Valve Mapping Contest Result

Has anyone heard anything (even rumors) about the winning map from the Valve contest? Any SnarkPit member been notified by Valve as a finalist?

The winner should have been announced already, but Steam News on Feb 28th just update some unimportant aspect of CS:S, which is irrelevant to me.

maybe someone hacked into their machines again and stole'm :rolleyes:

It hasnt been 24 hours yet. Give it time. You cant expect
Valve to playtest and rate hundreds of map submitions right?

Granted, you can remove a third of the entries due to killbox-style and
bad general mapping, but after that, its gonna take some time.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Wild Card</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
Granted, you can remove a third of the entries due to killbox-style </DIV></DIV>

ever the optimist are we nick?
/methinks the number will be closer to 45% :biggrin:

I think its fair to say they haven't even chosen a winner yet, I mean, I haven't even been contacted!

:biggrin:

Valve said "on or about February 28th 2005", so they have some ahem flexibility on their part.

About in valve's terms could be a month :biggrin: hehe. Hey orph I like your new sig :smile: .

Well HL2 was supposed to be released in spring 2003 of
thereabouts.. So who knows. You might find out the winners
next year.

I think it is all a sham, they just wanted all our maps so they could
de-compile them and take the best part of all the maps and turn them
into one huge frankenstine map.

One map to rule them all.

I think it is all a sham, they just wanted all our maps so they could
de-compile them and take the best part of all the maps and turn them
into one huge frankenstine map.

One map to rule them all.

Why would they need to decompile? I'm certain you had to include the
source. You have to remember they will also be tweaking the winning
maps to work best as lots of people I'm sure will put problematic areas
at least somewhere. Or the balance might not be so good.

They actually didn't say anything about including the VMF with the map
entry. I assumed that once they'd picked the maps that were the best
and the legal documents had been signed, they would then obtain the
VMF's for those who were picked, for tweaking and fixing before
release, since at this point Valve would legally own them. I didn't
send the VMF for mine, and I think a lot of others didn't also.

I thought they said that you had to include the VMF with the entry.

Here's the only mention of what must be submitted in the competition rules.

"Each Contest Entry must consist of a map for a single level of
Half-Life 2 Deathmatch created using Valve?s proprietary game engine,
containing only textures from Half-Life 2, and submitted on a CD-ROM or
DVD-ROM."

There is no mention made to an editor file or VMF. I would think for
legal reasons they would only take the VMF once they actually legally
owned the map. It's not common practice to release the editor file with
a map and I imagine they wouldn't require it in this instance, unless
of course you won. I could be wrong but it makes more sense to me that
they'd do it this way.

What? You think valve will do something on time? Hooeeeheheh [childish giggle]

Knowing current maps, it'll be set in City 17 (just like every other damn map) and will feature amazing new details such as broken cars and combine consoles. Most things will be broken.

lol. Honostly. It looks really cool..all these torn up cities...but come on. For me...All I need is like ONE city DM map. Maybe two tops if they are significantly different. But like...over 50% of the maps out there right now seem to be city orientated.....I just wanna see something different!

Something Asian-looking maybe? Or something like Eden...or ANYTHING...just....NO MORE CITY MAPS.

/goes and plays dm_street

Most seem to be set in train stations, or at the very least have a train track somewhere :biggrin:

lol dont say that, ive just submitted a map with a train track in :biggrin:

I would like the winner to be something completely different--something
that looks like nothing we've seen before. Even with the constraint of
the HL2 textures, someone creative could potentially come up with a map
that's truly original.

The aspect of mapping I admire the most is the creative concept behind
the map. The execution is important, but without a great idea, even
the best architect could not generate an extraordinary map.

Weekly Steam Update:

We've chosen the three winners from the Half-Life 2: Deathmatch map
competition. It was tough going through and picking the winners given
the quality of maps that the community built, but we feel these three
represent the best of the group. The winning maps will be released
sometime in March for everyone to play.

There ya go. :smile:

sometime in March...

So does that mean end of April for Valve speak? :smile:

13th of March and still no word. Common Valve, just admit that all the
entries fell of the back of a truck between the post office and Valve
HQ.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Agent Smith</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>13th of March and still no word. Common Valve, just admit that all the entries fell of the back of a truck between the post office and Valve HQ.
</DIV></DIV>
I know mine did.....

Yeah, maybe we'll have to wait for six years before we find out who the winner is.

sounds like my theroy is comming true, just wait they will release a
map you you'll see that cool room from your level stuck in there.

*cough*september 30th, 2003*cough*

They're probably having the winners make a bunch of improvements to their levels, I would assume. shrug

I wonder whether they make the winning mappers themselves make the
improvements or they're making the improvements themslves (I mean,
Valve mappers).

By the way, does anyone know who are the official mappers for
Valve? I wonder whether they do any mapping on the side, as a
hobby. They might be so sick of mapping that they would rather do
anything but mapping when they're not at work.

Go to valve's web site and click on their members, it gives a list of who they have, and what they do. Just off the top of my head theres Dario C. (who designed power up and surface tension in HL1). I emailed him once and actually got a responce before :biggrin: .