My Round 2 Voting Process

[Eric Morton]

This year's Round 2 vote was the smoothest Superstar voting experience I've had in my seven years of following the contest. All told, it took just under thirty minutes to go from first my glance at the maps to knowing the eight that had earned my vote. My process went as follows:

Without reading any judge or voter commentary, I loaded all of the (original 32) maps into a slideshow. I played the slideshow once through to get a feel for all the available choices, then ran it again, deleting a few of the weaker entries as I went. After repeating this process three times, I had eight remaining maps. (When the 33rd map was promoted to the Top 32, I compared it to each of my eight favorites, in turn.)

I don't know that I'll compile any in-depth commentary to post in individual map threads, but here's a stream of consciousness run-through of my entire decision making process, from start to finish:

Spoiler:

First Round of Eliminations

Anthony Pennington - How are these two levels even connected? Delete from slideshow.

Ben Parkin - A hex map that uses a scale incompatible with the hex map exploration rules in the PRD. Delete from slideshow.

Charlie Brooks - Some faint geometric shapes surrounding a giant circle. Delete from slideshow.

Christopher Donnangelo - What do all the color-coded squares mean? Delete from slideshow.

Frankie Trombetta - It's boat, just like every other boat. Delete from slideshow.

Jacob Kellog - A few blocky rooms and hallways. No more, no less. Delete from slideshow.

John Laffan - Not expansive enough to be a settlement map, not detailed enough to be an encounter map. Delete from slideshow.

Maria Smolina - A hex map that uses a scale incompatible with the hex map exploration rules in the PRD. Also, giant mountains obscure too much of the grid. Delete from slideshow.

Mark Hart - A chasm with no geological justification and lots of names of things that aren't visually described anywhere. Delete from slideshow.

Matthew Morris - Wait, is the green water? And is that half of a boat? Delete from slideshow.

Matt Roth - This map might be okay. I don't know. It's too faint to read. Delete from slideshow.

Taylor Hubler - You want me to draw how many obnoxious zig-zags on my battlemat? Yeah, I'm just going to ignore this map and pretend any encounter occurring at this location takes place in a Big Square Room. Delete from slideshow.

Second Round of Eliminations

Christopher Wasko - Where are all these waterfalls coming from? And how does a room-sized whirlpool work, exactly? I'm not entirely sure. Delete from slideshow.

David Higaki - Why is the temple a gray box with some squiggles and some dots? What does that mean? Delete from slideshow.

Jason Keeley - I don't know if that's an accurate portrayal of fish anatomy; either way, your map doesn't really sell me on it. Delete from slideshow.

Justin Riddler - A sarcophagus below the water level in a sewer? And a sewer that opens into a giant antechamber to accommodate a grandiose staircase, because reasons? Delete from slideshow.

Kalvero Oikarinen - Wait, are those white areas inside the mountain or on top of the mountain? And what's up with all those natural caves whose interiors are not shown? Delete from slideshow.

Newton Philis - Is this a map or a plot write-up? A note about the capabilities of a blacksmith has no bearing on the layout of a neighborhood. Delete from slideshow.

Olivier Lalonde - I'll admit it. I just dislike this one because I think the owner of this establishment could find a furniture arrangement that makes better use of the floorspace. (Sorry, but if you're submitting a tavern as your Superstar map, it needs to be a damn good tavern.) Delete from slideshow.

Patrick Kilcullen - What do the red and the green mean? And what are all the non-mountainous, grey areas in this Christmas-colored cavern of doom? Delete from slideshow.

Russ Brown - There seem to be things on the elevation view not appearing on the overhead view, and vice versa. I disbelieve! Delete from slideshow.

Third Round of Eliminations

Scott LaBarge - Two-thirds of the page is devoted to an elevation view and I still don't know how far I fall if I jump from the highest ledge to the second highest ledge. Delete from slideshow.

Benjamin Wilkins - It's a perfectly serviceable map of a monastery where there doesn't seem to be anything interesting going on. Just some routine monastery stuff. Delete from slideshow.

Dana Huber - Why bother with an elevation view if you're going to cram multiple, overlapping levels onto a single overhead map instead of using one overhead map per level, all of them tied together by the elevation view? That's what elevation views are for. Delete from slideshow.

Eight Maps Remain

By process of elimination, my picks for the eight strongest maps are those belonging to Ben Iglauer, Brian Fruzen, Charlie Bell, Chris Scaeffer, Gabriel Almer, Jeff Heikinen, Monica Marlow, and R Pickard.

A New Player Has Entered the Game

Allana Sliwinski - Your map is not detailed enough to unseat any of the eight strongest maps selected above.

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So that's how I assigned my eight votes. What approaches are other voters taking to Round 2?

[Lady Firedove]

Well, so far...
Take a long time to open a map due to slow internet.
Examine that map closely, catching the details, and imagining an adventure there.
Read the comments.
Post some thoughtful feedback to the creator.
Record a vote for it if seems like a Superstar map.
Get interrupted by life, illness, work, a three-year-old, a baby, etc.
Repeat process four times.
Wonder how I'm going to possibly get through 28 more maps in three days.
Read this post by Eric.
Gape at the difference. :)

[Deidre Tiriel]

Open first map (alphabetically)

* look at first map
* read whether the experts recommend or don't
* keep tab open if I like it. If I *really* want to like the location, but the map isn't good enough, pull tab into another window.

Repeat with next map.

End up with 8 tabs open and three windows
* look at the weakest of the tabs and compare to the windows.
* Delete windows, keep the 8 tabs open
* vote for each person, closing the tab as I do.

Done.

I feel kinda bad that I didn't go and read their items like I used to, but at 32 entries, there are just too many to do that. I'll look at the items if I am iffy starting in stage 8 - or maybe 16 to break a tie.