Music Tournament 1: Video Game Music

[MawMaw]

how bout normal music but instrumental-only? that'd be fun me think

 

[Mr_Detective]

If we stick to only a "specific theme", like instrumental or emotional tracks only, that will severely limit the number of options people can submit. That's only going to turn others off from participating, since that theme is too narrow for them. And decreasing the number of submissions to 32 will mean less submission for each person, or having less participants. This is why I didn't limit the submissions of this tournament to a specific genre, like action game music only.

I'm okay with having a anything-goes-music tournament, but maybe at a later time. For our next one, I can agree with having a tournament for anime (or game) music only, but no limit to genre or type.

 

[Afiaki]

@Mr_Detective
The problem with that is when we're doing direct comparisons of the songs, some match-ups are a guaranteed failure. If you compare a chilled out ambient melody to some hardcore metal fighting theme, what sounds more interesting? Even I'd pick the latter.

By not isolating themes the tournament arbitrarily limits competition between songs of the same type. Which Metal Gear track was the best? You guys had to vote independent of the tournament to find out.

* This section just turned into a late night rant.
But basically next time I'll be excluding a wide variety of OSTs because they will just never compete in a tournament like this so there's no point in even introducing them.

I don't think restrictions on the selection would actually limit people that much. Even if it did, you could combine the suggestion of 32 tracks (+1 to that suggestion from me, btw) and then whatever the theme I don't really believe that you'd be struggling to fill the bracket.

Just my, like, 2² cents.

 

[EOTFOFYL]

If you compare a chilled out ambient melody to some hardcore metal fighting theme, what sounds more interesting? Even I'd pick the latter.

My picks in nutshell.
Poor "He was a Good Stalker",
wasn't meant to be.

 

[IndigoNight]

I do agree slightly with Afiaki, it is a little bit discouraging that some tracks might be automatically overlooked in favour of heavier stuff, but we only ended up with one rock song in the finals so I don't think the voting was too biased.

The fact that there was a variety of genres was what made it interesting for me tbh. Also I just picked songs I liked, not based on how likely they would be to win or anything.

So yeah I'd be up for keeping the themes quite general, even having a non-ost music tournament could be pretty interesting.

 

[Korsai]

I know I'm kinda late to this, but what about alternating between more generalized tournaments and more specificly themed tournaments. This way we can have a good mix of "fun/fair match-ups" and "pure variety", and we can bring in different audiences with different interests and tastes. And I'm perfectly fine with changing up the "subject" of the tournament in terms of what is used as entries. As for the entry limit, I'd say the same about that. If we do a more focused tourney then lower the bracket count, but for a more general concept competition, "the more the merrier" as they say. Also, for the lower bracket count tournaments in general, if we have enough entries, why not have a "sudden death knockout" round where we have all the different entries go in a round robin style tournament to determine which ones get on the bracket, and the "top 32" (totally arbitrary number, I don't know what we'd be going with) get into the tournament proper. This can also be used to help with seeding the bracket for more "fair" match-ups. That way we can have lots of entries and still have a fairly concise tournament. Thoughts? Counter arguments? Rebuttals?

 

[Mr_Detective]

@Afiaki Ambient vs metal fighting is more of a subjective choice, though. None of the top 4 spots was a fighting track. And as long as a track is good and has something to wow me, I'll vote for it.
I don't mind doing a 32-track tournament, but the idea of having less choice of submissions bugs me. Well, it'll be faster to finish, so we can give it a shot.

@IndigoNight Non-ost...? As in a songs not from a video game or anime? Do you want OSTs included or excluded?

@Korsai I'm okay with giving a specific theme tournament a try. Can't hurt. It might just be a bit more difficult. We had a little bit of trouble getting enough submissions and there was no specific theme. Robin-style? You mean like the World Cup's group stage? I thought about that, but it probably would have taken 2-3 times longer to complete, so I decided against it.

I'm thinking of doing one of the following for the next tournament:
- Emotional anime soundtracks (vocal songs are accepted). Something that makes you sad or melancholic.
- Same as above, but video game tracks are also accepted.
- Battle tracks from video games/anime only.
- Battle tracks from both video games and anime.
- General anime sound tracks. Same as this one, all genres accepted, but anime only.

OK, everyone. Let's hear your thoughts. Which one would you like to do? Any other suggestion for the theme? How many? 32 or 64? Single elimination or WC style? Those of you who voted in the poll, I hope you speak up, lol.

 

[MawMaw]

I'm not big with animes/games but I'll try to join with anything if I can

 

[Richman]

- Battle tracks from video games/anime only.
Just because i'm more familiar with those. I don't mind the amount of tracks so vote for 64 like before, and i also vote for the same style of tournament as this one.
@Mr_Detective

 

[justforthelulz]

32 entries, single elimination, battle tracks from both video games/anime, Final Destination.

 

[EOTFOFYL]

This one doesn't care.
Equality must come first,
anyone can join.

 

[sterven]

I'm also in the it doesn't matter camp i'll go with whatever is the topic.

 

[hazzack]

i'm against round robin style tournament, this thing takes ages to finish with this kind of number. simple elim style will do. for anything else i'll leave it to you

 

[IndigoNight]

@Mr_Detective Yeah when I said non-ost, I meant normal music unrelated to games/anime. And I meant as separate tournaments, not all mixed together. Sorry for the confusion.

As for themes, as I said I'd prefer general over specific themes, but I'd still be up for participating in any theme. But depending on the theme I might just vote rather than submit, if that is ok (I can't really think of that many battle tracks I'd want to submit, for example)

Also I'd prefer single elimination again, and I think the amount of entries was fine, but if you want less to make it more speedy that's fine too. Like Korsai suggested, maybe less entries would work better for more specific themes.

 

[Mr_Detective]

@IndigoNight Ah, sure. We'll get to those eventually. Heheh.

Seems like most are either okay with anything or prefer battle tracks... Truth to be told, I was thinking of having a 32-entry tournament for emotional anime music. As a way to test the new limits that people proposed. And also, @Afiaki and some others did complain that some emotional and ambient tracks were being unfairly matched against other genres. But hey, I don't mind doing battle music tournament first. OK, @Afiaki, what do you want to do now?

 

[EOTFOFYL]

So what's the plan, boss?
Got anything lined up yet?
You're still brain storming?

 

[Mr_Detective]

@EOTFOFYL Not much else to brainstorm, really. I just wanna hear @Afiaki's response before making the final call.

However, I'm not gonna be able to do anything yet. Not until I can get my computer working properly. The earliest I can decide on a theme then start a submission thread is next weekend. Sorry, it's been very stressful lately. XP

 

[Afiaki]

Sorry for the delay, @Mr_Detective, I have unrelated annoying stuff going on as well. Anyway:

Battle music is a good theme to start with so I am voting for that one as well.
But I was thinking that it would be interesting to include Films (like Western Films) as well as Anime/Videogames and also Korean and Chinese 'Anime'. Basically any OST battle music that people have their hands on. The only requirement being that it is original to the piece of media it is used in (not royalty-free/licensed).

And it would also be good to be able to include songs used in the last tournament.

For the number of submissions, I would vote for 32 if we're doing just Anime/Videogame battle music but 64 if we do battle music from all media.

 

[Mr_Detective]

@Afiaki

But I was thinking that it would be interesting to include Films (like Western Films) as well as Anime/Videogames and also Korean and Chinese 'Anime'. Basically any OST battle music that people have their hands on. The only requirement being that it is original to the piece of media it is used in (not royalty-free/licensed).

And it would also be good to be able to include songs used in the last tournament.

For the number of submissions, I would vote for 32 if we're doing just Anime/Videogame battle music but 64 if we do battle music from all media.

Uh... I'm not very sold on the idea of including films' music. That would increase the scope of the tournament. You meant to include Chinese, Korean, and all sorts of films right? I guess it can't hurt... But personally, I'd prefer to have a separate tournament for this. If anyone else is in favor of including films' music, please tell us.

No. I don't want to allow previous submissions. I'd like to encourage people to find new songs to submit.

If we are doing a smaller theme, like emotional tracks from only anime, then having 32 submissions makes sense. But if we have submissions from both anime and video games, then having 64 choices is more reasonable. It allows people to submit more of their favorite songs and makes the tournament more exciting. The more submissions they have, the more chances at least one of their submissions get in further and that will encourage them to keep playing.

So I shot down two out of three of your suggestions. XD Let's see what others think about including films' battle music. XP

 

[justforthelulz]

I don't mind including films/movies in the battle music tournament, though I think my battle theme entries would still come mainly from games/anime.