omnipotentBagel

How about Xenoblade?

I don't think OCR donations would violate that clause. OCR is neither a charity nor a cause (well, unless you consider spreading awareness of and love for video game music a cause, I guess). It's paying for upkeep and bandwidth of a website that distributes independent music. Helping to fund an otherwise non-profit website isn't the same as donating to a goodwill charity or political endeavor.

The Kickstarter wasn't really about funding the album--it was the yearly OCR Donation Drive. They were just piggy-backing onto the album to help raise awareness. The physical copies of the album were just donation incentives. In other words, if you want to sell a tote bag, you just make a tote bag and sell it, you don't start a fundraiser. Dude, that seems pretty unnecessarily cynical. I know I've contributed to Kickstarters well before the Double-Fine thing and there were crap projects on it then, just like there's crap on it now. The Double-Fine project certainly raised public awareness, but how is that a bad thing? Because there are more people misusing it? Sure but there are plenty of people misusing every service out there. Just don't contribute to them. Eventually people will figure out the difference. More exposure means that more people whose projects I'd actually like to support are likely to know about it now. It means that OCR can do pledge drives with rewards without dealing with the potential nightmare that is PayPal (even if it's not physical albums, just OCR merch would be awesome). And that's a good thing.

Some websites like snesmusic.org. But websites can be pretty fickle (most of them are only a few years old, after all), so you never know for sure. One day, Google loves snesmusic.org, the next, they're mortal enemies. By the way, did you know that OCR hosts chiptunes for most, if not all, of the games that have remixes? Go to the page for any game (I used Conker's Bad Fur Day as an example), and check for the "Chiptunes" section. Edit: Aww, you edited the title. I was just making a joke...

An OCR Project is never late, nor is it early; it arrives precisely when it means to.

Oh man, I didn't realize this was a thread that existed. Congrats on getting on the album, Monobrow. Your mix is awesome has been on my playlist consistently since you initially posted it, so I recognized it about 3 seconds into the album. Shame they stuck with a rigid naming scheme for most of the tracks on the album because I really liked your original title. I never made the Doctor/Separate Ways connection before but that's a great comparison because Savior of the Dreaming Dead is my favorite Doctor piece (and one of the best pieces the comic has spawned, period, for that matter) and Separate Ways is my favorite Journey song. I definitely hear the stylistic similarities now that I think about it. Oh, and Tensei, if you're still reading this thread--"Strife!" was awesome and I really hope you do another one for either the scratched kids or trolls or both because I'd love to hear more awesome video-game inspired shreddage. Even if it's not an official "Music Team" release, since those seem like they might not be happening so much anymore.

C'mon man, you want to play an April Fools prank you gotta at least make it believable!

Pretty sure it's sitting in the release queue at this point. But Maverick Rising has come out, so that alone should give us hope.

Yeah, I'm utterly shocked at how few people here seem to be familiar with Bradbury. I mean, The Veldt is up there with A Sound of Thunder and Fahrenheit 451 for stories I figured everyone's read, at least in middle school English class or something. But yeah, although there were a few digs at "mainstream" electronica which sort of had a bitter hipster, "I was doing this before it was cool" vibe, I think his main message was more about studios trying to pressure him into collaborating with people who don't share his particular vision and passion. I can understand not wanting to be involved with soulless, profits-driven schemes like that.

On that note, two of the most interesting Pokemon from BW in my opinion were Volcarona and Galvantula, both not only uniquely-typed Bug Pokemon, but in underrepresented secondary types as well. (Seriously, there's, what, five or six decent electric types?) It's really frustrating that we're up to almost 650 Pokemon and yet there are untouched type combinations and we still get a couple dozen Water types and the same old Bug/Poison, Bug/Flying, Normal/Flying, Grass/Poison, etc. combinations we've had since Gen I. There's no need to keep making more of those. We have more than enough choices for those typings. They need to make more unique things.

Wow, those last 600-or-so Likes came in fast. Downloading + Torrenting now, I'll come back with impressions when I've listened to it all (so, like, probably this weekend...)

I dunno, a mental ward right before medication time has to be a close contender. That's a pretty good description of it, yeah. That was my only real issue with the promotion. Glad I could help. I mentioned earlier in the thread that it kind of sucks watching the counter slowly move up and thinking about how much longer it'll be (kind of like when you can't sleep and you watch the minutes tick by on the clock), but that's mostly a perception thing and, now that I've stopped checking obsessively, I'm starting to get excited about this again. I think every one who's having trouble waiting should sit down and try to beat as many Mega Man X games as they can before the album drops.

Thanks for that response Bahamut. The overall vibes in this thread have been pretty dark so it's nice to get some constructive response. In the interest of feedback, I'd suggest, if something like this were tried again, do it simultaneously with the trailer announcement, or even before. Have the Facebook announcement kick things off, then start trickling in other stuff, like the trailer, and maybe a preview track or two as time moves on. We listeners have been conditioned to expect an album release shortly after a trailer. Anticipating the album all weekend only to be hit with another "loading screen", as it were, was a bit jarring for some. ARGs can be pretty effective when done right (look at the Portal 2 potato madness, for example), so by all means, explore promotions like this again in the future (but maybe not just another Facebook "Like" campaign. A bulk of your audience participated in this one and probably wouldn't be able to do much a second time around).

Okay, as someone who wasn't too happy with this yesterday but has had time to sleep on it, here's my take on the situation: Some users have a bit of a sense of entitlement, true. After so many years of free, no-strings-attached content, it's pretty easy to develop. But that doesn't make this Facebook campaign wrong, it just means that requires a bit of an adjustment in expectation. I think the biggest reason people are frustrated is because the campaign has an illusion that they can actively help get the album released when in fact, for most of us here, we've done what we can already and now it's still a waiting game, making people feel as though they were teased a bit. And what's worse, watching the progress is counterproductive because it moves so slowly in realtime that it makes the wait almost interminable. People would rather know it's coming out arbitrarily soon than watch a slow crawl (assuming progress remains similar to what it's been, using Brandon's stats, it'll be another 4 days or so before the milestone is reached. That's not too bad, honestly, but it seems rough when you're sitting at your computer watching it update in pseudo-realtime). It's a lot easier to deal with a wait when you can rationalize it (oh, the albums still under review, they haven't finished the webpage yet). This feels a lot worse because we know everything's done. The album could be released right now. And that's tough for some people to handle. That said, the people who are opposed to this aren't doing a very good job expressing what exactly makes them feel upset or betrayed and are focusing more on admonishing the site and staff for making them feel this way, which isn't helpful. Likewise, I feel like the staff has been a bit less than genuine with their attitude of "this is just a harmless promotion. I don't know why you guys are getting so upset." You guys are smart and, even if you didn't anticipate this response, I can't believe you wouldn't see where they're coming from. Even if you disagree with their take on it, recognizing their point of view could go far towards helping them feel less disenfranchised by the site. I may be new to the community, but I've been a patron of the site for a long time and I'm of the opinion that this is worth waiting for, especially assuming that it's business as usual for the site between now and the inevitable release (I'm hoping to see another normal mixpost or two this week. There's a lot of interesting-looking stuff in the queue). But I think a little understanding from both sides here could go a ways toward mending a few fences. Jivjov, you're kind of being a jerk about this, especially the way you keep making this into some sort of betrayal. Dial it back a bit if you want people to take your opinions seriously. Staffers, this is something you've never tried before and the fact that it was met with some resistance indicates that there may be a few issues with how it was done or how the message came through. That's no one's fault, that's just how these things go. It would be nice if you guys could recognize that and try to use the negative reactions as feedback to consider how this process could be improved in the future. In closing: nobody's perfect, can't we all just get along.

Oh crap, Mienshao is pure fighting, isn't it? Exception made. Mienshao's pretty cool.

Man, I bet this thing is gonna get to, like, 26,900-something quick, then sit there for days.

I dunno, each generation has its low points for sure (although I feel they're perhaps lower in the back half than they were in the classic eras), but as far as current gen being poor designed, I think Krookodile, Chandelure, Volcarona, Carracosta, Galvantula, Hydreigon, and Haxorus are all pretty convincing arguments against that sentiment. All top-tier awesome. There are plenty of other merely good designs as well. I didn't like the starters and there are a number of designs I either don't like altogether (Vanillish...) or feel are just uninteresting (Dwebble, Munna, any of the pure-Fightings, the Monkeys), but it's by no means bad. I did really dislike the starters this time around, though (Smugleaf is okay. I'll probably actually really like it if its Dream World version ever shows up). It's just that Pokemon fans (and gamers in general) seem to only deal in absolutes. Things are either terrible or amazing, there's no room for variety or even mediocrity.

Actually, we really should. He summed up my thoughts on the matter pretty succinctly.

Nice graphic but, citation? Anyone can make up a chart and when I see Gawker in the URL, I don't exactly have a lot of faith in the quality and/or validity of the information. I'm genuinely interested where it came from because an insiders perspective into this would be great. And it's possible that a company could do that and I'd be okay with it, it's probably not an unheard of process. But the key to it being successful would be that the company would have to be incredibly prolific and efficient to produce that much content in the first place. Again, the issue isn't timing, it's about amount of content for the money we're being charged. If they produce a really bare-bones product for $60, then release more content for it a year later, I'm probably still going to be upset, but my complaint would probably be that they overcharged for the base product. If I later found out they had withheld content that could have been in the initial release, I'd be even more upset. Conversely, if I found out that, say, the DLC for Fallout 3 was completed along with the main game, I wouldn't be too upset, as that game earned its $60 paycheck. I still have a problem with the practice on principle (producing content and withholding it for more profit later is just a really dishonest practice and I will never be okay with it no matter how much you try to justify it), but there's "I don't like it, but it's not over the line" and there's "this is crap", and you seem to be having trouble seeing the difference. Reductio ad absurdum. Wanting something for free is not an expectation they should be meeting. But expecting a minimum of X amount of content (be that playtime, level caps, whathaveyou) for Y amount of money isn't unreasonable. I have a predecided limit of how much I'm willing to pay for what I consider a full gaming experience and if companies want my business, they should be trying to match that. I don't care if they make money, that's not part of my role, but I understand that profits are their main goal and try to set my expectations accordingly. If you want everything for free that's your choice, but they're never going to provide that to you so it's a stupid expectation to have.

That's not what I said. You can argue microbiology without having a degree in microbiology. That doesn't mean you can just make shit up, but it's possible to have an understanding of an issue and to be able to intelligently debate an issue without being an "expert". It's not being given for free. They want us to pay for it twice. If it's done when the game goes gold, it's part of that game. The point of planning, scheduling, and budgeting is to ensure that they can get everything done. If they're planning to have content done with the game's release and sell it separate, that's the exact thing we're upset about. That's dirty and underhanded moneygrubbing strategy. They should be planning to provide X amount of content by release and selling it all as the game. If they want to create additional content later outside that, fine. But don't split the initial game up into separate pieces and still charge full price for the final product because that's just a way of giving us less and charging us more. If they're that "ahead of schedule" then they're doing what I mentioned above (screwing us over by intentionally underdeveloping the main release) or they really such at scheduling and budgeting. If we're villainizing companies by speaking out against a practice we don't like, you're victimizing them by trying to justify it. As a consumer, it's not my concern what's going on behind the scenes at a company. I have certain expectations they should be meeting and it's their responsibility to meet those expectations, end of story. That's how customer-company relationships work. (Note: I don't necessarily 100% agree with this stance personally, but it's the model our economy is based on.)

Well, the general DLC argument, I think, is a co-requisite argument for the on-disc one, because things aren't black and white. It would facetious to say that all DLC is bad. Additional missions for a game released a year after the game was completed for an affordable price? That's great and I'm in favor of that. Content released with or shortly after the initial game, that feels no different than the content included in the initial release? You can't convince me that's not content that should be in the initial game. I am opposed to what I see as unnecessary or non-value-add DLC. Stuff that doesn't merit an additional purchase beyond the initial cost of the game should be included with the initial game. Not all DLC is like this, and while everyone will have their own opinion of where the difference is, I've yet to hear a good argument for early-release DLC being "worth it". That is why I am opposed to on-disc DLC and day one DLC but not all DLC ever. We know it costs money to make games. And some games do offer a lot of content for their price tag. But a lot of games (often the ones with a lot of "big ticket" DLC) don't. They offer significantly less content in the initial release because they can release the rest as paid content down the line. It may not be that bad yet, but all gaming companies care about is how much profit they can make, so they'll just continue to push the envelope and try to make as much money off as little content as possible. That's capitalism. Our role in this as consumers is to decide how much we're willing to put up with. And a lot of us are drawing the line here. Why would we need to? 1) That's an appeal to accomplishment. If personal experience were required to be able to competently argue a subject, nothing would ever get discussed ever. 2) It doesn't take a genius to realize that DLC is not a lynchpin of the video game economy. Before it existed, companies were fine and companies that don't use it at all (Nintendo up to very recently, for example) are fine.

I enjoyed it, Damned. Thought it was pretty obvious from context you were joking, not sure what's wrong with all these guys.

I just really want to know where Pinball and TCG2 fit in.

I'm cool with the Grass - Fire - Water thing. It's traditional, it's the perfect intro pairing, and all three of those elements are practically required for a well balanced team, so they're all useful. What I'm getting sick of is the repetition of dual-typings. Most don't get a secondary type at all and Fire has had three lines of Fire/Fighting? At least Gen IV shook it up a bit with Grass/Ground and Water/Steel, which are unique typings. I liked the proposition of a Fighting-Psychic-Dark dual cycle. All three starters becoming Dragons would be pretty sweet as well. But if I see one more Fire/Fighting starter, I'm gonna be so pissed.

Legally, that's correct. But legality does not make a practice right. It's not just a bit exploitative, it's incredibly exploitative. The muddying in definition of digital property from physical media is being downright abused by companies. It should be simple, if I buy a piece of property with content on it, I should have the right to access all content placed on that disc, and I should be able to do whatever I want with it. I agree with this statement and have refused to purchase products (or borrowed them/bought them used/etc.) because of this. But I am still entitled to complain about it. If something is crappy or unfair, it's our right to cry foul.