The Final Fantasy VI Remix Contest: Results are in, check first post!!!

[Calum]

I don't see the problem here at all, no one seems to be saying that the winners didnt deserve to win, therefore the best tracks got the prizes, ultimately that's all that matters right?

The best track could have had an average of 1.7, it would still be the best track, and therefore still worthy of the prizes. So yeah, I don't see why so much fuss is being made about a suposedly low average score. The competition was as fair as it could possibly have been in my eyes

agreed. Zircon, please post when you've contacted people about album inclusion : ) unless you have already! so we can know whether to move on with our tracks or keep them in relative (to this comp) obscurity before going on the album.

[Mikeaudio]

I do apologize that I wasn't able to get total randomization, eg. each user would get tracks in a different order. I couldn't find any way to do it without spending hundreds of dollars.

You don't have to apologize Zircon. You did a great job with the survey, it was simple but effective and at the end of the day, no algroithm or code can stop people from voting what they want to vote. Don't beat yourself up about it, if anything I'm thankful that you let us into this competition with the chance of prizes, and pretty juicy ones I might add.

I don't see the problem here at all, no one seems to be saying that the winners didnt deserve to win, therefore the best tracks got the prizes, ultimately that's all that matters right?

The best track could have had an average of 1.7, it would still be the best track, and therefore still worthy of the prizes. So yeah, I don't see why so much fuss is being made about a suposedly low average score. The competition was as fair as it could possibly have been in my eyes

Pretty much. This is getting drawn out way more than it needs to.

My only concern was that in being the dead last tracks not as many people would listen to them. I think the last time I checked (a week or so before the end of voting), the first song in the poll had like 250 listens, and my track (the last one) had like 100. So at bare minimum it would seem at least 150 people started the poll, and then stopped before getting to my track, or *gulp* voted for mine without actually listening to it. Which I sincerely hope no one would do (to me or anyone). Though the fact that both of my tracks which were dead last in the list scored exactly the same is a little disheartening. But oh well, the vote's the vote.

Don't be disheartened. Never let a competition dictate whether you are good or not. The attitude that most people come to a competition with(and I'm not accusing anyone), has no room for making anyone else feel encouraged to continue in what they do. Alot of the best in any craft are often times overlooked for the flashly and popular.

[SuperiorX]

You don't have to apologize Zircon. You did a great job with the survey, it was simple but effective and at the end of the day, no algroithm or code can stop people from voting what they want to vote. Don't beat yourself up about it, if anything I'm thankful that you let us into this competition with the chance of prizes, and pretty juicy ones I might add.

Yeah you really did do a great job. You're never going to be able to make everyone happy when it comes to a public voting system.

And hot damn Anti-Syne I just saw that you were the person that made the Johnny C. Bad mix! That song was right down my alley, I love the jazzy/funky feel and the cheesy vocal clips (probably cause it reminded me a lot of my Sonic CD song I made recently ). Awesome job on that! It was one of the few '5's I gave out!!!

[Brandon Strader]

agreed. Zircon, please post when you've contacted people about album inclusion : ) unless you have already! so we can know whether to move on with our tracks or keep them in relative (to this comp) obscurity before going on the album.

I'd like to second this one, I have hopes but if my dreams are to be crushed, it would be better to know sooner than never.

[Fictionalhead]

Don't be disheartened. Never let a competition dictate whether you are good or not.

I'm not at all. I was referring to hypothetical situation of people voting without listening. Which, if that actually happened, would be disheartening in that "I've lost faith in humanity" way. It was phrased poorly.

[Chernabogue]

I'd like to second this one, I have hopes but if my dreams are to be crushed, it would be better to know sooner than never.

I third this! Let us know if we can have a chance to join this project (that sound very interesting and great!)

[Brad Stark]

I'd like to see the voting spreadsheet if could be possible.

5th place vote avg = 3.297

24th place vote avg = 2.351

That's a difference of 0.945 avg score. With a voting range of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, to have the 5th highest and 5th lowest average scores separated by less than 1 apart in average voting doesn't make much sense to me...

I'm just hoping that I participated in a contest (which I spent many hours of work on) in good faith and that people voted reasonably and respectfully. Yes, there was a lot of subjectivity involved and it's just my opinion that the best scores definitely deserved a higher average... but I'm sure that there are many people here who agree with that sentiment.

However, it was a competition and it would be dangerous to assume that everyone voted reasonably and fairly, unfortunately. Evidence that people did not vote objectively would be seen for the voters who mostly voted no 4's and mostly 3 and below.

[Rexy]

Brad, this is NOT as bad as you're making it out to be. It's the same for any contest that has public votes.

Let's take the latest MAGFest based Dwelling of Duels for example. They used a slider system, though ideally they used 7 tiers of judgment (Incredible / Good / Above Average / Average / Below Average / Bad / Terrible) to decide on what songs to go for. With the exception of Prince of Darkness's entry that month, the votes were still very compact between the others, with not one of the others also being considered close to 'Incredible' and not a single one being close to 'Bad' either. And even in a contest with as many participants as this, you can still expect the points to be generally tight no matter what.

Seriously Brad, you should be glad you placed well, not complaining about how others vote. We all have differing opinions, and that is something you just need to accept.

[jnWake]

I didn't finish that far from the 5th place then!

[Otakatt]

Evidence that people did not vote objectively would be seen for the voters who mostly voted no 4's and mostly 3 and below.

It could just be that people felt most tracks were at average or below. Like I mentioned, while I didn't finish my voting, for the tracks I had voted on? 4s were RARE, and I didn't give out any 5s. Most of my votes were 3s and 2s.

It looks like to me a lot of people were very conservative with their voting. It could be a lot of people didn't find a majority of the tracks mindblowing. Or they were keeping OCR standards in their head. I don't know.

I'm really confused as to why you're so bent out of shape over the results - with the winning track hovering around a 3. That is NOT unusual for a 1-5 voting system.

[Brad Stark]

Brad, this is NOT as bad as you're making it out to be. It's the same for any contest that has public votes.

Let's take the latest MAGFest based Dwelling of Duels for example. They used a slider system, though ideally they used 7 tiers of judgment (Incredible / Good / Above Average / Average / Below Average / Bad / Terrible) to decide on what songs to go for. With the exception of Prince of Darkness's entry that month, the votes were still very compact between the others, with not one of the others also being considered close to 'Incredible' and not a single one being close to 'Bad' either. And even in a contest with as many participants as this, you can still expect the points to be generally tight no matter what.

Seriously Brad, you should be glad you placed well, not complaining about how others vote. We all have differing opinions, and that is something you just need to accept.

I believe that there was a lot of good work in this contest and I find it really surprising that the averages were so low for the top scores. That is all I am expressing.

[KyleJCrb]

It just ain't an OCR project without a little dramarama.

[zircon]

I'd like to see the voting spreadsheet if could be possible.

5th place vote avg = 3.297

24th place vote avg = 2.351

That's a difference of 0.945 avg score. With a voting range of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, to have the 5th highest and 5th lowest average scores separated by less than 1 apart in average voting doesn't make much sense to me...

I'm just hoping that I participated in a contest (which I spent many hours of work on) in good faith and that people voted reasonably and respectfully. Yes, there was a lot of subjectivity involved and it's just my opinion that the best scores definitely deserved a higher average... but I'm sure that there are many people here who agree with that sentiment.

However, it was a competition and it would be dangerous to assume that everyone voted reasonably and fairly, unfortunately. Evidence that people did not vote objectively would be seen for the voters who mostly voted no 4's and mostly 3 and below.

If I were more easily offended, I would find it insulting that you've continued to question the results after I've repeatedly said that I reviewed them and found no evidence of irregular voting patterns. I have no motivation to lie or be deceptive about the work I've put into this contest, especially considering the amount of time and money I spent to run it. Why would I go through all that trouble and not verify the validity of the votes?

I'm not going to go through the trouble of uploading and anonymizing the spreadsheet because you should take my word for it. I did just take the last 20 minutes to review the results - again, despite the fact that I'm on vacation - and once again found no evidence that anyone voted irregularly. A typical voting pattern for someone with a very low average vote score (1.3-1.7) was majority 1s and then a lower % of 2s, 3s and 4s (decreasing in frequency). Also, I have access to the email addresses of the people who had low voting scores, and being a longstanding member of the community I have a decent sense of who is friends with (or on good terms with) who. The people who voted low did not give special scores to their friends.

Once again, it doesn't really matter that there is only a 0.945 difference in score between 5th and 24th. It seems like a small number, but keep in mind there was only a maximum POSSIBLE vote spread of 4 points (5 to 1) under this voting system, and the actual low/high spread was about 1.7 points. When you look at it that way, a difference of almost 1 full point is pretty huge.

[XPRTNovice]

Man, this thread is starting to bum me out...

[Calum]

Then let this be the turning point. WELCOME TO THE FFVICOMP BIG TIME PARTY THREAD.

You did a great job XPRT! I felt yours was such a solid entry that really shone (perhaps in comparison to many of the other entries) due to it's overwhelming liveness.

[Rexy]

Then let this be the turning point. WELCOME TO THE FFVICOMP BIG TIME PARTY THREAD.

I love you Calum.

Say, how many of those instruments in your Blackjack mix were actually live aside from Xarnax's vocal part? Outside from there, a lot of the realism feels really convincing

[XPRTNovice]

Thanks Calum. In my opinion, I lack the ability to do things that are spine-chillingly-awesome because I have no real electronic skills - I would love to be able to produce something as outrageously cool as Mark of the Beatsmith or anything by Big Giant Circles or Zircon, but I don't have that level of knowledge. So I make up for the deficiency by doing "lively" things instead. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnt

I thought the Blackjacks lounge-lizard vocal thing was awesome, by the way. I think I actually laughed out loud when I heard it.

[Mikeaudio]

I'm not going to go through the trouble of uploading and anonymizing the spreadsheet because you should take my word for it. I did just take the last 20 minutes to review the results - again, despite the fact that I'm on vacation - and once again found no evidence that anyone voted irregularly.

Zircon, you've done more than enough for all of us. You don't owe anyone anything more than what you've already given us already, enjoy your vacation.

I'd like to see the voting spreadsheet if could be possible.

Come one Brad, leave it man. I understand that you believe that the winners should have had better scores. But guess what? They are enjoying the fact that they won, and will be enjoying their prizes. Regardless of the average score, the winners still won. Everyone else gave it their all, and that is honorable. But the more you talk about this, the more you ruin the moment. There is no need to keep talking about this anymore.

Man, this thread is starting to bum me out...

Don't you let this thread bum you out and ruin this moment for you....don't you dare.

[Calum]

XPRTNovice: hahaha,

yeah that was reaction i suspected... although i took it completely seriously.

@Rexy

If i remember correctly, I recorded live acoustic guitar, electric guitar, backing vox, snare drum (brushes), a bunch of other percussion things and then Jesse's awesome vocals. The rest was all electronic! Hearing it between two other very well produced tracks it sounded to me a little quiet so i'mma try and get limiting some more and pump that volume up! Also the drums were a little loud.

Rexy, I do not remember which one was yours but i'm downloading the tagged tracks now and i'll continue this lovefest when that's done!

[Monobrow]

Just wanna add something:

I started voting early on but my vote didn't count in the end and I lost my votes (sorry I forgot to revote).

But I can tell you that the majority of my votes went something like this and would have been counted this way:

1s 10%

2s 15%

3s 60%

4s 10%

5s 5%

- I rarely gave a 5 because a lot of songs felt like they could have been better, or were rushed and could be spruced up a bit more. To me 5 the BEST. It needed to be special.

- I gave a 4 to the songs that I thought were best out of what I had heard.

- I gave mostly 3s when I was indifferent, which was kinda a majority of the time.

- I gave a 2 when the song rubbed me the wrong way, or had something too glaringly bad for me to get over, such as severe clipping throughout a song.

- I rarely gave a 1 but when I did, something about a song really bothered me or had huge problems.

If anyone at all followed my voting patterns, which to me felt very honest and natural, if maybe a little bit harsh, but not in any bad faith or with preference, vendetta, or bias, then it makes sense that some of the scores are so low on average. Just remember that when people are given the opportunity to be secret with their opinions and comparisons, the truth of how they feel might be a little bit harsher than what they might even indicate otherwise. That's the nature of the beast.

I am putting this voting pattern out there that did not get counted, just to show you guys that the hint of a spoiled vote is probably not at all close to reality, and in fact, voting took a while to do for us, we had to listen to songs and it wasn't just some small thing... So to imply that people were doing something wrong by taking time to vote is kinda... yeah...

And even if someone does go bonkers and voted randomly or w/ bias, that's again, the nature of the beast. You can't hold a public vote without making it available to everyone who wants to vote. You have to take the possibility of someone voting in bad faith into account, and you have to let it go. Zircon at least made you register your e-mail address, which can help w/ accountability. It doesn't stop possible problems, but it deters them, and that's really all you can do w/ a public voting system.

Also this is why the voting is secret, because people like me get to be "harsh" and vote honestly what they really think and not have any repercussions. So now you all get to look at what I thought, and I put this out there because I think the bad accusing atmosphere needs to stop.

You should all be happy, you made a song in a very short time period, you hopefully used this as an opportunity to learn a lot and grow as a musician, (and maybe even as a person).

Grace is a good virtue.

[XPRTNovice]

XPRTNovice: hahaha,

yeah that was reaction i suspected... although i took it completely seriously.

I realize that may have come off wrong - I tend to laugh out loud in a slap-my-knee kind of way when I hear things that are clever. I wasn't insinuating that your piece was laughable!

And Rexy I really liked the groove of your Umaro track. It felt perfect. The piano was, of course, beautiful in your Gestahl. It felt very Rachmaninovy, which is a good thing.

[Calum]

I realize that may have come off wrong - I tend to laugh out loud in a slap-my-knee kind of way when I hear things that are clever. I wasn't insinuating that your piece was laughable!

oh no! I didn't receive such insinuation, not to worry. Anti-syne's Johnny C Good mix was giving me a lot of slap-my-knee laughing moments! I really loved it!

[XPRTNovice]

Johnny C Good mix was giving me a lot of slap-my-knee laughing moments! I really loved it!

Totally, I think I grinned like an idiot through that whole piece.

[Monobrow]

You two are hilarious :J

I may have taken too long in writing my reply because it looks like people are happy *_*

[XPRTNovice]

You two are hilarious :J

I hope you can back that statement up with some unbiased statistics...