Let me say up front that I'm not going to change anything about how we're running the WTE any time soon, but I'm willing to talk about this a bit more before we put the topic to bed.
First, at its heart, I think of the WTE as being practice for larger works. The skills one uses in creating an entry—be it melee playable, a cinematic shot, or something else—are going to be applicable in any project. You keep talking about "real terraining," but that's an artificial distinction you're making that I think is detrimental to the development of your skills.
Second, I'm never going to discourage people from contributing to one of these threads. It's great to see the activity and discussion that comes out of posts. Whatever method people want to use in their creations is welcome here. If we sometimes get something different like Cybros's post, I think that's great! Sure, there's no terrain there, but what does that hurt? He definitely nailed the theme, and it's great to see a new face in the thread.
I'm really not sure what your goal is here, aside from complaining. Should we be forcing people to make "real" terrain? That seems like a great way to depress participation even more. Are we going to delete people's posts if they don't meet that criteria? That's just a dick move. Is your complaint that the prompts are hard to make into a melee map? If someone wants to make melee terrain from a given post, they'll find a way—for example, I bet you could do a really fun desert with Alevice's Mad Max theme. Or maybe it's something I still don't understand; please let me know.
Nobody is stopping people from posting melee terrain. If you want to see melee entries, then make a contribution! It's not going to change the kind of submissions I make, but maybe other people will follow suit. If not, at least you get to see the kind of WTE that you want to. Meanwhile, the rest of us will be making the kinds of entries that we want to.
I decided to take a dive into like half the terraining excecise history. And boy, you would be suprised to see how many are "flat terrain with a couple of doodads" as you, probably unintentionally, you dismissively address them. There are defintiely quite a few "campaign-y" entries all around as well, and I think all of them have their merits. These are exercises, people are free to flex the muscle they might need to practice within the subject.
I can understand the criticism of this particular theme, but I think stating that this is an emerging trend, in particular due to the subjects, rings hollow in my opinion. The reduction of entries you are more interested to see is truly more of a case of an ever waning userbase, and an extended period with no new WTEs.
In a more personaly response, I am somewhat pissed at you saying " I just feel like not a lot of effort goes into the stuff that you(users) create". Like yeah, probabloy my texture/doodad play on this excercise isnt my greatest, but I have mostly channeled my efforts on lighting and camera play, which yeah, isnt that terrainy, but I needed the excuse to practice, so bite me.
Look, I dont want to get too deep in to explaining. I'm not saying you should delete, discourage or in other ways restrict like that. I'm just saying I'm sad that it is almost exclusive to small areas with very few doodads. I'm not saying change the rules back, all I'm saying is it sucks, maybe not the best way to encourage people to go deeper into the actual "terrain" part of "Weekly TERRAIN exercise".
I decided to take a dive into like half the terraining excecise history. And boy, you would be suprised to see how many are "flat terrain with a couple of doodads" as you, probably unintentionally, you dismissively address them. There are defintiely quite a few "campaign-y" entries all around as well, and I think all of them have their merits. These are exercises, people are free to flex the muscle they might need to practice within the subject.
I can understand the criticism of this particular theme, but I think stating that this is an emerging trend, in particular due to the subjects, rings hollow in my opinion. The reduction of entries you are more interested to see is truly more of a case of an ever waning userbase, and an extended period with no new WTEs.
In a more personaly response, I am somewhat pissed at you saying " I just feel like not a lot of effort goes into the stuff that you(users) create". Like yeah, probabloy my texture/doodad play on this excercise isnt my greatest, but I have mostly channeled my efforts on lighting and camera play, which yeah, isnt that terrainy, but I needed the excuse to practice, so bite me.
Look, i've been here for many many years (This isnt my first account). And I've almost only been here for the sake of doing WTE's. I havnt shared a lot of what I've made for reasons I have already described.
About the "not a lot of effort" thing. Don't get me wrong when I'm saying that. I can see how that might piss you off. But be serious now. Your second entry, the ICO one, and I'm sorry for saying this, but that can't have taken too long. And it feels like you're just doing it "just because". And not to improve (which is the original point of it)
I'm also not saying that I think people should be making playable terrain. I'm cool with terrain that looks cool for the sake of it. Heck, almost all of my terrain is unnavigable. But I'm just saying: Try to make more TERRAIN.
Here's some examples of terrain that I did for WTE's back in the day. I'm not sure how many, if any, were puplished, as it's been a long time since then.
I'm not saying this is the best terraining out there, but I can be confident in saying that this is some good, and mostly aesthetically pleasing terrain.
I usually come here looking for stuff like this, in hopes of getting inspired to make something similar etc. But I rarely do so anymore.
Instead of disagreeing about how much work should go into a WTE entry and how playable/scenic it should be, how about we just do a playable terrain WTE, a "show your current project" WTE or anything similar every once in a while that maybe has 2-3 weeks time instead of just one and do those fun/scenic WTE's the other weeks? I think it would be nice to see some more campaign-y terrains here, too, but given the high amount of time and work that has to go into those terrains we shouldnt have these topics here too often, but rather as a show-off topic between the fun ones.
Would this be a solution both for you Phail and Lucid/Alevice? I really dont want to see anymore fighting over the WTE itself on here, but rather some constructive suggestions to improve it.
Sorry, I'm not trying to have a fight over this, I'm merely trying to discus how I feel about them.
Your idea seems nice though. But I wouldnt say I need to have the rules changed, as I rarely do terraining atm.
I have come to the WTE to make terrain and also to steal some ideas :-), well thats how I learn anyways. Through many years Under Mozared DYNASTY i seen many people come and go. But the truth is that if you dont have fun while doing terrain then you will not do good terrain. Now this politics on the WTE and the previous exercises have been fun thats why it has been successful.
Now for the people not been happy with this or that well...............we CANT make every people happy all the time.
SO...... either contribute to the WTE or just move on.
STOP THE NONSENSE, STOP THE MEAN WORDS AND DO SOME TERRAIN AND POST IT!!!!!
I have come to the WTE to make terrain and also to steal some ideas :-), well thats how I learn anyways. Through many years Under Mozared DYNASTY i seen many people come and go. But the truth is that you if dont have fun while doing terrain then you will not do good terrain. Now this politics on the WTE and the previews exercise have been fun thats why it has been successful. Now for the people not been happy with this or that well...............we CANT make every people happy all the time. SO...... either contribute to the WTE or just move on. STOP THE NONSENSE, STOP THE MEAN WORDS AND DO SOME TERRAIN AND POSTED!!!!!
@ThePhail: Go
Let me say up front that I'm not going to change anything about how we're running the WTE any time soon, but I'm willing to talk about this a bit more before we put the topic to bed.
First, at its heart, I think of the WTE as being practice for larger works. The skills one uses in creating an entry—be it melee playable, a cinematic shot, or something else—are going to be applicable in any project. You keep talking about "real terraining," but that's an artificial distinction you're making that I think is detrimental to the development of your skills.
Second, I'm never going to discourage people from contributing to one of these threads. It's great to see the activity and discussion that comes out of posts. Whatever method people want to use in their creations is welcome here. If we sometimes get something different like Cybros's post, I think that's great! Sure, there's no terrain there, but what does that hurt? He definitely nailed the theme, and it's great to see a new face in the thread.
I'm really not sure what your goal is here, aside from complaining. Should we be forcing people to make "real" terrain? That seems like a great way to depress participation even more. Are we going to delete people's posts if they don't meet that criteria? That's just a dick move. Is your complaint that the prompts are hard to make into a melee map? If someone wants to make melee terrain from a given post, they'll find a way—for example, I bet you could do a really fun desert with Alevice's Mad Max theme. Or maybe it's something I still don't understand; please let me know.
Nobody is stopping people from posting melee terrain. If you want to see melee entries, then make a contribution! It's not going to change the kind of submissions I make, but maybe other people will follow suit. If not, at least you get to see the kind of WTE that you want to. Meanwhile, the rest of us will be making the kinds of entries that we want to.
I decided to take a dive into like half the terraining excecise history. And boy, you would be suprised to see how many are "flat terrain with a couple of doodads" as you, probably unintentionally, you dismissively address them. There are defintiely quite a few "campaign-y" entries all around as well, and I think all of them have their merits. These are exercises, people are free to flex the muscle they might need to practice within the subject.
I can understand the criticism of this particular theme, but I think stating that this is an emerging trend, in particular due to the subjects, rings hollow in my opinion. The reduction of entries you are more interested to see is truly more of a case of an ever waning userbase, and an extended period with no new WTEs.
In a more personaly response, I am somewhat pissed at you saying " I just feel like not a lot of effort goes into the stuff that you(users) create". Like yeah, probabloy my texture/doodad play on this excercise isnt my greatest, but I have mostly channeled my efforts on lighting and camera play, which yeah, isnt that terrainy, but I needed the excuse to practice, so bite me.
Go play Antioch Chronicles Remastered!
Also, coming soon, Antioch Episode 3: Thoughts in Chaos!
Dont like mapster's ugly white? Try Mapster's Classic Skin!
Look, I dont want to get too deep in to explaining. I'm not saying you should delete, discourage or in other ways restrict like that. I'm just saying I'm sad that it is almost exclusive to small areas with very few doodads. I'm not saying change the rules back, all I'm saying is it sucks, maybe not the best way to encourage people to go deeper into the actual "terrain" part of "Weekly TERRAIN exercise".
Look, i've been here for many many years (This isnt my first account). And I've almost only been here for the sake of doing WTE's. I havnt shared a lot of what I've made for reasons I have already described.
About the "not a lot of effort" thing. Don't get me wrong when I'm saying that. I can see how that might piss you off. But be serious now. Your second entry, the ICO one, and I'm sorry for saying this, but that can't have taken too long. And it feels like you're just doing it "just because". And not to improve (which is the original point of it)
I'm also not saying that I think people should be making playable terrain. I'm cool with terrain that looks cool for the sake of it. Heck, almost all of my terrain is unnavigable. But I'm just saying: Try to make more TERRAIN.
Here's some examples of terrain that I did for WTE's back in the day. I'm not sure how many, if any, were puplished, as it's been a long time since then.
http://imgur.com/a/iOL7H
http://imgur.com/a/VRgzX
http://imgur.com/a/DFldt
http://imgur.com/a/1fW4y
http://imgur.com/a/LaS0y
(sorry about link spam)
I'm not saying this is the best terraining out there, but I can be confident in saying that this is some good, and mostly aesthetically pleasing terrain.
I usually come here looking for stuff like this, in hopes of getting inspired to make something similar etc. But I rarely do so anymore.
Thanks for reading.
Instead of disagreeing about how much work should go into a WTE entry and how playable/scenic it should be, how about we just do a playable terrain WTE, a "show your current project" WTE or anything similar every once in a while that maybe has 2-3 weeks time instead of just one and do those fun/scenic WTE's the other weeks? I think it would be nice to see some more campaign-y terrains here, too, but given the high amount of time and work that has to go into those terrains we shouldnt have these topics here too often, but rather as a show-off topic between the fun ones.
Would this be a solution both for you Phail and Lucid/Alevice? I really dont want to see anymore fighting over the WTE itself on here, but rather some constructive suggestions to improve it.
@TheUltragon: Go
Sorry, I'm not trying to have a fight over this, I'm merely trying to discus how I feel about them. Your idea seems nice though. But I wouldnt say I need to have the rules changed, as I rarely do terraining atm.
I have come to the WTE to make terrain and also to steal some ideas :-), well thats how I learn anyways. Through many years Under Mozared DYNASTY i seen many people come and go. But the truth is that if you dont have fun while doing terrain then you will not do good terrain. Now this politics on the WTE and the previous exercises have been fun thats why it has been successful. Now for the people not been happy with this or that well...............we CANT make every people happy all the time. SO...... either contribute to the WTE or just move on. STOP THE NONSENSE, STOP THE MEAN WORDS AND DO SOME TERRAIN AND POST IT!!!!!
Marie T. Freeman If you're too busy to give your neighbor a helping hand, then you're just too darned busy. https://www.facebook.com/wargirlmaps.maps
Spread the love join DISCORD
https://discord.gg/Jtzt8Su
Amen sista.
Also where is your submission sista?
Go play Antioch Chronicles Remastered!
Also, coming soon, Antioch Episode 3: Thoughts in Chaos!
Dont like mapster's ugly white? Try Mapster's Classic Skin!
@Alevice: Go
I have been doing city maps. Im still waiting for a city environment WTE. Or.................zombie theme. :-)
Marie T. Freeman If you're too busy to give your neighbor a helping hand, then you're just too darned busy. https://www.facebook.com/wargirlmaps.maps
Spread the love join DISCORD
https://discord.gg/Jtzt8Su
@wargirlwargirl: Go
Ok, your wish is granted. New WTE coming up right now.