Bracket 2 - Discussion

[y3v0n]

apparently not, there's a standard and if you don't follow it you should be shot

[Hainaut]

^, ^^

Seriously, is there a big stupid debate about sync in almost every major competition now? It's honestly amazing that this is apparently more interesting than an entire bracket of simfiles. I understand that most of us are really busy as of late - I am, too - but come on, this may be the last chance we ever have to play and comment on a major simfile competition! Considering all of the excellent discussion generated during Bracket 1, I think Bracket 2 deserves a little more attention.

[Aki]

Amen. There's always one person who can't sync files themselves, but claims to be the connoisseur of Stepmania

This needs to stop. When one says it's offsync by -40ms, fine, correct it and maybe notify the author, but do not go torches and pitchforks at him/her

C'mon guys, this is the last BEST-Mix, so let's make it a memorable one in a good fucking way, not because there's someone who bitches about the sync of the file.

[will-i-am]

It's because these guys still actually play with their feet. On a machine, everything is expected to be synced to the same standard cuz it's all on the same machine.

I personally don't curr and frankly have never given a damn cuz I play on my keyboard now and during the time I actually played at arcades, I was only ever good enough to AA 9's on a good day. Mind, I was wholly against using the bar, but this was before ITG was even a thing.

[Oni-91]

Weren't the results supposed to be 3 days ago?

[Hainaut]

They got pushed back another week to give people more time to comment on this bracket, since there haven't been very many public reviews yet.

[Oni-91]

Ah, I see. I was out from Thursday through Sunday because of an anime con.

[Lisek]

People if you are low on time remember that there is always approval vote. There has been none in this bracket yet. Feel free to, all comments are always welcome.

[y3v0n]

kind of random, but in the spirit of discussion, i have a bit of a question for y'all:

i was surprised to see sparks fly move on, given reviews marked it down consistently for being too karaoke-ey [-ey-ey-ey?]. personally, i think control your mind is about ten times worse than sparks fly in that regard, but haven't read the K-word once.

is karaoke more tolerable when the song is faster, or does it have more to do with whether the song is "busier" at a slower tempo [ala twilight zone from ddrmax]?

[Hainaut]

is karaoke more tolerable when the song is faster, or does it have more to do with whether the song is "busier" at a slower tempo [ala twilight zone from ddrmax]?

For me, at least, it just has to do with the degree to which the vocal melody drives the song. In a track with fairly light or simple production but a prominent vocal tune, it usually makes more sense to follow the vocals closely. However, in Sparks Fly's case, you have a thick, juicy beat, as well as some relatively audible backdrop synths. The vocals play a certain part in the song, for sure, but the backup production is a particularly crucial factor as well, and it feels like your steps mostly overlooked that. The steps don't need to follow every note in the backdrop verbatim, but I think given what you had to work with, they should've at least been a little more independent from the vocal melody in order to fit the song on a grand scale.

[will-i-am]

tl;dr's likely to follow shortly. Don't care, needa say some stuff, so deal.

lol this is sad, but predictable. I'd say it's safe to say a song from Bracket 1, at least for DDR, will win this contest based on feedback. And I think we all know which song that'll be *cough*sigh*cough*

Ha but really. Don't wanna poop on this party any further, but I was looking back at past contests and I don't know if it's nostalgia or bias or a simple fact but past contests have delivered some serious quality files that I think this mix lacks. I know mostly everyone was trying to be somewhat different this time by making the oddball song choice or two, and it's not like I really tried to be distinctive (I submitted dance-pop; again) or supply a winning entry anyway, so I'm not one to judge...but I must say I miss the WOW's and Far Away's and, hell, ARTILLERY's of the past.

I can attest to some of the lack of star power provided from the DDREvolved team, although I think we all submitted solid entries to this, especially Telly over here (he's on a roll!), by the fact that we had just wrapped up a contest of our own. We had just completed a thorough 6 week multi-themed competition, submitting new files every week to 5 themed divisions, about a week or so before the BEST-mix deadline that provided some of the seriously solid files I was anticipating to see coming from this contest. And that last theme, Covers & Remixes, I mean, hot damn I can't stress enough how incredible that collection was. The top 4 finishers of that pack all had the potential to collectively place at least within the Top 10, possibly even Top 5 of this contest had they been submitted here, no doubt. That's not to say there aren't deservedly winning entries here, but man, that little pack of 8 files had a 50% extremely solid rate, with the rest all still being very good!

After the contest, I think we were all a bit spent. I'm pretty sure no one but Zounder, Telperion, and maybe y3v0n submitted actually new material to this. Maybe aurae and Zero-X, too, but their entries both could have fit under a Simfile Olympics theme. I was nothing less of exhausted after all the simming, but being that this is the last BEST-mix, I needed to submit something. This fell right after the Simfile Olympics finished and I no longer had the material or energy to revamp or create an entirely new BEST-mix entry after having submitted a lot of my WIP's to DDREvolved, so I submitted something I had been holding off for a while that was close to being done but wasn't something I'd ever expect to do as well as CALIFORNIA GURLS in a competition like this. I'm not saying I'm not proud of it, cuz I am in its own respect, but I wouldn't say TAKE OVER CONTROL is better than Saturday Night Love. They're too different. And I think the same goes for guys like #Infinity and Akira in terms of going all out for the Olympics. BORN IS THE U.S.A. had that WOW factor, CARTOON HEROES had that lovable Far Away factor, not to mention those were both submitted to Covers & Remixes, and Telperion and aurae submitted some ARTILLERY-esque pleasant surprises. It was a real treat that I was happy to be a part of.

Sorry to detract attention from this contest even further, but everyone seems to be pretty much done here, so maybe I'll rethink that apology. I'd really hate to bring down what little energy we still have left to dedicate to the remainder of this, but I wanted to elaborate on the lack of more awesome files in comparison to past mixes that I know more people than me must have at least thought about, other than the reality that a lot less people submitted this time around. I sort of imagined this contest being less impressive in terms of the stuff coming from the DDREvolved guys, but other than that I was hoping for a few more standouts. But no matter. This is all in good fun. We're all that much closer to the end. It's perfectly understandable.

Here's to closing this last edition in as proper and fair a manner as we can. I assume I'm still in charge of tallying votes, so make sure you guys at least get in some Approval Votes because you have no idea how much you not having a say sways the competition in favor of others who put aside the little time necessary to have their says.

[Zounder]

I agree and disagree. I agree that there's a lack of -amazing- simfiles in this pack, but there overall quality is something that I don't think I've ever seen in a non-DDREvolved pack. Now, I wasn't around for BM4, but in my opinion every other Best Mix pales in comparison to the overall quality in this pack. the lower-end files of this pack would fare decently well in some of the older mixes.

Even after the Simfile Olympics, I don't feel burned out, but that might be because I was gone for almost 3 years, so it's still fresh.

I do have disappointment in the activity during this contest, though. I mean, I know the community is basically dead, but there's about 25 contestants and the vast majority of them aren't even approval voting! I know life happens, I've had to duck out of activity mid-competition before, and I'm certainly not calling anybody out. I'm merely expressing my disappointment in the lack of votes and feedback. It's probably a bad combination of me just getting back into simfiling and the community being as inactive as it's ever been.

Regardless, I'm glad you posted your feelings to get some discussion going, at least!

[Valex]

My DDR entry was new

I've been meaning to do more reviews but life has been a stupid bitch lately, I'll try to finish ITG 2-1 tonight

[Hainaut]

lol this is sad, but predictable. I'd say it's safe to say a song from Bracket 1, at least for DDR, will win this contest based on feedback. And I think we all know which song that'll be *cough*sigh*cough*

You mean the file that didn't even advance to the next round (even though it still has a chance I guess)? I don't know about you, but I think it's highly likely that Space Truckin' will win based on feedback thus far. Just look at the round 1 results - everyone who chose the approval vote gave it the nod, and all of its public reviews were also highly positive.

Anyway, I do agree with most of your points, will-i-am. The Simfile Olympics over at DDREvolved.com have kept a lot of active simfiles busy and maybe a little burned out. I can sure speak for myself, because I had trouble deciding which entries to submit to this pack. I included Love In The Shadows because I had that file lying around since at least January and I wanted a proper chance to release it, but it didn't fit any of the themes in the Simfile Olympics. Candy Girl I originally had in mind for Cheesemix 7, which I probably won't run until sometime into next year, but I had gotten a nice start on the file just before this contest, and so I decided to just submit it while it was still fresh. I'm pleasantly surprised by how relatively well both of my DDR files and especially Hammerhead in the ITG bracket have done so far, but I didn't really come into this competition with quite as much confidence as I did in, say, Best-Mix #1 with Frontal Impact or Best-Mix #2 with Satellites.

Part of the reason why this pack might seem a little lackluster could be that so many of the simfile community's most prolific authors have long since disappeared. There are some relatively new faces who've improved a lot in the past few months like Zero-X and Telperion, but on the other hand, Titiln, Super_Ray, sanchny, and lrxevan, all serious contenders in previous competitions, aren't around anymore. Most recently, and perhaps more significantly, however, is that Xythar and the_ditz are no longer active in simfile competitions. the_ditz never actually participated in any Best-Mix's aside from 1.5, but he was one of the founders of DDREvolved.com and ran most of the contests there, not to mention he was always one of the most popular step artists as well. Xythar, on the other hand, has always been one of the most active, prominent, and consistent members of the simfile community since he first started joining in the fun several years ago. In OSC, Best-Mix, and DDREvolved alike, his frequent and loyal engagement in simfile competitions, I think, was a crucial component to their spirit and participation. But he somehow vanished just before the Simfile Olympics got set up, and hasn't been around since.

I don't want to exaggerate how much the success of the simfile community was dependent upon the_ditz and Xythar, but they both had a sort of leadership role within it, and so for both of them to retire at the same time is almost like injuring the heart of the simfile community. Thankfully, BlueSS is still here to run Best-Mix Final, and to be fair, I think it's still been a pretty darn successful competition, but it's still pretty evident, based on the times, that the simfiling scene is in its elder years. I stepped in to replace the_ditz and Xythar in order to run DDREvolved.com because nobody else seemed openly willing to do so, and I'll try to continue to keep the site running for as long as seems appropriate, but I can still personally say that it really just doesn't feel the same without them around anymore. It's only one factor, of course, and it's not horribly significant, but I think it contributes at least somewhat to this situation.

I agree and disagree. I agree that there's a lack of -amazing- simfiles in this pack, but there overall quality is something that I don't think I've ever seen in a non-DDREvolved pack. Now, I wasn't around for BM4, but in my opinion every other Best Mix pales in comparison to the overall quality in this pack. the lower-end files of this pack would fare decently well in some of the older mixes.

I do agree with you here. Even if there aren't nearly as many entries that blow me away as much as, say, CHOU! from Best-Mix #1.5 or WoW from Best-Mix #2, it's still a very solid and consistent pack. All of the previous contests here have definitely had their share of rather sub-impressive entries (9000 (remix) *shudder*), but there aren't really any particularly bad simfiles in this pack, and most of them are at least good, even if not great.

[Valex]

Xythar quit stepping for animé

Jokes aside that's seriously what happened; he's been dedicating the majority of his time to subbing anime lately, and he has very little time for stepcharts (or anything else really) It's actually a pretty big shame; in addition to his involvement at Best-Mix and DDREvolved, he was making some great ITG-stuff at R21freak, and collabing with him on the Exceltastic Four pack was one of my fondest memories as a stepman

That was a pretty gay paragraph though. Overall this competition feels fine to me