Dhsu

I dunno, were they still filming when 300 came out? Seems like it could've been coincidence.

Great movie. Too long, but that wasn't the biggest problem for me. It's just that they went overboard (har har) on the sensory overload, so you start getting numb halfway through the movie. [spoilerS] Last part was friggin' fantastic though. The scene with Beckett going down with the ship was incredible. My jaw was pretty much open the whole time. Also, lol @ the telescopes. I was disappointed that Chow Yun Fat didn't even bust any sweet kung-fu moves though...why did they even hire him if he's not gonna fight? [/spoilerS]

Or maybe they're still discussing it. These things take time to decide. Not to mention they're trying to locate the 9th piece of 8, and they still haven't elected a pirate king.

Interesting theory, but it sounds like pure speculation.

In other news, Gamecock is the best name for a company ever.

You like that smiley entirely too much.

I liek. But the ending is kinda weird (and kind of inaudible). Would make more sense just to end with one last "deedle-dee." With tons of reverb on the last note of course.

Er, judging from the above post, I'm guessing your voting "yes" was unintentional then?

Okay, well after no small amount of deliberation on my part, I've decided to vote no. Here's why. Like I explained earlier, the problem isn't so much the actual act of distribution...there's no way an artist would be able to control that, short of DRM like zircon mentioned. The issue here is more about the matter of association with the site...akin, perhaps, to a situation in which a store continues calling itself "Bob's Pizza" long after Bob got disgruntled and left. It might have the legal right, and it'd be a pain to change the signs and phone books, but it seems like a reasonable courtesy to Bob. And sure the ReMixer agreed to the terms in the first place...but so did Antonio when he offered a pound of flesh to Shylock. Now, from what I understand, the main objections on djp's part to allowing ReMix removals is three-fold: djp personally disagrees with the most common reasons for remix removal. This is irrelevant and has no place anywhere in the process of creating a formal policy. It's a "pain" on the part of the staff and reviewers. This objection is valid, but not sufficient in my opinion. The relatively low occurrence of removal requests makes this not a strong enough reason in my eyes to justify distributing an artist's work against his will. Allowing removals would make certain things infeasible, such as providing torrents and compilation DVDs. This is the one I most agree on, and here djp's "one big album" analogy makes a lot of sense. Until now, this was the only reason I agreed with the policy's wording, but upon further consideration, I can't help but feel there has to be a better alternative than refusing practically all removals. Perhaps one such middle ground would be initiating lockdown periods before events such as torrent or DVD releases, and including a clause in the policy stating that remixes cannot be removed after they have been locked down. During the lockdown period, ReMixers would be given one last chance to opt out, and if they don't, their ReMixes default to being locked. Granted, it'd be more work, but I believe it gives ReMixers a bit more breathing room and to me is, if not a huge improvement, a much more palatable option than instating an automatic and perpetual state of lockdown as the current policy draft would do. If that's not reasonable, I'm sure the community could work something else out. I'm just not convinced that flat-out refusal is the solution. And there you have it. Those are my reasons. That said, I'm going to be a hypocrite for a moment here and admit that even if the policy were passed as is, it probably wouldn't be enough to keep me from submitting in the future, as I personally don't anticipate it ever becoming an issue for me. So if I had to agree to the current draft in order to get my stuff on the site, I would, albeit with considerable reluctance. Although honestly, if djp asked for my first-born, I'd probably give it.

Panzer Dragoon Orta - I don't have any problem saying this is a must. It's too beautiful to pass up, period. The gameplay is surprisingly deep, with factors such as position, weak points, dragon form, berserk meter, and glide meter all coming into play. And the level-up paths for your dragon add a lot of replay, not to mention the tons of unlockables. It even includes the original Panzer Dragoon with smoothed out graphics. What more could you ask for? Eternal Darkness - I'll admit the graphics are a bit dated now, but keep in mind this started as an N64 game. It's mostly about the atmosphere and story when it comes to this game, and it does indeed pick up later on. And did you ever try letting your sanity meter run out, sephfire? The stuff that happens when you're insane is a really big part of the game's appeal, and a lot of them will trick you for a couple seconds, even if you're expecting them. Aside from that, there are some decent puzzles and I really enjoyed the spell creation. The combat system is unique and something I would've liked to see in other survival horror games. Voice acting was dead on, among the best I've heard from a console game. I think all this outweighs its faults, so I'm going to give this one a borderline yes. Viewtiful Joe - This game just oozes style, and has a great gameplay concept to match. First one to pull off time warping the *right* way in my opinion. And the game's combo-based combat is extremely satisfying...you can really feel the impact of every punch. Excellent game all around, and easy yes. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow - Perfect sequel to Aria of Sorrow (another must-play). The soul system is as great and fun and addicting as it was in the first game. Graphics are beautiful, often rivaling SotN's. Showing the castle map was a great use of the second screen, and eliminated a lot of pausing and unpausing to see where you were and wanted to go. Stylus elements were a little clumsy and gimmicky, but enjoyable enough in my opinion. Without a question an essential part of anyone's DS library.

But then you get into a situation in which you're distributing something that's not even an OCReMix anymore, which doesn't make sense and will confuse people. Also, physical compilations aren't the only issue here...it would be impractical to modify the torrents as well every time someone removes a mix. Although it might be feasible to have a short quasi-"lockdown" period before a new torrent pack is created, to allow people to opt out like in your DVD scenario.

And your point has been taken. In my eyes, it's a matter of which side of the equation contains more reprehensibility, as it were. My main argument is that the staff's perceived validity (or lack thereof) of the reason shouldn't even be part of that equation.

Of course it's not practical to ask people to rename and retag their MP3s, but it is practical to ask a site to take down your work, and prevent more people from making that association. And chances are if you *could* rename everyone's files, you would. Just because you can't do exactly what you want to do isn't an excuse to not try doing what you can.

Maybe my wording was off (I meant they lose exclusive rights as in they become non-exclusive), but my opinion stands: refusing to remove remixes from OCR is unacceptable unless it is absolutely necessary to do so. So okay, you might not have total control over how your work is distributed after it's out on the Internet, but what you should have control over is who you're associated with (for example, certain bad mens). Yes, you do have to agree with the policy in the first place, and most people will, but people change their minds. The only thing this policy does is make it so they can't do anything about it. It doesn't change the fact that it's ethically reprehensible to use the work of someone who no longer agrees with your goals, against their will. You can delete your work off a web server. You are allowed to take your songs down from your MySpace and Soundclick pages. And I feel OCR should offer that same courtesy if at all possible.

Thinking that a ReMixer has a "stupid, petty" reason should never, EVER be legitimate grounds for djp to wrest control of someone's exclusive distribution rights. That kind of attitude is arrogant and selfish, and gives OCR an extremely bad image. In that case you're not even protecting the site's "best interests," you're just forcing your opinion on somebody else. Even wasting the time of the staff, while inconsiderate and inconvenient, is a manageable cost and not sufficient reason in my opinion, considering the relatively low frequency of removal requests. The ONLY reason I'm in favor of OCR claiming the right to reject removal is that, from my understanding, removal would cause severe inconsistencies and complications in the operations of the site that would be impossible or at the very least extremely impractical to reconcile or otherwise remedy. If my understanding is incorrect, and this is not the case, then my vote regarding this issue will be much easier.

Actually I saw someone suggest Powerup month, which was done.

I propose that June be Tingle month.

Nice, thanks for the clarification, Prophecy. In other news, I think that talking with Scrobble (a friend of mine) and reading bladiator's input has helped solidify some of my feelings about the policy. I've decided to outline them below before I vote, on the off-chance that it'll help other people with their decision. On one hand, as Scrobble mentioned, ReMixers are not going to agree to this policy EXPECTING to have their ReMixes removed in the future, and proceeding to tell them "NO" at a point when they're already emotional would likely aggravate an already-unpleasant situation. On the other hand, it makes sense to ask them to agree to the license while they're still in a rational state of mind. Yes, they may regret agreeing to it at a later point, but it's even more likely that they would regret a decision made during a moment of illogical anger, such as removing a mix. (As a side note, having a personal opinion that none of the reasons for removal are "valid" is irrelevant, and should not affect the policy in any way.) On the third hand (assuming I had one), OCR isn't just dealing with people's feelings here. There are other factors at stake, such as the time already invested into the mix by the judges, djp, and reviewers, not to mention the logistical nightmare of removing remixes, especially after they've been distributed across torrents and possibly various physical media. Allowing people to have their remixes removed in effect creates thousands of loose ends that would severely restrict OCR's prospects for promotion and expansion, as at any time someone could pull on their thread and unravel the whole thing. A lot of people objected to OCR "holding ReMixes hostage"...but what about ReMixers holding OCR hostage? So for me, what the issue boils down to is deciding at what point the cost of removing remixes stops becoming reasonable and acceptable, and it becomes worth breaking a few fragile eggs to make the proverbial OCR omelette (with extra UNTS). And from the information I have so far, I agree with djp's decision in this regard. Asking people to explicitly agree with the policy will hopefully weed out the outright dissenters, and if after accepting the license a ReMixer feels trapped, well...at least he knows that he agreed to be trapped. And even then, the policy includes a loophole to allow for exceptions should the situation call for it. Given the above reasoning, I would agree with the current policy as it stands. However, with that said, I feel that it would be a good idea to add some clarification within the policy itself, to make it less intimidating to new ReMixers and perhaps cause them to be more sympathetic to the reasoning behind the terms. For example, you might use something to the effect of "due to the nature of certain types of distribution (such as torrent packs, etc.), OverClocked ReMix cannot honor all removal requests and reserves the right to refuse license termination." So with respect to the poll, I'm not entirely sure how to vote...I'd like to see the policy go through some minor cosmetic changes (so to speak) before I fully approve of it, but it's not like I would let the wording keep me from submitting a mix. I'll probably just pick "yes" though, unless someone informs me otherwise.

Good point. There's quite a few big names in there though...including a certain recently unbanned ReMixer, I noticed. Yeah, that's why I said "most"...in fact, I think CHIPP has a mix waiting to be posted as we speak.

Unless you find Jill, the master of unlocking.

Thanks for the visual comparison, though.

I miss real name month. And now we'll never be able to have another renaming fad.

I also have a feeling that just as (or perhaps more) important than the explanations for the votes, are the actual people making them. I can't help but notice that most of the dissenting votes are from non-ReMixers, or inactive ReMixers. But if a popular ReMixer such as bladiator or Reuben Kee were to disagree, however, I'm thinking it would hold a lot more weight.

Most likely crouching will be a separate button, for example X on the GameCube controller.

No.......?