Main thread: [osu!catch] Project Loved: November 2023

Verschillende artiesten - Nederlands Kampioenschap,s petje by Wesley
180 BPM, 4:10 | 13.95★

Captain's description (by Sartan):
Time for a bit of a story.

So, this is my final round as a Loved captain after close to six years of contribution. It has been a hell of a ride, and I am very happy that I got to bring many fun maps to our community, rebirthing them with a leaderboard. I am thankful of having been able to fulfill this position, and I truly hope you enjoyed my picks!

Herewith, my final pick. One that does not really embrace the loved project's ideals for most players, but it sure does for me. I have always been against the idea that maps of bad quality should be barred from loved entry, arguing that one man's trash is another man's treasure. This map is a very treasured memory of mine, which is the reason why I very selfishly put this in this week's loved pool as a bonus. I love this map — despite its ridiculously dumb nature — due to the memories I have of this. This map represents some very close friendships that I have created on osu! through my participation in CWC through the years of 2016 to 2020. Each year, the Dutch team would create an unhinged warmup map for our matches, trying to make the Twitch chat have a giggle whenever it would be played on the livestream. I feel like we have done this successfully so, until warmups were removed from CWC altogether. This map does not bear quality, and perhaps it does not ring a bell for most people, but I am fully certain that a select group of people would love seeing this map pop up again after a couple of years.

Despite the fact that I believe the loved project should not be loving these types of meme-esque world cup warmup maps all the time, I do hope that the loved spirit is never forgotten even after I leave the team, and it at least allows for the possibility that even the most ridiculous maps can receive a bit of love.

Thanks once more for all the great times, love you all dearly 😊.

Please use this thread to discuss why you believe this map should or should not enter the Loved category!

o7 Sartan

o7 SHOUTOUT TO SARTAN
SHOUTOUT TO WESLEY
SHOUTOUT TO DUTCHMAN
SHOUTOUT TO CHATIE
SHOUTOUT TO DUTCH CATCH

o7 Sartan
respect

I respect your feelings and how you want this to be a thing, but I don't believe the team should go over their way to allow this. This would, as you said, just fulfill your selfish reasons to have this map loved where there's a lot of mappers, even recognized ones, haven't got a single loved map either so this I could see it as a disrespect to them as mappers.

Really thankful about your work there tho, but this isn't the way to be immortalized into the community imo.

#justiceforascendance

Aryssiel wrote:

I respect your feelings and how you want this to be a thing, but I don't believe the team should go over their way to allow this. This would, as you said, just fulfill your selfish reasons to have this map loved where there's a lot of mappers, even recognized ones, haven't got a single loved map either so this I could see it as a disrespect to them as mappers.

Really thankful about your work there tho, but this isn't the way to be immortalized into the community imo.

#justiceforascendance

Heya, I completely understand this sentiment and I'm glad you shared your thoughts on this! I was tossing and turning a couple of days on whether I should include this map, considering the fact that it is indeed a peculiar pick that could be considered a bit of a power trip of sorts.

But, next to the fact that this map would perhaps make some people laugh, I also somewhat hoped this would spark a discussion on the nature of loved maps, which could then also be polled from the results of this map. The inclusion of this map is meant to showcase the way I have interpreted the project of loved maps over the last couple of years, and the way I hope loved is to be interpreted in years to come: namely the idea that in the broadest definition of the term are 'enjoyed' should be loved. I believe a map such as this is a paramount example of a map which doesn't play in a qualitative manner, but rather in a jovial one. Right now, I believe there is a bit of a taboo on this, which results in loved becoming a ranked 0.5 section of sorts, if you understand what I mean. I would be thrilled to see more 'unique' interpretations of loved maps in the future, think of stuff such as dodge the beat, but right now I believe we are somewhat confused on whether we ought to go that direction. Stuff such as paradigm from ExGon is currently not considered for loved for similar reasons, despite its popularity.

Either way, one thing that is for certain is the fact that the loved section only functions through a democracy of sorts; we vote on what should be loved. So, if enough people disagree with this direction of loving maps, it won't pull through. If that were to happen I wouldn't frown at all, it is useful information for us all and I am happy people feel involved enough with the project to out such sentiments! We already know that a lot of people are happy to see more qualitative maps in the loved section, hence why the vast majority of maps are of that kind. I don't want to be immortalised over this map or so, who knows what the future brings and how much I will still be involved with osu projects.

I hope to have made my thoughts on this more clear with this addendum. Anyways, cheers for the feedback mate!

This map did not pass the voting.