Once again, Morax, here on the Council of Setons campaign trail.

I want to start by stating what I think the Player Council should be in a few simple statements before I get onto key duties, responsibilities, and plans for current or future issues to address.

If the formatting of the message board post bothers you, please feel free to read on my Google Doc.

What is the Player Councilor?

The player councilor should be the voice of the community who takes every minute they work in the position to express the desires and what makes people in the community happiest. This person should uphold the task of taking all the complex language and technicalities such as TrueSkill rating and explain it in layman terms to those who are interested, all the while providing an optional media (written report, video, etc) that demonstrates all the details for those interested. It should be a person who not only works on the community but as well actively plays with the community to better experience the choices made.

My Previous Experience As M&M Council And How it Applies for Player Councilor

For nearly 2 years I was the maps and modifications community councilor where I spent a majority of the time helping people and creating a learning tool. My best achievements - in my opinion - were creating a series of documents that had a list of all the references and tutorials possible. This was a necessary step in figuring out what the community knows - together - so that we can move forward and improve.

For those interested, you can see the compilation of documents below:

Mapping Resources

Modification Resources

Modification Resources

If you look at the #mapping-resources channel in the primary discord, this has been updated from my own list and improved by biass (thanks for doing that! Looks great!).

This is not an application for the Maps & Modifications council, but this style is one example of how I would like to apply my didactic and helpful nature to the player council. There is a lot of need - in my opinion - for things like game strategy, new player tutorials, and other “how to do this in the community” which I believe currently is a bit lacking. The unified Discord is a wonderful step in the right direction, yet there is more detail and direction needed there.

That said, here are my thoughts and hopes for the Player Council role in detail ahead.

Tournaments & The Legend of the Star(s)*

Events and viewership of them is a pinnacle part of the community, encouraging plenty of discussion and fun of the drama as it unfolds. I began running WWPC alongside a player named Lextoc - who quite coincidentally taught me most of what I know - and it was a blast. I looked through this old thread and it made me realize a lot of the “top players” came from this.

As exciting as the top player events are, I kind of want to take a step back and work on some other types of events - AS WELL - that are critical to other features of the game: TMM, learning (lower player stuff and balance, and anything extraordinary like the mapgen. I IN NO WAY intend to lower my dedication to the competitive player scene as it was always something I enjoyed. Those of you who know me well know I for many years have put a lot of time, money, and effort into this.

Some of my favorites were donating to Legend of the Stars, 2v2 Master Cup, 3v3 Trident of Power, and tons of Blitz events or the likes. My loyalty to those who spend the most time becoming the best of the best is true and will always stay, yet I just feel like the Player Council need to celebrate all aspects of levels.

Legend of the Star(s):

This tourney in particular is the year end celebration of FAF in my opinion, and it needs to constantly be made better and better to uphold the kindness and generosity of blind donors like Legend who gives and allows the community to run it the way they see fit. With his permission, and others that play and donate, I would like to propose a new concept for this event: A “majors” and a “minors” that run in parallel.

At the beginning, these events were loaded with players of all levels and slowly the top players picked up seeds through a series of “Qualifiers.” Most of the time, people who play these who are not at the top pretty much pray that they are matched against someone of equal level, even with the seeding introduced by Blodir a couple years ago. Rather than do this, I think similar to sports and other leagues that a major and minor (do not quote me on this) O1900 and U1900 be implemented. The money, FAF Live, and everything will mainly focus on O1900 of course; however, those who feel it interesting to see “up and coming” stars could be free to do so. I think this will make the “Legend of the Stars” true to its name rather than the “Legend of The Star.”

The format otherwise is pretty good as-is, so am not certain of any other types of changes. I realize this concept is and will be a bit controversial, and am eager to hear the community’s reaction. I just think it would be great for up and coming players - or those who cannot achieve the highest level - to have fun and see where they stand. Who knows? Maybe if someone wins the U1900 of the LoTS it will motivate them to graduate on up and be a true “pro.”

It gives people a chance to get tourney experience they might not elsewhere...

If it becomes obvious people do not like this idea, we can scrap it and try other stuff.

Ladder & Team Matchmaker

This is a tough area to cover as subjectivity is VERY HIGH as every and all players really have different preferences of play styles. The map pools are made with a great effort in current, and the one thing I would change is this:

1. Limit the # of new maps to 1 to 2, have a community feedback thread for new maps to see if people like it BEFOREHAND rather toss it into the pool.

2. No rating resets, ever again. The global rating system is known to have its flaws, yet it has never been reset, so why do that with another one?

3. Openness and transparency with map ratings rather discuss the actions and reasonings for why what maps go into the pool behind closed doors

4. No more numerical-based polling: the community size and motivation to play ladder is really small, for instance, and could likely be personally interviewed, with feedback posted to a thread. This does not need to be complicated and short of dysfunctional maps, it should be easy to discuss matters. I suspect it will have some rules and discussion points much like the “before you post in the balance team” except perhaps a little less strict…

TMM is really critical to help finalize the return of “Galactic War.” It started out as a stepping stone as it requires matchmaking much like TMM does, so it became a reality thanks in hand to interest by the developers and a push by the player council.

My advantages to the handling of map pools:

I know how to make and edit maps so outsourcing checking them will not be necessary, but appreciated
I play ladder fairly frequently and get to experience the maps first-hand

Training of Players and Resources

The training program in FAF for players interested in learning to improve their skills is rather poor in current. After interviewing the trainers it appears very little activity is being kept up on this task. I want to make this a BIG DEAL and find a way to engage with new or desiring players to get it going. Much like the “mapping, modding, unit modeling” resources posted at the beginning of this application, I would like to entertain one for game knowledge.

I would approach this by collecting any and all references such as the following:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uPjOxCTEng

This is still a great video albeit a bit dated, yet do you see anything about how to perform reclaim activities listed anywhere? Perhaps I am wrong, but it was not obvious to me when I went looking, spare knowing this particular video existed.

To show how I will make videos myself, you can see one of my tips and tricks here:
[ will update and link once YouTube gets it finalized so the resolution and 60 fps work… ]

It really blows my mind that in the amount of years FAF has existed there is not a concrete knowledge base with easy access. This will be one of my primary focuses early on, should I get elected.

Collaboration with Other Councils

Balance Council

This is a tough one as people are always going off on balance - myself included - and believe the community often feels left out of decision-making on how the game works in terms of balance or style changes. For the most part, I want to keep distant and let them do what they do as a team, but make it heard how people perceive that in a much more constructive manner.

How to do this?

1. Regular conversations with people in the balance team on up and coming changes and how to best inform the player base
2. Revive “balance testing tourneys”
3. Make demo videos if necessary to explain changes

I think for the most part the balance updates are very far and few between, so this should be relatively easy to coordinate and spend time on the tasks listed.

Petric, what do you think of this? Maybe if the “balance testing” tourneys show some real good data, we can make it a requirement to ensure it works outside of internal testing?

Promotion Council

Obviously in current the player council and promotion work on quite a bit of overlap. For me, the FAF Live should have been the primary duty of the promo council and the player council to support that. I am unsure of the total reasoning for this, but of course would be happy to help develop promotional content and share information of interest, or vice versa, what others find useful.

Development Council

This is of course a major responsibility of the player council. Not everyone understands or has the time to understand the complexity in operations within the development channels, and should be given an as easy-to-understand-AS-POSSIBLE reasoning for how they operate.

For example, the ladder and TMM pools show a sheet of “brackets” where a certain rating must be met in order to see those maps. It was discovered recently that it is not really that rating but is instead the “mu” which is often considerably lower than what was listed.

I will uphold the task of putting technical information in layman terms so it is simple and straightforward.

Moderation Council

In an effort to keep moderation of the community sound, I will without a doubt support Giebmasse’s ruling and decision-making. I believe the player councilor should interfere with these decisions at a minimal amount, but sometimes it becomes necessary to help facilitate issues.

Administrative, Game Code, Maps & Modifications

I turned the final 3 into 1 category because I do not have much to say about these other than the M&M council! I believe the M&M is working fine as I have seen what biass has done after my departure, would not change much.

Final Words

There is one thing I must admit: I am in much less of a state where I can play the game or work on the community as much as some other people. It saddens me to admit this, but I think if I play a little less and boost my commitment it will be sufficient. No one is paid in the community for what they do (heck, I lose money because of my donations haha!) so the time given is tough. I would estimate I play anywhere from 12-15 hours a week, so it would be pretty easy to give that up a bit.

That said, I really want to be more whole-encompassing and take on a more community-driven approach. I want to be the guy Aulex wrote about in the final post of this thread.

I spent a lot more time than recent in researching my posts, and see a lot of the concerns given by Petric here as still pertinent to today. I do not agree with everything stated, but he has some great points.

The competitive scene is important and will not be forgotten, but I think it has gotten a little bit too much attention over other matters recently.

I want to be the guy that helps everyone be heard and make FAF about fun again. It seems we may have lost a bit of that.

I pledge wholeheartedly to be the very best I can should I get enough votes to be the next Player Councilor of the Forged Alliance Forever community.

Hey, everyone,

Parting Words as M&M Councilor:

First and foremost I just want to say that is has been really interesting to work on the community (FAF) project for the past 18 months. It taught me a lot about how open source projects function in that I never really knew the structure and organization of people who make this possible.

My original goal for taking up M&M was to do one thing: raise the bar. The previous M&M councilors were motivated and kind people; however, they never made as much of an impact on the community (in my opinion) due to not knowing who made it function. There is a very unknown scene with the development side of FAF in the slack/zulip realm where most of the real work takes place.

I do not want to flood everyone with examples of the rather tedious work, but for example, here is a "issue request" in GitHub that took 6+ months to address:

https://github.com/FAForever/faf-moderator-client/issues/106

When moderating content in the client, it previously took a click of every version of some map or modification, so if you had a modification with 200+ versions it would take quite a bit of time to go through - pain in the butt!

This is not to say that the developers are slow, bad people, but more a warning to those who speak ill of them and those like myself who run the community. You hear it all the time, loathe it, want more - like anyone does, but we are unpaid, few, and there are many who we serve.

I did what I could without relying on the developers as much as possible, as per our council discussions, we all felt that a feature like "Team Matchmaker" took precedence over anything else, so I put it on the back-burner to enhance M&M, spare adding resources and creating the M&M discord, teaching individuals how things work.

It has become quite a cumbersome task, as at the old age of 35, I have other thing in real life that are detracting from my availability. This is unfair to the community, unfair to others who want to lead the position, and unfair to how I have reacted to some feedback; it's not that I do not have good responses to criticism, but lack the time to write in a proper manner, and it makes me react poorly, often angrily.

Since this unfortunate consequence has come about, I have decided, that since time is not plentiful, to let someone else give it a go!

Thoughts on Biass

Biass is a tough one for me to discuss. I would say most of the community knows we have fought and argued more then what seems healthy, and it stems from a long history of interactions.

For me, he was the first person I talked to that was able to give me a start in actually contributing to mapping in FAF. It was between he, Cookienoob, and speed2 who got things going. It would be a lie if I said it was all pleasant, but they did help and kept doing it. I think part of the problem was that so many people don't really want to go "all the way" with what the tools and offerings give, so it was a natural reaction.

The continuing arguments between each other is not something uncommon among artists, musicians, etc that create "art." This comes off as likely frustrating to hear from other people, but it's usually just a medium in which progress happens. No one ever built great things without arguing: all countries and populations argued relentlessly on how to govern themselves (and still do) so thinking it's such a bad thing is kind of immature / naive.

For that reason, I would happily like to note that I support biass full and 100% as the next M&M councilor.

He might seem really aggressive and tough to deal with, but I like that: you need to have a certain standard and draw the line somewhere. You can't just let anyone and everyone walk over you, and once you develop enough, I am certain you will appreciate him as I do today, even with all the friction we have encountered.

Future Work with FAF

Now, on to what will be next for myself. I want this game to last as long as possible as it's been something I have enjoyed since 2007, and as a former Total Annihilation player, it's incredible to see the Chris Taylor legacy live on.

As I mentioned above, the community is most desperate for one thing: developers.

So, to keep true to that, I am going to take up apprenticeship with Brutus, Axel, GeoSearch, Sheikah, etc etc to learn some coding and apply it to what the community needs. I am not certain how long this will take, but anything will help.

It is my hope that I can bring TMM, the "author vault" biass wants, and many other fixes to the community in time.

Of course, I will certainly create some maps as it's my biggest passion, but it will likely take a seat back.

For those seeking some great help with that, talk to MadMax and Jip, who are creating a pool guide of everything to know for that!

It was a pleasure working with everyone in M&M and looking forward to future endeavors.

Be well, everyone.

• Morax

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Legend Of The Stars 2021 Championship

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Introduction

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This year we are anticipating to the have the biggest and most competitive event to date. As the event entries now rely upon the annual point system (see Helpful Links below) the details of players, substitutions, Group stage will be revealed at a later date. For now, expect FAF Live coverage, a handsome prize pool, the best players in the community competing, and plenty of eye candy artwork!

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Challonge

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IRC: LotS21

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Current Prize Pool $1450

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The donors thus far:

1. FAF - $1000
2. LegendOfTheStars - $350
3. Roboute01 - $100

Prizes

Prizes for the event are pending total donations, but expect a large portion to be given to 1st-4th place. A unique avatar for 1st-3rd will also be given out.

• Champion: $445 + 1st Place Avatar

• Second Place: $325 + 2nd Place Avatar

• Third Place: $215 + 3rd Place Avatar

• Fourth Place: $145 + 4th Place Avatar

• Fifth through Eighth Place: $80

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO CONTRIBUTE: Please contact myself, Brutus5000, or post in this thread directly.

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------------------- Rules ------------

For all phases of the event the Tournament Code of Conduct will apply.

Special rules will apply to the following:

Groups Stage

1. All matches that involve the RNG map generator are to be "TOURNEY" settings. Both players may use ONE roll each if the map that is generated is deemed unfit. Example settings for the RNG.

2. Any ties that happen at the end of a group stage will be resolved as follows: 2-way tie results in a BO1; 3-way tie will get decided by opponent strength victories, and if necessary, a condensed mini round robin.

3. Standard map and faction veto system applies.

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-------- Tournament Details ---------

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December 11th: 15 UTC: Group Stage, all 16 players participate in a standard, 4 Group Format

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Day 1 of the event will be the lengthiest, involving a full, Group Stage round-robin format. Groups have been determined via a snake draft system by placement of total points acquired throughout the year for the 1st thru 12th seed, and 13th thru 16th by placement in the Qualifier event.

Each group will receive its own 15 map pool, follow the same map veto process (3 vetoes per player) to reduce to 9 maps, with faction vetoes. The top 2-performing players in each group will advance to the final stage, playoffs RO8 which will take place a week later.

SPECIAL RULES FOR THE GROUP STAGE

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December 18th: 15 UTC Playoffs, RO8 BO5 and Semi-Finals BO5

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And so our final 8 appear!

The second day of the event will consist of the initial RO8 with 4 BO5 matchups taking place simultaneously in a single-elimination format. The victors of these matches will move on to the semi-finals, a RO4 set of 2 BO5s to determine the top 4 places, giving way to the Bronze and Champion matchups.

Map Pool for the Finals:

5x5

Desert Arena (Blackheart)
crazyrush (Petric)

7.5x7.5

Map Gen (Tournament Settings)

10x10

Daroza's Sanctuary (Tagada)
Arcane (Nexus)
Open Palms (JaggedAppliance)
Frithen (Tex)
Map Gen (Tournament Settings)
Amoor

15x15

Map Gen (Tournament Settings)

20x20

Bermuda Locket (TURBO2)
Point of Reach v4
Krakens Nest (Yudi)
Map Gen (Tournament Settings)
Ronoake Abyss

Special Rules for the BO5s (RO8 and Semis):

1. Anti-Cheat Mechanism: RezyNoob will be hosting a channel setup in the main FAF Discord where players must share their screen while playing. This is to ensure that no one is using any sort of advantageous material whatsoever.

2. Map Veto: Players will receive an additional veto (standard is 3) each, totaling 8 vetoes, bringing the map pool from 15 down to 7 maps. For the vetoes, the low seed will go first, then the high seed; for map picks, the high seed chooses first, then the low seed, and alternates.

3. Faction Veto will be used as is in other events

4. Ties will result in playing the same map with the same factions.

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December 19th: 15 UTC Finale, Bronze & Champion Match BO7

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The final day of the Official Tournament will have 4 players left. These 4 players will be playing a single BO5 (Bronze match) and BO7 (Championship) each to decide placements.

The same map pool will be used as was for the RO8 and Semifinals.

For the Bronze Match: Each player will get 4 vetoes.
For the Championship Match: Each player will get 3 vetoes.

Faction veto will be used.

Ties will result in playing the same map with the same factions.

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Substitutions

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Should a player be unable to play the event a substitution will be made. This will come to the next-highest point accumulation. Based on the point tracker, the 6 in line subs are as follows:

1. Blast_Chilled
2. Reactive_
3. Blodir
4. Farmsletje
5. Shen
6. Raider-

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Poster Samples

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[ link to all the posters on imgur ]:

And a News Hub Side Banner Poster:

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More Details to Follow Soon(tm)!

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Helpful Links:

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League Leaderboards:
https://www.faforever.com/competitive/leaderboards/leagues

League Months:
https://forum.faforever.com/topic/332/faf-league-month-system

Nexus Series Thread:
https://forum.faforever.com/topic/1246/faf-league-invitational-series

Whelp, it's been a wild year and a half since I took over as M&M:

In the past days I learned a lot, got to know people working on projects that will bring some interesting fun to the community, and have given thought on how to handle better presenting that.

First and foremost, I want to thank everyone who have helped me over this time and given me a chance to show what I can do as M&M councilor. It went pretty well: helping hands, a big boost in tutorials and wealth of knowledge, a death threat - pretty exciting stuff.

Plans for the mapping vault are going to be as follows:

WE ARE MOVING TO A WHITELIST VAULT SYSTEM

What this means:

People can still upload to the vault, but there will be no "showroom" when users go to the vault section in the client.

One can still find their map by searching

One can still host their map and others can download it

Why is this happening?

To answer that question, let me explain what the "Most Recent" vault showroom for maps is meant to do: it is a place where mappers can get their content seen and distributed by users of the client service - that's it!

What we found is the following: maps, aside from ladder / remakes of popular ones like canis river, are seeing an average of 10 or less overall plays over the course of a year. That is pretty staggering at how poorly the vault is "helping" people distribute their content.

So why a "whitelist" vault?

After years of talking to community members about "why do you download and play a certain map," it was in general because someone hosted it and they saw it in the game tab; the map was actually quite good and was showcased in the news or by a caster/streamer; and etc

When asked "why not play maps in the vault" the resounding reasoning was "because it's full of (insert random word that means 'garbage')

To me, that reinforces that the vault content is frowned upon and it becomes laborious to have to search through page after page, until something remotely "good" shows up.

The whitelist vault is going to be a system where people demonstrate they can create content that meets the minimum rules of the community; it will not be nearly as strict as the "M&M Top Picks" list, so don't be fearful you cannot get access.

How to be given access to the vault?

Good question, and there will be an application process made. I am thinking a sample of 3 maps uploaded to the vault with replays that the M&M team can review to see it meets the rules.

After that, the author will be given unlimited access, so long as they keep abiding to the rules of the vault.

Final Words

I understand this in general not going to be liked, but I myself am tired of being a "vault policeman," and the community is definitely more engaged in expressing quality annoyances of maps and modifications.

My real passion is to lead by example by making tutorial videos, guides, maps and mods myself along with other M&M folks. It doesn't make sense to me for the council position to feel more like a moderator then a content creator.

If anyone has any strong feelings about this, please state so, and present some damn good evidence if you think what I stated here is not the case.

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4v4 TMM Matchmaker Release

Intro

The 4v4 TMM queues are now ready for release and the development team is ready to flip the switch once the map pools are finalized!

To get everyone on the same page, please read the following posts:

Initial Matchmaker Team Announcement

Developer's Announcement

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4v4 TMM Pools

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The first set of 4v4 Matchmaker Pools are below. Before trying to read it, note the following:

There are 2 pools: 1 for Share Until Death (NS = No Share) and 1 for Fullshare (FS). The pool on the left is the NS one and the one on the right is the FS one.

You will notice a few things such as the ratio of 10x10 to 20x20 maps is dramatically different as FS and NS work better for certain map layouts / sizes. The matchmaker team will need time to flesh out every single map and see what works best, so this is our initial best effort.

Please note that the matchmaker team is still talking through some choices and you will likely see a different list used by the time we launch. This is purely for reference.

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The 4v4 Map List

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In order to keep open and transparent to the community, the list of 4v4 maps the matchmaker team is using is in the link below.

4v4 TMM Map List

What has been updated since my last post?

1. Pictures of maps are starting to be added so it is easier to identify maps
2. Tabs have been added for the full map list, Detailed Reviews (similar to the 1v1 and 2v2 sheets), Maps that Can Be Saved, Broken Maps
3. A column to determine if a map is usable for NS, FS or both
4. Continued work on evaluating maps

"Maps That Can Be Saved" are ones where some simple map editing work could be used such as spawn fixes, resource placement, minor graphical tweaks so that the map can be added to the usable list.

"Broken Maps" are ones that require a massive amount of rework and fixing, not complete, lots to address and would require a dedicated mapper. These are not exactly "lost causes" but will not be addressed by the matchmaker team itself.

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Community Feedback

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In order to ensure we capture community feedback well, I will be using a broadcast poll for the first time in some years. We want to ensure that everyone's voice is heard so it is very desirable to push this.

After 2 months have elapsed and enough people have played the matchmaker a poll will be designed and launched.

The initial feedback we are looking for is as follows:

1. Do you feel the ratio of 10x10 and 20x20 maps is appropriate for each matchmaker?
2. What rating bracket do you primarily play in?
3. What map pool size should each FS and NS have? (Options will be given)
4. How many 10x10s do you think should be in the NS pool?
5. How many 20x20s do you think should be in the FS pool?
6. Rate your experience overall with the 4v4 TMM Matchmaker
7. Open Ended Feedback (written response)

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Submitting Maps for Matchmaker

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If you think a map should make it into the pool, please post it up in the #matchmaker-submissions channel in the main FAF discord under the Mappers group:

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Modern Forged Alliance Trailer Contest!

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Presented by: Morax & Saske
Tournament Voting / Finale Live Stream: 21, August, 2021
Current Prize Pool: $220

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Synopsis:

First and foremost: This is not an official FAF organization trailer. It is a community-driven project for self-promotion rather through the association/board. If this is confusing, please read up on how the FAF Association operates here.

This is a contest to help promote the creation of a new, up to date trailer for the game Forged Alliance highlighting features, updates, and demonstrations of the modification Forged Alliance Forever.

There will be a cash prize for the top video trailer for 1st place. If the funding exceeds $200, a 2nd place will be added. If there is a much larger portion, then possibly a 3rd, 4th.

For reference, here are good examples of a trailer similar to what is being desired, except keep in mind they are both QUITE dated:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoxPvkg21Jg&list=PLD5B7864ABDA0D620

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xWTKqKCuPU

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Content:

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The Basics

The video should of course show all the classic highlights of the game: many units, epic scale (up to thousands of units), variability and interaction of units, entertainment, etc. It should also show the best game mechanics: zoom, physics, and so on. For example, units cling to air transport, and in other strategies they just disappear, a nuclear missile really kills the base, as opposed to a RTS like Starcraft where it is not exactly a game-ender (or close to it!). You can show how engineers collect the remains of a fallen unit. What do you think is cool in the game? Show it!).

Desired Highlights:

1. Show the game enhancements through popular modifications such as Supreme Scoreboard, UI Party, better reclaim, target priorties, etc.

2. A lot of UI updates such as "notifications," idle engineers, additional camera stuff, etc have been added to make the gameplay experience much more manageable as opposed to its 2008 form. Try and show some features to give interested parties/players a glimpse of why FAF is so much better than the original/Steam/GoG.com versions of FA.

3. New units, advanced AIs, new game modes like "King Of The Hill," Phantom X, a totally new faction set (Supreme Commander TA, Nomads, etc).

4. Use your own personal highlights to get a competitive edge in your trailer!

Mood / Flow:

Try not to make the scenes too long, an average of about 5 seconds is ideal, but no more than 10 seconds, the viewer should not get bored. The video should inspire. Imagine you haven't played Supreme Commander yet. What would prompt you to play this strategy? Show it in your video!

Try to keep the length to 2 minutes - approximately! A succinct and effective message is best.

Music:

It is better to choose an epic soundtrack of the game, but it is better to make sure that, for example, YouTube does not block your video (you can upload music with a black screen to YouTube and check, in most cases everything will be ok). For example, you can take any audio track or something similar.
It will be ideal if the video sequence will be in harmony with the music (for example, cannon shots are synchronized with the rhythm).

Finding content with no copyright or "free use" will be tricky, so if you need help feel free to ask in this thread, or contact Morax/Saske.

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Submission Rules

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The video must be uploaded to YouTube and a link left in the comments to this post with your FAF & Discord nickname (for communication). Please refrain from changing either so it is not a challenge to keep in contact. Optional: Make an attractive video preview.

Voting for the best video will take place on August 21 (in the format of an online broadcast on YouTube, (we can comment and watch together) or your version)

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How Winner(s) Are Determined

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The winner(s) will be determined by a live stream by Saske (aka Lenkin) via voting which will take place on August 21 via YouTube. Comments and viewership will take place in parallel!

Disclaimer: Due to the fact that not everyone may be able to attend the "viewing part," a secondary voting system is being discussed. There is plenty of time until August so hopefully this will be determined well beforehand.

The prize fund starts from $ 50 (courtesy of Saske) and if you want - you can contribute ( LINK to be posted - soon[TM] ). If the prize fund is more than $ 200, then there will be a reward for the second place, if more than $ 300, then there will be a reward for the third place.

You have three options
a) Create a video and participate in a competition (you can join teams)
b) Sponsor a competition and contribute to the development of FAF
c) Tell your friends about the competition for promotion and repost.

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Current Contributors

Prize Total: $220

1. Saske - $50
2. Morax - $100
3. Astrocrater - $40
4. Yugo - $30

Current Signups

UPDATE 02/01/2022:

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Layman terms explanation: Layman terms explanation: The ice adapter contains a serious bug mangling data packets in transmission causing the connection process to crash.

In short, continued patience is appreciated as we believe the issues will be resolved and everyone can enjoy the 4v4 TMM queue more going forward. This is bad but good news as it means the poor game connectivity issues will be a thing of the past soon enough.

Technical excerpt from the ICE developer:

Layman terms explanation: The ice adapter contains a serious bug mangling data packets in transmission causing the connection process to crash

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Technical excerpt from the ICE developer:

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Additionally to forwarding data, the ice adapter constantly monitors the latency of the connection to react to connection losses by reconnecting. To achieve this, the adapter prepends each data packet from the game with a type marker <d> or <e>:

Data packet: <d> <game data> <game data> <game data>
Echo packet: <e> <the time when this packet was sent>

The data packet is forwarded to the other player's game, the echo packet is returned back to the sender to estimate the connection's latency.

Case 1: The bug occurs due to the way packets are received. The protocol is not capable of detecting packet sizes or boundaries. So when there is a delay in the packet transmission over the Internet, multiple packets may be received and processed at once:

<d> <game data> <d> <game data> <e> <timestamp>
The ice adapter sees a data packet, removes the first <d> and sends <game data> <d> <game data> <e> <timestamp> to the game, which can't deal with the injected <d> and <e> markers and discards the packet. -> packet loss

Case 2: The other possible cause is the packet being split (either during transit or due to the receiving buffer being to small, this is under investigation):

Sent packet: <d> <game data> <game data>
Received packet: <d> <game data> -> game data sent to FA
Next packet: <game data>

The next packet now is really the second half from the previous packet, the ice adapter reads the first byte from the <game data> , looks for the marker, doesn't find one and crashes / reconnects (causing this packet to be dropped).
This happens during custom games as well, but the adapter usually reconnects within <5 secs. This might be amplified with TMM due to everybody connecting at once or the game not being capable of handling packet loss during the initial connection process cause the game to never launch.

This will be incompatible with previous adapters and require a forced client update.

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CLIENT UPDATE FOR 4v4 NO SHARE:

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As it turns out, the client issue was unique only to the "4v4 No Share" search and queue. The client issue has nothing to do with the likelihood of a match taking place.

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Matchmaker Queue Postings

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As of today and going forward, all matchmaker pools (1v1, 2v2, 4v4 NS, 4v4 FS) will be posted in this thread. As the queues may change so will this thread to reflect that.

What is 4v4 NS and FS?

Please see this thread for details.

How do I submit a map I made into consideration for future map pools?

Go to the #matchmaker-submissions channel on the Forged Alliance Forever discord. If you are not a part of the discord, you can join here: https://discord.gg/2gQeSDFH.

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Matchmaker Map & Rating Systems

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Each pool has a system where your rating give access to certain maps:

For the 1v1 Matchmaker Pool:

For the 2v2 Matchmaker Pool:

For the 4v4 Matchmaker Pools (both NS and FS):

Like the 2v2 matchmaker pool, your rating should exclude you from certain maps; however, there is a caveat to this: if someone participating in the match teams has a rating in a lower bracket, the system may select a map from those pools as well.

For example, if all the players are 1500+ on both team, they will only see maps in the 1000-1500 and 1500+ pools.

If all players are in a mix of ranges between 500 and 1500+, then all maps are possible for the match.

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Current Matchmaker Pools (updated monthly)

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1v1 Matchmaker

The first week of February will be a special "Mapgen only" experience.

2v2 Matchmaker

4v4 Matchmaker

No-Share:

Full-Share:

Lack of people playing

Less than 2 minute game-ending strategies such as intie transport rush, first bomber, etc

Learning build orders for every map is too time-consuming

Other games are more fun than being stressed out all the time like in FAF

Getting map gen in any form is awful because the maps are 90% of the time quite poor in quality and redundancy

This past weekend there was a major violation of the FAF Code of Conduct. I was not personally present to witness the interaction as it transpired, yet a number of people posted, direct messaged me, and it was made well known of what occurred. For that reason, this player - and anyone who acts similarly - is being dealt a large penalty including bar from FAF events for the next few months.

In recent years, FAF has seen an influx of larger viewing thanks to a centralized viewing platform, and in addition more people have been kindly donating more and more money to witness these events. The number of viewers who saw in detail the behavior in question has left a mark on FAF's reputation that we really do not want going forward. It has without a doubt opened many eyes to the frustrations of anger and rage that should not be expressed, especially during a time when so many are watching.

It is our goal as a community to continually draw interest for play and entertainment, being thankful for our generous, selfless donors who want nothing more than to sit back, relax, and enjoy. Based on my conversations so far, it has not deterred anyone from withdrawing development, donation, helping out with operations, nor any other critical function; but that does not mean it will in the future.

I want to personally ask that everyone please discourage this behavior, and to those who have an issue with behaving properly please find a way to channel their frustrations away from other users/viewers. Get in a mood where this will not happen in any way possible.

This is not going to be tolerated with any leniency going forward.

I hope everyone can move past this event and keep the community together with the integrity going forward.

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August Ladder League Results: Tex WINS!

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A big round of applause for our ladder league winner, Tex, as he claims the top place with an impressive flawless victory!!

A very big and special thanks to all the FAF Live viewers; Tagada, harzer, and TheDuelist for giving hours of their days to cast, HintHunter for co-directing the event; and FAF Board for the prize money!

Top 3:

Full Standings Results (See Challonge: https://challonge.com/fi/23xvezia)

Rewards

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Per the Legend of the Stars entry point system the following has been awarded to each player:

1st Tex receives 12 points and $100
2nd Nexus receives 10 points and $50
3rd Swkoll receives 8 points
4th Raider- receives 5 points
5th Blast_Chilled receives 4 points
6th AutoNoob receives 3 points
7th P0P0LIAK0V73 receives 2 points
8th JaggedAppliance receives 1 points

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Feedback and Reflection

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Overall, the event was considered to be fun and entertaining, yet it did not come without its own flaws:

1. Tournament length: Exceeded 7 hours and we lost a player due to lack of time
2. Swiss-Style BO3 left a lot of players with a lot of dead time.
3. Map and faction veto continues to add a lot of time to event playthrough
4. Faction vetoes are apparently NOT supposed to be used during this event (more later on why that happened)
5. Audio and overlay issues with FAF Live

After a discussion with the players who participated in private, and other potential ones, it was decided that a format change should be used. It was planned to keep everything as-is since the year is nearly over, and the previous player council did a fine job setting up the architecture of the system (see this post)

In light of this, it has been proposed to use a format that is about 4-5 hours in length tops. This is difficult to precisely achieve, so it will be necessary to try something. The best suggestions thus far are as follows:

1. Double Elimination Format with BO3 for the "winner bracket," BO1 for the loser bracket. This should essentially allow for plenty of simultaneous progression and ease tournament length considerably. There will still be 4 BO3 rounds, but with much less players involved.

2. Swiss-Style with BO1 for each round, allowing a more simulated ladder experience where everyone faces off against each other. Since a BO1 format with 4 rounds might be too much shorter, the event would need to increase the amount of rounds from 4 to 5 or 6. The pro of 6 rounds is that it is still much less than 4 rounds BO3, and it has more players facing each other. It would be far superior in determining the best of the group.

3. 2 GSL format groups with a playoff stage. This format is common among CS:GO and StarCraft 2, proven to give a similar tournament length much more consistently. The format does lack allowance of "everyone playing against each other," but it is an option that was raised.

4. Regardless of the format chosen for next time, it has been suggested to use seeding "by ladder rating" rather by "ladder league results." If that does not make sense, do know that ladder league tournaments are seeded in current based on the results of the monthly standings. Excerpt from the 1800+ here.

I will be leaving this post open indefinitely so that everyone can share there thoughts on the changes proposed

5. What do you FAF Live Viewers believe to be the optimal length of time a tournament lasts?

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Faction Veto & FAF Live Issues

Apparently, faction veto is not supposed to be used in the ladder league tournament. This is something I was not aware of and I must apologize for using it.

The transfer of knowledge from the previous player council did not happen due to some political reasons taking place. This is not me knocking on the previous player council as there are many reasons about, but do know that I have had to spend a lot of time teaching myself everything that was previously done. FAF Live had a bit of a painful knowledge transfer, and getting it set up properly did not happen. I began inquiring about it a month ago, should have pushed harder to get it set up properly. I assume full responsibility for the technical issues experienced, would like to apologize to the viewers.

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Final Words

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Once again, I would really like to thank the players, casters, board/association, HintHunter, and everyone who helped me set up and run this event. The devs also assisted in generating a shortened ladder league as we had to postpone due to severe issues (noted here).

Thank you everyone, and looking forward to the next up and coming events!

@Swkoll wrote in "New Player Council Thread" something something:

I brought this up in the discord, but I've been asked to post this here.

Ftx's plans are well documented and I'm interested in the specific changes to the tournament scene that @Morax and @Emperor_Penguin would bring. Namely,

Would you continue to support the Ladder League Invitationals and LotS (and what specific changes would you make to them, if any)?

Exactly what new events would you personally run? You've said you would run new events for lower rated players and Morax has talked about a rating restricted LotS parallel event. I'm interested in specifically what sort of events you are planning on running and how frequently would you run them.

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Annual Tournament Series Proposal - Morax Player Council

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Initial Player Council Application (for Reference):

https://forum.faforever.com/topic/1589/player-councilor-election-2021/4

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Thoughts on Current System of Seasonal Events:

The invitational series (hosted by Swkoll, thus far) and Ladder League Invitationals have my utmost attention and respect. Anything and everything that promotes regular play through ladder, TMM, or team games will likely get support from me. I would like to extend the seasonal events to TMM / custom, casual games as well. But to keep on topic: I will of course support the ladder league & invitational series to answer Swkoll, and whomever were wondering about my stance on such events.

Thoughts on Current Lack of Tournament Directors:

From my perspective, I think that tournament directors have become an issue due to the demand of tournament complexity, and therefore length. Last year I helped with the Legend of the Stars Group stage, and it was draining to say the least managing the map / faction veto. The length got to be a bit much in my opinion, but that is just me.

A few people have noted that participant punctuality is a major concern as well, so this falls upon the players. Perhaps we need to implement some more strict “be on time” measures so that people do not mess around:

In order to address this issue, the following ideas and motions will be necessary.

Idea pool to bring in new TDs and strengthen retention:

1. Pay TDs 20-30 bucks an event so they can buy themselves lunch/dinner + beer or juicebox (under 21 in US, Under 18 rest of the world)

2. Reduce complexity and duration for non-major events to reduce anxiety, within reason

3. Give a “committed TD” who hosts 1 question to add to broadcast polls to the community.

4. Keep in mind broadcast polls will be rarely used as it is not desired to extend a pop-up request to players often.

5. Create a group of TDs that can offer to help with short, quick events and a group more committed to lengthier events that can receive incentives
   Gather more feedback with a general survey to determine appropriate actions, and find a happy midway agreement between players and event coordinators

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Legend of the Stars (December / Winter Event)

First and foremost, please note that since it is about halfway through the 2021 year, I will not be proposing that we alter anything currently planned for placement (see reference here: https://forum.faforever.com/topic/1458/lots-2021-workshop-thread) as it will adversely affect the up and coming Legend of the Stars event. The actual format of the tournament will stay the same unless the players and donors agree to a new system. For reference, here is the format with a Group Stage 4 → 2 , followed by an elimination bracket:

https://challonge.com/kxba6dnz/groups

The “mini Legend of Stars” is a bit of a wild card to me. I do not have details, nor are they fleshed out by anyone as of yet, so it is difficult to comment on that. My preference would be to have one “substitutional.”

Since my application post was vague on how the U1900 and O1900 (REMEMBER: these rating cutoffs are hypothetical and not final) will function, I want to make it clear: the two will be carbon copy formats so that the minor (U1900) and major (O1900) tiers are smooth transitions. The goal is to give the minor tier winners an experience like the higher, and hopefully progress in improving skill to become part of the O1900 contenders in the following year. It will in no way allow those who elect to participate in the minor tier to somehow play in the majors. The events will run simultaneously, which may create a conflict of interest for what is broadcast on FAF Live (or other mediums), but it would likely defer to majors. Should there be a break in between, perhaps a showing of a minor league game would be suitable.

Map pools, faction vetoes, and other features of the tourney will remain intact.

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Trainer’s Incentive & Average Joe's Tournaments (seasonal) - kudos to Inspektor-Kot & White_Owl

Forged Alliance Forever used to glorify the training and up and coming players back in its earlier days. To help promote this, I want to give a lot of credit to White Owl and Inspektor Kot for bringing us the “Road To Glory” event ( see here: https://forum.faforever.com/topic/1588/road-to-glory-1v1-1000-1500-ladder-rating-50-prize ).

It reminds me of back in the day when Greenio used to host “Average Joe’s events” and Blodir, Speed2, Exotic did a live stream with commentary:

https://youtu.be/zY1ZxN4snxs?t=6700

So what is the incentive for trainers?

Well, in the case of a trainer that may not be interested in playing the game themselves much anymore, but are happy to help teach, I want to give a prize incentive to them as well:

For the spring, summer, and fall, a “Master and Apprentice Series” will be hosted where trainers can bring a pupil of their choice (either from a “Average Joe” or off the streets of Aeolus/Discord FAF) and commit to training up to 3 individuals

At the end of the seasons, an event will be held with incentive to give a cash prize to the apprentice and the master. The master’s apprentice must place in the top tier of all the participants for them to win a prize. This of course will be scalable based on headcount, and should there not be enough longevity, or the apprentice drops out, one can elect to pick up a new one.

Why focus so much on this style event?

Well, I believe player retention is more difficult because of how complex the game is rather than anything else. To keep the possibility of finding new, top tier talent as high as possible, we should start to produce a track record of how effective training works in the Forged Alliance community. I believe wholeheartedly that if we show new players who are having a tough time there is a proven system in place for bringing those who need help to succeed in place, it will make retention far better than before.

Proposed Format:

Double-Elimination, BO1 for seasonal
Swiss-Style EOTY Event

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TMM-based events

The team matchmaker is still in its infancy, but already it has shown to bring back some players and finally celebrate a ranked “team game” environment where maps are pooled rather than selected.

Already, we have 2 events up and coming thanks to Aurico and KeyBlue (returning player - hooray!):

Aurico’s weekly 2v2:

https://forum.faforever.com/topic/1625/format-discussion-2v2-weekly-showmatch-the-commanders-of-calypso/19

KeyBlue’s Teammate & Me:

https://forum.faforever.com/topic/1692/teammate-and-me-tourney

I pledge 100% to involve TMM more as it develops and create an EOTY event dedicated to celebrating this rating. It will likely precede Legend of the Stars or take place afterwards.

Proposed Format:

Double-Elimination, BO1 for 2 events prior to EOTY
Swiss-Style EOTY Event for top-placing, 4 teams (maybe more)

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Global-Casual Events

History has at hand a number of global-rating casual based events, which I want to get involved with as most of the community is NOT competitive in nature. I want to always offer and promote this, hope it grows in interest and it becomes easier for casual players to participate. This demand will directly drive how many events are hosted a year.

https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=14031

https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=14762

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Special Events

This could be anything from a Supreme Commander: Total Annihilation to “Ahwassa Micro” event. It would have to be up to others to host these, and I would simply support them as best I can to remain focused on 1v1, tmm, global, trainer events.

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And Last but Not Least, Clan Events

It has been over 4 years since a wide-scale clan event was hosted:

https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=14199

The event was never finished due to time conflicts, and what I believe was a length issue. We all want to have an amazing, lengthy event to test clans, but over the years it has proven to be quite cumbersome as almost no one can commit to that many days, weekends in a row.

My suggestion is to do some events throughout the year that are less intense, perhaps a quick “Blitz-like” series of BO1 3v3, maybe 4v4 to build points and define a group of the top 4 (we don’t have many clans that could commit) to play in a more serious event like the one Saske did:

https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=19221

Since clan events have such an issue in the past, I want to be cautiously optimistic in time commitment.

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Tournament Forecast Calendar

This is a big deal, and I want everyone to know that NO, I will not be able to TD everything I wrote above; however, I will commit 100% to the LoTS, EOTY events no matter what.

Because 2021 is half over, I can not alter the qualification point events for the LoTS since that would cause too much a burden in the process.

I am a bit worried about using round-robin for the qualifier events as my 2v2 event that used it had nightmares… A simple BO1/3 or swiss-style will likely be used instead.

March:
13th - Spring Qualifier (Swkoll)
20th - Group Stage (Swkoll)
27th & 28th - Day 1 & 2 of Spring Invitational (Swkoll)

April:
10th - April League Series (Player Council FAF)

June:
6th & -13/6 - June League Series (Player Council FAF)

July:
10th- Summer Qualifier (Swkoll)
17th- Group Stage (Swkoll)
24th & 25th - Day 1 & 2 of Summer Invitational (Swkoll)

August:
14th - U1800 The Boss of this Gym (Player Council + Kot
28th - August League Series (Player Council)

September
18th - Fall Invitational (Swkoll)
25th - Group Stage Invitational (Swkoll)

October:
2nd & 3rd - Day 1 & 2 Fall Invitational (Swkol)
9th - October League Series (Player Council FAF)

November:
6th - Mini LoTS #1 (Player Council FAF)
20th Mini LoTS #2 (Player Council FAF)

December:
11th - Legend of the Stars Group (Player Council FAF)
18th & 19th - Legend of The Stars (Player Council FAF)

The above is subject to change, but as promised in my pledge and application, there are a few 1v1 focused events removed or lessened to make room for others. The total impact should be minimal and provide plenty of fun for the community at all levels.

After reading the comments and discussing with people in private I think it seems quite clear that you can still “cheat” outside of the game using client chat or voice. Since this solution will remove what is supposed to be s a helpful feature, I’m inclined to say this update should be rejected.

Anyone else have a say in the matter?

Penguin, please stop.

FTX and I both likely will not abolish it, will use a better system if it presents, and explain it if it is feasible and accepted. I don't see that happening in the near future.

You and everyone have to remember: we are doing our best with our applications to bring what we believe possible and improve over the next entire year or more. Positions/technology can change, opinions contrast and yield different results over time, etc, etc etc.

This whole act of accusing someone of not being able to change is what makes me worried about you. I would be deathly afraid to say anything if you were a council member and held any previous actions as "rock solid" for eternity. I don't want to be denied the ability to admit guilt, apologize, and move on to improve things.

FTX and I clash on a lot of ideas, but even with the friction encountered in this election I am very certain, win or lose, we will all learn some things together and make the community a better place.

In an effort to help promote and gather feedback for the MapGen feature the Matchmaker team presents:

MapGen Week #2

In this edition, we will be introducing Mapgen 7.5x7.5 and 15x15 as the generator can now make maps in 1.25 km increments. Due to this addition, the pool for ratings brackets go a little more work.

For reference on what kind of maps, biomes, types, weight (chance of being used), etc, please refer to this handy thread filled with plenty of information:

MapGen Week Feedback Thread

A thread will be created at the conclusion of the week in order for players to give feedback to the Matchmaker Team.

Happy Randomoness,

Morax

Evan, forgive me if I should not give detailed feedback here on your replays, but wanted to give you some insight on your first game on the 30th on the map gen:

First and foremost, I think the biggest thing I noticed was that your opponent (Cascade) kept his ACU in base longer, utilizing the build power to get factories up and running. Your raids were good, but they did not do enough damage to cause him to stall on mass nor energy, allowing him to get more units up. At the 2:50 mark of the game:

As stated, your raids were good and took out a good amount of his engineers, but if you zoom out and do a reclaim view (ctrl+shift default, if you did not know) you can see there is 4k+ reclaim on the map in large concentrations. His lone, surviving engineer provided enough income to keep operations smooth. With this, he has 2 land factories + air up while you are working on your 3rd land factory:

On that note, you did not send an engineer to the corner where there is - what appears to be - 5+ factories (~200 each) worth of reclaim or 25+ tanks .

At around 6-7 minutes in your ACU and his have exchanged fire to the point where his has ~3k hp and yours has ~4.6k hp: ALWAYS bully a Cybran ACU, especially as Sera/UEF where you have a big hp advantage. I personally would have sent my army to that side to put pressure on him and possibly end the game there and then.

In addition, you never got any air presence as he kept 1 t1 bomber attacking your air fact, destroying the unit in production. A bit after he sends 2 more bombers and they get dozens of passes without any interruption: keep at least 1 t1 maa back in your base without moving it to prevent this as it certainly was a huge factor in costing the game:

Around 10 mins (not much game after this) you can see that after a major fight Cascade "won the reclaim field" and was able to simply overwhelm you:

So, main lesson for this game in my opinion:

GET THAT RECLAIM

It does not matter if the map is 5x5, 10x10, 15x15, 20x20, etc; the player(s) whom get more reclaim tend to WIN the games. Going forward, especially on map gen, zoom out while teleporting in, and hold ctrl+shift so you can pre-plan how you will go about playing the map.

Hope this helps and adds to your success! If you want me to remove this post let me know.

After discussing with Jagged and Tagada (and some others), my memory got refreshed and remembered not long ago Tokyto, Jagged, and I coordinated to host a tournament with the goal of giving balance testing/evaluation a more fun path rather begging someone to play "fafbeta" mod.

Here is one of the events I helped set up (and sadly did not play whomp whomp): https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=15958

So, in good nature, I would like to propose resurrecting this concept, and possibly make it a standard so the community gets a chance to provide real feedback to the balance team. Their testing and methods are mostly behind closed doors (it is boring and lengthy according to them, not fun to watch) so maybe this will help.

With how infrequent balance updates are, I do not have a problem hosting this at all. If more want to help out - great!

Petric, as balance councilor, what do you say to working together on this? I would think it does 2 things:

1. Cuts down on "der der der I don't get where these UPDATES came from!" posts here in the balance forum
2. Give some unique perspective on testing with a larger group.

Since a large focus of the next update is for SACUs, maybe a 4v4 or 3v3 with ridiculous reclaim maps would make for an interesting focus.

Just trying to help keep the community informed, let me know what you guys think.

Due to ongoing issues with the server, it is unknown when the ladder league functionality will be resumed. Half of the month has already passed and it is likely another week will be required which leaves only 1 week of ladder games to contribute to scores.

Once the API is back up and the server issues stabilized, I will update as to how the next ladder league will run and be scheduled. The tentative idea is to make August a league month and have a ladder league in September.

Apologies to everyone for these unforeseen issues.

I do not even know where to begin. I was really hoping this worked well, but it ended up being GREAT.

A big thanks to everyone for adding this wonderful features, hope I can help out in some way and say "thanks" : D

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FAF Modern Trailer Round 1 Results

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All, after some dicussion with Lenkin, we realized there was a sliggghhhttt miscommunication on some details, so in all likelihood there will be a "second round;" however, given how on-point Javi's trailer was for the current write-up, I am simply awarding him the prize I donated in the sum of $100.

A second round will be more widely displayed via Lenkin's YouTube channel, and possibly FAF live, where the community can interact through viewing and voting. The "round 2" will simply be a gameplay demo, updated version of the original trailer.

I would like to award $50 to Derp for making an absolutely hysterical video. That was top-notch comedy, worthy of mention. We really should have made a prize for "best pure entertainment" or something, perhaps next time.

Finally, as this was an error in my handling of communication, I will be adding another $50 to the round 2 to encourage motivation.

Every video made me want to play the game, and for that I must say "well done" to everyone who submitted a trailer in what is one of the more unique and interesting contests thus far held by the community.

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Trailer Breakdowns

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InitialDesu : https://youtu.be/0mefAO2PC4s

The first 30 or so seconds began with a nice buildup, zoomed in to show some finer details of the units, interesting capabilities, and then BOOM! A nice upbeat transition to the 5 factions chosen to be displayed. I did enjoy the epic battle scenes with "thousands of units," demo of mods, maps, replays, etc. The finale showing the website link was a nice touch, giving a "if you want more, go here" kind of vibe.

What made me want more is the display of the full setting graphics as this video appeared to be using medium settings, fidelity. The aim was to show "modern FAF" versus the old and not demonstrating updated sharers and looks kind of cost a lot of points in my book.

I do believe a quick trim of some other cutscenes might have left a little more time to show a bit more detail as to what the mod vault and updates can do for the game. If I were someone looking on the outside in, this trailer would not give me much insight on exactly why that is important.

Overall, the heavy, electronic music brought an intense vibe that reminds me of heated moments during gameplay.

NmnEPnyM : https://youtu.be/71QOC2c9amk

This trailer, to me, nearly 100% focused on zoomed-in gameplay showing off the epic weapons the game has to offer, which was an amazing first back in 2006 when the game was announced. To this day, it still is one of the defining moments to see an experimental crush units.

Unfortunately, I did not see anything mentioned such as the "zoom-out view," anything about the faction offerings, modifications, updates of any sort. If you go into round 2, I highly recommend grabbing a few more highlights of what makes the game great aside from the mass weapons as this will help make it stand out versus other RTS games.

Javi : https://youtu.be/1HEdFMceFo0

I mean, wow.... the voice actor hiring cost you much? lol. Regardless, I was super impressed with how you summed up a decade+ worth of work in less than 2 minutes. It gave really quick, easy-to-follow updates to the game ranging from strategic icons to new factions, and bonus points for the tribute and love to SC:TA as without TA there would be no FAF.

My only suggestions align fairly well with what archsimkat said: try and use a little more standard icon set as the ones you used are not all that common (at least from what I see in streams). The music is a big issues if it is copyrighted, cannot be used without written permission from the source.

Are you running the game on its maximum graphics settings? Looking in game to what I have verse your video, it seems a bit lower fidelity? Maybe it is just me, but no big deal.

You won this contest hands-down in my opinion.

jadenw & Neytron : https://youtu.be/mxaZ3-a0i_g

Really nice cutscene like clips showing some cool unit functions and battles. At around 45 seconds through 60 seconds there is a nice sum up of some features of the community.

I hate to be blunt but felt this trailer was a little weak as the graphics are ABSOLUTELY on the lower settings. The "epic battles" shown were certainly great but for me seeing the less-than-max possible gfx was a bit underwhelming. This is purely my opinion and you should know it still gave me a "I want to go play the game now!" feeling at the end.

Good luck in round 2 if you choose to continue.

Derp : https://youtu.be/5Mdn-7towfg

I really don't even know where to begin haha. It never occurred to me that someone might go "off the rails" and just create something like this.

Rather sum up my thoughts and analyze it in comparison to the rules, let me say "bravo" for sidelining my thoughts and giving an entertaining piece. This deserves some credit and I hope - although it's not quite as much as my top choice prize - it will motivate you to make more media for the community.

Grievous_Nix : https://youtu.be/pSbpnIbz_cw

It is kind of baffling to me, but I really liked this one. It is unfortunate that, since I do not speak Russian, it was unknown what is being said and why. I thought your cut scene fly-bys were top-notch among the submissions, loved the timing of the "gun fire" going off to the drums of the music.

The only real gripe I have is that the voice overs seemed to really overshadow the other audio in the trailer - it gets very loud. I would recommend blending volumes in a bit better next time so it feels integrated like the the voice between 20 and 30 seconds.

This version of the trailer was certainly using the max fidelity, so the 3-D camera caught the particle effects and lighting quite nicely.

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Wrap-Up

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In my concluding thoughts, I did not really know what to expect when seeing these trailers. It seems it has been quite some time - if ever - that we have had a "video artist" present themselves in FAF. I do hope everyone who submitted a trailer continues to create content and spread awareness of the community.

A really big round of applause for Javi and Derp, and best of luck to the other contestants in round 2!