Full Orchestral Score?

No. Howard has a clear vision on how he wants sounds and music to be handled. For us to vote of which songs make it seems it will break that vision and then it just becomes a numbers game. Instead of the artist trying to set a mood.

To let Howard know what other people (the consumers, the gamers, the community) think about the single tracks of his score doesn't kill the game. This is feedback. Nothing else.

And now I can repeat myself, the community aren't composers, Howard is.

When you get your car fixed, you don't stand behind the mechanic and tell him what to do.

Mike

But when you go to a restaurant, they may ask you how you want your steak done.

I hope we can agree that art is subjective? Perhaps we shouldn't compare music to autorepair?

It's possible, but not a given, that Howard has several versions of the same piece lying around, unsure which is most fitting / gives the right associations. In that case he could ask his colleagues: "hey, what do you think, should it be more like this or that?", and they'd give him input, and he could use it or not. Imagine if he asked the beta testers the same thing: "hey, I changed the music a bit compared to last week, what do you guys think?". What part of this scenario requires anybody but the creater to be a composer?

What you describe is different from rorschachphoenix's intent, what you describe is getting feedback, what rorschachphoenix describe is community voting. Completely different. As Nanolathe is fond of saying, 'Design by Committee sucks".

Also your restaurant example doesn't really follow, I can do my Car example like this too, Like how you choose what gets fixed on your car, so you can put off getting your brakes replaced if you know that in 2 weeks you're due for an oil change. In you're restaurant example, you may get to choose to what level the steak is cooked, but you still aren't standing behind the cook as he cooks it.

To give a PA themed example, we 'voted with our wallets' to get the soundtrack done by an orchestra, but we leave Howard to choose the orchestra because that's his expertise/job.

Mike

What about this point? The songs I voted on aren't in the game and now I am mad!?

It's also best to avoid situations like that. I don't think anyone would get upset for Uber not doing this.

If for whatever reason you don't like the music that comes with the game then your PC is perfectly capable of running a media player in the background while you play.

Let Howard do what he does best and then judge the result. Trying to get involved in an artist's creative process will just mess things up.

Mike, this is not what I want. "The vote" is a representation of what people are thinking. It is a graph. You can take a look on it or burn it. I did NOT mean: Howard has to do what the people say. This is nonesense of course.

But I think it is helpfull to ask other people about there opinion. Just to have a different impression. I though of it as: "Take a look on the tracks and vote which one you like the most." And then Howard can do whatever he wants to do with the information.

I made myself very clear now, I think. If not, it is not only my fault. Because I tried many times now to explain what I mean.

I don't see the point in voting?

That's bad, right? You know what? There is no point in everything. I'm done here.

Honestly, what will having the community vote on songs accomplish? This is a genuine question.

I'm gonna go with "nothing good" as the answer. Hobbyist musician here, and there's 2 ways that the community voting could go:

1) People would vote on the music out of context with the game. Listening to the music while surfing the web or riding the bus is not the same as playing a/the game. I have the diablo 3 soundtrack, legitimately too, and I can say that the music fits better in the game. I actually don't dig most of it outside gameplay, but.....

2) People would vote on it IN CONTEXT. This is bad for one reason alone: Games are interactive. Game music, much more than movie soundtracks, should be there in my experience/opinion to provide a solid BACKGROUND sonic layer for everything else. Alerts, unit sounds, and the like. Movies get away with full blown gangsta rap battle music (complete with vocals) simply because you aren't doing anything besides OBSERVING. The choreographer can time the scene to the music, ect. With games, especially RTSs the pace is based on the player, and such musical choice is more likely to be distracting. But, things that don't stand out, don't get votes. What you would end up with is everyone voting for a) the music that STANDS OUT, and b) the music that FITS THEIR PACE. In the end, this would only be good for the voters who vote for the music that gets chosen. Anyone who has a different pace than average, or like's quieter music, etc., would end up on the short end.

Again, I'm with letting the dev team designing THEIR vision, and us helping balance unit play and work out the kinks in the rules, and generally make the game "fair". They laid out their vision in the KS intro vid, and that's what people supported, and what I pre-ordered.

The music is part of the vision, not the fairness in the rules of the game construct.

As a Hobbyist musician myself, I wholeheartedly agree with your post.

Just a quick input, what I think he means by "vote" is a poll of sorts. Not voting on what should make it into the game, but inputting your opinion on the pieces you like.

For example, as mentioned before, when there are multiple variations on a piece so that the community can give feedback of preference

If the way MNC/SMNC's audio has been handled is any indication there will of course be multiple variations of a "song." They will all play within the game at some point. Whether that be during a match, at the main menu and/or during a loading screen.

This "poll" for input can still happen some of us just wish it didn't affect what is and isn't included with the game. This discussion can also happen for when Uber decide to release the standalone soundtrack.

And how would you structure the feedback if not through a poll? Judging from his later posts, it seems I understood quite well what rorschachphoenix was getting at. In fact, he had written speifically: "this is feedback. nothing else". You even quoted it. Also, what point are you trying to get across with your autorepair? My point was that in any situation where several solutions may be objectively judged equally fitting, it can make sense for the expert to get input (not orders, input) from a relevant layman. If I read your new allegory correctly, you agree with this, so why exactly are you opposing the bare question (not a demand, all rorschachphoenix did was ask what the plans on this topic were) whether community input would be sought at some point?

And no, I'm not saying that infuscoletum is not making some valid points up there, but I think the "I disagree so shut up"-reaction that takes up most of the space in this thread is, well, rude. All rorschachphoenix did was ask neutrino whether community input would be sought at some point.

A forum thread. You read it, discard all the "me too" and "I like this" posts, and only useful feedback will remain.

On the other hand, if you do a forum poll, you will receive 0 relevant feedback, because you don't know why people vote as they do, which means you won't be able to use the data to improve what you are doing.

Forum polls are highly overrated.

You have to trim out a LOT more than that. :lol:

Yeah yeah, it was just a little example :lol:

Thanks for your support, miturian! That describes my feelings very well.

Thank you, infuscoletum. You have explained your thoughts. And you have good arguments. I can agree with you, because I can understand what you are saying.