battle standards

OP-1 Battles
#1

should the forum folk decide on a few battle principles? with utmost respect to those who have presided over past battles, of course.


context: i’m so glad to have had tons of time between battles in recent months, with moving house and being way too bust at work, etc. but i look back here from time to time, waiting for the next learning experience (sought thru a contracted battle criteria)…only to find nothing has moved on for months.

i appreciate the process as much as the output…and how others in this forum could help me push my creations and learning forward thru providing constraints (in the form of battle rules). i also would have rather missed a submission, and hear a bunch of great music developed on a wild concept, then to have made an entry. especially if i was guaranteed a new battle would start within 2 months without question.

actual battle timeframes - 6 week max:

four weeks at the most might be a good principle for deadline. maybe there is a generally agreed upon standard whereas battle time is four weeks, and if someone shows extreme interest in participating…the battle curator can add a one or two week extension? but then there is a hard cut-off date…so those that made the original deadline aren’t disenfranchised?

exceptions could also be made if entries total less than 5 valid submissions…up to 6 weeks.

voting timeframes - 10 day max:

never more than 10 days. start with 7, and then extend to 10…only if there is a tie or less than 3 votes for any particular winner.

also if there are 10 participants in a battle, if a entry gets 10 votes before the set deadline, is declared an on-the-spot victory

hosts can be the tie-breaker:

if there is a stalemate, hold your vote until the deadline, and then declare for one party or another…or that it is a tie and both shall be new rule providers.

true to OP-1

no outside DAWs for recording tracks ever. only Tape & bounce to Album for final output.

any other thoughts fellas? is this within reason for future curators?

Battle overview
#2

All makes sense and sounds fair enough :slight_smile:

#3

These are excellent guidelines, @kln, and would also be happy for a quick turnaround. In the year that the battles started, I must have submitted at least 12 tracks to my soundcloud. That’s 12 finished tracks, one per month, more productive than I had ever been before and pretty much all down to the driving force of the battles.


I do however also like the idea of allowing the curator of the battle to be in complete control of the rules, including brief, time frames, voting peculiarities. So I think the above are excellent guidelines and I would follow them myself if I was ever lucky enough to be in the driving seat again, but I think they should be guidelines or principles (as you suggested) rather than rules.
#4

Good ideas kln, I agree :slight_smile:
Once again, I apologize for the long battle 42 I made, different parameters made this too long.

For sure, following these guidelines will dynamize battles :slight_smile:

OP-1 Battle #74: the Fake Battle -- VOTING
#5
@kln, you're right to put the subject on the table.
You can add that any forum member can vote + any member has 1 vote only.
I like the principle that the hosts wait for the deadline to break a tie.

OK with your guidelines, but I feel like @Yoof : I would see guidelines as "default rules".
I mean, those would be valid unless the curator sees the things differently and explicitly set a rule that goes against any of these guidelines.

Now, a cool thing with last battle is that there were 15 participants !
So while I'm ok with the principle to set principles, I feel like it's very nice to enable more people to participate (included myself).
I find it very hard to find some time to play music, my job totally exhausts me and children/family take most of the time when I would be able to create, so it's often that I reach a deadline and my song is not finished !


A suggestion could be to get 2 threads of battles at the same time.
BATTLE ODD would start January 1st, ends 6 weeks after, 10 days for the vote
BATTLE EVEN on February 1st, 6 weeks / 10 days as well...
BATTLE ODD would start again in March with the winner of January.

This would enable participants that have a high production rate to get tracks produced, while other could take their time...
It's not perfect, but that could be cool as well.
#6

You can start on november 1st and december 1st. Put 2 of the 3 winners on the first and the third winner on december.

#7

Total forum new-comer here… I JUST got into the battle playlists yesterday. It made my week. It makes me excited to follow the examples and production values you all set. The forum members here are as inspirational as the OP 1 that brought us here… seriously. I can’t wait to give it a shot. Not that my opinion matters, having not participated, but selfishly, the staggered odd/even schedule sounds like it would give us all amazing playlists to get us through our work days… while inspiring and challenging us to create, fail, and pick it back up for the next round.

#8

thanks all - i do agree the battle host should have the ultimate call on their set of rules and timing…and it is exactly right that i was suggesting some principles, not steadfast rules.


i appreciate folks who want to participate and ask for extensions, and have even been beyond the original timeframe to submit a track here and there myself. i can’t actually recall a battle or a voting cycle that didn’t get extended.

the inspiration i’ve found in participating is so valuable, that when it drags on too long between having a new constraint and interesting sets of parameters from you folks’ imaginations, i miss it. and then the joy of hearing the set that we’ve collectively developed that somehow can feel so uniform, while also being so different, is a phenomenon that also motivates me.

and then i feel bad for guys who worked hard to drop their tracks in on time, and then have to wait for the rest of us to get our act together. (sorry for being guilty there as well, at times).



#9

@kln what you say is totally legitimate… What’s your opinion on my proposition on ODD and EVEN battles ?

#10

If all 42 battles had been as long as the most recent one, the first battle would have taken place five years and six months before the OP-1 was released.

I do like giving control to the curator, and I do like to see extra participation, but there’s no way we’d be where we are now without some expediency.

I also don’t know about casting counted votes for multiple participants unless it’s in the battle brief.

Fun and education are the spirit of the battles, however, so there is nothing to debate too seriously here in my opinion.

#11

Hey guys, battle 42 ( my first ) was a great experience.


I will say I felt a bit cheated as I was told the battle was going to end in a day after just getting my op-1, so I scrambled to get my song out, then I saw others were given extensions for weeks. I wish I would have known as I would have spent more than a few hours on my entry. For this I’m very in favor of hard deadlines.

The gentlemanly nature of the battle was nice however, and great to see so much comradery between the participants. It might be worth exploring splitting the battle into 2 things - like a “jam” where collaboratio, longer time frames, and less rules are applied and a “battle” with all the strict rules (this is what Ludum Dare does - Video Game writing comp).

Regardless, I’m looking forward to the next one :slight_smile:

#12

@LyingDalai - i think having two battles running at once would be too complicated.


i guess the spirit of my argument is that we as a community try to keep the battles from getting too spread out over time…so that those seeking inspiration don’t get left uninspired, and that those that work hard to comply don’t get too frustrated or feel like their efforts to follow the rules and timelines were based on false pretenses.

i think the most important principle of the “Curator wields all power to extend, change, define and clarify, and even allow rule bending” is really the top of the list i started with.

i am (obviously) a huge admirer, participant and beneficiary of the current model where the Curator Makes all the rules, and can change them anytime if they so desire…and be forgiving. the battle format, and the comradeship of the process & feedback i hold in high regard. (beneficiary, because my first battle no. 25…i barely knew what the OP-1 was capable of…and now you couldn’t pry it from my cold dead…ha!)

i’m looking forward to the next one. as i always do.
#13

Seems like everyones on the same page :slight_smile: Excited for the next battle, where’s it at?

#14

Nice standards kln, I’m on board.