And it's not april fool's day.

I've planned on quitting for some time now and discussed it in the staff forum and with the GOTM police. They all would hate to see me go and convinced me to stay, TF in particular. But I loathe administrating the GOTM now and have lost so much interest in it that I start avoiding this forum. The consequence is I suck as admin (as Cartouche Bee had pointed this out already in a subtle way :rolleyes: ).

The reason of it all is simply the fact that making the results was not enough. After Valeri Kouznetsov was caught cheating (coincidentally by me) some noticed there are a lot more cheaters and the coming of the GOTM police was necessary. That was the point I started getting desinterested. All I want is to make these funny results. And letting the GOTM police check the savegames isn't enough. I suddenly had to coordinate everything.

It's not that it's a very tough job; there are enough people here who can replace me. (The open solicitation has hereby started. :)) But the administration has changed into something radically different than it was at the beginning. An unavoidible and necessary step, but I'm not qualified to do that. I can't coordinate. My qualities are feeling what's fun about the GOTM and making statistics (and a little knowledge about certain software). The last thing has just become easier (because of ainwood's genius mind ;)).

I guess the next GOTM will be without deadline ('until further notice'). I will still make the results of the current GOTM, but after the 2nd of december, no submissions should (and hopefully can) be sent to me.

Finally, there's one person to whom I should apologize and that's Thunderfall. I'm really sorry! But the longer I continue, the more chaotic the GOTM will be. Perhaps later, when things have calmed down, I'll rejoin the club, if you still want me then. But I need some time without responsibilities here.

So that's that.

Matrix,

I for one have really apreciated your efforts. But I understand wanting to quit. If it isn't fun antmore. Its not like we were paying you :D. thanks again and have fun.

Sorry to hear that matrix. Best of luck to you in your future endeavors :)

Matrix,

Thanks for the fun.

I promise to keep on not taking the GOTM seriously in your honour

:crazyeye: :p :D :beer: [party] :mischief:

Matrix,

I'm really sorry to hear you are leaving the GotM as administrator. I really enjoyed all the work and efforts you've put into this competition, and the way the results were presented to the players each month. I can perfectly understand your decision though. :(

Hope you'll still play some GotM's now and then, and that we'll see you in the spoilers threads.:)

Matrix,

You have made a clear point of why you want to resign and I appreciate that as I appreciate your involvement and commitment to GOTM.

Thank you for everything.

I hope you will not leave the forum though. I'd love to hear word from you from now on.

Too bad Matrix,

thanks for everything, and i'll see ya around. Either here in the forums or on the university :D

Gotm is a fun way to get even more fun out of CIV, so thanks for working on it for so long.

Matrix without you, the GOTM wouldnt be the success story it is today. Is there any CIV3 competition that has so many entries. Without GOTM, the tournament would never have got off the ground.

More than anything else, it has opened people's eyes to the talent that the top players have - and more importantly that the average player can learn from them and improve.

Dont ever feel that you havent succeeded. You have done your part and more and now its time for the baton to be passed.

I'd like to record my personal thanks for all that you have done.

Matrix did a truly great job administering the GOTM. I know it's not going to be easy to find someone to do as good a job as him. :(

Excessive cheating is what prompted us to drop the Civ2 MP ladder... I certainly hope the GOTM will not suffer the same fate.

To Matrix: I know the feeling. Living in a world full of religious lunatics and savage humans, sometimes I wish I could build a spaceship and get out of this planet ASAP. However, that's not possible; therefore, I have no choice but stay here for a little longer.:( And while I'm staying, I discover many wonderful people that I'm willing to share my spaceship with, even though it's really hard for me to trust them. As far as I know they could be the wolf hibernating inside the sheep body and one day they may stab me in the back and take my ship. What am I saying? I don't even have a ship.:cry: Anyway, I hope you would stay here for a little longer too, but if you won't change your mind, then I wish you the best of luck on your journey.

This is a great loss for the CivFan community !

Please stay in touch with us Matrix and hope to see you soon in the Forum.

Congrats on a job well done,
:goodjob:

Matrix,
At first I thought this post was a hallucination, brought on by the excessive quantities of turkey and pumpkin pie that are currently in my system. Then I realized that the post was quite genuine. I'm very sorry for your decision, but I completely understand it.
My understanding and enjoyment of Civ3 has been exponentially increased by my involvement with the GOTM, and I'm sure this is true for many others, also. Thank you for your work moderating this forum :goodjob: , and wishing you very happy civving!

Matrix,

Thanx for all the great work. I think you did a great job getting this of the ground. You will be greatly missed.

MPF

Im sorry to hear that. As a relative beginner (and newcomer) I have really learnt alot from the experts and increased my enjoyment of playing Civ 3 hugely. I hope someone else wil take up the challenge!

Phaedria

Thanks for all the compliments. It's heart-warming. ;)

So,

thanks for all. I think we will miss you. :love:

Originally posted by Taé Shala
I think we will miss you. :love:
Don't worry, I'll still hang around. :love:

Sorry to see you retire. :(
Your involvement in both CFC GOTMs has not only drawn me to this place but definitely countless other CFC members. Without the GOTM idea and you in particular CFC wouldn´t have become what it is now. :yeah:

But I more than fully understand your reasoning. I myself had to leave out a few GOTMs because of exams and other pressing matters which left not enough time for this. But when I did have enough time again, I of course noticed the change of the Civ3 GOTM from a fun only competition to a fierce fight. A fight against exploits, cheaters and people who take this far too seriously. I felt no desire anymore to enter a competition with an atmosphere of distrust and where you only could place well in the ranking if you mathematically took apart the game and knew every trick that was still allowed! :rolleyes:

Establishing and administering a whole "police force" for a simple competition would not be my definition of a fun hobby and it looks like it´s not yours either. The ever more time consuming result making and even longer waiting for those result was definitely not in your interest either. :ack:

But if your "job" is not fun anymore, then it´s the absolutely right decision to retire. Especially when the job is not much more than a hobby.
I will miss you, just like you were missed after retiring from the Civ2 GOTM.
:D

Originally posted by Lucky
I felt no desire anymore to enter a competition with an atmosphere of distrust and where you only could place well in the ranking if you mathematically took apart the game and knew every trick that was still allowed! :rolleyes:
That's an interesting thing you say, Lucky. If people try to play the game as good as possible it's inevitable that they'll check every border and, as you say, "take it mathematically apart". But that's something you can't blame people for. I mean, respectible players like SirPleb and Cartouche Bee are/were the rulers in these matters and continuously they find new ways of exploiting the game. But that's simply a quality we lack.

For each exploit we rule out, we actually disallow the finder of the exploit to take advantage of it. I'd almost suggest that these finders should get awarded in GOTM terms. :crazyeye: The reason however that we still rule it out is that eventually everyone will know it and it spoils the rest of the game, making it less fun. So I'm not suggesting we shouldn't rule out anything, but it's still something to keep in the back of your mind.

Cheaters however are completely different kinds of people. They just wanna win and they don't care about the rules. Of course anyone would righteously think now "To what purpose?", and indeed, there is no purpose. That's also the reason why I so stongly believed in the "honour system". But alas, some people do appear to be dumb. [punch] This includes reloading: if you reload the game, whenever, bare in mind what the consequences are, cos if you do it, then you're probably not the only one. (Consequences = results are f*cked up.)

@Matrix

The big question - what is the future of GOTM?

I'll present a successor shortly. :)

In the mean time, I simply go on.

Originally posted by Matrix
That's an interesting thing you say, Lucky. If people try to play the game as good as possible it's inevitable that they'll check every border and, as you say, "take it mathematically apart". But that's something you can't blame people for. I mean, respectible players like SirPleb and Cartouche Bee are/were the rulers in these matters and continuously they find new ways of exploiting the game. But that's simply a quality we lack.Of course, but that was not exactly what I meant. I think I can count myself as one who plays the game checking every border and using every trick. :mischief:
But my point was that most of the discussion in this forum was not about the challenge and the game itself, it was about exploits, pros and cons and things like that.
Since the discussion of the GOTM here is what made it really enjoyable and made you play the game over and over again, this development lowered the fun while posting, replying and discussing here. It seemed that the main point was not the friendly challenge itself, but trying to find exploits, cheaters and creating even more rules. :ack:
And this is what I don´t understand as being fun, maybe others agree as well. As said, it seems that too many people took the GOTM far too seriously, that includes especially the cheaters, who see the need to win a friendly competition by all means, but it also includes those who came up with a new exploit, a new rule and new rants every month. :rolleyes:

During the summer and even before that, it became almost impossible to play the GOTM to the best of your abilities within a reasonable amount of time. The GOTM was created as a competition of skill, strategic abilities and understanding the game mechanics. Maybe it is a problem with Civ3, but it turned into a competition of who had the most time to find the best possible solution to a situation.

Since I´m one of the few to play (or have played) both GOTMs, even all 3 (the Civ1 GOTM), and can therefore compare them, I must say that the Civ3 GOTM is the most fierce of all challenges. Of course you could always learn new things in all GOTMs, but maybe Civ3 isn´t yet finished enough to level out the playing field for all. For Civ2 you could learn more or less all tricks, strategies and tips from reading the posts in the appropriate section. And sharing your ideas with other playes as well as asking questions in the GOTM forum.
In this GOTM on the other hand, many people liked to keep their knowledge to themselves. And more importantly, learning and teaching in the forum was often overruled by new rules, banning of exploits and other things. There is of course more than enough information available, but many interesting posts just went away unnoticed, because of the aforementioned type of discussion that drew most of the attention. I have only very rarely seen threads and posts where a newer and/or not top class player asked a few question and top players answered and gave advice. As one of the top players, I have to include myself in that, I haven´t spent nearly enough time in this forum, though.

Unlike other competitions, especially the Civ2 GOTM, this here never felt like having a community of fanatics playing a game they love. More like a gathering of individuals.

But as a conclusion let me say again, I am not blaming anyone (except the cheaters). It was a development into the wrong direction by all players.
So as Matrix said, the most important thing to keep in mind and maybe the solution to get him back is:
Remember that this is a FRIENDLY competition, with an honor system and a FEW rules, where everyone can start the game from a LEVEL playing field, play to the best of his abilities and thus get rewarded for his achievement at the end of the month.
:D

Originally posted by Lucky
But my point was that most of the discussion in this forum was not about the challenge and the game itself, it was about exploits, pros and cons and things like that.

That is why many of us never play for points, or even play to achieve an arbitrary Victory condition. Building a vibrant Civilization in a dangerous world has always been the goal -- and as a challenge, to be able to build that Civilization as an honorable and multi-ethnic society. As said the Queen of Thebes, "Let the Persians have their Persian culture."

Thanks for the memories, Matrix.

http://www.zachriel.com/gotm8/bismark.jpg
Zachriel
http://www.zachriel.com/gotm.asp

People aren't allowed to start threads on their games unless they put up a website. So the only thing left after the spoiler thread are exploit discussions. :p

I only found the GOTM this month but I really enjoyed it. Thanks Matrix! :goodjob:

Bye Matrix! (Oh, and I find your new avatar hilarious! :lol: ;))

CG

Good luck Matrix in whatever you plan to do. Stay with CFC!

-Side note- GOTM 13 spoiler thread. 160 posts, 4000 views.
New History Quiz thread (in World History forums) - 250 posts, ~2500 views.

Talk about cheating.

I am not a GOTM veteran, and I only managed to play it two or three times.

However, I must say that this is the one thing that drew me to Civfanatics where I discovered a new world.

I also found that Matrix' way of administering the forum was very balanced and very friendly.

For all this, I would like to add my 'thank you' to all the ones I have read in this thread.

And thanks for all the fish!!!

Seriously, I appreciate the hard work and effort that you put into the gotm. It really was fun to play them.

Thanks again,

John J

Matrix,

Having had your job before in another life, I send a big thanks for all the time and effort you put into this endeavour.

I wish you well in any new undertaking you choose.

Deny (denyd)

Matrix, I add my thanks to the others in this thread. Thanks especially for the gentle guidance you gave in my early days online here. You gave the encouragement I needed to get involved and to write, and helped me to find a style which I found greatly enjoyable in the spoilers thread (my favorite part of GOTM.) Thank you!