fortuni on 4/1/2015 at 18:48
maybe it's a wee bit early to suggest this now, but seeing this thread seems to cover quite a range of subjects from mission stats to how to criticise an author without going to far and offending them, i had an idea for another contest
Why not in the spring / early summer, after the current contest has been and gone, start a 'novice' contest, but instead of just leaving that novice author to attempt everything on his/her own, with this contest 'novices' would buddy up with experienced Dromers....
of course there would be a little bit of organisation to do:
firstly find out how many people may be prepared to give it a go, but many people have suggested ideas for plot lines over the years, but have never installed Dromed less alone built a mission, so i suspect there may be a number of people who would consider building their very first mission if they were not so bleeding scared of Dromed and if they had an experienced Dromer to hold their hand....:D
secondly we would need to discover how many experienced Dromers would be prepared to buddy up with a novice.....somehow i suspect that maybe more than you may initially think, how you would put novice and Dromer together would need to be discussed, but initially i would suggest that the novices in the competition submit their storyline/plot to the organizer and the Dromers would have access to these idea's and between them choose who they would buddy up with
thirdly, the main point of the contest would be to encourage newbies intro the Droming world, so there would need to be certain rules governing the contest, eg the story/plot line must come from the novice, the novice would have to build the mission, the experienced Dromer would only be allowed to act in an advisory capacity (but would be allowed to help out on more complex areas in the mission building that a novice would reasonably not be expected to be able to do on their own, but any such work must be declared )
fourthly: time limit, of course there would need to be one, but if it was started in the spring, and we usually do not have another contest till the winter that means we have a window of about 6 months, to me that seems a reasonable time to allow not too complicated mission build
as for the winner..............i'm not sure at this moment whether i am 100% in favour of this being a contest where there are winners and losers, yes the winner may be so thrilled as to go on to build many more missions....however this 'contest' would be run in order to encourage new mission builders and any contest that rewards 1 out of say 10 means 9 out of 10 people may question whether they wish to make a second attempt
as to whether i would throw my hat into the ring......................:sly:
Xorak on 4/1/2015 at 22:10
It's cool that the buddy contest idea is starting to gain traction. The idea has been kicking around for years and nobody has ever said anything about it.
Quote Posted by nicked
On the subject of criticism, as an author, it's invaluable. You can't learn to improve if nobody tells you what's wrong after all.
I agree completely. Nothing is more discouraging than the lack of honest criticism. What's the point of continuing if nobody criticizes what you do?
R Soul on 5/1/2015 at 00:48
The current explanations make a lot of sense but what about the difficulty of getting dark games to look good on LCD monitors?
SneakyGuy101 on 5/1/2015 at 01:16
I think that the main reason why there are less missions than ever before is because of the quality put into them. It's obviously far different than it was back years ago when FM's we're coming out almost all of the time. The reason because of this is because the quality in missions has raised a lot since FM's were first being made or even since 2006 when it had most missions released in a full year. It also takes far longer to put quality into a mission. Like for example, my missions. I've posted so many "Upcoming FM" posts that you're all probably used to it by now. The reason because of that is because of the quality and time I'm putting into my missions. Now say if this were ten or 15 years ago I wouldn't be putting the quality I put into it right now. Back then not all missions had the quality that they have now and that's why there was such a large number back then. Now with NewDark people are able to pull of far more then they were before it and that causes there to be much more quality put into missions now that the Dark Engine is much easier to use and that is what causes the major decline in missions released :)
klatremus on 5/1/2015 at 03:32
Quote Posted by Tannar
Nice idea, but that would be in violation of the EULA and we do not condone such behavior at TTLG, nor will we allow discussion of it on the open forum. On the bright side, as long as there are authors making missions, new Thief missions will always be free. :D
I apologize Tannar. I didn't mean to violate the agreement and wasn't aware of such discussions not being permissible.
Tannar on 5/1/2015 at 04:22
No worries. It's just part of my job to remind folks of these things. It's all good.
Yandros on 5/1/2015 at 04:57
Now if nickie had been the first to respond, though.... she'd have brought the SMACK down. :ebil:
nickie on 5/1/2015 at 08:15
You betcha. :D
There's nothing inherently wrong with criticism. It's how it is expressed that is important. Here, I believe we prefer 'I didn't enjoy that very much because of . . .' to 'that was utter rubbish'.
Soul Tear on 5/1/2015 at 14:27
Quote Posted by Tannar
Nice idea, but that would be in violation of the EULA and we do not condone such behavior at TTLG, nor will we allow discussion of it on the open forum. On the bright side, as long as there are authors making missions, new Thief missions will always be free. :D
Allow me to still add something please. :angel:
Sale FMs would constitute a violation of the license agreement. But not a donation: because it is impossible to prove that this is due to the license agreement. If someone wants to give someone money - it's not a violation, it's a gift. Is it possible to ban gifts? There are some well-known games where players donate for modders for one reason only: they do not want the project to be abandoned. Example, Skyrim.
Damn, I would like to many abandoned projects have been completed such as: CoSaS, Greyfeather Gems, Hammerite Imperium, Rocksbourg, Transitions In Chaos and others.
Maybe people did not have enough motivation to complete. They had to choose between art and work.
I was lucky, my work does not interfere with my art.
I respect the license agreement. I am opposed to steal objects and textures from T4 (you may remember that I created a topic for details). But why if someone wants to help his friend, can not do it?
In the end, it's just an opinion, but not a suggestion. I agree that should not discuss it openly. I think that this is a private matter.
I apologize in advance if such discussions are in violation of forum rules. :)
