hello! i am making my weekly post in support of
wintertide's feature. the way i see it, there's no reason for this track to not be featured. let me explain.
first off, i would like to say wintertide meets what max outlines as requirements for what a featured track should be in
this thread:
• the ride, even if someone was able to perfect run it, would still well exceed the 30 second arbitrary mark that has been set for featured tracks. of course, the fact that wintertide is a trial helps it meet this requirement easily, so while we can agree it meets the sufficient length, it is not as important with regards to being a feature as other factors.
• the creativity involved w the track is off the charts. it's not just another cookie-cutter factory trial, it's a well thought out masterpiece where each floor has some sort of unique obstacle that makes it feel like each room is its own sort of mini-trial. the background, while not as eye-catching as the rest of the track, is solid and something unique to seasnails. i cannot speak enough of seasnails' unique style is and how well he brings it out throughout this track. the dude makes some of the most unique trials and obstacles in the game, and this track is full of them
• the layout of the track is fitting of the detail and theme. you rise one building by going through a series of rooms, cross to another building via power line, then descend that one room by room as well until you collect the final star. solid enough to be deserving of a feature
• the ride is ridiculously fun and unique. it's frustrating, but fair. none of the obstacles require any sort of luck to get through. with the right combination of key presses, you can get consistent enough setups before getting to the next checkpoint. this is what i love most about the track; it's super daunting the first time you play it, but then the next time you play it you'll be able to cut upwards of 10 minutes off your time. of course, this is true with every track and, in particular, with trials. but wintertide takes this to a whole other level. the consistency of the obstacles seasnails sets up is ridiculous, especially considering that most of them are original without any sort of previous iteration to learn from.
• the detail of the track is unique and good enough to warrant a feature. seasnails has a super unique style that fills the space and background of the track super well. and the detail fits the theme of the track: a wintery building. christmas trees are found in some places, snow in others. boxes and other miscellaneous objects litter the rooms to give it a super cool building/warehouse feeling, which is reflective of a real building. it's solid and consistent enough to deserve a feature.
many well respected authors agree that wintertide in particular should be featured. the names i can think of off the top of my head are volund, pssst, gabeep, dblu, and holystone, to name a few. that a track is regarded this highly within the community should be noteworthy enough for the featured tracks moderators to at least consider looking at the track again.
with that established, i want to address some ideas that persist that i think stand in the way of wintertide's feature:
• it's been a long time since it's been released, and featuring it now would be weird
• it's too hard
• the author doesn't have a previous feature to enhance the public persona of the track
the argument that tracks shouldn't be featured this long after release is silly. if you want to maintain consistent standards in regards to featured tracks, why would you refuse to go back and feature old tracks? this is something i and the other featured ghost mods do on occasion. it's why we've been featuring older ghosts recently. the standards have changed, and so we think it would be fair to go back and review older suggestions with the new criteria. if any of those meet the current requirements for a feature, we'll feature them. i'm not sure why this same principle has never applied to featured tracks. it makes for super inconsistent requirements that end up undermining the featured list as a whole.
on top of that, there's been tracks that got feature well after their release.
aquaroute,
oblivions,
psychosis,
lucid dream (to an extent), and
candle in the wind were all, to my knowledge, featured well after their initial release, and i know there's more i'm missing. why would you not do the same for wintertide?
that wintertide is too hard is a stupid hill to die on. a track like wintertide is intentionally designed to be inaccessible to most everybody, and that it accomplishes this goal well is why it shouldn't be featured? bull. a track maker that intentionally and successfully makes their track difficult should not be punished for doing so. this is particularly egregious when considering that some authors are rewarded when unintentionally making their ride harder by making something more detailed. for example, both
snope and
low point suffer from this issue, yet they're still featured.
there's also a few other featured tracks that i can point to whose difficulty to finish was overlooked when featuring. odin333's
stone mountain v2 and
day at the cottage were designed to be impossible and were featured.
movie mania cce was featured despite it having a critical design flaw that makes it virtually impossible.
rotate iii and
labyrinthine are more traditional trial tracks in the same vane as wintertide is. they're also not accessible to the majority of players, yet they're featured.
if you're looking at individual reasons as to why those 2 are featured, i'd argue that rotate is featured because of the insane detail and uniqueness of the ride. wintertide may not have the same level of detail, but it's surely good enough to warrant a feature, and like i've already said the ride is ridiculously unique as well. labyrinthine is also likely featured due to its unique ride, but also because of its scale and because it was made for a contest (where standards have historically been lower than normal). wintertide may not be on the same scale as labyrinthine, but it is impressive in its own right, as well as also being made for a contest.
i'd like to also say that all the tracks i've listed here
should be featured. it's because of that i believe wintertide should be as well.
the public perception of the track wasn't there because seasnails had not made a featured track previously, and to a lesser extent has not been as active member of the community as others.
this is one i expect not as many people to agree with me on because it's an idea that's still kind of out there, but i firmly believe that it's harder for people to get their first feature than their next few. i personally haven't ran into this because i haven't made any particularly good tracks, but a case i can point to is wyatt.
dreamt place was his first track that reached the level of potential feature, but because no one realized what he was capable of because there were no previous examples of his work he got screwed. had dreamt place been released today by wyatt today after all of his other tracks/features, i believe it would be featured. the public perception around a track matters, and people don't want to admit it.
another thing i want to bring up is i want people to ask themselves if
mammoth had been released by anyone other than mr..a (or any other god-tier level author), would it have been featured? no, it wouldn't have. certain authors get rewarded for certain ideals found in their tracks. Ness gets touted as someone who prioritizes ride over detail, and all of his features are super cool. but if they had been released by anyone else, would they be a feature? if someone like ness had released
double compound instead of nitrogeneric, would it have been featured with other remixes at the time instead of being featured later on?
again, i'd like to state that all of the tracks i've mentioned (mammoth, ness' tracks)
should be featured. but because of that, wintertide should be as well.
ultimately, i just want consistency within featured tracks. wintertide is the most poignant example of a track that should be featured but isn't for whatever stupid reason. when the featured team converted from a team of 5 that must unanimously vote (or vote with a majority, i forget) for a track to be featured to any mod that thinks a track should be featured, i thought we were moving in the right direction. it meant that for a track to be featured, it no longer needed to be a unanimous "yes" by the judges. it now needs to be a unanimous "no" for it to
not be featured. that a track like wintertide still somehow isn't featured despite that shows there's some bias in the featured team that must be over come after all this time.
e; sorry if parts of this are incoherent. wrote this w/o proofreading
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