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The Massassi Level Contest
Well, it's been a hectic week, organising this sucker, getting judges together, answering question after question regarding it, but it's been well worth it. Why? 'Cause I get to see all these really, really cool levels before all of you guys. Neener neener neener! Who here has played Neb's level, "Deep"? Hmmm? I'm the only one raising my hand? Awww, too bad.. You guys wont' get to play it for a week or two still... But Neb isn't the only guy with a level that makes me ashamed to call myself an editor. Oh no sirree, there are some real winners in this bunch. A few well known names have submitted some great levels, but a lot of newcomers have hit the scene with a sledgehammer. It's kind of frustrating that we have to organise a big contest to get people to actually release quality stuff, but I really can't talk. At the rate I was working on my level, it wasn't going to be done for months. The contest realigned my outlook real quick though. So what is it that got people churning out the quality goods? Was it the prestige of being able to say "I edited, I entered, I conquered"? Was it just the fact that there was a deadline? I'd suggest that we're simply entering into an editing golden era, but I made a similar claim when I saw the contenders for the last contest. Shortly after it's release, it was back to the same old "This level took me an entire hour to make!" crap. Are we doomed to repeat this process forever? If the process *does* repeat, I hope there's one specific step that we can breeze over - Sore losers. We took some flak on our message boards last time for not picking the right levels, and my email was just as bad. I'd love to know what makes a person so sure that they deserve to win over 25 or so other people. I only *wish* I could be that confident of myself - Chicks dig confidence, or so I'm told - But I suppose that's another story for another time. No amount of reassurance seems to calm these people down - You tell them in a hundred different ways that their level was good, just not as good as the ones that won, and they respond by calling you an idiot and/or claiming that your judging skills were just slightly impaired by alcoholic consumption, narcotic use, or having your head lodged in a very uncomfortable spot. As I said in the beginning of the column though, it's well worth the effort that everyone puts into the pack. The first Massassi Level Pack has outlived all other files in my episode directory, and by the looks of it, this one will have a long healthy life in there as well. More importantly, hopefully this one will set a new standard for levels, as our last one failed to do. So just sit back, hold tight, and we'll have this pack out as soon as we can - Hopefully you're as excited as we are. |