MOTW #200 Milestone Thread

[AnDReJ98]

 

Celebrate DYOM's most successful contest ever 200th (217th overall counted) milestone with us!

 

 

Summary

 

Here we are again. It's been almost exactly 4 years since MOTW's 100th milestone was reached, and apart from this being only a special mention thread, there will be a hidden reward / opportunity as well. Of course, we can't neglect MOTW history so once again, we are reminding you of how it all began. Scroll down and enjoy the journey!

 

Stay tuned and participate by voting on both polls.

 

 

History

 

In The Beginning...

 

Most of you probably don't know about this since it's been a long time ago, but idea for MOTW actually came from SOTW (Signature of the Week) in the first place. Back in the day, SOTW was a popular game on GTAForums, Visual Arts section today known as Graphic/Visual Arts in which artists create signatures following a specific theme, and then the community votes on the winner. I used to be really interested in that kind of stuff, and I started regularly participating in that small competition. Some time later, I thought of making something similar to SOTW but in DYOM section. Of course, a lot had to be added/changed compared to SOTW since it was a bit more complex because the thing was about missions, instead of signatures obviously. And finally, on 8th May 2013, I've opened the very first MOTW dedicated thread consisted from rules and basic info about the contest. The theme was freestyle and eventually, the voting began with 9 entries. Few weeks later, I ran into some unexpected stuff in my life so I had pass MOTW leadership to someone else at the moment since I couldn't focus on it anymore. Although it was far from what it is today, MOTW kept on progressing after I gave the contest leadership to Chips237. Therefor, on 11 June 2013, The Odyssey made MOTW Discussion Thread (similar to today's Official MOTW Discussion Thread) to explain what this contest is about and how it works, as well as list every MOTW winner, pin the rules and of course, discuss about MOTW. Eventually, Target13 thought of making a system in which a MOTW winner gets to ''host'' the next week's competition as well as choose the theme. Shortly after, the idea got accepted by the community and the system turned out effective which is present even today. Throughout the summer of the same year, contest started being more and more inactive by each week, which led to the small break. After activity was established again, MOTW resumed until the very early 2014 where it had officially ended due to inactivity.

 

Revival - New Era

 

After some time, on 13th April 2014, Target13 contacted me about MOTW and said that we should start it again on which I agreed. Once again, because of my life situation, I wasn't able to fully participate in MOTW's revival but Target13 took on it and made MOTW almost the same as it is today. With strict and defined rules, as well as strict layout & information of the thread which community members respected. After successfully reviving and defining MOTW, contest began in the spring and enjoyed the success throughout the summer, achieving the ''official'' DYOM contest status which resulted in every MOTW thread getting pinned while it's opened for submissions/voting (thanks to Secronom President, part of DYOM staff). The contest was eventually shut down in the autumn.

 

MOTW went on hiatus for almost a year, but then in August 2015 community members started talking about MOTW and how fun it used to be when it was there. Just when I got back home from vacation, I was really inspired and decided to re-open the MOTW once again. Thanks to the previous leaderships (especially Target13) and other contributors, there was no need for extra work like when we were re-opening it back in 2014, so I decided to make a few changes here and there and start the submissions thread right away. Before opening the submissions, there was one more thing thing to do that was missing - The Official MOTW Discussion Thread. The thing that was missing since the day one (not counting the 2013's one which was long time forgotten and outdated). So, I've decided to create the official MOTW thread and finally, on 27th August 2015, the Official MOTW Discussion Thread was opened, containing full info, rules/guidelines & list of all MOTW winners. Since the thread was created, it is regularly being updated to this day. Unexpectedly, 2015 was MOTW's most successful year ever in terms of number of participants. Despite MOTW being on hiatus for a very long time, it still managed to gain huge audience and popularity among the new and old members of DYOM community. Even thought MOTW had least weeks in 2015 (mostly due to being opened very late), it turned out to be quite successful in numbers of participants and overall activity. The contest was closed in November but ended up reopened again in February 2016 due to high public interest. In 2016, MOTW experienced it's longest run ever at the time with total of 28 weeks (February-November). Since then, MOTW introduced a new reward for the winners - a temporary mission pin (for a week), besides it's regular rewards which include having a privilege of hosting a MOTW thread on your own and choosing the theme.

 

GTAForums Annual Awards.

 

On a second note, a separate project has been developed which is called MOTY (Mission of the Year) and is ongoing since 2013. Every mission that won in the contest is automatically participating in the final contest called Mission of the Year which is open to the public voting (just like regular MOTWs). MOTY's rewards include mission getting pinned for a year on the official DYOM website, mission being featured on the main MOTW topic, and since 2016, assigning a medal to winner's GTAForums account. In 2017, MOTY was officially included in GTAForums Annual Awards (special thanks to Kirsty). This made MOTW an official contest on both, DYOM section/website and whole GTAForums. Unfortunately, following the forum update in May 2018, medals disappeared from the player's profiles and MOTY reward was suspended for a time being. 2018 36 2017 25 2019 22 2020 26 2021 25

 

#100 Milestone

 

In 2017, MOTW surpassed it's 2016 record in number of weeks in one year, with 31 weeks that year. MOTW had the shortest gap between 2017 and 2018, which is only two months (being closed in November 2017 and resumed in January 2018). In Mart 2018, MOTW reached #100 milestone. The anniversary was marked by MartZ, as he had chosen ''Best Friend''  theme for MOTW #100 to mark the anniversary for a rather appealing atmosphere towards friendship, respect, loyalty and generosity.

 

New decade - New generations

 

Although MOTW experienced it's most successful year in 2018 in terms of number of participants and total weeks (36), the popularity started to fade probably due to DYOM and GTA San Andreas being old, thus leading to many veteran designers leaving the community. In 2019, number of participants remained more or less the same per week, though there were 14 weeks less than in 2018, resulting in 22 weeks only. This, however, didn't stop newcomers from participating and making a name for themselves. RithRake24 was the new member who gained interested in DYOM, raising through the ranks quickly,he went on to become a MOTW co-leader in 2019 and eventually a part of DYOM staff by winning DYOM Awards the same year. Thanks to it's legacy and often advertising among the community members, MOTW gained attention of newcomers and filled the gap that was missing. While number of participants per contest remained somewhat smaller than it used to be, MOTW remained stable by being open for 26 and 25 weeks in total in 2020 and 2021 respectively.

 

Today

 

Mission of the Week is considered the most successful and longest contest on the run ever in DYOM history with more than 800 missions submitted (estimated) since 2013 from which 100+ participants won at least one mission of the week. In December 2021, MOTW reached #200 milestone which was celebrated by special MOTW #200 thread made by Rith, where participant's missions were battling against each other in random assigned categories rather than in usual polls where the mission with the most votes instantly wins.

Edited March 14 by AnDReJ98

[Guest]

f*ck

Edited July 10 by Big Mac Toni

[Toriality]

Nice job

 

I really like the stealth theme because it's my first MOTW entry i hope there will be another stealth themed MOTW this year

Edited March 11 by Toriality

[Huzaifa khan]

MOTW 4 Iife! 

[Yasir_RFL]

I wish MOTW keeps achieving milestones like this, MOTW always been my favorite. I still remember the first MOTW I participated in, it was MOTW#52 and Huzaifa won it. Gosh, I have always wanted to make epic missions like him, Aftab, Galactic, THBP, T13, etc. They will always be great designers for me. And I am thankful to my man Andrej who came up with this brilliant idea and his homies who helped him grow this into huge part of DYOM! Also I am thankful to RR24 who helps Andrej manage MOTW, without these guys, DYOM would have been dead.

Cheers! Looking forward to participate more.