SC2Mapster

I know a lot of people are saying that putting this up will encourage people to put out shoddy, low quality, useless mods. But, in my opinion, it is also a wake-up call to those of use who do try to make good mods but lack either the motivation or patience to do so. When you throw money in our faces, it gives us a lot more incentive to stop procrastinating and gives us a reason to actually push out mods. I personally enjoy modding, but I hate the fact that many of my mods get ignored. There's no rewarding feeling when you make a mod and don't get anything in return. While money is a horrible replacement for views and downloads, it atleast fills the hole long enough and has a LOGICAL use in your life, rather than the little feeling of satisfaction you get when you see your mod has gotten some downloads and comments.

What is Skyrim? Another Singleplayergame with just barely average graphik and gameplay? Who the fuck needs mods for this game? pls modders, go modding usefull games like SC2 or at least Multiplayergames. Watched a hour of Gameplay yesterday, why is this Game so hyped? I think its forgotten in some days...

Yes, we realized we were a little too excited about the Skyrim launch, but can you blame us? We're really just gamers too. I know I and many other Curse staff stayed up for the launch and were playing into the morning. It's an exciting opportunity to connect with other gamers and mod authors.

Just give us some time, right now we wanted to try this new type of program with Skyrim because it's the latest game to come out and this happens to be our latest idea for rewarding authors.

We really do love all of our mod authors :)

It's not whining at all. It's also not jealousy. As one of the folks who could easily switch focus and make a mod that would qualify for this, I'm not impressed.

The main reason is that it's encouraging people to leave Mapster (where you aren't compensated for anything) and go to Skyrim (where you are being paid to do well and further rewarded if you continue to create content).

Normally I'm not opposed to providing compensation for authors who make amazing mods, but this isn't the right way to do it. It is much better to reward people AFTER they have committed to something because you are more likely to compensate those individuals who will continually make great content than those who are only trying to snag top spots for money.

Sure some of the mods will be cool, but they aren't being created with the right mindset.

This announcement would have been better received 1-2months after Skyrim's editor was out. Those modders who were genuinely excited would have already established themselves and worked through their first few "experiments" that prepared them for said contest.

I think it's great that Curse is so enthusiastic about modding, but I think more thought should have gone into this before announcing it. Especially given that they are already going to be adjusting the due date(s).

yeah I agree you guys are whining abit, just get into it if you are interrested in Skyrim and see how it works out I'd say. be enthusiastic rather than jealous, please... :/

Wow, I never thought there'd be so many people complaining about a contest that Curse doesn't even have to hold. I think it's very good to give some kind of compensation to modders for their work...because there's a lot of it.

I for one appreciate this opportunity. I probably wouldn't have even considered modding Skyrim myself without this contest.

@Darklupine: Go The thing is that we've been saying we do understand that! And that we are looking to change the ending date! In fact, keep an eye out for information on that today.

Thanks!

I would think people at Curse would have a better understanding of modding than that. They're giving one month max to create and release these mods. Skyrim is brand new, and people haven't had the time to learn the ins and outs of how modding is even done for that game. And their standards for the mods are extremely high as well. Do they really not have any idea how long it takes to create a new quest, or region, or armor mesh+texture, or pretty much anything on that list? Many people would be pulling it close to the deadline releasing any of those things even for Oblivion, which people have been modding for years.

And then you have to consider the fact that people have not even had a chance to actually play the game yet, and have no idea what is even in need of modding, or how they should go about doing it.

And all of that isn't even taking into consideration the fact that the modding tools are not out for Skyrim, and easily won't be for a month or two after release.

I predict this contest going very poorly.

Guys,

Like Izelia said - We are totally open to extending the deadline. Don't read too much into the actual date.

All we're trying to do is encourage fresh, new ideas for this awesome, new game.

Curse has been involved with the modding communities for years now and every year we come up with new ways to reward authors for all the hard work you guys do. In fact, we've given over $500,000 to addon authors so far.

As far as not doing this same contest for other communities, this is something that we just came up with and want to try with Skyrim, at least for now.

tl;dr - We love authors.

-
Tyler
Software Engineer, Curse Client

Yeah, I was gonna say. . . this is more of a slap in the face to us than encouragement.

SC2 wasn't met with the same sense of enthusiasm that this is being met with. The monetary incentive actually stands to hurt our community here because you're rewarding Skyrim mods while no such reward is being offered to us here. If people begin leaving the Mapster community in order to create mods for this reward program, both communities will suffer. The mods created for Skyrim won't be made from a place of passion but a sense of greed. If you rewarded top modders sometime AFTER the community was established the mods being created would be more worthwhile for the player.

I strongly recommend you create a similar program for SC2 given that when HOTS comes out the editor is getting a MASSIVE boost in power. Especially when you consider the inclusion of the art tools.

I have some 100mods for Morrowind/Oblivion and one thing I can say for certain is that the mods I actually WANTED to use took 2-4months to complete while the best ones (Like OOO and it's contemporaries) took over a year.

This time frame is going to create a plethora of shoddy mods.

So if we just release a really good mod we'll get something worth our while? That's horrible. A competition every once in a while is nice but if there's a chance to get something every time then it's just plain stupid as it will generate a lot of useless mods trying to get whatever prize taking away from the beauty of modding. I'd rather post on skyrimnexus a mod if I make one, I don't get why they don't use tesnexus still.

And why there is nothing for a starcraft 2 mod challange? :(

Hi guys!

I want to let you know that we are very open to extending the deadline if need be. We will especially be taking into consideration the amount of time it takes for Bethsoft to release the modding tools. In a week, we will take a look at the situation and re-evaluate the deadline.

Even if you don't make the deadline, however, we will begin an extensive author rewards program in the coming months that will give regular rewards to successful modders, so really in the end, that in itself will almost be an extension of the contest!

@ Ilithyia: Y'know, you're right! That announcement is confusing. I will see if the folks over there will amend it. Thanks!

@Blodaks

The $3,000 are not part of the challenge as advertised in the money listing, so it can't count towards the 15k. If they say 15k and list the price money, it has to be 15k in that listing or they are lying, which I wouldn't expect from someone as big as curse.

For example, go to mmo-champion and there you see no indication of the 3k. So coming from there you feel more or less cheated.

@Ilithyia: Go

i count a total of 16,000

they should really start it when they release the modding tools

Want Stacraft 2 challenge! :D

trololol, the skyrimforge website use the exact same theme as sc2mapster, just more black

... lazy curse

How can you call it a $15,000 challenge, when there is only $13,000 to be won?

@progammer: Go

progammer \o/

Well, no Tools yet as it seems and only 1 month (probably more like a week, as they said they'll release the Tools after Launch) for a decent Mod? That's pretty much ... meh. I don't like to produce anything of low quality.