Packs / Sets as a Category

[Blue Monkey]

Moderator Action: Copied over these posts to add more descriptive title and add poll. Thanks to georgestow for starting the discussion.

I don't know whether this is too early in the proceedings to make a deal out of, or if it deserves it's own thread, but I was just thinking - are units and things to be entered as individual units or as packs? The same applies to buildings and tech icons.
Since so many units and techs and such are made as packs and not made individually...
I don't have an opinion on it, I'm just wondering how it's going to go down.

I would rather see units individually, although in the PCX contest it has been long since established that packs can take place. So i say we keep packs in the PCX contest but not the unit one.

I always thought that there should be only one file in an entry, one unit , one LH, one pcx file,....

Luckily that has stayed true for units and LH's. Once one terrain set was allowed, the precendent was set and I had to continue to allow when I took over the admin of competitions, I couldn't change things after they were previously accepted.

There probably should be a seperate catagories for unit packs and terrain sets in this tenth anniversary competition.

Moderator Action: Poll allows voting for more than one option. Include suggestions for more categories of sets in your posts.

 

[Kyriakos]

I think the first two options did not have to exist, since for example i voted for something in between, namely no unit packs, yes to terrain packs being a separate category, and no to all other gfx being separate.

I do not think there is any reason to vote on the best unit pack ever. The contestants will be less than 5 (i think), so what is the point anyway?

 

[Supa]

No, include them in other categories
Unit Packs - No
Terrain Sets - Yes
Other PCX Sets - Yes

I don't see the point in not allowing Terrain in pack. They're supposed to be looked at together anyway. The same reasoning could hold for a lot of PCX release (interface, for instance). So I'd allow without blinking both of them in pack.

Units, on the other hand should be regarded as individuals. What do you vote for, if there are some packs ? The quality of all the units ? The mean quality ? The dedicated works beyond all theses ? The one unit you like very much, while another will do the same for another unit in the same pack ? I'd rather enter them individually.

And I'm among the five people doing packs!

 

[Takhisis]

Unit Packs no, the rest, yeah.
Why would someone make one single file of 'new plainsland'? People usually make new terrain packs.

 

[nick0515]

Terrain packs definitely yes.

pcx packs yes, but maybe not for everything. Buildings packs are a bit like unit packs I think. Probably best just to have single building entries for same reasons that supa said about units. A pack or resources or terrain buildings would be fine though IMO.

 

[tom2050]

You cannot have terrain 'seperate', doing that doesn't even make sense. All the terrain files combined are pretty much a single entity. You can mix and match some, but the main files cannot. Same with interface graphics, there is no sense to seperating them.

For units, you cannot really vote on a pack of 45 units. There is too much difference between all of them to make any sensible judgement. And then you'd have 45 gif's per unit pack showing animations. Wyrmshadow, for example, could have probably made 'packs' also if he wanted to... the reason packs are made I'm guessing is for ease of uploading them to the site (so hundreds of uploads aren't required, which takes a bit of time). And probably to keep things easier for downloaders.

Who can possibly make any type of reasonable assessment of the 3 prop packs I have that consist of 300+ units? Usually what that would become is a contest between 'themes'. So if Sandris pack of Russian units VS. Imperators pack of French units VS. Supas Godzilla Pack VS. Shiros Israel pack VS. LizardmenRule! Space Marine Pack:
People will usually vote heavily towards the 'Theme' they like the best, and not the actual units themselves. Although this may also have influence in individual units, it is probably to a lesser degree.

 

[Steph]

I think packs could deserve their own categories. Look at Imperator or Sandris. They seldom release individual units, but what make their job oustanding is the consistency and completnes of the packs they do.

 

[Plotinus]

Terrain packs make sense as a category, because terrain is a pack of different graphics that go together, but not other kinds of packs. A "pack" is just what happens when a creator posts a lot of items at the same time. It's not really a thing in its own right. If creator A posts twenty units in one go, and creator B posts twenty equally good units on different days, why does creator A deserve (potental) extra recognition simply because he saved them up and posted them at once?

 

[Steph]

1) Because of the consistency of large packs. Making units which are varied, but consistent, with a good coverage of a region / period

2) Because having someone who made one good unit and someone who made 30 units in the same category doesn't seem quite right.

When I speak of unit packs here, I'm not speaking about one pack released at the same time.

It could be something released on a relatively long period.

For instance, we could consider that Wyrmshadow Turtledove units is a pack, although they were released separately.

 

[Balthasar]

For instance, we could consider that Wyrmshadow Turtledove units is a pack, although they were released separately.

That's where a problem develops: we could, then, invent an Orc Pack for Aaglo, and a Starship pack for Flamand, etc, etc...

I could imagine judging thematic unit packs on their own terms: if a creator decides to release a unit line in the database as a bona-fide "pack", then it's a pack. Wyrm could decide to create a Turtledove Units Pack, resolving the issue, if he'd like to see them judged in toto, too. (In Toto, too?) The same would be true for any (currently active) creator with units scattered across the database.

Of course, I also understand why a unit maker would prefer not to release a pack, not the least of which is that packs sometimes make looking for a particular unit difficult, but also so that each of his units can be seen and appreciated (and judged) separately. Or that it used to take a long time to upload a single unit, much less a pack..

BTW, I agree that terrain packs and interfaces should be judged as whole works. You just can't subdivide them.

 

[WildWeazel]

I think that, for the sake of simplicity, and to keep the contests from being overwhelmed by quantity rather than quality, entries should represent a single game item. Units and buildings are added to the game individually and stand alone, so they should be submitted individually. Terrain sets and interfaces on the other hand can be and generally are created as a single cohesive upgrade, so they should be submitted together as one item.

 

[Plotinus]

I think that, for the sake of simplicity, and to keep the contests from being overwhelmed by quantity rather than quality, entries should represent a single game item. Units and buildings are added to the game individually and stand alone, so they should be submitted individually. Terrain sets and interfaces on the other hand can be and generally are created as a single cohesive upgrade, so they should be submitted together as one item.

I think that's exactly right.

 

[Kyriakos]

It seems that most people want to see a separate category for pcx packs of the non-terrain type as well.
Personally i do not agree with this. I can think of only two people who ever consistently posted original packs of non-terrain pcx type, Ogedei and RedAlert. Then there is Nick and Mrtn who posted building packs of converted buildings. Finally there is the Arena pack by Aaglo. They simply are not enough to warrant the inclusion of a separate type i think- unless i am forgetting someone else. I will probably post a building pack (orc buildings) soon, but still there are too few contestants.

 

[Supa]

For the record, I also posted several packs of pcx jobs.

I agree with WildWeazel and Plotinus.

 

[georgestow]

It seems that most people want to see a separate category for pcx packs of the non-terrain type as well.
Personally i do not agree with this. I can think of only two people who ever consistently posted original packs of non-terrain pcx type, Ogedei and RedAlert. Then there is Nick and Mrtn who posted building packs of converted buildings. Finally there is the Arena pack by Aaglo. They simply are not enough to warrant the inclusion of a separate type i think- unless i am forgetting someone else. I will probably post a building pack (orc buildings) soon, but still there are too few contestants.

I think you're forgetting the many tech icon packs.
Also, if you want more building packs, I have a few in my library too.

 

[Kyriakos]

Sorry for those omissions...

Well anyway, like i said somewhere else: i am just trying to provide ideas which may or may not amount to anything. But i think the more we discuss, the more we understand what each of us, and a majority, wants.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Picked up on something Balthasar posted. Added an earlier comment (by timerover ?) to the mix. Plus the desire expressed by several people to not make this about the creator, but the creation.

Have "themed creations" as a category. This would include production over time, creations presented as packs and also creation through communal effort. That last definition would include things like the body of steampunk units made in response to a specific request list, the zombies collectively made for EFZI and all the terrain work assembled by Ares de Borg in his earlier terrain pack. There is precedent for this since work done this way has been entered in the monthly polls. Such as units that have been the cooperative work of several people with sounds, animations, models and palette work divided between them.

 

[Balthasar]

Picked up on something Balthasar posted. Added an earlier comment (by timerover ?) to the mix. Plus the desire expressed by several people to not make this about the creator, but the creation.

Have "themed creations" as a category. This would include production over time, creations presented as packs and also creation through communal effort. That last definition would include things like the body of steampunk units made in response to a specific request list, the zombies collectively made for EFZI and all the terrain work assembled by Ares de Borg in his earlier terrain pack. There is precedent for this since work done this way has been entered in the monthly polls. Such as units that have been the cooperative work of several people with sounds, animations, models and palette work divided between them.

I agree with that, completely. A Multi-Creator category, too?

 

[Gojira54]

Resource packs should be allowed, especially themed ones (say for a given scenario\mod).