Food for thought

Most people have allgear/pixel badges

I know AG/pixel/WC are the easiest formats to pick up but boy this monoculture is not healthy

After all BotB has whopping 64 formats and many of them haven't been even discovered by a vast majority of young (site-experience-wise) BotBrs!

So like, yknow, once a week, a few people leave like 100 boons in the deposit, and in exchange they get an OHB?

We do in fact have admins that can host ANY OHB, but since most of the time they don't feel up to the task/are away/sleeping/not in europe, a possibility should be given to the not-so-mighty.

What if there will be a flood of Eastern Europeans that will all want to do AY?

Host an ohb of any format other than allgear and call it "rare format sighting! =o"

I remember there was something about this in some other thread which I forgot what it was, but it was about being able to host an OHB of any format that you don't have a badge of but for more boons than regular. I still think that would be a good!! \.o.\ We need more format badges here, plz. :>

yeah, we used to do "rare format sighting" ohbs quite a while ago. i remember in late 2016 there was some conversation in irc about maybe starting them again, but nothing came of it. if people are interested, then we could make it a weekly thing, and of course i or any other admin could host if no one has the badge.

The irony of botb is despite apparently being a site about rare formats, it's incredibly hard for rare formats to get OHBs.

Food for thought: What is this 64 format poop crap?

So...I really don't want to make this a huge discussion and derail the thread, but I don't see the point of formats besides being a search criterion. Formats are quite ambiguous. Sometimes songs have to be made with a certain tracker, sometimes in a certain format and sometimes for a specific type of hardware. One could easily state the "format" in the theme.txt/description of a[n] OHB/Major a la "Make a song in Famitracker about Grumskiz being a dick again wow".

I know and can appreciate that badges/formats are one of the things that have become a part of the quirky, yet lovable concept of BotB, just like auto-faving. Especially badges just look great. There truly are some people who are masters of a lot of formats and I think they deserve some kind of reward and display.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: puke7 I'm have an idea for a website improvement, it's really easy to implement, should take you like 10 minutes tops!!

:^)

(I really was being serious about not wanting a big discussion or change. Maybe just run a "rare format sighting" OHB every weekend on a specific time that works for a lot of people)

i think one of the main advantages of formats is that they are not ambiguous

this topic is too pointless to discuss. ignore this post

Re: Quirby

This thread was one that we discussed the idea of being able to pay more to host battles that we don't hold badges in, I believe. I think it was carried over to a thread puke started as well soon after, but I can't find it atm.

I still think we should be able to do this. It gives more purpose to having b00ns and it helps those of us that are very shy host battles in formats we don't have badges in :> (or for when admins aren't online and awake)

i think OHB disable late penalities with b500 is the second thread.

I think banning allgear from being hosted in ohbs won't solve the problem, it'll remove one possibility from you guys and it'll undermine the actual problem and result in much less participation. The actual solution would be to host more varied formats (where's my damn pixelz D:< ).

It's been a while since I was on IRC but perhaps you guys could try to incentivize more participation through this medium, or even the site itself. A weekly rare format ohb would be a good start, but the ideal situation would be all of us getting creative and hosting moar.

the reason I like allgear is because personally it's the most intuitive way to make music on a computer. if I want to try out an idea, I literally just play it in on my midi controller. what takes me 10 seconds on a keyboard usually takes me a minute in a tracker.

yes I'm not super fast at trackers but I'm also not super slow either.

and this brings up another valid issue: the nature of operating a tracker influences people to develop a sort of 'ohb style' of music making, for the sake of having a fast technique, that honestly gets really tedious to make and to hear.

to call allgear a monoculture is kinda weird cos allgear is like...All Gear. we get to hear all kinds of different sounds and production styles from people. which is probably why it's more popular, naturally

If we got rid of allgear everyone would probably just do wildchip instead

*puke gets rid of allgear ohbs*

*2 years later*

"what is this wildchip favorization"

Compromise: Reduce badge-2-host requirement from 7 to like, 4 or something. That'd get people able to host rarer formats more quickly, while also preventing people with no knowledge of a format from hosting.

compromise^2 : rarer formats have lower numbers to get a badge. like, allgear is 7 because it's flipping allgear, something like say...mob8k (idk) could be 4 or so

how about we all just accept the inevitable transition into battleofthedaws
jk

it's also because a lot of formats require specific knowledge of the way the format works to actually create something usable. a way to get around that would be to announce those rare battle sightings like 2 hours beforehand so people could actually fiddle around with the software and be more prepared to join. it would also cause more people to join anyway because it would be visible for longer.

chiptunes v dawtunes

DAWS III: You Gonna Need A Bigger HDD

(looks at his badges)

what's a good time to host a weekly not-allgear battle because unfortunately we have too many timezones to accommodate :c

like, if i host early at my local time, "oh, the europeans are going to sleep and the aussies are just waking up"
and if i host late at my local time, "oh, the americans are going to sleep and the europeans are just waking up"

there's no way to win unless we have a thing for each major region

I would gladly spend more boons in order to be able to host a format that I don't yet have 7 badges in. I would also gladly spend more boons in order to host a 2 or even 3 hour compo. These are things that I would gladly give large chunks of my fake money to have access to :).

It would be nice to be able to unlock a chance at a temporary free pick to host an OHB of my choosing for only 1 time which is unlocked by let's say getting top 3, let's say 3 times in a row yeah? See that would show that even if you're only able to host allgear for now, what you do put out there is still quality and deserving of a reward. Should you get top 3 in your own hosted free pick battle that you spent extra boons for, I think that ought to make it a bit easier to unlock it permanently for yourself, but if you decided to spend the extra boons to host a free pick format and you don't get top 3 perhaps the chance for a free pick again is disabled for a time until you again acquire 3 wins in a row.

As for being able to host longer compos, how about unlocking the first 7 badges gives you access to hour compos, and then when you reach 14 you get 2 hours, 21 you get 3. ect. Naturally each extra hour costs more boons so you can't do them too often, but I can't be the only one who'd love a shot at being able to hear more fleshed out OHB style compositions but still be able to host them often.

I don't know, I'm just spit-ballin' here :). Don't think for a second that I mean to criticize anything harshly or that I don't love this site to pieces :). I'm just trying to figure ways to get more people to host more formats more often and make the boons even more desirable to save up and blow it all on that one compo you REALLY want but can't host just yet. OR CAN YOU?

See? It's exciting! A message pops up and says "Congrats n00b! That's 3 for 3! Care to make the next one interesting? For an extra fee, you can now temporarily host a format of your choosing! Make it count!"

Oh man, I'm getting tingly just thinking about it! Or maybe that's just my brain falling asleep. Holy crap, it's light outside! Goodnight everybody <3.

remove the 7+ score 20 entry requirement wwwwww

(or maybe reduce it for certain formats)

(or give botbrs above a certain level the ability to host anything they want, maybe mighty botbrs)

tldr; make rare format sightings more common and easier to host

I don't know if it's the case because I'm fairly new here, but i feel like a lot of contestation and a sparkle of rebellion has emerged in the last few months, in the hearts of BotBrs. People complaining about the badge system, the way battles are hosted, their length, the formats, the boon system.. It's a great time to be here :O

Because, funnily, BotB is at the same time a very clever democracy, and a tyranic monarchy.

Sometimes I feel like actual political systems should get inspired from how this place works

The king is old and moldy.

old king, mold king candy cane

ok this thread went places

also it took my hearts aura away

Anyway, here's my idea: New host requirement calculation or something:

- take amount of botbrs that are not n00bs, mummis or something like that
- divide it by the number of botbrs having a certain format badge (bronze/argentor/GOLD doesnt matter)
- the lower the outcome the more 20pt+ entries are required for a badge

Put that formula through the B-kn0xizer 2000 and apply in BotB

Well thought, except that for people who don't have an allgear badge yet, it will become impossible to earn one, since virtually all of you have it already!

For this to work we should start earning badges all over again, and even like that it wouldn't work, because there would be zero badges at the beginning and ...

you can't divide by zero :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyBnN96o80c Oh yeah? :P

Sweeet! :D

This is now our theme song. We discovered how to zero divide but it corrupted our quaint little community into a nation of poison.

Zlew I think that wouldn't really work out. Aside from divide by zero jokes (not an invalid case though), you'd either have a system where it's too easy to hand out the first badges and then it's ridiculously hard, or it's too hard to earn the very first badge but then it becomes easy. This sort of imbalance isn't good imo, it'll necessarily bias things towards one side and discourage people from trying to get a badge because the effort is too high, whether in the beginning or after a while. It might also create an exclusive club where only the best of the very best have a badge, or badges aren't special anymore because everyone has them.

Oh yeah I forgot, it also adds too much complexity and (provided it was implemented retroactively) eventually you'll get cases like HEY I DIDN'T SUBMIT AN ENTRY IN 10 YEARS AND NOW I HAVE A BADGE W00T?! or DUDE WHAT THE HELL I WAS ONE ENTRY AWAY FROM MY PIXEL BADGE AND NOW I'M 10 AWAY? WHAT THE HELL THE SYSTEM IS SHIT AND THE POLICE ARE PIGS ALSO CORPORATE GREED TOO AND I HAVE NO FRIENDS I'M GONNA GO OUTSIDE AND BREAK THINGS BECAUSE THAT'LL SOLVE THE PROBLEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I rather enjoy the linear approach (no bronze pixel badge though D:< ). It's only a problem when formats are too rare and no one's hosting them, and for this I think the high score approach is a decent idea. Quality over quantity essentially. You're at puke's mercy though. >:P

Last edit I swear: I still stand by the idea of hosting more though, that requires no effort from puke's part and you'll get more content for the site and more fun too.

to go back to zlew's original suggestion, before we get too far off track with hypothetical mechanization:

"So like, yknow, once a week, a few people leave like 100 boons in the deposit, and in exchange they get an OHB?"

someone could set up an account to use as a deposit box for this, but how exactly would this work?

tbh i don't see why a level requirement is a bad idea, it's probably the simplest idea (aka this site already has enough esoteric arithmetic, why add more) next to doing nothing (lol nice). a botbr who has regularly been contributing to the site for quite some time deserves to try to explore unknown formats of their own accord in my imo opinion (and they'd know better too, they will make sure they have willing participants and etc)

i remember we had some other thread a long time ago, where someone proposed an "all-host" sort of badge, like an admin but nerfed.

clearly enough regular users of this site would like to host certain rare formats but can't because the admins aren't sufficient

(supposedly (if they were these kinds of threads would not arise (they seem to pretty often which is why they are also broken record threads)))

_{pay puke irl boons (aka money) to implement a feature you want feature request}

honestly, i think the simplest solution to this is:
get more rare format ohbs
like, once a day get a rare format ohb
after 64 weeks, hopefully thisll be sorted

to be fair, it's not enough to have the badge
you gotta actually host battles with it, too
and have BotBrs that are willing to do the battle

which can be fairly hard if
- you can't come up with a theme or all you can think of is "make whatever"
- you can't get someone else to come up with a theme that isn't "make whatever"
- you don't go on IRC and thus cannot telegraph anticipation for a battle
- no one or not enough people want to do the format

and "free for all/make whatever" is frowned upon on this site unless you can somehow make it work (in this case, IRC was having a bad day)

automated OHBs is the answer !!
randomizing format each time, 2 automated OHBs per day


(I just want HES, S3XMODIT and klystrack badge tbh lolll)

Wow, to be really honest, it's not such a bad idea!

At least one automatic random format ohb per day, where it happens only if more tham 3 people sign up (and of course you cannot really ask a computer to randomly choose a theme, but it's not that important)

And of course people couls also host normal ohbs if they wish to.

So I've done my best to synthesize a solution. For a long time I had this vision of an elaborate system where any n00b could say "I want to host X" and then said n00b and 2 others would put up a bunch of boons around it. But I've done something much simpler instead.

Mighty BotBrs with 7 or more badges can host any format.
Ascended BotBrs can host any format.

This gives most Mighty BotBrs the ability to follow the dreams and whims of all the conglomerated n00bs in space. Hopefully this makes hosting obscure formats much more accessible and earning badges in obscure formats a little bit more believable.

Somebody please update the Lyceum.

suddenly rare format sightings have been downgraded to uncommon format sightings

nice *hosts s3xmodit ohc anyway*

This is what I get for only entering pixel OHBs

(This is good though)

Mighty BotBrs with 7 or more badges

Well, guess it's time to get 3 more badges

how do I even host any format battle? I'm mighty and have 7 badges 3:
plus I still get the normal formats I would have, plus them at the top of the screen for some reason

That's a sick theme+palette

pedipanol I'll look into it tonight
DevEd found an issue too

Whoa.

betting 1000 boons that puke7 did > 7 instead of >= 7

whoa.

pandatrackerz all dayyy son

i like this change

it was fun lurking the coding update stream/hangout

You guys seem to be having fun with this, that's a great sight

so there was an impromptu work party last night
I'm going to see Com Truise tonight
so I guess I'll be doing my best to work out the kinks tomorrow?

Why is Zlew a scrub :O

Probably a strange side-effect from puke adding the new feature. You don't mess with botb.

1,000 boons to A-zu-ra
> != >=

also worked out why DevEd could see Begast button w/o having badges
also worked out Begast is indeed not a word unless you spell it Beghast

omg lol

A-zu-ra was right....

Barghest OHB.

With the Spring results in, this post has become relevant for me as 4 of the top 5 isn't what I would remotely consider chiptune.

It's not a problem, specifically, it's just wierd how non-chiptune music prevails in a chiptune-oriented website.

I mean the first OCC tune on the leaderboards is 16th!

@maxi – spring tracks is not meant specifically to be a chipmusic compo; note that many of the formats give mixist points and not chipist. botb has a long history of remix and genre battles that aren't even remotely restricted to chipmusic.

i totally agree with Jangler!

We are lucky to have great "non-chip" tunes coming from composers who are perfectly able to compose chiptunes. This website is rich with all kinds of music and I am firmly against any approach that would try to limit that!

NES instrumentation and sound design possibilities are limited, we have to face the truth, so in the hands of an experienced composer, allgear wins over 0CC imao. So that shouldn't surprise anyone

But summer chip will be a different story!

The majors where everything is supposed to be chip have the word Chip in their title!

is this chiptune

i miss detroit

@A-zu-ra I'm tempted to make an alt just so I can like your post again :3

@Jangler @Galak I do know it isn't only for chiptune, as you allow pretty much anything, and like I said, it isn't a problem, nor did I say I disliked it and I definetely didn't ask for anything to change or even restrict!

It was just unexpected to me.
Heck, I have a lot of it in my favs.

a good couple of people can now host any format yet this week we had 7 allgear ohbs

i have an idea; dog loses b00ns for every all gear ohb hosted so you must donate dog to host them eventually

why are you trying to discourage people from making music they want to make on a site whose primary intention is to encourage people to make music they want to make

the change was added to give people more freedom, not to make them stop making what they enjoy

i know, i have nothing against all-gear ohb more than the lack of opportunities of getting another dedicated format badges it produces; even so i still participate on them as always lol

@plrusek you dont even ohb

whats your ecuse

bro do u even ohb

Aw, I liked so much the idea of quick-crowdfunded rare format OHB's (OR fully automated randomized OHB's) but apparently puke was too unmotivated to make something as complicated (more polite way than just saying "lazy")

...so another kickstarter attempt when?

e: Hey don't hate, I backed with like 20 bux :)

@VinCMG

how many years using this site and i *only just now realize this...*

I didn't realize it until someone pointed it out to me too, hehe

+3333 b00ns to Sinc-X for that post.

I was kinda afraid this thread was going to go in the "stop having fun guys" direction, but was pleasantly surprised when it didn't and puke did a cool thing instead. Let's not steer it back into void-ville if possible. :(