Dear friends, 3xP’ Codjumper Team and the entire Codjumper community,
After 4 years of consistently playing codjump with breaks during at most 3 weeks, since April 12th 2013, I have come to a personal decision that I will quit codjump.
Now, In the past 4 years I’ve seen quite some people making a topic/thread where they say they quit and I can tell that part of their ‘goodbye’-message often included a complaint or some piece of criticism about the community or how codjumper is nowadays or so, but before you continue reading I would like to emphasise that my reasoning of quitting codjump has nothing to do with the community or so, what so ever.
The reason why I quit codjump is basically the way my perspective of interest for the game has developed over the past few months, or maybe, the past 2 years even.
A while ago a thread where I asked the people of the codjump community in general about how they view the game (How do you see the future of the codjumping community?) gave me some more insight of what kind of view is required nowadays to keep up the interest to play the game or to work on projects regarding the game.
Cj-motivation
I figured that working on cj-projects requires having a great level of motivation and interest in the making of it more than the endresult, just as ‘painting’ perhaps; you can only enjoy painting if you mainly care about the making of it since the painting might end up on the attic anyway and, if you’re not well-known or when you don’t have a big ‘audience’, only a handful of people will look at it.
That kind of sounds like the well-known phrase ‘it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey’ but the truth of the matter is that that generally is the main ‘recipe’ for working on cj-projects.
Any other additions to that recipe might spice it more up such as unique creativity or advanced ‘craftingskill’ but again; those are just ‘additions to the main recipe’.
Perhaps you could compare it with eating candy too (ye... I didn’t expect this message to be this culinary neither):
When you eat too much of some kind of candy you eventually get sick of it.
That principle goes up when you are the one eating it, but it also is the case when you are someone who is able to make the candy; when you can make a kind of candy you shouldn’t eat too much of it, otherwise you will lose motivation into making that candy.
I could work out this analogy in terms of how it reflects as a mirror to cj but for the sake of the length of this post I think you will understand my point here already when I just say that the ‘candy’ in this analogy stands for cj-maps, cj-videos and other cj-projects in general.
My advice to the Codjumper community
So no criticism or complaint in my ‘goodbye’-post... instead I would like to give some advice to those people ‘who still have some of those main recipes in stock’ aka the people who are still motivated and who are able to keep the community alive:
When you work on a codjumper project, whether it being an edit or a map, work on it using a certain strategy which I could refer as:
‘(1) spend your recipes smartly and (2) strategically and share recipes which you have most in stock with others and which you are able to craft’.
Advice number 1: spend your recipes smartly and strategically
Before you even start working on a cj-project create a checklist where you divide the project in steps and think about how much time each steps takes in that checklist.
Okay, now do each amount of time per step times 2, because the reality of working on cj-projects is that the amount of time you will have spent to it is always twice as much as you thought before you started the project, just trust me on that, it’s true...
After you’ve done that you should try to split or merge those steps into periods of time which is almost equal to the amount of time every time you are able to work on the project.
After that create a schedule in your agenda saying ‘just work on the project’ and keep up the checklist of steps to strategically work on your project.
In this way you won’t be able to say to yourself ‘oh.. for fack sake, I am behind schedule... *sigh*’ which could demotivate you; just accept those moments you are not able to complete one (merged) step each time in the checklist you work on the project.
Advice number 2: share recipes which you have most in stock with others and which you are able to craft
I think it’s a good idea if the codjumper community as it is today should work more together as a true community.
To continue on my ‘culinary analogy’: I think it’s good if people should share what kind of recipes they have (so what skills+motivation they have; for example mappingskills+motivation or editskills+motivation) and what kind of candy they started working on or want to work on (cj-map, cj-video or other cj-projects).
In this way other people who have their own recipes which they are also able to craft (skills+motivation) could propose some of what recipes they got in stock (skill, motivation and (scheduled) time).
In this way everyone takes a part making a certain project which should balance more the weight of time and energy invested in terms of what you get for the endresult, because, let’s be honest.. even though the perfect view on making cj-projects is if you have an incredible weight of value more on making it in relation to the end result+response from others, the reality shows that people who are still motivated to work on cj-projects nowadays still quite value the endresult+response from others too.
Working as a group of people on a project should balance out that relation between ‘time+energy invested’ versus ‘endresult+response from others’.And I think that’s what cj-project workers feel the need for nowadays.
So beside my goodbye post I will make one out of two last threads for that where I elaborate more about this:
As you will see there I started with a post of my unfinished projects and ideas;
perhaps someone or a group of people feel like picking that up or would use it as a source of inspiration for a certain cj-project or so..
Speaking about projects...
What about the montageproject TIME?
I will permanently cancel the montageproject TIME.
I will send the demofolder of TIME including all demos I have received from people to Drizzjeh.
I will send a personal message to every participant requesting them to send a message to Drizzjeh as soon as possible saying whether they agree with their demos getting into the demopool of ‘Some Bounces 10’.
I made an agreement with Drizzjeh that he will only use demos from the demofolder of TIME once he has received a message from the participants with their permission to use them.
In the same message I will put extra information how you can contact him.
Even though I will quit codjump, I still have a high level of respect for people’s demos so I won’t just send them around to a random place or person.
My reason of quitting codjump
As I said in the beginning of this message I said that the reason why I quit codjump is basically the way my perspective of interest for the game has developed over the past few months, or maybe, the past 2 years even.
One of the main issues that played with it is probably the ‘eating candy’ idea I mentioned earlier but I think the biggest reason is my mindset towards the game including cj-projects.
I value the endresult (the ‘destination’) more than making it (the ‘journey’) and that simple doesn’t work out.
You might ask yourself: ‘why did it take so long then to make the decision to stop the montageproject TIME?’.
Well, it’s good to know that I haven’t made any cj-montage or cj-map or such a ‘big’ cj-project in the 4 years that I have played codjump.
For me quitting codjump without looking back on such ‘a big accomplishment’ is an incredibly unsatisfied feeling; it almost feels like I’ve wasted 4 years of my life.
But for the kind of mindset I have towards the game now it’s not worth putting myself in this zone of pressure, such as the project TIME was for me for the last few months: the standards (or rather my personal standards) to make that montage project as ‘a big accomplishment’ to look back to are too high relative to the amount of time and energy I am motivated to spend to it; it simply doesn’t work with the kind of mindset I have towards codjump as I have nowadays. And that also goes up for any other potential cj-project I was working on which you can find in the topic I talked about earlier.
Last words
So well... I guess this is it then...
I am sure people will react to this topic, but this is my last activity (and last post) regarding codjump for as long as my perspective for the game isn’t going to change which I personally see as a really low odd to happen.
If you really want to speak to me, Steam is the best option.
As for the thumbs up or down button which I’ve always personally figured as a weird addition to a goodbye post: I give you a thumbs up wishing good luck further in life!
For everyone I’ve met, played with, talked too, laughed with or who made the great moments in my 4-year-codjumpexperience possible:
Thank you for making codjump possible in those 4 years and also for it’s future it will have.
Because as long as you have ‘the recipes’ needed to keep the game alive, you will be the one to decide for how long the game will live, maybe not in the perspective of the entire world; but maybe in the perspective of just one person’s world.
Sincerely and goodbye,
FrisbeeSky
