Battle of the Bits

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::|CONTENTS

OHC Rules
OHC Variants
OHC Stages
FAQ

OHC is an acronym for One Hour Competition. An OHC actually lasts about 90 minutes including time for setup, the hour of composing, voting and, finally, the results. However, if a larger group plays together, some of these steps can take a while longer.

OHCs come about through chatting on IRC where most BotB communications occur. In the #BotB Channel you can query BotB_IRCbot if an OHC is currently in play by typing "!ohc". BotBrs can participate without IRC but this behaviour is strongly discouraged.

OHC Rules

* Have fun!... :D

* An OHC requires at least 3 BotBrs to play.

* Every OHC has an acting Host. The BotBr OHC Host is in charge of setting up the OHC including Title, Format, Sample Pack, Theme, and/or Optional Rules.

* When a Format is declared all entries uploaded must be that Format.
(Formats and their descriptions are below)

* No outside sounds are allowed in entries besides those created within the Format and the Sample Pack (if one is available).

* All entries are original works. No cover songs allowed.

* All entries are anonymous - BotBrs must refrain from putting their names inside entries. BotBr names are appended to the entries after the OHC is over & finalized.

* The OHC lasts one hour. All entries should be uploaded before this time expires. If a BotBr needs more time to upload their entry they may request it from the Host. Entries uploaded after the initial hour are penalized. (note: auto-penalization not yet implemented)

* All OHC Host's Optional Rules may over ride these OHC Rules.

* Lose and learn <3

OHC Variants

Formats
The Host's decision on Format is based on what allows the most BotBrs to play.

BotB OHC's currently support the following Formats --
* NSF (Nintendo Sound Format).
* SAP (Atari POKEY sound chip).
* S3XMODIT (an array of Classic Trackers *.XM, *.IT, *.S3M, *.MOD).
* SNES' Mario Paint (zsnes + mario paint rom as a tracker).
* MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface).
* ALLGEAR Any software is used to mainpulate the sample pack. Entries are *.MP3 or *.OGG.

Themes
An OHC's Title typically has little to do with what is expected of the OHC entries. However, if the OHC Host declares a Theme is in play then all entries should be voted on based around that Theme. Themes can be based on any sort of thing like genres, an emotion, types of video game play, holiday humbuggery, etc.

Sample Pack
Sample Packs are source files used in the OHC typically packaged using .ZIP or RAR formats. Sample Packs are accesible once the OHC starts. Unless otherwise noted by the Host, outside samples are not allowed.

Rule Variations
The OHC Host may take suggestions from other BotBrs or use their own imagination to create New Rules or Rule Variations.

The OHC Host may declare Rule Variations such as "granting liberties" or "imposing limitations". Allowing synths and outside sounds would be granting liberties. Commonly imposed limitations include certain scales, number of voices, time signature, exclusion of notes/chords, etc. Both limitations and liberties could be mixed for more interesting play.

These OHC Variants are defined by the Host before the OHC can begin.

OHC Stages

OHC's have 3 stages:
1. The Countdown
2. Competition time; composing and uploading entry time
3. Voting time

1. The Countdown:
During this time a Countdown timer is set while the particular sample pack for the competition is prepared by one of the players. This guarantees (hopefully) that no one can be ahead of others time-wise nor that players use a previous work done on their own time (we trust either participant or player doing the pack not to cheat on us :D) Also during this time players should ideally finish up whatever they are doing at the moment (work, food, games, and a long etc) in order to get ready to participate and set up their own tools. The Countdown timer usually is set to thirty minutes at most and once it reaches zero minutes the sample pack is released to the public.

2. Competition time:
During this time the sample pack is provided to the users for their tunes. It officially last sixty minutes only. There might be times in which the page or the players have problems or the users need some *little* extra time to finish up their songs and upload them to the BOTB server, time in which a brief lapsus of 2-4 minutes is added.

During this time you're allowed to chat on the IRC channel (of course) but please be aware not to hint people on your songs in order to simply "win".

3. Voting time:
Voting should not take a long while since OHC is such a small competition. Also there is no time to listen to each tune 2-4 times or even compare between them all much. Because of this decisions should be taken fast on a scale that goes from 1 (bad) to 7 (Excellent). It's usually agreed that 4 is neither excellent nor bad but just "so-so".

High scores are bound to how much a player adhered to the rules set for that particular OHC (format, theme, usage of the sample packs, and any other extra rules set) in order to get high votes besides "just" great and amazing melodies of course. A great melody can get you far, but if you didn't follow the theme nor used the sample pack enough or simply didn't follow any extra rules expect 1:s and 2:s votes from other participants and players.

Who can vote?
Players (people registered at the site who happen to submit an entry for that particular OHC) and participants (people registered at the site who didn't submit a song for the OHC but happened to be around on the IRC channel during the Voting Time)

Also, a player is not allowed to vote his|her own song on any competition.

Voter Strength:
Voter Strength is a "level" system among players and participants. This means that if an experienced user on the community gets involved a lot on competitions he|she will have a high Voter Strength and his|her votes will have more "weight" (decision power if you will) on any competition than those of a player with a lower Voter Strength. No, votes are not equal among players. If a players has a voting Strength of x20 and another player has a Voting Strength of x10 the vote of the player with the highest Voting Strength will "weight" more than the vote of a player with a lower voting Strength value. BotB's use of such mechanisms has been found contraversial to some.

This system is implemented to stop any given user from having multiple accounts and his|her own songs with high scores and at the same time from voting low scores on other players' songs. The "Voter Strength" is a simple measurement to control that a new comer (a n00b if you will) to the community vote against every other player negatively in order to make his|her track "win"

FAQ

Can i record a voice/drums/guitar or sound for an OHC?
Well, depend of the type and rules of the OHC, that mean, you can use just ANY EXTRA SOUND, when the rules allowed to you to use any extra sound, almost always is in an ALLGEAR OHC, without SAMPLE PACK

Can i submit a Cover or a REMIX song?
No, it's not allowed to upload a cover song, you must make your own song in ONE HOUR (1).

When is the next OHC?
We don't have any set time for the next OHC. Just the NSF every Thursday. We made OHC all the time, just stay around in the IRC BATTLE OF THE BITS channel to know when is the next OHC.

I need to vote for all the track of the others PLAYAS in the OHC?
Yes/Not, it's not compulsory for you to vote for all the tracks.

How many time i have to vote for the tracks?
Well, depend of the length of the songs and how many times you listen every track. But remember, you are not the onlyone voting.

Can i upload an NSF in an S3XMODIT?
Obviously you can't, if is an OHC of S3XMODIT you must upload S3M, XM, IT or MOD. The specific formats for the specific OHC.

What's the length of the song?
What ever you want!... just sometimes we have strange rules which include an specific "time length", but if this rule it's not included you can make your song with any length.

What i win?
In our point view... NOTHING!... XD... well you maybe win experience with the time of doing many ohc's. But don't take care much about this, nobody around here ( in BOTB ) cares about if you win or lose. We just want to have fun and playing with other Botbers...

C A T E G O R I E S

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