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 Poll
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| Question: |
Are you willing to to travel to the other side of the world in order to meet your fellow StarControllers?
| Yep |
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   5 (12.5%) |
| Nope |
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9 (22.5%) |
| No, but I'd be willing to go if it was on my continent |
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4 (10%) |
| No, but I'd be willing to go if it was in my country |
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22 (55%) |
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| Total Voters: 39 |
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Author
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Topic: the StarCon Con? (Read 8534 times)
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youBastrd
Frungy champion
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It's real velour, just let yourself go.
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I'm still kicking myself for not attending the VG Live event when it was in Toronto to pitch this in person directly to Mr. Tallerico, as apparently many game industry-types typically stick around at the end of these performances. But we went to see Lord of the Rings at one of the last performances that night, so no dice unfortunately.
I have sent out one such email already to Mr. Tallerico, but no response. Perhaps it's time to send another. 
So what are we proposing here: adding Star Control music to the Video Games Live playlist. So that means:
Getting their interest
** via email, phone calls etc to the VGL organizers. Typically we'll want to get into contact with their agents first to respectfully get attention, then deal directly with the organizers.
Once, they're happy with the concept, make a pitch.
** Get TFB's blessing. If the answer is no, out of respect we do not go any further.
** Get the Precursors' permission. See how involved they want to get.
** Establish who the points of contact are on our side. Who do they contact for questions about technology, licensing, creative, organization, PR, etc? They will be used to dealing with people and organizations (ie a telephone number and email address to call) more so than forum posts etc.
** Getting all current arrangements to VGL organizers in lossless format (Probably audio CDs via snail mail or if we happen to have people in the right city, via smiling, enthusiastic person ). Only use ones that we have permission to use (ie UQM standard, ask permission from Precursors, any others that are kicking around: Chrispy's, Robeter Productions', any others)
VGL starts their planning.
** VGL picks out a short list of songs to play directly / fuse into a medley / whatever creative they want to do with it
** VGL finalizes any licensing issues, probably directly with TFB, and to an extent the Precursors.
** Creating orchestral arrangements of the music.
** Doing their other creative aspects of the stage performance: visuals, pyrotechnics, costumes, lighting, the whole works
VGL goes into full production.
** Conductor, Orchestra, stage crew etc start learning their parts
** PR starts pimping this addition to their repertoire.
** VGL starts performing Star Control music. Mandibles clack in amusement.
Questions:
What's in it for VGL?
Adding some terrific music in their repertoire; adding yet another popular franchise to their list of such things.
Money: they charge admission to these events, and I don't think it's cheap.
What's in it for TFB?
With any luck, TFB may be able to get some royalties from the performances. As always, I suspect the rest of us will be volunteers.
This also strengthens their Star Control brand. When a Star Control game comes out, it'll be that much more popular. Who knows, maybe this starts a new Internet buzz.
What in it for us?
We're essentially encouraging TFB to make a Star Control game by showing how popular it really is. Yes, there are *real people* out there who are willing to shell out *real money* for something with Star Control on it.
We might also be able to "sell" / ask for donations for CDs with UQM on it at the events. Yes, the GPL allows for this, it's just no way to run a business since anyone can just download it free. In terms of what happens to such funds... I dunno, start an UQM fund, let Meep-eep figure out what to do with it.
This is a fair amount of legwork to get all this together for some other people (VGL and TFB) to make money.
Who's doing the orchestration?
Dunno, probably mostly VGL, with help from anyone that wants to volunteer if they ask for such help.
Also, this is now completely off-topic from the idea of a StarCon Con. Such an event would require even more planning... even just a booth would take more, and actually require cash. It's also do-able when planned correctly. Next post I'll do a mini-write up on that.
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Culture20
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Thraddash Flower Child
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I'd include an mp3 or ogg version of a couple of the longest/most complex songs, and links to the others in an email. Hopefully, they'd know what SC2 music is like, but just the fact that SC2 was _known_ for it's music in it's day (among other things, kinda like C&C) means that it's worthy of VGL.
Something in our favor: the benefit of the songs being in MOD format means that the seperate instruments' notes/timings can be written easier.
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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An entire convention for only three/two games seems a little bit much. I attended a general-purpose anime convention, and that wore thin after about a day and a half. 100% Star Control would be too much.
BUT!
Having Star Control presence at appropriate more broadly-based conventions would be very appropriate.
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youBastrd
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It's real velour, just let yourself go.
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So maybe then we're looking more at the booth at a conference. Ballpark pricing for one booth at this "Fan Expo Canada" is about 700 USD. That's for a booth, with little to no advertising. FYI , the gaming, sci-fi, comic book and anime expo's are all in the same building on the same dates, and admission gets you into all of 'm. Presumably we're looking at the gaming one if we apply.
There are also gaming tournaments going on there. Hmm... UQM tournaments? TW* tournaments? Now that would be awesome!
So that gets the booth only, no staff. Uh... does this mean I'm staffing the booth? Alone, for three very full days?? I mean, if we got ourselves a Syreen booth babe, that's another story. What I mean is that we should have at least one more person (preferrably many) putting lots of time into this in order to get it to work. These things do take time and effort.
Fund raising... we could sell all kinds of things to raise money before the event (mostly donations or selling crap online I guess), and raise money at the event, like asking for donations for copies of UQM, TW* or soundtracks (if such permission is granted). Heck, throw it in a shrink-wrapped box, too! Either that or get corporate or government donations. Maybe it's worth looking at getting a not-for-profit set up. Any thoughts?
However, if the con were to be held in a nice city I might be able to persuade my significant other that the sightseeing and quality time we would spend would far outweigh the relatively small amount of nerd time embedded in the trip |
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0xDEC0DE
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So maybe then we're looking more at the booth at a conference. Ballpark pricing for one booth at this "Fan Expo Canada" is about 700 USD. That's for a booth, with little to no advertising. FYI , the gaming, sci-fi, comic book and anime expo's are all in the same building on the same dates, and admission gets you into all of 'm. Presumably we're looking at the gaming one if we apply.
Interesting. I have a few random thoughts on the matter:
- I would think that if the "fan community" were to take out a booth at a convention, they'd want to get as much bang for their buck as humanly possible, e.g., get a booth at the San Diego Comic-Con or something similarly huge so that the potential exposure is as great as possible. E3 is dead, but one of the other gaming cons is bound to replace it.
- A booth for Star Control-related properties should hand out free CD-ROMs of The Ur-Quan Masters, in a nice professional-looking sleeve with artwork and system requirements and install instructions and all the good fun stuff. Win32, MacOS X, Linux RPM and source code should all be included. Getting such things made is cheaper than you might think, especially in bulk. It also goes without saying that a big booth banner is in order. Those are, oddly enough, usually more expensive than you'd think.
 - Since it's their baby, asking Paul Reiche and/or Fred Ford how much it would cost for them to show up and talk, sign autographs, etc. should be part of the plan, and factored into the cost of setting up. Of course, if they don't want to do it, then you save money!
 - Now that The Powers That Be have given us UQM net-melee (get your asses to #uqm_arena for some mad scrappin', y0!) a bank of networked machines to let folks whomp on each other could only be a good idea.
I'd suspect that most everything could be put together for under $5000 USD. If you get enough philanthropic souls together, that cost is pretty manageable. And some of the more zealous fanboys out there who have more money than sense could probably be convinced to bankroll such an endeavour pretty easily, if it were done right.
/looks at shoes, fidgets
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"I’m not a robot like you. I don’t like having disks crammed into me… unless they’re Oreos, and then only in the mouth." --Fry
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youBastrd
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It's real velour, just let yourself go.
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Here are samples of what the Video Games Live show is like. Seems like a really fun event!
Classic arcade medley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVHGy9XEF9I
Metal Gear Solid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_6LG8dyE0U
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youBastrd
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It's real velour, just let yourself go.
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So at GDC in March, I randomly bumped into Tommy Tallerico at a bar. He wasn't really familiar with SC music, but was loosely familiar with the franchise. He was receptive to the idea of adding Star Control music to the VGL lineup. He suggested that I send some more information to an email address he gave me. Uh, like six weeks ago.
So here's what we should send:
* One paragraph about the Star Control franchise
* One paragraph about why the music is memorable
* One paragraph about how strong the community is
* An offer to snail-mail a CD filled with music and remixes from the UQM content and Remix packs. The goal here is to get them to commit to something very small to see if it's worth continuing with. So their only commitment is to listen to a CD that we send to them.
Why send a CD as opposed to just emailing a bunch of links? Their time is very short, and the people that may be on the other end may not like dealing with technical issues. We can only assume that we get one shot at this, and we must minimize their hassle.
Yes, of course we must be upfront about the licenses of the files and that in order to make this happen, VGL must contact TFB to make some arrangement. At the very least this task serves as an introduction.
Really I'm hoping that someone else wants to take ownership of this task and see it through. Does anyone want to do a write-up of those paragraphs listed above? Also, what is the short list of candidate songs we recommend they do? Ur-Quan Kzer-Za for sure, but what else will be memorable?
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Cedric6014
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These are the best tunes:
Hyperspace, Slylandro, Druuge, Yehat, Ur-Quan, Commander Hayes, Orz, Chmmr, Quasispace
In that order. The first 6 or 7 should be enough to knock their socks off
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Galactic
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I live in Finland...
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Cedric6014
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It seems everyone lives in finland. the convention should be in helsinki
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Elerium
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I live in England if there was a StarCon, then chances are I wouldn't be to go if it was stuck in say America because it would be very difficult to get there, money and travel wise.
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« Last Edit: April 23, 2007, 05:15:43 pm by Elerium »
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