I checked the calendar today:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjtIsJkyopekdEpUeW84NlRjYzhlQkptNjdTSjFnb3c

And I see we are supposed to have the next theme decided by the end of April.  That gives us about two weeks, so In figure lets spend 1 week getting suggestions, and 1 week voting.  Theme suggestions and general discussion go here, and in a week or so I'll post a thread exclusively for voting.

Here is the list of suggested themes so far:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uXYx7JuYJbw4ZW66qydh2sQztb8OtxkB28H9Cdc0ZBo/edit

Feel free to add to this or read for ideas.

I added 'Elections', it would be perfect timing for the USA election.  We would be voting on the maps in November.   Elections is general enough it wouldn't have to be about the USA election, so I think would have lots of potential.

I like Lego.  I think it not only has the potential for some great looking graphical designs but it leaves the actual theme pretty open and will give a lot more creative control to the designer.

Are we voting here or just suggesting new themes for the list?

just suggesting. voting usually gets it's own dedicated thread

Ozyman wrote:

in a week or so I'll post a thread exclusively for voting.

Yep, this is just for discussion, to give people a chance to influence the other voters and to keep the voting thread clean.

i still think fantasy or video games would be an interesting one to spruce up some of the available images.

I would love a Alien vs Predator theme, you can have multiple Alien, humans and Predators clans. You can have a battle in a world or inside a blattleship.

SatanicoDr wrote:

I would love a Alien vs Predator theme, you can have multiple Alien, humans and Predators clans. You can have a battle in a world or inside a blattleship.

Anything A v P related instantly gets my vote.  But to broaden it up a bit how about we go with "Xenomorphs" as a genre?

I'm in favor of making the categories as broad as possible.  I think the narrow ones sound interesting, but from a map designers perspective it can be tough to come up with ideas.  For example, I bet if the current competition was 'Children's books' instead of 'Dr. Seuss', a few more people would have come up with maps to make.

How about something like generation wars, or physical age to tip the hat to the breadth of ages hanging around here?

Or cooking or food...

Maybe make it a Feature concept like Factories or Artillary or Capitals or something.  It could get more specific like Concept Related Total Fog like with Salem's Dusk, not just a map with fog added because the designer wanted to do it.  I used fog as an actual design concept with RiskyStar Hordatica on ToS where it was a team game with total fog and no team vision so teammates had to communicate well.
Hey, Team Game would be a a cool concept.  Team only or unbalanced teams or something like that. 

Ozyman wrote:

'Children's books' instead of 'Dr. Seuss',

Good point.

How about "Connection toys" instead of "Lego"?  That would bring in the Mega Blocks faction - but also tinker toys, k'nex, lincoln logs,etc.

On a slightly different note -

I'm thinking the time period with all this is too ambitious.  It takes a while to develop, test, release and play and vote.    Slow it down some?  I would have liked to play the boards a couple more times -

Escher

Amidon37 wrote:  Slow it down some?  I would have liked to play the boards a couple more times

+1

I don't see any reason why we couldn't just add an additional month of 'play and vote' to the calendar for each contest.  We wouldn't even have to change anything else.  Does that seem like a good idea?  Anyone have a problem with that?

I think it's a good idea.  I would definitely like more time for playing the maps.

I also edited the rules:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XYstgt4nHKN9yJDNP2dw25dSz1kVbLlEsxqlIVuzYHM/edit

I added this section:

Boards must be available for play during the entire ‘play and vote’ period on the schedule.  If a board has not yet passed review, this means it is the responsibility of the map maker to make sure that its beta flag is on.  If a board becomes unavailable anytime during the ‘play and vote’ period, voters are no longer required to have played a game on that board to vote.

The way the rules are currently written players have to not only have their board in beta, but also have submitted it to the review board by the deadline.  Is that fair?  No more extensions?  Or should I just make it that players have to have the board in beta by the deadline?

Ozyman wrote:

I don't see any reason why we couldn't just add an additional month of 'play and vote' to the calendar for each contest.  We wouldn't even have to change anything else.  Does that seem like a good idea?  Anyone have a problem with that?

Sounds alright.