Greetings gentlemen! Me and the lovely folks of #ormo just had a discussion, and we came to the conclusion that the bar for entry is getting too low, relatively speaking. See, it's not that we've lowered our standards, but rather that the standards among replay makers have increased rather significantly. (which, i might add, is awesome)

BUT, this puts us in a tricky position, because getting into ORMO is meant to be a legitimate challenge, and the idea of it is to inspire people to get even better than they are now. That is not an easy thing to inspire when so many people are head and shoulders above the bar.

So, we're contemplating raising the bar from "really good" to "seriously fucking exceptionally awesome". But before we (or... well, I) do that, we need input from the rest of the org, because there are a few ethical/moral/JUSTICE questions about this course of action.

QUESTION NUMBER ONE: Is this fair? People who have gotten in now MIGHT not have been able to do so if the bar had been raised, and as NutHug so cleverly points out, we can't justify refusing someone who's better than other members.

QUESTION NUMBER TWO: If we did raise it, what do we do with YOU, our current members? I'd feel terrible for kicking people and telling them to reapply out of the blue, but if the bar was raised retroactively, how many members would we actually have? It doesn't seem wholly fair to the new applicants (which i suppose is QUESTION NUMBER ONE).

QUESTION NUMBER THREE: What do you think ORMO's purpose is? Is it just for merits and e-peens, or do we have some other grand purpose in the scheme of things?

And QUESTION NUMBER FOUR: Is it even necessary? One could argue that it's a good thing that so many people are getting so good, and frankly i don't know the general opinion on how difficult admittance into ORMO is considered to get.

But note, of course, that we're not necessarily going to do anything, we're just thinking about it. Thinking is a good thing. Therefore, i'd like you to think about it as well, and write down your thoughts for us to read, it'd be much appreciated.

Secondary note: You can respond to this even if you aren't a member of ORMO.

If we look at the good replays from say 3 or 4 years ago and we compare them to replays that are considered good now, like you said there has been a great improvement in general replays level. But, I dont think ORMO's standards have completely stayed the same either.
If you look at older recruits (like, very old) maybe if some of them applied now, they wouldn't get in. It's just that ORMO's standards haven't been improving as fast as standards of replays in general.
I think it would be a good idea to raise the bar a bit, but ORMO was never only for the "seriously fucking exceptionally awesome" replay makers. That way, there might only be a few members.
In my opinion a good way to raise the bar a bit is to give credit to the more "creative" replay makers. Right now lots of people can do "boom"s and maybe what's missing is the pure originallity, which is what makes a replay memorable and the replay maker special...

fuck, just when I wanted to apply

SO, I think the bar is a bit low for the standards of replays today vs ones from back when it was first made. And since the bar hasn't raised it is now too easy to get in. Back when ormo was still kinda new getting a decap and landing it was a feat in of itself, but times have changed, it is now easy to get a decap and land, to fling Uke high up and catch him and destroy his body in a gory way. So now that the standard for people has risen, the bar should rise too.

Now, if the bar does get raised there will be problems. You would have to kick people who aren't at the standards anymore, but what about people who have joined way back when. Are they too important to kick? What if they are inactive? What if they don't make replays anymore? A possible solution is to judge on what replays they did, instead of their skill level now.

Now for a point that is actually relevant to the topic. I think it would be a good thing if people are kicked, it would just drive them to get better and eventually get good enough to join. If people are discouraged about their kicking, then they probably shouldn't have been in ormo in the first place. All the people that are theoretically kicked in this hypothetical situation they will make more replay that are even better and the quality will be raised again which is a good thing.

Bottom line; this is a good thing for those who are kicked and a good thing for ormo in that it will become a real victory to attain membership again.

Editediteditedit

REVELATION! If you do indeed raise the bar, what is going to be the distinction between good and really good. How will the recruiters know where he bar is set, do people even know where exactly it's set now? So, yeah.

QUESTION NUMBER ONE: Discover a trait that the replay maker is good at. If they're decent at it, tell them to master it (flow, movement, creativity, DM patterns, etc.)

QUESTION NUMBER TWO: Leave us be. Not all of the people in the org are COMPLETELY awful. There's just more improvement to be made.

QUESTION NUMBER THREE: The greater purpose existed in the beginning. It's faded to just having the tag to feel important and special. The only possible way of getting said better purpose was to have more visits like 0racle had done (advertising), getting more forum and ingame active as an org (recognition), and being active in general. We're already pretty active.

More people CnC'ing would help, but providing CnC is such a hassle. I'm sure plenty of people will agree.

And QUESTION NUMBER FOUR: It's a pretty good idea. I mean it's better to be safe then sorry.

Raising the bar seems pretty fair to me. Although we'd have to take into consideration the fact that replay standards are different from the past. Most people don't have the same mind frame of making replays. There's a wider variety of things that we need to consider if accepting someone. Some people can be better then others in some things but worse in what the other is good in.
That being said, the bar in my opinion should be raised. There's no point getting into ORMO if someone could be good at merely getting boomhits, but being twitchy and having no flow. It should be a general understanding and mastery of all skills that apply to replay making, along with something that they truly excel at. No point having replay makers who suck at everything except one part of replay making.

If we raised the bar significantly, I think that the members would drop down to everyone who was a member in 2010 and before or so, with a few exceptions, such as largekilla.
Although another thing that would need to be looked at is the giant difference in play time, and therefore skill. Many new players who've gotten into ORMO, myself included, have played Toribash for way less time then others. That being said, the bar for ORMO isn't rock bottom, but I know for sure that myself and probably a lot of others worked seriously hard to get here. I was at a point where I was shitting out replays everyday just to learn how to control my tori.
With that in mind, I'd have to say that we shouldn't kick members who have already made it, although we'd have to factor in their current skill and how long they've actually played Toribash. So, how good someone's replays are should be compared to how long they've played. Again though, we'd need some sort of confirmation that the account is really their main so that they don't spam us with different replays on alts, all while being the same person.

Truthfully, I don't think most people have an idea of what ORMO is all about.
Generally it's know as that sort of haven for people who have reached the excellence of their field. Pretty much replay making heaven. That place where we can show off just how achieved we are at this game.

I can honestly say that I worked pretty hard to get into ORMO. As I said before, there should be something we ought to do in order to compare their game playing length to their skill. Standards are necessary, however although ORMO's standards are still above the reach of plenty of players, I feel that most people who have gotten in in the past couple months deserve it. Some of the old-schoolers probably don't agree with me owing to the fact that their personal standards are higher then ours.


So, the bar should probably be raised and coupling that with some sort of way to judge their replays with the amount of time they've actually played is my opinion.



Yay. Long awnsers.

People wouldn't feel bad about getting kicked if they knew they were good enough to get back in.
If a replay maker isn't constantly getting better then he's basically making the same replay over and over. That's not impressive at all. :c

Question 4 (first because it concerns the relevance of the other questions): Yes, it is necessary and recruiters have been doing so for a long time. Maybe now it needs to be done a bit more drastically since we had a bit of a "boom" in the number of what used to be considered good replays.


Question 3 (because it gives a "why" to the previous question): The main thing we have been doing for the community is giving them a goal, and that gives people something to work for and improves the general quality of the replays as we've seen through times. In itself that's a good enough purpose.
Aside from that, I also think we should have a more active role on the community. In the past we used to host ORMO comps, and cover up for the GMs when they neglected big replay-making championships.
Now, the people who used to do that grew up and got busy and we're failing to do that job. That's an issue that, in my opinion, deserves a lot more attention.
One of the other purposes ORMO serves (or used to, but I like to think it still does) is passing on knowledge from successive generations. I remember being constantly baffled about the stuff NutHug and Nightin (only mentioned them because realism, duh) said about replays and learned a lot with that. Plus, this org was pretty much how I met everyone.


Question 1: It is fair. People were up to standards when they joined the org, because of that, I'll have to disagree with Nut.


Question 2: A lot of our members are inactive and old. If they were kicked they wouldn't join again simply because they don't make replays, or hardly even play anymore.
Kicking them would demand our org to be a lot more dynamic, constantly judging our members in regards to the changing standards. Most people don't have the time/will to be constantly judged, and with Toribash still being a niche game, we would have very few members.


ManlyPotato: Active recruiters get their standards adjusted by being aware of the judgement their peers do. If you keep track of the applications and the Replays board you should know where to set the bar.


Dscigs: I disagree with your suggestion of taking into account the players join date. It could lead to the case where a new player would get in even though he was worse than someone older who applied at the same time with better replays. You're either good enough at the time you apply, or you aren't.
In my opinion, that's the only way we can keep this as objective as possible.

When you put it that way, it makes far more sense.
I think I explained my idea wrong though. I didn't mean the player's join date. Someone's skills would still have to meet up to ORMO standards, but knowing how long that player has actually been making replays would show how much they've improved.
A player who actively makes replays for 2 years but sucks shows that they clearly are unable to learn.
Someone who makes replays in a short period of time and has amazing replays has the ability to learn new things easily.

I'm not saying that this would make a difference, I'm just throwing out an idea that randomly came to me.

Yaaaay.

Now we just need fuuuunds.

I fail to see why that would matter if they applied. If they aren't good enough, then they aren't good enough. if they are good enough, then they are good enough. I don't think join date should mean anything.