YouAlwaysWin has just launched its 2nd Zombie Map Making Contest.

This is a Call of Duty Black Ops 3 Zombie Map Making Contest, with over $5000 in Cash and Prizes. We've partnered up with ViewSonic and FNATIC/FNATIC Gear to improve upon our previous contest from 2014.

We learned a lot from the first contest, when we partnered with UGX Mods, and hope that this one will be bigger and better than ever before.

If you're a map maker and would like to participate in the contest, please watch the following video. The link to apply is in the description, so you may need to watch it on YouTube.

IMPORTANT
You need to go into UGX Mod Options and set the Weapon Bob/Sway to "ON" for the map to be playable. This is an known issue with the Mod.

Features:
Limited Pistol Weapons Only
Pack-A-Punch Machine
Elemental Pack-A-Punch Machine
Does NOT require T4M
No Buyable Ending

Credits:
Thanks to UGX for Mods and Tools
Tom_Bmx
WinCat
(Please help with this section as the YouAlwaysWin maps are made by staff, that may be unaware as to where the features came from. If you could PM me details, I would greatly appreciate it and be sure to include in other map posts)


This map was created by staff at YouAlwaysWin. It is part of the Public Collection of maps that will be released here on UGX.

IMPORTANT
You need to go into UGX Mod Options and set the Weapon Bob/Sway to "ON" for the map to be playable. This is an known issue with the Mod.

Features:
Pack-A-Punch Machine
Elemental Pack-A-Punch Machine
Does NOT require T4M
No Buyable Ending
Uses UGX Mod 1.1

Credits:
Thanks to UGX for Mods and Tools
Tom_Bmx
WinCat
(Please help with this section as the YouAlwaysWin maps are made by staff, that may be unaware as to where the features came from. If you could PM me details, I would greatly appreciate it and be sure to include in other map posts)


This map was created by staff at YouAlwaysWin. It is part of the Public Collection of maps that will be released here on UGX.

IMPORTANT
You need to go into UGX Mod Options and set the Weapon Bob/Sway to "ON" for the map to be playable. This is an known issue with the Mod.

Features:
Pack-A-Punch Machine
Elemental Pack-A-Punch Machine
Trap Machine
Does NOT require T4M
No Buyable Ending
Uses UGX Mod 1.1

Credits:
Thanks to UGX for Mods and Tools
Tom_Bmx
WinCat
(Please help with this section as the YouAlwaysWin maps are made by staff, that may be unaware as to where the features came from. If you could PM me details, I would greatly appreciate it and be sure to include in other map posts)


This map was created by staff at YouAlwaysWin. It is part of the Public Collection of maps that will be released here on UGX.

IMPORTANT
You need to go into UGX Mod Options and set the Weapon Bob/Sway to "ON" for the map to be playable. This is an known issue with the Mod.

Features:
Pack-A-Punch Machine
Elemental Pack-A-Punch Machine
Does NOT require T4M
No Buyable Ending
Uses UGX Mod 1.1


Credits:
Thanks to UGX for Mods and Tools
Tom_Bmx
WinCat
(Please help with this section as the YouAlwaysWin maps are made by staff, that may be unaware as to where the features came from. If you could PM me details, I would greatly appreciate it and be sure to include in other map posts)


This map was created by staff at YouAlwaysWin. It is part of the Public Collection of maps that will be released here on UGX.

IMPORTANT
You need to go into UGX Mod Options and set the Weapon Bob/Sway to "ON" for the map to be playable. This is an known issue with the Mod.

Features:
Limited Dual-Wield Weapons Only
Pack-A-Punch Machine
Elemental Pack-A-Punch Machine
Trap Machine
4 Perks Only
Does NOT require T4M
No Buyable Ending
Uses UGX Mod 1.1


Credits:
Thanks to UGX for Mods and Tools
Tom_Bmx
WinCat
(Please help with this section as the YouAlwaysWin maps are made by staff, that may be unaware as to where the features came from. If you could PM me details, I would greatly appreciate it and be sure to include in other map posts)


This map was created by staff at YouAlwaysWin. It is part of the Public Collection of maps that will be released here on UGX.

Hey Everyone,

Hope you're all doing well.

I know that many of you reading this already have your fingers on the keyboard ready to get your hate on, based on what we're doing on YouAlwaysWin, and especially after reading many posts and watching videos of people hating.

It has always been our position that we do not respond to haters, but it appears that there is quite a bit of misunderstanding going on and I really would prefer that it calm down or at least try to explain our side of the story before you form your opinions.

Firstly, we still enjoy playing the maps that this community creates, and always try to remember to provide a link to the map on this website. When we forget to do so, I have asked the staff at UGX to DM me on Twitter so that I can correct the issue immediately. It is never done intentionally to hurt any of you here. 

In terms of the custom maps that we have made for our exclusive use, we have our reasons for not uploading them here and making them available to the public. You need to understand that we have absolutely no problem with ANY of you playing them, but we have hired staff, part of the YAW team, that make them for us. We had to hire them as employees to avoid violating Activision's TOS as you cannot pay a third-party to make maps for you.

That being said, our issue with releasing them was that we didn't feel it was fair for YouTubers to play our maps and make money on something that we spent our OWN money creating. It was never meant to punish our viewers, subs, or other zombie players that just wanted to play the maps for fun.

In addition, we also realized that we lost the point of Custom zombies and focused too much on themed based maps, rather than creating really fun and quality maps, like many of you do here. However, as many of you map makers know, creating a quality map takes a long time, weeks, sometimes months to create.

We wanted to try and bring something fresh and new to our subs every day, which is why there are so many small and low-quality maps. Our map makers simply didn't have enough time to put into creating really good maps. This was our mistake and we accept that. The themes obviously was done to try and stay relevant. We thought they'd be fun, but in actuality were looked at as being click-bait since some of them simply had pictures.

Shortly after we realized that many people were complaining about this,  and we completely understand why, we instructed our map makers to include more features and not simply put pictures in the map.  This helped a bit, but even now, still doesn't seem to be enough. 

We've heard people hate on us by saying "they're only doing this for views". I don't mean to be rude, but that is a very naive and childish mindset. Many people make videos on YouTube for fun or as a hobby, but there are also a huge growing number of YouTubers that make videos for a living or just to earn some extra cash.  I fail to understand why so many people have a problem with this. We are just like you, but were lucky enough to grow a large community and make a full-time career out of it.

This is how I put food in front of my kids and pay my bills.  I'm no millionaire, and never will be, but I love my job and hope to continue making videos for a living into the future. I've had "real" jobs, likely more than the haters running their mouths. Served 3 years reg. force in the Air Force,  and 13 years as a Casualty Claims Specialist working for Insurance Companies and law firms. I've been there, done that, and I can tell you that being a full-time YouTuber takes a huge amount of work.

Despite doing this for over 7 years, I still lose sight of what's important and make mistakes. I acknowledge that we could have done this better, but here we are. Mistakes made, and I'm taking the time to explain and apologize to all of you here. If I didn't give a crap, as some will try to have to believe, I wouldn't have wasted my time writing this post. I hope that you can see that and understand.

Going forward, we have instructed our map makers today to start creating more traditional zombie maps and go away from theme based ones, not completely as we may still do a fun theme-based map once in a while, but we will be doing our best to make more traditional themed maps from now on.

We will also be releasing some of the older maps for all of you to play, which you may not want to since, well, they are box like and don't really offer much. We will however, make the new quality maps available to this community and provide a download link in our videos for the public to enjoy as well.

Again, we are sorry for what has happened and what we have done over the last year. We will be working hard to regain some of your respect in this community. 

Thank you for understanding,

Niels (aka GUNNS4HIRE)

Hey Everyone,

First off, thanks to everyone for making our first Map Contest a huge success, and congratulations again to all the winners.  We received over 18 unique maps that were created in a short period of time, and I know that our viewers thoroughly enjoyed them all.

We are currently considering starting another contest for 2015, with a different theme, and potentially more and bigger prizes. 

The deadline for map submissions would be July 31, 2015, with map coverage on our YouTube channel starting mid-August.  The theme would be Movies (old or new, doesn't matter). This would give map makers about 6 months to create a map, which is more than enough time for new and experienced map makers.

However, before we seriously consider starting this contest, there would be a few rules that would be non-negotiable due to issues we came across with the Christmas Contest. 

Everyone needs to understand that our ability to fund these contests is contingent on our ability to properly record and upload resulting videos on our YouTube channel, YouAlwaysWin.  The decision to post the Christmas maps as a single hour+ long video was a huge waste of their potential exposure and put strain on our work flow. This was only done due to complaints about not getting the maps out before Christmas.

Should we decide to proceed with a New contest, the following rules will be applied and are NON-negotiable. First, videos covering the maps will be uploaded in 20-30 min episodes, which will result in most maps being split into 2-3 videos, uploaded at 1 video per day.  If we received more map submissions than the Christmas contest, that would potentially mean the videos would be uploaded over a period of 2-3 months.

Same rules would apply as before, namely, map makers would not be allowed to release the maps to the public until we have released the video on our channel, which would mean that your map may not be potentially released to the public until November+.

The winners would be announced near the end of the year in order to ensure all maps have been uploaded.

Keep in mind, participation is voluntary and since we are putting our own money $$$ up for the prizes, our rules will be non-negotiable.

At this time, I would like to know if anyone would be interested in participating in a 2015 YouAlwaysWin Map Contest.

I look forward to hearing back from prospective map makers here in the community.

Cheers,

Niels (aka GUNNS4HIRE)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVhwMvJIKIw

---

2014 Zombie Map Contest ★ Call of Duty Zombies

Contest Map Theme

---

The theme for the map contest will be Christmas, which will be perfectly timed for the upcoming holiday season.   

Contest Deadline

---

The contest officially begins on October 11, 2014, and will end on December 6, 2014 at Midnight EST.

How to Participate

---

Those of you interested in participating in the contest should send an email to [email protected], and are required to be signed up on UGX-Mods.com.
Once you have completed the above, you will need to start a WIP (Work in Progress) page in the New Contest Entries Section, so that you can provide both YouAlwayWin and the Zombie community with updates on your map. This topic does not need to have any pictures right away or a complete features list, but try to keep the community updated at least occasionally to the progress of your map without giving away any information you wish to remain secret.

How to Submit Your Map

---

All maps should be uploaded to either MediaFire or MEGA (MediaFire is preferred). The link should then be emailed to YouAlwaysWin, before the deadline (Dec 6, 2014), at [email protected].

General Rules

---

All 9 of these rules must be followed in order to be eligible for prizes:

• All map entries are required to use UGX Mod (v1.0.4)
   - You should use the latest UGX Script Placer v2.0, as it will install UGX Mod v1.0.4 and set up a map for you automatically. It will make backups of all files before overwriting them, but it is still recommended to back up your modtools directory if you want to rest assured. If you know how to install UGX Mod v1.0.4 yourself then you do not need to use this script placer. If you want to install UGX Mod v1.0.4 manually, you can follow the instructions here.
   - Be sure to apply this viewhands fix for UGX Mod so that the viewhands are not ugly.
   - You are free to make any modifications to UGX Mod v1.0.4 that you wish, such as replacing/adding weapons, changing mod settings, adding custom scripts, etc.
   - The reasoning behind this requirement is to focus the contest on the mapping and design rather than weapon porting. If everyone starts with the same mod base then they are on a level playing field, enables mappers without weapon porting skills to have a solid foundation, and allows mappers to spend the majority of their time on other aspects of their map. This is a mapping contest, not a mod contest.
• Your map(s) must be fully functioning, and tested, with no glaring issues or game breaking bugs.
• Maps must be designed using the Christmas Theme described above.
• Maps must be new projects and not a pre-existing WIP, to ensure that the contest is fair.
• Do NOT use custom music, regardless as to whether you believe it to be copyright safe. Any map that automatically plays music, without our ability to turn it off will be disqualified.
• Do NOT make the maps too dark as this is problematic for creating videos on YouTube (i.e. they are hard to see, and look really bad).
• Map downloads must NOT be made available to the public, or any other party, until YouAlwaysWin has played and posted the related video on their YouTube Channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/YouAlwaysWin).
• Any map that is played, with a related video posted on YouTube, or other online video serving platform(s), by any channel before YouAlwaysWin has posted the official map video, will be immediately disqualified from the contest.
• The staff at YouAlwaysWin will be the only judges on map submissions, with any and all decisions being final.  We will, however, be looking at the feedback provided by the YouAlwaysWin YouTube community as part of our judging criteria.

How Maps will be Judged

---

1. There will be 4 categories in which maps will be judged by YouAlwaysWin, with a possible perfect score of 100 pts,
a) Fun Factor (40 pts) - YouAlwaysWin focuses on having fun above all other criteria. If a map is made too difficult (e.g. crazy hard zombies, or super hard to find easter eggs) this may have a detrimental impact on this score.
b) Theme (20 pts) - Your ability to make the map related to the Christmas Theme
c) Creativity and Appearance (25 pts) - How unique and visually appealing your map is.
d) YouTube Influence and Impact (15 pts) - How our audience responded to your map. This will include data that is both public and private (i.e. views, ratings, comments, audience retention, shares, etc...). Note - information other than views, ratings and comments will not be made available outside of YouAlwaysWin Staff.

Recommendations

---

Since we are judging the contest, and it is completely subjective, it is only fair to provide you with some recommendations that may help you create a winning map design.  Note - these are NOT required, but recommended.

• Reduce or Eliminate Fog/Haze (i.e. VolFog and Fog FX settings). We prefer nice clean looking maps, with minimal fog.
• We enjoy maps with soul chests as they provide objectives with cool and useful rewards.
• Don't make doors ridiculously expensive (again, back to the Fun factor).
• You can include Easter Eggs and Buildables, but don't make them incredibly hard to find.
• We LOVE buyable endings, it gives us a goal and a definitive ending to the map.
• We like Zombie Counters, as they help us control the flow of gameplay.
• Lastly, but well-known within our community, is the use of the number 22. Simply for fun, it comes from the 22 at the end of Meatwagon22's online name. In most cases, we end maps after 22 rounds, whether the map has a buyable ending (most of the time by accident/coincidence) or endless waves.

Hope you are all as excited about this contest as we are. We look forward to hearing from all of you interested in participating in the contest.

Cheers,

GUNNS4HIRE and Meatwagon22
YouAlwaysWin

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