Nice!

Would a re-imagination of a map from a non-Halo game be viable or would that be looked down upon as unoriginal?

"Honarable mentions 1 and 2 also get a Forgehub t-shirt"

Welp, time to shake off the dust

There's been lots of discussion in Waywo but I'd thought I'd give my 2 cents on the criteria. I'm not gonna complain about using default slayer as it's the obvious choice as it's the default for the game, even if some people don't like the way the game plays.
As for the criteria my suggestion really is just to shove all the readability and interactions stuff in with gameplay. They just don't seem enough each for a whole round of judging and fit under gameplay nicely. Forgehub contests take forever to judge anyway but I think having so many rounds and only losing 10 or so maps each time will take forever. I'd just take the top 50 maps judging on gameplay alone. Then factoring in aesthetics, but still considering gameplay, get you top 10 maps. Finally you just judge the winners. Ideally you'd make it quick and just consider everything at once and choose the winners. (It's not like people can edit maps between rounds so why have rounds). However, people do like to follow their maps progress which is why you'd give a top 50 and top 10. While I know this will take time I'd love you to attempt to, just like in the 1v1contest, perhaps stream testing and feedback (I know there's testing lobbies anyway with judges hosting so that helps), and just leave each map with a line or so of feedback from each judge at the end.
All in all really looking forward to this contest. While I don't agree with the way you're judging at the moment I believe your criteria covers just about everything so I'm looking forward to competing and seeing the winners. Can't wait to get back into halo forge and play some good 4v4 maps.

If I win, donate my money to charity. As for the shirt..... well.

You can use it to clean up after you watch all that SFM stuff you were talking about.

I get the testing lobbies, if it's just the community members. But, why should the judges get lumped in with that like it's the same thing? It isn't the same.
So now the maps are being judged before they are even submitted? That doesn't make any sense. What if you actually do get a thousand people who all want to submit three maps each? Are the judges going to help get the rough edges off each and every one of those maps?
Again, I understand the part about the testing lobbies. That's the type of thing these contests are meant to encourage. How does allowing the judges to scrutinize people's work, before it's submitted, keep them impartial?

Yes you could, if you really put your minds to it.

So how many submissions do you expect to get?

That still doesn't make it okay to let the judges influence the maps in any way, especially before the submission deadline. If nothing else, that gives people who already had their maps started an unfair advantage, because they would have more time available to get their maps looked at.

The obvious complaint also remains, any map that the judges have had a chance to influence will have an unfair advantage over a map the judges haven't had a chance to influence.

To illustrate my point, let's use a hypothetical scenario. What if you get only two entries, one map called "Rome" and one called "Rema." What if Rome gets looked at by a judge and Rema doesn't? Then what if Rome wins? How is that fair? Then what if Rema wins? What was the point?

It's the same as saying maps that get tested have more of a chance than maps that weren't. If everyone puts their maps in the judges testing lobby there's no problem here. If people don't, that's their loss I guess. Let's be honest here, I'm know for a fact the judges often look at maps before the deadline even when they don't run testing lobbies. And I'm sure some feedback may "slip out" sometimes to certain people to. It kinda almost evens the playing field here with the judges being the people that run testing lobbies. Contest aside we all want to make the best maps we can here and testing is the way to go.

If that's true, then what is the point of the contest? If testing lobbies are the way to go, then why not save the money from the contests and use it to give out rewards to people who participate in the lobbies?

Same question.

The point of the contest is:
1. Encourage people to make more maps
2. Encourage and invite more people into the community and introduce them to testing lobbies and whatnot
3. To cause the creation of some great 4v4 maps

As ascend says, anyone can use the testing lobbies so it's not unfair in any way. Besides, having the judges hosting these lobbies will encourage more people to get involved in them which they should. It also helps teach people how to respond to and learn/improve there maps from feedback which is an important part of the development process. You are basically suggesting people shouldn't test their maps which is stupid. It is also worth noting that testing lobbies are streamed so any bias would be clear and that often the judges do not really give their own feedback, only collate that which is given by the lobby.

As I hint at in my previous post, no contest is completely clear of bias so I don't feel the judges hosting testing lobbies is really anything to worry about. It keeps everything transparent and open rather than shady advice through private messages or whatnot.

That is not what I suggested.

@Ascend Hyperion

Answer my question, please.

@Alex Parsons do you even forge in H5? You seem way too concerned over minute details for someone that probably won't take part in this contest to begin with.

When you have testing lobbies with ForgeHub's Finest participating and handing out good advice you get community engagement, some good spirited forging, meet new people, learn new things. This happens before the competition. Once the submission deadline is reached, all community activity ceases and a few people hang around and wait for the judges to make up their minds.

You want community participation and a good time had by all. You get that when you have the testing lobbies, but you don't reward that participation (unless you consider your advice a reward). Instead, you reward (with real money) the players who made maps you like, and we don't care who they are because they're not us. There is nothing about the competition that is of any real interest to most of us.

All the fun, all the learning, all the camaraderie, all the growing happens in the test lobbies with staff participation. That is where your stated mission is accomplished. That's the biggest bang for your bucks. This is what we believe ForgeHub is all about when we first come here. We want our work to be scrutinized by this community and by the Masters. We are aware that in most cases what we do can't compare to the Masters, yet all you seem to want to do is pit us against them, and each other. This is why you get scores of submissions instead of thousands. We're Halo players. We will quit a match if it's clear we're about to lose. We don't like losing. Losing is bad. Contests create Losers. Far, far more losers than winners.

It would be easy to open a test lobby and say you will look at a map and if you don't find anything wrong with it the author gets 1000 points, and if it's not perfect they get less points. The points are based on your expertise and not whether or not it's "better" than some other map. Accumulate enough points and claim a prize. The map author gains knowledge, insight, acceptance, and gets proportionately rewarded for their effort. A person that works on a map for weeks and enters it in your contest will likely get nothing but a "Loser" label. Tossed out in the first wave. If you want to know why you gotta ask. If you don't agree with the assessment you're just being a baby.

At least the "Ghost in the Shell" contest had a challenge. Your contest is to get the 'best 4v4 map". What does that even mean? Best map ever or just the best map this community can offer?

You can stop being paranoid about our perception of the integrity and impartiality of the judges. It doesn't matter. They will pick winners and their judgement will be indisputable. We know that. It's not the issue. We just find it odd that you want participation, which everyone cares about, but don't reward it, and you will hand out tangible prizes to three people, and maybe fifteen people care, and that's supposed to be good for all of us, Forge, and Halo.

I don't know how you measure success when it comes to these contests, but I'll bet that if you did the testing lobbies and eliminated the contest part you wouldn't notice any difference in actual community participation. Competition is not the only way to get the best out of people. There are many other ways. You guys should try to get out of your comfort zone and try new things.