Ramaniscence

Obvious troll bait, and I'm not going to be the only person with a rebuttal, but: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeHjfXYBVak http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXv8JVbqwao But hey everyone has their own opinion, and that's fine.

I saw this, and I've seen a lot of discussion about it, and I'm glad it has been brought up here. The obvious answer is "No", but a lot of people are really missing the point as to why this might not seem like the case. The simple answer is: music in games is not as important anymore. It certainly is important still; Studios spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get top of the line, full-orchestra scores and they're great! Obvious examples are things like the World of WarCraft, Assassin's Creed, Halo, God of War, Metal Gear Solid series (serieses?). So we obviously have hugely melodic scores even still, so why don't they stick out as much as older, classic score? Older games have less songs. Super Mario Bros 1 had like...5 songs? Castlevania has maybe 8-10. Super Nintendo saw slightly bigger soundtracks, and then we got into soundtracks like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasies, but even then you had boss battles, town music, world map music that you heard OVER and OVER again. Now I know what you might be thinking: But "Dancing Mad" only played once and you remember it note-for-note! Well of course you do. It's a great song and it BROKE the habit of hearing the same boss fight song over and over, so it made it stick out even more. Older games have shorter songs. Seriously songs for older soundtracks were like 1-2 minutes tops and repeated endlessly. Any song with half a melody that repeated that frequently would get stuck in your head. Even pop songs you don't like get stuck in your head after you hear them enough times on the radio. Even now Backstreet Boys and *NSync songs you hate come on and you know all the words. It's conditioning. More technology means better staging. Classic games did not have much to set the mood besides music. We didn't have spoken dialogue, camera angles, lighting, allll kinds of stuff to distract you away from the music. Classic games practically relied on the music to set the scene, now a days we don't have to. Music is, a lot of times, background. Related to above, music isn't supposed to be the emphasis. The scene is supposed to be the emphasis. The experience. There reason older video game soundtracks stick out so much is because music was a bigger part of the experience. It doesn't always make sense to do that anymore. You were in the stages of early development. Just like you can remember your Kindergarten teacher's name better than you can your 8th grade science teacher. The same reason it was easier for you to learn anything back-in-the-day. You brain was just better back then. You were at the peak of your alertness and your brain was absorbing information like crazy. You're not anymore. You're over-saturated. Seriously, how many Steam games do you have now versus how many NES and SNES games? How many times did you replay Disney's Aladdin? And how many times have you replayed BioShock or Borderlands? So we're dealing with a lot of factors, here. Sure technological limitations made composers focus more on melodic content, but so say that composers today are less melodic is both insulting and ignorant. tl;dr rose-colored glasses, nostalgia, better directing, etc, etc. Christopher Tin won a Grammy for Baba Yetu in the "Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s)" category. Even though it was originally composed for a Civilization IV, making it the first video game composition to win a Grammy, it was recognized as also being part of his "Calling All Dawns" album (which also won the Grammy for Best Classical Crossover Album). Journey's soundtrack was the first complete soundtrack to be acknowledged by the Grammys.

It's not an United States idea of Usability. It's a worldwide community understanding and it's something that goes beyond electronics, etc. Japanese culture in general has a huge problem with change, and that permeates into their interfaces. Both the PS4 and the XBone have come strides as far as usability. PS3/PSP weren't so bad in their own right, but the PlayStation store had lots of problems. It eventually got fixed but it took a long time. Sony is an international company. They make phones and all kinds of other electronics. They have a lot of investment in Japan, but ultimately they have a larger international brand so they've moved away from tradition Japan more so. If you look at Nintendo's designs and interfaces it's clear that they have not. What looks like "Fisher Price" and childish to us, is perfectly acceptable in Japan. They are simply unwilling to modernize, which is just a reflection of the entire culture. * * (At the same rate as the rest of the world on many things beyond robotics, etc).

I wouldn't say that Nintendo has ever really made a "good" operating system. They make simple operating systems, but pretty bad ones regardless. For instance: 3DS has MiiVerse, Street Pass, Swapnote, Message Notifications, and friends. These should all be integrated, and cross referencing, but they're not. They're all separate applications. I have a bunch of icons on my screen, but no real titles to them. No grouping available. Nothing. It's laid out like iOS version 1. PS3's UI aren't great either, and their store was atrocious until the update they made at the end of it's lifespan. Only Microsoft has a good, consistent, usable UI, which is probably what made them think they could get away with the same thing on Desktop PCs...but it didn't translate. As it stands though, Japanese culture has a hard time with usability, and that can be seen quite a bit in Nintendo's interfaces both physical and digital.

I Fight Dragons has a bit less emphasis on Chips as Anamanaguchi, but still sounds a little closer to what you're looking for. Perhaps also DIB which is the same idea: http://shaelriley.bandcamp.com/

Thanks for the heads up. There seems to be at least 1 broken song, and I'll contact Mark about that. The login link does also appear to be broken. Please use the login form in the HEADER (directly above that form) to log in. In the future please do not use this post as a bug-report platform. Either contact myself of fusion2004 directly, either on IRC or in a PM. If you are logged in, please use the in-page feedback submission form.

Soo now the world knows. hex called me into HQ Sunday morning to let me know the bad news. He told me not to put too much effort into the website because...well the future of the show looked pretty dim. That didn't stop me from building a post-site that the show deserved (largely due to the efforts of Mark, whom did not know the demoralizing news). That said: The show was great. Easily one of the best concerts I'd been to. The turnout may have been small, but the performances were HUGE: Urizen, TMBG, Green Jelly, Peelandar-Z, Solillaquists of Sound (AMAZING performance)...heck even seeing Shael finally get up there and perform again with Beefy for the first time in forever...just amazing. I particularly appreciated , which is a largely under represented soundtrack.A lot of people have had a lot of kind things to say and, honestly...I don't expect hex to take this lying down. He's a passionate guy, and this stuff is his lifeblood. There may never been another Nerdapalooza, or even another show of the scale we had this year, but I'd surprised if this is his last endeavor, and I'm behind him 100% for anything else he has planned. TO THE FUTURE.

Myself, Level99, Vilecat, and Diotrans for sure at the OCR booth. starla, OA, and DragonAvenger may have been there, I don't remember 100%. Saw that on reddit. You KILLED it. Excellent work.

Didn't see thread about Nerdapalooza 'cause I was too busy preparing for Nerdapalooza Regardless...geez what a weekend. A few of us went to Epcot yesterday and caught Boyz II Men too. Sheesh this is going to take awhile to recharge from.

Love it! Excellent. Will post often.

It takes like 2 seconds to remove a Blizzard Authenticator with the right information. SWToR on the other hand...no thanks

The main thing the expansion offers is additional content. Which is the only thing I'm looking for, and the only thing that'll keep me even mildly interested for a month, maybe 2. Luckily there will be at least 2, so Blizzard can continue taking my money.

If you're speaking of http://vgremix.com (rather than http://vgmixarchive.com), then please use the "Send Feedback" button on the bottom right hand side of the page to send feedback to the developers. We also follow the VGMix Reunion Facebook group.

From what I read is basically said: "The game that was supposed to be a remake of the original, is a remake of the original except worse because cutscenes, too". The cutscenes are an understanding gripe, but I think they add depth even if they do break up the action a big. The came should probably have a "classic" mode with no cutscenes at all. Other than that complaining about the lack of difficulty, unforgiving chance circumstances, predictable boss fights...I mean...were you expecting a new game or a remake of the original? I'm not saying that EXCUSES the score. Some things just don't translate well, but I'd rather play a remake of a game that had all of the original's flaws and charm than not having the remake at all. If you liked Duck Tales the original, you will most likely love this (if not for the music alone, around here).

This reminds me, we actually DO have a spreadsheet of songs from VGMix 2 missing from the archive (the best we can muster, based on the top 3 tiers, and the latest possible date on the web archive). https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ah9tZa9dM1YAdE1vQzhiVDNUbVlyVWRPaXVQZmtLU0E#gid=0 I haven't checked it up against what we currently have up recently, and I've already found at least one in your collection that was missing from the list, but if anyone notices anything that we don't have from here, let me know (there's 3 tabs)

This is kind of an incredibly deal Generations and All-Star Racing Transformed are worth this money ALONE. I believe you are mistaken. http://sonic.wikia.com/wiki/Sonic_Hits_Collection Also lol @ "profit" for "buyers"

This is not a convention with MMOs so much as it is a convention of RPGs. You start off weak and inexperienced, and through quests you gain experience and equipment that makes your character gradually feel stronger. You adventure, you team up and explore dungeons, and you split the spoils of the adventure. Since it would be (nearly) impossible to have that character evolve infinitely on a limited time scale it's generally accepted than an MMO needs some kind of "end game." A way for characters to become stronger without needing to level or gain more experience. Early MMOs such as Ultima Online did not have this, while some of the community was fine with traditional role playing and adventure, even these things had diminishing returns. Incremental gear levels passed the base max level is how most current MMOs achieve this. Whether it be maxing crafting and learning rare recipes, PvP, or raids. No matter what choice(s) an MMO chooses all of these need to have a certain expectation of challenge and/or RNG in order to make sure the player doesn't increase in power too quickly and run out of incentives to keep playing. RNG is the more annoy choice, but when it comes to things like crafting it's difficult to create an interesting, challenging endgame that does no require any kind of combat and doesn't have too much RNG but still has some sort of skill element that gets increasingly easier/more possible as the player increases their power. Not only are raids the easy answer, they're the logical answer from a genre (again RPG, not MMO) stand point. With that said: There are many things WoW does not do great. Server community and crafting are some of the biggest (world PvP is pretty big on that list right now too). I think any MMO that comes out will have to deal with these first and foremost, but also can't ignore an interesting end game. I also agree with the Guild Wars 2 argument and how it deals with much of this...perhaps a full-fledged Guild Wars MMO....

Exactly. The automated systems in WoW have created a social disconnect, but imagine if the system wasn't in place at all: Some players would end up being more social, and talking to people, many others would end up unable to ever do anything. You can say "Well then maybe an MMO isn't for them, then", but then you run into the issue of turning away people who're generally interested in content and gameplay. At the same time, there's nothing stopping those people who only do LFR and LFG in WoW from joining a real guild and doing dungeons and raids with peers other then themselves. It's their own conscious choice. Whether it's based in social stigma or general laziness the option to be social IS there. Some (many) people just do not choose it. I don't believe it's as big of an issue with design so much as it is an issue with culture.

This is where things get a little tricky... On Server A, a high population PvP server, players decide to alert the guards On Server B, a high population RP Server, players decide to alert the guards On Server C, a high population PvP server, decides to take it themselves On Server D, a high population RP Server, decides to take it themselves On Server E, a low population PvP server, decides to alert the guards. On Server F, a low population RP server, decides to alert the guards On Server G, a low population PvP server, players decide to take it themselves On Server H, a low population RP server, players decide to take it themselves On server A most of the population doesn't care about the storyline, but some do, with the help of the guards they're able to repel the attack. Minor damage, if any. On server B everyone really cares, and the threat, along with the help of the guards, is repelled easily without an issue. No damage. On server C, the population signed up to handle it, but didn't show up. The threat makes it to the guards and the people who care about lore stand up and fight alongside the guards. Moderate damage, but the threat is repelled. On server D, the majority of the population shows up. The threat never even makes it to the gates. Huge party. On server E, people sign up to help, but ultimately they just don't have enough people around, online, who actually care enough to participate. They're able to substantially cut down the opposing forces. Ultimately the threat makes it to Queynos but the guards, though caught off guard, are able to stop the threat eventually. Major damage, but we can rebuild. Server F they're able to repel most of the attack, but a small amount still falls on the unsuspecting guards. The guards defend the area, with the help of noble players are able to fully propel the attack. Moderate damage. Server G, nearly no one shows up. The small handful of players who're interest in the fate of the server fight hard, and fail. The guards, caught completely off-guard, are obliterated and the orcs sack everything they can get their hands on. Incredible damage. Server H, nearly everyone shows up. The moderate handful of players who're interested in the fate of the server fight hard, and do cut the threat down a quite a bit. They orcs eventually make it to the guards, who end up being able to repel the threat, but not without moderate damage. Servers A, B, and D continue life as usual. Servers F and H have to adjust to daily life; Some people take it with stride, others get fed up over participation and transfer to A, B, or D. As a result server F falls into a critically low server population. Server D, with a strong active community, becomes the dominate RP server; 3 other RP servers become ghostlands. Server E and G go to the forums and complain about how badly server population negatively effects their gameplay and how they can't be expected to pay to move to another server. With all good intentions, in the end if one server gets more of a benefit than another, players will be UP SET. Everyone who pays money for an MMO expects that they deserve the best experience absolutely possible by their own definition. So while leaving the fate of the world up to the population seems like a good idea IN THEORY...in practice it can be very very difficult, and I'm yet to see someone pull it off.

Her Borderlands 2 assessment was so far off it's laughable, and not even because she uses the word "murder" to describe "assisted euthanasia."

Reddit confirms I'm not alone in my Gandhi experience:

I am not going to try to convince you of anything any further. You either have no ability to comprehend mature concepts, or you're argumentative for the sake of arguing. Either way you are no longer worth my time in this discussion.

I do not even...

Right? I tried to do a cultural victory and avoid putting money into military at all costs, and fricken Ghandi of all people kept testing my borders. I never attacked except to defend myself, I regularly caved to requests and gave gifts to keep people happy with me, but by the end everyone hated me anyway.

I'll agree that the miss use of mature things can reduce the overall quality, however you can't discount the adult themes in the storyline of these games. Games like Assassin's Creed, Max Payne, Red Dead Redemption couldn't exist at all without having an M rating. Games like Mass Effect and Catherine perhaps could, but the experience would be cheapened without it. I don't think we should arbitrarily kick up the blood and violence as an excuse to make games more mature, but I don't think we should avoid the opportunity to add blood, death, sex, etc, tastefully and respectfully to add a mature level of depth.