djpretzel

Done, for now. Should be interesting to see how things go. Thanks for all the support, folks. We've got an insanely aggressive agenda for 2008 - the fundage is definitely going to be needed.

We need to do a Wiki article on this; we'll add these instructions + screenshots soon. Maybe... maybe not. Very large bandwidth impact. Working on generating thumbs dynamically using phpThumb so we can resize different images, things like that. If I can offload all the screenshot bandwidth to a dedicated DH mirror and it doesn't knock that out, it's definitely possible.

Multiple sources, mostly Japanese sites. I need to add them to http://www.ocremix.org/info/Credits, and will do so soon. I personally don't think there was anything particularly slick about having "(2)" or "(7)" instead of the actual mixers and composers listed out. The icons aren't really what's pushing the row size, it's the additional information being presented. The icons help to offset that.Now, listing and sorting data that represents two one-to-many and three many-to-many relationships per row... I think that's pretty slick. The per game consolidation idea is essentially what Dhsu was suggesting... it's not that it didn't occur to me, it's that I think the list should be sortable, and consolidating around games would have to magically disappear. More than a few of you seem to think this would be preferable... I don't know, like I said, I can play around with it, I'm just very reluctant to have a list that changes significantly on resorting...

With no offense to Spike - the channel has a role, and plays it well - I think eventually there will need to be a more credible Video Game award show, as the art form progresses. It's difficult, for example, to simultaneously wax idealistic on how games are for everyone, and that more and more girl gamers are popping up, when the VGAs are on a channel that's rather open about being "for guys" - for whatever that means. I wouldn't expect VGAs on Oxygen, that's for sure... Nothing that aspires to being considered an art form can have award shows like these, on channels like these. That being said, it's better than nothing at all, and I'm sure VGL played more material at the actual event. Given that Tommy's doing as much as possible to promote game music, I don't think he can afford to turn down opportunities like this just because of some of the negatives. I'd also expect The OneUps, etc. to take the gig, were it offered, and wouldn't hold it against them. I think it'd go a very long way towards fixing the overall presentation if they stopped treating their audience like idiots, acknowledged the dominant role of Internet culture on gaming, and played to a somewhat wiser audience.

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Well... when I see a list of things, with or without sub-headers, and I sort it in a different direction, I really don't expect the format/layout to change drastically. I just expect the data to be sorted differently. This comes from using a lot of interfaces that present tabular data - I just expect sorting to occur, not reformatting, and I'd find it jarring to have things move around like you're describing. What I might do is pursue some alternate, fixed-sort list presentations at some point (for example, present systems as a gallery of icons, or three columns for console-computer-handheld, or whatever), which at some point might be similar to what you're suggesting. In the meantime, however, I can't see doing the sub-headers because it would be, in my opinion, unorthodox to have them migrate on sorting. Locking to 50 makes keeping the overall page size more manageable, as I only need to test the one value, removes another querystring from the equation, which is always nice, but by far most importantly, reduces the number of queries that need to be cached. We're going to be adding more to the site, and keeping database and bandwidth performance in mind will be very important. Full system names for NES and SNES (acronym, spelled out) made sense to me; implemented.

They'd disappear when sorting by anything other than game name... pretty big reason I agree that they sometimes become redundant, but it'd be weird to have them disappear on sorting, and when sorting by anything other than game name or system, they're actually pretty helpful. Furthermore, without any icon whatsoever, the list can be pretty bland; they do draw the eye to what is arguably a less important factor of a mix, but they also make the overall list more pleasant to view & interact with imo. VGMdb need to finalize their URLs and come out of beta, so links to them can be considered permanent; once I know I'm linking to something definitive (they'll probably want to SEO/Rewrite their paths, for example), I definitely intend to both link to them and incorporate their data where relevant. Hopefully they'll be open to doing the same - I've had some great conversations with their staff and I see our two sites having a lot of potential for cooperation.

In general, I'm interested in expanding the role of community participation to the site, which may include some sort of coding, but there's some logistical roadblocks to that. OCR's frontend relies heavily on XSLT, and if you don't know that, it wouldn't make any sense. The database is also now rather advanced, so if you aren't familiar with 2nd and 3rd form normalization, for example, it wouldn't make much sense. What I'm more interested currently is hooking into vBulletin, especially its authentication system, and letting users interact with the OCR database using their vBulletin accounts. If anyone's got SPECIFIC experience with integrating with vBulletin and has oodles of time to help me out, that'd be much appreciated. Other little tasks come and go, and I'm always working on something... I'm thinking in the very near future of expanding this thread into its own forum dedicated to site modifications/feedback/improvements/corrections/etc., which could include some coding in addition to the more pronounced need for information quality assurance and corrections.

... thread title ... thread title, plus: emulators are often the only way for some individuals to explore older game soundtracks for abandonware, or rip fx/etc. from games for use in mixes (not always a good idea, but can be done tastefully), and thus contribute to game music appreciation and preservation, part of our core mission. Maybe, but then again, most of the albums are of games that are well known and don't require much explanation/disambiguation. Also, in general, once again: thread title - this is about the revised format for games and remixes. Modifications to the other lists will likely follow, but at some point in the future, hence their irrelevancy here.

Since the icons are repeating and rather small, they should cache nicely and only represent a loading burden once in awhile. The additional amount of data being represented and the static 50 record increment are another question, but it should still be tolerable for dial-up users. A "lightweight" version might be possible - we'll see - but the current implementation will be the default.

I fixed the search late last night; incidentally, it now also supports searching for composers by their Japanese names or for games by their Japanese names. We'll be filling in the Japanese names of games as we go. For same games this may not be available or may take much longer (if, for example, the game is obscure, or was never released and/or discussed in Japan). I'll add sort by Japanese game title soon.

Tonight, after multiple hours of development that had my girlfriend yelling at me for breaking a promise to stop at 10:00pm, I uploaded modifications to OCR's list system that, in my opinion, represent a substantial improvement. Multiple ReMixers are now credited, instead of just a count Multiple composers are now credited, instead of just a count Individual songs are listed, where available, for each mix Japanese names of both games and composers are presented in context Columns and font sizes have been rearranged for enhanced usability System icons have been added to help distinguish game/remix records Phew! Honestly, this was a boatload of work, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are a couple issues that need to be fixed. Let us know what you think, and report any problems here!

We already have two mirrors with Dreamhost, so leaning on them for a third doesn't make much sense at this point, since neither DH mirror is currently exceeding its bandwidth. I do appreciate the offer though. As a side note, even 7z compression doesn't tend to reduce MP3s all that much, since the data is already compressed, and to make things (much) easier on everyone, the mirrors don't zip the tracks.

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I'm moving this to the announcements forum; I suggest it be something we try to encourage every December. Thanks BGC for the original notion and DragonAvenger for reviving it.

UPDATE: I've contacted Reuben's father with printouts of this thread as well as a link. If you haven't commented yet, please still feel free, as we will leave this thread up as an announcement indefinitely, for all to see.

This morning we implemented a new URL format for VGM composers. OLD: http://www.ocremix.org/composer/id/2/ NEW: http://www.ocremix.org/composer/id/2/koji-kondo/ As you can see, the new link contains the composer name. The old link format will still work, and will redirect to the new format so future bookmarks, etc. will be correct. Even though the old links will still work, we'd appreciate your updating any links you may have on any websites, etc. that you contribute to. Please let me know if you have any problems/questions.

Happy Birthday. I run ocremix.

Yes, we're pretty sure... even if it was intended as music, there's a "substantive" requirement that whatever arranged material has to meet that these descending notes wouldn't. Unsticking this thread as I believe the majority of discussion has concluded - anyone can always resurrect the issue in the future. Thanks for all the great feedback - I think the new standards are a thousand times better, and clearer!

Will fix tonight; thanks. UPDATED: fixed... link format will likely change a bit soon.... again.... but I'll try to keep backwards compatibility and not break anything.

Frankly, I love this idea, and I'd love to see more reviews. I've never liked the idea of forcing people to do reviews, and I also feel like if there's any sort of incentive to review, the purity/honesty/motivation/etc. could easily be tarnished, but encouraging people to review just for the sake of giving ReMixers - and other listeners - something to read and consider... I think it's great.

Cubase 4, because it's my baby, then Colossus, because I find myself using it rather frequently lately. Sorry, Motif...

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Awesome work, everybody