So let's talk about QED stepfiles. (Let's talk about StepMania actually.)

Re: So let's talk about QED stepfiles. (Let's talk about StepMania actually.)

Oh trust me, that first slow down is very weird. The second one keeps the beat, but the first one shifts the offset quite a bit. I can send you the song if you want later (going to sleep soon, i know) and you can find it yourself. The BPM is 140.625 I believe, I'll leave it up to you to find an offset. This is if you want to check it out, maybe it's just me. But there is a significant delay.

The words you typed couldn't have been any truer. At this point, it's whether these groups are willing to agree to disagree. It's ok to have an opinion, but it's not okay to put someone down because of it. QED puts our files down, we put his down, vicious cycle, etc. I think if people could learn to ignore files they don't like then the community could be happier.

/optimism

This will never happen. As long as trolls exist, these negative posts will remain. It's up to the loudest group, whether or not they make up most of the community, to determine the fate of the rest. And I use the word "loudest" loosely. Outspoken users, people who have somehow gained some sort of forum respect, etc. Trolls will live on, but if they make up the community then the community won't.

When the community is balanced with open minded members and close minded pessimists, there might be a chance to grow. Not until then.

Re: So let's talk about QED stepfiles. (Let's talk about StepMania actually.)

Oh I agree, though I'm not sure it was what I was advocating in my post (and you may not be saying I was either). Of course it's not right to put down a person, as in "you'd have to be stupid to make a stepfile like this". It's also best if you don't call the stepfile itself stupid either. However, I find myself doing it. I'll admit it. I played something today (whose name I can't remember, and maybe that's for the better) that I raged about for a good 30 seconds in profile chat. I totally had my reasons for disliking it, but I wasn't very tactful about it. At the same time, I believe that people's opinions should be heard because people feel a need to voice their opinions. I know that if I shared a file of mine in this thread and 100 people played it, not all 100 would like it. If 70 of them disliked it and said "It SUCKED because blah blah blah," I wouldn't be particularly hurt because I know it's only other people's opinions and I know that the most valuable opinion about my work is mine. At the same time people could learn to be more gentle, people could also learn to be tougher.

Obviously, tact can improve the quality of any community; I'm not too familiar with Stepmania's crowd, but I've found that people in general can be very brutally honest, to the point where it becomes less constructive and more destructive, and that people in general could benefit from some tact. However, like you said, it's all optimism and wishful thinking.

Re: So let's talk about QED stepfiles. (Let's talk about StepMania actually.)

I'm coming back to this thread as soon as I get a chance to smoke again.

Re: So let's talk about QED stepfiles. (Let's talk about StepMania actually.)

what the **** are you people doing

Re: So let's talk about QED stepfiles. (Let's talk about StepMania actually.)

ddrxero I have taken an look at the way people step files for like an year and an half, I got loads of free time and I asked people about their opinion about these files, what I found really interesting is that most of these people said that the new OD files were worse than the old ones, thats strange isn't it, and I asked both sides, people that stepped files and people that only played, if you think I sprout a lot of bullshit then believe what you want, I just want to show people the knowlage I obtained the last year and an half by asking people their opinion about files and doing some tests, also if you wonder I didn't include OD1 because it was like an starter pack and even OD selfs say's its an shit pack, OD5 on the other hand is better than QED by far, the reason I said QED is better than the OLD od 2 3 and 4 is because I look at the technical side of the files in both packs, that means these old OD packs and QED packs, I even wonder if you played QED files because you can see that they are better that these old files, because for starters these OD files are old and inaccurate, even OD self prenounses these files bad and old, if you hang around the OD irc and forum more you could see their opinion's about their own files.

edit: you know what, I just explained already everything I found out in these last year and an half and if you people don't care have fun, according to my calculations the stepmania side in FFR will die in 2 to 4 years, oh well I'm an noteskin maker so it doesn't bother me, have fun with dying while not knowing why stepmania is dying.

Re: So let's talk about QED stepfiles. (Let's talk about StepMania actually.)

I still play QED's stuff to this day. And after seeing this post about it, I didn't really know what to expect in the read lol. Mostly because I didnt pay attention to the community of SM, I just liked to play the game. And it's been that way since 2005, when I first gave interest to SM. So really, QED's song packs were just other song packs to have, and I saw them as very cool and moe songs To give you an example of how oblivious I am to the SM community, I didnt find out about the 4.0 beta until.... about 3 months ago. Yeah, no one else plays this game around me lmao. But its all good, I love SM and I will play it to death, because I do that to all games that I share an interest to.

Re: So let's talk about QED stepfiles. (Let's talk about StepMania actually.)

poisoning the well. you should look it up

Re: So let's talk about QED stepfiles. (Let's talk about StepMania actually.)

hey I got an reply from QED asking about his side of the story about what happened on ffr, it was just like I expected

Re: So let's talk about QED stepfiles. (Let's talk about StepMania actually.)

really that's nice don't post it

Re: So let's talk about QED stepfiles. (Let's talk about StepMania actually.)

Tell him to message me because i'd like to hear it.

Re: So let's talk about QED stepfiles. (Let's talk about StepMania actually.)

just dropping in here to say that this is a really interesting discussion, and I'm enjoying reading everybody's viewpoints on this.

by the way, the biggest problem I see is what Patashu said: Stepmania has lacked a clear central hub where everybody can communicate from the beginning, and so people branched off into all of these subsets of people who know nothing but their own style. personally, I would love to start a multi-site project where each major Stepmania community would submit ten files to a universal pack; this would encourage cooperation and discussion between stepartists and players alike. it's a naive idea and needs some more revising before anybody would actually put it into practice, but it's a start.

Re: So let's talk about QED stepfiles. (Let's talk about StepMania actually.)

I have to say, even though I didn't expect it to be, that was sorta interesting to read.


Also:
Interesting stuff you're telling there, sir. Really.

- Neviutz

Re: So let's talk about QED stepfiles. (Let's talk about StepMania actually.)


It really is, and I will stand by my decision. I don't know who in the world needs an assistant to create simfiles. Please do tell me, what is it that you "prepare" for him that he's unable to do himself? Simfile creating isn't a career, and it isn't one person teaches, especially when they are very misled in their information. I don't even mean the simfiles themselves, setting certain options in SM, referring people to other communities, etc. I'm glad you were able to read this though, I really hope it's given some insight.

If you're going to support someone, support them. But if you're going to do their job for them, you might as well make them look incapable of doing it themselves.

Wonder why he PM'd you and not anyone else...

Also Jousway, a year and a half is nice. Some people have been here 4-5 years and they don't act half as arrogant as you. Please, wiki arrogance. And while you're at it, wiki prediction. It's a little different than guarantee or fact, but I'm sure you'll understand it after reading articles from a source that is edited everyday by common users like us.

Already being done. It's actually my last project to be honest. Multi site project, yes. Based on simfiles, no. It's a little bigger than that. It's actually not guaranteed to succeed at all. But I hope it does. It would be nice to bring something new to Stepmania, something's that's never been done in SMO history. We'll see how it plays out though, it could probably just fail.

Re: So let's talk about QED stepfiles. (Let's talk about StepMania actually.)

this is how i feel about QED at this point in time

1) his style of stepping isn't wrong
2) when he pushes his style of stepping as the only right way of stepping, that's wrong
3) doesn't take criticism, that's wrong but its his choice
4) his style of stepping would (maybe) be more acceptable if it was judged under the notion that he was stepping 'beginner anime scoring stepfiles', or anime simfiles that were made for scoring and not necessarily to be musically accurate or even fun (this however brings up the issue of difficulty of a normal scoring simfile (a ballad for cetaka) when his files aren't difficult in comparison)
5) his attitude, but again that's just him

Re: So let's talk about QED stepfiles. (Let's talk about StepMania actually.)

I have a question about this, which I hope anyone will answer, not just you, Lain: what good does criticism really do? It's to my understanding that criticism is basically one person sharing his opinion with another, right? If you took someone's criticism that your file was... say, too easy, too hard, not technical enough, or not fun enough, and you changed it accordingly, you would then be altering it so that a set of people who disliked it now liked it, but in the process, a set of people who liked it will now dislike it... right?

The thing about criticism in art is that it only really helps people achieve a standard set by whoever is critiquing it, and whoever shares that opinion. If somebody is happy with the way her file turned out, then that person doesn't really need to change anything if they don't see it fit to, because doing so only compromises her own style and expression. Sure, we can throw around the cliché that it helps a person "grow", but all it really does is help a person please a bigger audience. If you want to please the most amount of people, then you should take people's criticism, but if you want to have fun and express yourself, then I argue that you really don't need to listen to the opinion of anyone else, because it's just that: they're opinion. It's no greater than yours.

Imagine if Van Gogh, Rembrandt, or Picasso listened to all the people that told them their art could have done _____ differently. It would have only made their art "better" by a different set of people's standards; you may not have appreciated them as much. Or, if you're not into paintings so much: imagine any music artist changing their style based on what's popular. Oh, wait, music artists do that all the time, don't they - and isn't it disappointing when they do? Don't you feel that the artist had something unique that you really liked before? Then you are in that group (that is most likely the minority) that can appreciate their different sound. Similarly, what if all the stepfiles adhered to just one rule, and they were all stepped the same? Then, we might as well ask only one person to step them. Stepfiles are great because they come out differently depending on who is creating them.

I mean sure, we have standards now, and those include all the basics like "get the BPM right, sync the arrows with the music and don't make everything a quad", and I'd hope that most people would at least adhere to those, but even those are really only standards made up by people about how an open-ended game "should be played". To be honest with you, I've played the Big Blue in this game over 100 times now, and I don't find it fun despite the fact that it's "technically sound". On that same note, I found Hellbeat oddly enjoyable, and if you asked me which of the two I'd rather play, I'd pick Hellbeat any day. By most people's standards (even the ones I listed there), Hellbeat is garbage, but I found it more fun than some "sound" levels.

Yes, if you put down random arrows that have no relation to any sound played in the song whatsoever, you may consider getting some advice on the very basics, because there are basics. But at a certain point - especially for someone who has such a following for their stepfiles, like QED - I'm really just wondering what criticism improves, and more importantly, for whom.