Morrowind Modding Madness 2020 - A Team-Based Modding Competition

[darkelfguy]

Morrowind Modding Madness Season 5: The Modders Strike Back

A Team-Based Modding Competition Starting December 1st ~ December 31st

Register Your Modding Teams Below!

Need help finding a team? Stop by the Morrowind Modding Community Discord or the Morrowind Modding Madness Discord and let people know you want to join a team!

 

Registered Teams (Links go to Nexus Profiles):

1. Team Ancient Androids - EnclaveKiller, Tel Shadow, RubberMan, Safebox and Stripes
2. Team Scuttling Scribs - Danae, Merlord, Melchior Dahrk, ProfArmitage and Xerofoxx
3. Team Sassy Sharmats - Vidi_Aquam, Tiefling, Orion, Overwatch, and Alkalimetal
4. Team Voluptuous Velks - OperatorJack, Wolli, RedFurryDemon, Greatness7, and Selengor
5. Team Lazy Lame Corprus Stalkers - Autoclock, Brujoloco, Lucevar, RandomPal, and Vegetto
6. Team Tenacious .T(emplars) - Ruffin Vangarr, Caeris, Sataniel, Endoran and Draconik

 

Morrowind Modding Madness is back for a special 2020 pandemic round of juicy Sheogorath-filled insanity to take your mind off this already mad year! After all, the patron saint of all modders, Lord Sheogorath, still hungers for new creations to feast upon, and he won't be sated until a new set of tributes brings forth a plethora of new modding goodies! As such, Morrowind Modding Madness has once again been proclaimed, and will begin December 1st and end on December 31st! Modders will have to form teams, compete in modding challenges, and rise through the ranks to make the absolute best mods they can and claim the throne of Madness as the ultimate modding champions of 2020!

 

Given that this is our fifth season, doubtless many of you are already familiar with our competition, but for those who aren't, Morrowind Modding Madness is a team-based competition in the vein of our annual Modathons (which are held in May), but with a twist where modders have to form teams and face specific modding challenges by coming up with, designing, and releasing an entire mod in a limited time frame.

I've included a breakdown of how this competition works, how you can register and signup for the competition, as well as some of our potential prizes down below.

 

But first, for those familiar with Morrowind Modding Madness, this year will represent a few notable changes over past competitions. One of the constant themes of Madness has been the principal of multiple challenges over short periods of time, but we're doing away with that this year. Instead, there will be only one challenge for the entire month, and teams will have all four weeks to build the best mod they can using a randomly generated theme, to be announced on December 1st. There's a few other changes with this year's setup, but you'll find more about that down below.

 

Don't know how to make mods? Check out our Let's Mod Morrowind tutorial videos! You can still signup by December 1st!

 

How It Works:

 

1. Form and Register Your Modding Teams

 

This a team-based modding competition, that means you need to form a modding team and register it in order to enter the competition, and given the timeframe of this competition and the number of veteran modders involved, you're going to want at least one partner to share the load with!

 

Modding teams can be composed of a minimum of two modders and a maximum of five modders, and ideally, you'll want to gather a team of modders from different fields in order to make the most creative mod possible. Making a quest is always a good way to boost your mod, but what if one of the opposing teams has a talented modeler? Certainly you can outmatch their innovation by just using vanilla assets, but do you really want to take that chance? Likewise, a professional scripter will make your mods come alive, and that might well give you the edge in this creative battle of wits and madness. Whoever you pick to be on your team, you'll need to work together, collaborate, plan out your mods, and successfully release them on time in order to win and claim the top prize.

 

In order to register your modding team for the competition, you need to first make sure you've got a list of your fellow modders who you want to team up with and who have agreed to work with you, then you need to come up with a team name (nothing offensive, I will rename your team if you submit something inappropriate!) and submit that team name along with your list of modders in a post either here or on [r/Morrowind](https://www.reddit.com/r/Morrowind/comments/jsc36g/morrowind_modding_madness_2020_a_teambased/?) by NO LATER than the end of the day December 1st. New teams CANNOT apply for the competition after December 1st, that's when the competition starts and we need to have a firm list of participating teams by then!

 

Once you've got your modding team assembled, be ready to start on December 1st with the first and only challenge for this year's Madness!

 

2. Meet the Challenges and Rise Through the Ranks

 

Normally, Morrowind Modding Madness has two or more challenges for teams to compete in, but this year, we're reducing that down to just one challenge, and each team will have to make a mod that fits the challenge criteria in a single four-week timeframe. This year's challenge will be a randomly generated set of themes and criteria that each mod will have to meet in some possible way, and this could mean that we'll see some truly bizarre theme combinations that will hopefully lead to some really creative results.

 

Now, alternatively to releasing just one mod, teams could also choose to release a series of smaller mods designed to work together, keeping in mind that, collectively, they'll still need to match the randomly generated criteria.

 

In addition, this year we're introducing randomly generated optional objectives, which teams can pursue in order to secure extra prizes (though these optional objectives will not affect the end score judging). These optional objectives could be things like; adding a quest with multiple branching outcomes, building a telvanni tower player stronghold, adding a new tavern or shop to the game, or any of a number just random objectives, which may or may not fit in with the core themes and criteria that each mod must meet.

 

In any event, in order for your mods to count towards the competition, when you release a mod for one of the challenges, remember to include a line at the top that says 'Part of the Morrowind Modding Madness Competition' and a line right below that with your team name like "Team Cliffracer" or something like that. Your mod will automatically be entered into the competition and be sent to our judging panel for scoring. You must upload your mods to Morrowind Nexus in order for them to be counted for the competition (we'll alternatively accept other uploading sites, assuming you send us a link to where we can find the mod).

At the end of the competition, all mods submitted by each team will be featured in one big finale showcase video, so all mods will receive roughly equal attention on Morrowind Modding Showcases, regardless of when you submitted your mods.

 

Keep in mind, you MUST release your mods by the end of December! There's a 24 hour grace period to account for timezones and uploading issues, but no mods released after January 1st will be accepted!

 

Special Note: Just to be clear, you can submit both MWSE and OpenMW mods for the competition! There are no restrictions with regards to MWSE, Lua, or OpenMW development!

 

3. Earn Points from the Judges

 

Once again this year, we'll be using a completely judge-based scoring system, with scores tilted in favor of creativity. At the end of the competition, judges will go through and play each mod for the next 7 to 10 days, and the results of their scoring will be posted publicly.

 

And to go detail regarding the scoring, each mod (or collection of mods) can receive a max of 100 points for the competition, broken down into three categories.

 

Here's the criteria that each judge will be looking at for each mod:

1. 20 Points for Mod Functionality (Mod does what it's supposed to and is also clean of GMSTs/Dirty Refs)
2. 50 Points for Mod Innovation (Is the mod original and creative?)
3. 30 Points for Judge Preference (Did the judge enjoy/like the mod?)

4. Prizes

 

As always with these competitions, we have a fairly large set of prizes set aside for modders to win, both for the overall competition, and for any bonus objectives that modders might try and meet. Besides the fame and glory of coming out ahead of your fellow modding teams in gladiatorial creativity, the top three teams will get a set of Steam and indie game prizes that they can choose from, not to mention the overall competition winners will of course be declared the Ultimate Modding Champions of 2020 with all the bragging rights that entails!

 

Without question, 2020 has been one of the greatest years of Morrowind modding in recent memory, with over 1200 new mods released for Morrowind so far this year, more than all of 2019 combined, and more than at any point since 2005/2006! While a pandemic may rage outside our doors, inside this community, we're in the midst of a golden age for Morrowind modding, and I certainly hope we'll be able to keep that momentum going through the dark months ahead with yet another exciting modding competition!

 

Best of luck to all of the contestants, I hope this competition can be a fun, distracting, and exciting event for all of you, and may the best modding team win! Happy Modding and May The Best Games Never Die!

Edited November 24, 2020 by darkelfguy

[RubberMan01]

Nice to see you back in action mate :)

[VidiAquam34]

Team Sassy Sharmats - Vidi_Aquam, Tiefling, Orion, Overwatch, Alkalimetal

Edited November 17, 2020 by VidiAquam34