The Future of Stepmania

[ToastyCubes]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

I must say, it kind of stinks to join this community as it takes its last dying breaths...I started playing Stepmania in the summer of 2012, and, while I still have thousands of files in my collection (and counting!) I noticed one thing that I don't like.

Everything begins to feel the same.

It's a compliment to higher-quality files and a bash to the lesser files, but that's not my point. My point is that everything involved in a rhythm game needs one thing and one thing only for its audience to be varied and stick with it.

A gimmick.

Rhythm Heaven is one of my favorite rhythm games because even though it gives you simple, and even arbitrary actions to do during each minigame, but hides them in a way through the music and visuals that every game feels different.

Now, going back to Stepmania, we have all probably heard of WinDEU's files, right? They tricked you, fooled with the notes, and still managed to be good files overall. Problem is, with a completely community-driven game like Stepmania or Osu!, you need to have every song be like that, in that it's file that one will replay over and over again containing an idea or format that is relatively unique to just that song. I'm not saying the rhythms and challenge from CKMP, Xoon, etc. aren't fun, it's just that, again, WE ARE TRYING TO BROADEN THIS GAME'S SPAN.

So, in short, I can't really say where I see us going with this game, but I know it will take a lot to bring a dead series back to life when we have to completely reinvent its original concepts. Teehee, ranting is fun.

I could be completely wrong with what I am saying, but, then again, I could be speaking nothing but the truth. Not really sure.

[Jonlovesddr]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

Once my sm starts working again I'll make charts

[Reincarnate]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

Call me a pessimist but we've all had this same discussion so many times in recent years, and ultimately nothing comes from it.

I think one of the big problems is that everyone has a different idea when it comes to what they'd like to see out of a reborn Stepmania rhythm gaming community, and so when people get together, it's mostly just idle brainstorming until people have lives to get back to -- then it all fizzles away. Stepmania has become so fractured in its scope that it lacks a focus, and so it's not obvious as to what direction it should be going. Centralized, yes -- but in what capacity? If we're just talking about a Stepmania Online type of deal, I don't think that would take off, to be honest. At this point in time I think it's pretty clear that you need to offer something new.

I might just be speaking for myself, here: I suspect that the reason so many people want to revive the old core model is because it had a lot of potential in earlier years and we never quite got what we wanted from it. Rhythm gaming has always had this unfortunate curse of getting deathcycled just as it starts to explode. DDR gets popular, becomes wildly epic with the DDRMAX series and Extreme, but then fucks up with Supernova and loses steam. DDRManiaX goes down and never gets back up. Then ITG gains serious ground, but Roxor gets hit with legal bullshit and is put out of commission. FFR maintains a strong hold on its community, but then poor financial decisions completely tank the site and any future prospects of growth.

It's almost like rhythm gaming kept dying before it had a chance to really become something great, and the only way things survived was by splintering off and trying to start something elsewhere. But all we really get are these sort of short-term rehashes that don't go anywhere. We got Rock Band and Guitar Hero, sure, but it was just a repackaging of the same mechanics in the end and people got sick of the homogeneity. Alas, one man's gimmick is another man's core gameplay feature. Same with Sequence. Interesting concept, but ultimately unpolished and monotonous (IMO).

So I think at some point people need to have an honest discussion about what exactly brought them to this genre in the first place. What is it you want out of the game that you never quite got?

[ToastyCubes]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

I think one of the big problems is that everyone has a different idea when it comes to what they'd like to see out of a reborn Stepmania rhythm gaming community, and so when people get together, it's mostly just idle brainstorming until people have lives to get back to -- then it all fizzles away.

Clearly people's homework, financial difficulties, and sex lives are more important than that AAAA on Vertex^3. Pssh.

[i love you]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

Call me a pessimist but we've all had this same discussion so many times in recent years, and ultimately nothing comes from it.

I think one of the big problems is that everyone has a different idea when it comes to what they'd like to see out of a reborn Stepmania rhythm gaming community, and so when people get together, it's mostly just idle brainstorming until people have lives to get back to -- then it all fizzles away. Stepmania has become so fractured in its scope that it lacks a focus, and so it's not obvious as to what direction it should be going. Centralized, yes -- but in what capacity? If we're just talking about a Stepmania Online type of deal, I don't think that would take off, to be honest. At this point in time I think it's pretty clear that you need to offer something new.

I might just be speaking for myself, here: I suspect that the reason so many people want to revive the old core model is because it had a lot of potential in earlier years and we never quite got what we wanted from it. Rhythm gaming has always had this unfortunate curse of getting deathcycled just as it starts to explode. DDR gets popular, becomes wildly epic with the DDRMAX series and Extreme, but then fucks up with Supernova and loses steam. DDRManiaX goes down and never gets back up. Then ITG gains serious ground, but Roxor gets hit with legal bullshit and is put out of commission. FFR maintains a strong hold on its community, but then poor financial decisions completely tank the site and any future prospects of growth.

It's almost like rhythm gaming kept dying before it had a chance to really become something great, and the only way things survived was by splintering off and trying to start something elsewhere. But all we really get are these sort of short-term rehashes that don't go anywhere. We got Rock Band and Guitar Hero, sure, but it was just a repackaging of the same mechanics in the end and people got sick of the homogeneity. Alas, one man's gimmick is another man's core gameplay feature. Same with Sequence. Interesting concept, but ultimately unpolished and monotonous (IMO).

So I think at some point people need to have an honest discussion about what exactly brought them to this genre in the first place. What is it you want out of the game that you never quite got?

This, I agree with. These kinds of threads have been made several times and nothing was done differently except certain people attempting to make packs with multiple charts and certain people more willing to accept new step artists hoping that these things will get more people to join the SM community.

Other then that, it's the same thing over and over again. I hate to say it but the SM community is dying. I honestly do not think nothing major will be done about it. It will eventually die off like the rest.

EDIT: Man, I do not remember the last time I actually typed something serious on a FFR thread.

[Arch0wl]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

How about this: if I ever have $100k of disposable income and am safely supported by other investments, I'll dump it into the creation of Arch0wlmania instead of a Nissan GT-R.

[Wayward Vagabond]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

fuck that get the gt-r

[Reincarnate]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

$100k disposable can most definitely be spent in far better ways

[Arch0wl]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

at least with a gt-r you're at last guaranteed to go faster than WookE at something

[Reincarnate]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

With $100k you could do .2 chicks at the same time

[Arch0wl]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

Lmfao

[NeoMasterPie]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

How Does A Real Pimp Have Sex???????????????????

doing 2 chicks at a time while quadding disregard

[dAnceguy117]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

yea get the GT-R for sure.

Call me a pessimist but we've all had this same discussion so many times in recent years, and ultimately nothing comes from it.

True. No harm in trying again, right?

So I think at some point people need to have an honest discussion about what exactly brought them to this genre in the first place. What is it you want out of the game that you never quite got?

Honestly... nothing comes to mind for me. I always wanted an easy way to sync files for songs with non-static tempos. DDReam Studio already does that, from what I understand.

[qqwref]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

So I think at some point people need to have an honest discussion about what exactly brought them to this genre in the first place. What is it you want out of the game that you never quite got?

What I wanted: to have fun, to play a rhythm game to some good music, to get better at a skill, to make a few friends. That's pretty much what I got. The only things that are making me want to play less are the lack of new charts I enjoy (well, more so in FFR than in SM and my custom offline) and the community (too ego-driven and unfriendly).

The idea behind the game is simple and solid. With variations in theme and number of keys, the same concept has done well many times. I hate to say this but keeping the game alive isn't about the oldest players and never has been - it's true, people DO grow up and end up with lives, and people DO get bored, and the vast majority won't stay longer than a few years. Keeping the game alive is about bringing in new people, whether it's by keeping the game fresh or by simply being more accepting. Maybe we just need to actually advertise (remember that FFR demo Tass made for Kongregate?).

[Arch0wl]

Re: The Future of Stepmania

For me, it's like an art project. Huge NPS files breach the upper limit of how much musical information the human brain can process at once. Very few musical activities have that kind of information density. It's interesting to me for the same reason that bench press world records are.