SZRC - The Sonic Zone Remix Competition 2014 [TheGuitahHeroe wins - complete ZIP available!]

[SuperiorX]

Ok. Had I known that the reserve-a-spot-in-the-signups signups actually began when the thread was posted, I would've said something then.

Yeah that new #1 pick is fine!

Yeah, I apologize. I could've been clearer when I first posted the thread. I had posted the thread early to generate interest and see how many people would post and say they would sign up. The original intent wasn't to necessarily "hold" spots for people, but around 15 people responded during those first few weeks saying they were "definitely interested in signing up", so as a courtesy I put those people on my spreadsheet since they expressed interest and I know people aren't online 24/7. Things pretty much exploded last night when I officially opened up sign-ups, as many more people signed up than I had anticipated (based on how many people posted originally), which led us to where we are now with all 32 spots already filled.

I put a message out to Hollow to see if he was serious about signing up, and if not, like I said, you'll get the last spot for sure. Or if anyone else changes their mind between now and when mixing starts on January 26th and doesn't want to participate, then I can sub you in as an alternate too.

[Rexy]

Jason, if you don't make it, you can always do some alternative tracks. I know it's not quite the same, but there'll be more Sonic tracks nevertheless. Glad to see you're expressing interest again

[Jamphibious]

Jeez I had to work until like 1 AM last night and it filled up already. That was fast!

Here are my picks:

1) Marble Garden (Sonic 3)

2) Angel Island (Sonic 3)

3) Diamond Dust (Sonic 3D Blast - Genesis)

4) Green Grove (Sonic 3D Blast - Genesis)

5) Wild Canyon (Sonic Adventure 2)

Edited January 11, 2014 by Amphibious

[Disambiguity]

Think we could fill a 64 bracket in a week or two? Maybe randomly assign byes if we can't fill 64 spots up completely.

[SuperiorX]

Think we could fill a 64 bracket in a week or two? Maybe randomly assign byes if we can't fill 64 spots up completely.

Yeah we probably could get close to 48 or maybe even 64 (who knows) if we kept it open the full two weeks I was planning. It's not really a matter of interest, but becomes a matter of burn-out, attrition, and overall time commitment. When you consider that the eventual winner of the compo may have had to make 6 or 7 songs if they were part of a 48 or 64 person bracket.

that'd push the compo out another two weeks as well, and the eventual winner may have to make 6 mixes by the time the compo was over, if they were part of that first round. I don't want to wear people out and end up seeing people drop mid-way (cause that always sucks).

Making 6 good mixes of the same song is not feasible for me. Making 4 is hard already. Even just doing 3 I was having issues with in the wily castle gauntlet.

I certainly appreciate all the excitement and interest in the competition, but I think I'm just going to stick with 32 as the max for participants, out of respect for everyone's time. These compos are already a huge time commitment and expanding it beyond 32 would just make it even larger. And the last thing I'd want is for people to get burnt out and drop-out in the middle of the competition. If I host another Sonic competition after this one, I may look at a different model that would allow more participants, but not increase time commitments, similar to what DarkeSword has been doing with the Wily Castle Remix Gauntlets lately. Thanks everyone!

Like I said, I really really appreciate the interest, but I really don't want to burn out people with crazy time commitments.

[Enigami]

Really excited for this competition, lots of good remixers and picks all around. Also glad to see PC Launch Base as a pick (even if it's a 4th).

If I were any good at remixing I would've loved to join (especially with Yoshi's Island Zone being valid and unpicked, and since I happened to be lurking while slots were open). Oh well. Best of luck to everybody!

Oh my... that'd be crazy... I don't know if we'd get 64, but we might be able to do a 48 person seeded bracket. We'd basically have two rounds of 16 for both brackets doing it this way. I'd have to randomly seed people to determine who the 16 people would be that'd get the first round off. That'd be the only fair way to do it.

Another possibility is having the first round be a 3-way match. The competition would take no additional time and allow for 48 competitors without requiring more from them. It would also reduce the probability of advancing by default on the first round, especially since first round drop-outs were pretty common before.

[SuperiorX]

Another possibility is having the first round be a 3-way match. The competition would take no additional time and allow for 48 competitors without requiring more from them. It would also reduce the probability of advancing by default on the first round, especially since first round drop-outs were pretty common before.

Yeah... I thought of something like that too, where people would just rank order the 3 mixes and then the top 2 would move on. It's an interesting idea that I think could work. On the other hand, I'd rather keep things simple, since mixing two themes together can be tough enough, mixing three would make it a little more difficult. Plus then the 2 people that moved on, would be remixing their same two themes together again (unless I randomized the next round match-ups). All of these alternative options just add to the complexity.

As for drop-outs... the SZRC 2012 had the fewest drop-outs of any of the OCR compos that I can think of. We only had 4 drop-outs throughout the entirety of the competition, which is pretty good. 3 of them were in the first round though, correct.

[Chernabogue]

The FFCC compo had some cool 3-participant brackets. But it was against bosses.

Maybe you could do that with some Robotnik if there are "alone" particpants.

[Enigami]

Yeah... I thought of something like that too, where people would just rank order the 3 mixes and then the top 2 would move on. It's an interesting idea that I think could work. On the other hand, I'd rather keep things simple, since mixing two themes together can be tough enough, mixing three would make it a little more difficult. Plus then the 2 people that moved on, would be remixing their same two themes together again (unless I randomized the next round match-ups). All of these alternative options just add to the complexity.

Any reason why the top 2? With just the top, you wouldn't need an extra round and the competitors wouldn't need to mix the same sources twice.

For the mixing, it could be determined by taking the 3 competitors in a match, then flipping a coin to decide whether to take the 2nd source from above or below.

For example:

FLIP - Heads (above)

ladyWildfire - 1st: Aqua Planet, 2nd: Oil Ocean

Syllix - 1st: Angel Island, 2nd: Aqua Planet

halc - 1st: Oil Ocean, 2nd: Angel Island

Edited January 11, 2014 by Enigami

[SuperiorX]

Any reason why the top 2? With just the top, you wouldn't need an extra round and the competitors wouldn't need to mix the same sources twice.

For the mixing, it could be determined by taking the 3 competitors in a match, then flipping a coin to decide whether to take the 2nd source from above or below.

For example:

FLIP - Heads (above)

ladyWildfire - 1st: Aqua Planet, 2nd: Oil Ocean

Syllix - 1st: Angel Island, 2nd: Aqua Planet

halc - 1st: Oil Ocean, 2nd: Angel Island

Yeah that would work too. It makes it a bit harder to vote though and gets away from the idea that you are comparing two songs that are combining the same two sources and voting on which one you think executed that vision better. In that scenario you are voting on 3 songs that are not combining the same two themes. Personally, I'd just like to keep things simple. I appreciate people throwing out alternative ideas and dialogue though!

The FFCC compo had some cool 3-participant brackets. But it was against bosses.

Maybe you could do that with some Robotnik if there are "alone" particpants.

What do you mean by "alone" participants?

[DiGi Valentine]

Raah! o_O So the roster really did just blow up over night!

And there's a few names in there that are a welcoming surprise.

Man, this is going to be a blood bath! XD

Can't wait to start voting and getting horribly torn between the choices again!

[jnWake]

Make 2 32 people competitions in parallel

[Arrow]

What do you mean by "alone" participants?

He probably means like in FFCC where three participants left in any given bracket in a late week would all "fight a boss", which entailed the three of them all remixing that boss's own theme song with each of theirs. It'd be like three people in this compo, persay, who each chose Green Hill, Marble, and Spring Yard from Sonic 1 for example, all going up against Chaos from Sonic Adventure, and so one person having to remix Green Hill with Chaos' theme, and so-on. And then that week, everyone would vote on who's mix was best of those three.

That worked exceptionally well for FFCC, but FFCC had less people signing up in the first place which skewed what would normally be the weekly schedule for a single-elimination tournament, so while it's an awesome idea when it works, I don't think it would work here since we've got a solid 32.

[Chernabogue]

What do you mean by "alone" participants?

People that would start the compo after the first round, in the 48-particpant thing. But I don't have a miracle formula to solve the problem. ^^"

[Mirby]

I am immensely disappointed at the lack of Sonic Rush Adventure in the lineup here.

,

, and

are all great tracks. So are

and

...

Gah, this soundtrack needs more love. It really does. :C

[SuperiorX]

I added Submissions and Voting information to the first post, for anyone who is interested in reading up way early!

If I don't hear from Hollow by this evening, then I'm just going to move Jason Covenant into that final spot since he is ready and eager to join. Then I can do the official zone draft so everyone knows their final assigned zones. If anything looks amiss on the roster spreadsheet, please let me know before I do the draft.

After the draft, I'll assign brackets so people will know which weeks they'll begin mixing. I'll also whip up some nifty forum sigs for everyone to use again like last time. I've been working on a lot of cool art stuff for the compo . The actual match-ups won't be randomized and announced until directly prior to when the rounds begin, to maintain fairness.

I am immensely disappointed at the lack of Sonic Rush Adventure in the lineup here.

,

, and

are all great tracks. So are

and

...

There is a surprising amount of representation from Sonic handheld games overall though!

That worked exceptionally well for FFCC, but FFCC had less people signing up in the first place which skewed what would normally be the weekly schedule for a single-elimination tournament, so while it's an awesome idea when it works, I don't think it would work here since we've got a solid 32.

People that would start the compo after the first round, in the 48-particpant thing. But I don't have a miracle formula to solve the problem. ^^"

That makes sense but yeah, given we have a solid 32, I think we'll just stick with this tried-and-true formula.

[Mirby]

There is a surprising amount of representation from Sonic handheld games overall though!

True true, and either way this'll be a great compo.

Probably should've posted those before picks were chosen, but eh.

[Rexy]

I have a strange question to ask - given that you've got 3 people going for Green Hill, there's no way that a coin toss would break that, so how are you going to do that - dice roll? xD

[SuperiorX]

I have a strange question to ask - given that you've got 3 people going for Green Hill, there's no way that a coin toss would break that, so how are you going to do that - dice roll? xD

Yup, exactly. Dice roll! Unless you have a three-sided coin I can borrow Bev?

True true, and either way this'll be a great compo.

Probably should've posted those before picks were chosen, but eh.

Yeah they are cool themes! I'm not really that familiar with Sonic Rush Adventure either.

[Mirby]

landing on the side of the coin counts as a side

[BaconProcurement]

No one picked, Sand in Your Butt Zone

This makes me a sad pancake.

[Brandon Strader]

No one picked, Sand in Your Butt Zone

This makes me a sad pancake.

Maybe I did and nobody knows butt Matt!

[SuperiorX]

Ok I haven't heard from Hollow, so I've moved Jason Covenant into the final roster spot, so we can get this thing going now. I'm going to resolve these zone choice conflicts and then assign the brackets!

[Brandon Strader]

DO EET! If I don't get Butt Hill, the whole compo will be cancelled, and I'll blame it on the lizards.

[Rexy]

I'm so excited to see what comes out of where - and in the event Brandon doesn't get Butt Hill, what else he actually chose. xD