The NinSheetMusic Redesign Suggestion Thread: The Forum

[Zunawe]

The general rule in my mind is that games that are clearly designed differently are different games, regardless of whether they have the same name and gameplay. All those versions of Tetris are then their own games. If they share a soundtrack, it's up to the song and discretion of the arrangers then to make different arrangements.

If the same game was intended to get a wide release on multiple systems, it gets a [MUL]. Metal Gear Solid V (multiple systems at once), Rocket League (ported to Xbox and then OS X/Linux after it gained popularity), and GTA V (intended release on PC was intentionally delayed 2 years after initial release), would fall under this category despite their differing types of releases.

Re-released, remastered, and remade games belong to their original console(s). None of the things on the Wii VC that were ported from previous systems deserve the [MUL] tag. Ocarina of Time has been remade and re-released too many times, but it will forever have the [N64] tag. Shadow of the Colossus, which was remade for the PS3 and is being remade again for the PS4 will only ever get the [PS2] tag.

There are a few other edge cases that might sneak by (e.g. Dark Souls was ported to PC after major success on console as a single package that had the DLC built in under the name Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition), but those rules seem to be relatively consistent from my experience.


Imagine yourself as a user. "I really want to play this Tetris music from the game I found on my Gameboy." Why should I be presented with NES sheets? Basically, different games are their own entity even if they have the same name. If you can call it a port, it probably doesn't need its own section.

[Yug_Guy]

I definitely agree with everything Zunawe mentioned above, but there is one edge case I've thought about quite a bit that might need to be discussed:

While today the music between games ported to multiple systems are identical given that they're made using mp3 files, or wav files or what have you, back in the day this wasn't possible since consoles were made with different hardware that made it harder to port music to. While I could name quite a few examples of this, the consoles I want to highlight are from the 16-bit era - the SNES and the Genesis. It was fairly common for studios to port their games to both the SNES and Genesis, which included the music. However, the Genesis used more traditional chiptune chips as well as FM synthesis, while the SNES had a more sophisticated chip that could replicate real instruments, meaning that there would always be something lost in translation when porting songs from one to another.

To get an idea of what I'm talking about, take a listen to the same song on the Genesis, and on the SNES. Even if the song is still the same, the instrumentation makes them sound wildly different.   

Now to be fair, I haven't really found any songs that have any major differences between it's multiple versions (including the song above), but what happens if we find a song/game that does? And how does this affect some of the games that we already have on site? I remember I originally put Bubsy 1 in the SNES section because that's what I used as the basis for my arrangement, but should that really go there because it was also released on the Genesis too? Or are the soundtracks different enough to where the SNES version should get it's own section? Should we keep Earthworm Jim in the Genesis version because that's what most people expect, or do we acknowledge that it was a multiplatform title? And I'm only talking about two specific consoles, don't get me started on arcade ports vs. home console ports, or heaven forbid early PC games. *shudders*

idk, maybe I'm just overthinking things, but I might as well put it out for folks to see & discuss.

[LeviR.star]

I don't know if this applies to everyone, given that the site layout can be customized, but while the "News" is a classic site feature, and a true contributor to NSM nostalgia, I feel it's beyond outdated.

Sure, several segments of news have been added somewhat recently, but they quickly become irrelevant, and many of the others have issues of their own --

The main problems

- "Are you on Discord? Join our server!" can be accessed by anyone that comes to the forums, whether they want to have anything to do with the site or not. It's probably the reason why we get unwanted members on NSM Discord
- "Introducing the new sorting feature on the front page! Sort through sheets alphabetically or chronologically!" -- now, I may not know exactly how old this feature is, but I do know that no one would call it "new" anymore
- "Found an issue in the Requests Board? Let Bubbles know!" -- I'm pretty sure Bubbles doesn't have the time nowadays to manage the Requests Board and doesn't need a bunch of PMs from newbies, and a lot newbies start with requesting, anyway
- "Welcome to the updating team, Seb and Insig!" is old news now, and with the way news is getting updated these days, it probably won't be removed any time soon
- the two .gifs that appear now and then have also gotten stale. Would it hurt to add something new?



  <-- I mean, c'mon, if we're keeping this, can we at least replace it with a "pixel-perfect" .gif instead?

[close]

... along with the fact that we have a very short number of segments, allowing for very little variety. I feel that if we don't have someone competent enough regularly updating the News, we might as well not have a news segment at all. Even so, come on, even if we did use it, no one would pay attention; all the news nowadays is looked for in the Site News Board and the Discord server! No one would be lost without it.

So, what should we do? Keep it exactly the way it is, keep it and actually update it regularly, or trash it?

[Sebastian]

I don't see a problem with updating it regularly. The news board is something that all staff members can edit so it won't be difficult to maintain.

[Maelstrom]

It's not hurting anyone, or taking space that would be used for something else, so I'm not sure why it's bothering you.

[Sebastian]

I mean, I do see where he's coming from and the problem with not updating the news. It makes the site look dead when there isn't a consistent update to the news.

@Levi: What are your ideas for updating the news?

[LeviR.star]

It's not hurting anyone, or taking space that would be used for something else, so I'm not sure why it's bothering you.

No offense or anything, but I don't really see the "it's not hurting anyone" routine as valid reasoning; more of an excuse to do nothing about something. But hey, just me.

I mean, I do see where he's coming from and the problem with not updating the news. It makes the site look dead when there isn't a consistent update to the news.

^^ This

@Levi: What are your ideas for updating the news?

Well, while I was initially arguing against keeping it, I can suggest a few ideas myself:

- adding and swapping out a few humorous new .gifs occasionally to keep things interesting
- a few seasonal greetings for holidays
- keep notices up as long as they stay relevant, i.e. up to a week
- reminders of upcoming release dates for hyped-up games
- a notice for when a member is leaving the site
- a weekly "arranging challenge" where you try to arrange a song of a certain category, like a certain franchise, or a beach level theme, or an extremely sad song. It's up to the arrangers if they want to participate
- a segment that introduces an active staff member, linked to their profile
- possibly some gaming trivia, too!

Only a few ideas, but if someone could help chime in, we could make this new plan a reality!

[Dudeman]

I'll admit I've thought about removing the Seb and Insig updater message since it's rather old now, but I didn't want to remove something with no consent. also the mealstrom thing but w/e i think it's funny
As for your recommendations, I'd be on board with these:

- adding and swapping out a few humorous new .gifs occasionally to keep things interesting
- a few seasonal greetings for holidays
- keep notices up as long as they stay relevant (but maybe longer than a week because a week is pretty short, all things considered)
- reminders of upcoming release dates for hyped-up games (although I don't know if many other people would like this, and a "hyped-up game" is pretty subjective)

but I wouldn't recommend adding these:

- a notice for when a member is leaving the site (we've got a topic for this for a reason)
- a weekly "arranging challenge" where you try to arrange a song of a certain category, like a certain franchise, or a beach level theme, or an extremely sad song. It's up to the arrangers if they want to participate (this isn't exactly "news" and I wouldn't tout it as such. Also, weekly? On NSM? You make me laugh.)
- a segment that introduces an active staff member, linked to their profile (I don't think this is entirely necessary, and we have a "Staff" section on the main site already)
- possibly some gaming trivia, too! (we've got a topic for this for a reason)

[Trasdegi]

I don't think the release dates thing is a good idea, because not everyone here lives in the US, and not all games release at the same time everywhere.

[Dudeman]

I don't think the release dates thing is a good idea, because not everyone here lives in the US, and not all games release at the same time everywhere.

Ah, thank you, I didn't think of this. Excellent point.

[LeviR.star]

I don't think the release dates thing is a good idea, because not everyone here lives in the US, and not all games release at the same time everywhere.

Neither did I. Sorry, Tras; I forgot that not all games see world-wide single-day releases. My apologies.

But yea, if we're going to update the "News" with segments regularly, they should only be relevant to the current time period, hence the "new"ness. Ones like "Interested in contributing to the site? Give the Arrangement Formatting Guidelines a good read!" would not apply.

[Sebastian]

I agree with Dudeman on his adding and no adding reasons.

Just some additional thoughts to add to Dudeman:

- a weekly "arranging challenge" where you try to arrange a song of a certain category, like a certain franchise, or a beach level theme, or an extremely sad song. It's up to the arrangers if they want to participate

As he said, this isn't news, but rather a new idea under the umbrella of arranging. I wouldn't mind do something like this, but it would only be for fun (in other words, not put on the site). We have enough trouble keeping up with subs and projects as it is.

- a segment that introduces an active staff member, linked to their profile

I mean, this is kind of done already by congratulating the new staff members and it's not like we have new staff regularly.

But yea, if we're going to update the "News" with segments regularly, they should only be relevant to the current time period, hence the "new"ness. Ones like "Interested in contributing to the site? Give the Arrangement Formatting Guidelines a good read!" would not apply.

Yeah. I do agree with the "swap out gif every once in a while" idea, seasonal greetings, notices, and things of that nature.

[Olimar12345]

I don't know if this applies to everyone, given that the site layout can be customized, but while the "News" is a classic site feature, and a true contributor to NSM nostalgia, I feel it's beyond outdated.

Sure, several segments of news have been added somewhat recently, but they quickly become irrelevant, and many of the others have issues of their own --

The main problems

- "Are you on Discord? Join our server!" can be accessed by anyone that comes to the forums, whether they want to have anything to do with the site or not. It's probably the reason why we get unwanted members on NSM Discord
- "Introducing the new sorting feature on the front page! Sort through sheets alphabetically or chronologically!" -- now, I may not know exactly how old this feature is, but I do know that no one would call it "new" anymore
- "Found an issue in the Requests Board? Let Bubbles know!" -- I'm pretty sure Bubbles doesn't have the time nowadays to manage the Requests Board and doesn't need a bunch of PMs from newbies, and a lot newbies start with requesting, anyway
- "Welcome to the updating team, Seb and Insig!" is old news now, and with the way news is getting updated these days, it probably won't be removed any time soon
- the two .gifs that appear now and then have also gotten stale. Would it hurt to add something new?



  <-- I mean, c'mon, if we're keeping this, can we at least replace it with a "pixel-perfect" .gif instead?

[close]

... along with the fact that we have a very short number of segments, allowing for very little variety. I feel that if we don't have someone competent enough regularly updating the News, we might as well not have a news segment at all. Even so, come on, even if we did use it, no one would pay attention; all the news nowadays is looked for in the Site News Board and the Discord server! No one would be lost without it.

So, what should we do? Keep it exactly the way it is, keep it and actually update it regularly, or trash it?

This seems so... unimportant.. Those are supposed to be just for fun, not some super serious thing that gets regular attention. I'd rather we focus on site updates that include sheets rather than those.

"Are you on Discord? Join our server!" can be accessed by anyone that comes to the forums, whether they want to have anything to do with the site or not. It's probably the reason why we get unwanted members on NSM Discord

Olimar: I don't get this, but if you are saying that this message is the cause of your strife, you are very mistaken. For starters, the amount of members on Discord that aren't NSM members can be counted on one hand. Secondly, you referring to them as "unwanted" is rude, since you A) don't even know these people, and B) they don't make up a noticeable percentage of the activity there to be considered a nuisance.

- "Introducing the new sorting feature on the front page! Sort through sheets alphabetically or chronologically!" -- now, I may not know exactly how old this feature is, but I do know that no one would call it "new" anymore

Olimar: it might not be new as of the last few updates, but it still is technically a new thing considering how long it wasn't a thing. Also why is it an issue to have that here? One might not even know of this feature. It isn't hurting anyone.

- "Found an issue in the Requests Board? Let Bubbles know!" -- I'm pretty sure Bubbles doesn't have the time nowadays to manage the Requests Board and doesn't need a bunch of PMs from newbies, and a lot newbies start with requesting, anyway

Olimar: False. Regardless of how often she posts, she's still been doing a fine job of keeping the request board organized and regularly responds to PM's in a timely manner.

- "Welcome to the updating team, Seb and Insig!" is old news now, and with the way news is getting updated these days, it probably won't be removed any time soon

Olimar: these messages usually get replaced with the new staff additions. For example, that message replaced the "Welcome static" message, etc.

- the two .gifs that appear now and then have also gotten stale. Would it hurt to add something new?

Olimar: Maybe not, but eh.



  <-- I mean, c'mon, if we're keeping this, can we at least replace it with a "pixel-perfect" .gif instead?

Olimar: this one is actually optimized for the layout though, so no.

[The Deku Trombonist]

NinSheetMusic is now hiring !!!!!!!!!!
NSM is currently looking for expressions of interest to fill the exciting, newly created position of "News Bar Manager." To qualify for this position you must be familiar with operating news bars and be able create entertaining and informative content on a regular basis.

Work load: Full time.

Interested applicants will need to PM a resume detailing qualifications and prior experience to Zeta.

Applications close: Next Tuesday

[mastersuperfan]

"Are you on Discord? Join our server!" can be accessed by anyone that comes to the forums, whether they want to have anything to do with the site or not. It's probably the reason why we get unwanted members on NSM Discord

Olimar: I don't get this, but if you are saying that this message is the cause of your strife, you are very mistaken. For starters, the amount of members on Discord that aren't NSM members can be counted on one hand. Secondly, you referring to them as "unwanted" is rude, since you A) don't even know these people, and B) they don't make up a noticeable percentage of the activity there to be considered a nuisance.

pretty sure Levi is referring to the people who show up looking for the National Socialist Movement group