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Rules

RULES FOR PARTICIPATION

Main Entries, Alternate Entries, Voting, Contact Info, and Listening Parties.

 

MAIN ENTRIES:

Main entries are songs entered into the month's competition, which will be ranked on the results.

  1. Main entries must be a cover, arrangement, or other reworking of a song from a video game.
    • You can't cover songs that were used in video games but written for other media (e.g. the iconic Star Wars theme, or the original Micheal Jackson songs in Moonwalker).
      • Exception: Tetris, the soundtrack of which uses Russian folk music but is much more widely recognizable as video game music.  Main entries may be reworkings of Tetris songs.
  2. Each month has a theme; all songs must fit that theme.
  3. The main instrument of each song must be "played live", meaning that it must be a real guitar, real keyboard, real trombone, or other real instrument that you're actually playing.
    • An instrument that is sequenced in a software synthesizer is only eligible if a MIDI controller keyboard is played live, and the output is not quantized or altered.
  4. Main entries must be submitted in mp3 format, at least two minutes in length.
    • Silence at the beginning or end of a track, or extended silence in the middle of a track, will not count toward reaching the length requirement.
  5. Main entries will be presented anonymously at the end of the month (tagged as "Anonymous DoD Contestant").  Please don't compromise your anonymity, and only submit songs that you've never released to the public.
  6. All songs must either be submitted by the artist or by someone who has permission from the artist, with the following information included:
    • Artist(s): The name that the artist wishes to be identified by.
    • Game(s): The games that the entry is covering songs from.
    • Title: The title of the song.
      • Note: Anything in particularly bad taste (such as racial slurs) will be altered.
  7. Optionally, you may also include the following information:
    • Text of the song's lyrics, if the song has them.
    • Names of the songs from the game's soundtrack.
    • Locations, stages, or scenarios in the game where the songs are used.
    • Which instruments in the song were played live and which were programmed/sequenced.
  8. Songs are due on the due date and time listed in the Current Contest link.
  9. You may not contribute to more than one main entry per month.  ("Contribute" meaning play an instrument on the song, co-write the song, do a cameo guitar solo, etc.)

ALTERNATE ENTRIES:

Alternate entries are songs released at the same time as main entries, but are not in competition.

  1. Alternate entries must be a cover, arrangement, or other reworking of a song from a video game.
    • Unlike main entries, alternate entries may be songs that were written for other media but used in video games.
    • Exception: music and rhythm games like Rock Band, Dance Dance Revolution, or Guitar Hero.  You may not use any of those songs.
  2. Each month has a theme; all songs must fit that theme.
  3. The main instrument of each song must be "played live", meaning that it must be a real guitar, real keyboard, real trombone, or other real instrument that you're actually playing.
    • An instrument that is sequenced in a software synthesizer is only eligible if a MIDI controller keyboard is played live, and the output is not quantized or altered.
  4. Alternate entries must be submitted in mp3 format, at least thirty seconds in length.
    • Silence at the beginning or end of a track, or extended silence in the middle of a track, will not count toward reaching the length requirement.
  5. Alternate entries may be presented anonymously or with the artist name attached.  If you do not express a preference, the song will be presented anonymously.
    • While they do not have to be anonymous, your alternate entries should still be previously unreleased.
  6. All songs must either be submitted by the artist or by someone who has permission from the artist, with the following information included:
    • Artist(s): The name that the artist wishes to be identified by.
    • Game(s): The games that the entry is covering songs from.
    • Title: The title of the song.
      • Note: Anything in particularly bad taste (such as racial slurs or other hate speech) will be altered.
  7. Optionally, you may also include the following information:
    • Text of the song's lyrics.
    • Names of the songs from the game's soundtrack.
    • Locations or scenarios in the game where the songs are used.
    • Which instruments in the song were played live and which were programmed/sequenced.
  8. Songs are due on the due date and time listed in the Current Contest link.
  9. You may submit as many alternate entries as you want, whether or not you're submitting any main entries.
  10. Any song meant to be humorous but not sound good should be submitted as an alternate entry.
  11. If a song is submitted as a main entry but only qualifies to be an alternate entry, it will be presented as an alternate entry.

VOTING:

The winner is determined by popular vote.

  1. To vote, you must have either submitted a song to DoD at some point in the past or must have 50 posts on The Shizz message board.
  2. Voting is now automated through http://dwellingofduels.net/voting/index.html.  You simply score each song from good to bad using the sliders.
    • The app produces a vote based on the placement of the slider; for example, if you place the slider between "average" and "above average", it may say that you gave the song "Average +0.38."  The combination of the word score and the numerical adjustment is how the votes are tallied and averaged to produce the results.
    • If you entered a song, please check the box next to your entry labeled "My Song" when voting.  If you do not, your votes will not count.
  3. Votes are due by 9 PM Eastern US time on the last day of the month unless otherwise specified.

 

CONTACT INFO FOR SUBMISSION, VOTING, AND ALL OTHER CONCERNS:

To submit a song or vote:

  1. Send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
    • Songs may be included as an attachment or as a link in the body of the email.  If you do not have a webhost, use a free service like Mediafire.
  2. You may also send a Private Message to Paragon on the message board at The Shizz.

LISTENING PARTIES:

Listening parties use an IRC chatroom to allow artists and fans to listen to and discuss the songs in real time.

  1. You can join in by getting an IRC client and connecting to irc.esper.net and joining #dwellingofduels.
    • There will be a space in the IRC client to enter text:
      • /nick allows you to choose a username (for example "/nick UematsuFan" "/nick Abraham_L").
      • /join allows you to join a channel ("/join #dwellingofduels").
      • Enter plain text without a slash (like this sentence) to talk to people.
      • Check your IRC client's help guide for more information.
  2. Listening parties are held 24 hours after the release of the month's songs unless otherwise noted.
  3. The listening party is structured like this:
    • The host (Paragon) says "QUEUE: (songname)".  Don't start listening to the song yet; this is just a notice that we're getting ready to move on to the next song.
    • After a brief pause, the host then says "PLAY: (songname)".  Start listening to the song and comment on it or discuss it as you go.
    • After the song is finished, there will be a brief pause to allow people to catch up before the host directs you to queue the next song.
  4. The listening parties (and IRC in general) are pretty casual and often go off-topic, but anything disruptive (like "spamming", entering too much text too fast) might result in you being removed from the channel.  Repeated offenses may result in you being barred from entry.
  5. The IRC channel is open to any sort of discussion, 24/7, even when the listening parties are not taking place.

 

 

 

GENERAL DISCLAIMER:

Any activity which disrupts the contest, website, forums / discussions, IRC channel, or any other aspect of Dwelling of Duels may result in disqualification of your entry, rejection of future entries, rejection of votes, or other measures.  This includes compromising someone else's anonymity by revealing that they created an entry when this information is not available publicly.