Requesting: Stepmania history 2008 - 2015

[Arch0wl]

I would like to know your descriptions of what happened then. Trends, who was important, etc.

Please do not leave anything out or be afraid of typing a lot. Vomiting with your keyboard is preferred. There is no such thing as tl;dr. I will always r.

[choof]

WELL FIRST ODI DIED AND SO BX BECAME THING, FFR DIED BX DIED TOO SO PPL POSTED ON KBO
FFR CAME BACK UP AND THEN PPL POSTED HERE INSTEAD OF KBO AND WALA 4 YEARS LATER

asdf

[lurker]

2008 up until ffr came back up stepmania was dominated by rebirth being an asshole
kbo was an interesting experiment that got derailed by ffr coming back and the one developer disappearing

[gold stinger]

The stuff I could write about 2008-2014 would be equivalent to the stuff I could write about from 2014-2015

[Kraezymann]

This is going to be a bit convoluted as I wrote this in whatever order I remembered stuff in. I tried to rearrange it in a not-as-shitty way to make it a bit easier to understand.

Early on, solo really took off. Members like Xiao and Patashu really made an effort to get people into the mix with their beginner solo packs and regular solo releases. There were often solo charts included with files that were put into packs that were meant for 4k players that sometimes went unnoticed, at least until the solo charting/playing really came into prominence. In about the middle of your timeframe, people started to push others into making charts that were new to them, trying to get folks to leave their comfort zone. Examples like your Never stepped 6k pack and Step something that isn't techno/piano/anime and the Simfile Tourney that Kommisar held here on FFR around 2010 really made an effort to get people to improve, or new people to start. After that, the big packs from FFR came from Gundam-Dude's HUGE efforts in his Seasons packs, and the occasional community effort like FFRCP2 and 3 and dump packs, and so on. Moches also had a nifty idea to do an online classroom-like program where you could "adopt a stepman" in different classes like pitch-relevance, solo charting, various theories and practices, etc. He ended up hosting the stepcharting workshops here as well, before he retired from the game. Other new and interesting ideas have cropped up however, like theme packs (WC's rap/hip hop pack, puppets pop music pack, etc.), choof's Kirlian Selections pack, the Stepping Stones packs, and others.

Regarding charting styles themselves, there was a lot of debate over technical vs. fun files, but I think nowadays I think it's more of an era thing. Technical files seemed to be the mark of a true stepman, with insane syncing, attention to detail in the music, layers and polyrhythms (I still have no idea what those are) and so on. A lot of people disagreed with the idea that it's no fun if you can't play it. For example - Stargroup/Jimerax' Drove Through Ghosts to Get Here. Still an impossibly hard file (for me still, but I'm sure many people have difficulty with it now as well). The debate of technical/fun seems to have subsided however; most people who play at the competitive level generally play what they can pass, trying to improve on those scores and most charters decided it's not really worth bickering about and just started making the files how they wanted to. That isn't to say that there aren't any hard, technical files however - choof's Robotomy comes to mind.

With the advent of solo and the stagnation/hiatus of FFR, KBO and BlueXoon were (for me anyways) the go-to places for Stepmania needs. The sites and packs were put together by the crazy minds of people like Kommisar, Rebirth, SG, and so on. The Xoon packs were a big deal at the time, emphasizing quality over quantity (at least until Xoon 4 because Blue Version included Namchatapke and that file was pretty mediocre woops), solo packs started getting released, the Dark Chancellors and Light Chancellors pretty much owned most of the real estate in 4k packs. When FFR came back, a lot of people who reappeared with the site began to step for it too, and we have a good variety of newer charters who brought their craft from FFR to SM and vise versa, so we now see a lot more people in packs who you never would have 3 or 4 years ago. Unfortunately, the majority of users on KBO and BX and to a lesser extent the sort of renewed Red Fraction were all the same users, so they ended up just migrating to one site as it was so much easier to organize things.

On the software side of things, Stepmania 5 was released, although there wasn't as much fanfare as there should have been. With it came people like aj and shakesoda who really put a ton of time and effort into making it as awesome as it is now. Graphics (rather the idea of what current banners and backgrounds should be) were upgraded to 516x164 and 800x600, had new styles thanks to the awesome talents of people like Gundam-Dude, 0, Noon, Xiao and so on. Jousway showed up and blew people away with his noteskins. The amount of stuff you can do with it now is incredible because of it's use of LUA instead of the old fashioned .ini files, and I can't wait to see where it goes.

There are a LOT of important names that could be listed here, and for various reasons. From the charters to the developers to the organizers to the graphic artists, there are so many names that would show up and cross over into other categories that I'm hard pressed to name them all. So I won't hahaha. If you really want a list of who I think the important folks are then PM me and I'll do my best.



I'd also like to take this opportunity to apologize for a comment I made in another thread about the game dying, and the corn man disagreed. And I now believe he is right. If you read this, sorry h19.

[NeoMasterPie]

i showed up in 2009 and shat on everything you know and love from 2010 beginning with ffrcp3, continuing on into lcp3, the ffr seasonals, ffrcp4, bunch of files you don't have, also i ran mystery pack 3 and it was a clusterfuck of terrible and i still want to re-release it with better graphics and cdtitles in place (scylaax hmu if u are reading this)

as for general history kraezymann is spot on

[Wayward Vagabond]

I went from stepping OK files to stepping amazing files. I'm now semi retired

[MinaciousGrace]

stian 2008-20015

[Mollocephalus]

Do you remember SMGroove? Yeah, that community was awesome. With SMGpack 1 and 2 a lot of people had the first chance of having a file in a major stepmania pack, people such as Dj_Ossa, Kn33groW, even myself! The site was owned by a man called Web_God, who apparently was Jesushaxyou's father. The guy was absent for a lot of time, apparently because of some severe illness. In the meanwhile, the site grew and got traffic. I remember one user especially, Powerdrift, who was crucial in the site development. When Web_God came back, there was a clash between the two and ultimately Powerdrift was removed from the admins and banned (???) in one giant shitstorm. Smgroove community was possibly the best stepmania community ever, and surely the one i have most enjoyed being part of.

[lurker]

smg1 was people pretending they were good at stepping files but no one realized the con until smg2 was released and everyone shat on it
the ballad of web_lord is one of the great stpemaina tragedies up there with the password "moose" and omg... dropped table...
also i totally forgot about powerdrift lmao that dude was great

[Leo137]

gundam dude/komissar made ffr seasonal packs

long silence

waffles appeared out the nowhere and made yolomania

choofers cried

blip blup

[Sidek]

2010-2011 smoc people came to ffr lol

[blindreper1179]

The 6 perfects on quasar 1.3 is the best thing to have ever happen to stepmania.

[lurker]

2013 was a really good year with ffrcp4 and odi3 happening

[ca25nada]

Originally Posted by Sidek

2010-2011 smoc people came to ffr lol

we came into existence at around 2007 o/..-


Also the first "SMOC pack" was mostly comprised of cherry step/early OD mix files with a few originals sprinkled in.
(and pretty much no one has the pack now apparently)

[Kraezymann]

Also if you are so inclined, the kbo forums are still up and running, and Phynx is back. So you're bound to find lots of history there

[0]

korea wins


the end