Hero Contest #3 - Altar Series

[Rising_Dusk]

HERO CREATION CONTEST #3

ALTAR SERIES

Looking back in time, the first and second hero contests were quite successful, each bringing in loads of entries and a tough finale. But what did both of those contests have in common? They both asked you to create a hero that would fit as the last hero in the melee tavern. Well this time we're going to be playing a different game, let's see you make a hero that would fit into one of the race's altars!

Following the second hero contest's suit, the third hero contest will require an artist to team up with a coder to craft the hero of your choice. You may choose to create a hero for any primary race (Human, Orc, Undead, Night Elf). You are to create the fifth hero for that race, including skills fitting of that hero and that race. You will need to consider how that hero balances with the other heroes in the race and how it impacts the metagame of melee as a whole. It might sound scary, but with solid teamwork and design you can pull through with a winner!

Reward:

Awards:

1st Place Icon & Reward:

Contest Rules:

• Two people per team, one artist, one coder.
• No entrant can be a member of multiple teams.
• Everybody is allowed and encouraged to enter, as long as they follow the rules.
• If you are both a skilled artist and coder in one, you cannot perform both tasks and be your own team. Choose to team up with another individual who needs a partner and do that part of the tasks.
• One entry per team.

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Hero Requirements:

• The hero must have only 4 spells, no innate abilities.
• The hero must have a distinct theme. This theme is an important part of hero design, your artwork and spells must fit into its theme. There is no defined theme for the contest, but your team must create your own theme.
• The hero should be balanced qualitatively and quantitatively as if it were a melee hero in standard WC3 melee games as a member of any of the races.
• Your hero must be a hero for one of the four melee races' altars. (Human, Orc, Undead, Night Elf)
• Your hero must have one ultimate and 3 level 1 skills.
• Your hero must be designed with a max level of 10 in mind.
• At least two of the hero's skills must be trigger enhanced, but you may trigger more than two of them.
• You are not allowed to make purely cinematic spells. This means you cannot pause the hero, use cinematic mode for any spell, or anything of the sort.
• You are not allowed to use the spellbook ability as any of your spells. Heroes have 3 normal abilities and 1 ultimate no matter what, no bypassing it.

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Specific Group Requirements:
Artist Rules:

• The artistic team member must choose to do at least one of the following:
  • Create a custom texture(s) for a model. (Unit models with >1 texture may have all non-effect textures changed)
  • Create a custom hero model with either in-game or custom animations.
  • Create custom special effect models for any number of the hero's spells and/or the hero's attack.
  • Create custom icons for the hero's spells.
  • Perform any one of the above another time for a hero's summon.
  • Perform any one of the above another time for a hero's alternate form.
• Any combination of up to 3 of the above is permissible, any more than 3 used in a single entry will result in disqualification.
• You are allowed to make a custom unit icon for your hero.
• You are allowed to import an attachable hero glow effect model for your hero.
• If you pick to texture or model a hero that is already present in the melee game, you may reimport the model with different texture paths to prevent model and texture collisions.
• If you make a texture, it has to be at least 90% freehand.
• You must post at least one WIP shot of your artistic contribution to the contest before deadline.
• All artistic work used in this competition must be made exclusively for this competition, no previous work will be accepted.

Programming Rules:

• You can use any type of coding method you'd like (JASS / GUI / vJass) in designing your spells. (Specify in the entry topic)
• All spells for the hero must be designed specifically for this contest, there will be no previously made spells allowed.
• You may use any script or system from the WC3C database only for your map. This means if you want to use a system you, yourself, have made, it will have to be approved and in the database before the contest's beginning.
• You are allowed to import and use a dummy unit model with a single bone and the 'origin' attachment. This can be useful for some projectile spells and therefore it is allowed. (Pitch dummies with 180 degree vertical rotation are allowed as well)

Submission Rules:

• When the hero is complete, submit it to the pastebin in its own thread with the prefix [HERO3] and send me a private message with a link to the submission thread.
• The map you submit your hero in should be set up as a melee map so the hero can be tested in a standard melee game.
• Triggers should be provided to allow a single player to test the hero individually with ease and without having to build an altar and gain experience.
• All submitted entries must use (4)LostTemple.w3x as the test map. (Modified as necessary, but not with any drastic changes)
• All submitted entries must have a filename in the format:
  <MyHeroName>.w3x
  Example: OgreClanShaman.w3x
• All submitted entries must have an in-game map name in the format:
  <MyHeroName>
  Example: Ogre Clan Shaman
• All imported content may be no larger than 500kb.
• Submitted maps may be no larger than 750kb.

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Judging Criteria:

• If more than 3 teams enter, the contest will enter into a public poll where users can distribute two points among the contestants. A person can put 1 point towards two different teams or put 2 points towards any one team; it is the user's choice.
• The teams with the highest points after the public voting stage (Up to 5 teams, depending on how many entries) will move on to be judged based on code, art, and overall hero design by a team of up to 3 judges.
• In the poll, users will have to rank the heroes from best to worst, ignoring any of the entries that they want to. Clear instructions on how to vote will be posted the day the poll opens.
• The votes will then be processed using the Schulze method.
• The teams with the highest ranks (Up to 5 teams, depending on how many entries) will move on to be judged based on code, art, and overall hero design by a team of up to 3 judges.
• All points earned in each section of judging will be scaled to 1000 points and then weighted equally in the final tallying of points.
• Judges will grade the final (up to) 5 heroes out of 50 points, giving weight to the following:
  
  Artist Criteria
  • [100] Points Total
  • [100] Each art entry is worth up to 10 points based on criteria listed in the corresponding submission rules for that entry type, the implementation and integration of the art, the concept and theme, the style, the way it fits into the WC3 environment, and how subjectively awesome the art is.
  Coding Criteria
  • [340] Points Total
  • [80] Per Spell:
  • [10] Reusability
  • [10] Cleanness
  • [20] Efficiency
  • [20] Robustness
  • [20] Quality
  • [20] Per Map:
  • [20] Code Reuse
  Design Criteria
  • [50] Points Total
  • [10] Theme Coherence:
    How well the skills fit together in a thematic manner such that they feel like they belong on the given hero.
  • [10] Tactical Synergy:
    How well the skills of the hero work together to achieve whatever goal the hero appears to have.
  • [10] Originality & Creativity:
    How original the design of the hero is in terms of creative ideas, clever implementations, or new concepts.
  • [10] Melee Design Consideration:
    Includes how well the hero fits into the melee environment in terms of balance, theme, style, complicatedness, and so forth.
  • [10] Awesomeness:
    The most subjective of all grading criteria. This attempts to quantify exactly how awesome a hero's overall design feels.

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Deadline:

The session ends on December 16th December 26th. December 28th Sunday January the 4th, 2009 (23:59 GMT-5) This gives users a month to get everything going. Potential extensions are possible if lots of teams need them.
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And here's to hoping this is as successful as the past two!

[Rising_Dusk]

Alright, this is now official. Let's do it, guys!

[TDR]

So this means that now I can do a custom model + texture, right?

[Rising_Dusk]

Yes, it does. You can do a texture + model + animations as 2/3 of an art entry. :)

[Pyrogasm]

And do it I shall.

[TDR]

Oh hell yes!

[Vestras]

I'm in.

Me:

Job

[Rao Dao Zao]

Hmmz, last time I tried to enter this my computer bottled out.

[TotallyAwesome]

Awesome, I will be making a model with in game textures and animations.

[Toadcop]

All artistic work used in this competition must be made exclusively for this competition, no previous work will be accepted.

but if i need to hide spellbook ? =) (and put some ability into)

You may use any script or system from the WC3C database only for your map. This means if you want to use a system you, yourself, have made, it will have to be approved and in the database before the contest's beginning.

lol n/c ...

[Ammorth]

worst timing ever, at least for me. Term is coming to a close and projects and essays need work and study for me to be successful.

[Rising_Dusk]

Yeah, terms coming to a close for me, but it reaches across both thanksgiving and christmas breaks. That for me is prime, gives me over 10 days of unabated "free time" with which I can create just about anything I want. Whatever school you go to more than likely has a similar schedule. Just budget the time on your vacations and you're gold. :)

Originally Posted by Toadcop

but if i need to hide spellbook ? =) (and put some ability into)

I am not sure what relevance this has to what you quoted. (Art?) Anyways, the rules say you cannot use the spellbook ability as any of your spells. It is perfectly legitimate to use a disabled spellbook to add some passive effects to your hero that you cannot disable the icon for.

[Here-b-Trollz]

But we CAN use it for disabled passives, right? EDIT: Yeah cool, edit your post without the 'edited by' line. Very nice.

[TDR]

I'll be in Christmas holiday from december 22nd....and we don't have thanksgiving...:(
But at least the current atelier project will end this week, so I'll have time.

[Rising_Dusk]

Originally Posted by Here-b-Trollz

EDIT: Yeah cool, edit your post without the 'edited by' line. Very nice.

I try to avoid doing that, but sometimes it happens while other people are posting. :p

Originally Posted by TDR

But at least the current atelier project will end this week, so I'll have time.

Phew, that's good to hear! It's not too tough to budget out an hour a day to work on something anyways is what I say.