Dump Batch Discussion Thread

[WirryWoo]

Originally Posted by sff_writer_dan

The issue is just...from where do you think we can get organic growth if not "From the people invested enough in other VSRGs to be into the genre enough to go looking for other places to do it"?

This organic growth can be achieved by building relationships with song artists who have trusted us to use their music in game via the permissions we asked for. Having this continued relationship with song artists will bring their followers to the game, which helps cast a larger net to the public and solidifies FFR’s initial identity of being a rhythm game medium to connect new artists with the public (at least this is what I strongly believe are the differences across other rhythm games). It would be really cool to have strong ties with high scale musicians at the degree similar to our relationship with KURORAK, where we can collaborate with him to create songs specifically for FFR at a commissioned price. I remembered through a recent conversation with one of the oldest players on FFR (and a close FFRiend of mine), there was a separate engine devoted to host community created files with MySpace music for $10 per file. I think events like this really create a strong community of players who are super passionate about helping song artists become more successful which is really cool. It also creates stronger ties with the song artists to rely on our rhythm gaming medium for more publicity and it builds trust for new artists we currently don’t have permissions for to consider FFR as a medium for their publicity, helping us secure more permissions and increasing the variety of our music.

This is at least where I thought FFR’s true identity lie and this is why I primarily disagree with having dumps in game. Imagine getting permissions from Silvia and seeing the majority of their discography be publicized on a rhythm gaming medium as step files of similar quality to Vertex BETA vrofl. Because the steps are essentially filler noise in dump files, I stand by my disagreement of having dumps in game because “dumps miss many opportunities to acknowledge music rhythmically as intended”. Also in this hypothetical situation, from Silvia’s perspective, it can easily be interpreted as disrespectful for stepcharts to fail to acknowledge the rhythms observed by listening to the music. Having the player base play these maps further reinforces that because players will associate their music as that “dump file on FFR” (we saw that trend with Death Piano back then).

Dumps are fine when the music is intended to sound “dumpy” (no negative connotation implied here, rather using dumpy as an adjective to say that the music warrants a very challenging file similar to other dumps in game), but because most music isn’t like that, I believe that dumps should be generally discouraged on FFR. I personally dislike music that sound “dumpy” to me because it is displeasing to my ears, so having too many dumps will only attract a certain crowd of people which is not what we want.