Welcome to the ManiaExchange Monthly Track Contest (MTC), May 2013, hosted by MX. I will be your host for this month

In the MTC, your task is to build a track on a given theme (see below). Later on, all of the entered tracks will be rated by our judges and a winner will be found.

The Details

Let's have a look at the details of the contest:

Theme of the Month: The Offroad Monster: Build a track with Author Time exceeding 70 seconds, with at least 40 seconds driven on "natural" surfaces (dirt, grass etc.), and with at least 1 occurence of off-road drop and off-road climb.

Deadline: Sunday, May 26th 2013, 23:59:59 Pacific Time.

Prize:

Honour and the right to brag! (Jozii used to say that )
Top 3 tracks will be featured in the News section, getting extra spotlight.

The rules:

You can build in Stadium or Canyon!
"Off-road" should be naturally understood, but it mostly means the car does not drive on concrete, asphalt, steel or any other artifficial material. Grass, dirt, mud, rock (cave?) - these are off-road surfaces. The car must drive at least 40 seconds on them; generally, the more the better.
Off-road drop is a track element where the car loses contact with the off-road surface below, gets airborne, and, after descending a bit due to gravity, lands again on an off-road surface. The landing does not have to be smooth.
Off-road climb is a track element where the car, while in at least sporadic contact with an off-road surface, goes up. Typically on a hill slope. There is no specified minimum climb, but try to make it substantial.
We are looking for creativity here! Try to expand the trackmania creative gene pool by finding new, innovative or creative ways of building offroad!
Max. 1 track per author. Single author per track.

Blockmixing is allowed, however there will be a 2 point "fee" deducted from the DESIGN category if your track uses blockmixing. Please state clearly in your track description that your track is blockmixed. Also: If your track REQUIRES Unlimiter to be installed on player's computer, it will be rejected!
Attention! If your map uses some sort of custom object / custom block, it is your responsibility to make absolutely sure it works "as is" after downloading the map file. Judges are not required to download anything else besides the track file (in fact, they get all the tracks in one package -- if anything is missing, too bad!).

Include the sequence of letters "MTC" somewhere in the track name so that it can be easily discovered on mania-exchange.com.

The track must have been uploaded to the exchange before May 27th 2013 00:00 Pacific Time.

Important: To enter a track, simply upload it and post a link to your submission in this thread.

Theme explanation
The extra conditions on the theme are there mainly to prevent easy recycling of old tracks. What we want most are creative new off-road tracks.
The minimum length requirement is there to encourage "epic off-road" (it seems that some builders are afraid to make longer tracks in fear they will be overlooked by those who want to race short tracks only).

The Judging System (Attention! Change in point limits!):

Confirmed judges:
eyebo
wait

A number of judges will rate the tracks on the following topics:

Design – Layout, respawnability of checkpoints, learning curve, scenery, the general "feel" of the track. -2 if you use blockmixing. Max 15 points/judge
- I am adding "Learning curve" to this section: Ideally, a player who never raced the track should be able to get further and further in your track with each try, or become better and better with each run. Try to avoid building sections which are show-stoppers for less skilled players.
- As a general rule of thumb, the faster a player goes through the track, the harder it should get, not the other way round.

Creativity – The creativity of the track itself and especially the "Off-road part". This is where the THEME is judged. Max. 15 points/judge

Fun Factor – Sometimes a track can be poor in every way, but still extremely fun to drive. Depending on how fun the judges find your track, a few extra points can be given. Max 10 points/judge

Regarding the final results, the lowest and highest score of each track will be deleted and the average of the "medium scores" decides - if the number of judges is at least 5.

We need reliable and committed judges, so if you want to volunteer as a judge, please send a PM to Alcator!

Good luck! If you have any questions, please ask away

yeah very Simple theme to understand
i dont think i do a stadium but just in case question for stadium builder, is the dirt road count as offroad ? i remember it didnt at mtc at tmx

Ohh, i got another question, can the whole track be offroad ?

Nice theme!
Actually, I created a track a couple of years ago, but it's still not validated. I'll see what I can do with it.
BTW: Does it matter if has different mod??

the offroad road in Stadium is OK. It won't win you many points in the theme area if you rely on it entirely, but I could imagine some inventine combination there.

MODs are allowed, but judges are not required to spend any effort on acquiring them. Your best bet is to make sure they get auto-downloaded. Judges are allowed to ignore the mod - the track should stand on itself. Please avoid vulgarities and obscenities in mods (i.e., if I see boobs, blood or such stuff in a mod, I'll disqualify the track, sorry).

Cool theme, which provides plenty of space to experiment
Only one question, as I'm not sure, if I understood the Offrad climb correctly.
In canyon racing up the hillside of the type 2 mountains is considered as an offroad climb?
But it can also be as little as a little offroad-bump, can't it?
Thanks in advance!

haenry says:
Cool theme, which provides plenty of space to experiment
Only one question, as I'm not sure, if I understood the Offrad climb correctly.
In canyon racing up the hillside of the type 2 mountains is considered as an offroad climb?
But it can also be as little as a little offroad-bump, can't it?
Thanks in advance!

A "bump" will most probably send your car into the air. I'd like to see some kind of vertical climbing, with at least one wheel touching the ground. There should be a naturally understandable difference between "going up the hill" and "flying up".
If you remember the trailer for Platform, there was a nice moment (starting approx. 0:14, as marked in this link, and going for a few seconds) when the car climbs a rock hill slope:
http://youtu.be/f-BEDljxSJE?t=14s
so that would fit the criteria. on the other hand, the dirt road bumps in Stadium would not.

Clearer now?

yeah perfect. Thanks!

nice theme, but I have a question. As you may know, it is impossible to create a consistantly smooth transition with the hills in canyon. I really don't want to make it a type of platform map, so would I get marked down on points if the hill climb was part of a Press Forward start? Technically it fits the rules, but I'd like to know if that is "cheating".

Hm... difficult question. And, with the judging system we use, I actually cannot tell if judges would find your track lacking, or quite to the contrary, "original".

The primary goal of this month is to look for innovation in the area of off-road. The drop and climb requirements are only there to prevent easy recycling.

I say go for it and make a great off-road track :-)

Ok thank you I've been trying to get some nice uphill climbs, but they just aren't consistant enough. I'm just going to go for it