djpretzel

Oh my goodness I remember this, sad I was not able to ever get something going for this.

@HoboKa As long as we keep the richtext portions of the theme white - as in the screenshot - we can reliably maintain the formatting when copying/pasting.
So it won't be a "true" dark theme - it'll be much darker, overall, but richtext (forum posts & mix writeups) at least will be dark-on-light.
@Sir_NutS This is absolutely the plan, for social links. What would the flair look like?

@djpretzel I went with the full albums for the playlist - mind you I did it this way for simplicity sake if Mom, Grandparents, or babysitter put her down instead of me.

Darker, yes - and it'll just be default. Large richtext areas still dark-on-white, as in above screenshot, but some inverted bits, and otherwise darker in general. Sticky navbar & sitewide login status.

Phantasy Star II - Restoration - An arrangement album
(Sorry if this is an inappropriate place for this thread. Move if need be.)
Introduction:
Hey OCR Folks, it's been a long time. This is the first project and music remixes i've actually worked on in 4 to 5 years. (Last complete thing I made was an audio restoration project for Grandia II https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=673761272 ) So i'm a little rusty.
The reason it's been so long is that in 2016 through a myriad of unknown circumstances I acquired Tinnitus in both my ears along with some major sinus issues and something wrong with the left side of my jaw that has caused a variety of symptoms in my left ear that i've had to learn to deal with. (The biggest issue being for whatever reason more low frequency sounds seem to travel through my left side of my head more than the right. And so listening to audio with bass it sounds more localized in my left ear and slightly off center and not entirely unidirectional.) Learning to live with this stuff took a long time to not only acclimate to, but to get over the extreme anxiety of never being able to hear really the same as I used to. One day I was fine, one day I randomly woke up and my whole world was changed.  And so I thought I had to give up audio and music forever.

I did try to start a few things here and there after 2016 but could never overcome my anxiety to finish. I uploaded a few on my soundcloud

Something you could do to be helpful as well. I've only ever played part of Phantasy Star II, never finished it and I watched my older brother play through parts of it a lot when I was younger. (I was born 2 years after release) and so while I am familiar with the music and love it. There is a lot of context to some of these I am missing. So if anyone could provide useful hints about where or how pieces of music are played (For songs I haven't already posted a WIP for) that would be very helpful for inspiration
Restoration - Current WIP https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yzQDh5vofXpNKiHUEUjTcDoTZWZqv2V4/view?usp=sharing
Basically finished and loopable. I'll come back much later to make adjustments with a clean head. Step up - Current WIP https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q9G4tk3cujM5CqJ7XHii6bZDOvhTsOkz/view?usp=sharing
Song is almost finished, last sections don't have all parts in yet, but I wonder if the ending doesn't work? A Prologue - Current WIP https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IjI-ikQpJPlQPdKoyO8GfArAJg6dp7LT/view?usp=sharing
This one is fairly far along. Polished sequencing/performances and a lot more developed mixing and arrangement changes. (Plus a reference to Phantasy Star 1!).  A prominent  feature of the first half of this "Nightmare" is a Heartbeat driving the song. The arrangement is a lot more fleshed out and additional sections of music have been added.
Overall I feel like this song really wants to channel some Vanegllis and Blade Runner. Subconsciously, those are what my brain goes to with "Space!" Bracky news - Current WIP https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kBuadh82dQrVpgQCGgFcuvKRJMwZXE7D/view?usp=sharing
Another song that started out as a *very* short original piece of music. Like 16 seconds. The composition is extended to almost 1.5 minutes with variations of the core composition to make a longer loop. This one gave me the most trouble so far trying not to go too overboard and make something that won't be fitting to hear in game. There are more guitars because I can't help but think about Metal when I see this guy  http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/ps2weaponshop2.png
So I wouldn't be opposed to scrapping this arrangement and starting from scratch for something more "Blip Bloopy Spacey" Mystery - Current WIP https://drive.google.com/file/d/1957JaRXvnb21sCb0-YTqePaiJgMTYwWu/view?usp=sharing
The song is blocked out and essentially done foundation wise.Basic mixing  and placeholder instruments until Arturia fixes one of their plugins. Phantasy Pressure - Still been plugging away at it here and there trying to get close what I originally envisioned in my head. Still a lot placeholder performances for bass/guitar solos and stuff. But the foundation is there.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EfFFAfDj-fF5JW034s7O82aHjm7l9VqP/view?usp=sharing Pleasure My Home -  There are some gaps in the lines later on but I think it's blocked out. Tried to keep the structure more simple this time but let me know your thoughts if you have any.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RKZ5GpZabyuBoUtiLdGgW-89xsUt_cKU/view?usp=sharing Rise or Fall Movement Advanced - I've had the hardest time with this one. Go easy on me will ya??
Vocoder still misbehaving. And lots of clipping so please forgive it!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZiOMMuLTKTLqwikwlIXBzRw0gjXY0vJS/view?usp=sharing Secret Ways Over - Song is blocked out. Basic mixing, let me know what you think! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1txu6qum7n4Cy7HbI3-w3msOVORE4ugRc/view?usp=sharing Silent Zone - Rough mixing perhaps but the song is taking the kind of shape I wanted https://drive.google.com/file/d/18S0nCqho9NAicq5f0iB68_-Ecc6H_2h4/view?usp=sharing Excite Town -
Final WIP for blocking out Excite Town.
Lots of little things to change when final pass is done later. Quite like how most of this turned out
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FP7TrmFhhT-4t0f_b8k1wc2CZ6ADGU3D/view?usp=sharing Violation -https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CBo4OX5CWHaAzNI2o-ApHisYWZjjxtvJ/view?usp=sharing First WIP for Violation, just sat down tonight to get the base out of the way. No percussion yet.
I like how this is sounding to start with ?
Power - Blocked out. I like this. But other times I hate it. /shrug
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lw68HYE-Gy69bLgDjKwczhKhs-bkpjBh/view?usp=sharing Under Death Place Exclaim Never Dream

This will probably take a while to finish between working full time and trying to do other stuff. But i'm more motivated the more I go on,though I have to mind my ears. Some days with Tinnitus are worse than others and that can affect my sound perception. And worst come to worst if I can't finish i'll just release the few songs that are finished eventually.


Nya??

Darker, yes - and it'll just be default. Large richtext areas still dark-on-white, as in above screenshot, but some inverted bits, and otherwise darker in general. Sticky navbar & sitewide login status.

Bad person? More like TERRIBLE person. But I kid... at this point I'm 99% sure we'll be adding twitter/youtube/facebook/soundcloud links to profiles and also the profile postbit field next to every post, which should be pretty cool.
I'd like to remind everyone that, above perhaps everyone else on this planet Earth, I do want to improve OCR
Screenshot of WIP theme attached. It's WIP, but it's already preferable to current theme in some ways. We'll get there.

Darker, yes - and it'll just be default. Large richtext areas still dark-on-white, as in above screenshot, but some inverted bits, and otherwise darker in general. Sticky navbar & sitewide login status.

Bad person? More like TERRIBLE person. But I kid... at this point I'm 99% sure we'll be adding twitter/youtube/facebook/soundcloud links to profiles and also the profile postbit field next to every post, which should be pretty cool.
I'd like to remind everyone that, above perhaps everyone else on this planet Earth, I do want to improve OCR
Screenshot of WIP theme attached. It's WIP, but it's already preferable to current theme in some ways. We'll get there.

Bad person? More like TERRIBLE person. But I kid... at this point I'm 99% sure we'll be adding twitter/youtube/facebook/soundcloud links to profiles and also the profile postbit field next to every post, which should be pretty cool.
I'd like to remind everyone that, above perhaps everyone else on this planet Earth, I do want to improve OCR
Screenshot of WIP theme attached. It's WIP, but it's already preferable to current theme in some ways. We'll get there.

@The Coop I appreciate what you wrote, because it shows me the diversity of perspectives on the topic; I do happen to disagree, in terms of the timeline, though. Unmod was deleted significantly prior to Balance & Ruin and many other events that to me represent some of the apexes of community activity & engagement. I know Unmod sticks out in some minds as a milestone & harbinger, but my ear is fairly close to the ground on this, and I believe the trend is more recent, and the association is one of conflation.
@Ramaniscence As the admin of a site facing similar challenges & the steward of Jake's old site, I feel like we're in this together, no? Door's always open if you want to chat... and/or join forces against.... let's see... the trajectory of the Internet & Capitalism as we know it... and, apparently, removal of forum signatures.

Yep, you really nailed it there. Way too close to home. When I read your post, I spat out my yerba mate and dropped my artisanal scone on the ground - "They're on to me!!!" I thought, as I frantically started shredding documents & eliminating any hard evidence of my "post-modernist" UX/UI plot to monetize OCR by getting rid of forum signatures. No one can ever know... My entire business model is in shambles because I was banking on getting rid of forum signatures leading directly to the vast, untold riches that have thus far eluded me in twenty years of running this non-profit community. This was it, this was the moment, and now it's been shamefully exposed...
Ahem... at any rate, in my experience you get respect when you give respect. Making relatively outlandish, bad faith accusations is not giving respect, nor is calling anyone elitist, nor is assuming that because you're not being agreed with, you're not being heard...
As @Ramaniscence alluded to, the paradigm of the online forum itself has eroded a bit, and while I've never felt pressured to follow every last design fad, I also feel like we - along with everyone else - are competing for the time & energy of human beings that are increasingly being bombarded with information. In the context of a thread, the additional secondary/tertiary, unstructured text & visual information provided in signatures is a bit distracting. Since we plan on leaning on the (streamlined) forums more in months to come, this is a preparatory step to make them not just more "modern" or "post-modern" but more focused, plain and simple. The purpose of this post was largely to explain the rationale & get ideas for equivalent functionality, and not to debate the decision, and we appreciated the good faith comments we received and will keep them in mind for profile enhancements or other ways of letting artists & contributors showcase their works, talents, & availability.

A few points worth noting:
The site's UVP is the incredible game music arrangements. The community has been valuable for many of us, but it is secondary. The vast majority of the users on the site never even touch the forums. I'd imagine most of the people who still use the forums have for years. Those that have left, as others have mentioned, probably just got too old/busy. With that said, most major music sites don't even have forums. Maybe they have a subreddit, but not a forum. YouTube and Soundcloud killed OCR's community momentum, not the changes to the site. Gone are the days of finding MP3s on P2P networks. You don't have to have your own web hosting or submit to VGMix/OCR/whatever to share your music on the internet.  The internet is social. A lot of people don't like it, but a huge portion of the internet does. This is where blogs/pages/whatever would need to come into play. If you want to build a large internet community, it has to be a pseudo-social network. The vocal minority will hate it. The top sites on the internet right now are either social media (instagram, reddit, facebook, twitter, linkedin), "video sites", YouTube, which is a mash-up video and social site, and then Amazon, Wikipedia, and search engines. Forum activity has dropped, but Discord activity is booming. "Booming" may be a bit of a stretch, but it's far more active than IRC was when it died. That's because Discord is used by a lot of people and the age range is like "13" to 40. It's just most accessible.  And if you want talk about user experience, I can take this a bit further:
The web is dead. Web traffics across the board has dropped drastically in favor of mobile apps. This is partly also why social communities and focus'd web/mobile apps have become popular. People do not sit and traverse large chunks of content anymore. People consume content in short bursts, "micro-breaks", on commutes, in shopping lines, on the toilet. It's not true for everyone, but it is for the vast majority of the planet. There's no room for noise and visual clutter. Anything that keep that comes between a user and the content their looking for is noise. Noise makes users go elsewhere.

Sure.

I love this so much.
I love everything about this.
I love that not only did it pick a great source material I never would have dreamed would have remixes, but it also namedrops the title to show it off.
And I love that this is just a totally sweet wicked awesome killer 10000/10 funkalicious discothon MASTERPIECE.

Rama is on the ball here.  Look, I'm one of the oldest members around here, been using the forums since they were a thing.  But things are changing, and just like physical letters, forums are very niche nowadays.  And even the forums that are still up with a strong community, have streamlined things a long time ago, so forums themselves are a different beast than what they were a few years ago.   I'm hoping the admins can still find a way allow for personalization of their posts, or some way for people to show their art that fits better with a modern design.  

Even though forums are largely dead, I still appreciate that we have them here still, and I appreciate also any attempt at streamlining/modernizing them.

It's funny, forums seems to have died out but nothing really replaced them.  Reddit-style commenting makes it impossible to discuss things in a conversational format.  Discord is a throwback to old internet chat rooms, where it's incredibly difficult to find old comments or discuss more than a handful of topics at the same time.  I for one appreciate the old format.

Yep, you really nailed it there. Way too close to home. When I read your post, I spat out my yerba mate and dropped my artisanal scone on the ground - "They're on to me!!!" I thought, as I frantically started shredding documents & eliminating any hard evidence of my "post-modernist" UX/UI plot to monetize OCR by getting rid of forum signatures. No one can ever know... My entire business model is in shambles because I was banking on getting rid of forum signatures leading directly to the vast, untold riches that have thus far eluded me in twenty years of running this non-profit community. This was it, this was the moment, and now it's been shamefully exposed...
Ahem... at any rate, in my experience you get respect when you give respect. Making relatively outlandish, bad faith accusations is not giving respect, nor is calling anyone elitist, nor is assuming that because you're not being agreed with, you're not being heard...
As @Ramaniscence alluded to, the paradigm of the online forum itself has eroded a bit, and while I've never felt pressured to follow every last design fad, I also feel like we - along with everyone else - are competing for the time & energy of human beings that are increasingly being bombarded with information. In the context of a thread, the additional secondary/tertiary, unstructured text & visual information provided in signatures is a bit distracting. Since we plan on leaning on the (streamlined) forums more in months to come, this is a preparatory step to make them not just more "modern" or "post-modern" but more focused, plain and simple. The purpose of this post was largely to explain the rationale & get ideas for equivalent functionality, and not to debate the decision, and we appreciated the good faith comments we received and will keep them in mind for profile enhancements or other ways of letting artists & contributors showcase their works, talents, & availability.

As @Abadoss proposed, we do have the profile block/column with the avatar image where we can add some (not a ton) of additional info - I'm thinking specifically a star for featured artists, linking to artist profile on OCR, and then also icon links for the more common social media networks, i.e. Twitter, SoundCloud, YouTube, Facebook. Blogs were nixed at the time because Invision's implementation didn't have, of all things, global categories, which were deemed relatively important. They're (finally) adding those in the next major point release, so it's time to reconsider how/whether we'd do that.
IPS *does* have a gallery module, as well, which we *could* enable - in addition to giving visual artists a place to show off their stuff, it could be used for WIP artwork for album projects, etc. Interested in your feedback on this @The Coop, mostly in terms of whether it'd be worth it & have some value?
To echo what @DarkeSword wrote, we're moving forward as-is, but we're also going to be making a host of other changes. Strong feelings will be had, I'm sure, but to me a lot of this is long overdue and we need to try what we can to leverage the forums & integrate them with the rest of the site, along with a redesign. When the dust settles and we see what's what, anything & everything could be back on the table, but the same design concerns would likely apply.

As @Abadoss proposed, we do have the profile block/column with the avatar image where we can add some (not a ton) of additional info - I'm thinking specifically a star for featured artists, linking to artist profile on OCR, and then also icon links for the more common social media networks, i.e. Twitter, SoundCloud, YouTube, Facebook. Blogs were nixed at the time because Invision's implementation didn't have, of all things, global categories, which were deemed relatively important. They're (finally) adding those in the next major point release, so it's time to reconsider how/whether we'd do that.
IPS *does* have a gallery module, as well, which we *could* enable - in addition to giving visual artists a place to show off their stuff, it could be used for WIP artwork for album projects, etc. Interested in your feedback on this @The Coop, mostly in terms of whether it'd be worth it & have some value?
To echo what @DarkeSword wrote, we're moving forward as-is, but we're also going to be making a host of other changes. Strong feelings will be had, I'm sure, but to me a lot of this is long overdue and we need to try what we can to leverage the forums & integrate them with the rest of the site, along with a redesign. When the dust settles and we see what's what, anything & everything could be back on the table, but the same design concerns would likely apply.

Yep, you really nailed it there. Way too close to home. When I read your post, I spat out my yerba mate and dropped my artisanal scone on the ground - "They're on to me!!!" I thought, as I frantically started shredding documents & eliminating any hard evidence of my "post-modernist" UX/UI plot to monetize OCR by getting rid of forum signatures. No one can ever know... My entire business model is in shambles because I was banking on getting rid of forum signatures leading directly to the vast, untold riches that have thus far eluded me in twenty years of running this non-profit community. This was it, this was the moment, and now it's been shamefully exposed...
Ahem... at any rate, in my experience you get respect when you give respect. Making relatively outlandish, bad faith accusations is not giving respect, nor is calling anyone elitist, nor is assuming that because you're not being agreed with, you're not being heard...
As @Ramaniscence alluded to, the paradigm of the online forum itself has eroded a bit, and while I've never felt pressured to follow every last design fad, I also feel like we - along with everyone else - are competing for the time & energy of human beings that are increasingly being bombarded with information. In the context of a thread, the additional secondary/tertiary, unstructured text & visual information provided in signatures is a bit distracting. Since we plan on leaning on the (streamlined) forums more in months to come, this is a preparatory step to make them not just more "modern" or "post-modern" but more focused, plain and simple. The purpose of this post was largely to explain the rationale & get ideas for equivalent functionality, and not to debate the decision, and we appreciated the good faith comments we received and will keep them in mind for profile enhancements or other ways of letting artists & contributors showcase their works, talents, & availability.

damnit dave dont talk shit about yerba mate! it's really good when coffee starts to lose its effectiveness

Bear in mind I have no saying in this decision. However, I'd like to drop a few thoughts. First because it's an interesting subject. And second, but most importantly, The Coop has always been friendly and approachable. And I wish him the best!
  
As someone like you who is known for using sigs as means of showcasing visual prowess, this change feels like cutting down a long time beloved tree, doesn't it? Still, you're very talented. And I do hope your involvement with DeviantArt and alikes has been filling the void OCR couldn't fill for you anymore.
 
Unfortunately, it's been years since there was a present and consistent sig making community on these boards. All you could witness recently were a bunch of untouched "June is Boss Month" sigs and such, which honestly gives the forums a sense of lack of updates and abandonment. Sure, sigs used to be a huge thing in the past. But you can't say they've even been a thing in the past 6 years or so.
 
You're aware that in the past, there was no such thing as custom avatars. Everyone had to choose one from a curated gaming/anime/TV-film collection. But now not only you can have your own custom avatar (which can be a closer artistic expression of yourself more than ever), but it can even be animated if you wish. By this perspective, don't you feel this is a fair trade-off?
 
But you do post in another forum where its community, which fostered sig culture like no other, grew older and don't use sigs anymore either. And that didn't stop you from being a part of it. In the end, our primary way of strengthening relationships and camaraderie is the exchange of thoughts. Although I admit making new friends here throught my own sig skills, this alone could not provide such strengthening.
 
You're right. This is a music site. And that's how you've been labelling it all the way. Which means it's not a sig site, nor a visual arts site. Sigs do, however, bring memories associated with its posters and to a certain period in time you've been here. With that in mind, newer posters won't be able to have the experience of shaping said memory like you or I. Yet, this is a completely new community now with these social media platforms (come join us in the OCR Discord server, Coop!) on the side. So OCR members might be shaping other kind of experiences lately and sigs haven't been a part of it. I'm as nostalgic as you, though. And I'd love to witness a new bunch of artists making neat looking sigs to new other regulars. It would give me warm goosebumps!

I've mulled over this topic since it happened, and I just keep coming back to the same conclusion: forums are dead. Traditional forum software on the internet is few and far between now. Most communities have moved to "discussion"-style systems like Discourse (not to be confused with Discord) or Reddit. Not that every site should be reddit, but how ridiculous would reddit look if every person had an image signature? Or even a text one. Removing visual clutter makes it easier to quickly navigate the conversation. Images on the page, especially large ones, should be meaningful and representative. Watching 2-3 people discuss something in a conversation and seeing the same 3 images in different patterns is not particularly meaningful. It's excessive.
I do agree it's nice for users have more customization/personality/whatever, but I don't think it would come from forums signatures. It would come from a organized and utilized user profile. Custom avatars are good. Banner images are better. Invision does a pretty good job of supporting both of those, but it's really base-level. Heavy text, low imagery. Very data, no flavor. Do I expect that to change any time soon? Ehh. Do I think reactivating image signatures is the right move? Almost definitely not.
 

Wow.