Hear me out before you start going "nobody edits jk anymore!" etc

I propose a yearly level competition. If you're an old jk editor like me, then you should get the itch to reopen Jed (or Zed) every now and then and have a tinker about. Now, on jkhub there are around twenty new levels a year. So why not? Competitions are fun. They inspire me to edit :p

Two categories; SP and MP (obv)

Levels can be as big or as small as you want - and you'll have a YEAR to make them. Deadline is new years eve. It takes a few days to make a MP level, if you put your mind to it, and this way there's no rush and it can be a labour of love. It'll be fun!

I for one, even if I don't have time to rustle out a Magrucko Daines adventure, would still rustle up a small deathmatch for the hell of it. I just wonder if anyone else would.

can i submit counter-strke or unreal msp?

I'm in. I'll dig up the level I started working on with the last contest in '09.

There's no way in hell I can finish it in a year, though. >_>

The problem with making JK deathmatch levels is that, as amazing as they may be, it's a dead art form. I liked the SP level contests because they are eternal.
Still, go for it.

regarding the multiplayer deathmatch: I've always thought that a killer problem with JK MP was the lag. Has this ever been overcome?

always down for a level contest

Hm..

People should use this thread to update us on their levels.

I'm sort of tempted to join myself, but only sorta.

The lag isn't really a problem once you learn to compensate (essentially, learning to predict). For instance, in 1v1 lightsaber combat, you don't actually swing at your opponent--you swing at where you think he's going to be at the moment that the tip of said weapon completes said attack. The same concept applies to all of the weapons in the game. This is one of the reasons that so many players only used the Concussion Rifle & Rail Detonator in multiplayer (the splash damage from said weapons compensated for a lack of prediction experience). All of the weapons were actually at least semi-effective in specific situations (e.g. rolling Thermal Detonators down ramps in Canyon Oasis, banking Wookiee Bowcaster shots down the elevator shafts in Bespin Mining Station to attack people camping or spawning at the Concussion Rifle &/or Rail Detonator, mowing someone down with any of the minor weapons in an enclosed hallway where splash damage was too dangerous for oneself, etc.). The veteran players would utilize the console's ping command to monitor & hypothesize average latency between other players (generally identified by skins but sometimes by other characteristics if there were patterns of behavior) in order to increase their prediction ability.

However, if your point was merely that it would've been "better" to have a dedicated server system instead of playing against opponents from all over the world with often major differences in latency then I'd probably just use the word "different" instead. In 1997, when the game came out, there were still a lot of people using dial-up connections & even throughout the next several years. A different system would've rendered these players ineffective--in JK/MotS they'd merely spin around in circles & then run around the map at nearly light-speed & often normalize after but in a game with dedicated servers (e.g. Quake II, which came out around the same time), they'd simple time out. Essentially, I'm just saying that JK/MotS's network architecture (not sure if this is the proper terminology) was a bit of a trade-off. On one hand, it allowed people such as myself that didn't have access to broadband for several years after these games were released, to play them effectively. However, on the other hand, in the long-run, now that the broadband landscape has significantly improved, it can be a bit of a hindrance as far as longevity of the game.

I actually think that "cheating/hacking" had more to do with limiting the longevity of the game than the netcode--at least for competitive players. The ease at which one could script for the game was at least as much of a trade-off as the netcode--on one hand it enabled editors to do some amazing things but on the other hand it enabled mischievous people to ruin the enjoyment of hundreds, if not thousands of players.

I would love to see a SP & MP contest at least once each year as long as there are at least a few people still interested. I would love to crack open JED/ZED again--even if it only resulted in another dozen levels that I'll never complete.

I've never made a JK level so this could be foolishness, but: isn't a year kind of a long time? I know that might afford more time for putting together a quality product, but that just seems like asking for projects to fall by the wayside. Seems like a shorter, more frantic time span would be easier to focus on (especially for spectators, assuming the authors make updating the community part of the fun), and will seem more... contesty, or game-jam-y. Obviously that might not work out for SP levels, which, like Tibby mentioned, are the only levels coming out of this I could even potentially see myself playing.

NEway

Well, think of it like the Oscars!

I think what stops people from editing for JK is the belief that nobody will play the levels. But if you release a JKMP level for a competition, it has to be tested, and reviews have to be written, so it will get a lease of life.

Keep discussing

The network handling in JK was rudimentary, period. As such, even with good pings today, hit detection isn't perfect. The system focused far more on reliability than it did on accuracy, while today accuracy is king. Even with that consideration, had JK been written today, it'd have a much more improved system for handling even dial-up connections.

Edit: That said, if people want to do a contest again, I'll certainly host it up. I think we should give it a significant amount of time to do, something like June 15th sounds like a good date?

By the release date, though, if there isn't at least 6+ submissions, I'm cancelling the contest and will just release them as a pack. Really stupid to have a contest where no one is competing

In other words: Yes, a killer problem with JK MP was the lag. No, this has never been overcome.

"lol, JK MP is easy. You just need to figure out that you aren't supposed to shoot at the enemy, you're supposed to shoot at where the enemy will be in 2 seconds on his computer." It's like a Zen exercise. JK is horrible.

I would be interested in joining a SP level contest.

I vow to reinstall jk if you create any level.

Who's going to play them?

This, for me, makes the author's time a little underrated due to the limited people who are ever going to see them. Not that I'm against the idea at all but unless we can get people playing JK online in a decent number then making a MP level seems rather pointless. That said, an SP level could be very good!

Perhaps along with the contest we could arrange a two week period where massassians can join a game with the new levels? Maybe have a few hour blocks a day over a couple of weeks where the game will be up on a specific server. (The reason for suggesting certain days/times is that it will make it less likely people join empty games as they would if the server was just up for 2 weeks solid). Just an idea!

edit: And then let the people who played on the server vote on the levels.

People judging the contest! There's no limit on how big the levels have to be. You could rustle up a level that's three rooms if you want to. When a MP level gets released for jk now (which is a rarity), barely anyone plays them as there's nobody to play them with. If we have a few weeks of judging the levels however, all the judges will have to get together and put the levels through their paces. JK MP levels don't have to take very long to make.

I love the idea you had about the two week period afterwards. Good thinking.

I didn't intend to make it sound as if it was easy--merely that if one was willing to put in the effort (many were & did), the problem eventually becomes much less of a problem. There's certainly a high learning curve to JK multiplayer, much of which has to do with the network handling (the preferred nomenclature until I hear otherwise) but once you got to a certain level of skill, said problem became less of a problem than cheating/hacking--something that ruined countless competitions as well as casual games. Granted, the network handling certainly turned a lot of people off & they ended up playing other games that utilized other methods (e.g. Quake 2) that are arguably superior. However, I'm personally pleased that they did things the way that they did because it enabled people like me--those of us without broadband access, to enjoy the game. A lot of the players that continued to play JK long after the vast majority of players moved on did so because there wasn't many other FPS games that they could play online (effectively--although I did know a Quake 2 player that won an Instagib tournament with 400 ping against mostly broadband players).

JK is certainly horrible by today's standards but I do think that it was decent enough in its day.

I'm kind of hung over, but I think in the last level competition we had it was open platform (jk/mots/jo/ja) or this was discussed as a possibility? Can't really remember which. But I think giving people choice of game engine and/or freedom to submit something which had been in development since before the competition start would open it up to more editors. Also Someone mentioned a while ago that jo/ja editors don't have anywhere non-sucky to submit levels anymore, so might help to make some of those guys aware of the site. Or it could be kept just JK for simplicity.


If it gets off the ground I'm happy to paypal matty $100 towards a prize in whatever format the comp takes.


2 week play period would be good, I think part of the reason MP died is because there wasn't a built-in server browser, so as soon as the zone went down (although the zone had other issues which didn't help) it became a black hole, and you couldn't just jump into a game any more.

In the past when I've offered prizes for contests, I noticed it really didnt generate any additional motivation. Either people were already interested in doing it for their own reasons or simply not interested.

But maybe the prize just simply wasnt large enough so if this contest is generating significant interest, I would be interested in contributing to a prize pool as well.

I'm not sure how I feel about a straight up money prize. In the past, Brian offered game prizes for the winner.

Game prizes would probably be the easiest route. I really think we should push for a SP player contest because it really does open up the submissions to a broader and more lasting audience. With a MP contest, the levels will be played for the judging period by the handful of people who are dedicated enough to fire up a match. With a SP contest, anyone with a copy of JK can enjoy them at a time that is convenient for them without struggling to find other people also interested in playing.

On another note: can anybody point me in the direction of everything I need to have to start? I've been out of the loop for a while. I remember the basics, but I know there were some advances with the thing limit, etc. that I'm not familiar with.

I remember I got money once, and an Amazon voucher the next.

I figured it'd go towards some kind of games/gaming hardware or something along those lines rather than dosh.

$100 would inspire me more than a game... maybe I'm just greedy. Or not that into games.

May I make a proposition, JK's 15th birthday is on october 9th. Should we move the submition/releace date to then.

Good thinking Ogel!

Besides, you can make a grand spanking MP level for JK and if you want more players, port it over to Unreal Engine 3.

(Provided that Shred18 releases it at some point.)

(And maybe even adds support for 3DO conversion)

wink wink nudge nudge

Make this contest happen.. I need a reason to finish Dark Tome

Yes!

See, it needs to happen. Even if there's only 5 single player levels, I'll be happy. Mods - do your thing!

Ok, I think theres enough interest,whom ever makes thing offical around here make it offiacal. what are going to be the rules/reqs.

I don't know if a yearly thing is really feasible. Like others have said, it'd be frustrating to spend lots of time and effort creating something that no one will play.

That being said, I like the idea of a one time contests, to coincide with the 15th anniversary of JK.

I just realized... 15 years since JK came out... JK came out in 1997... 1997 is 14 years from when RotJ was released in theaters. More time has passed since JK was released, then had passed since RotJ was released...

...and in 2015, by your rubric, the Phrantom Menace will overtake Jedi!

I'd like to see a contest for a specific mod (old or new). Wasn't this how JK Arena worked? Someone created all of the cogs, etc. & then mappers competed to get their map in to the official pack? JKA came along rather late in the scheme of things but I had a blast with it. I don't really think it matters much if anyone plays the maps or not. If your only reason for mapping is so that X number of players will play it then you probably quit mapping for JK about 10 years or so ago anyways. Some of the best levels released in the past decade probably had fewer than a hundred people ever play them--that's being generous. No one opens JED/ZED for fame or fortune--they do it for their own reasons.

I do have to say that it's great to see people at least talking about doing something creative--it's what I always personally hope for every time I come to the site.

just noticed that Ogel has the quote from my old signature in his signature

Right so let's make this official then? I imagine CM has an idea how he wants this to play out anyhow.

Perhaps it is better if the contest is held from 6 to 6 months.
That is, one in July and another in December.

As for the anniversary, we could organize a great multiplayer game that day,October 9 (which I'm not mistaken it's Tuesday).

excuse me, can you stop noticing stuff and finish dark tome