The Future of Stepmania

[Arkuski]

Originally Posted by Izzy

Putting my bias aside, I believe stepmania online is an important aspect for attracting new people. Every popular game today has an online system.

Osu!'s online ranking system I think would do wonders. FFR has a really good system too that encourages replay. If there were some standard ranked files that we could all agree upon... we could include the legendary files like Eggman's Quasar and the best of the plethora of files we have now.

[Izzy]

Originally Posted by Arkuski

Osu!'s online ranking system I think would do wonders. FFR has a really good system too that encourages replay. If there were some standard ranked files that we could all agree upon... we could include the legendary files like Eggman's Quasar and the best of the plethora of files we have now.

It's in development. There are a few threads about developing such a system on smo forums.

[swordmasterz]

FFR's online system is okay, but really archaic imo. Doesn't help that multiplayer still sucks dicks after all these years. Could really use improvement.

I predict that osu! will be the central PC rhythm gaming hub in due time huEHUhEuhUE

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I don't have much to add except to reemphasize everything the other guys are saying.

I think the forefront of our goals is to find a central authority though. It will be much easier to work from there after that.

[kommisar]

what stepmania needs is a gui like osu. built-in community access and easy access to downloading new songs

[Hakulyte]

Originally Posted by kommisar

what stepmania needs is a gui like osu. built-in community access and easy access to downloading new songs

Better have Xoon join forces with smo.net and get somewhere together for a gui..

As for the the songs.. that's a good start.
http://www.stepmaniaonline.net/index.php?page=downloads

If every or almost every sub-Stepmania/Keyboard communities joined with the idea of making something together that would fit the description of OP, things could get interesting.

[qqwref]

I like some of the ideas (new official site the community can get behind, official high-quality USB keypad) and dislike others (more keys = better).

I think what's really important here is the amount of work this would take. If people have the motivation to do it that's FUCCEN AWESOME but I'd have to see it to believe it. I am already working on a project to categorize all the released packs; if we do actually do a big SM community revival, I'm sure that info will come in handy. Imagine an actual WR database where people could submit their best scores with proof, or an SMO-like server where you would select a pack+chart and the server could actually send an FTP download link to anyone who doesn't have that particular file.


Just one more idea before I go. The exact judge timings need to be official, very clear, and enforced by the game. Suppose we use the old SM3.9 j4 as our base standard. We will call that timing scheme "Accuracy 0". Then we could do something like a log scale where every 10 points halves the timing window. "Accuracy +10" would be the old j7 and "Accuracy -10" would be the old j1. (Of course you could use any integers, so you could play on Accuracy +7 or something if you can't quite handle +10.) Instead of the timing windows being hidden in an .ini file, the meanings of these numbers would be fixed and hardcoded into the game, and the accuracy would be displayed clearly on the score screen.

I don't think we need to bother with the same kind of effort for life difficulty, though - FailOff and one standard life difficulty will work. Nobody cares about passes on higher life difficulty (focus on getting a good score if passing the song is so easy) or lower life difficulty (the song is too hard for you, don't worry about passing it).

[Izzy]

Originally Posted by qqwref

Just one more idea before I go. The exact judge timings need to be official, very clear, and enforced by the game. Suppose we use the old SM3.9 j4 as our base standard. We will call that timing scheme "Accuracy 0". Then we could do something like a log scale where every 10 points halves the timing window. "Accuracy +10" would be the old j7 and "Accuracy -10" would be the old j1. (Of course you could use any integers, so you could play on Accuracy +7 or something if you can't quite handle +10.) Instead of the timing windows being hidden in an .ini file, the meanings of these numbers would be fixed and hardcoded into the game, and the accuracy would be displayed clearly on the score screen.

SMO already has a server side timing window that translates your score to J4 regardless of your client settings.

[Arch0wl]

A lot of really great ideas being thrown around here. I just want to say two things:

1. I can't stress enough the importance of startup capital. A complete reworking of Stepmania is probably not possible on a volunteer basis. The only way this would be a viable project is if you had someone funding your ability to work full-time. With a game like Stepmania, it would not be enough to just release it under some game studio. You'd need a Riot Games-like staff environment dedicated to promoting the game and organizing tournaments. Otherwise, it would be a massive uphill climb.

2. Also, for the sake of mentioning this: Stepmania would have to drop the happy/bouncy/kawaii/club stuff. Even DJ MAX, which is supposed to be one of the darker, more serious themes, looks too much like what Jennifer Lopez would commission for a web UI. This is the poster for some Pump It Up game and it looks like the advertisement for perfume sold to little girls or perfume sold to slightly older girls. The SM community's cross demographics are people who would otherwise be playing DotA, which is one of the largest video game sausagefests to ever exist.

If any of you are crazy enough to go through with it, DO NOT make Stepmania's dominant aesthetic something with glowing purple/pink or rounded shapes unless you're going for some weird Portal-style thing. The kind of person who would play SM is now the kind of person who uploads videos of themselves playing Black Ops II with Skrillex or Celldweller in the background. You need to acknowledge that your community will be testosterone central and work with that.

Basically what I'm saying is this: unless your game can exist alongside this Droid DNA commercial, this live show or everything about this video, the aesthetic is probably off in some way.

So something like SOMS or perhaps a darker version of Optical would be ideal for that demographic.

[NeoMasterPie]

there could also be downloadable (unlockable?) themes and noteskins

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by NeoMasterPie

there could also be downloadable (unlockable?) themes and noteskins

Be careful with that.

I recognize the motivation -- to make everyone happy -- but a game is, like any other product, a brand. Any extra theme you add on will be a theme people make videos of themselves playing, which is an indirect advertisement for your game. But if it's a silly theme, then your game looks silly, even if that's not the "main" theme. Viewers won't know otherwise.

To put it another way: that's like making custom business cards with different looks depending on the customer you meet. Which is probably harmful unless you're so ubiquitous that you can get away with it, because you're aiming for brand consistency.

[Crazyjayde]

I always thought that rhythm games could be a great central hub to promote emerging musical scenes, and I always believed it would be awesome for the site to be some sort of hybrid between a musical database and a rhythm game, where you could easily access artist information and support their work. It would also facilitate artist permissions since we would be able to increase their exposure (and much more).
We've got tons of good chiptune artists revolving around the FFR scene, it could be very profitable.

[dAnceguy117]

Originally Posted by kommisar

I think they sort of go hand in hand. If we want to grow a community we have to make the game more appealing

Good point. Two threads could help avoid confusion over what we're talking about, though. Here's an example of what I meant:

Originally Posted by Arch0wl

Be careful with that.

I recognize the motivation -- to make everyone happy -- but a game is, like any other product, a brand. Any extra theme you add on will be a theme people make videos of themselves playing, which is an indirect advertisement for your game. But if it's a silly theme, then your game looks silly, even if that's not the "main" theme. Viewers won't know otherwise.

Some of the posts here deal with bringing StepMania in its current form - a freeware program which can be customized in every aspect - to a wider audience. The original post in the thread, and some of the responses, entertain the idea of creating a similar game from the ground up. The creators of this "new" game would probably intend for the number of players to hit exponential growth. That would be an entirely different animal, I think.

[qqwref]

Originally Posted by Izzy

SMO already has a server side timing window that translates your score to J4 regardless of your client settings.

That's a good anti-cheating device but people's home versions should have something like that built-in, and which also allows people to play on a different timing if they want. I'm not thinking in terms of multiplayer, but in terms of people posting random screenshots of scores they got.

I suppose there's also the possibility of having the game be totally online - whenever you get a score it submits it to the central server and the server validates the score, adds it to the rankings, and so on. I don't know if people would want to have that in SM, but the overhead is certainly not unreasonable and it would allow for some more modern features (replays, anyone?) if the server has all the timing data for the game played.

[Izzy]

I was thinking about replays after some of those things got implemented on the server and realized it is definitely possible to record. However the current stepmania clients are the limiting factor of being able to play that kind of stuff back.

I suppose you could have the replay shown on the website, but then we would need to have the songs and stepfiles organized that way.

If an entirely new client was going to be made then it would be crucial to make it with some kind of launcher that checks for the current versions and requires you to be on the current version in order to play online. Otherwise standardizing protocols would be impossible and there would be no progress. Kind of like smo currently.

[Wayward Vagabond]

just let me smash some keys to some jpop kpop jcore and the berzerker and i'll be happy

[Razor]

lmao ^

[Dynam0]

Step 1 as arch said is we need starting capital. Indiegogo campaign anyone?

Next, we need people on this full-time. I'm not sure how many current simfile artists would drop everything they are doing to start charting standardized files for the new keyboard stepmania we are creating. These people may just be under a contract depending on supply and demand for simfiles, I have no idea how that would work actually.

Arch0wl also brought up a really crucial fact and that is branding/target audience. This I think we may be able to handle but do we have any experienced people in advertising/marketing/retail/etc.?

This conversation can go on-and-on which really speaks volumes: we've got a damned knowledgeable community when it comes to rhythm gaming. The major obstacle is the marriage between what our community can already do and what we must do in terms of the commercial/industry side of things.

I've got no idea what I might be useful for in the process since I'm among the 99% of casual players who just post scores (for the most part) but if it comes down to simply needing an extra perspective/helping hand from northern Ontario then you've got me in this for sure.

[Wayward Vagabond]

i'll step files again sure. as far as advertising/marketing/retail gdude probably knows something about it


also darkshark

[qqwref]

I don't think we need to be dumping hundreds of new files into the community just yet. There are already plenty of good ones out there, right? No need to throw all that out - we can probably get most of the files we need by just having a committee to decide which of the existing charts are worth showing to new people. Having a new engine/site where people can play existing files of all difficulties is the main thing IMO.

If anyone DOES get starting capital, though, it would be really cool to have a couple of full-time coders and graphical artists on staff working on getting everything set up and nice. I'm sure we can find some quality people in the community who could use the extra money.

[Wayward Vagabond]

definitely. all old files that would be used to show to new people should get fully charted if they aren't already