Wildcard Round

[Aeronautical Vigilante]

This time, it's pretty simple.

First, if you're not one of the six wildcard entrants, do not post in this thread.

The makers of the six wildcard files, to wit:

Doctor Pressure
Ichirin no Hana
Kiss Kiss
September
V35
Votum Stellarum

Need to quite simply convince me and the judges that your entry is worthy of being one of the two that progress to the final. However, you are permitted only one post, in this thread, consisting of at most 750 words and a single image of a resolution of, at most, 500*500, to do so. The judges will then choose the winners based on a secret ceremony involving a prop from This Is Spinal Tap (an eighteen inch tall one!), and more importantly based on our opinions of who did the best job convincing us of their progression compared to the quality of their entry.

Simple, right? There's no specific format requirements (other than that you should state what song you entered with at least once), you can use all the BBCodes you'd like if you think it'll help you, but the post is 750 words (based on a C&P of the codestripped text into Word) and one image. No Flash, either, only GIF, PNG, or JPG. AniGIFs are okay. Try and have a thread of logic between the image and text, and please don't just use the image to hold more text.

Your posts are due by the Monday, January 29th, at 7:42 P.M. Alaska Time (that's 11:42 Eastern), by Bemanistyle's posted-at clock. You may edit it freely until then to revise it up. Why such a precise time? Mostly to be a little strange.

Good luck, wildcarders. Everyone else, please use the Entry Discussion thread if you want to talk about this.

[the_ditz]

Can I just add that in GMT time, that's 16:42 (just in case there are any Europeans)

[will-i-am]

Hmmm... I guess I'm first!

Before I begin my essay, I would just like to acknowledge everyone in the Wildcard round and wish everyone good luck. I know that the idea of writing an essay has struck us all quite at shock, but I give credit to everyone trying out this new idea. Enough with the chitchat and on to the essay part of this post:

I’m not writing this to persuade anyone that my simfile is better that the next guy’s, but I will support my own in the matter that V35 deserves a spot in the finals. Now, I’ve already stated in my previous post that my steps have shown a strong point in my file (and of course my graphics have not) according to most of the judges. I think the fact that most may think my simfile is mediocre, or at least not the best, is because of the lack of graphics skills I show in my V35 simfile. Try any song, with which you may, that has great graphics and great add-ons and tell me whether it is fun or not, even if the steps aren’t that great. Whenever you play a simfile that has shiny and colorful graphics (e.g. Kanariya (System F Mix) from ddrextreme.co.uk’s WORLD TOUR) (this is just a hypothetical sort of question, so please don’t get offended anima722), don’t you seem to like it just a little more than you would if the song had lower quality graphics? I’m sure I would. As a matter of fact I always do. Now, take w1p3out’s V35 graphics for one (sorry w1p3out for using this without your permission):



He obviously has more experience with graphics than I do. Now, if you please, would add this to my folder and play with this banner instead of mine. I assure you that you will get more enjoyment out of the file with these graphics than the graphics I gave to my simfile (If you have his background, use it too because I obviously can’t post two images in this post.). And if you don’t even enjoy my simfile just a little bit more, then I’ve taken the valuable time to write this section of my argument for no reason whatsoever. I would be very much disappointed if this happened. But if you do enjoy V35 more, even if you enjoy it more just by staring at this piece of artwork while listening over and over to the sample start, then this essay has gone to a good cause. All I’m just trying to tell you over this is that you can’t judge a book by its cover.

Now let’s move on to the second part of my argument, shall we? It’s mainly pointed at the fact of how much the extras account for. From what facts I have collected, without any extras added to the scores whatsoever, V35 would have taken 7th place. This is just one place away from 6th, which would automatically entitle me to a spot in the finals. This might be insignificant to some, but a difference from 7th to 9th can be as bad as a difference from a gold to a bronze in some matters. Take a look at Mata Hari (Spy Mix) for instance. Because of the extraordinary weight that extras have taken into account for, Mata Hari moved from 2nd place all the way down to 6th. I don’t know about you, but I think that extras added a little too much of an effect to the overall scores.

For the final section, and maybe the strongest section of my argument, I would like to discuss about the steps. From the_ditz’s scores, my steps ranked 3rd overall, #Infinity: 4th, Neko: 2nd, jammitch!: 7th, and Lilina: 7th. Now average those out and you get 4.6, or 5th place. Pretty significant, eh? But because of my stinkin’ issues with graphics skills and what not, I don’t find myself in the top 6. I speak for all of us when I say the steps are the real meat of any simfile. So, with this evidence supporting my argument, I sure am convinced that steps really are the most important part of a file, and they should really be looked onto more in order to decide what files should move onto the finals.



Phew, glad that’s over!

[jesterline]

This post will allow me in the finals.

[Super_Ray]

V35 and Doctor Pressure are more deserving of a spot in the finals than my file (Votum Stellarum). That being said, I am pretty proud of my file, as I accomplished my main objective. (Make steps somewhat different than the other two versions I've played, and to do better overall). Judging form the feedback, I'd say I definitely did better than last time. I say this because some of the judges seemed to enjoy some of my charts (I'm particularly pleased that the_ditz noticed the spins I threw in there), and I didn't get a bunch of complaints about facing to the left too much. Anyway, here's a pretty new banner for Votum Stellarum..

...and just to clarify a few things, I didn't use the original cut of the song, I trimmed a good 20 sec. or so off the version from the pop'n music 10 original soundtrack. Being a pop'n music enthusiast of sorts (allthough I'm terrible at it comparaed to most players in these forums), I couldn't bear to use the IIDX cut. My cut is slightly longer than the IIDX cut, which had a rather abrupt ending, in my opinion. Anyway, good luck to whoever makes it through to the wildcard round.

[the_ditz]

Are any of these posts (apart from maybe V35) in time? I'm set to GMT so can't really tell aaccurately, but by my own calculations only V35 was posted before the deadline Neko mentioned...

[Aeronautical Vigilante]

jesterline and will-i-am are on time, the others are late... However, only will-i-am and Super Ray actually wrote anything resembling an essay.

I must apologize for my lateness here, by the way. Final vote will go up tonight, or possibly in between English Class in 10 minutes and Japanese two hours after English ends if I need a break from panic-studying.