The Future of Stepmania

[Crazyjayde]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

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]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

I'm seeing two different topics being discussed here.

1) conceptual groundwork for a commercially viable, StepMania-like game
2) ways in which we can grow the existing communities

There should be separate threads for these topics.

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:

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.

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]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

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]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

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]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

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

[Razor]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

lmao ^

[Dynam0]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

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]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

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


also darkshark

[qqwref]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

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]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

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

[Reincarnate]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

I don't know shit about this but what's the copyright/legal status/implications with respect to using the music?

[Izzy]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

I don't know shit about this but what's the copyright/legal status/implications with respect to using the music?

Bad assuming the songs came and were endorsed by the game client itself. Considering the format that the songs need to be in to add them to the game it would basically be distributing them for free. I feel like it would be a lot harder to get popular artists permission than for ffr.

[kommisar]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

unfortunately, once osumania is out of beta, stepmania will basically become obsolete.

[qqwref]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

I don't know shit about this but what's the copyright/legal status/implications with respect to using the music?

Same as FFR/TS, we would want to be asking people for permission and using only files that we have permission for.

[Arch0wl]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

unfortunately, once osumania is out of beta, stepmania will basically become obsolete.

does osumania have an option to upward scroll like Stepmania with orbular-like receptors that are pegged to rhythm? that's a dealbreaker for me