning of the contest to leave feedback and judge at the same time.

A judging panel should help each other out, criticise each other, have different opinions, fill in for someone else, be dynamic.
Prove me wrong, however I clearly don't see these team mechanics in place for this contest. I also say this in regards of Max and Seth being struck by real life problems, which should not be used as an excuse for everything, as the panel does not consist of only two people. All that also leaves me to believe that the panel is a uniform structure, which crumbles, if one part is loose.
I don't feel any fire, any perseverance, any passion. If you all find it annoying to judge, then don't sign up for it. Everyone knows, it's a long, rocky road with unforeseen complications.

Seth, I applaud to you for at least writing something into the board, even if it's completely chaotic from an organized viewpoint. Coming with that, you obviously are the only one, whose feedback can be criticised. Well, let me just say that some of the stuff you wrote leaves me shaking my head and doubting your artistic knowledge.


Which brings me to my next point, knowledge. If I hear a judge saying "I don't like how the sniper and rockets are so close to each other" and another judge agreeing with him - while completely ignoring that those two weapons at the beginning of the map spawn in after different amounts of time and also have different spawn times - in the final judging stream/presentation/whatever, then it's the final straw.
False knowledge leads to false statements like these, which heavily influence the outcome of a contest. The stream and the board offer many more faults, however this one example already shows how unprofessional and lackluster the judging was and is.

Aside from that, I cannot believe how @Max Extra tried to escape my map twice (and failing twice) in the final showing of the maps. How unfair is it to map creators for judges to not play the matches seriously and focus on high level gameplay. If any of you other map creators read this, would you be ok with a judge doing that on your map when showing off the final eight maps or testing the gameplay of your map? It's quite disrespectful, and I am dissapointed.

If the judges themselves are not focused and too careless, then what does that say about the legitimacy of their opinions and feedback? Think about that. Over and out.

When it comes to the trello and how each map was handled we all discussed each map one at a time. We all said what we had to say. Not everyone was always in agreement on every map. I put my stuff in Trello the moment we discussed them. The others had tons to say. We discussed our thoughts and then we Collectively made a choice on moving a map from round to next round. This was NOT a 1 man show leading everyone.

Ascend dropped from judging half way through testing round 1. I am sure we mentioned that.

I am not even going to respond to this part about me and max living situation and supposedly lack of fire/passion. That statement was done in ill taste.

In my parts on the trello they were numbered 1, 2, 3, respectively to Gameplay, Weapons and Artistic stuff. In round 1 we only really discussed in depth gameplay because that was all round 1 judging was about. I wrote general things about weapons and Artistic vision on a vary basic idea because I had plan on going back and updating it, as we played more. Its my fault that I didn't go back and update everything I wrote and I apologize for that.

The stream was more to play with people on the maps to provide more content. It also never hurts to play maps again. The stream was ment for content and to showoff the maps. I cant speak towards max gameplay but you can hear me and foge try our butts off constantly. We where having fun yes. But you can clearly hear me and foge go back and forth trying our butts off.

I have publicly apologize about many things. Trust me when I say this. We are sorry it took so long to get done. I believe the top 8 maps we have are the best of the bunch. I am going to say this again. If you think we came to a wrong conclusion. Please contact me in DM we can get together in forge and go over it in a LOT more details about any map and why I personally came to the choices I did. I will not respond anymore to this because. I have apologized for many things and detailed on why things went the way it did and gave everyone the invitation to contact me personally in DM so we can talk.

In short. If your not happy with how long it took. I explained many times why it took so long and apologized many times over. If you dont think its true or dont except that answer, I dont care and thats a you problem . Its the trurth and nothing can change that, I am sorry it took so long. If you dont like the results of the top 8 you are free to contact me and we can have a night where we go over any maps of your choice. I love talking about design stuff and more then happy to do so.