Less Ashamed Of Self

Well guys, I'm interested in this competition, I still love it dearly and want to see it go places... but if you haven't checked out what I'm up to lately; check my sig. If someone, again, feels like taking the reins here, they have my blessing and I will be watching/maybe participating.

Much like. Good shit.

6 months ago or so I dabbled in a very fun, very rewarding version which you could easily call 'entry level' DJing. I have a Numark Total Control board which ran me about $150. It connects via USB to my laptop running Virtual DJ. Both of these are admittedly NOT the standard, and every one of the pro DJs I've been able to hang out with tends to use much more pro hardware, a macbook, and traktor. Regardless, if you have a musical background, if you really feel your music, if you can assemble a list of 200+ songs around 120-130bpm no shorter than 4 minutes... which you could not only feel comfortable playing but also say you 'know' intimately... it's an AMAZING hobby. I LOVED doing it. At least 5 to 10 times in a set you feel out the risk of trying something you're not sure is going to work. At its worst you might feel bored standing in place waiting for a song to play out or feeling uncomfortable that you've missed a cue or let yourself down in some way. At its best, you create a different show every time, making live mash-ups, making people dance, and in general you get to look and feel like an absolute badass. You have to REALLY suck or play a REALLY pretentious crowd to not at least feel good about it; in my experience anyway. It also depends on what you plan to spin. If you're going to play chart toppers of the 60's and 70's you may as well stick with a winamp playlist.

I like it. I like it a lot. ...but I feel that what I like about dubstep this track doesn't really exemplify. All of the wub wubs and badass dirty synths are spot on, but I feel what makes kickass dubstep is progressive melodic parts followed by a simple, heavily-textured, captivating, and very loud, breakdown. This is spread so thick though that I feel like dubstep isn't the best genre title for it anymore. Which isn't knocking the track at all, it's quite dark and very delicious... just... why can't we call it: 'dark electronica with dubstep-like warbling bass' or 'dark wub wub electro' instead of just 'dubstep'? This really doesn't sound like any other 'dubstep' out there... probably to the delight of many.

This prompted a discussion with my roommate. We're a very emotionally connected bunch at times. This came up. Also this. Love you all.

I know this isn't really what you asked about, but I'm a happy, friendly face in Toronto. Whereabouts in Toronto is he living? Maybe he wants to do karaoke with the gang sometime?

Oh yeah, how did I forget this!? Everyone stop what you're doing and watch if you haven't.

My musical heart will always belong to primarily variants of electronic music, fusion, video game music, and all shades in between. IDM, electro, d'n'b, chillwave, and dubstep all still manage to appeal to me in a similar way... the fact that it has a beat, and presents a new idea. Musicality and mood is really important, the most fundamentally important to it's tone, but I never get motivated by folk or rock the same way. I've heard bad dubstep, but I've heard way way more good dubstep. Generally speaking, the quickly changing effects are rarely going to challenge me as much as agree with me.

Wanted to make another post to point out that I've actually had a few arguments by this point about this last episode. I'm feeling agitated about it even now. You'd think that the argument would be about how a game like this offends them and they might blame video games or even gamers as being ignorant, catering to, and producing this garbage. In actuality, from multiple people, I've been confronted about how this is an issue that's being taken too seriously, a mountain out of a molehill. -That games aren't supposed to be so closely analyzed... -That games aren't a good source for sociopolitical information so why am I treating them as though they should be... -That it's a shitty, poorly received, game which people wouldn't listen to anyway... -That it makes an issue where there need not be, and whining about it or 'spreading awareness' will only succeed in making asshole activists out of gamers instead of looking at fps' like the 'mindless entertainment' they 'should be' at face value. and finally, -That the video itself was almost more offensive for over-dramatization than any of the offensive content was. They've likened it to the much much lesser RE5 racism controversy about how they're only shooting black people, but since it's in Africa, there's nothing racist about it... Talk about missing the point... None of these are my opinions but ones I've faced since introducing this issue within my friend circle. It's worth noting that none of these are my Mexican friends. Needless to say, I've been thinking on this last one a LOT. And if the episode at it's worst manages to get people to talk and think about where they stand on the issue it is still a massive success. Here's why I still agree with Daniel, James, and the EC crew: Ethically, there's a lot to argue for here: Free speech, designer obligation (if there is any, if there should be), appropriate levels of parody, comedy, and fiction/non-fiction as it relates to modern issues, varying levels of sensitivity based on subject matter, the direction gaming is going, the standard we want it to rise to, and the accountability this implies. All of these one has to weigh for themselves, these are matters of personal ethics and opinions. At the end of the day, it is just a game which has just as much reason to exist as to not exist and be played as not played. What this boils down to for me is the racist lies it tells, and that for me, one of the darkest, most evil things you can do is wrongly educate. Racist hatred, religious extremism, bigoted worldviews, and the ability to dehumanize... all of these are fostered by harsh life experiences and agenda-driven mentors. Nothing about these dark things, the seed from which all evil mindsets start, would exist to the same capacity if it wasn't for a corruption of education. If someone doesn't have their facts straight, they must be held accountable as to why. This is why this is important to me, and this is why I'm defending EC's stance here. AAA games, even A games exist in a very marketed very public space. We aren't able to hold it to the same standard as Custer's Revenge which can be shrugged off as a small crappy game of poor taste. We're supposed to get involved with these characters. We're supposed to immerse ourselves in on their story. Here's an illustration for anyone in a similar boat as me. Let's look at the movie Borat for a second. Borat is a silly film, one with a character who is both an ethnic stereotype, and a notable anti-Semitic... but all of this is allowable because it is both obvious comedy and an effective portrayal of how Americans respond to foreigners. What if in a 'Borat 2' movie he crackied jokes about killing Jews? Still on the fence of poor taste... What if he made erroneous claims about Palestinians more often being the victims of Jewish suicide bombers? Really poor taste but obviously silly... Now what if it wasn't a comedy? There is a point at which getting offended is the right response. Some things are more important than shrugging off as 'in poor taste.'

Remember when I said you guys give us gamers an important and well-spoken voice? Yeah. This episode FTW. As nauseating as I'm sure it was to endure, part of me hopes you guys really stir the pot with this one. They definitely deserve shit for this. I spent the last 2 1/2 years steeped in Mexican pride. I worked in a Mexican Restaurant alongside Mexican Canadians who visit Mexico several times a year... many of them had family members in 'rough areas' and feared for their lives daily, sending money whenever they could. The level of racism and misinformation here is criminally negligent and should be upsetting to all and not just to those who notice. Hopefully it is looked back on as an example of incredible poor taste, notoriously so, not unlike Birth of a Nation is to film (minus the ahead-of-its-time factor). One we can learn from as a level of insensitivity not to be repeated. I can't even imagine how the Mexican American gamer population will be responding to this episode. I would be livid if it was my people. EDIT: Watching it again, will likely make a point to share this one around.

So something has caught my attention ever since it was commented on in s3e8... and while, sephire, I know you've got plenty of episode suggestions and I'm not necessarily suggesting an episode on the topic, I am really curious to know where you and James would weigh in on this one... and the rest of you for that matter. The comment was; "Unfortunately James has run into a lot of designers and creative directors in the industry who are essentially frustrated filmmakers. They still envision narrative in terms of film." Every time I think creatively on how I would design a game, or how I would want to further the game medium, I always come back to how this issue, and how there needs to be some kind of major breakthrough. You've approached this issue from many angles, from a need to tell risky and unconventional stories, to how gaming is a new medium compared to film, to the issues of non-linear choice-based stories and how that separates games from film, and even how the uncanny valley affects how we view the actors/characters. ...and yet I still feel like we will never win over the film critics who dislike games... and I still can't explain WHY. ...and your average foreign film with creative angles, story, or emotional depth manages to bring something to the table I've yet to get from any game and I can't explain WHY. I guess it's just the issue that the gameplay has to be in its proper proportion, and that a game which would leave you with nothing to do, or the equivalent of only QTEs, or simple dialogue choices or 'mini-games' isn't much of a game at all no matter how good the story is. Why, for some reason, does it seem the FMV point and click game is all-but-dead? Can't we do it better now? Is the genre such a flop? and why, then, have games succeeded so well over film with the survival horror genre? Any well-made, effective, survival horror game, in part to its interactivity, is way creepier than a horror movie. Are we just desensitized to the imagery alone? And what other genres can we still tap into, perhaps not yet discovered genres, which could carry a greater impact THROUGH gaming? A first hand Sophie's Choice of a choice. Where's that? Maybe this is just a rant, but anyone else feeling where I'm coming from with this one?

Oh hey, y'know what belongs in this thread... One of the coolest & creepiest Music Videos you'll ever see. Watch it to the end in the highest quality you can.

I win the thread: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qiz-y_QfkaU

I want to post something productive, but I JUST listened to this now, and all that comes to mind to post is expletives. Incredible work guys. Just insane.

Wow dude. As much as I empathize for how horrible it must have been for you in that time... all I can think is: 'I seriously hope the same people who think video games cause violence don't start catching wind of cases like this.' I guess I never realized how severe it can be for some people. Glad someone else was really moved by that episode. Despite being so different it's one of my favourites.

Ok... time to finally get caught up on OCAD. *Goes to 8bitx.com/OCAD *scrolls down to the last one d/led: #62 *right-click-save-as to external HDD; it saves 58kb. Odd... perhaps it has something to do with that external HDD... *goes to episode #62's isolated page *right-click-save-as to Desktop. *it saves 58kb of Episode 1 - I'm on a Goat - Part 2 Ok... so... time to find a new podcast to listen to...

I waited a few days before responding to this. I wanted to make sure I addressed the issue(s) OCRMVC faces appropriately. I think that any creativity focused community struggles with a lot of the same issues online. Finding communal motivation, meeting deadlines, finding energy, encouraging others, overcoming technical difficulties, and a necessary push in advertisement in general plague our condition. It's trying, and has been worth overcoming... but it's also nothing surprising or new. IRL, one can actually hang out with a person and push them on progress, or collaborate a little more easily, or bitch them out if they need to get up off their ass. The ONLINE factor, (and this ISN'T a shot at your current predicament Dio, I'm included in this group as well) is one where claims of 'I'm really busy...', or 'Life's hectic right now...' go unvalidated and have to be taken at face value. I'm not saying any of us WEREN'T actually busy when we said we were, I'm just pointing out how voluntary this all really is. We see this in other variations of our field too; remixes and remix project collaborations, and with various video things on the Internet; channel101 and 101ny... contests... I knew coming to a group of gamer/nerd/musicians on a video game remixing site, who didn't really make music videos, that the group of interested people would be scarce. It's like how when you have a facebook invite that has 25 people in confirmed or maybe, and then only 10 show up... intention might be there, but you round down. So when I started the first challenge with Biznut I started a couple spam threads on various nerd/video/music boards to try and attract as much non-ocr attention as possible. I was immediately looking towards potential prizes to try and attract people from outside the OCR community. I'm really not too discouraged by the response we've been getting, nor do I think that the dwindling numbers is a sure-fire sign that anything here hasn't worked. The videos we have made (except for maybe in the case of setzertrancer who deleted his account) AREN'T GOING ANYWHERE. We have much more reason to be proud and optimistic than defeated or discouraged. I wanted to put in my two cents... I'll leave it at this for tonight. As for where we might go from here, I have an idea or two, but I'll leave that for another night.

It's cause he's black isn't it?

Wow.... BardicKnowledge, you hit the nail on the head there. It seems we're talking about a separate issue altogether here. How a host's and/or commentator's articulation, knowledge, and showmanship might be an essential element in making a normally somewhat mundane competition transcend into the 'pro' circuit. I know this is how I feel about Alton Brown's impact on Iron Chef America.

Interesting. I have a friend who specifically and only watches SC2 strategy videos, and isn't much of a gamer. Guess it takes all types.

Great ep about pro-gaming today. I've always found this to be an interesting topic. It would be a lot of fun to be part of the design team that makes an emerging pro-gamer game. Something that comes to mind is the webcomic The 10K Commotion It was a semi-fantasy comic based around a DDR competition with a large cash prize. The comic was engaging for me, not just because it had a gamer lingo with a decent romantic sub-plot, although that was nice... it was the way it used DDR-related lingo without slowing down (ie: Breakdown heavy x2 mirror shuffle!? But that's a 9-footer) and developed spectacular player-characters as legends, (ie: improving routines on randomly chosen double songs, moving the two pads a foot apart, adding handplants and flips just to get a rise out of the crowd, dancers being known by reputation/rumors) I`ve always maintained that rhythm-based games would potentially make for the best games for a spectator.

Shit's sexy as hell. On my facebook wall as well.

By the way guys, just wanted to point something out since I'm a much better nagger/whiner/troll than contributor/helpful fan... Googling 'Overclocked After Dark' brings up the following results in order: 1 - Overclocked After Dark on lemonsinseries, episode 66. 2 - Overclocked After Dark on lemonsinseries, episode 50. 3 - Overclocked After Dark OCR Dead Forum thread. 4 - Overclocked After Dark OCR Active Forum thread. 5 - Overclocked After Dark on iTunes 6 - Overclocked After Dark Facebook Group 7 - Overclocked After Dark 'Official Video Thingy' on Youtube 8 - Overclocked After Dark tags on Nerdy Show 9 - The current OCAD site up to ep 69.

I'd buy 20 of these.