Alright people of Epicmafia. It's been a long time since I've made a serious macro-thread outlining my thoughts. I've really mellowed out about epicmafia since departing as admin, only to get super mad when talking about setups that I don't like, because nothing makes me more upset than bad setups. Either way, this is my first serious thread of 2015. Remember 2014? Good times. In the words of a recently banned user "Twas a blast."

I haven't been on the site all that much recently, at least not much since Vancy stepped down. Well, at least not in the sense of being involved in the game of policy and shady dealings that goes on behind the scenes. However, one thing I've noticed though is that although the competition still puts up pretty solid numbers, there seems to be a general malaise spread throughout the community. I can't help but feel the site is spiraling downhill. Just looking through the past 10 rounds, over half of them had some sort of mega cheating investigation, trophy winners who got thrown for, or outright cheating. It's kind of shocking that anyone bothers to run anymore when there is such a high volume of cheating, especially when trophies are valued at less than the dollar during the 2008 crash. It just seems kinda silly. There's so much effort that goes into the moderation of gold heart games to keep them legitimate, while there is a ton of effort poured into making them illegitimate as well. All for what, though?

So I really, seriously want to pose this question: Do you think it's time for the competition to stop?

Now before you throw Molotov cocktails at your computer screen, just hear me out. Let's go on a journey together.

Imagine a world on epicmafia without a competition. Mods would last longer since they wouldn't get burned out from long investigations. No one could troll rounds, since there are no rounds to troll. Maybe the comp lobby could see a revival, for those who are into that sort of lobby gentrification. Not to mention, cheaters would have no reason to cheat - there's no "trophy" to be gained from cheating in red hearts, unless you just like upsetting people. Imagine a world where every game of mafia is casual mafia, you can play any setup you want at any time, without having to rely on some douchecanoe to comp something playable, and double point Jan becomes the stage that all mafia players wish to be stars on? This is a world I think we should live in. I would know, I have sources.

I know this is pretty radical, but I have a solution for those of you who still really like comp on the site.

We could replace the competition with chess: https://epicmafia.com/game/4102695?password=46139b0b16d7696468a818ef81ab82a93691f7d5