DarkeSword

I sincerely hope you're listening to the OverClocked PodCast.

There are a lot of video games that are essentially digital versions of card games: Hearthstone, the Pokémon TCG game for gameboy, Duelyst, the various Yu Gi Oh games, etc. These games have some pretty solid soundtracks. I'd like to see a small single-disc album focusing on music from games like these.
Anyone up for the task of directing? I'll take on an advisory/exec producer role and help out, but this'll be your show with regards to track selection and stylistic choices.

I'm game. I heard compo's are like, the best way to improve thanks to you lovely people at the PAX West panel, so I'll give it a shot.

Yes, yes it is.

Plenty of folks on OCR playing LoL too. We really need to get some kind of OCR gaming league going with game nights and guilds and stuff.

Making new friends as an adult after high school/college is actually really difficult. You're not put into situations where you're forced to interact with peers on a regular basis. For gaming friends though, I would suggest meetup.com. There always seems to be some kind of local board game group set up where you can go hang out with people and play board games. This can translate pretty easily into video games. You can also try to create your own gaming group. Maybe contact a local library and see if you can reserve a room with some TVs and set up a weekly gaming thing where folks can drop by and play some Halo.
Also, and this is kind of obvious, but there's OC ReMix too. We're a pretty solid community of gamers. Lots of people are real-life friends because of OC ReMix. Not necessarily local, but I know I see my OCR friends almost monthly nowadays due to get-togethers and conventions. Plenty of folks in the community are playing games online like Overwatch, Hearthstone, Final Fantasy XIV, World of Warcraft, etc. We had a pretty active Team Fortress 2 community a few years ago, though I'm not sure how much people play that anymore.
Your location says "nomadic." Where are you actually located? Maybe there's some OCR folks out near you.
 

Making new friends as an adult after high school/college is actually really difficult. You're not put into situations where you're forced to interact with peers on a regular basis. For gaming friends though, I would suggest meetup.com. There always seems to be some kind of local board game group set up where you can go hang out with people and play board games. This can translate pretty easily into video games. You can also try to create your own gaming group. Maybe contact a local library and see if you can reserve a room with some TVs and set up a weekly gaming thing where folks can drop by and play some Halo.
Also, and this is kind of obvious, but there's OC ReMix too. We're a pretty solid community of gamers. Lots of people are real-life friends because of OC ReMix. Not necessarily local, but I know I see my OCR friends almost monthly nowadays due to get-togethers and conventions. Plenty of folks in the community are playing games online like Overwatch, Hearthstone, Final Fantasy XIV, World of Warcraft, etc. We had a pretty active Team Fortress 2 community a few years ago, though I'm not sure how much people play that anymore.
Your location says "nomadic." Where are you actually located? Maybe there's some OCR folks out near you.
 

Keep in mind, because of the way this competition is set up, nearly all of the remixes you write with include a Mega Man source and a Shovel Knight source. Being on the Robots team won't mean you'll only be remixing Mega Man tunes, and the same goes for the Knights team with Shovel Knight tunes.

Hey guys; posted a callout for help with visual identity and branding for RvK over on my tumblr. Quoting here:
As many of you know, I have pretty high standards for artwork on my projects (albums and competitions). I'm looking for someone with a very strong sense of good design. This is more than just a "draw some pictures" gig.

Introduction
Past and future collide as two factions clash in the greatest musical battle the world has ever seen. Armored heroes meet metal warriors on the battlefield of wailing guitars, dirty drops, and soaring strings. Get ready, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for Robots vs. Knights!
Current News
MUSIC FOR THE FINAL BATTLE IS UP! Round 9: One vs. One Final Battle
Team Robot           Team Knight Squad Artist Source vs Source Artist Squad Rush Squad Gario Ballade vs Wandering Travelers JohnStacy Armor Squad Rush Squad Starpheonix Enker vs Shield Knight GCJ Armor Squad Rush Squad Thirdkoopa Mercury vs Shovel Knight Jorito Relic Squad Tango Squad Chiwalker Uranus vs Polar Knight theshaggyfreak Shovel Squad Tango Squad Yami Pluto vs Plague Knight akalink Armor Squad Tango Squad Ronald Poe Mars vs Propeller Knight Anorax Shovel Squad Beat Squad Trism Saturn vs Spectre Knight PlanarianHugger Shovel Squad Beat Squad Xenonetix Punk vs King Knight Dewey Newt Relic Squad Beat Squad MegaDrive Venus vs Mole Knight Arrow Relic Squad Remixes are due Sunday, June 18th at 9 PM EDT.
All competitors will compose and produce remixes that combine both sources into one, cohesive piece of music. Collaboration with teammates is allowed, but the primary artists should be the competitors listed in the table above. All competitors are encouraged (but not required) to share WIPs with teammates in order to get constructive feedback. Good luck and happy mixing.
A lot of team discussion is happening on the OC ReMix Discord, be sure to make yourselves available.
As always, all participants (competitors and voters) are expected to adhere to the Competitions Code of Conduct.
Scoreboard
Battle Team Knight Team Robot Ballade vs Shovel Knight 2 0 Uranus vs Propeller Knight 0 2 Saturn vs Plague Knight 2 0 Enker vs Polar Knight 0 2 Pluto vs King Knight 0 2 Punk vs Shield Knight 2 0 Mercury vs Spectre Knight 0 2 Mars vs Mole Knight 0 0 Venus vs Wandering Travelers 0 2 Boss Battle vs Tinker Knight 0 9 Total 6 19 Teams
Team Knight
Artist Source Squad Anorax Propeller Knight Shovel Squad theshaggyfreak Polar Knight Shovel Squad PlanarianHugger Spectre Knight Shovel Squad akalink Plague Knight Armor Squad GCJ Shield Knight Armor Squad JohnStacy Wandering Travelers Armor Squad Jorito Shovel Knight Relic Squad Dewey Newt King Knight Relic Squad Arrow Mole Knight Relic Squad Team Robot
Artist Source Squad Gario Ballade Rush Squad Starpheonix Enker Rush Squad Thirdkoopa Mercury Rush Squad Chiwalker Uranus Tango Squad Yami Pluto Tango Squad Ronald Poe Mars Tango Squad Trism Saturn Beat Squad Xenonetix Punk Beat Squad MegaDrive Venus Beat Squad Releases
Round 1: Squad vs. Squad Block 1 Round 2: Squad vs. Squad Block 1 Round 3: Squad vs. Squad Block 1 Round 4: Boss Battle 1 Rounds 5-8: Block 2 Round 9: One vs. One Final Battle About
Robots vs. Knights (RvK) is a Team vs. Team competition. It’s a new format that I’ve been developing for a couple of months now, combining elements of the head-to-head battles of the Remix Battle tournaments (GRMRB, etc.) with the teamwork aspect of Gauntlet tournaments (WCRG, etc.). Here’s the full breakdown of how it’s going to work.
Sign-ups 18 people sign up. I’ll divide everyone into 2 teams of 9. I’ll be assigning people to their respective teams in order to ensure a balanced competition. Each team will be given a pool of sources to select from. Team members will decide how to assign sources themselves. I won’t be running a draft. Team Robots will be given a selection of sources from the Mega Man Game Boy games. Team Knights will be given a selection of sources from Shovel Knight. Each team will form 3 squads of 3 members each. The squad will be your group that you’ll rotate with throughout the competition, similar to the teams from gauntlet competitions. Squad-vs-Squad Battle 1 The first 3 rounds are squad-vs-squad battles. Each squad will decide their remixing order for the first three rounds and provide that to me. Each round, I’ll post 3 match-ups between squads on opposing teams. Each squad’s artist will submit a remix that uses their selected source and the opposing squad’s selected source. At the end of each round, artists send their remixes to me, I’ll put the tracks up, and people will vote. Each victory will earn points for the team. Boss Battle 1 The 4th round is a boss battle. I’ll post a boss theme source. All 6 squads will submit a remix that combines the boss theme with one of the squad’s sources. Any member of the squad can be the primary artist. The primary artist is not required to use their own personal source; they can use any of their squad’s 3 sources. At the end of the round, voters will select their 3 favorite remixes, unranked. The team that has the most selections at the end of the voting period will choose between two rewards: a chunk of points, or the right to counterpick in the next block of squad-vs-squad battles. Break 1 While votes are being collected for Boss Battle 1, we will take a week-long break, using the time to review remixes from past rounds. Squad-vs-Squad Battle 2 The next 3 rounds are squad-vs-squad battles. If a team has the right to counterpick, they’ll be provided the opposing team’s remixing orders first before determining their remixing orders. I will still determine the actual match-ups based on the updated remixing orders. The 3 rounds of squad-vs-squad battles are conducted as before. Boss Battle 2 The 8th round is another boss battle, conducted in the same way as the previous boss battle round. Break 2 While votes are being collected for Boss Battle 2, we will take a week-long break, using the time to review remixes from past rounds. One-vs-One Battle The 9th and final round is comprised of 9 one-on-one battles. If a team has earned the right to counterpick from the previous round, they’ll be allowed to determine the 9 match-ups; rematches of previous battles from the squad-vs-squad blocks are not allowed. If no team has counterpick, I’ll determine the match-ups. Each artist will be responsible for writing a remix that uses their selected source and their opponent’s source. At the end of the round, remixes will be submitted and voted on. The team with the most victories will earn a large chunk of points. The team with the most points at the end of the competition wins. Submissions and File Name Rules
Submission
All entries must be sent to me (DarkeSword) via PM on the forums. Please include your team name, squad name, and the round number in the subject line of your PM. I encode all MP3s myself, so please send me your submissions in 16bit, 44.1KHz WAV format. Don’t send MP3s.
Please do not use MediaFire, RapidShare, or any other ad-ridden public sharing site as a host for your entry. There are many better options you can and should be using to host your music. I recommend Dropbox or SoundCloud. Make sure your files are downloadable.
File Names
If you worked on the remix without the help of your teammates:
Team Robots - DarkeSword - Be Cool, Man (Ice Man vs. Polar Knight).wav If one team member helps you with your entry in a significant way and you want to give them credit, add their name as follows:
Team Robots - DarkeSword feat. Neblix - Be Cool, Man (Ice Man vs. Polar Knight).wav If more than one team members help you with your entry in a significant way and you want to give them credit, add their names as follows:
Team Robots - DarkeSword feat. Neblix, Liontamer - Be Cool, Man (Ice Man vs. Polar Knight).wav Notes
Make sure you’re using proper capitalization for team names and character names. Put spaces on both sides of the hyphens between Team Name, Artist, and Title. If your remix’s title has special punctuation that you can’t include in the file name (e.g. \ / : \* ? " < > |), please let me know in your submission PM so I can include the correct title in the tags. Please follow the file name format exactly; I use the file names to make sure that all the metadata is correct when I tag the MP3s. It’s a massive pain sitting there renaming, re-spacing, and reformatting so that everything works properly with mp3tag’s file-name-to-tag tools, and ultimately it means that when you all do it right, I can get the music up for voting way faster.
Voting Rules and Guidelines
Voting is conducted publicly in the Public Voting forum. Every week, a thread will be created for the most recently completed round of remixing. Because RvK has two different types of rounds (squad-vs-squad and boss battle), please make sure you read and follow the instructions in the voting thread.
Things to keep in mind when voting:
The most important thing to consider when voting is how well the remix incorporates and arranges both themes. Production and enjoyability should also be considered, but this is primarily an arrangement competition. Everyone is allowed (and encouraged) to vote, including competitors. Everyone must adhere to the Competitions Code of Conduct. FAQ
This is pretty interesting, but why are you doing this instead of just another Tournament or Gauntlet?
The philosophy behind RvK is to create an environment where more artists will be working together to help and learn from each other. I want to tap into the spirit of teamwork and collaboration in a bigger way this tournament. Rather than just having two friends working on tracks with you week to week, you’ll have eight other teammates that you can use as resources.
What do you mean by resources?
In the past, I’ve tried to limit the amount of collaboration allowed in competitions because I wanted to make sure that people were putting forth a concerted effort to grow as artists on their own. While we’ll still be adhering to the idea of a Primary Artist for each remix in RvK, some of the limitations will be relaxed. Artists will be able to get help from all 8 of their teammates. This includes production help, session instruments, and arrangement feedback. The Primary Artist will still be responsible for the bulk of the work that goes into a remix, but they’ll have a lot more help in getting that remix polished up.
How many remixes do I have to write?
You will be responsible for at least 3 remixes: 2 remixes from the squad-vs-squad battles, and 1 remix in the final battle. You may also be responsible for any of the boss battle remixes, but that will be up to your team.
Why can’t we choose our own teams?
I’m going to determine the teams based on skill level in order to ensure fairness across the board. I want both teams to have a healthy balance between novices and veterans.
Do we get to pick team names or squad names?
No. The two teams will be known as Team Robots and Team Knights. I will also be setting the squad names which will be revealed once we get the competition started.
I really want to be on Team Robots/Team Knights! Can you put me on that team?
I’ll consider your preference but I can’t guarantee anything.
Notes
Stardroid sprites used in Team Robot sigs were colorized by onyx801.

Making new friends as an adult after high school/college is actually really difficult. You're not put into situations where you're forced to interact with peers on a regular basis. For gaming friends though, I would suggest meetup.com. There always seems to be some kind of local board game group set up where you can go hang out with people and play board games. This can translate pretty easily into video games. You can also try to create your own gaming group. Maybe contact a local library and see if you can reserve a room with some TVs and set up a weekly gaming thing where folks can drop by and play some Halo.
Also, and this is kind of obvious, but there's OC ReMix too. We're a pretty solid community of gamers. Lots of people are real-life friends because of OC ReMix. Not necessarily local, but I know I see my OCR friends almost monthly nowadays due to get-togethers and conventions. Plenty of folks in the community are playing games online like Overwatch, Hearthstone, Final Fantasy XIV, World of Warcraft, etc. We had a pretty active Team Fortress 2 community a few years ago, though I'm not sure how much people play that anymore.
Your location says "nomadic." Where are you actually located? Maybe there's some OCR folks out near you.
 

Making new friends as an adult after high school/college is actually really difficult. You're not put into situations where you're forced to interact with peers on a regular basis. For gaming friends though, I would suggest meetup.com. There always seems to be some kind of local board game group set up where you can go hang out with people and play board games. This can translate pretty easily into video games. You can also try to create your own gaming group. Maybe contact a local library and see if you can reserve a room with some TVs and set up a weekly gaming thing where folks can drop by and play some Halo.
Also, and this is kind of obvious, but there's OC ReMix too. We're a pretty solid community of gamers. Lots of people are real-life friends because of OC ReMix. Not necessarily local, but I know I see my OCR friends almost monthly nowadays due to get-togethers and conventions. Plenty of folks in the community are playing games online like Overwatch, Hearthstone, Final Fantasy XIV, World of Warcraft, etc. We had a pretty active Team Fortress 2 community a few years ago, though I'm not sure how much people play that anymore.
Your location says "nomadic." Where are you actually located? Maybe there's some OCR folks out near you.
 

Plenty of folks on OCR playing LoL too. We really need to get some kind of OCR gaming league going with game nights and guilds and stuff.

Plenty of folks on OCR playing LoL too. We really need to get some kind of OCR gaming league going with game nights and guilds and stuff.

It's tedious and bleak. At least the soundtrack is good.

I have some free time coming up. Drop me a line if you need a singer. It'd be nice to do some collabs.
I have two remixes on here with the awesome DJ Mystix. Check them out here...
http://ocremix.org/artist/12106/claire-yaxley
Throw "Claire Yaxley" into YouTube and you'll find lots more stuff. Mostly pop covers and a few live performances (I sing at pubs and weddings and, most recently, in the lunch hall at the school where I teach - hey, don't judge, those kids gave me a standing ovation!!)

This will have to be discussed with the game director, as of yet I only have permission to release them in this format, as far as an official soundtrack album through bandcamp or something, that is possible, but not yet worked out. 
I'll definitely be pushing for something of that nature and I will give an update if we're able to move forward with that. 
Also, thanks a million for the support Shariq, really glad you enjoyed piano+violin versions!

I wrote an entire snes-style soundtrack with my own custom built sound-set a couple of years ago, for a game that at the time very closely resembed a real 16 bit JRPG.
The game has since changed direction enough that this music will no longer be the best fit, but I just recently got permission to release that version of the soundtrack. I've been doing it 1 song at a time through my soundcloud. 18 are up now and more are coming soon.
I think you guys will enjoy these. The square and enix OSTs from the 90s snes era are SUCH a hugely formative and inspirational thing to me, so getting to attempt this was a very powerful emotional experience and I'm really glad I got to do it.
 
 

There are nine people on each team. Each team will be given about 11-12 sources they can choose from and assign to their nine members.

Introduction
Past and future collide as two factions clash in the greatest musical battle the world has ever seen. Armored heroes meet metal warriors on the battlefield of wailing guitars, dirty drops, and soaring strings. Get ready, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for Robots vs. Knights!
Current News
MUSIC FOR THE FINAL BATTLE IS UP! Round 9: One vs. One Final Battle
Team Robot           Team Knight Squad Artist Source vs Source Artist Squad Rush Squad Gario Ballade vs Wandering Travelers JohnStacy Armor Squad Rush Squad Starpheonix Enker vs Shield Knight GCJ Armor Squad Rush Squad Thirdkoopa Mercury vs Shovel Knight Jorito Relic Squad Tango Squad Chiwalker Uranus vs Polar Knight theshaggyfreak Shovel Squad Tango Squad Yami Pluto vs Plague Knight akalink Armor Squad Tango Squad Ronald Poe Mars vs Propeller Knight Anorax Shovel Squad Beat Squad Trism Saturn vs Spectre Knight PlanarianHugger Shovel Squad Beat Squad Xenonetix Punk vs King Knight Dewey Newt Relic Squad Beat Squad MegaDrive Venus vs Mole Knight Arrow Relic Squad Remixes are due Sunday, June 18th at 9 PM EDT.
All competitors will compose and produce remixes that combine both sources into one, cohesive piece of music. Collaboration with teammates is allowed, but the primary artists should be the competitors listed in the table above. All competitors are encouraged (but not required) to share WIPs with teammates in order to get constructive feedback. Good luck and happy mixing.
A lot of team discussion is happening on the OC ReMix Discord, be sure to make yourselves available.
As always, all participants (competitors and voters) are expected to adhere to the Competitions Code of Conduct.
Scoreboard
Battle Team Knight Team Robot Ballade vs Shovel Knight 2 0 Uranus vs Propeller Knight 0 2 Saturn vs Plague Knight 2 0 Enker vs Polar Knight 0 2 Pluto vs King Knight 0 2 Punk vs Shield Knight 2 0 Mercury vs Spectre Knight 0 2 Mars vs Mole Knight 0 0 Venus vs Wandering Travelers 0 2 Boss Battle vs Tinker Knight 0 9 Total 6 19 Teams
Team Knight
Artist Source Squad Anorax Propeller Knight Shovel Squad theshaggyfreak Polar Knight Shovel Squad PlanarianHugger Spectre Knight Shovel Squad akalink Plague Knight Armor Squad GCJ Shield Knight Armor Squad JohnStacy Wandering Travelers Armor Squad Jorito Shovel Knight Relic Squad Dewey Newt King Knight Relic Squad Arrow Mole Knight Relic Squad Team Robot
Artist Source Squad Gario Ballade Rush Squad Starpheonix Enker Rush Squad Thirdkoopa Mercury Rush Squad Chiwalker Uranus Tango Squad Yami Pluto Tango Squad Ronald Poe Mars Tango Squad Trism Saturn Beat Squad Xenonetix Punk Beat Squad MegaDrive Venus Beat Squad Releases
Round 1: Squad vs. Squad Block 1 Round 2: Squad vs. Squad Block 1 Round 3: Squad vs. Squad Block 1 Round 4: Boss Battle 1 Rounds 5-8: Block 2 Round 9: One vs. One Final Battle About
Robots vs. Knights (RvK) is a Team vs. Team competition. It’s a new format that I’ve been developing for a couple of months now, combining elements of the head-to-head battles of the Remix Battle tournaments (GRMRB, etc.) with the teamwork aspect of Gauntlet tournaments (WCRG, etc.). Here’s the full breakdown of how it’s going to work.
Sign-ups 18 people sign up. I’ll divide everyone into 2 teams of 9. I’ll be assigning people to their respective teams in order to ensure a balanced competition. Each team will be given a pool of sources to select from. Team members will decide how to assign sources themselves. I won’t be running a draft. Team Robots will be given a selection of sources from the Mega Man Game Boy games. Team Knights will be given a selection of sources from Shovel Knight. Each team will form 3 squads of 3 members each. The squad will be your group that you’ll rotate with throughout the competition, similar to the teams from gauntlet competitions. Squad-vs-Squad Battle 1 The first 3 rounds are squad-vs-squad battles. Each squad will decide their remixing order for the first three rounds and provide that to me. Each round, I’ll post 3 match-ups between squads on opposing teams. Each squad’s artist will submit a remix that uses their selected source and the opposing squad’s selected source. At the end of each round, artists send their remixes to me, I’ll put the tracks up, and people will vote. Each victory will earn points for the team. Boss Battle 1 The 4th round is a boss battle. I’ll post a boss theme source. All 6 squads will submit a remix that combines the boss theme with one of the squad’s sources. Any member of the squad can be the primary artist. The primary artist is not required to use their own personal source; they can use any of their squad’s 3 sources. At the end of the round, voters will select their 3 favorite remixes, unranked. The team that has the most selections at the end of the voting period will choose between two rewards: a chunk of points, or the right to counterpick in the next block of squad-vs-squad battles. Break 1 While votes are being collected for Boss Battle 1, we will take a week-long break, using the time to review remixes from past rounds. Squad-vs-Squad Battle 2 The next 3 rounds are squad-vs-squad battles. If a team has the right to counterpick, they’ll be provided the opposing team’s remixing orders first before determining their remixing orders. I will still determine the actual match-ups based on the updated remixing orders. The 3 rounds of squad-vs-squad battles are conducted as before. Boss Battle 2 The 8th round is another boss battle, conducted in the same way as the previous boss battle round. Break 2 While votes are being collected for Boss Battle 2, we will take a week-long break, using the time to review remixes from past rounds. One-vs-One Battle The 9th and final round is comprised of 9 one-on-one battles. If a team has earned the right to counterpick from the previous round, they’ll be allowed to determine the 9 match-ups; rematches of previous battles from the squad-vs-squad blocks are not allowed. If no team has counterpick, I’ll determine the match-ups. Each artist will be responsible for writing a remix that uses their selected source and their opponent’s source. At the end of the round, remixes will be submitted and voted on. The team with the most victories will earn a large chunk of points. The team with the most points at the end of the competition wins. Submissions and File Name Rules
Submission
All entries must be sent to me (DarkeSword) via PM on the forums. Please include your team name, squad name, and the round number in the subject line of your PM. I encode all MP3s myself, so please send me your submissions in 16bit, 44.1KHz WAV format. Don’t send MP3s.
Please do not use MediaFire, RapidShare, or any other ad-ridden public sharing site as a host for your entry. There are many better options you can and should be using to host your music. I recommend Dropbox or SoundCloud. Make sure your files are downloadable.
File Names
If you worked on the remix without the help of your teammates:
Team Robots - DarkeSword - Be Cool, Man (Ice Man vs. Polar Knight).wav If one team member helps you with your entry in a significant way and you want to give them credit, add their name as follows:
Team Robots - DarkeSword feat. Neblix - Be Cool, Man (Ice Man vs. Polar Knight).wav If more than one team members help you with your entry in a significant way and you want to give them credit, add their names as follows:
Team Robots - DarkeSword feat. Neblix, Liontamer - Be Cool, Man (Ice Man vs. Polar Knight).wav Notes
Make sure you’re using proper capitalization for team names and character names. Put spaces on both sides of the hyphens between Team Name, Artist, and Title. If your remix’s title has special punctuation that you can’t include in the file name (e.g. \ / : \* ? " < > |), please let me know in your submission PM so I can include the correct title in the tags. Please follow the file name format exactly; I use the file names to make sure that all the metadata is correct when I tag the MP3s. It’s a massive pain sitting there renaming, re-spacing, and reformatting so that everything works properly with mp3tag’s file-name-to-tag tools, and ultimately it means that when you all do it right, I can get the music up for voting way faster.
Voting Rules and Guidelines
Voting is conducted publicly in the Public Voting forum. Every week, a thread will be created for the most recently completed round of remixing. Because RvK has two different types of rounds (squad-vs-squad and boss battle), please make sure you read and follow the instructions in the voting thread.
Things to keep in mind when voting:
The most important thing to consider when voting is how well the remix incorporates and arranges both themes. Production and enjoyability should also be considered, but this is primarily an arrangement competition. Everyone is allowed (and encouraged) to vote, including competitors. Everyone must adhere to the Competitions Code of Conduct. FAQ
This is pretty interesting, but why are you doing this instead of just another Tournament or Gauntlet?
The philosophy behind RvK is to create an environment where more artists will be working together to help and learn from each other. I want to tap into the spirit of teamwork and collaboration in a bigger way this tournament. Rather than just having two friends working on tracks with you week to week, you’ll have eight other teammates that you can use as resources.
What do you mean by resources?
In the past, I’ve tried to limit the amount of collaboration allowed in competitions because I wanted to make sure that people were putting forth a concerted effort to grow as artists on their own. While we’ll still be adhering to the idea of a Primary Artist for each remix in RvK, some of the limitations will be relaxed. Artists will be able to get help from all 8 of their teammates. This includes production help, session instruments, and arrangement feedback. The Primary Artist will still be responsible for the bulk of the work that goes into a remix, but they’ll have a lot more help in getting that remix polished up.
How many remixes do I have to write?
You will be responsible for at least 3 remixes: 2 remixes from the squad-vs-squad battles, and 1 remix in the final battle. You may also be responsible for any of the boss battle remixes, but that will be up to your team.
Why can’t we choose our own teams?
I’m going to determine the teams based on skill level in order to ensure fairness across the board. I want both teams to have a healthy balance between novices and veterans.
Do we get to pick team names or squad names?
No. The two teams will be known as Team Robots and Team Knights. I will also be setting the squad names which will be revealed once we get the competition started.
I really want to be on Team Robots/Team Knights! Can you put me on that team?
I’ll consider your preference but I can’t guarantee anything.
Notes
Stardroid sprites used in Team Robot sigs were colorized by onyx801.

In the interest of making the forums easier to sign up for and more accessible to everyone, we've made some changes to registration.
In the past, we've had it so that new accounts had to be manually vetted and activated; this was to avoid spam accounts and the like. This worked, but a side-effect was that new members couldn't engage in the community immediately and would become discouraged from participating.
To move forward, we've done the following things:
Updated our manual registration form to use the latest reCAPTCHA. This is to help fight spam accounts. Removed administrator approval from the registration process. New members will be able to post immediately following email verification. Enabled new members to register using their social media accounts. New members can now use Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ to register. If you're already registered for the forums, you can link your existing forum account to any/all of your social media accounts by going to your Account Settings and clicking the relevant links. Once you do so, you'll be able to use your social media account to sign-in, as opposed to a traditional username/password sign-in.
If you have any friends who are interested in OC ReMix but haven't joined the forums, get 'em over here and get 'em involved! Between album projects, competitions, and gaming discussions, there's a lot to do here.
If you run into any registration or account linking issues, please let us know right here in this thread. Thanks!

That piano is SUPER mechanical. Not sure how I feel about it. It doesn't sound like it's trying to be real but it's so exposed.
I like what you're trying to do here, but I think Larry and Kris are right. Guitar sounds great but there's weird balance issues. Some of the synths get a bit messy and piercing.
Needs another look.
NO

I have no remixes posted currently ... but if/when I do, I'm opting in.
 

Already known among staff, but I suppose if we're publicly stating it, here it is. I am obviously fine with my remix videos having ads on them.

I'm going to close this thread up. A spirited discussion to be sure, but @djpretzel indicated what the next steps are going to be for OCR with regards to shifting ads over to YouTube.
I don't think it's healthy for us to sit around and do a post-mortem of the arguments/discussion. Let's get back to talking about video games, music, and video game music.