runouw.com

I've always had my number one goal as a contest operator as this- get good levels made. I'm willing to accommodate to make sure people can finish, and I'll extend the deadline for everyone freely if necessary. It's definitely not a strategy many people will agree with, but I want the contests to me motivations and catalysts for some of the best levels the Site has ever seen.

Also, I think the idea of LDCs being bad because the top placers are consistent is a nasty case of quitter's syndrome. You want LDCs to be segregated because people do well? How about you beat the so-designated legends to become a legend? It's what I did. It's what people like Amp, Brawler, DarkBlaze, Nwolf and SuperMIC did- they rose from the ashes of defeat and leapt into the top six after dragging their feet for awhile with amazing levels. And you can do that too, unless you give up.

The extension point is what I'm trying to get across. If you don't have time, don't join. I see your point, MoD, but still it's not right.
Anyway, maybe not get rid of LDC's, rather, have separate ones for different skill levels, then say the top 2 of each level goes up, and the bottom 2 of each level goes down.

MessengerOfDreams wrote:How about you beat the so-designated legends to become a legend? It's what I did. It's what people like Amp, Brawler, DarkBlaze, Nwolf and SuperMIC did- they rose from the ashes of defeat and leapt into the top six after dragging their feet for awhile with amazing levels. And you can do that too, unless you give up.

I would agree so hard with this except for the point I raised in the 23rd topic. People (especially the newer designers) tend to finish their levels fairly regularly before the initial deadline. This is fine, for obvious reasons. But what happens after is that people who are viewed as good level designers typically end up taking longer. I don't know how progress compares for both groups, but I would assume that since they require an extension, they have less done, and therefore have gained more time to plan out their entry indirectly.

This is, hopefully, something we should all agree on as being an unfair advantage given almost exclusively to the "legends".

So why don't we just extend the deadlines for everyone? There's two main reasons. Firstly, there's no set goal to finish. entrants are free to work (read: procrastinate) as long as they desire without fear, because the deadline will just be pushed back more. The duels have already proven this; the LDC would never end (or if it did, people would be butthurt from expecting the deadline to be pushed back yet again). Secondly, extending the deadline does not benefit the people who have already finished. It's a nice gesture, but nothing more. To keep up with people who are still working on their levels thanks to extensions, they must rework their entire level, effectively completing two submissions for the contest in the same frame. It's just simple math- keeping a constant amount of time (via a deadline extension for everyone) it is apparent that the people with only one entry have more time to plan and ultimately end up with a better level than those who did all that, and then were forced to rework completely to keep pace with the ultimately better levels.

In short, our system is broken. Extensions repeatedly give advantages to the top designers, and tend to be harsher overall on the people who planned well and finished before the original deadline. It is becoming increasingly difficult for new talent to come out on top because of this.

Now, what are the solutions? Enforcing deadlines, obviously, but this will result in many more disqualifications per contest due to unfinished entries. Or maybe it won't, but it will force smaller entries. This is not a bad thing. You don't need a seventeen part story-driven action-packed movie to win. Basically, it boils down to simplification. If you can pull off a massive entry in the given time, go for it. If not, stop trying to, and stay within your limits. Either that or make a no-BS deadline that is fixed and immovable. Or, as I mentioned in the LDC topic, perhaps SM63 is at the end of its life. If there's not sufficient interest to meet a month long deadline, maybe we should stop trying. Give people free reign with contests, there's nothing stopping unofficial duels between three or four people, after all.

You know what? 70% of the reason I came here to this site was because of LDCs. They are my favorite hobby,my pastime. I can't do it now,due to work. I'm fully against removing LDC's,and if it's removed there's no point to come to this site anymore.

Some people are still interested in SM63 and Level Designing. Even topics are going around talking about "I love SM63!" or "Update the LD!" I totally support them.

SM63 is really fun. I have been playing it from when I was small. I understand why people got tired of it. It was because of work,stress,distraction(addicted to other games such as Minecraft) and seeing the same old thing over and over again.

People,if you want to register in an LDC,go ahead. You can even make a suggestion,but not everyone agrees with them.

LDC's are being too frequent here,maybe make it once in four months,not monthly.

Also we could separate the LDC into three sections: Beginner,Moderate,and Master.
The medals would be different in each section. Why me and the community made this suggestion is because beginners creating levels (like me?) definitely would get crushed,right?

About the deadline: Don't extend it for everybody since people doesn't like it. If you are planning to do an extension if people haven't finished their entries yet,why not set a later deadline in the first place so no extensions for everybody has to be made?

Never mind about my previous post in this thread. This topic is necessary. So I guess what I just said fully explained everything the community wants. Mods,please consider our suggestions.

Dtroid wrote:This topic can be locked now.

That's backseat moderatoring, you know? Leave it to the global moderators and moderators to decide these things.

LDC's won't get removed. So don't worry about that.
Splitting the LDC's in three sections seems nice at the first look. If I think back to the double LDC (Cave/Story)
I can tell it's quite impossible here to organize such huge things. Also seems there to be some kind of ranking.
Level collections and series can be done by everyone.
Getting levels into the portal needs a bit of skill.
And placing in a LDC is pretty much the highest level of skill (Changes randomly) you need here.

I completely agree with Ven, but I'd like to make a suggestion.

Go through the 24th LDC. Allow extensions and the like, whatever. We'll see how it goes.

MegaR wrote:I completely agree with Ven, but I'd like to make a suggestion.

Go through the 24th LDC. Allow extensions and the like, whatever. We'll see how it goes.

Maybe we should just cut extensions instead. Let us see who would place then.

Maybe we should change the LDC system... I'm not sure if deadlines are the only problem...

MessengerOfDreams wrote:Also, I think the idea of LDCs being bad because the top placers are consistent is a nasty case of quitter's syndrome. You want LDCs to be segregated because people do well? How about you beat the so-designated legends to become a legend? It's what I did. It's what people like Amp, Brawler, DarkBlaze, Nwolf and SuperMIC did- they rose from the ashes of defeat and leapt into the top six after dragging their feet for awhile with amazing levels. And you can do that too, unless you give up.

The problem is that there's not much incentive to defeat the legends, really. I mean, sure, I get a shiny medal and people's all like MAN HE'S SO AWESOME but that doesn't really... fill people. Or at least not me. Because when you start making levels to place high in contests before a deadline, it stops being fun and it starts becoming a chore.

One of the reasons for my initial quitting.

*lordpat cracks his fingers*

Huh, it seems I missed a lot while I was gone. I am fully againts removing LDCs, like pretty much everybody else here. Seriously, stop saying that. Nobody is saying that the LDCs are going to be removed, or if someone said it, it was pretty much completely ignored. This is just a problem. Problems do have solutions. We just need to find a solution for this.

So, for what I have seen, there are two main complaints on the LDCs: 1) it is over-competitive and ends up putting people down most of the times 2) deadlines and extensions always cause problems. Both are fairly important issues.

For what I have seen, Runouw is kind of expiriencing a small step back in level designing. Some old designers are leaving for LL or other reasons and there are not as many new designers as in the previous LDCs (20th, 18th).

For number 2) I do believe that deadlines and extensions can be annoying. I believe that maybe we need to change the whole ideas for LDCs. With LL coming new and such, less people are having intrest in SM63. How about making LDCs with very long deadlines, no extensions and not many of them a year? This would allow everything to move a bit more slowly, but it would also allow designers to take their time to make levels. This would increase the ammount of levels, and while it would reduce the ammount of LDCs, I think it would have a positive impact on the community as a whole. Pick a very good, general theme and apply it for a long contest. And people seriously need to chill down when it is about results. I know, I was like that before. People need to learn to wait for the results. Rushed results usually end up in bad news (22nd LDC), so I believe people should take their time to make long reviews and expirienced people should be judges. Again, two months would mean more time for people to apply for the LDCs' judging.

And I know what you are thinking, 'wait a second? then there is only one community based event every two months + judging period? that is not neraly enough for me' That is why I think their should be "informal" LDCs. Small LDCs that last 2-3 weeks or so. The objectives of these are not making lots of people pariticpate, or making powerful levels, but building a quick resource for people to make levels and be easily viewed by the expirienced community. There should not be medals or placings (though those would come by themsleves) but a couple of expirienced judges that do review the levels and score them.This way people can gather expirience while getting good levels done. They should be "informal" in the sense that a sense of competitiveness is not very present, but more as a resource to get levels done and be easily viewed.

If you are tired of being overshadowed by better designers than you, then you should join informal LDCs above everything. It provides you a good way to gain expirience, get viewed by members of the community without having to spam in the chat "review my level" and it also serves as a good way to meet new talents. The formal LDCs do follow a more traditional look. They are professional, there are medals and placings and there is competitiveness in there. While I can't say that the results are the most important part of an LDC, reality is that compeiting is part of the fun. If you don't like compeiting, you can just skip the formal LDCs and just get into the informal ones.

While I am pretty sure this may be all crap as an idea, there is something that definetly needs to be improoved. The publicity of the LDCs. I believe that just putting the LDC as an annoucement in the Level Portal would be very useful. So, if a new commer goes to the portal to post a level, he will see the post and go "oh, this may be intresting". Then that designer would look arround and see weather he wants to join the LDCs or not. Seems pretty basic to me (inb4 this has been done already). And also, why do some LDCs get announced in the front page while others do not? If you take a look, the ones announced in the front page always get more newcommers (even if in the 22nd LDC many people dropped out).

I actually like that idea a lot.

The only potential problem is that it might encourage some people to make massive levels that are impossible to finish in one sitting, so size or playthrough limits would need to be enforced.