The Future of Stepmania

[Kraezymann]

I'd like to have a discussion about the future of Stepmania.

It seems to me that lately there has been a bit of a disconnect from the players to the game, at least from what I have noticed within this community. Simfiles don't seem to be rolling out like they used to, packs are slow, players are retiring, websites have come and gone, and a few people seem jaded and bored with it.

All of this is fine. It's life. Maybe we have all grown up and matured out of the game. Maybe we don't like the charts that are coming out anymore. Maybe we are getting rusty and just decided to move on instead of trying harder to play. Maybe life got in the way and there is just no more time to get invested in the game anymore. Whatever the reason, the player base is not anywhere near as large as it was a few years ago, and I'd like to hear your reasons why.

I would also like to discuss what we could do to change this. Can we think of something to stifle the flow of people leaving the game? Can we think of something to bring more people in? What are the best parts of the game? The worst? What do you think of the players? The current style of charts? Solo, 4k, 7k. Graphics. Coding. Packs.

I would really like to hear from you. Whether you work on the software proper, have experience charting for the game, experience playing the game, an old time-y player, or a newcomer, I want to pick your brain and hear your thoughts.

Why make this post? SM has been in my life since 2003. Through it I have discovered a ton of music, fantastic communities, crazy-talented people, and tons of other cool shit. It's not really something I want to disappear. It's been a part of my life for so long that the idea of it dying is a bit like having a cool toy from a long time ago that's falling apart. I want to fix it and make it awesome again. But is it worth it to keep around and try to fix? Or am I just being overtenacious?

tl;dr I want to bring it back to it's higher levels of popularity, but I want to hear why I can, can't, should or shouldn't.

Further reading:
- Arch talked about some of this here
- GD made this cool thread about SM facts and history here
- moches had this awesome idea that aimed to get people to learn more about the game

[Izzy]

I feel like in order for Stepmania to continue living it needs to get up to par with more modern games with online play. SMO needs to force check for people to have the latest version of SM in order for development to be done to the SMO protocol. It is probably time to just kill backward compatibility in order to do cool things like download songs from the host in game or something. Although SMO would have to work together with the SM developers and give them everything we have. A complete site web design overhaul would be good too.

Also, if people were still unaware Houkounchi, the original owner of SMO.net, passed away a few weeks ago for reasons unknown.

[lurker]

the fastest thing you could do is integrate structural elements of ffr into stepmania to create something that's organized similarly to osu!mania (songs in ffr's songlist = ranked maps, custom files = unofficial maps) but with a much better engine that actually has people actively working on it

[Reincarnate]

I've been around since 2001 (in one form or another), and so I can definitely attest to how much more active this scene used to be. However, there are several things that work against Stepmania's favor.

1. I really doubt it will ever return to previous levels of popularity. Stepmania was hugely popular when DDR and Guitar Hero were hugely popular, and those things were hugely popular because they were novel, interesting, and decently well-financed / marketed at the time. A lot of that charm has long since worn off. You have to offer something sufficiently compelling and new to draw in a bigger crowd at this point, IMO. DDR also had a lot of exposure when people still went to arcades, and those have been on the decline for various reasons.

2. Getting people to sit down at a desktop / laptop to smash arrow keys is going to be difficult when you've got huge mobile / console markets hogging up everyone's shit. And if you ever *can* get them to sit down in front of a desktop or laptop, they're probably going to gravitate towards Steam anyway.

3. Everything is too fragmented. There's no central hub where I can just log on and download the same shit everyone else is playing. Instead, I have to go searching for files far and wide, and sometimes they aren't even the right version. It's a complete mess.

4. Any time you involve things like music, you run into all sorts of legal obstacles.

5. You need good talent. Having a few volunteers make stepfiles or new skins or whatever isn't going to cut it. You need competent coders, developers, artists, etc, who share a common vision and can actually get shit done.

There are other reasons but I'm too lazy to get into them.

[Deadlyx39]

I had an idea that might be hard to implement, but if it could be easier to play online with StepMania then I think more people would play it more as they could play with their friends (I.e. log in on the game itself and not connect to SMO). Another feature would be to support multi-person multiplayer, around 4 people. This is something I also hope FFR implements sometime as rotating 4 people in 2 slots sometimes in MP is rather tiring.

[Kraezymann]

Originally Posted by lurker

the fastest thing you could do is integrate structural elements of ffr into stepmania to create something that's organized similarly to osu!mania (songs in ffr's songlist = ranked maps, custom files = unofficial maps) but with a much better engine that actually has people actively working on it

Has anyone else talked about this before? I'd like to read more about it if it's been mentioned, this seems like a really great idea.

Originally Posted by Reincarnate

3. Everything is too fragmented. There's no central hub where I can just log on and download the same shit everyone else is playing. Instead, I have to go searching for files far and wide, and sometimes they aren't even the right version. It's a complete mess.

4. Any time you involve things like music, you run into all sorts of legal obstacles.

5. You need good talent. Having a few volunteers make stepfiles or new skins or whatever isn't going to cut it. You need competent coders, developers, artists, etc, who share a common vision and can actually get shit done.

A central hub sounds like a fantastic idea, moreso if combined with lurkers post about structure and charts. Otherwise, these are very good points, thank you. Maybe when you have time you could go into other areas; I'd like to hear more about what you think.

If anyone knows people or talks to people who have retired - do you know why they did?

[V-Ormix]

SM Scores ~3000 Remix~ 700 bpm jump stream confirmed aable

[lurker]

Originally Posted by Kraezymann

Has anyone else talked about this before? I'd like to read more about it if it's been mentioned, this seems like a really great idea.

i've brought this up with some dudes before
cornman thought it was a good idea, i forget what other dudes said

[ilikexd]

For me it's as simple as having acquired CTS in both hands has prevented me from playing spread. I still absolutely love the game and like tapping along to charts, but I can't come anywhere close to where I used to be. Not being able to play slowly depleted my interest in stepping too. If I didn't get injured I'd still be playing several times a week and would probably try to organize another pack. I started playing pad more because I still really enjoy the way the game works.

As has been said countless times, it seems like the playerbase just grew out of it and there isn't anything novel to bring interest to new players. It's fairly simplistic and minimal thus not very marketable when compared to more popular contemporary rhythm games.

[Ziemniax]

Osu!mania isn't as popular as you think, most people who play it are those who came from SM, or Koreans wanting to smash 7k rankings. Guys play osu, check that there is a mode called mania, play two games, find it too hard and never come back.
There is something in mashing arrows/bars that discouragres people from playing. Maybe it's skill level, I don't know.

[MinaciousGrace]

what future

[Dynam0]

Originally Posted by Kraezymann

If anyone knows people or talks to people who have retired - do you know why they did?

Most active players from 2004-2009 were in high school and had tons of free time, a lot of these people quit from a combination of things...going to college, getting a job, or just losing interest/finding another game to play.

Stepmania will stay as a fringe activity imo...even the most well-marketed rhythm games like Guitar Hero/Rock Band fizzled out since there's not a lot of things you can add to spice the concepts up and ideas are exhausted quickly.

[Sidek]

most of the people don't go to osu because they aren't acclimated to the game.
btw im totally agree whit some of the ideas from lurker.

[Kraezymann]

You've all raised good points, especially as to why the game is receding in popularity. Now if we could only figure out a solution to slow down this recession. lurkers idea was great, are there any more? Mobility of the game perhaps? Can we do something about autogen maybe, and have charts created a là Audiosurf?

Edit: nevermind, I suppose there is too much information that needs to be given to SM for it to simply autogen a song you have.

@ilikexd: that really sucks to hear man, you've made some fantastic files. Regarding playing on pad, would more pad packs be beneficial to you? Do you play with anyone else?

[Fantasticone]

Game got boring + bad music = zzzzzzz

[Jousway]

you can only enjoy a game after playing the same thing over and over for so many times, stepmania is pretty much limited compared to other games like osu, so unless someone writes it to be like osu, having fun MP, and chat, it just gets dull after playing alone 20000 times

[Reincarnate]

Once college / work rolls around, you've simply got other things to do. I don't even play Steam much anymore. The only games I can stick with are beautiful works of art (e.g. DX:HR), tricky puzzle games (e.g. Antichamber, Fez), or horror games (e.g. Amnesia) that are intentionally designed to elicit strong emotional responses. Otherwise I just get bored and quit.

I also don't like how most files are stepped nowadays. I understand that skill levels will rise over time, but everything feels and sounds the same to me now. IMO, the sweet spot was around VC/FMO level. Those files were always a lot of fun.

Another point I neglected to mention earlier: Stepmania / FFR is not very newbie-friendly. If I were a newbie coming into this community today, I'd feel overwhelmed. So many songs and files to choose from -- where do you start? How do you get set up properly? What are your options? If you have to spend so much time researching this kind of thing, it gets tedious and tiresome. This is another reason why it's important to have some kind of central hub with an organized structure. If you want to grow as a community, you need a way to draw in new members and retain them, and this can be hard to do if you're effectively throwing them in the deep end right from the beginning.

[intensez]

stepmania el sucko domingo

[Ziemniax]

I guess playing the game "alone" is an important factor. Key factor in games of this type is RIVALRY. If you have no rivals because you play a game alone, you quickly get bored because you don't have motivation to get better (than who?).

SM lacks feeling of community, both real and online. DDR was a hit because you could play with your friends, and it was fun. Osu is also popular (at least semipopular) because of good, advanced ranking system. SM has many flaws in itself that prevent it from being popular (pointed out by posters above), and one of them is lack of feeling the competition between players.

Not to mention people have better things to do than spending A LOT of time on mastering one game. In League of Legends, CS or other games most important abilities are teamwork and quick thinking, mechanical skill is also vital but not as much. Stepmania relies ONLY on mechanical skill which needs to be practiced slowly and painfully. That sucks.

Future of SM is rather dark, I'm afraid. That is so sad, because the day I got acquainted with Stepmania changed my life dramatically.

[Minion133]

Mine Infested Files Killed The Game