AngelCityOutlaw

Y tho?

Timaeus did say that he wouldn't value a mentor's word more than anyone else's.
That's true, but my personal experience is that teachers, good ones anyway, are usually way harder on their students than anyone else because it's their job and your failure reflects badly on them. People on forums can just ignore you if they don't like it and don't want to beat you down, etc. I had a kung fu instructor, shop teacher, etc. who were all hardcore on the students and it was for the better.
There is also a flipside to this and it all keeps going back to what I've said about experienced people actually being the minority in public feedback: Some people think they are, and are really good at passing themselves off as gurus when in reality, they're no better (sometimes worse) than the person they're criticizing. Not to say they may not still be correct in their criticism, but I've seen or been on the receiving end of this quite a number of times. YouTube is especially full of bad advice/blatantly incorrect information from musicians who have many followers, and no one calls them on it because they like the person's music and don't know any better.
That can also be a downside of a teacher, too.
I don't disagree at all with your point about the accessibility, because that would be stupid, although I'm willing to bet that a lot of these people could throw a bit of money into this no problem.
A lot of people will throw down money on new sample libraries, video games that cost 80 bucks, etc. but comparatively, how many do you think own books on composition, theory, orchestration, etc? How many have bought or subscribed to one of the online masterclasses (there are some good ones out there)? How many will spend a bit of cash to spend an hour or two on skype with someone like JJay Berthume for one-on-one feedback and lessons? How many out there have spent (or their parents have spent) 600 on a new Ibanez, but have never taken a single guitar lesson? 
Comparatively few, I suspect. 

Timaeus did say that he wouldn't value a mentor's word more than anyone else's.
That's true, but my personal experience is that teachers, good ones anyway, are usually way harder on their students than anyone else because it's their job and your failure reflects badly on them. People on forums can just ignore you if they don't like it and don't want to beat you down, etc. I had a kung fu instructor, shop teacher, etc. who were all hardcore on the students and it was for the better.
There is also a flipside to this and it all keeps going back to what I've said about experienced people actually being the minority in public feedback: Some people think they are, and are really good at passing themselves off as gurus when in reality, they're no better (sometimes worse) than the person they're criticizing. Not to say they may not still be correct in their criticism, but I've seen or been on the receiving end of this quite a number of times. YouTube is especially full of bad advice/blatantly incorrect information from musicians who have many followers, and no one calls them on it because they like the person's music and don't know any better.
That can also be a downside of a teacher, too.
I don't disagree at all with your point about the accessibility, because that would be stupid, although I'm willing to bet that a lot of these people could throw a bit of money into this no problem.
A lot of people will throw down money on new sample libraries, video games that cost 80 bucks, etc. but comparatively, how many do you think own books on composition, theory, orchestration, etc? How many have bought or subscribed to one of the online masterclasses (there are some good ones out there)? How many will spend a bit of cash to spend an hour or two on skype with someone like JJay Berthume for one-on-one feedback and lessons? How many out there have spent (or their parents have spent) 600 on a new Ibanez, but have never taken a single guitar lesson? 
Comparatively few, I suspect. 

Based on the unanimous point of its importance in the initial stages, to point you in the right direction so that you may pursue it further on your own, it seems that it's actually not the feedback (critique) on one's portfolio that is valuable; it's mentorship (I don't think feedback as we're discussing it is truly the same thing) that is important. Obviously, for largely self-taught musicians online, this is really the closest you can get to a teacher. 
I think that naturally leads into the discussion of the pros and cons of this method.
 

I think (because this is how it was for me), they're useful to a point where problems with the music is more objective and agreeable by everyone. Once stuff gets subjective (which is a lot earlier than people would think), the feedback might continue contributing to shaping how the person writes and produces, but isn't at all necessary for that person to keep improving.
Like you said people who have the drive for this stuff will keep going, and I particularly relate to not coming to WIP forums anymore and just bouncing tracks at a few peers instead. When I do it, it's more one-sided. I'm not asking what's wrong with the track or what I should fix, but rather I'm gauging the reaction of a person who isn't already familiar with it just as a fresh set of ears. Just if they might say something like "this ____ part feels like _____ ". I might've clearly perceived that and been fine with that in my taste, but it comes down to how listeners will react to it, so I'll try to compromise a little. It's like when a game dev polls about a control scheme or something. The dev might be perfectly fine with it, and it's not just that they created it, because it really does just work for them, but they just want to make sure other people can enjoy it too, so they send out a survey.
Even my most skilled peers, I'll send stuff to them and on rare occasions they're like "wow this sounds really good", but I'll come back to the stuff a year later and I can still clearly perceive that I've been improving and I can see flaws in the sound I used to have. And those flaws are subjective to my own taste, because it's been shown other people with experienced tastes still enjoy them.
My improvement, personally, is pretty self-driven at this point. I don't think a lot of friends really share much of my influences at this point, and I chase production techniques I don't see my friends doing. I think at a certain point you can absolutely trust yourself to be your own critic (without causing self-esteem issues or creative paralysis).

RIP Luigi
Also reaaaaallly weird seeing the original, Conan-style designs in 3D instead of the pretty boys of the last 20 years.

Oh yeah, that's actually like, the most obvious option no one here thought of lol.
I tried out composer cloud for a while, but wound up canceling after a month and just bought stuff outright.
East West's instruments are good, but most of them are very outdated in terms of programming, and Hollywood Strings, while amazing, is HUGE in file size and pretty demanding on your system.
I'd say give it a shot

Avatar: The Last Airbender happens to be my favourite TV show (and only the greatest animated series of all time =P) but I also really love East-Asian instruments, and so this seemed like a perfect excuse to use both those instruments — koto, bansuri, dizi, shamisen, shakuhachi, sarangi — and some elemental sounds. 
 

Double post, but I see they're now coming out with Berlin Inspire 2! Which also seems great, and is aimed a more "emotional" stuff and is a bit cheaper than Inspire 1 (currently).
 

I would also recommend looking into Berlin Orchestra: Inspire.
I'd argue it's the best "all-in-wonder" library out there and is about 400 and some USD. It was designed to be a "sketching tool" or for getting ideas down quickly, but honestly (and as the demos show) it's pretty damn great if that's all you have and I'd easily take it over Miroslav or Symphonic Orchestra.

Yeah, Meteo is right. Also, I'm not sure what string vst you're looking at that would cost 750, probably some over-priced garbage from 8Dio. You're in the USA and all prices are either Euro or USD. You can get CSS for like 399.
I saved up over a year and bought nearly 2000 (that exchange rate to Canadian is brutal!) in all the things I wanted to the point I don't see myself upgrading any time soon, while suffering the same expenses normal people do.
I just think you're very unlikely to find anyone sympathetic to your cause and you could also lower the amount required for a MIDI controller and string library easily
 
 

I always imagined the dynamics would be "nuclear bomb" not "FFF"

I always imagined the dynamics would be "nuclear bomb" not "FFF"

First off, for a career primer on what all this stuff is like, there's really nothing more accurate and comprehensive than the GameSoundCon annual survey. Here's the report from 2017: https://www.gamesoundcon.com/single-post/2017/10/02/GameSoundCon-Game-Audio-Industry-Survey-2017

Networking is absolutely the most important thing you can do as a composer (really, as a person who seeks to stay ahead in any industry). As shown in the report, little over half of all reported gigs were recruitments and referrals. I've been presented a lot of opportunities by knowing a lot of people who have things going on. For example, a composer/business mentor I met years ago contacted me recently to tell me he (and even his assistant) is starting to get too busy for the gig load that's coming into his company, and that he wants to rope me in to help out with that stuff and sees my skillset as up to the task.
As for groups and places, you really want to join the Game Audio Network Guild, and start attending GDC if you can afford it. They have cheaper Expo passes that don't give you access to audio panels, but don't at all inhibit your ability to network or attend the guild mixers/events. GDC is really the most important networking event for any sub-industry of the game industry. Getting to know the faces of all the people who you're in the industry with is really essential. The Guild itself gives a lot of resources, like discounts, sure, but also things like contract templates for your gigs.

That being said, it's important to learn how to network. Do not go around handing business cards and expecting that to do anything, and also don't be that person walking around asking if anyone's hiring. Networking is about building actual relationships with people, colleagues, friends. I essentially go to GDC just to hang out with people. When you meet someone really cool and fun to talk to, it's very memorable. When you meet someone who hands you a card and is like "I write and produce music", it's a massive yawn. Literally everyone else in the room might do what you do, and half of them might do it better.
Think of it like this, it's like creating a spider web. You can make a lot of connections and build a really huge web... but it's just going to rip and fall apart when it tries to catch something if all those connections are weak. Even if you have a small web of strong connections (closer to what my situation is like), that web will hold steadfast when something runs into it. The ideal is, over the years, starting with a small one and building it up to a large one, but always keeping it going strong.

Lastly, OCR is not a great place to get advice about this stuff. There's not a whole lot of professionals here who are actively in the industry who hang out on these forums. I highly recommend joining "Business Skills for Composers" on Facebook. It's a group of a few thousand people and a lot of very successful guys who like to mentor hang out there. The advice is really invaluable, and the amount of existing material that covers topics like how much to charge, how to network, how to pitch, managing your rights to your work, maximizing your opportunities (whether it be $$$ compensation or planting seeds for more opportunities), etc.are way more than enough to chew on for the first year of career development. It's a very focused group and heavily moderated, so all the content is on point and they make sure all the discussions are productive. There's really no first step I'd recommend more than joining BSFC and reading the discussions, and asking your own questions. Lots of people employ the advice they get there to great effect (for example, people don't realize they can often raise their rates a lot, and companies will accept the price).

Here's a great guide that @zircon sent me when I was younger and had no idea what any of this was about. http://tinysubversions.com/2005/10/effective-networking-in-the-games-industry-introduction/
 
As a final note... from the perspective of networking, your strongest asset is you, yourself. Your personality, your work ethic. When people are looking to hire, spread the word, refer gigs, w/e it is, they don't contact people who are flaky, people who are assholes, people who are unprofessional or not confident, etc. Being a composer is like being a salesperson in some respects. It's not just your product, and it's not just going around posting ads; it's very much about becoming someone people trust and like working with so that these relationship will keep bearing more fruit. You need to develop a personality that people will look at and say "i really like this guy/I really like working with this guy."

I strongly recommend that you watch Alex Ball's new guide on using a virtual orchestra.
 
It's a bit long, clocking in at 50 minutes, but trust me: There isn't a more clear, comprehensive video on the internet regarding this subject.
As he discusses at one point, the orchestral flourishes that are difficult or impossible with multisamples are essential to composing music like this; reminiscent of the Romantic Era and "The Golden Age" of film scoring. He even recommends libraries specifically dedicated to this task.

I strongly recommend that you watch Alex Ball's new guide on using a virtual orchestra.
 
It's a bit long, clocking in at 50 minutes, but trust me: There isn't a more clear, comprehensive video on the internet regarding this subject.
As he discusses at one point, the orchestral flourishes that are difficult or impossible with multisamples are essential to composing music like this; reminiscent of the Romantic Era and "The Golden Age" of film scoring. He even recommends libraries specifically dedicated to this task.

That's called a "run". It is a fast scalar "run" as the name implies.
Many modern sample libraries contain either run simulators for strings and winds or pre-recorded runs. 
You can create your own run simulation by playing a fast scale with a mix of staccato notes and half-trill samples. Be sure the the timing is fairly messy as no one can play that precisely. Ultimately though, a pre-recorded run will sound most realistic.

That's called a "run". It is a fast scalar "run" as the name implies.
Many modern sample libraries contain either run simulators for strings and winds or pre-recorded runs. 
You can create your own run simulation by playing a fast scale with a mix of staccato notes and half-trill samples. Be sure the the timing is fairly messy as no one can play that precisely. Ultimately though, a pre-recorded run will sound most realistic.

I don't really see what the point would be in a separate community.
There is already a sub-forum for recruit and collaboration in which you can find musicians. Plenty of talented instrumentalists have performed on remixes for free, so you'd have to be damn good for someone to consider using a paid alternative. 
I also don't see why anyone would want to pay a musician for a cover tune from which they derive no benefit other than personal satisfaction. OCReMixes promote OCR, are free advertising for the game being covered, and with the monetization on YouTube as I understand it, contributes to keeping OCR going and possibly some to the copyright holder as well. 
I just can't see such a service being successful here; especially not when the forum activity has become so low.

I didn't suggest it was a bad idea
I agreed with John
Projects here generally fall into point 4.

Melodies by themselves imply chord changes by the chord tones that are present in them. Polyphonic, contrapuntal textures still imply harmonic progressions without ever actually playing a "chord".
The two are not as separable as many may think.
But to say that starting with the melody is dumb, is to say that composers like Bach were also dumb.

Melodies by themselves imply chord changes by the chord tones that are present in them. Polyphonic, contrapuntal textures still imply harmonic progressions without ever actually playing a "chord".
The two are not as separable as many may think.
But to say that starting with the melody is dumb, is to say that composers like Bach were also dumb.

So I posted a rant on here recently about feeling like people who don't really belong get handed jobs while I have to work really hard to get even considered.  Mostly it's a political game and the good ole boys from the university get everything in the area, but still felt good to complain about  it.

This is decently related.
A point I bring up occasionally in discussions relates to saturation of the market.  I'm going to venture into a subcategory and talk about mainstream vs. niche.
I can't remember the thread, but somebody was basically asking how to be successful in the VGM scene, and why they weren't being successful.  Asking what they did, they did metal covers of mainly 8-bit music.  The discussion was productive, constructive, and a lot of good communication happened. (another thing I'm happy about OCR btw, teacher gatherings can turn into acid raining down form the sky)  An example I give is Wily Stage from Megaman 2, and the comically absurd amount of metal covers there are of it.  By cover I mean note for note from the original but with guitars.  So if you're a metal guitarist, doing covers of Wily Stage, and you basically sound the same as the 1200 other people who have already done it, your youtube channel will have 6 subscribers and 40 total views, because you don't stand out.  Very few people want to wade through 1200 virtually identical metal covers of Wily Stage hoping they find a good one.

When it comes to mainstream music (here referring to what is produced on a large stream for mass audiences), this both applies and doesn't.  It has to be somewhat new and fresh, but also very accessible to the average listener, but even then, no it doesn't.  Talking with people about modern Christian worship music, it basically has turned into generic love song, but shaded to fit in a worship context.  Why does it sound distinctive from pop music?  Because it kind of developed in a musical vacuum.  It evolved largely on its own which is why it didn't really follow pop trends as closely.  Christian record labels were, and still are somewhat niche.  Quick look at a stats site tells me that it makes about half the revenue of country music.  I live in Texas.  Country music is a BIG deal here.  Christian music is a BIGGER deal here.  There are a lot of bands that do Christian music but refuse the label so that they aren't put in that box where people won't listen to them.  The watering down of the genre is a result of the labels avoiding risks.  That doesn't have much grounding in reality, since a lot of the people are buying the music because it's available and it's basically the least bad option.
Where to go from here?  People are generally a lot more open to unique music than the labels give them credit for.  Honestly, if the radio stations and everywhere were to start blaring pop music based on 12 tone music from 1910, eventually people would think that 12 tone influenced pop were the new thing.  Exposure makes people tend to enjoy things.  A lot of pop music really is very bad.  But if you hear it a few times, the familiarity of it makes it not seem that bad.
A lot of musicians are trying to do that.  They're trying to be the next big thing, and as a result they end up with a sound that resembles the current big thing, but isn't very distinctive.  I'm really talking on a large scale.  Every musician has something that makes them stand out, if they're doing original works.  But really, if there are 20 bands out there trying to be the next big thing, and they are all sounding like Portugal. the Man, but not as high quality, why would anybody listen to them when they could just listen to the real one?  When it comes to people talking about a saturated market, they're exactly right.  There are too many people trying to go where the money is, and they end up sounding like the other people going where the money is.  Personal dig, a lot of guitar players I know that complain about not being successful have absolutely no regard for musicality or style, but still insist on doing their thing that doesn't work. The ones who do something different enough to stand out, but similar enough to blend in are the ones who succeed.
I really think a lot of the state of the music industry today, with mainstream music is directly related to the lessening of value of music in the school system.  A lot of elementary music education in the US is a joke, and I think it's the reason for a lot of problems in the music industry.  In a lot of public schools, which the majority of the population goes to, music education is edutainment that doesn't actually teach music.  By the end of 4th or 5th grade, the students might can sing a single line matching pitch, but even that is a stretch sometimes.  It's not a fault by the music teachers, a lot of them only see a specific group of kids once a week, the other days of the week are other groups of kids.  And there's a lot of red tape, and there's really short class times (~30 minutes), and this and that.  Plus, economic issues causing kids to be hard to teach (why should I pay attention in class when I haven't eaten in 3 days and I don't know if I'll ever see my dad again because mom's new boyfriend beat him up again).  Then there's secondary education, mostly band, orchestra, or choir, which is optional and being cut more and more as the days go on.  The simplification and homogenization of pop music wouldn't be noticed at all because most of the population doesn't actually know anything about music.
When I stand in front of students, especially those in rural schools, the students have this idea that music is what they hear on the radio.  Music in school is something that vaguely resembles music, but is boring.  I can show the trumpet players Maynard Ferguson, Herp Alpert, or the saxophone players Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and they will be in awe.  But the trumpet or saxophone they hold in their hands they insist is a completely different instrument.  I can grab their trumpet and play the Gonna Fly Now solo and they will still insist it's a completely different instrument (subconsciously).  Beyond that, okay, I played my boring band music, can I got beat the snot out of the drumset now?  Marching band is what these kids really like, only for the reason that they get to play the music they hear on the radio in band.  All other music they play is just sound that resembles music and is just filler, and as a result they just affirm that they aren't musicians and just listen to the popular music.  This creates a demand that affirms that the labels and other sources should just be conservative with what they sell.  They have the marketing money, so they win.
Wow.  This went on for a while.  I haven't tried to really succeed in the music industry proper, mainly because all my performance experience is in live gigs, and small time studio work.  I'm not trying to market JohnStacy the artist to try to sell music to whoever.  I'm happy doing that, and doing the teaching thing.  But, I'm getting more and more of those gigs because I'm similar (a brass player who can play both classical and jazz, and can work in any musical setting) but different (I'm a french horn player who can do this, and do this well, in a lot of cases better and more reliable than the trumpet and trombone players).  I'm also observing people around me, both in person and on the internet.  A lot of the ones doing well are doing something unique, but accessible and know how to market themselves.

I have to say, for me, this is probably the saddest. While I have contended that pop does not equal less musicianship, I will agree I'm not a fan of the kind of music that plays on today's radio stations. I've tried playing music that I enjoy in the car with my peers, which is usually jazz or R&B, and they usually ask "What the fuck is this?" Then they put on Post Malone or Drake. I've asked them too why they don't like my music taste, and their response was, "Because we can't get lit to it." 
I'm sure people were getting lit to Bill Evans in 1963.

The way I see it, streaming is the best option that could exist for the consumer. It's legal, it's affordable, it gives you access to all the music you could want.
The issue is that you can never count on the corporate suits to pay a fair share, even if they can keep their operating costs to a minimum. 
I had some tapes from the radio, too.
I also have a lot of tapes from stores that I still listen to. Mostly these ones at the moment. =D