Recent events has led me to post about something not strictly vgm-related, although still related to OverClocked ReMix. This hardly updated blog has been a watchdog for the site featuring teenagers posting diverse electronic remakes of the music in their favorite daily time waste, but now it’s time to take a step up and cover something else. Namely, gaming force. dot org.

gaming force. dot org is a site that from my extensive research appears to be a site that derails threads in order to rant on other websites, and is run (or overrun) by people so pretentious and inbred that they make DarkeSword seem humble and ocremix diverse. Respectively.

To gaming force. dot org’s merit, they have not only pretentious users but use of pretentious language. However, a well phrased uninformed rant remains a rant, something I know very well. What surprises me is neither the ignorance or the prententiousness, but the blind faith that one’s own community is the one true way. The disciples of Drunkard gang up like retarded zealots for a self-proclaimed messiah of a site that from my research hardly seems worth the domain cost.

As a result, a lot of idiots revealed their idiocy, some of whom appeared to be proud of it; a site other than ocr revealed the merits of ocr through their own epic fail, a few humorists revealed they should have a TV show, and the great and mighty Ass pretentiously plunges beneath the level I once held Bleck. With that I don’t mean in any attempt to drown him, as it’s something I reserve for biased jurors and lawyers.

Let me show you a quote from the highly prestigious and on gaming force. dot org revered master of language:

“Either that or just rip off some of the fucking awful efforts from ocremix.”

Yes, high marks for excellent language, kid. It strikes me as odd that someone old and wise such as yourself resides in a thread concerning a Sonic video game.

While the efforts of zircon, starla, and others were wise, some ocr regulars were less than constructive in their argumentation. Larry Liontamer’s efforts seemed to worsen the situation. However, the entry that made the thread worth it has to be that of DrumUltimA, who spitefully provides a rendition of To Zanarkand.

After a long break from anything music, courtesy of locked doors and armed guards, I’m back. Most people spend their summers visit friends and family, relaxing, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Most people.

I recently had a talk with a few people frustrated with OCReMix. The repeated criticism to anything and everything was getting to them. It might just be their attitude making them come off the wrong way, but I get the feeling there’s more to it.

A good example of criticism can read about in this thread about the Judges’ work-in-progress feedback template they demanded people to use (not in those words). Their attitude to the feedback they got from the community was generally defensive of their new formality, but they eventually adapted it to dampen the community’s criticism of it. While Liontamer and zircon remained fairly civil, other judges seem downright insulting at times. This is hardly the exemplary behavior you’d expect them to set. It makes for a more interesting read.

I also find it strange that they didn’t, to my knowledge, discuss it with the more active wip critics before dropping the form on them. Captain Whiner makes a number of valid points as well as uses the feedback form to critique the feedback form. Captain Positive made his own feedback list, and later explains the importance of positive feedback.

This seemed to have gone in one ear and out the other for some. In talking to people unhappy with the state of the wip subforum and #ocrwip, the irc channel dedicated to wips, there are two things that I find. One concerns the subforum, the fact that a handful of people comment on a lot of wips, and not many more comment on wips of popular games, leaving a lot of wips with a single response. Another concerns the #ocrwip channel, where a lack of civility has discouraged remixers from asking for feedback, or even being on the channel.

Perhaps this is where I should end the post, but I feel I have one last thing to say. Wise remixers usually personally ask judges for feedback before submitting a remix, but this implies some level of familiarity with them. Familiarity is usually achieved through conversation, either on the forum or OCR’s channels. Unfortunately, the nature of the channels isn’t one of civility. I would expect the less populated #ocrwip to be a more focused, civil place, but not according to my sources. Worse than the lack of civility is one of the causes for it: a jdgfgt. The equivalent of a lawyer suing his client.

What’s even worse is that this lack of civility seems to be spreading to other forum members and channel regulars.