A new beginning for our SM community.

[Shikari]

Originally Posted by Patashu

Why would I want to go to your new community and not to ffr/stepmania dawt com/stepmaniaonline dawt eu/insert other site here?

Part of the answer is here:

Originally Posted by Staiain

but I'd love to talk to the sm-ssc dev team and ask if they would help out with a system recording scores in a online database or something using a new and improved sm client.

From my point of view, making the sm client have all the features osu! have, it would seriously expand the community really quick, new motivation for old players, making people want to try the game, and the stepmania community will once again flourish.

With this feature (and it is possible), we would attract new and old players to try once again their skills at Stepmania, share information regarding playing styles and their pros and cons, share and compare scores, organize friendly tournaments for people to see if they're improving.

Also, since it's a new full Stepmania forum, we would focus on everything, from stepping to playing skills enhancing. Remember those two ideas of "Adopt a Stepman" and Stepmania classes regarding various segments, like xmodding, Color Theory and Fun Theory, posted here on FFR prior to the big crash? Well, I'm thinking about bringing this new idea back to life, and we'd need the help from you and other stepartists like Kommisar, Gundam-Dude, who_cares973, and old author like Arch0wl, if he's stil interested in stepping singles and/or helping Stepmania community. Bringing new people to the stepfile scenario, we can produce more packs, and hit more players.

And, as Stian said, the community only has to win if everybody, from stepauthors to even build coders, work together. People always complained about the community being dead, inactive, but now we have one more chance to bring it back to life. And honestly, Patashu, since you're a great step artist, your help would be appreciated.

[ELRayford]

Originally Posted by Jousway

an fast connection is expensive like shit and always will be, ofcourse you can get a cheap fast connection but expect bad service and an unstable connection.

So we are talking like T1-T3 that datacenters offer?

[ddrxero64]

[20:36] <Jousway> if sm is going to be changed in to an mmo that would also be the end of smo because everything will be on one server stats, achevments, friends system like steam, in game chat like osu, this would be amazing as **** to have but I doubt it will ever happen

lol you're right. If everything goes as planned, SMO should be dead by the end of the summer. The SM community is free to stick around, but SMO itself will be ended.

[Wineandbread]

Originally Posted by Patashu

I am only behind this if you can figure out a draw

Why would I want to go to your new community and not to ffr/stepmania dawt com/stepmaniaonline dawt eu/insert other site here?

Pretty much this

The website needs to have incentive, for people who are not only the FFR forum dudes that we have that are reading this thread.

I saw a few posts highlighting collaboration with sm-ssc, which is a pretty decent idea. I feel like it needs to be very much revamped from the stepmania that we know interface wise: with significant online/multiplayer focus though (centralized simfile database, chat/friends ingame, basically like Stai said a lot of the things osu has) and a lot of easier maps to help out beginners/mediocre players.

The website needs to center around the game, not the community, if you want to attract new people. You can't assume that people come into our irc/prochats all the time, nor can you assume they'll always sign up on the forums to post and read threads on a daily/frequent basis.

My $0.02

[Jousway]

Originally Posted by ELRayford

So we are talking like T1-T3 stupid stuff that datacenters offer?

yes

[NekoGon]

I'd agree to this if only stepmania scores can be recorded (scores obtained online of course), and a ranking system for these scores. Pretty much osu! style, except we rank by DP percentage instead of combo. Pointless to make another community if there are barely any new features, it'd just be the same thing all over again imo. How exactly is "elitism" gonna be removed anyway? It won't go away just by permabanning people rofl.

[dAnceguy117]

I just read a good amount of this thread and the one about QED files (never heard of the dude). lots of interesting points. could someone clarify for me what exactly the biggest problems with the current SM community are, other than the fact that it's dwindling? is it the way charts are made, or the attitudes of the active players, or what? finding a way to draw new players and build the community back up sounds fantastic. identifying its current flaws seems like a huge step to me.

sorry if I'm asking an obvious question, haha. I've been out of the loop forever, but I remain intrigued. in any case, good luck

[Loutre]

A new community is going to have the same effect as every other new community. It's going to be cool for awhile, then it's going to boil down to a couple circlejerkers posting about how bright the sun is.

The only way to revive stepmania at this point is to find an assload of new and devoted members, and I highly doubt that's going to happen.

[ddrxero64]

Originally Posted by dAnceguy117

I just read a good amount of this thread and the one about QED files (never heard of the dude). lots of interesting points. could someone clarify for me what exactly the biggest problems with the current SM community are, other than the fact that it's dwindling? is it the way charts are made, or the attitudes of the active players, or what? finding a way to draw new players and build the community back up sounds fantastic. identifying its current flaws seems like a huge step to me.

sorry if I'm asking an obvious question, haha. I've been out of the loop forever, but I remain intrigued. in any case, good luck

Motivation
Commitment
Ego/Close Mindedness
Exclusiveness
Inability to Negotiate
Lack of Communication
Elitism
Abuse of Power
Misrepresentation of community by dominant group
Lack of Respect
Lack of Help and Friendliness to new members

Just some of them off the top of my head.

[Shikari]

dAnceguy117 outta nowhere, whoa. Good to see someone from the old days in here.

I'll answer with my own opinion: Stepfiles wise, file making and judging are going to a real narrow path. People nowadays care only about technique, sometimes forgetting fun factor, and we are talking about a GAME. With a new forum, and step authors "teaching" their techniques to other people (like I said before), more people would be interested in stepping, bringing to life new styles and bringing more and more people to play Stepmania.

Playing wise, the community is getting close and has a kinda low number of active players. I can make a list with like 30 players, while there must be a hundred or even two out there. With a new place to post their scores and share their skills, I think the playing community will grow even bigger and more competitive than it ever was.

That's why we need all kind of help possible.


Edit:

Originally Posted by NekoGon

I'd agree to this if only stepmania scores can be recorded (scores obtained online of course), and a ranking system for these scores. Pretty much osu! style, except we rank by DP percentage instead of combo. Pointless to make another community if there are barely any new features, it'd just be the same thing all over again imo. How exactly is "elitism" gonna be removed anyway? It won't go away just by permabanning people rofl.

Stian talked with the sm-ssc dev team and they are insterested in implementing new features to "da good ol' Stepmanier". About elitism, it's just a matter of "education" and judgement, no need to permaban anyone just because a bad comment, all we need to do is contain these bad comments and people will learn to be friendly with newcomers and everyone else. After all, no one is better than no one.

[Jousway]

Originally Posted by Shikari

dAnceguy117 outta nowhere, whoa. Good to see someone from the old days in here.

I'll answer with my own opinion: Stepfiles wise, file making and judging are going to a real narrow path. People nowadays care only about technique, sometimes forgetting fun factor, and we are talking about a GAME. With a new forum, and step authors "teaching" their techniques to other people (like I said before), more people would be interested in stepping, bringing to life new styles and bringing more and more people to play Stepmania.

Playing wise, the community is getting close and has a kinda low number of active players. I can make a list with like 30 players, while there must be a hundred or even two out there. With a new place to post their scores and share their skills, I think the playing community will grow even bigger and more competitive than it ever was.

That's why we need all kind of help possible.

yes, and because its like this people don't get attracted anymore which results in these communities dying, if an new community gets started that new player friend, they can get attracted in that, and later play the harder expressive files, so it will be good for new players and FFR

[ELRayford]

I live an area with 2 data centers within 20 miles and one 3 hours away. Once we gather enough info on what we would need to do this I can call and at least get some quotes on yearly/monthly hosting. Might be a viable option. Does anyone recall the amount of members that the old SMonlineus dawt com had?

Hard drive space? I don't think we would need more than 40-80 GB of space to run a server that records scores. IIRC FFR was on an 80 GB not too long ago xD. The more info we can gather.

Then there is server renting OR building one to plant at datacenter. I can build something system wise(depending on cost). We could go low-end then upgrade as needed. Again, this all depends on cost. LOL. Less you fgts got a money tree :P

If this isn't viable, we could go with the aforementioned ideas of using what the other guys use We just need to get some ideas going and look at the financial side of things. Don't need to make money at all,but, don't want to ask people for donations.

[dAnceguy117]

Originally Posted by ddrxero64

Motivation
Commitment
Ego/Close Mindedness
Exclusiveness
Inability to Negotiate
Lack of Communication
Elitism
Abuse of Power
Misrepresentation of community by dominant group
Lack of Respect
Lack of Help and Friendliness to new members

Just some of them off the top of my head.

yikes. here's my generic take on some of those issues.

motivation/commitment: those are effects rather than causes, imo. a thriving community will keep contributors coming back.

exclusiveness/elitism: pretty hard to make this problem disappear. every community will have its standards. diversity of notechart style, skill level, etc. should be encouraged, but it's tough to actually mandate this kind of thing.

abuse of power: sounds interesting. can I get an example? haha.

[Jousway]

Originally Posted by ELRayford

I live an area with 2 data centers within 20 miles and one 3 hours away. Once we gather enough info on what we would need to do this I can call and at least get some quotes on yearly/monthly hosting. Might be a viable option. Does anyone recall the amount of members that the old SMonlineus dawt com had?

Hard drive space? I don't think we would need more than 40-80 GB of space to run a server that records scores. IIRC FFR was on an 80 GB not too long ago xD. The more info we can gather.

Then there is server renting OR building one to plant at datacenter. I can build something system wise(depending on cost). We could go low-end then upgrade as needed. Again, this all depends on cost. LOL. Less you fgts got a money tree :P

If this isn't viable, we could go with the aforementioned ideas of using what the other guys use We just need to get some ideas going and look at the financial side of things. Don't need to make money at all,but, don't want to ask people for donations.

or do what KBO does, thats having normal hosting, but it has multiplayer which runs on someone's own pc

[Shikari]

Well, I'm out to bed, and I'm p. sure Stian went too. That's it, people, I think this forum can be brought to life with the proper effort from everyone possible, and it can be a new start for Stepmania step making and playing community.

Good night, everyone.

[ELRayford]

Originally Posted by Jousway

or do what KBO does, thats having normal hosting, but it has multiplayer which runs on someone's own pc

That sounds excellent. Are you talking about the players own pc setting up a room and hosting it? OR Having a dedicated server to host MP?

[Jousway]

Originally Posted by ELRayford

That sounds excellent. Are you talking about the players own pc setting up a room and hosting it? OR Having a dedicated server to host MP?

you could do both actually, like what they do with this fighter game called Iamp an touhou fighter, they use cowcaster to use direct IP to connect to eachother, but you have the problem with ports and stuff, so you can also both connect to an server to play together.

edit: but in the end it still needs to send the infomation, but if the goal of the server is to only to get the infomation a load of bandwidth will be free so more people can use it, like it only needs to receive infomation, so if someone makes an little program on your pc, so that when you go on sm and connect to localhost or 127.0.0.1, you connect to your self and every song you play will send infomation to the website, which will get the infomation and add it to your score, ofcourse there needs to be some kind of IP check that makes sure you are the one playing and not someone else, also an extra server for people that can connect with the same functions as the client one aside people wouldnt have to run an extra program on their pc incase they have port isues or an bad computer or something

[dAnceguy117]

Originally Posted by Shikari

People nowadays care only about technique, sometimes forgetting fun factor

ahaha the nostalgia here is overwhelming. I agree completely. you always need to remember you're playing a game, and that it needs to be enjoyable for the end user. imo, though, the best way to cater to a large community would be to have a lot of variation. some players would actually rather play the super technical stuff. it's dangerous to assume that there's any one way to generate the highest level of "fun."

Originally Posted by Shikari

With a new forum, and step authors "teaching" their techniques to other people (like I said before), more people would be interested in stepping, bringing to life new styles and bringing more and more people to play Stepmania.

definitely a cool idea. again, just gotta be careful that new creators aren't encouraged or pressured to follow in anyone's footsteps, or you're right back where you started. I think there should be less focus on sharing techniques and more on sharing resources. DDReam sounded like an amazing tool, is it still being spread around? also useful would be links to sites with free music, and maybe a site with a community that would be eager to make graphics for new simfiles... just brainstorming here. it would be cool to see less talk about HOW to step something and more talk about WHAT everyone can utilize to produce their own creative ideas.

Originally Posted by Shikari

Playing wise, the community is getting close and has a kinda low number of active players. I can make a list with like 30 players, while there must be a hundred or even two out there.

30? ouch. centralizing everything and getting a fresh start is, well, a good start. aside from setting things up to be as welcoming as possible, though, are there any plans to spread the word? there are a lot of people out there who would be very receptive to a free game with as much potential as we all know stepmania to be.

[ddrxero64]

Originally Posted by dAnceguy117

yikes. here's my generic take on some of those issues.

motivation/commitment: those are effects rather than causes, imo. a thriving community will keep contributors coming back.

exclusiveness/elitism: pretty hard to make this problem disappear. every community will have its standards. diversity of notechart style, skill level, etc. should be encouraged, but it's tough to actually mandate this kind of thing.

abuse of power: sounds interesting. can I get an example? haha.

Of course. I stated the issues, not said they could all be solved. But it's just a list I made in 20 seconds.

You wanted some examples for abuse of power. Well to me it all boils down to not putting your personal grudges into your decisions. Abuse of power can be broken down to two things. Giving advantages to someone or going soft on someone.

Giving unfair advantage (within reason): You have a friend who recently joined. You're a moderator on a site, and you see someone trolling your friend on the forum. He gets upset because he doesn't know how to behave on a forum and how to handle troll posts, so he asks you to delete it. Would you? Have you done it for someone else?

Of course, sometimes these advantages are just for fun. So practical reasoning and common sense has to come into play. If your friend owns an arcade and he offered you to play every machine for free, wouldn't you? It's his arcade, and he pays for everything. But if you decided to give that advantage to someone else without his permission, that's where it's wrong. Of course, let's say his son walked in and you gave him the opportunity, would he really be mad? You always have to make some informed decisions, not everything is black and white.

Going soft: Your friend joins a forum you moderate, and he makes a post he knows was inappropriate. You know if an admin sees it, they'll temp ban him for a week. Do you delete it and risk the admin seeing it in the mod logs? Would you have done it for someone you didn't like?

I don't abuse power, whether people want to believe it or not. I've made decisions that I hated, but was better for the community. As for going soft?

I just temp banned yaboy 5 minutes ago for starting a thread titled penis. Will it make me hate him? No. Should he have done it on a forum where 12 year old female vocaloid fans are browsing? hell no. I don't care if he's cool with me, I would've banned any other person. I know him enough to know he posted it purposefully. It wasn't an accident.

I've stepped down to certain things, I've accepted people I don't like into projects, I've denied friends into projects, etc. It does ruin some friendships, but if a friend will take offense to a decision made for better of a community and not a friend then...maybe they aren't a good friend? Hm...

These are all real life skills by the way.

[dAnceguy117]

gotcha. putting the right people in power is always tricky. sounds like you're a good candidate for a new forum