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On your marks. Get set. Go! Easter Dim Contest!
On your marks. Get set. Go!
It’s time to build a race course!
I had always aimed to do two dimension competitions, so this will be my second and final one. It’s going to be hard to beat Craving for Caves, as my expectations were completely dwarfed by the quantity and quality of those builds. Of course, however, I’m sure I’ll be surprised once again as I do with every other competition! Will I get as many entries this time? Probably not, but I’m hoping this one might attract those who may not dabble much in dimensions. The prizes are decent, you don’t have to be an artist, and who doesn’t love a good race?
End Date: 30th April/1st May
The aim of the game:
Make an enticing and enjoyable racecourse for mounts, that has the potential to be used in future community events! There are several ways of producing a great experience;
- Make the setting and scenery gorgeous so the route is enjoyable to run around
- Make the route itself enjoyable to navigate, for example turns, splits, height changes, jumps & obstacles
- Make it challenging but accessible so there is potential for competitions and time trials, but everyone can get involved
- Give it a theme!
You don’t need to tick all these boxes. The race course could be a simple loop, but its decorated so well, that I’m mesmerized as I go round and round. Or the course has little décor, but hellishly fun to navigate. You could make it a realistic race course found in real life, or make it cartoonish like Mario Kart. You have a ton of options.
Dam Fwob, sounds like a hard one to judge! Well not really.. because I’m not judging!
Judging:
I’ve already had my chance to be the man in power, now it’s over to the players themselves. We’re going to follow the Eurovision style voting system that other dim competitions have followed in the past. Essentially if you enter, you get to vote. 10 points for your favourite, descending down to 1 point. Hence you give points to 10 different dimensions (that is if there are 10 other entries). I will share the voting spreadsheet with all entrants later down the line. I won’t be voting because I’m not building ☹.
Judging Criteria:
This one is tough to control, as inevitably all players will follow their gut instinct and taste, however I can give some guidance for those who wish to follow it.
Enjoyability - /10 (What’s the point if it isn’t fun to run around? Everything contributes to this; the scenery, the course etc. etc.)
Technical - /5 (How well has it been put together? Does it flow well? Do you get stuck? Is the track clear enough to follow?)
Artistic - /5 (Does it have a great theme? How appealing is it to the eyes? How much effort have they put into the 'look'?)
Functionality -/5 (Does it work as a race course? Could it be used for future community events?)
Originality /5 (Goes without saying really! Kozzzmo’s WIPEOUT (Deepwood) was what inspired this idea. It was incredibly fun to navigate with plenty of original ideas for a course, however it wasn’t the most functional and prettiest course around. Could have still won!
It’s worth noting that even if players don’t follow the guidelines carefully, there should be enough of you with varying tastes to average out any bias, and therefore hopefully one player won’t come out on top simply because theirs was the most artistic (as this is only one element). Many others might prioritise the route instead!
Some Important Conditions:
We have to have rules right? Please please please can all entrants abide by these rules when building and judging. If these conditions are not met, then this should be reflected in the scoring (either in enjoyability, technicality or functionality).
- A clear start/ finish line with reasonable accessibility
- A circular route to allow for laps, or an A to B race of decent length. Any other ideas, check with me.
- A view/box for spectators
- Race course is easily identifiable. It should have an outline or boundaries (see below)
- (Almost) all mount speeds should be able to complete it (really important for tourers!)
- Avoid jumps from being too punishing, i.e. if the jump is missed, it causes a short delay.
- Avoid obstacles from being too punishing, I do not expect frame rate perfection to get through obstacles! Miscalculation is a short delay.
- Short cuts are welcome and could add to enjoyability, but not necessary.
- Short cut jumps for higher mount speeds are welcome (and could be used in competitions), but should not be mandatory to complete the route.
- No jump puzzles, this is a race course!
- Racing should flow well, there should be no unnecessary stops, therefore no lifts!
- Splitting the route into several forking routes for certain sections is allowed.
- Boundaries don’t have to be fences and the race course doesn’t have to be the same width throughout. For example Mario Kart often uses cliffs etc. to filter the player through. Just make sure the path is obvious!
- Preferably Cheat Proof - If we’re going to use the course for an event, then the boundaries should be solid to avoid players cutting corners by crossing boundaries (could use invisible tiles, do not buy with credits!). We also don’t want anyone doing crazy jumps over edges to skip half the race track (unless for some reason you want someone to break your race!).
A bit on Mount Speeds:
This is not essential but if you want to test your mount speed you can acquire the speedometer addon from here:
https://www.curseforge.com/rift/addo...ts-speedometer
However you will need to install gadgets for it to work.
As I have stated previously, the race course must be accessible and flowing for (almost) all mount speeds. This may not be so easy to do, particularly if you intend to add jumps/obstacles. I say almost as you could with a fresh account get right down to 140%, but this is incredibly rare. Most alts will not be this slow.
A typical low-level alt will have mount speeds between 255%-290% depending on perks (loyalty, patron and speed cap of your main, likely to be 160% mount).
The maximum current speed of a mount is 365% (loyalty, patron, 160% mount, planar attunement). Planar attunement contributes a lot as it’s a multiplier rather than additive (most likely a mistake on Trion’s behalf).
If you’re designing the racecourse on your main (as most would) then you might want to slow your own mount speed down to test features. The easiest way to do this is to mentor down below 50. This can slow the fastest mount speed (365%) down to 310%. The only other way is to remove patron and reset your planar attunement points which is a right faff! Planar attunement contributes the most to overall mount speed, however for some unknown reason most of this gets negated when you mentor below 50 (resetting at this point takes off 10%). You would think mentoring would either completely remove the effect of attunement or not at all. Who knows!
I don’t know if this helps at all, but I thought it would be interesting enough to note.
Rewards
I’ve got to the point where I’m not so keen on continuing to fund Gamigo considering the way they’ve treated us. I have my deepest respect for the current devs, but it's the ones high up that profit from our loyalty. Rewards this time round will be external from Rift. I understand some of you might have to use credits to create your dimensions, but that’s just the sacrifice we have to make to have a bit of fun!
1st Prize
£50 Steam card
2nd Prize
£30 Steam card
3rd Prize
£20 Steam card
And of course (I can’t help myself), I have to give a few extra rewards out! I’ll be giving out 3 more awards for ones I personally think have the most potential for a community contest, which I could run in the future. These cannot be the main 3 winners. Each one will receive a £10 Steam card.
As always that annoying small print:
- New builds only
- Previous dim keys are accepted, as long as it’s re-flushed
- Open to all servers from EU and NA
- One entry per person
- Will allow multiplayer builds, but the prizes will go to the player who submitted
- Guild dimensions allowed
- Close build until contest viewings (allowed to open from Thursday 29th April onwards)
- Can invite people to visit and give tips, but keep it limited, avoid adding to upvotes
- Builds will be disqualified if not open between the dates Thursday 29th April & Saturday 1st May
- Judging to take place between the dates Friday 30th April & Friday 7th May
- Results should hopefully be available on Friday 7th May
- I hold the right to delay the end time if any issues arise
Why no existing build category? Well tbh, I’ve hardly ever seen a racecourse during my extensive touring anyway, so I really doubt there is need for this category!
Entries:
Please enter via the following template:
In game name: ____________
Dimension name: ______________
Server: _____________
Mount: _____________
(What mount, if any, will match your racecourse the most? I'll then tour your dimension with that one! Feel free to say you don't care and I'll choose!)
Oh and finally, will there be an accompanying stream and recordings? You bet your backside there will be! I’ll be streaming on the weekend it opens. Hopefully Friday or the Saturday, or maybe both! I’ll be sure to keep you updated.
Thanks! Much Love, Fwob.
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Originally Posted by swordkata 
The shy ones will wait til just before end ;) 
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