As an avid map maker, I pride myself in trying to make maps both fun and unique, also for my maps to be played and appreciated in the community. I also, love playing other users maps and seeing their unique map ideas, come to life.

I think a cool idea would be to have a Weekly or Monthly Map Creating Contest, here on BTG. Well, here's some of the things I've been thinking...

1. Week starts on Sat and ends on Sun for Weekly. Month starts on the 1st and ends on the last day of the Month for a Monthly.
2. Themed Maps and/or maps on a certain difficultly. E.g.
Example 1: Only use certain towers.
Example 2: Only allow a certain amount of towers.
Example 3: Build map on easy and must have a smiley face somewhere on the map.
3. Once the contest ends, the map with the highest rating wins a certain amount of GP.
4. Maybe have only one submission per player. With a button to let BTG know this is your entry.
5. Space these contests out a little, so they don't take away from all the other maps and/or BTG site.

What do you think?

I like the idea a lot, but I have a question.
Am I allowed to use a map for the contest, that I've already started a while ago?
I mean when the chellenge is "make a sign" I would start my "Warn A Brother" map.

http://www.beatthegeek.com/games/TowerDefence/tournamentResults.asp?tournid=7245

I know already how people like it, and at the moment I haven't a better "sign-map".

My suggestion would be that you could use any map you would want. My question on that thought would be, if you could use a map that is already an "Official Map." As I see it, there would be complelling arguements for both sides. If you use a map that is Official, then that would make people want to beat your map, since Officail maps are generally well liked. On the other hand, if your not allowed, then maybe there wouldn't be as many maps created for that contest.

Nice suggestion on a theme map, "Sign-Map", by the way.

I like the idea. A weekly contest might not see a ton of entries to make it interesting... or enough votes on those maps, but 1 a month might be cool.

I'd be willing to hand out Member points to the top 3 maps.

i like the idea, too.

but i'm against themes.
as a reward for the top one(s) i would suggest GP, as those are needed to create maps.

everyone that creates many maps runs low of gps. the contest could give some of it back that way, especially for those creators that learn something by starting many.

monthly is often enough, aye

greets, lc

ps:

well... to make this contest fair, the rating of own maps schould get disabled... must...

and the reward: i'd appreciate XP, too.
best would be a mix of ep/gp/mp just to make that contest and map creation in general really attractive. not too much but a little of everything, so creator can compete with player better :)

a good map creation needs player skills. and all the testing doesnt give xp (yea, for a good reason). thats why ep-reward would be kinda fitting, too