This site needs a revamp.

[ViolentElf]

Is it just me.... Ok nevermind I know it isn't just me. This site needs an upgrade, or something. I feel like this site has literally been the exact same thing for it's entirety. I stopped playing this game like five years ago, and just started playing again, and absolutely nothing has changed about it except the amount of songs. Everything looks the same, the engine is still laggy and glitchy, the interface, the profiles, the forums, everything is the same as it was forever ago!

I'm not sure what the people who own this site are up to, but do they care about making this site more popular? I have never seen thsis ite advertised, I never see anything fun and new on here. Witha little marketing and fresh dieas I feel like this site would blow up. Of the 1,800,000 players this site apprently has, I bet only 20,000 ACTUALLY still play or have in months. I love this site, but I feel like it could be SO much better.

[Zageron]

Get 400,000,000 more points and then try out the beta for the new engine.

Also, we know the site sucks. The revamp will get finished eventually.

[cedolad]

Not necessarily true, there were two different sites at one point. But I do agree, a revamp is well necessary. The navigation is very dated.

[Fluvs]

at due time...in time

[Xiz]

why fix something not broke?

EDIT: I understand what you mean, but I think the way things are right now work well.

[Zageron]

Originally Posted by Xiz

why fix something not broke?

EDIT: I understand what you mean, but I think the way things are right now work well.

because actually broke

[psychoangel691]

Originally Posted by ViolentElf

Is it just me.... Ok nevermind I know it isn't just me. This site needs an upgrade, or something. I feel like this site has literally been the exact same thing for it's entirety. I stopped playing this game like five years ago, and just started playing again, and absolutely nothing has changed about it except the amount of songs. Everything looks the same, the engine is still laggy and glitchy, the interface, the profiles, the forums, everything is the same as it was forever ago!

I'm not sure what the people who own this site are up to, but do they care about making this site more popular? I have never seen thsis ite advertised, I never see anything fun and new on here. Witha little marketing and fresh dieas I feel like this site would blow up. Of the 1,800,000 players this site apprently has, I bet only 20,000 ACTUALLY still play or have in months. I love this site, but I feel like it could be SO much better.

There are new profiles you have the choice of the new or old style. No there wont be advertisement or anything for the site because it's now non profit and just a hobby basically. Everyone that does work on the site does it for free in their spare time. If you really believe there were 1,800,000 unique people on this site at any time you really don't know the site very well lol, and there's way less than 20,000 that still play the game. Rhythm gaming isn't nearly as popular as it was anymore, at least in the sense of arrows hit with a keyboard. Now it's all about the tablets and phone apps people can play on the go and/or with their friends.

[ViolentElf]

I don't understand why somebody would let this site go to waste and make it non-profit. Putting some dumb ads up on the side of the home page or anything would bring in some money/willpower to make this better. The site already has established a regular following, what more could any small "company" ask for!? Hell, I'd be down for a 30 second ad every so often just to see what awesome things they could do with this site. Challenge modes, automated tournaments, simfile creator on site, the possibilities are there.

[Xiz]

Originally Posted by Zageron

because actually broke

>.> oopsie

Originally Posted by ViolentElf

I don't understand why somebody would let this site go to waste and make it non-profit.

I kinda like it without ads....

[psychoangel691]

Originally Posted by ViolentElf

I don't understand why somebody would let this site go to waste and make it non-profit. Putting some dumb ads up on the side of the home page or anything would bring in some money/willpower to make this better. The site already has established a regular following, what more could any small "company" ask for!? Hell, I'd be down for a 30 second ad every so often just to see what awesome things they could do with this site. Challenge modes, automated tournaments, simfile creator on site, the possibilities are there.

You obviously haven't been around long enough to have any clue of the things that have happened here. Ads on the site wouldn't generate enough revenue firstly. Second there's about ehhh 800ish people that still actually play the game. Don't believe me? Look at the number of players on song stats from the last year. I don't know what you mean by simfile creator on site considering there are tons of simfile authors here. A lot of things went down making it to where the site can no longer be for profit. If it were to go back that route we'd have to completely remove songs from the game and re-get a ton of permissions because they were under the premise of non-profit.

I also don't know where you got that there's no willpower to make it better, people are and have been working on things for the site and there have been changes. Most have been with the engine and re-vamping old/broken things, but still things are getting done. As someone mentioned before get vet status and you can play on the new engine.

[ViolentElf]

I'm not saying it would be easy. Tuning up the site would definitely bring more players back and attract new ones as well.

First of all, who actually OWNS this site? I don't even know.

[psychoangel691]

Originally Posted by ViolentElf

I'm not saying it would be easy. Tuning up the site would definitely bring more players back and attract new ones as well.

First of all, who actually OWNS this site? I don't even know.

Bringing players back has nothing to do with a site revamp. It's also not going to draw people in. What really brought people to the site was widgets which are long gone now. As I've said and will say again, things have been getting done around the site, you aren't an active forumgoer and probably don't notice a lot of the things that have been changed. You also aren't a veteran so you aren't getting to beta test things either. People are working on things. It's just slow going right now. Also, go to your profile, hover over where it says your profile and go to change profile style. Poof, new style profile.

[SK8R43]

Originally Posted by ViolentElf

I'm not saying it would be easy. Tuning up the site would definitely bring more players back and attract new ones as well.

First of all, who actually OWNS this site? I don't even know.

Synthlight.. And things are being done EVERY day, just not EVERYTHING can actually be seen right away. lol


EDIT: Ninja'd D:

[psychoangel691]

Was going to bring up Synthlight was just looking for this first http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/...=114378&page=2

Go to that thread and read the things posted by Sythlight who is the owner/creator of FFR.

[TC_Halogen]

I would like to deconstruct all of the things you have said, not only from the perspective of a person who is a prolific FFR user, but also as someone who is in touch with other rhythm gamers from popular pad games like In The Groove and Pump It Up: Pro, with separate communities (as well as having knowledge of StepMania.com players, who currently have the most active community).

First off:

Is it just me.... Ok nevermind I know it isn't just me. This site needs an upgrade, or something. I feel like this site has literally been the exact same thing for it's entirety. I stopped playing this game like five years ago, and just started playing again, and absolutely nothing has changed about it except the amount of songs. Everything looks the same, the engine is still laggy and glitchy, the interface, the profiles, the forums, everything is the same as it was forever ago!

The fact that you are saying "nothing has changed" indicates that you truly aren't making an effort to see all of the changes that have happened on the site. There are three new engines that improved playability for a number of people, Profile Chat was updated a long time ago, the game continues to receive new count, and... considering how you mentioned you haven't played in 5 years: the average-miss bug no longer exists in engines, or in replays.

We can also examine the site on a less direct level and notice how there is a very strong anti-cheat device that can easily spot players that use bots and be used as a preventative measure to blacklist players from doing anything in the future. Alternatively, we can also mention the existence of profile styles for those who are artistic and like to change the way their profile looks. Or... perhaps we could take a look at some other fun things like the gambling hall/credit jackpot, where players can use credits in an effort to gain more credits? There are also updated automated signatures that were updated; remember these:


now look at these:


In addition to that, there are a number of things going on in the forum. The Official FFR tournament might be a staple of the past, but it is a staff-run activity that generates a considerable amount of players (granted, not as many as it did in the past). There are also great user-run activities, like user tournaments, or, if you're feeling adventurous, the amazing FFR RPG. Users are also very active, despite the diminished community presence due to the down time. Statistics on song pages are more active, displaying the overall note per second/max note per second, and they even added an engine to preview charts before playing them. That certainly is a lot of change already. Now, to address a few other things you have mentioned:

Everything looks the same, the engine is still laggy and glitchy, the interface, the profiles, the forums, everything is the same as it was forever ago!

While the forums might look the same (and for good reason; why change something that really doesn't need to be? The new vBulletin forums look absolutely terrible and don't have anything special), the site certainly does not, given that you have presumably left the site for five years. You mention that the engine is laggy/glitchy, but that is not a problem with FFR - that is moreso a problem with Flash updating and getting considerably heavier. As a frequent FFR player, I would strongly recommend you see the FAQs involving the standalone flash player, as it is less memory intensive and makes the game considerably more playable. As mentioned before, profiles have also been changed.

Witha little marketing and fresh dieas I feel like this site would blow up. Of the 1,800,000 players this site apprently has, I bet only 20,000 ACTUALLY still play or have in months. I love this site, but I feel like it could be SO much better.

Unfortunately, marketing will not help FFR. FFR had a very largely dedicated community that got absolutely destroyed in the near one year downtime that it had. It didn't die off completely, but it was long enough for people to find something better to do with their time. The reason why I mention marketing won't help FFR is quite simple: rhythm gaming as a whole is slowly starting to die off, especially in the United States. Konami announced that they weren't going to release DDR X3 outside of Japan, "temporarily suspending" releases in America, but completely canceling it in Europe. This actually has a strong effect against FFR, as people will no longer have an association with this game and DDR as it slowly disappears from the US. A lot of people will tell you that they found this game with a Google search as simple as "DDR online", where FFR would show up on the top of your Google search and voila -- you would register and start keysmashing to your heart's content. I am not entirely sure if that has changed, but regardless, the number of people making that search attempt will reduce dramatically. At this point, the community is probably growing through incredibly slow word of mouth, and advertising might not help this way. Widgets were a good way to grab attention, but I imagine that there is entirely too much involved in maintaining those.

Also, if you try and get the attention of other ITG/PIU players mentioning them about FFR, many of them will scowl. It's sad, but it's the truth. I frequently visit streams of In The Groove tournaments, and anyone else who watches them as a FFR player while talking about FFR will tell you that it either gets ignored very quickly, or is simply received with "lolFFR". This isn't to say that it's impossible to get players, but it certainly is difficult with the main point of interest being against FFR. StepMania.com has a very active userbase, but the number of files outside of the average player's skill-level is a huge turnoff compared to the very pad-like files that the active members are used to.

I don't understand why somebody would let this site go to waste and make it non-profit. Putting some dumb ads up on the side of the home page or anything would bring in some money/willpower to make this better. The site already has established a regular following, what more could any small "company" ask for!? Hell, I'd be down for a 30 second ad every so often just to see what awesome things they could do with this site. Challenge modes, automated tournaments, simfile creator on site, the possibilities are there.

Keeping things non-profit is far from a bad thing, and personally, I like the fact that there are no ads. Putting up ads would not generate the revenue necessary for bettering the site with how much the community has diminished. You mention the community having a regular following, but that following has been reduced dramatically. As far as the new features you have mentioned, they aren't feasible. Challenge modes are comparable to skill tokens, where they don't affect your public ranks but typically contain harder to play files. Tournament automation has moved in the right direction, as the official FFR tournaments no longer need to be updated within the first post of a thread, and as far as I remember, Velocity was pushing to have full tournament automation in the future. Whether or not that happens is yet to be seen. An on-site simfile creator isn't feasible considering the way that FFR parses simfiles (using frame-based timing). The possibilities are there, but not all of them are realistic.

Finally, I would like to say that there was a site revamp in progress, and a few other users know this. However, the staff here has other things to do with their time -- all of the current staff does this without pay because they love the community and want to build it, not because it's a chore.

[Izzy]

I'm pretty sure this site has been redone and improved a large number of times since it was created. Compared to the basic ffr engine back when the site released the new beta engines and velo engines are incredible. The site layout and design has been changed at least 4 times.

In my opinion this site is really quite good. Now it just needs raw scoring.

[Riotpolice]

Originally Posted by Izzy

Now it just needs raw scoring.

I'm pretty sure the word "needs" is an understatement...

[ViolentElf]

@TC_Halogen Fantastic response, great information. I realize I have been "out of the loop" on here persay, I was never really a forum-goer. But, I guess I will just bide my time and wait for more things to happen. I was more so just focused on why the "FFR The Game" itself hadn't changed and that the "FFR Beta" was still just a Beta after so many years. I just want a smootheness to the game comparable to Stepmania X'(

[psychoangel691]

Originally Posted by ViolentElf

@TC_Halogen Fantastic response, great information. I realize I have been "out of the loop" on here persay, I was never really a forum-goer. But, I guess I will just bide my time and wait for more things to happen. I was more so just focused on why the "FFR The Game" itself hadn't changed and that the "FFR Beta" was still just a Beta after so many years. I just want a smootheness to the game comparable to Stepmania X'(

FFR is 30 FPS Stepmania is 60 FPS. You're not going to get the same smoothness between the two games.

[ViolentElf]

As far as FPS, no. But I would prefer it if I didn't have to restart songs until they load cleanly and not choppy.