I'm (pretty much) done here...

[kamoh]

This is NOT meant as a rip on anyone, especially not DJP, TO, judges, management, whatever. This is just me talking to myself aloud so that all of you can understand where I'm coming from.

I've been thinking a lot about what I do online and where I've come and what I'm doing. At some point in their lives, everyone has to grow up. In my mind, it's always been that OCR is a place for adolescents and young adults, and at some point you just have to leave and grow up...This might be my time. I've been part of this community for 3.5 years now, and it wouldn't have been nearly that long had I not latched onto these competitions and done work in keeping them going. I come to OCR now to check on my tournaments, and that's about it.

I had a busy last semester. Pep Band, increased radio station duties, hanging out with my friends, my large commitment to my girlfriend, schoolwork, working at my job, and playing football on weekends. Add to that the chess, emulation, and fighting tournament standings and I was a fucking rock.

But now, the chess league died. Emulation and Fighting barely get anyone to join, and people aren't playing their matches. It's like I'm the only one making a commitment to this whole subforum, and it's not like I'm not ABLE to do it (of course I have the time for it), I just see NO POINT in continuing to beat a dead horse.

Mew will take back the emulation tournament whenever he elects to, which is either August or September. I will run the current one until it's done and then probably go hands-off in terms of running the thing. I hope this one continues to be fun cause I love Mario Battle, but I hate having to recruit to make a tournament out of it.

Arek has learned how to do the standings for his fighting game tournament, so nobody's really needed me to do anything for a while now.

Chess is dead and those of you in the OCRCL can find competition elsewhere. This may have stemmed from the realignment in January. At least, I'm pretty sure that's where the OCRCL died. Those of you that might say "you changed the rules way too much," look at the Emu and Fighting tournaments. We haven't changed the rules for that since a long time ago, it's mostly the same format, and numbers are still declining.

---

I'm tired of being the only one that's really all that interested in these tournaments. Therefore, I'm done.

[Sir_NutS]

It is a fact that 80% of people who make posts such as these, come back later on.

The other 20% come back as well, but they lurk or use alts.

and yeah, the competitions forums has been sucking lately but eh, it's the only interesting bit about this community for me, so I stay for that good compo that takes place once in a while.

[shpladoink]

who are you

[Broken]

Well, I can't really say that I blame you, Kamoh. I also think summer is just a bad time for emulator tourneys and internet competitions in general. I mean, I'm sure people are busy doing lots of other things during the summer because they have a rare chance to.

Fall is when you can find people online for good periods of time. Although it's never easy to get everyone together.

[Sir_NutS]

oh this is Kamoh? LAWLZ!

[Arek the Absolute]

Unfortunately, when this subforum was made, a lot of competitions lost their main "audience". Only 'hardcore' people even look here, making these harder to run. If this subforum was deleted, things would be different. Alas, c'est la vie.

I feel ya though man, OCRFG is now done as well. Pokemon tourny is now in mew's hands, so we will see how that goes, but with the total lack of interest in these things, I doubt much besides the ones that have been here since forever will live on.

[atmuh]

fac used to be freaking awesome

now that its here it absolutely sucks balls

i get the same 3-5 people entering each month

back when it was gendisc i used to get different people every time

i think the max was around 17 one month

seriously please put it back

making this subforum would be like making a meetup subforum but oh no we cant detract from meetups oh no

[shpladoink]

Kamoh

oh hey sup

[Broken]

oh hey sup

How DARE you fix my beautiful post, sir!

[Escariot]

It is a fact that 80% of people who make posts such as these, come back later on.

The other 20% come back as well, but they lurk or use alts.

and yeah, the competitions forums has been sucking lately but eh, it's the only interesting bit about this community for me, so I stay for that good compo that takes place once in a while.

Waiting for the next damn VOCR over here...

[Culturekoi]

Eh, I know how you feel, kinda. Too bad the FG tournament is dying so young. Still, we at least know people who have roms and stuff, so who says we can't play for fun? Even if the tournament does die (hoping it won't, but seems likely, sadly) we could still keep in contact with other people we played against.

I never knew the forum in a time before tournaments became a subforum, but I'd imagine there was a lot more interest, and it probably should be put back the old way, because it's really killing stuff that could have been a lot of good fun.

Well, if you go, good luck, maybe I'll contact you and we could play a friendly match of Mario Battle or something If you change your mind, awesome. Whatever you do, I hope to see ya around.

[SwordBreaker]

Still waiting for round 3 of the vocal remix competition...

[atmuh]

Still waiting for round 3 of the vocal remix competition...

and you dont do anything to support any of the other compos

you are part of the problem

[Less Ashamed Of Self]

It's Kamoh.

[PassivePretentiousness]

I understand why they throw all the competitions here. I mean, the first page of communism used to be half full of these threads and they cluttered everything up.

Not to mention that djp has expressed lukewarm feelings about them in general.

[atmuh]

this thread has made me seriously think about giving up the fac

and i posted that in the fac thread a few days ago and no one said anything about it so i guess no one really cares

[Necrotic]

this thread has made me seriously think about giving up the fac

and i posted that in the fac thread a few days ago and no one said anything about it so i guess no one really cares

I give a darn, but the only problem is I don't enter anything. I contribute to the problem. I either don't feel like entering (May), haven't had the time (June), or can't physically enter the competition this time around (I'm not going to be at home.) Poor excusesI know. D: Well except June cause of freaking exams.

I apologize for contributing to the problem though. I opened up Photoshop a few days ago to get a start on something, anything, and hope it'll be tangible before FAC's deadline. I even TRIED in June but the work was too rough to actually submit because I didn't have the time (exams). I could even show you privately exactly how crap quality it was Atma.

Maybe we just need to take action. I remember in a FAC thread like last month or something , someone (friendlyHunter I believe) had an elaborate post made out to try and support the competitions board, but everyone was too chicken to do it, even me. In the end I offered but got no response, not even from you Atma, so I just left it alone.

We need to do something because this board just goes away ignored and I think that's the real problem. When we were in the regular board set we got a lot of entries, so what changed other than moving here honestly?

We can sit here complaining in a lonely corner of the interwebs or we can actually TRY and push for some kinda change not to sound ridiculous or anything. But let's face it this place just keeps getting lonelier and the spirit of these competitions is part of what keeps me on OCR. Problem is that I can't feel arsed to contribute 100% to the competitions anymore if the competition is always the same dedicated people and that number keeps getting smaller.

-Nick

[kamoh]

I give a darn, but the only problem is I don't enter anything. I contribute to the problem. I either don't feel like entering (May), haven't had the time (June), or can't physically enter the competition this time around (I'm not going to be at home.) Poor excusesI know. D: Well except June cause of freaking exams.

I apologize for contributing to the problem though. I opened up Photoshop a few days ago to get a start on something, anything, and hope it'll be tangible before FAC's deadline. I even TRIED in June but the work was too rough to actually submit because I didn't have the time (exams). I could even show you privately exactly how crap quality it was Atma.

Maybe we just need to take action. I remember in a FAC thread like last month or something , someone (friendlyHunter I believe) had an elaborate post made out to try and support the competitions board, but everyone was too chicken to do it, even me. In the end I offered but got no response, not even from you Atma, so I just left it alone.

We need to do something because this board just goes away ignored and I think that's the real problem. When we were in the regular board set we got a lot of entries, so what changed other than moving here honestly?

We can sit here complaining in a lonely corner of the interwebs or we can actually TRY and push for some kinda change not to sound ridiculous or anything. But let's face it this place just keeps getting lonelier and the spirit of these competitions is part of what keeps me on OCR. Problem is that I can't feel arsed to contribute 100% to the competitions anymore if the competition is always the same dedicated people and that number keeps getting smaller.

-Nick

Defect to other website shall we?

For the motherland!

*Insert Zangief Here*

[Nutritious]

I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately, trying to figure out how to get more exposure to the differen't comps going on. Since moving them to community isn't an option, maybe we could get a single thread going in Community (sticky or not) that is updated with current competitions going on in the Competitions sub-forum. A comp admin or participant could keep the first post for editing (heck I'd be willing to do it as I've been trying to stay active with the ORC and PRC compos) and others could bump with latest competition info or discussion with links to the related thread in Competitions.

This way we'd at least have some attention in Community without filling it with all the Comp threads.

[Necrotic]

Wouldn't that run into the exact same problem, though? Right now, people aren't checking the competitions subforum because most people would only compete in any certain kind of competition and they wouldn't keep checking if it's not coming. I think a thread would just have it worse.

Not entirely sure I see what you're trying to say here.

Elaborate?

[Nutritious]

Yeah, I'm a little confused by that too. Anyone else want to weigh in on the idea?

[The Coop]

I'm rather surprised this thread is still here, seeing as the first post is the type that usually gets deleted with, "If you're done, then just leave. Don't make a drama thread about it" commentary.

As for the competitions, think about it... some of these things have been going on for quite a while in one form or another. Eventually, people simply get bored with it and move on. Plus, there are quite few of these things, which can easily be seen as driving the whole notion into the ground a bit by having too many going on at once. Perhaps it's time to give the whole competition thing a temporary rest, and let people have a break from it. It happened in UnMod a number of times, with things like the speed run tournament and the occasional score or art tournament. People just got tired of it when it ran for months on end... especially when Summer came around, and folks just wanted to go out and play (whatever that "play" may have entailed).

Now I'm not saying the forum shift didn't play a hand in things by taking the competitions out of the "Community" public eye. It more than likely did. But, I don't believe that's the only culprit for the low attendance.

[Fishy]

People just got tired of it when it ran for months on end... especially when Summer came around, and folks just wanted to go out and play (whatever that "play" may have entailed).

Too much of one thing and you're never gonna kepe the momentum up, Coop speaks the truth.

Thats like expecting everyone to make a "This is whatever month" sig every month. Only a commited few would be bothered. It does make me wonder how the DoD is still going though, althouth that has a huge following.

[Necrotic]

I'm rather surprised this thread is still here, seeing as the first post is the type that usually gets deleted with, "If you're done, then just leave. Don't make a drama thread about it" commentary.

As for the competitions, think about it... some of these things have been going on for quite a while in one form or another. Eventually, people simply get bored with it and move on. Plus, there are quite few of these things, which can easily be seen as driving the whole notion into the ground a bit by having too many going on at once. Perhaps it's time to give the whole competition thing a temporary rest, and let people have a break from it. It happened in UnMod a number of times, with things like the speed run tournament and the occasional score or art tournament. People just got tired of it when it ran for months on end... especially when Summer came around, and folks just wanted to go out and play (whatever that "play" may have entailed).

Now I'm not saying the forum shift didn't play a hand in things by taking the competitions out of the "Community" public eye. It more than likely did. But, I don't believe that's the only culprit for the low attendance.

This helps put things into perspective... It's true: I don't enter my regular competitions like FAC every month (although I still have a serious interest) and I took a break from the fighting game tournament (and am slightly losing interest in that even now). The fact that they run every month is nice but I don't obligate myself to join every month because either I can't or don't want to. In fact sometimes the competitions are outright boring when you're against the same set of people, or the same people win every month. That's why fresh folk are nice to have around here.

I wonder if putting competitions into 2-month or even 3-month cycles would work better? Maybe a 1-month break between competitions would be good, or maybe just randomly starting up competitions at different times. Although, that last one I feel would be best served as a last resort.

You're right, usually we'd be sending kamoh off with a "hey, screw off if you don't like it" but this is something we can all sympathize with, because this section of the forum--these competitions--they're founded upon the hard work we all do to keep them alive. It's a pain in the ass that they've become neglected when some of us put in 100%, or can even be bothered to put in any of our free time whether it's the tiniest bit or not. In the General forum, people seemed to have fun watching the competitions. I remember watching the FAC each month before I started entering my own works. I remember other people who didn't or couldn't contribute talking in the thread (even myself) complimenting people on their hard work, giving them critiques on their works in progress, and things like that. I wish I could keep sharing the joy of active participation with everyone, but being in the Competitions forum makes it hard to share that work when honestly most of what I see in some of these threads is "wow I had no idea this forum even existed" or "oh so this is where the competitions moved to." Contributions for the FAC seriously dropped from like a rock bottom of 10 or more entries a month with a diverse variety of people each month, to the same people contributing 6-8 entries tops. You can just guess when this change started happening.

-Nick

[kamoh]

Too much of one thing and you're never gonna kepe the momentum up, Coop speaks the truth.

Thats like expecting everyone to make a "This is whatever month" sig every month. Only a commited few would be bothered. It does make me wonder how the DoD is still going though, althouth that has a huge following.

DoD has 10 competitions, two of which go for two months instead of the requisite one. Maybe THAT'S what we really need to do - extend the deadlines for July, August, December, and January.

This helps put things into perspective... It's true: I don't enter my regular competitions like FAC every month (although I still have a serious interest) and I took a break from the fighting game tournament (and am slightly losing interest in that even now). The fact that they run every month is nice but I don't obligate myself to join every month because either I can't or don't want to. In fact sometimes the competitions are outright boring when you're against the same set of people, or the same people win every month. That's why fresh folk are nice to have around here.

I wonder if putting competitions into 2-month or even 3-month cycles would work better? Maybe a 1-month break between competitions would be good, or maybe just randomly starting up competitions at different times. Although, that last one I feel would be best served as a last resort.

You're right, usually we'd be sending kamoh off with a "hey, screw off if you don't like it" but this is something we can all sympathize with, because this section of the forum--these competitions--they're founded upon the hard work we all do to keep them alive. It's a pain in the ass that they've become neglected when some of us put in 100%, or can even be bothered to put in any of our free time whether it's the tiniest bit or not. In the General forum, people seemed to have fun watching the competitions. I remember watching the FAC each month before I started entering my own works. I remember other people who didn't or couldn't contribute talking in the thread (even myself) complimenting people on their hard work, giving them critiques on their works in progress, and things like that. I wish I could keep sharing the joy of active participation with everyone, but being in the Competitions forum makes it hard to share that work when honestly most of what I see in some of these threads is "wow I had no idea this forum even existed" or "oh so this is where the competitions moved to." Contributions for the FAC seriously dropped from like a rock bottom of 10 or more entries a month with a diverse variety of people each month, to the same people contributing 6-8 entries tops. You can just guess when this change started happening.

-Nick

I want to remind everyone that the forum was LOOOOOONG time coming. My first reaction WAS what happened - that everything would drop off - but after a while I believed that this separate forum could be a good thing...I was informed of the impending change sometime in September 2005 by GrayLightning. It came a good 16 months later.