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!
Comment from zhenkang on 1 July 2021 at 13:23
Xiongjing will be interested to file a Geolympiad bid for the 1980s, hopefully specifically 1988.
Also on the name, actually we should have decided on a new name on it before we start mapping. It has an impact on how we name the various stadiums and venues of the games.
I think the logo isnt bad and seemed fine.
Comment from Leowezy on 2 July 2021 at 12:41
I think a summer Geolympiad sometime in the second half of the 20th century would be quite realistic for Pyingshum, and I feel confident I can come up with a befitting range of amenities and developments. However, I’d need to know the rough time slot first before I start mapping; this would have a large impact on the type and location of the facilities. My first preference would be 1984 or 1992, which are still available as far as I see. Would it be ok if I temporarily reserve, say, 1984, map the facilities accordingly, and in case it is decided to not include Pyingshum in the canon the spot becomes available again? I just want to avoid that too many people are preparing entries for this time period, and in the end one has to adapt the mapping to a different area than originally intended.
Comment from Sarepava on 3 July 2021 at 08:26
I plan to have Karolia host the games some time in 1980-90s - perhaps either 1984 or 1992, but 1978 also fine. It’s an ideal country as we have a temperate climate, plenty of coastline for sailing, a scenic marathon route and mountains for the winter sports. The main complex will be on former industrial land in Santjana, with the main athletics stadium now used by a football club, and the nearby lagoon used for swimming and rowing, national tennis club for raquet sports, and venues elsewhere for mountain biking, road cycling, and paddle boat events.
Comment from Lithium-Ion on 3 July 2021 at 11:26
@Leowezy The committee will take into account your planned year - with luck, everyone should get the year they want, or at least one close to it.
@Sarepava That sounds great! Just a note, different countries are meant to host the winter and summer games in any given year, so in 1996 Gobras City has the summer games, and maybe Arion has the winter games. I suppose it would be possible for one country to host both, but we want as many spots available as possible.
Comment from Sarepava on 4 July 2021 at 10:19
Yes, I wondered if that might be the case. Karolia would be a suitable winter games host but I’d prefer to do the summer games. Maybe for a future year.
Already started on some graphics etc - enjoyable exercise coming up with a retro style.
Comment from zhenkang on 8 July 2021 at 05:00
Btw, through discussions with other OGF users, I would like to share a proposed change to the Geolympiad name to GeoAthletics, or GeoGames for short. According to TheMayor, GEO stands for Great Eastern Organised Games. The name might future-proof us if the Western Hemisphere ever opens up.
Comment from joschi81 on 5 August 2021 at 19:59
Thanks to the OGF Geolympic Committee for this Mapoff!
Tarott hosted the “Pancontinental Games” in 2008 (OGF name: 2008 summer Geolympiad). I started drawing the city in 2010, a few years before the start of OGF, so I invented a name for an Olympic Games equivalent without any real world place name in it. My personal opinion is that “…olympiad” is not a good name for such a thing in the OGF world (or is there a place called Olympia somewhere, maybe in Thilo’s Greece equivalent?). But I don’t have any problems if this name stays the official one in OGF. I will use “Pancontinental Games” (or in short: Paco”) internally, but mention the official name like here.
I hope that my hard work for the bid is visible and still worth making Tarott a definite “past Geolympiad city”. At the moment a only have a few minutes mapping time every few days, not enough to complete my bid (which is based on the 2024 Hamburg bid by the way).
