A formula to save the community

[Mark L. Rivers]

I thought a lot about what could be done in order to keep alive what has been built in the past. And I want to express my thoughts. I will use a quite high number of words, but, even if I hope you will read until the end, what I have to say can be summary in this way: STOP YEARLY CONTEST; ONLY EVENTS.

As Zak clearly said, one of the main problems of our days is the lack of time. This can be one of the causes about the decreasing passion showed in the races. I try to explain better this concept.

The passion and the desire to race can go on only when there's a sane challenge, when we can measure each other, exulting for a fantastic replay and result. Our or from our opponents. Sure all this can be amplified when we all compete in a championship, where the challenge goes on for a whole year, where drivers can alternate in the podium and bad results can be reversed thanks to the next races.
But the engagement in a yearly contest demands a huge amount of time. And when a driver realizes that he won't be able to aim to the final win, maybe he will decide non to put himself since the first race. And even who will start a championship with high motivation, maybe will decide afterward not to maintain high his efforts when he will understand that he's by now too distant from the vertex to aim at the final win.

When I link this situation (generated by the lack of time) with the concept I expressed previously in other topics about the lack of passion, I think it's natural going towards a slow decline. No engagements in the races, no challenges, no talking about respective results and poor scoreboard mean decreasing passion. And all this leads the community to survive only speaking about other arguments, often not very meaningful. And, as Zak said, after many years and due to be part of an online community (instead of a no-online community) unavoidably the links among members become more and more fragile. But the things would be really different if there would be the passion for the races and for the challenge.

So, my formula to keep alive the community, better, to revive the community, passes through stopping yearly contest (even ZakStunts) creating instead events that can catalyze the attention of the members, concentrating, maybe in a month, all their passion and their desire to race, with results you can image.

Maybe there could be 4 ZakStunts' races in a year (one for season) or even less. In adding, there could be other events like ISM or SCST. Sure it would be great (not only to enact my won related to the 2007...) that special events came from Kalpen too.

Beside all this, forum could goes on in the same way it goes on now. After all, in the forum about the 95% of the words are related to something different than the races.

The only (apparent) negative side of this way, could be that more difficulty we will have newbie. But, frankly, it appears quite a lost battle attracting the new generations usually habituated to play with HD consoles and games light-years far from what Stunts is.

Anyway, my thoughts is that Stunts community have not to count on next young generations to keep itself live. The only true and costant "newbies" this community can attract, newbies which can stay here more than some months, are the old generations, who was a teen-ager in the eighties or nineties, who can feel the taste to retrieve the old toy he enjoyed a lot when he still was a "boy", who was a real passionate Stunts drivers. A person like me, for example who joined in 2006 when I was 37 years old. Or a person like AbuRaf70, with the sane desire to maintain alive the children inside him.

I really think that this community has to keep alive by his historical members, even who joined in last 4 years, members who showed to maintain unaltered his own passion through the years. Maybe only like a chess park club (as Zak said), where old men go there only in specific moments of the years to give life to a positive and galvanic events that make them satisfied and renew the passion through intense good feelings.
Yes, instead to drag on a complex machine as a yearly contest is, consuming and spreading day by day our passion, I think it's really better waiting for 3 or 4 months, with growing expectation, an event that can join all in a very intense short period, a period where we can really revive the intense emotions felt in the past, an injection of adrenaline that can makes satisfied and leading the community until the next event with new pleasant expectation.

Indeed, looking at the future, I don't see other way in order not to lose what has been built until here.

[Duplode]

Some commentary on Mark's ideas (1. to 6.), and also about plans for the future in general (7. to 9.):
(Long post ahead! The paragraphs are more or less independent, though, so it is not hard to skim through it.)

1. While I'm not entirely convinced that there is no room for an yearly contest any more, it is pretty clear that two successful yearly contests running at the same time is not really feasible (see post-2008 USC, Copa Stunts, etc.). Therefore, it is highly pertinent to think about shorter events anyway.

2. The argument about the intensity of racing in an yearly contest is supported by what we have seen during the last few seasons of ZakStunts. In addition to what Mark has said about drivers realizing from the start they won't be able to complete the season, I would also mention how we tend to have no more than two or three pipsqueaks racing consistently through the whole season over the last few years, and also note how there never seems to be a "final showdown", a race where the final standings are settled once and for all - a season climax, if you prefer (the "only best 10 results count" rule, which in itself is a consequence of the season length, also contributes to that).

3. Given the above, there is a fair chance that shorter events could bring more exciting racing, as long as they have enough pipsqueaks involved (which brings us back to 1., the question now being whether, at the current climate, it is possible at all to have two successful contests running at the same time).

4. I am not so sure, however, if it is a good idea to have waiting periods without any active competitions. Sure, it may build up expectations in some, but may also contribute to people (potential newbies and veterans alike) forgetting entirely about the community until it's too late (case in point: early 2011 ZakStunts).

5. Speaking of newbies, I would agree that, at this day and age, it is difficult to bring in completely new pipsqueaks, and that it only tends to get harder. Only a big publicity coup (getting mentioned in some "big" website??) might reverse that trend (I once had some hopes about ample promotion of new cars and other mods as a strategy, but it seems only people who knew Stunts in first place would care anyway).

6. Mark was referring mostly to pipsqueaks lacking time on his post. I would like to, in addition, draw attention to the managerial side of the problem. Maintaining a contest with near-daily involvement so to make the whole experience really interesting is a lot of work (Zak can certainly say one thing or two about that!). Not having to keep such intense involvement all through the year can ease things quite a bit; and so we have another advantage of shorter competitions. Furthermore, it is more comfortable to plan the details of a competition that will start several months ahead than one which needs to be kept running constantly.

7. All things considered, I have a (still prospective) vision of what The Stunts Season (note the singular!) could become in the following years. Think of the Grand Slam in tennis: four tournaments held at different points of the year, with different rules and equal importance. We could have, for the sake of example, SDR, Kalpen, SCST and ZakStunts; and then each would take three months of the year, or alternatively two months, thus leaving a one month break between each contest. Alternatively, ZakStunts (or some other competition) might have conventional yearly seasons, being held in parallel with the "Grand Slam" (I'm unsure on whether that would defeat the whole point of the scheme, however. See 1. and 3. for the sources of my indecision).

8. Having shorter contests running in different parts of the year and synchronized by a common schedule could bring forth many of the advantages referred to above (see 2. and 6.). In addition, I can see another big potential gain: it would make it easier for managers to help each other, both in case of emergencies (unplanned trips during a key part of a race, and so on) as well for providing extra goodies (punditry, race analysis, etc.), and thus making more effective use of our (sadly limited) available time.

9. Since 7. and 8. point at the direction of tighter integration between contests, the long-dreamed overhaul of the Stunts Portal becomes again a pertinent topic. In the context of a "Grand Slam" of contests, the Portal could be very useful as a) a site that remains active the whole year, with an aggregated news feed; b) a common landing point for other Stunts pages, including whichever competition happens to be active at the moment and c) a point for interaction with social networks (on that subject, Oscar and JTK raised some interesting points in the other thread). In keeping with the cooperation spirit alluded to in 8., maintenance of the Portal should be shared between at least two of the managers. Fully merging all the contest pages in a single site would be another option; though I believe the managers (myself included!) are a bit too conservative and jealous about their sites for that to happen.  

[zaqrack]

7. All things considered, I have a (still prospective) vision of what The Stunts Season (note the singular!) could become in the following years. Think of the Grand Slam in tennis: four tournaments held at different points of the year, with different rules and equal importance. We could have, for the sake of example, SDR, Kalpen, SCST and ZakStunts; and then each would take three months of the year, or alternatively two months, thus leaving a one month break between each contest. Alternatively, ZakStunts (or some other competition) might have conventional yearly seasons, being held in parallel with the "Grand Slam" (I'm unsure on whether that would defeat the whole point of the scheme. See 1. and 3. for the sources of my indecision).

8. Having shorter contests running in different parts of the year and synchronized by a common schedule could bring forth many of the advantages referred to above (see 2. and 6.). In addition, I can see another big potential gain: it would make it easier for managers to help each other, both in case of emergencies (unplanned trips during a key part of a race, and so on) as well for providing extra goodies (punditry, race analysis, etc.), and thus making more effective use of our (sadly limited) available time.

9. Since 7. and 8. point at the direction of tighter integration between contests, the long-dreamed overhaul of the Stunts Portal becomes again a pertinent topic. In the context of a "Grand Slam" of contests, the Portal could be very useful as a) a site that remains active the whole year, with an aggregated news feed; b) a common landing point for other Stunts pages, including whichever competition happens to be active at the moment and c) a point for interaction with social networks (on that subject, Oscar and JTK raised some interesting points in the other thread). In keeping with the cooperation spirit alluded to in 8., maintenance of the Portal should be shared between at least two of the managers. Fully merging all the contest pages in a single site would be another option; though I believe the managers (myself included!) are a bit too conservative and jealous about their sites for that to happen.  

This is in line with my thoughts after reading Mark's post, and I agree with the approach. Instead of complaining about it, we should utilize the relatively small size and good integrity of the community should spend the rest of 2011 to define 4-6 main "events" for next year, each with unique rule characteristics and synchronize their schedule to avoid overlaps. I am fine with abandoning ZakStunts as a one-track-per-month competition and turn it into an event - held once/twice per year, lasting two months each time.
If there is a full-season competition, I see 4dsl as a good candidate for that, knowing Alan's approach and motivation towards competition management it is guaranteed to have success. It could serve as it did before - an entry for newbies to enter the community.

Members of the Stunts Season could have an official worldranklist (like Bonzai Joe's), with each league's results taken into account with equal importance. This way the most active pipsqueaks also have a goal to reach, while those with less time can focus on one or a few events with rules to their liking. stunts.hu.

If all current/past competition managers agree, we could take this to the next step and start planning. I would say 2 months per event, and have 5 or 6 events per year. This would guarantee versatility, and racing hard for 3 months may be already too much for some of us.
If we manage to have enough competitions, I volunteer to code and prepare the central portal at stunts.hu after we have defined the required details - but all competition managers should be admins here, posting news and uploading final results through a designated interface.
Of course if anyone needs web space, stunts.hu subdomains can be created with PHP/SQL support, but I would prefer keeping the unique charateristics of each competition site.

We already have a huge selection of possible competitions. a possible mix could be (competition-manager-rules)
ISM - Mark - Classic cup, fast cars (should be open to all pipsqueaks instead of an invitational basis)
SCST - Duplode - free OWOOT
IRC - Mingva??? - strict OWOOT
ZakStunts Classic - Zak - free choice, shortcuts
Kalpen's - JTK?Akoss? - classic Indy-only / BB1.0 contest, shortcuts
Slot 6: WRC/ZS2007/?? - Krys/Zak/anyone else - unusual ruleset, or noRH competition

There is one problem with this - it leaves other competition manager excluded and not able to join the 'club' until the end of season. Given we have still 6 months to prepare and the community is 'closed' I don't think this would be an issue.

One more thing: this idea more or less relates to what Krys had in mind with Stunts Career. He could not do it alone - but I believe we can do this together.

Mark, Duplode, Alan - as the main pillars, if you all agree, lets summarize our ideas shortly and approach competition managers from the past whether they are interested in joining this movement. In the worst case we can have 4 competitions per year and one month break between all.
This already sounds like a lot of fun

[Chulk]

I got really excited about all this just reading and picturing it. I'd propose 5 2-month events, all with different rules. Another month to race a weekly Round Robin with top 4 all-around either time based or point based (This would bring back the feeling of decisive races at the en of THE SEASON), something like Masters Cup (I just realized ATP system probably inspired this) and the remaining month can be left free in holidays time (or whenever people has less time to race/manage)
Say...

Jan-Feb: Everything's allowed, penalty time added to lap time.
Mar-Apr: NoRH competition (I can watch videos and replays but sadly I haven't got enough time to manage a site + I have no idea of php whatsoever)
May-Jun: Owoot competition
Jul-Aug: Special rules
Sep-Oct: (Add different ruleset here) Ideas: No bugs allowed?/Insane tracks?/Classic tracks?/Contest car?
November: Round Robin
December: Break

I'm really sorry I cannot offer more than racing, checking replays and enthusiasm, I wish I could be more helpful.

[alanrotoi]

4dsL is focused for beginner players only, like always. Easy tracks + INDY. That's the way to begin. I always porposed to the pipsqueaks to join Zak's stunts as the "world cup" of the stunts competitions

Zak's is only for pros, that's the way it is. So there must be a competition for newbies/newcommers/beginners/old "amateur" pipsqueaks. Also it must have a big advertising all the time, using the newest tools like Facebook for example.

PS: When I say "Zak's is only for pros" I mean when two or three good pipsqueaks are racing with very good replays it always demotivates the beginner pipsqueaks. That's why I separated 4dsL in two scoreboards, Iberoamerica (America+Spain+Portugal) and rest of the world because in the rest of the world were a lot of very good players that could demotivate people with their replays. I'm sorry about that because I partialy left aside most of you but look at the results: 58 pipsqueaks from 12 different countries in the inagurational first race! And it was only 15 days long. Advertising is the key.
This time in 4dsL 2011 I won't use this system. I will separate Beginners and Pro or veteran or old pipsqueaks. That's why I never raced seriously in 4dsL.

4dsL is only the joining of the community to finally show them the main and best Stunts competition ever: Zakstunts.

[zaqrack]

4dsL is only the joining of the community to finally show them the main and best Stunts competition ever: Zakstunts.

Thanks for the praise. Lets replace ZakStunts in this sentence to the Worldwide Stunts League (or whatever it will be called) in 2012!

[Mark L. Rivers]

Members of the Stunts Season could have an official worldranklist (like Bonzai Joe's), with each league's results taken into account with equal importance. This way the most active pipsqueaks also have a goal to reach, while those with less time can focus on one or a few events with rules to their liking. stunts.hu.

I also had thought this, I sure find it an important element to boost a constant engagement. 

We already have a huge selection of possible competitions. a possible mix could be (competition-manager-rules)
ISM - Mark - Classic cup, fast cars (should be open to all pipsqueaks instead of an invitational basis)

Well, about this...
ISM born beside SWR (Stunts World Ranking) to become something as Doha's Master is for ATP/WTA circuits in tennis world. This is the main reason because the number of participants was limited to the best Stunts driver of the moment (or of the year). But it's not the unique reason. Due to manage all manually, I simply can't manage a contest with more than a precise number of drivers (6-10).
So, in this moment, I can't image ISM as a completely free open contest (moreover I should change the name!  ). Anyway, according with the creation of a Stunts world rank, the idea of a contest placed at the end of the year able to gather the drivers who obtained the best results during the whole season just finished, could be another incentive to be constant over the year.
If this should be, if ISM will maintain is formula, you can be sure that I won't direct the things in this way to make more charming ISM rather than other ones. ZakStunts is and will be unquestionably the most prestigious and representative contest forever.

[zaqrack]

We already have a huge selection of possible competitions. a possible mix could be (competition-manager-rules)
ISM - Mark - Classic cup, fast cars (should be open to all pipsqueaks instead of an invitational basis)

Well, about this...
ISM born beside SWR (Stunts World Ranking) to become something as Doha's Master is for ATP/WTA circuits in tennis world. This is the main reason because the number of participants was limited to the best Stunts driver of the moment (or of the year). But it's not the unique reason. Due to manage all manually, I simply can't manage a contest with more than a precise number of drivers (6-10).
So, in this moment, I can't image ISM as a completely free open contest (moreover I should change the name!  ). Anyway, according with the creation of a Stunts world rank, the idea of a contest placed at the end of the year able to gather the drivers who obtained the best results during the whole season just finished, could be another incentive to be constant over the year.
If this should be, if ISM will maintain is formula, you can be sure that I won't direct the things in this way to make more charming ISM rather than other ones. ZakStunts is and will be unquestionably the most prestigious and representative contest forever.

In this case I suggest to close the season in October and have ISM on an invitational basis in Nov-Dec. Those who are not invited can compete in a parallel event directed for newbies (a direct-duel cup for example, or a special rule competition where you need to do certain tricks to gain points) or take some rest. From January the new season begins.

[Chulk]

We already have a huge selection of possible competitions. a possible mix could be (competition-manager-rules)
ISM - Mark - Classic cup, fast cars (should be open to all pipsqueaks instead of an invitational basis)

Well, about this...
ISM born beside SWR (Stunts World Ranking) to become something as Doha's Master is for ATP/WTA circuits in tennis world. This is the main reason because the number of participants was limited to the best Stunts driver of the moment (or of the year). But it's not the unique reason. Due to manage all manually, I simply can't manage a contest with more than a precise number of drivers (6-10).
So, in this moment, I can't image ISM as a completely free open contest (moreover I should change the name!  ). Anyway, according with the creation of a Stunts world rank, the idea of a contest placed at the end of the year able to gather the drivers who obtained the best results during the whole season just finished, could be another incentive to be constant over the year.
If this should be, if ISM will maintain is formula, you can be sure that I won't direct the things in this way to make more charming ISM rather than other ones. ZakStunts is and will be unquestionably the most prestigious and representative contest forever.

In this case I suggest to close the season in October and have ISM on an invitational basis in Nov-Dec. Those who are not invited can compete in a parallel event directed for newbies (a direct-duel cup for example, or a special rule competition where you need to do certain tricks to gain points) or take some rest. From January the new season begins.

ISM (or whatever name it will be) looks good to close the season though I must admit I really wanted Mark o Krys to host a NoRH comp. Guess all of my hopes rely on Krys now.

Is it just me or enthusiasm is floating over here and there?

[alanrotoi]

Yeah, it's because we want this community alive. We know there are more pipsqueaks out there waiting to know they are

[Gutix]

Is it just me or enthusiasm is floating over here and there?

I feel the same. Its here, there and everywhere!

[alanrotoi]

Because Stunts is alive, Skid is here, Bernie there, the beauty of Helen, the noob of Cherry, The glasses of Joe and the moustache of Herr Otto. We all have the spirit intact! Golden Age? Ok let's create the Platinum Age starting in 2011!


edit: By the way, Anelio Aburaf is still older then Otto :O. Herr Partz was 52 in 1990 so he's 72 right now 

[Duplode]

Well, about this...
ISM born beside SWR (Stunts World Ranking) to become something as Doha's Master is for ATP/WTA circuits in tennis world. This is the main reason because the number of participants was limited to the best Stunts driver of the moment (or of the year). But it's not the unique reason. Due to manage all manually, I simply can't manage a contest with more than a precise number of drivers (6-10).

Another way of looking at this issue is considering whether there is anything that can be done to reduce our workload as managers somewhat. In particular, right now I am thinking about replay submission (and maybe partial validation too). That is closely related to what Oscar pointed out in another thread:

I think it would be good to create a centralized system of competitions, so you can register and upload replays from the same site, and have all the information together and to obtain statistics. I can create widgets to your pages and so will show the information.

Naturally there are many important issues related to that other than making day-to-day management easier - for instance, reaching a satisfactory compromise between unified presentation of competitions under "The Stunts Season" umbrella and the preservation of the identity and peculiarities of each contest. In any case, it will be useful if we managers bring into discussion what we would (or wouldn't!) want from an unified management framework for the contests.

There is one problem with this - it leaves other competition manager excluded and not able to join the 'club' until the end of season. Given we have still 6 months to prepare and the community is 'closed' I don't think this would be an issue.

We need not worry with that IMHO... other people would be free to start their contests, and we even could give them promotion through the portal and similar means. The only thing they wouldn't have (at least initially) is "official" support, which would be unavoidable anyway given that available time and (our) resources are finite.

Oh, by the way: 4dsL would fit perfectly as a "feeder" competition parallel to "The Season". Also, I can picture other competitions might eventually take a similar role for the Stunts community in parts of the world other than Latin America.

[Akoss Poo a.k.a. Zorromeister]

When it's powergear possibility + Indy car, and the curves are not banked, in my opinion we can't rate a track as an easy one. There were very nice tracks by Alan in 2003-04 at 4dsl Stunts, I entered 3 times, 2 of my entrances ended in a track victory (Phatt and Tirith, as far as I remember). I was fond of that tracks very much. If the competition is open again, and Alan still has the ability of designing tracks like the old ones, rules are the same, it's quite possible that I'll enter again. Waiting for it.

P.S.: anyone knows why I can't push more than two buttons in Windows XP when driving Stunts? Ideas for fixing this problem? At a curve, when steering ahead+left/right, it's not available to perform a transmission. Btw that was a problem why I abandoned racing after coming back some years ago.

[alanrotoi]

There will be 6 tracks this season, 3 made by Gutix and 3 by me.