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  #61  
Old Feb 10, 2010, 02:42 PM
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Another Soundscape Another Soundscape is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Akumu View Post
Actually the OCR representatives was nothing but professional and kept their cool.

Sadly your friends didn't, as expected
I tried.

Anyway, let me just point out that not Dave or Larry or anyone WANTED OCR staff to chime in. We simply heard there was some drama, read through the threads and some of us got so upset from what we saw that we replied. I know I speak for at least myself, Bahamut and zircon here. We're not some rude gang trying to be mean.

Also to respond directly to a question raised by Quintin, this is what sort of implied OCR was making money and you didn't, giving you some kind of moral highground:

Quote:
Remember, no money is being made here. Other sites sell things and post ads, which we do not do. We don't prejudge songs and anyone is able to take advantage of free bandwidth, publicity, and disk space.
You don't have to read between the lines even

and finally HI GERG!
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  #62  
Old Feb 10, 2010, 02:46 PM
Monobrow Monobrow is offline
 
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sup ansod, I made an account just to say all that crap lol

<3 to all
  #63  
Old Feb 10, 2010, 03:12 PM
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We could really use a thread-split of all this drama, because it takes all the focus off of the original purpose of improving remixSite.

I'm pretty laid back, so all the stuff from quintin demonizing my actions & statements is pretty out there.

I disagreed with this:

Quote:
Originally Posted by quintin3265 View Post
What was a major mistake was not seeing this "market" (if that's what it is) as "competitive." Many of the sites devoted to video game remixes are very hypocritical: they state that music should be free, but they don't allow people to remove songs; and they state their communities are open, as long as people follow complex rules and avoid being banned. After looking around at things, I suspect that some sites are making a profit and don't want to draw attention to their finances because of the public uproar that would ensue. I may have been stupidly lured by an assumption that those at the top levels of the community are interested foremost in sharing music, when in reality some (but not all) communities are actually for-profit.
1. We allow people to remove songs if they haven't agreed to our Content Policy, but we definitely discourage removals heavily. Some people end up disliking their older tracks, but we try to be a canon of sorts for our community's development and history. djp has older stuff of his he'd rather take down, but he doesn't. It's not about locking people's music in who hate the community or anything that dramatic. No one thinks we're stealing their songs. We created a Content Policy to have people explicitly agree that their ReMixes will permanently be hosted by us, that WE explicitly agree we can never make a profit off of their music, and that they opt out of being able to request taking them down. We do this because we don't want to waste our time & energy peer reviewing, hosting and promoting ReMixes and albums without the assurance that they're intended to actually stay on the site.

2. I'm not privy to drama you've had with the other sites, but your quote was a blanket accusation against everyone. What public uproar do you expect over a site operating for profit and who's doing that? You need to say who you mean plainly instead of being vague. The first part of your statement about song removal was obviously directed at OCR based on your earlier comments. With 3 or 4 other veiled accusations then stitched together, why be surprised that I would read into that being about OCR alongside the others? Since you're saying you don't mean OCR as profiteers, but you won't speak plainly and expect us all to read between the lines, you're playing a semantics game that I'm not interested in.

3. We're cool with promoting the work of other communities. When Game Informer interviewed djpretzel and they asked him for other sites to plug in the magazine, Dwelling of Duels immediately came to mind, because they're a great competition and community. When Paragon was attending a convention we presented at in New York, and I saw him in the crowd, I had him come up and we devoted time to promoting DoD. We do respect and help one another. Any drama that existed with virt, Mustin, The Shizz, whomever, is over with and has been over with for years. However, we are NOT a development forum for other communities and we don't expect other communities to host development threads for us either, thus why I locked your development thread and PMed you. OCR is not an outside project dev forum. We're not going to be vilified for common sense.

4. Since you're not established, if you wanted to come on our forums and plug remixSite, that's fine and you didn't need to ask us. But you're projecting a sense of entitlement that the other communities had to acknowledge you and help you develop remixSite. That didn't happen en masse, because you haven't established your site or yourself. Other communities didn't ask OCR to help it get up and running, they just did it organically. As far as contacting me, I have a lot of ways I can be reached, including here at VGMdb where I don't get inundated with messages. You should have just tried to contact me again through OCR or on Twitter or on VGMdb and not assume I blew you off out of arrogance. Another option was just making an OCR forum thread with your ideas, which would have cast the net wider for responses. I'm not saying I'm better than you, but we've all reached out to people who are busy or celebrites or professionals and ended up not hearing back. Please don't emo because you didn't hear even a no. The reality is that the onus was on you to make it happen. You did now, but it took a lot of drama to get you there. :-D

To answer your original question though from May '09, I appreciate your energy and desire to make things happen, but we are working on our own improvements to our Workshop forums for work-in-progress track development and for competitions. We've already mapped out what we'd like to do, so it would be too redundant to work with remixSite. We've really got our hands full with other projects, but perhaps try Remix:ThaSauce and see if there's any potential to collab there.
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  #64  
Old Feb 10, 2010, 04:04 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Koti View Post
Here's a summary of this ironically titled thread.
im a faggot
good synopsis
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  #65  
Old Feb 10, 2010, 05:43 PM
Kidd Cabbage Kidd Cabbage is offline
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Originally Posted by Akumu View Post
Actually the OCR representatives was nothing but professional and kept their cool.

Sadly your friends didn't, as expected

I thought my friends were on both sides of the argument! D:

Anyway, I more meant Quintin. Shawn's been pretty out of line, like that last post, which was just stupid, so I've pretty much just been ignoring those.

However, as Monobrow put it, this is Quintin's forum for his site, and where he was airing his thoughts, not intended to really get to the OCR guys - and the act of really posting here and fighting is the part that I was referring to as "unprofessional." I don't mean that you guys were throwing out personal insults, like shawn's been doing, and I even agree with some things the OCR guys have said about the focus on community and music rather than site hits, but they way that this was gone about wasn't the best way that could've been gone about. There's nothing the OCR people really needed to say that couldn't have been handled over PMs and now we've got this big forum. And Anso, whether or not djp asked the rest of you in or not, it still comes off as somewhat of a bully response having half the OCR panel coming in here. :P If OCR really needed to say something in response to this thread, I'm sure that most of was said in the first two OCR posts in here by djp and Larry.

Like I said, I like just about all of you in here and I'm not trying to step on any toes. I don't know why the hell I always try to mediate shit that doesn't involve me. -_-
  #66  
Old Feb 10, 2010, 05:52 PM
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Originally Posted by Liontamer View Post
We could really use a thread-split of all this drama, because it takes all the focus off of the original purpose of improving remixSite.

I'm pretty laid back, so all the stuff from quintin demonizing my actions & statements is pretty out there.

I disagreed with this:



1. We allow people to remove songs if they haven't agreed to our Content Policy, but we definitely discourage removals heavily. Some people end up disliking their older tracks, but we try to be a canon of sorts for our community's development and history. djp has older stuff of his he'd rather take down, but he doesn't. It's not about locking people's music in who hate the community or anything that dramatic. No one thinks we're stealing their songs. We created a Content Policy to have people explicitly agree that their ReMixes will permanently be hosted by us, that WE explicitly agree we can never make a profit off of their music, and that they opt out of being able to request taking them down. We do this because we don't want to waste our time & energy peer reviewing, hosting and promoting ReMixes and albums without the assurance that they're intended to actually stay on the site.

2. I'm not privy to drama you've had with the other sites, but your quote was a blanket accusation against everyone. What public uproar do you expect over a site operating for profit and who's doing that? You need to say who you mean plainly instead of being vague. The first part of your statement about song removal was obviously directed at OCR based on your earlier comments. With 3 or 4 other veiled accusations then stitched together, why be surprised that I would read into that being about OCR alongside the others? Since you're saying you don't mean OCR as profiteers, but you won't speak plainly and expect us all to read between the lines, you're playing a semantics game that I'm not interested in.

3. We're cool with promoting the work of other communities. When Game Informer interviewed djpretzel and they asked him for other sites to plug in the magazine, Dwelling of Duels immediately came to mind, because they're a great competition and community. When Paragon was attending a convention we presented at in New York, and I saw him in the crowd, I had him come up and we devoted time to promoting DoD. We do respect and help one another. Any drama that existed with virt, Mustin, The Shizz, whomever, is over with and has been over with for years. However, we are NOT a development forum for other communities and we don't expect other communities to host development threads for us either, thus why I locked your development thread and PMed you. OCR is not an outside project dev forum. We're not going to be vilified for common sense.

4. Since you're not established, if you wanted to come on our forums and plug remixSite, that's fine and you didn't need to ask us. But you're projecting a sense of entitlement that the other communities had to acknowledge you and help you develop remixSite. That didn't happen en masse, because you haven't established your site or yourself. Other communities didn't ask OCR to help it get up and running, they just did it organically. As far as contacting me, I have a lot of ways I can be reached, including here at VGMdb where I don't get inundated with messages. You should have just tried to contact me again through OCR or on Twitter or on VGMdb and not assume I blew you off out of arrogance. Another option was just making an OCR forum thread with your ideas, which would have cast the net wider for responses. I'm not saying I'm better than you, but we've all reached out to people who are busy or celebrites or professionals and ended up not hearing back. Please don't emo because you didn't hear even a no. The reality is that the onus was on you to make it happen. You did now, but it took a lot of drama to get you there. :-D

To answer your original question though from May '09, I appreciate your energy and desire to make things happen, but we are working on our own improvements to our Workshop forums for work-in-progress track development and for competitions. We've already mapped out what we'd like to do, so it would be too redundant to work with remixSite. We've really got our hands full with other projects, but perhaps try Remix:ThaSauce and see if there's any potential to collab there.
I'm glad to see that the thread has taken a turn towards the better. I'll reply to these issues below.

First, let me get the negative point out of the way, which is mostly in reply to Koli's post, not yours. If, in May 2009, I had somehow hacked zircon's account without anyone finding out and posted the exact same message (on the Shizz, where the majority of negative criticism originated), revealing the exact same site, using the exact same features and everything, the response would have been dramatically different. Everyone knows this, and I hope that some will acknowledge that. Regardless of the site's merits, people would have worked with zircon to improve it. Because I was not part of the clique that does exist (even though you don't actively promote it), the response was vitriolic criticism.

If you or anyone else has not read it, then please visit http://theshizz.org/forum/index.php?..._fromsearch__1 to see what was said within minutes of the first post. The response would not have been that negative had zircon or Paragon or you posted that message. This is the "clique" mentality.

Now, onto the more positive points. One of the main topics from the earlier posts, before this whole war erupted, was that a lot of redundant work is being done everywhere and such competition isn't useful. Your suggestion to collaborate with ThaSauce is a good one, but Rama didn't reply to my messages either, so I went ahead and reimplemented exactly what he had already done. Now, there are two sites, with two interfaces, and neither one will grow to its full potential. As to the blanket statement, I made a blanket statement because it was true: there were indeed no replies from any sites.

That brings me to the most pertinent issue to this discussion, and since you are participating where Rama has not: why is Overclocked ReMix developing a whole brand new work in progress section when one already exists? It's right here. All you have to do is slap new graphics on it and integrate it with the usernames already part of Overclocked's database. I tried to tell you that over and over and over again, but you didn't reply to listen. Since you had good intentions, not replying might not have been arrogant, but it was still incompetent. If you really want to take Overclocked to the next level, then as a leader you should reply to messages simply to find out what the possibilities are, even if you decide to decline.

But that is in the past, and I will leave the offer available. If you want a "non-approved" release or work-in-progress section available for Overclocked ReMix, then it can be done in one week by merging everything from here to there and changing graphics around. I can even share with you an idea to gain revenue and attract attention from professional game companies while still allowing everyone to download and upload music for free.

If the expected happens and things stay the course, the sites will likely compete for "non-judged" remixes. As with Rama, double the work will be performed. Divisions will grow. Each site will get fewer visitors. There are already people here who spend time here solely because they hate Overclocked ReMix. As a side effect, fewer people will visit the VGMdb. That's the shame of the remix community - everything is done twice or three times, when working together brings traffic to not just the sites involved, but also auxiliary sites that benefit from a strong community. Kaleb said what I've been trying to say since the beginning: if these sites are not for profit, then what does anyone have to gain by competing?
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  #67  
Old Feb 10, 2010, 05:58 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Koti View Post
Here's a summary of this ironically titled thread.



-











-


(They did not actually say the last part, and because they are in fact the opposite of rude and uncaring and so on, they did not want to tell you off which is why they ignored you up until now and are writing huge posts trying to explain things to you.)

-

There was some more text in there, but most of it is tears and an argumentation style that would rank up there with the best of christian apologists.

Bonus feature! The future:



This show has been brought to you by Besser Wisser - The Difference is Drinkability and Harley Davidson - The Only Motorcyle Worthy of Being in My Basement.
I have to step in the negative things again for a second and just state that this post is appalling. There's a difference between talking about E-Mails and bullying people around. I dare you to say that stuff to someone's face.

Stop making fun of shawnphase. He isn't involved with the site and doesn't deserve to have to listen to this trash. I have no respect for people who make themselves feel good by mocking people not involved with the site from behind a computer screen. If you post anything like this again, then I'm going to ask Chris to have you banned.
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Last edited by quintin3265; Feb 10, 2010 at 06:00 PM.
  #68  
Old Feb 10, 2010, 07:25 PM
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oh, IM out of line? yes, im out of line because i said this conversation means very little to me from the beginning. you guys gave steve a bad shake and nary none of you can admit it.

but hey, keep on with this discussion if you guys have more grievances to air with him about how he's pushy, how he doesnt treat people objectively, whatever else you wanna say about the guy. you might as well be accusing yourselves of it. i havent even read any of it since maybe the first or second replies of page 2, thats how much it means. ive been shoveling 20-50 inches of snow out of my street so that i can get to katsucon and perform. thats what this music means to ME.

and just so i can humor this thread and the crappy opinions in it, i'll say this: i deleted 50 songs from remixsite, im out of the situation. whatever good might come of it, well i guess that remains to be seen. you guys can help this guy and maybe be a shrink and make it a point to him that he needs to not be so pushy, not be telling people they need to run compos like he tried to do with me. and maybe he'll listen. if he doesnt then whatever. i dont really care, im prawn shase dude. my plans that i have for what i want to do, im doin em.

namaste dudes
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  #69  
Old Feb 10, 2010, 09:33 PM
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Originally Posted by quintin3265 View Post
if these sites are not for profit, then what does anyone have to gain by competing?
Nobody is competing.
  #70  
Old Feb 10, 2010, 11:47 PM
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was talked some sense into, sorry for trolling. your site is really good, i just think this thread was done in the wrong way and you can't demand stuff of people or be 'offended' so easily
good luck with the site in the future

Last edited by Koti; Feb 11, 2010 at 12:38 AM.
  #71  
Old Feb 11, 2010, 12:34 AM
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Originally Posted by quintin3265 View Post
If you or anyone else has not read it, then please visit http://theshizz.org/forum/index.php?..._fromsearch__1 to see what was said within minutes of the first post. The response would not have been that negative had zircon or Paragon or you posted that message. This is the "clique" mentality.
The difference is, Paragon (not so much zircon, to stick with your examples) is a respected member of The Shizz. Newbies rarely get treated well on forums where the community is so entrenched. The response to your post there is pretty much par for the course for almost ANYTHING at The Shizz, especially when it's posted by someone who hasn't shown themselves to be involved with the community they've built there. Shizz can be a harsh place if you're not prepared and haven't adjusted to their mentality, and I'm really not surprised at the responses there. That's just how they are.
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  #72  
Old Feb 11, 2010, 01:17 AM
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  #73  
Old Feb 11, 2010, 02:33 AM
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Who's trolling now?

Make some more 'last posts' and don't forget to tell everyone how you don't care, please.

Quote:
Originally Posted by shawnphase
i deleted 50 songs from remixsite, im out of the situation
  #74  
Old Feb 11, 2010, 06:44 AM
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The difference is, Paragon (not so much zircon, to stick with your examples) is a respected member of The Shizz. Newbies rarely get treated well on forums where the community is so entrenched. The response to your post there is pretty much par for the course for almost ANYTHING at The Shizz, especially when it's posted by someone who hasn't shown themselves to be involved with the community they've built there. Shizz can be a harsh place if you're not prepared and haven't adjusted to their mentality, and I'm really not surprised at the responses there. That's just how they are.
That does not make this response right, though. Just because something is the way it is doesn't mean that it should be that way. While most Shizz members reading this thread will undoubtedly agree with your point of view, 9 out of 10 people from the outside world would likely have a different opinion. I disagree with the Shizz members in that everyone should be a respected member of the community, unless (s)he does something to prove otherwise.

The Shizz is, indeed, a nasty place. I tried to talk some sense into people in a thread that shawnphase posted a while back titled "stop junking up the Shizz," but people simply ridiculed what I had to say. That's why I stopped posting there unless I absolutely have to. They may not want to change, but I also don't have to be a part of that hatred either.

It's really a shame. If this site fails, it will be my last project that involves the Internet, and I'll probably try making a film next. While cliquishness exists in real life, outside of middle school I've never met people like some of the posters in that original May 8 thread on the Shizz. The Internet has so much promise, but it also seems to bring out the worst in people

As to shawnphase's comment about compos, I want to reiterate that I can't do everything in the two (sometimes one) day(s) per week that are available. Other people need to organize compos because I can't fix bugs in the site and organize compos at the same time. Besides, what kind of community would it be if I'm the only person who ever posts anything?
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  #75  
Old Feb 11, 2010, 07:29 AM
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I really like this thread now.
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  #76  
Old Feb 11, 2010, 08:16 AM
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It's really a shame. If this site fails, it will be my last project that involves the Internet, and I'll probably try making a film next. While cliquishness exists in real life, outside of middle school I've never met people like some of the posters in that original May 8 thread on the Shizz. The Internet has so much promise, but it also seems to bring out the worst in people
Not trying to offend you here, but I don't think you're cut out for the Internet. I read that original thread on Shizz and I didn't really see anything all that bad, mostly just polite indifference. Mostly people were just saying "oh another one?" and giving you feedback about your color scheme. The only person giving you a hard time was Seifer, and if you know anything about this community, you know that Seifer is pretty much an ass. I don't think anyone likes him.

With any community--internet or not--it's important to establish yourself as a member, to establish a reputation, etc. If you just show up and start talking about your brand new site and asking people to help you, the reaction will be "Um, that's nice, but who are you and why should I help you?" And that reaction is right.

Why should anyone want to help you if they don't know you, if they can't trust you to get the job done? I'm not saying that you can't get the job done--I mean, you wrote a whole website that pretty much works, right?--but you're an unknown quantity. So why trust you? You haven't really given people a reason besides showing up with a website that you made, and even then, "Beware of strangers bearing gifts." I mean, the last time someone made a new community site, it turned out to be a phishing scam and a load of passwords were compromised.

It's not about being part of a clique, it's about being part of a community. It's about being known, having a good reputation, having a good history, and being trustworthy. People can't trust strangers and they can't have confidence in someone they don't know.

You said something before about how if zircon had posted the exact same thread, he wouldn't have been met with what you perceived to be ridicule, and you attributed that to cliquishness. That's way off-base. Andy's not part of the "clique," he just has a track record of doing things in the community. He's on OCR's staff, he's an established artist with remixes and his own albums, he has his own samples business, he directed a massive remix album for FF7, etc., etc. People would respond differently to him because they know what he's about. Same with me; I've done a load of stuff. Same with a lot of people in the community. With you, not so much; and NOT because you're not "in the clique." You're just not known.

Anyway I kind of went off on a tangent, but this is the advice I give people when they want to start some kind of project over at OCR: "Establish yourself in the community first. People can't work with you if they don't know who you are. Take part in the community; review remixes, give feedback to WIPs, get involved with projects, be a guy that people want to work with first. Then go ahead and start your project and ask people for help." That's the same advice I have for you.

__

As for your site, I have a lot of criticisms, but here's my main one: if it's a video game remix website, why are you allowing people to host original music? Why should I go to your website to get video game remixes if every song on your front page is marked as "Original Song."

I don't care how hard people wish for this to be true, but VGM is not a genre, and if a song isn't used in a video game, it's not video game music.

You need to decide what you want remixSite to be; do you want it to be a site dedicated to video game remixes, or do you just want it to be glorified file-hosting for whatever an artists doodles in FLStudio? Right now, it's the latter, and there are plenty of other, better music file-hosting sites out there (e.g. Tindeck).

Another thing: put music first. Don't make me scroll down to see the music. The first thing I see upon visiting the site shouldn't be a big box listing all the features; that's why websites have "about" pages. The first thing I should see is a list of the latest tracks. Don't make me scroll.

Also: don't focus on money. Hosting costs aside, you shouldn't be in this for the money, and you shouldn't be trying to use money to get people involved. Everything the community does, the community does for the love of the music, not for cash prizes, swag, and ad revenue.

Lastly: focus on listeners. OCR owes so much to it's artists, but it owes just as much to its listeners. They're why we're so huge. On the public face of remixSite, you should be focusing on listeners. Pimp out the latest tracks and encourage reviews, develop and advertise features that listeners can take advantage of. Sell the site to artists after registration.

__

Anyway, I said a lot, and hopefully you take it to heart. What it really all boils down to is that you should stop taking things so personally. You haven't been wronged or slighted; just treated as any unknown would be treated. Grow some thicker skin, take the crap in stride, and just do what you want to do.
  #77  
Old Feb 11, 2010, 08:52 AM
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Originally Posted by DarkeSword View Post
Not trying to offend you here, but I don't think you're cut out for the Internet. I read that original thread on Shizz and I didn't really see anything all that bad, mostly just polite indifference. Mostly people were just saying "oh another one?" and giving you feedback about your color scheme. The only person giving you a hard time was Seifer, and if you know anything about this community, you know that Seifer is pretty much an ass. I don't think anyone likes him.

With any community--internet or not--it's important to establish yourself as a member, to establish a reputation, etc. If you just show up and start talking about your brand new site and asking people to help you, the reaction will be "Um, that's nice, but who are you and why should I help you?" And that reaction is right.

Why should anyone want to help you if they don't know you, if they can't trust you to get the job done? I'm not saying that you can't get the job done--I mean, you wrote a whole website that pretty much works, right?--but you're an unknown quantity. So why trust you? You haven't really given people a reason besides showing up with a website that you made, and even then, "Beware of strangers bearing gifts." I mean, the last time someone made a new community site, it turned out to be a phishing scam and a load of passwords were compromised.

It's not about being part of a clique, it's about being part of a community. It's about being known, having a good reputation, having a good history, and being trustworthy. People can't trust strangers and they can't have confidence in someone they don't know.

You said something before about how if zircon had posted the exact same thread, he wouldn't have been met with what you perceived to be ridicule, and you attributed that to cliquishness. That's way off-base. Andy's not part of the "clique," he just has a track record of doing things in the community. He's on OCR's staff, he's an established artist with remixes and his own albums, he has his own samples business, he directed a massive remix album for FF7, etc., etc. People would respond differently to him because they know what he's about. Same with me; I've done a load of stuff. Same with a lot of people in the community. With you, not so much; and NOT because you're not "in the clique." You're just not known.

Anyway I kind of went off on a tangent, but this is the advice I give people when they want to start some kind of project over at OCR: "Establish yourself in the community first. People can't work with you if they don't know who you are. Take part in the community; review remixes, give feedback to WIPs, get involved with projects, be a guy that people want to work with first. Then go ahead and start your project and ask people for help." That's the same advice I have for you.

__

As for your site, I have a lot of criticisms, but here's my main one: if it's a video game remix website, why are you allowing people to host original music? Why should I go to your website to get video game remixes if every song on your front page is marked as "Original Song."

I don't care how hard people wish for this to be true, but VGM is not a genre, and if a song isn't used in a video game, it's not video game music.

You need to decide what you want remixSite to be; do you want it to be a site dedicated to video game remixes, or do you just want it to be glorified file-hosting for whatever an artists doodles in FLStudio? Right now, it's the latter, and there are plenty of other, better music file-hosting sites out there (e.g. Tindeck).

Another thing: put music first. Don't make me scroll down to see the music. The first thing I see upon visiting the site shouldn't be a big box listing all the features; that's why websites have "about" pages. The first thing I should see is a list of the latest tracks. Don't make me scroll.

Also: don't focus on money. Hosting costs aside, you shouldn't be in this for the money, and you shouldn't be trying to use money to get people involved. Everything the community does, the community does for the love of the music, not for cash prizes, swag, and ad revenue.

Lastly: focus on listeners. OCR owes so much to it's artists, but it owes just as much to its listeners. They're why we're so huge. On the public face of remixSite, you should be focusing on listeners. Pimp out the latest tracks and encourage reviews, develop and advertise features that listeners can take advantage of. Sell the site to artists after registration.

__

Anyway, I said a lot, and hopefully you take it to heart. What it really all boils down to is that you should stop taking things so personally. You haven't been wronged or slighted; just treated as any unknown would be treated. Grow some thicker skin, take the crap in stride, and just do what you want to do.
I read more about tindeck, which I had never heard of before you posted about it here. Good find.

The site seems like an interesting concept, but I'm not sure why you said that the site is better than this one. For example, tindeck doesn't track views and downloads per week; it doesn't host the original lossless files; it doesn't have images for each song; it has limited profiles; it provides no support for revisions, and it doesn't even have a rating system. And tindeck probably doesn't have the underpinnings for quick expansion that remixSite does. The inferiorities of remixSite seem mostly in the area of ordering of pages, link placement, and navigation, which are one-day fixes once the way they should be fixed is figured out (and you've already made a suggestion).

Exiting the video game remix community entirely may be the way to go.

Let's assume that I put up a copy of remixSite, with the VGMdb integration disabled and the site available for uploads from all genres. That addresses the focus issue. Do you say that tindeck would still be better than remixSite in that instance?
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  #78  
Old Feb 11, 2010, 08:57 AM
Omnomnomnom Omnomnomnom is offline
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You need to decide what you want remixSite to be; do you want it to be a site dedicated to video game remixes, or do you just want it to be glorified file-hosting for whatever an artists doodles in FLStudio? Right now, it's the latter, and there are plenty of other, better music file-hosting sites out there (e.g. Tindeck).
I mostly agree with your other comments, but this one is a little one-sided. I don't want to remix tracks unless I particularly feel like it, but I DO want to write music for computer games. I was having a conversation with Powellman about this and we kind've thought it would work well to have a site dedicated to original music that people would like to see used in a game. Though music of any genre can be placed in games, it seems that many think game music just isn't what it once was. Why else are people still remixing Final Fantasy 7 and Megaman tracks? It's not just nostalgia. If any sort've attention was to be received from actual companies, a dedicated site would be a way to go. I'm not suggesting RemixSite does this, since the site is already up and running, but I wouldn't think that people should be discouraged from producing original music. If it's good, I'd rather hear more from that artist than anyone's cover of anything.
  #79  
Old Feb 11, 2010, 10:14 AM
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I mostly agree with your other comments, but this one is a little one-sided. I don't want to remix tracks unless I particularly feel like it, but I DO want to write music for computer games. I was having a conversation with Powellman about this and we kind've thought it would work well to have a site dedicated to original music that people would like to see used in a game. Though music of any genre can be placed in games, it seems that many think game music just isn't what it once was. Why else are people still remixing Final Fantasy 7 and Megaman tracks? It's not just nostalgia. If any sort've attention was to be received from actual companies, a dedicated site would be a way to go. I'm not suggesting RemixSite does this, since the site is already up and running, but I wouldn't think that people should be discouraged from producing original music. If it's good, I'd rather hear more from that artist than anyone's cover of anything.
There's nothing wrong with making a site dedicated to original music that is basically supposed to be "game soundtrack-esque" but I think Darkesword's point is that remixSite is ALSO hosting VG remixes. And it has "remix" in the title. So, the identity is confusing and it ends up just being a file dump. I would also say that people DO just remix games like FF7 and MM2 primarily due to nostalgia, and secondarily because older games had more melodic music, thus making it easier to remix compared to modern game soundtracks. But I don't know what that has to do with anything.

Quintin, as Dave has already pointed out, you seem far more concerned with numbers (track downloads, views, whatever) than the music itself, and your latest post just reinforces that assertion. Both of them are absolutely right when they say that you need to focus more on community and the MUSIC, and not numbers. If you're just making a website that is a file dump, you're not going to have a community, because you'll have no focus. I know because I did this way back (www.soundtempest.net, now something completely different.) Tindeck has a clear, singular purpose. It posts MP3s. People can link to their MP3s easily and there's an integrated player right there.

Could you duplicate that functionality? Yes, but why would you want to? I contend that people don't really care about track views, downloads or ratings very much. When you talk about those features, track images, ratings, revisions etc., you're talking about the icing on the cake. You need something substantial FIRST, a novel concept to build around. Simply hosting video game remixes and original music is not really novel enough.
  #80  
Old Feb 11, 2010, 10:24 AM
DarkeSword DarkeSword is offline
 
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Let's assume that I put up a copy of remixSite, with the VGMdb integration disabled and the site available for uploads from all genres. That addresses the focus issue. Do you say that tindeck would still be better than remixSite in that instance?
Really, all that, and the only thing you took away from it was "TinDeck is better?"

I only used it as an example; if you think TinDeck is better, fine. I'm not going to make a judgement based on a hypothetical either way at this point.

My point is, you can't say you're a VGM remix site and then allow people to upload original music too. It dilutes what you're trying to do. Hell, the name of your website is REMIX SITE. So where are the remixes? Front page has original music. Why should I listen to those? These are questions visitors ask themselves.
  #81  
Old Feb 11, 2010, 10:58 AM
Omnomnomnom Omnomnomnom is offline
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Zircon: There's nothing wrong with making a site dedicated to original music that is basically supposed to be "game soundtrack-esque" but I think Darkesword's point is that remixSite is ALSO hosting VG remixes. And it has "remix" in the title. So, the identity is confusing and it ends up just being a file dump. I would also say that people DO just remix games like FF7 and MM2 primarily due to nostalgia, and secondarily because older games had more melodic music, thus making it easier to remix compared to modern game soundtracks. But I don't know what that has to do with anything.
I think we agree, we're just looking from different perspectives. I didn't really imply anything otherwise. And I have to also agree both you and Darkesword about honing in on the actual vision of the site. Catering to both remixers and original artists is apparently more tricky than one would think. I have to say, if I had original music that I intended for a game, and I had a choice between "RemixSite" and "COMposed" (which I just made up) I would choose whichever was directed more towards original music, just as a remixer would look to a site dedicated to remixing. But when the site caters to both equally, it's a bit unrewarding to post something, since you can't be sure what the community is really geared towards.

If it really had to come down to a choice, I'd make an original composition site over a remix site, since there's already sites out there for remixing. No covers would be allowed on the site too (so I see where you're coming from with the title being "RemixSite") . The problem would still be with pageviews and numbers though, worse so, so I don't see RemixSite making a change like that. But if RemixSite went the other way as you seem to be suggesting, I'd be gone. Interest dies for me after that, so honestly, I don't see a change like that working.
  #82  
Old Feb 11, 2010, 11:47 AM
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quintin3265 quintin3265 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by zircon View Post
There's nothing wrong with making a site dedicated to original music that is basically supposed to be "game soundtrack-esque" but I think Darkesword's point is that remixSite is ALSO hosting VG remixes. And it has "remix" in the title. So, the identity is confusing and it ends up just being a file dump. I would also say that people DO just remix games like FF7 and MM2 primarily due to nostalgia, and secondarily because older games had more melodic music, thus making it easier to remix compared to modern game soundtracks. But I don't know what that has to do with anything.

Quintin, as Dave has already pointed out, you seem far more concerned with numbers (track downloads, views, whatever) than the music itself, and your latest post just reinforces that assertion. Both of them are absolutely right when they say that you need to focus more on community and the MUSIC, and not numbers. If you're just making a website that is a file dump, you're not going to have a community, because you'll have no focus. I know because I did this way back (www.soundtempest.net, now something completely different.) Tindeck has a clear, singular purpose. It posts MP3s. People can link to their MP3s easily and there's an integrated player right there.

Could you duplicate that functionality? Yes, but why would you want to? I contend that people don't really care about track views, downloads or ratings very much. When you talk about those features, track images, ratings, revisions etc., you're talking about the icing on the cake. You need something substantial FIRST, a novel concept to build around. Simply hosting video game remixes and original music is not really novel enough.
Well, but you're missing that it was novel enough for VGMix, and that site was incredibly successful. Compare what VGMix could do and what this site can do, and you'll see that this site does more than VGMix ever did with fewer bugs and many fewer security issues. This site was actually conceived in 2005, when VGMix had problems, though it wasn't implemented for four years. Yet, during that time, something happened to eliminate the usefulness of that site. I think it's that video game music remixes are on the decline, and that Ommmmm is exactly right: it's hard to remix Final Fantasy 13 music that's already performed by a full orchestra. Yes, a lot of people may have shown up at MAGFest, but people are remixing the same tired old Chrono Trigger music from what's going on two decades ago. I'm tired of hearing Chrono Trigger remixes and I don't download them anymore. There's nothing new in the community, which is why it is slowly dying out. Look at how the Shizz has degenerated into pointless rubbish and how nobody talks about music there anymore.

The "Tindeck 2" concept that I proposed above may have been misinterpreted. It involves exiting the video game music community entirely, and allowing people from all genres to post original music only. The advantage of that concept is precisely that there wouldn't be any forums or community. It would be a for-profit venture that doesn't require a community to succeed. It's not expected that anyone from here or Overclocked ReMix would use the service, although they would certainly be welcome to do so. The original remixSite could be left online if someone else took over its management, of course.

I hear the suggestions to focus on either remixes or originals, but will doing so really be useful to people? If only five people find the new site useful, then it's not worth the effort. Stats are important, because there's no reason to waste effort on what's not useful to people. While there are a few dedicated musicians involved with this site currently, I don't see a huge influx of video game artists converging on the site no matter what changes are made. There needs to be a core group of dedicated contributors to help out with such a change. I'm open to and want to hear someone prove me wrong, of course.
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  #83  
Old Feb 11, 2010, 01:03 PM
DarkeSword DarkeSword is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by quintin3265 View Post
I think it's that video game music remixes are on the decline, and that Ommmmm is exactly right: it's hard to remix Final Fantasy 13 music that's already performed by a full orchestra. Yes, a lot of people may have shown up at MAGFest, but people are remixing the same tired old Chrono Trigger music from what's going on two decades ago. I'm tired of hearing Chrono Trigger remixes and I don't download them anymore. There's nothing new in the community, which is why it is slowly dying out. Look at how the Shizz has degenerated into pointless rubbish and how nobody talks about music there anymore.
Sorry, but you're flat out wrong. Video game music remixes are not on the decline. We get more and more submissions over at OCR every day, and people are always trying to start some new album project to get a ton of remixes out. New artists are always emerging.

We also get our fair share of submissions from new games. Just because music is orchestral doesn't mean that people aren't going to remix it, and there's still a lot of lo-fi melodic music coming out on platforms like DS, PSP, and in the downloadable markets. There's no shortage of new material to remix, and people are tackling it with gusto.

Also, you need to stop looking at the Shizz as indicative of the overall health of the community. You want to get your finger on the pulse of the community? Look at OCR and DoD; those are the hubs of activity, and they're still going strong, putting out fresh material all the time, from both new and old games.

So let's REALLY get real here and get to the heart of the matter: you gotta stop playing the blame game. Stop blaming the community for declining, stop blaming other sites for dissing you by not replying to your emails, stop blaming other people because they're making you do everything by yourself.

EDIT: I was under the impression that DoD was more of a VGMix/Shizz thing than just a Shizz thing, in which case, you need to look at Shizz and OCR both to get a pulse on the community.

Last edited by DarkeSword; Feb 11, 2010 at 01:52 PM.
  #84  
Old Feb 11, 2010, 01:48 PM
Koti Koti is offline
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I really don't mean to troll but it's just crazy how this discussion goes on... So you think videogame music is dying, you don't like the remixes that are being made and think the 'too popular' sources have become too old to listen to new mixes of, you don't like the remixers and happily talk trash openly about other sites, and you don't actually have a passion to make any specific site other than "something useful" (a.k.a. something popular (a.k.a. something that pulls nice stats)).

Looking at that, your people skills (on the internet, in any case) and way of reasoning, but also your website, I'd recommend either lending / selling your programming skills to someone else with clearer goals, or pursuing some of those other things you already suggested (offline would probably be safer in case you're not going to accept how things / people are online).

Man, remixsite is, in my opinion, a damn well made website in and of itself. If it wasn't for the 'why am I seeing originals when I go to remixsite' issue and if it was represented and 'PR'ed faaar better it could've been popular. It's just a shame you've dropped the ball on everything but the coding and perhaps the competition(s) (though public voting on a cash prize compo is not going to attract or build a community) and really make it worse with every post, incredible waste.

Oh well, last post from me (real last, not shawnphase last), the OCR guys are doing a better job at being civilized and explaining things, though it's a shame their busy asses even have to.
  #85  
Old Feb 11, 2010, 01:49 PM
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As Darke said, the remix community is more vibrant and exciting than ever. I want to point out that we've actually had to implement new guidelines on OCR simply to manage the sheer number of projects that have sprung up lately. On top of that, we've had partnerships with companies like Capcom and VGL, blurring the line between fan work and pro work. There's no better time to be a part of this community.

Quote:
Well, but you're missing that it was novel enough for VGMix, and that site was incredibly successful. Compare what VGMix could do and what this site can do, and you'll see that this site does more than VGMix ever did with fewer bugs and many fewer security issues.
And YOU'RE missing that VGmix 2 existed back in what, 2004? A lot can happen on the Internet n 6 years. Furthermore, it was *just* VG remixes, not original music too. VGmix 2 was unique because it had the whole RPG system. It definitely had its flaws, but the way they encouraged feedback, good reviews and community was definitely novel. Your site is just a repository of random music with no focus and view/rating counts. There are a LOT of music hosting websites that can offer the same kind of thing. How can you not see the difference here?

The solution isn't to give up, blaming people on the way out, it's to figure out something that the VGM community could really use that is UNIQUE. In my opinion, put your effort into original video game music OR video game remixes. Stop trying to do both. The former has never really been done well so that is potentially exciting.
  #86  
Old Feb 11, 2010, 04:41 PM
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steve is beyond wrong. i've msg'd him on aim with 5 or 6 different screen names telling him how wrong he is, even beyond all of this dialog. this guy, he's never gonna understand what anybodys got to say to him, because he cant admit his faults. this is a failed attempt at trying to talk some sense into a complete ignorant person when they dont want to hear it.

believe me, i've tried harder than i ever should have, and i wouldnt expect or want anybody to work with this piece of work ever because of this thread that i told him not to make.
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  #87  
Old Feb 11, 2010, 11:31 PM
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KyleJCrb KyleJCrb is offline
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Way to go, shawn. Defend the guy and remixSite here for the first two pages, then pull a fast one and start bashing him instead. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

quintin: I don't disagree with your view on The Shizz (I also don't post there anymore myself for similar reasons), but even if we both don't think that's how they should be, none of us are going to change what's been ingrained into that community.
I also agree with Darke that if you're basing your view of the overall community by looking at The Shizz, you're definitely looking in the wrong place. The Shizz in itself isn't even about game music anyway: It's about the indie music scene of Phoenix, AZ. The Minibosses section sees extra activity due to the fact that it's DoDs home base, but DoD competitors don't really have to be a contributing member of the Shizz community to participate. The Shizz overall doesn't have very much to do with the game music scene and isn't indicative of the health or interest of the community. The game music scene is alive and quite well: OCR is a good indicator, as there are nearly 30(!) remix album projects in progress right now over there. DoD has healthy interest every month, as well, and not a month goes by where I don't hear about a new western or doujin arrange album being released. There's plenty of activity and I don't think the scene has been more alive and interesting than ever right now. Old standbys Chrono Trigger is still getting a lot of remixes, but I'm seeing a lot of people pick up on lesser-known games as well, and there is still plenty of untouched material out there in older AND newer games.
Remixing is more popular and interesting than it ever has been, but I just don't think remixSite has been positioned to take advantage of that. Music hosting sites are a dime a dozen these days, so remixSite needs to refocus on how to make it worthwhile to the artist looking to host there.
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  #88  
Old Feb 12, 2010, 05:34 AM
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quintin3265 quintin3265 is offline
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shawn:

What you have posted here is libel.

To make it clear:

1. shawn never told me "not to post this thread."
2. I never said that "OCR won" a war that had been going on for a year, or that the whole purpose of the site was to destroy Liontamer.
3. I am not employed by the government. Check with the Office of Personnel Management if someone wants to verify this.

You're entitled to express your opinions, but stop making stuff up out of thin air. While some might see this as "feeding the trolls," I want to make sure that it's clear what the facts are.
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Last edited by quintin3265; Feb 12, 2010 at 05:37 AM.
  #89  
Old Feb 12, 2010, 05:39 AM
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Gigablah Gigablah is offline
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My apologies for not responding sooner. At VGMdb, we're a happy bunch of nerds. Therefore, I have decorated this forum with some rainbows in an effort to make everybody a little more cheerful.
















Enjoy!
  #90  
Old Feb 12, 2010, 05:42 AM
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This finally got real
 

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