OCR Mascot Bios - 20 more up for grabs!

[Arek the Absolute]

Graphical listing of the characters on first page

It's off topic, but I think the collective juxtapositioning of the characters like what Shnabubula did on the first page will make a cool background.

OCR Wallpapers!

Joyzilla made one several months ago, but several characters have been added since, and it is out of date.

P.S. The title of this thread makes me laugh for some reason.

So I am not the only one XD

[Bahamut]

Graphical listing of the characters on first page

It's off topic, but I think the collective juxtapositioning of the characters like what Shnabubula did on the first page will make a cool background.

OCR Wallpapers!

Joyzilla made one several months ago, but several characters have been added since, and it is out of date.

P.S. The title of this thread makes me laugh for some reason.

So I am not the only one XD

That's what I originally thought when I saw this thread...I wonder how intentional the reference is though.

[DarkeSword]

I talked to Dave, and he thinks the idea has some merit. Something we're thinking about doing is creating a small, dedicated, locked forum for mascot bios; clicking on a mascot will take you to a post where you can read the bio and click on pertinent links.

This kind of project really requires an organizer/editor. Dafydd, I know that you started this thread, so if you want that job, you can go ahead and take it, or you can choose one or two other forumers to help you out with the organizational and editing process. Things to keep in mind will be the format of the bio, clarity of the language used, and the length.

Of course, all forumers are encouraged to submit content, but that content may very well be edited and reformatted to fit forthcoming guidelines that an editor/editors will outline.

The bottom line is that this stuff will need to look professional, because it'll be a part of the site.

Let me know what you guys would like to do as far as organization is concerned, and then we can create a new organizational thread in the Site Projects forum.

[Bahamut]

I'm up for creating bios and such that could be of interest (like the games they're from, particular notes about the characters, etc. - I think I should be able to do a good job with most of the RPG related characters, as well as the Nintendo ones; I can also do a good portion of the other ones too though, not just those).

[Linkjing Donuts]

So what is the standard layout for each bio?

Character

Game/Series

Company

Background/Bio

?

Also, who wants to see some horrible MSPaint/MS Photo Editor OCR wallpaper?!

[CC Ricers]

What about links to the high-resolution version of the character pics? All of the characters on the banner were shrunk and edited in some way.

[Infinite HP]

I'll help any way I can, though I'm not volunteering to be one of the main organizers since I, myself, am not organized nor do I have the amount of time and effort it would require to be in such a position.

I, too, am glad I'm not the only one who thought the thread title was a bit...sexually referenced XD

[Arek the Absolute]

I'd like to help coordinate, but I doubt I will you would want me

If not, I would be more than glad to help submit any bio's

[Ghost of Xerox]

Gah, it burns me up that there's a dozen or so Squaresoft characters up there, but only two are designed by Yoshitaka Amano and one of them is chibi.

lol fanboy

It pisses me off too.

[NuGeo]

This kind of project really requires an organizer/editor.

There's always wiki software. Seriously, I think there should be a subdomain wiki site of OCR for these character profiles. It'll make it so anyone can easily add their contributions and moderate others' contributions as well. Once everything's good I think you can lockdown the wiki so it's no longer editable.

Just a thought. I don't know all of the technicalities of administrating a wiki site. But if there's someone who does, it could make this whole process run smoothly.

[DarkeSword]

This kind of project really requires an organizer/editor.

There's always wiki software. Seriously, I think there should be a subdomain wiki site of OCR for these character profiles. It'll make it so anyone can easily add their contributions and moderate others' contributions as well. Once everything's good I think you can lockdown the wiki so it's no longer editable.

Just a thought. I don't know all of the technicalities of administrating a wiki site. But if there's someone who does, it could make this whole process run smoothly.

Setting up a wiki is more work than necessary, considering we have a forum system already in place.

[Dafydd]

P.S. The title of this thread makes me laugh for some reason.

It wasn't really intented to be a pun at first (in fact, I didn't know what else to call the Mascots, the word just didn't come to mind), but you're right. Obviously, though, writing SEX anywhere is a well-known way to redirect attention that way, that is, had this thread been named "Mascot bios" (something I never would have come up with although it would have been much more adequate), chances are it wouldn't have had this many visitors. I guess the fact that the thread name didn't really clarify the subject helped, too. What surprises me, however, is how quickly someone like DarkeSword showed up. Hm.

I'd be honored to be the organizer/editor of the whole thing, but obviously, I couldn't do it all on my own. First off, I stated in the beginning that I don't know who half of the "mascots" are, which means I'd have difficulties editing the content related to those characters. As far as professionality (if there's such a word) goes, I intend to make a simple, easy-to-navigate, well-spelled and consistent, albeit small "database". I have a ton of questions (that may be better off in the organizational forum you (DarkeSword) mentioned) about what we're aiming at. The purpose of the whole thing should, obviously, be to provide information about the game characters, for all to see and primarily provided for those who know very little or nothing. Or isn't it? I mean...

how... EXTENSIVE is this going to be? I know several people who could probably write a 3-page essay on that car (what car is it anyway?), which is propably not of immediate interest. Are we to provide tons of non-vital information for those interested, or simply provide links (of course, we would be providing links in any case, likely a large number of them, too. Of course, if the character appears in a game that has music that has been remixed and can be found on this site, we would provide direct links to those game pages)? Are we to provide fun facts like "Captain Falcon is originally a comic book character" (or was this only after the realease of F-Zero?) and "Mega Man was originally named Rainbow Man" and "Yoshi has also made small guest appearances in

games like Zelda - Link's Awakening" (I'd like us to...)? Are we to include pictures, other than those already found on page 2 in this thread?

And how do we handle all of the information we're likely to recieve? Should we require information on where the information was found, or just consider most of it to be - pretty much - common knowledge (it'd be pretty embarrasing to publish untrue information in those bios, wouldn't it )? Also, we wouldn't want people to come and tell us that we "stole" info on something from their sites. Are we to be very strict and make no opinionated statements whatsoever, like an encyclopedia, or are we allowed to occasionally make fun of the characters? I mean, DJ Pretzel may be professional, but his analysises of accepted submissions are by no means "strict", and often include stories about his own experiences with the game, and sometimes completely irrelevant information (both of which I appreciate, because it makes reading them a lot more fun).

Also, the entire prospect reawakens forgotten questions about the mascots. Who decided to put them up in the first place? Who chose which ones to put up there? And why? Why does Princess Zelda have 2 mascot pictures? And, finally, are we to eventually include the forum member mascots as well (so I can click on the girl next to DarkeSword's name and find out whether she's angry or sad or doesn't know)?

I'm asking all of these questions out loud and outside of the "organizational" forum, because I want more than those few deeply involved to have their say, at least to start with, but I also want an "offical" point of view from the OCR staff (a general one), and all of this BEFORE I, or someone else, pick out the lucky few to be those deeply involved. As DarkeSword stated, however, everyone's welcome to help, but we do need a few people to collect and edit it all, and to make the decisions. Considering how much I've already thought into all this, I would feel very powerless NOT to be part of this crew. Who else should be in there is really very early to say, but I guess we shouldn't be more than 3 or 4 people in total, unless we need someone to do something very specific, like helping with graphics or such.

[Dafydd]

For the sake of comparison, is my previous post about the size of a mascot bio page? Or too big? Or too small? I feel the bio pages should be slightly smaller, but then that's me.

[Forty-second]

I'd say as much information as possible (without spoiling anything), but with some quick, short-version facts at the top. People can read as much as they want. Big pictures are a plus, as well as maybe a screen or two of them actually in the game?

[Dafydd]

Yes. If we did post a lot of information, then, naturally, we would make sure to make the non-vital less evident, maybe even providing a link that says "read more" instead of just making a huge post that might even scare most people off. I for one will try my best to make sure this whole thing is well organized when it's finished. The question is if we really should try to gather as much information as possible and post it here, or if we should make posts of about the same size as the big one I made above, and then post links to sites that already include all of this non-vital information (that may or may not be of questionable credibility). One big part of the work would be finding already existing and GOOD fansites and provide links to those sites (maybe 4 or 5 per character, or less, depending on how popular and well known the character is), regardless of how much information we put here. I wouldn't want this to become a new giant game character encyclopedia, that's not the point. This would be better off serving as something that introduces the mascot characters to people who know nothing or very little about them, and that hopefully inspires those people to find out more by following the links to the sites that provide more info than we do. In a sense, it might even serve as a bridge between people who have played Squaresoft games all their lives and who never heard of Mega Man (heaven forbid) and the people whose situation is rather the opposite. Of course, that last part sounds a little like a Martin Luther King dream, but if we can accomplish something that will change the world for the better, why not... "OCRemix Mascot Bio Database - Fighting Ignorance - Thy Deliverance."

Screenshots from the games would be pretty nice indeed.

[FiremanJoe]

I'd say as much information as possible (without spoiling anything), but with some quick, short-version facts at the top. People can read as much as they want. Big pictures are a plus, as well as maybe a screen or two of them actually in the game?

what image would one put of Mario? he's starred in a few dozen games, and cameo'ed in over a hundred...

[Navi]

I'd say as much information as possible (without spoiling anything), but with some quick, short-version facts at the top. People can read as much as they want. Big pictures are a plus, as well as maybe a screen or two of them actually in the game?

what image would one put of Mario? he's starred in a few dozen games, and cameo'ed in over a hundred...

The original would be a good place to start.

[FiremanJoe]

I'd say as much information as possible (without spoiling anything), but with some quick, short-version facts at the top. People can read as much as they want. Big pictures are a plus, as well as maybe a screen or two of them actually in the game?

what image would one put of Mario? he's starred in a few dozen games, and cameo'ed in over a hundred...

The original would be a good place to start.

of course; but he's taken on many guises over the years

[Dafydd]

Which original are we talking about? The original Super Mario Bros or the original Donkey Kong? Speaking of Mario, this is what I found on wikipedia, which is what someone mentioned as an already existing source of information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario

Obviously, we're not going to attempt to compete with as extensive a database as this. This is probably not the case with most of the 130 or so other mascots, but as far as Mario is concerned, it almost feels like the most convenient thing to do would be to simply redirect anyone who clicks the Mario mascot to the URL above, even though that does feel kind of sloppy.

I guess the least you could expect is to get to know the mascot's name, what games it's been in (as an important character), and a short bio. If we can't find any good fansites on the character, THEN we should provide more information, but if there are already well-organized and reliable sources of information, there's really no need to put much of it here. In any case, however, we should always post links to games pages for games that the character has been in if that game has music that has been remixed and can be found on OCR. Wow, that last sentence really didn't make much sense, did it? I'll blame the fact that I haven' t slept for a good long while. I guess that's what I should go ahead and do for now, until someone in charge comes back to inform us about the current situation.

[Dafydd]

Bump...

Has this whole idea just been abandoned by everyone for the glory of Wikipedia? And what happened to DS?

[Deej Valen]

Hm, the moogle appears to be from a 3d set of FF6 chars that I have somewhere on a floppy... Maybe I should send in the rest for them to add! If I can find it that is ^^;

[NeoDestiny]

The thing that bugs me the most about seeing the Mascots is that you sometimes see Mascots that have no actual remixes from the site.

One example is Snake. Yes, there are Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2 remixes on the site, but the picture is a cleary a one of Metal Gear Solid 3, yet there are no remixes of the sort to be found here.

Puzzling?

~NeoDestiny

[Jigsaw]

So what is the standard layout for each bio?

Character

Game/Series

Company

Background/Bio

?

Personally I would like to see "First appearance", followed by a list of all games the character in question have appeared in.

[SilentMartyr]

I could help with the Chrono Series people, and Nintendo (but that seems to be heavily covered).

[DarkeSword]

how... EXTENSIVE is this going to be? I know several people who could probably write a 3-page essay on that car (what car is it anyway?), which is propably not of immediate interest. Are we to provide tons of non-vital information for those interested, or simply provide links (of course, we would be providing links in any case, likely a large number of them, too. Of course, if the character appears in a game that has music that has been remixed and can be found on this site, we would provide direct links to those game pages)? Are we to provide fun facts like "Captain Falcon is originally a comic book character" (or was this only after the realease of F-Zero?) and "Mega Man was originally named Rainbow Man" and "Yoshi has also made small guest appearances in

games like Zelda - Link's Awakening" (I'd like us to...)? Are we to include pictures, other than those already found on page 2 in this thread?

Two or three paragraphs is fine for each character. Adding few fun facts is fine as well.

And how do we handle all of the information we're likely to recieve? Should we require information on where the information was found, or just consider most of it to be - pretty much - common knowledge (it'd be pretty embarrasing to publish untrue information in those bios, wouldn't it )? Also, we wouldn't want people to come and tell us that we "stole" info on something from their sites. Are we to be very strict and make no opinionated statements whatsoever, like an encyclopedia, or are we allowed to occasionally make fun of the characters? I mean, DJ Pretzel may be professional, but his analysises of accepted submissions are by no means "strict", and often include stories about his own experiences with the game, and sometimes completely irrelevant information (both of which I appreciate, because it makes reading them a lot more fun).

Content submissions should provide credible sources, unless it's common knowledge (i.e., Mario was in the Super Mario series). Keep character bios as objective as possible. Since there are so many different people submitting content, it's inconsistent for everyone to editorialize.

Also, the entire prospect reawakens forgotten questions about the mascots. Who decided to put them up in the first place? Who chose which ones to put up there? And why? Why does Princess Zelda have 2 mascot pictures? And, finally, are we to eventually include the forum member mascots as well (so I can click on the girl next to DarkeSword's name and find out whether she's angry or sad or doesn't know)?

Those questions are pretty irrelevant. DJP added the mascots as a part of the redesign. Forum avatars are not 'mascots,' so leave them out.

I'm asking all of these questions out loud and outside of the "organizational" forum, because I want more than those few deeply involved to have their say, at least to start with, but I also want an "offical" point of view from the OCR staff (a general one), and all of this BEFORE I, or someone else, pick out the lucky few to be those deeply involved. As DarkeSword stated, however, everyone's welcome to help, but we do need a few people to collect and edit it all, and to make the decisions. Considering how much I've already thought into all this, I would feel very powerless NOT to be part of this crew. Who else should be in there is really very early to say, but I guess we shouldn't be more than 3 or 4 people in total, unless we need someone to do something very specific, like helping with graphics or such.

I don't really think you need any extra graphics. Just one picture of the character is good enough.