[CornPuff]

Originally Posted by Riggler

Glyphs: I can't believe there was a 2 page debate on this. Thought it was settled. Maps will be accepted regardless of whether someone puts glyphs on it or not. Maps will be accpeted for nomination whether glyphs are revealed or not. We decided that before we started. Go look at the bylaws.

The glyph debate shouldn't have happened here, although I'm glad it did. I know I added some fuel to the fire .It was maybe the most serious discussion of glyph pros and cons seen on this site. Anyway, its irrelevant on all future maps, as we will judge them as submitted, no questions asked, no glyph rearranged.

From now on, I say we don't change a thing on any submitted map. This has been a nightmare.

Originally Posted by UPC

We are trying to generalize at first, then specialize later. A 24 hex starting zone should be able to handle anything from a 400-700 point army. I see a trend for army sizes to start growing larger rather than shrinking. If, at a later date, there starts to be a push for "micro" maps (200-400) then we can adjust accordingly and begin to specialize the tournament maps.

Fixed zone size seems pretty specialized to me... anyway, I thought we did it so participants could count on 24 spaces at any tourney they went to, so they didn't have figures get ripped off their army as they go from map to map. Oh well. To Bunjee: there should be enough good 24 hex maps that we won't run low for a while. When we do, I'm sure we will lax the req to 18+.
Argh, I just can't let a start zone post slip by

Originally Posted by Rÿchean

Thanks GB for clarifying my point more clearly.

Yes, IMO, identifying and/or verifying the placement hex for the glyphs are more important than the glyphs themselves. I feel it is about providing a service to the event coordinator to have the maps reviewed and tourney play recommendations made. Maybe that is beyond the scope but I do feel it is important to take into account the varying styles and numbers of glyphs that can or might be used for a any map we want to recommend. We cant very well say yes this map is worthy but we only recommend it without glyphs or just one glyph or only with a healer on it. We need to be able to recommend a map with the expectation that it is flexible for a number of different styles of tourney play.

I disagree. We can't say 'this map is worthy, and any variation of it is worthy as well.' This kills the integrity of this project. All of a sudden, it looks like we approve of every crappy variant of FW ever made. I can't speak for variants I haven't seen, so I will only recommend variants that I have seen.

I think this is a core issue. It's why I wanted multiple "start zone and glyph" layers. It's why I don't like random glyphs, or if they are random, to specify the glyph pool that is used to populate the random glyphs. I want to provide event organizers with specific play experiences. Rÿchean, it seems you want to provide event organizers with a map prototype, something they can change and mod for their event.

I'm not comfortable judging map prototypes. I want to help tournament participants directly by judging maps they will use. I thought I had a good idea by eventually creating a directory of good tournament maps that event organizers can pick from and provide as is to the participants. Of course they have the final say, but we could make it so easy that they would have no reason to muck around with glyphs or start zones. We would do that for them.

There are a lot of event organizers out there, and if they feel they have to change the maps we judge to enhance their ease of setup or player's enjoyment then we fail. The participants are playing versions of maps that we didn't approve so why did we bother approving them in the first place. There are a lot of versions of maps that suck, and a lot of versions that suck subtly. Event organizers can't always detect maps the suck subtly, especially when they are modifications of good maps. We need to provide event organizers enough good maps that they will not go around changing the ones we've approved.

Originally Posted by Rÿchean

I feel like this issue will be ongoing. We need to either broaden our scope to concern ourselves with these things or we need to back off it and say that we will only review and test a map in its presented form. If the map designer has the glyphs in a jacked up spot but the map otherwise would be balanced, maybe we just have to say nope the glyphs/glyph placement jacked up an otherwise good map, so it is not worthy.

Originally Posted by Eclipse

I also personally have to vote no on Forsaken Waters at the moment. I know everyone likes the map, and thinks it's a good candidate, but I think right now people agree that's it's an excellent map that needs some tweaking to actually be worthy. It's not our place to tweak it until it fits into Battlefields, it's our job to turn it away until someone submits a worthy version.

It is for this reason I reject FW. Its start zones didn't meet our specs, and the glyphs split the judges. If a forum member wants to resubmit FW with specific glyphs and start zones, I would welcome it. Specific Glyphs of course could mean specifically random , or even my favorite, random from a list of glyphs )

I don't regret going through this process with FW. It helped flesh out a lot of different aspects of this project. I do think we need to move on, as trying to collectively design this map is killing us.

Originally Posted by Grungebob

I'm totally confused by this thread. I thought it was about map designing but it seems as if it keeps going off track into the realm of event hosting. I think that if this project is going to be of ANY value the focus needs to stay on good map design as a resource for event coordinators. Build good maps and let the event hosts decide how best to use them.

These maps are judged so that they can be enjoyed at hosted tournaments. Losing sight of that is folly.

This thread will stay focused on good map design, as stated in our bylaws because that is the HOW. We will also focus on event hosting, because that is the WHY. These maps are judged specifically so that people will have even more fun at tournaments. These maps are judged to increase the Tournament Participant's experience. To be a resource to event coordinators, we have to talk about event hosting.

In order to be of ANY value we need to encourage event coordinators to use the maps we judge. If even hosts 'decide how to best use them', then why the hell are we spending our time approving the best version of maps? Why did we spend the time deciding on the perfect 24 hex start zone for FW? We are deciding how to best use them. If event organizers want to take what we've done and manipulate it, they are not presenting the optimal map that we spent dozens of hours judging.