BardicKnowledge

Well, I am blown away by the gift that I received.  Wes really doesn't want me to finish my dissertation, haha.  In all seriousness, this is very humbling and I don't know how best to express how thankful I am except to say thank you.  This unboxing pic of me looking way more excited than I usually do (I intended just a very pleased smile, I confess) comes via a joke by Addie, who took the picture right after she said "Now look like I didn't schedule you a vasectomy for Christmas," causing me to laugh really hard and create an embarrassing picture of myself for everyone's enjoyment.
 

 
As an aside, I have a large pile of digital goodies for my own person, but they haven't accepted my Steam friend request.  If they don't respond by the end of the day I'm just going to spoil the surprise and PM them since I should not be sitting on gifts after receiving my own.

Well, I am blown away by the gift that I received.  Wes really doesn't want me to finish my dissertation, haha.  In all seriousness, this is very humbling and I don't know how best to express how thankful I am except to say thank you.  This unboxing pic of me looking way more excited than I usually do (I intended just a very pleased smile, I confess) comes via a joke by Addie, who took the picture right after she said "Now look like I didn't schedule you a vasectomy for Christmas," causing me to laugh really hard and create an embarrassing picture of myself for everyone's enjoyment.
 

 
As an aside, I have a large pile of digital goodies for my own person, but they haven't accepted my Steam friend request.  If they don't respond by the end of the day I'm just going to spoil the surprise and PM them since I should not be sitting on gifts after receiving my own.

I just received my Secret Santa gift box today, and I'm a little blown away. 
 
- four-pack of Cheerwine
- Mexican hot chocolate
- Nickel Creek album on vinyl
 
I'm not quite sure who my Secret Santa was (please, do tell!), but you freaking knocked it out of the park on this one. I love Cheerwine, but it's only available at expensive specialty shops around here. Hot chocolate is always a good idea, and this Nickel Creek album is incredible thus far. I'm actually a big fan of bluegrass, and this has got a lot of that great Appalachian flavor to it--super thanks!
 
 
Pix because it did happen:

Well, I am blown away by the gift that I received.  Wes really doesn't want me to finish my dissertation, haha.  In all seriousness, this is very humbling and I don't know how best to express how thankful I am except to say thank you.  This unboxing pic of me looking way more excited than I usually do (I intended just a very pleased smile, I confess) comes via a joke by Addie, who took the picture right after she said "Now look like I didn't schedule you a vasectomy for Christmas," causing me to laugh really hard and create an embarrassing picture of myself for everyone's enjoyment.
 

 
As an aside, I have a large pile of digital goodies for my own person, but they haven't accepted my Steam friend request.  If they don't respond by the end of the day I'm just going to spoil the surprise and PM them since I should not be sitting on gifts after receiving my own.

Well, I am blown away by the gift that I received.  Wes really doesn't want me to finish my dissertation, haha.  In all seriousness, this is very humbling and I don't know how best to express how thankful I am except to say thank you.  This unboxing pic of me looking way more excited than I usually do (I intended just a very pleased smile, I confess) comes via a joke by Addie, who took the picture right after she said "Now look like I didn't schedule you a vasectomy for Christmas," causing me to laugh really hard and create an embarrassing picture of myself for everyone's enjoyment.
 

 
As an aside, I have a large pile of digital goodies for my own person, but they haven't accepted my Steam friend request.  If they don't respond by the end of the day I'm just going to spoil the surprise and PM them since I should not be sitting on gifts after receiving my own.

Well, I am blown away by the gift that I received.  Wes really doesn't want me to finish my dissertation, haha.  In all seriousness, this is very humbling and I don't know how best to express how thankful I am except to say thank you.  This unboxing pic of me looking way more excited than I usually do (I intended just a very pleased smile, I confess) comes via a joke by Addie, who took the picture right after she said "Now look like I didn't schedule you a vasectomy for Christmas," causing me to laugh really hard and create an embarrassing picture of myself for everyone's enjoyment.
 

 
As an aside, I have a large pile of digital goodies for my own person, but they haven't accepted my Steam friend request.  If they don't respond by the end of the day I'm just going to spoil the surprise and PM them since I should not be sitting on gifts after receiving my own.

Almost nobody on any side of this argument thinks that removing anything from the shelf is a viable end-goal.  Critique such as Anita's that points out sexism in media (aside: please table specific citations from her -- I agree with some of her critique and I don't see sexism when she does in other specific instances) might encourage people to not buy sexist material, but nobody is forcing anyone to not make things.
 
With specific regard to DoA Xtreme 3, Tecmo Koei can say whatever it wants about not wanting to bring over the game because of fear of backlash; whatever they say, negative news to a low-profile game is still making it in the news, which ultimately raises copies sold.  It is simply that the previous games did not sell enough copies in the US to justify the release, period.

Just wanted to chime in to say that I have also worked as a professional copyist (though certainly not full-time -- that's fun!) to support my academic work, and would be happy to help. DM and/or e-mail me anytime.  Full disclosure: I'm a Finale person, haha.  I think that both programs are equally capable -- it's just a matter of which one you learned first.  
 
In any case, if you need help doing work with fancy formatting, I'm good at it -- down to getting the beautiful cross-staff strokes in Debussy manuscripts to render in formal printed notation, though I don't think most VGM work will require anything quite so complex.  Hit me up anytime!  And while I'm posting, anyone who can read through this thread and feel confident in responding should swing by the new History and Study of Game Music forum.  

I've used this as an example of game music studies often as a speaker and organizer of panels, and I want to kick off this forum's discussion by putting this question to everyone.
 
First, listen to what in my opinion is the most "towny" theme of any piece of game music:  Ragnarok Online's "Theme to Prontera." 
 
I have suggested to music scholars and friends alike that I could play this piece of music for just about anyone with any amount of gaming experience and they'd know it's a town theme from some kind of Japanese RPG.  My questions to you all:  Why is this the case?  Is there something quintessential about this particular piece of music, or would it work with, say, the Lufia II town theme just as easily?  There's a lot of tonic going on, but imo there's more to it than that, and I'd love to pin some specific characteristics onto various jRPG town themes to help connect them.
 
You could replace "town" with "battle," "field," etc. and it still mostly works -- the rest of the Ragnarok Online soundtrack continues to conform to this notion of musical location quite nicely.
 
Other related questions to consider:  Can we identify a piece of game music as "from a jRPG" more generally, and if so, what elements do those tracks share?  Is it important to consider that first word in the jRPG acronym -- Japanese -- more strongly than the rest of this post has done?  
 
I'd love to hear some thoughts!

I think maybe instrumentation plays into it too. You generally don't hear a lot of brass in town themes unless the town is very specifically a regal kind of castle town. I think that what you've got in Prontera and a lot of Final Fantasy and Tales of town themes is a focus on woodwinds as leads. Maybe oboes, flutes, and clarinets evoke a kind of idyllic feeling?

First of all, welcome to the game music studies forum!  
 
This is a short sticky to help differentiate the purpose of this forum from other places on the site where we all discuss music.  First, this is not a replacement for talking about game music in the Community forum.  If you think the music to game X is awesome/horrible/hilarious, that's great!  Taking that element out of the Community forum isn't anyone's goal, nor should it be.
 
Instead, this subforum exists for us to help describe why and how we have certain reactions to music, and to ask questions when we don't yet have that understanding.  Sometimes it might be what the music is doing in the context of something else -- gameplay, art direction, etc.  Sometimes it might be something neat about how the music is constructed or orchestrated.  Sometimes it might be how the music relates to other pieces of game, film, or art music.
 
Occasionally, answering these open-ended questions to your satisfaction requires the use of some specific terminology.  Feel free to throw around whatever jargon you see fit, but do keep in mind that not everyone is going to have the same background that you do -- this is especially true of game music, where some crowd of folks will know game terms and won't know music terminology and vice versa.  Language helps us be precise, but it also isolates us into niche communities that are all part of the same larger world of games, so keep that in mind when you post.  In short, be accepting and respectful of those who don't share the same body of knowledge that you do -- you likely have a lot to learn from them.

First of all, welcome to the game music studies forum!  
 
This is a short sticky to help differentiate the purpose of this forum from other places on the site where we all discuss music.  First, this is not a replacement for talking about game music in the Community forum.  If you think the music to game X is awesome/horrible/hilarious, that's great!  Taking that element out of the Community forum isn't anyone's goal, nor should it be.
 
Instead, this subforum exists for us to help describe why and how we have certain reactions to music, and to ask questions when we don't yet have that understanding.  Sometimes it might be what the music is doing in the context of something else -- gameplay, art direction, etc.  Sometimes it might be something neat about how the music is constructed or orchestrated.  Sometimes it might be how the music relates to other pieces of game, film, or art music.
 
Occasionally, answering these open-ended questions to your satisfaction requires the use of some specific terminology.  Feel free to throw around whatever jargon you see fit, but do keep in mind that not everyone is going to have the same background that you do -- this is especially true of game music, where some crowd of folks will know game terms and won't know music terminology and vice versa.  Language helps us be precise, but it also isolates us into niche communities that are all part of the same larger world of games, so keep that in mind when you post.  In short, be accepting and respectful of those who don't share the same body of knowledge that you do -- you likely have a lot to learn from them.

First of all, welcome to the game music studies forum!  
 
This is a short sticky to help differentiate the purpose of this forum from other places on the site where we all discuss music.  First, this is not a replacement for talking about game music in the Community forum.  If you think the music to game X is awesome/horrible/hilarious, that's great!  Taking that element out of the Community forum isn't anyone's goal, nor should it be.
 
Instead, this subforum exists for us to help describe why and how we have certain reactions to music, and to ask questions when we don't yet have that understanding.  Sometimes it might be what the music is doing in the context of something else -- gameplay, art direction, etc.  Sometimes it might be something neat about how the music is constructed or orchestrated.  Sometimes it might be how the music relates to other pieces of game, film, or art music.
 
Occasionally, answering these open-ended questions to your satisfaction requires the use of some specific terminology.  Feel free to throw around whatever jargon you see fit, but do keep in mind that not everyone is going to have the same background that you do -- this is especially true of game music, where some crowd of folks will know game terms and won't know music terminology and vice versa.  Language helps us be precise, but it also isolates us into niche communities that are all part of the same larger world of games, so keep that in mind when you post.  In short, be accepting and respectful of those who don't share the same body of knowledge that you do -- you likely have a lot to learn from them.

I've used this as an example of game music studies often as a speaker and organizer of panels, and I want to kick off this forum's discussion by putting this question to everyone.
 
First, listen to what in my opinion is the most "towny" theme of any piece of game music:  Ragnarok Online's "Theme to Prontera." 
 
I have suggested to music scholars and friends alike that I could play this piece of music for just about anyone with any amount of gaming experience and they'd know it's a town theme from some kind of Japanese RPG.  My questions to you all:  Why is this the case?  Is there something quintessential about this particular piece of music, or would it work with, say, the Lufia II town theme just as easily?  There's a lot of tonic going on, but imo there's more to it than that, and I'd love to pin some specific characteristics onto various jRPG town themes to help connect them.
 
You could replace "town" with "battle," "field," etc. and it still mostly works -- the rest of the Ragnarok Online soundtrack continues to conform to this notion of musical location quite nicely.
 
Other related questions to consider:  Can we identify a piece of game music as "from a jRPG" more generally, and if so, what elements do those tracks share?  Is it important to consider that first word in the jRPG acronym -- Japanese -- more strongly than the rest of this post has done?  
 
I'd love to hear some thoughts!

AHHHHHHHH the new characters are so good.  If you haven't seen the reveals yet, make your way to e3.nintendo.com post-haste, because spoilers abound below......
 
......(filler).....
 
 
 
Lucas is really good, and probably the character that makes the most use of B-reverse momentum -- alas, the Magnet Boost technique appears to be gone.  I assume Zap Jumping is out as well, but forgot to check.
 
Roy actually feels slightly different now!  It's Fox / Falco instead of Marth with a different sweetspot.  This is a great step in the right direction for the character, and those of you feeling like we didn't need a 3rd swordsman, I can assure you that the slot isn't a waste.
 
And lastly....holy balls Ryu is fun.  He has completely different attacks based on how long you hold down the button for each of his grounded normals.  This gives him roughly 2x the amount of normal moves for any other character.  Full list below:
 
Neutral:  jab (into strong-->fierce for AAA standard Smash combo) or Roundhouse Kick.
 
F-Tilt:  St. MK or F. MP (the overhead punch, which destroys shields in Smash as a substitute for "beats blocks")
 
U-Tilt:  Close Jab or Standing Strong.
 
D-Tilt:  Cr. LK or Cr. MK
 
All of his special moves also increase in damage based on how long you hold the button down....and all of them except Down Special (the focus attack) have a special "EX" version that can be activated by performing the appropriate motion from SF2 and the A button (note:  B button works also, but Ryu _can_ use specials with just the normal punch button).  So 236A is the Hadoken, 41236A is Red Hadoken (only usable via motion), 623A is Shoryuken, and 214A is the Hurricane Kick -- which gives a nice rising boost if used for recovery.
 
Lastly, all of the standard SF combos function -- Cr. LK --> Cr. MK --> Fireball is a thing, and Cl. Jab --> Standing Strong --> SRK works as well.  The character feels like there was MUCH more work put into him than they needed, and it makes the future of Smash DLC look very nice indeed.
 
Thoughts?

I've been doing really well ever since finding this weapon.  Hoping to clear rift 50 before season's end, but I'd like to find ancient IK or Wastes gloves first.