Since October, I've been hosting mapoffs (Similar to mapping challenges) on the unofficial discord for ogf. After some discussion with admin and other users, it was decided that the mapoff would be used in order to reboot the Geolympics. As such, this is being posted here so that all users are able to see it.
The July 2021 Mapoff is The Geolympics.
Based on some recent discussions, among others arising from the orphaned state of the wiki in this regard, we are reviving the "Geolympics".
The idea is to have a more or less consistent list of cities which held the games. Obviously backed by a reasonable amount of mapping. For that reason this edition of the map-off will be geolympics-themed. It couldn't be easier: Map a geolympic venue. Summer or Winter games, both count. (If anyone has a shrewd idea about spring or fall games, let us know. Maybe a 1000sqft raking contest?)
Just check the RW games from the time you plan to map and see what infrastructure is needed. Usually a big stadium as the centerpiece, a village for the athletes and some more locations for other sports, like tennis courts, water venues, ski jumps, alpine pistes, etc. You also need some public and private transport infrastructure. This is further detailed down in the rest of the wiki page. Your entry does not need to be completely new, as there's no good reason to exclude good mapping from becoming canon. We have not yet finally decided how to deal with the existing ones, but I think we can agree that a bit of incentive to improve it a bit more is never a bad idea. This means that if you submitted an entry under the old bid system that isn't listed on the bottom of the page, go ahead and re-visit it, spruce it up, and enter it in this contest!
If you're a small country, which would normally be a barrier to hosting the geolympics, it may still be possible for you to enter. We assume that there's a fund that helps pay for Geolympics in smaller countries, but, of course, this only goes so far, so while some small nations could host (Qennes, Cabelia, etc) some nations will be too small (Iscu, Niscavo, Kotel, etc), and some nations may be too unstable (Bromley, Antigo, etc). If you're in a large collaborative like the FSA or Ardencia, there's no special procedure for entries. It's "every territory for itself". ⠀ In the end, the entries will be voted on. First, a committee will eliminate any entries that do not meet the criteria for a good venue. Then, the community will get to vote on what they consider to be the top three entries, in order to determine the best. The top three winners then get the right to pick their preferred year. The rest of the approved entries will be assigned a year, taking into account their preference. More detail will be provided when it comes time to vote. BUT: Now it gets fancy. Making up arbitrary lore is boring. We already have some and also need some more constraints. One of them are the winter games, which need to be on certain latitudes, North or South. That leads to the February or August time slot. Leaving the other slot for the Summer games. And that on the other land leads to the hemisphere of the Summer games to be determined already. (This is all based on the plan to hold the games every 4 years, summer and winter in the same year, but not at the very same time.) Also we would like to try to have a bit rotation through the continents. But we'll see that once we see how many participants are there anyway.
Something to think about is the year you want to have your city host the Geolympics in. Not every entry can be in the 21st century, so why not give mapping an older geolympics a try? There's still a lot of stuff to map, and you get to figure out how the city incorporated the infrastructure into itself after the games, which presents a whole new range of options to work with that aren't the same old stadiums and venues. ⠀ Feel free to criticize any of these ideas, we are open to well thought ideas and also happy if you report any flaw in our plans. But also accept that at the end we must decide for a set of rules and it's not guaranteed to make everybody happy.
As a side note, could someone come up with a new name for this thing? It sounds to close to the original for us. Also, if anyone has a revolutionary idea for the flag, please don't be shy.
Please read https://wiki.opengeofiction.net/wiki/index.php/OGF:Geolympiad_bids in order to make sure that you include everything that is needed for a realistic Geolympics.
The mapoff ends August 8th. Get mapping!
- The OGF Geolympic Committee (TheMayor, Toadwart, Lithium-Ion, and wangi)