Well make your own contest then ( 'w').

I see that nobody outside of the three people with a track that would qualify really understood what this was about. A roadtrip doesn't need to be an awesome hunter, nor it has to be a superflowy track, nor it has to be a magnum opus. It's a road trip. Some parts could not be the best ever, some parts might not be super calculated. You needed to just put together a road longer than 250 seconds with enough extra bullshit work to make it look like you actually fucking tried

... says:
Many people did not have nearly enough time to build a 4:10+ monster track

Snake's is about double that. He did it in two weeks. NEXT.

... says:
the theme was waaaay too vague to really guide the building process

And when it's not half of you dumb motherfuckers will complain that it's too constrained. It has happened before.NEXT.

... says:
Poivrot and me thought, that the best would have been for us to base the track around a style progression (fs->tech->dirt) and have some scenery changes but I'm sure that you would have discarded this idea as well

Of course, because it's not a road trip it's a style exercise in a way very similar to most generic endurance tracks. This was Poupipomme's idea btw. NEXT.

... says:
I find cancelling this MTC out of frustration or whatever to be an extremely harsh move as there were people who spent hours trying to build what was their idea of what the theme was about.

So I should spend time making a judging sheet so that skyslide lures their friends into making him win a contest he doesn't deserve to be in is what you're saying? This also takes time out of my day you know. And this actually hurts me more than any of the entrants - at least they have something to their name. I've spent time thinking this theme, polishing and making sure rules are followed and then checking all 6 maps to see if they were rule compliant and ALL I FUCKING GET is A BUNCH OF ENTITLED INDIVIDUALS talking about how to run a contest and whether or not I'm a bad person because I removed from a contest with the theme "roadtrip" a track that doesn't have roads nor a trip. At least voyager presented his point in a way that wasn't that of an angry 12 year old on soundcloud.

... says:
The TMX MTC usually does well-defined or extremely loosly-defined MTCs which either impose clear restrictions or leave everything up to the builder to decide and the judges to judge.

I see you're talking about the TMNFX MTC. Also, out there you have judges. We don't have that luxury, and I explained that before.

Just so you know, if a track got 0 theme points on some of the united MTCs it was liable to get disqualified. And there were tracks disqualified because they were .01 seconds too long or had .01 too little airtime. Excuse me if I try to run the MX MTC to that standard.

Also, some of the themes in united MTCs were pretty loose. That's good, promotes creativity and creative ways to do stuff. There was a theme solely defined by "Custom cams" and the winner had you driving the outro. And there were story tracks and all that jazz. But THEY ALL HAD FUCKING CUSTOM CAMS.

As mentioned before, if the theme is roadtrip, I just need roads and a trip. Two tracks didn't have the trip and one didn't even have the roads. But I'm too harsh.

And on those "good themes" you mention in the end:
THEY
HAVE
ALL
BEEN
DONE
BEFORE
BOTH
HERE
AND
IN
UNITED

Trackmania is almost 13 years old, united and nations about 10. Even TM2 is 5 years old. There's just so much things you can do before you run into having to do the same shit again. As I mentioned before, apparently to appeal to everyone coming from TMNF the themes will have to be "put a start block and a finish block". I'm really tired of having these problems of having to drop tracks every single MTC because people don't even try. And it's almost always stadium tracks.

September probably won't have an MTC. I tell you now that the october theme is Ghost Town, and see what you can do with that until I properly define the theme in its entirety.

I'm so tired of this bullshit.

Well, with that said, I'm sure that many people will have the motivation to try to make a map in the next MTC ...


Anyway, I didn't played all the maps (lack of time), but for these I played, I enjoyed it. Following the theme, or not.

I'm not a mapper, but I feel that if some maps weren't following the road trip idea, it wasn't because the mapper didn't try to fit the theme, but more because they didn't know how to give this impression. You are saying that what you're asking is simple. It is when we read you now. But it obviously wasn't at start for many people.

For a map of 4'10 long, you are forced to turn in circle. How can you follow such a theme with that ¿

And the majority of TrackMania community are Stadium players. It's even harder with that environment to give the feeling of a road trip. It's like their only option was to make a Canyon/Valley map with the Stadium car. These maps would have been much different if mappers have known before what you were expecting from them. Even if some people might complained that it's too much rules. At least, maybe this month MTC wouldn't be canceled.

... says:
Many people did not have nearly enough time to build a 4:10+ monster track

Snake's is about double that. He did it in two weeks. NEXT.

He's definitely able to build at such a pace - I am not and I know enough other people who cannot do this either. Everyone specializes in other things when it comes to mapping and some people can just build a track part by part, others are used to revising each section a few times and can not just stop doing that as the quality of their tracks depends on following that pattern.

... says:
the theme was waaaay too vague to really guide the building process

And when it's not half of you dumb motherfuckers will complain that it's too constrained. It has happened before.NEXT.

In my opinion there is always a way in the middle but if you think differently, that's ok as well as that is your opinion. And please respect my personal opinion just as I respect yours. I feel extremely dumb acting like a moderator towards one who actually is one but please come on, settle down. I did not mean to personally attack you and neither did probably most others.

... says:
Poivrot and me thought, that the best would have been for us to base the track around a style progression (fs->tech->dirt) and have some scenery changes but I'm sure that you would have discarded this idea as well

Of course, because it's not a road trip it's a style exercise in a way very similar to most generic endurance tracks. This was Poupipomme's idea btw. NEXT.

This is exactly what I meant by describing the theme as being too vague in my opinion: You could either interpret something like that as "not a road trip" or as the try to implement the "travel"-aspect of the theme in something that relates to something other than just the "presentation" of the track.

... says:
I find cancelling this MTC out of frustration or whatever to be an extremely harsh move as there were people who spent hours trying to build what was their idea of what the theme was about.


So I should spend time making a judging sheet so that skyslide lures their friends into making him win a contest he doesn't deserve to be in is what you're saying? This also takes time out of my day you know. And this actually hurts me more than any of the entrants - at least they have something to their name. I've spent time thinking this theme, polishing and making sure rules are followed and then checking all 6 maps to see if they were rule compliant and ALL I FUCKING GET is A BUNCH OF ENTITLED INDIVIDUALS talking about how to run a contest and whether or not I'm a bad person because I removed from a contest with the theme "roadtrip" a track that doesn't have roads nor a trip. At least voyager presented his point in a way that wasn't that of an angry 12 year old on soundcloud.

It seems that I misunderstood your wording: I thought you wanted to abandon the whole MTC, not just disqualify a track. Sorry.
Furthermore, I agree that it seems bad that people do not honor your efforts. But that is often the reality when you take the role as the leader of something: people do usually not honor your efforts: When I helped organize things in my school in the past, nobody ever thanked me for my efforts although I had put countless hours into it. The only feedback I ever received was criticism on how I could have done things better. But I just took that as the opportunity to work out, what could have been improved - and so should you in my opinion.

... says:
Just so you know, if a track got 0 theme points on some of the united MTCs it was liable to get disqualified. And there were tracks disqualified because they were .01 seconds too long or had .01 too little airtime. Excuse me if I try to run the MX MTC to that standard.

I personally would have no problem with you trying to enforce strict rules but I don't see a way to "enforce strictly" without having rules that are clear to everyone. And the fact that we do not have judges makes that a bit problematic in my opinion as you are the only one who can judge, whether a track is disqualified in this situation. This again raises the problem of misunderstandings: You might have a clear picture of what you are expecting for a MTC but if it is not clear for everyone, this imposes a huge problem as you are only judging by what you imagined, not by what people might have understood themselves. In this case I personally do not disagree with the discualification of skyslide's track - I meant that more like general criticism.

... says:
And on those "good themes" you mention in the end:
THEY
HAVE
ALL
BEEN
DONE
BEFORE
BOTH
HERE
AND
IN
UNITED

And there are reasons why they have been done, namely because they make easy-to-judge and clear themes. I am the wrong to judge but would it be really that bad to revive those old themes?

... says:
As I mentioned before, apparently to appeal to everyone coming from TMNF the themes will have to be "put a start block and a finish block". I'm really tired of having these problems of having to drop tracks every single MTC because people don't even try. And it's almost always stadium tracks.

Just so I have mentioned that: I do not "come" from the TMNFX community nor any other trackmania one. I personally am more of a fan of creatively trying to deal with restrictions than having a creativity-based theme as there is always a lot of subjectivity in the rating of these tracks as there is the additional factor of interpretation of the theme which plays a big role in the whole process. In this MTC it was defining what the "trip" was about: Scenery changes?, Mediatracker changes?, Style changes? I thought of the last one and general "progression" (to represent the approach to the goal of the trip) being the most important one but you apparently prefer something like Wildcat's track which has basically no progression at all (again: my personal opinion, I could have overlooked something)?

And finally:

... says:
Well make your own contest then ( 'w').

If there are enough people in the community who is not agree with what you are doing with the MTC I'm sure something like that will sooner or later be a reality. But as MX is actually a site with a rather engaged community, I still have the hope for the MTC. In my opinion, something like an open dialog with everyone who would be interested in participating in MTCs would be a great chance for the concept.

And if is is not clear already due to reading the post: All I say is my personal opinion. I do not try to speak for anyone else and just want(ed) to express my personal opinion on this whole discussion. And neither do I feel like I know everything better nor do I try to act like it.

I wanted to chime in and say to Osaka, you're going a little over the top with judging the viability of submitted maps. And you're also taking a lot of this personally when most of the comments here are neutral criticisms. Like Solux said, it's feedback from the people that have participated and should be used to help make the MTC more enjoyable.

The MTC shouldn't be so demanding on mappers that makes us feel like if we make one little mistake we'll be exempt from the contest. It should just be an enjoyable and friendly event. And who cares if one mapper gets their friends to give their map 10s. If they want a showcase that much then whatever, I personally participate in this contest to make interesting maps that people can have fun on.

Now if a mapper clearly breaks a limitation like having one extra loop than the maximum limit, or falling 10 seconds short of a required time limit, then those maps should definitely get disqualified. In this particular MTC I only agree with two DQs, Poupipommes and rockstars. It was clear the player wasn't on a trip or adventure in those maps. But I absolutely felt that skyslide's map fit the theme, and it was a little difficult in terms of skill and pathfinding, but I liked the challenge and feel like the decision of whether or not it was a good fit should've been left to the voters. About Arkive's map, I ran into the same problem and if I remember correctly it was fixed by removing the pack from your folder and unloading the station, then doing a clean install. You maybe could have asked here if anyone found a way to solve this problem. His map 100% fit the theme so that's kind of unfortunate

What I personally am asking for in regards to how you run the contest is to be a little more open minded and clearer about what you want. I still want to participate and hopefully this hasn't discouraged you too much.

Also if you want to switch to a judging panel for the maps I'm happy to volunteer.

who votes for new admins @mx mtc?

lul

keep calm bois

AR »rex.racer says:
But I absolutely felt that skyslide's map fit the theme, and it was a little difficult in terms of skill and pathfinding, but I liked the challenge and feel like the decision of whether or not it was a good fit should've been left to the voters.

But where the roads at tho ( 'w'). They're a crucial part of the roadtrip experience.

However, the decision to declare a deserted contest is irrevocable. It's the lack of entries that forced me to make this decision, not the quality of the entries. There really are only 3 valid entries in the contest, three that really involve roads and a trip, and with three entries I just can't justify the work of making the judging sheet and compiling the scores. I hope you understand this.

And no, MTC isn't over for good. As I said, the theme for october is already decided. I want to take september off because of some college stuff (If everything goes well I'm graduating) and because I'm waiting on a friend to finish some stuff. If he does we'll have a contest then.

If you do not feel like organizing a MTC in September, what about letting the community decide the theme to calm things down?
In my opinion, this would be a nice opportunity to find out what kind of theme the community prefers by just making a poll with 5 or so possible themes for the community to choose. Furthermore, the MTC would be fairly likely to be a success. And if you do not feel like it or just simply do not have the time, there would definitely be someone who could organize that one MTC (I could do it for example and there would surely be others as well).

Disclaimer: Just a spontaneous idea I wanted to leave here

Solux says:
If you do not feel like organizing a MTC in September, what about letting the community decide the theme to calm things down?

+1

just stop the discussion, this just leeds to nothing, the only result is a useless discussion with hating eachother / flaming etc. up to Osaka / community if there will be a judging sheet or something.
& forgetti spaghetti this stuff.
And we learned something from this: clear restrictions / rules help , don't do something loose or some loose explantions

/fredair.esu

I just read a bit of page 4 (shitposts are too much for), all i get from it is that you're not a decent MTC hoster Osaka, no offense intended, you're probably a great mania-exchange admin (and from your answers on my pms, i think you really are, you acknowledged a problem and told me gently how you can deal with it) , but MTC is just not your thing imo. Just saying "stadium should be banned" is like shitting on the majority of the ppl who made MTC live. I think that's dumb & ignorant, as i said in a previous thread, you downrated a good stadium's track, and uprated a valley track with the same skill input, just because you couldn't do it properly... Your partiality makes you a bad hoster. The judging sheet is here to judge maps, you shouldn't decide everything on your own, even less when your ideas are so "closed".

Anyways that's just what i think, i'm glad i didn't waste any more time in MTC, and honestly i knew that would happen at some point. That's exactly what i said when i stopped.

Peace.