Jason Covenant

I've just sent you a pdf over FB. Here's one of the most highly rated games on Kongregate: http://www.kongregate.com/games/xdanond/rpg-shooter-starwish/ It's a very simple space shooter with a strong story. The coding and art were done by 1 person based on the very basic flash tutorial on Kong. (Which contains much, much less information than that pdf I just sent.) It has over 1 million plays. With all the talent in this community, I don't see why we can't make something successful. Even if the game doesn't do that well, it's still doing something and any money raised, even a little, can make a difference in the lives of a few women in a third world country.

Yea, I figured you to be a fairly busy person. If you get the time, and the project does come together, I really think it would be great for you to be involved since this is an issue that has affected you personally.

There seems to be a lot of agreement that there is sexism in games and a lack of decent female characters. If this is truly important to you guys, why not do something about it? Why not make a game? To keep goals realistic, it could be a casual flash game. Tensei, since you started this discussion and seem to be passionate about it, I think you should lead the project. The proceeds could be donated to a worthy charity that helps women in developing countries like: http://www.charitywater.org/whywater/ (Watch the video.) I know you guys have the free time, otherwise you wouldn't have so many posts in this thread. If you lack the coding skills, you can pick them up quickly. I can direct you to some books that will teach you all the skills you need to know for a simple game very quickly. I can provide the storyline and dialogue -- I have a short story with a female protagonist that would adapt very well to a space shooter. This community is full of talented artists. Monobrow, for example (and/or others also passionate about this issue) could provide the art. We have many talented musicians in this community and could collab on a soundtrack. So what do you think guys, is this something you're passionate about enough to do something? You'd be helping women in developing nations, possibly even saving some of their lives, and simultaneously making a positive contribution to gender equality in the gaming community.

I really love the way you guys have taken initiative. Tuberz, since you seem to be organizing the collab, could you tell me exactly who is going to be doing what so I can put you guys down for it?

I'll have more to say on this later, but for now: I agree the way women are portrayed in many video games is absurd and at times insulting and degrading. Women are portrayed similarly in almost every other medium. I feel that part of the solution is to further explore the potential of female characters in fiction and I intend to do my part towards that end. I've been writing a novel for over a year now about a 16 year old girl with autism. I've tried to give her character as much depth and exploration as possible. Actually, most of the characters in the book are female. When I finish the book, I will seek a publisher and try to get this story out there. It's possible no one will ever read it, but this is a project I believe in so I'm willing to do whatever it takes to expose it to many people as I can.

And I third this motion.

Happy Birthday!

I'm a little late....but I hope you had a great birthday! May its remaining moments be happy.

It will be my pleasure. I need to do some research first. They made some important changes to Russian Copyright law in 2008 I still need to read up on. The site that received its "legal" status from ROMS mentioned in that article is now dead. See for yourself: http://www.allofmp3.ru The site has been gutted. The last blog post was in 2007. Music is not available on the site. And I know that Russian Copyright law has become more strict since then, partly as a result of that incident. I think legalsounds.com needs to follow in the footsteps of allofmp3.ru. P.S. Nice letter template Stevo, I think it's right on point.

Well, I'm not a lawyer, but I've done legal work in the past of that nature. I could in this case, but that probably won't be necessary. The nation whose laws they are governed by joined the Rome Convention in 2003, meaning that their actions are unambiguously illegal within their legal system. They almost certainly realize that they're engaging in illegal activity. They're also probably betting on people not doing much about it, but will probably act if threatened. I believe someone mentioned that that has worked in the past: If this approach proves ineffective this time around, and OCR staff desires it, I'd be more than happy to write the most ominous cease and desist letter I am capable of producing and inform them that it will be forwarded to their local authorities.

They almost certainly use content scrapers that download content indiscriminately.

From the website's Legal Info page: So artists, have you received those checks yet? Oh the irony... P.S. Nice work DjMokram for bringing this to attention.

Happy Birthday guys! You're both awesome.

Thanks a million! Looks like I've got some work to do myself.... If you aren't signed up yet, the link is http://www.kngi.org/phpbb3/index.php

He sent me an mp3 after the first pm. Metal Man, maybe you could send it to Rexy too?

We do, but at least give us 24 hours. You aren't the only person that sent a wip in yesterday afternoon and I haven't had the chance to listen just yet. I will listen and give you a review, just like everyone else. I still have some wip's from the day before yesterday I need to review too. I wouldn't never guessed we'd be getting so many wip's so quickly. But that's a good problem to have, right?

My sister used to work for them. They will spam you with hidden fees, baggage fees, etc. If you avoid all those, then they really are that cheap.

=) We're going to be getting forums very soon here, so I'll update the tracklist when that happens. And people have been practically spamming my inbox with awesome wip's so there will be more updates.

Hey, no worries. As far as I'm concerned, that's in the past now and things are in the open. I'd like to deal with how things are, not how they were. I'm sure this will be resolved shortly and we'll all move forward with awesome ff6 remixes.

Let's not let this turn into a flame war. I don't think this was done with the intent of harming anyone, though I do agree that private, exclusive projects are not in the best of tastes. I'm discussing things with the other project director. I'm sure some reasonable arrangement can be reached. What is definitely off the table is abandoning this project. The other project is exclusive and formed in secret. I wanted to do the opposite with this project because I feel that is more in the spirit of OCR's mission. Anyone can submit a track to ocr. Even if you are rejected, the judges will provide critiques. There are forums dedicated to the purpose of critique and growth as musicians. I wanted to have a project that would reflect that. Some of you didn't think I went far enough in this regard, and so the rules were changed to make them better. Once some sort of arrangement is reached with the other project director, we will have forums. I have talked to Kyle, he's ready when we are. There's no reason to abandon the work done for this project or to think it can't still be a huge success.

Ok, tracklist is updated. Let me know if I missed anything so I can fix it. Also, Metal Man, PabloComa has dropped his claim to the track so I've put you down for it since you also expressed interest. I'm going to treat 2 week claims as half a phase. So deadlines will be dates like 2-1-12, 2-15-12, etc. I have talked to DarkeSword and he has confirmed that only recruiting (for projects) is allowed in Recruit & Collab for projects. So, we will definitely need forums. Everyone's still coming down from Magfest right now, so I'm going to give it some more time to see if we can get forums at KNGI. If that doesn't happen for some reason I have already set up some forums -- they just need to be enabled to be used. KNGI is preferred though, since some people already have logins there. Hey, no worries. I was surprised to see you claim in the first place since I know you've got a pretty full plate of stuff to do. Let me know when you have the time, and I'd be more than happy to have you on the project. Besides, you've already made an important contribution in steering Bonkers over here.

Yep, that's the plan, 1 male and 1 female vocalist for Aria de Mezzo Carattere. I'll put you down for it as a collab partner next time I update the tracklist. Feel free to contact me about it, Skype is preferred.

Actually, we could really use female vocals. And additional live instruments are certainly welcome. Oh, and you can still do terra's theme, once the tracklist is full. I'll probably go for 85/170, just like my kefka remix or something along those lines. 170 is pretty much the standard tempo for dnb, so I think it would be perfect for that.

Yep. The vocals are only 1 element. I plan on changing the orchestra behind the vocals into something completely different while adding some new melodies as well. How does breakbeat+opera sound? =)

I plan on having opera-ish vocals for Aria de Mezzo Carattere. 1 male, 1 female, just like the original. The primary notational changes will be in the accompaniment. I intend on using breakbeat/dnb elements.