The continuation of Stepmania as a competitive whole.

[midare]

Wow, a serious thread.
(MrRubix's training video is also very serious)

I was leafing through the brag board today, paying particular attention to the SM scores thread, when I started to wonder: what're the chances that Stepmania (as a competitive community game) actually survives another year?

I mean, reading through the first few posts of the SM scores thread and through posts on other various boards, (see: ODI) it seems to me that, on the whole, the Stepmania community is on the decline. There just don't seem to be as many people playing the game. A majority of very good players just don't seem to, well... play anymore.

Actually, what really caught my attention was the fact that I'm playing a lot of the same simfiles that people were playing in posts dating as far back as 2004. That means that they're very well made files; however, when was the last time that Zaghurim or Blurk sat down and stepped a new file? Thank God that the SMG pack 2 was recently released, but to quote Ossa: "This will probably be the last pack that's professionally produced for a long time."

As I write this, the thought that occurs to me is: "Okay, so if they're not stepping files, why don't you go and step files for yourself or for others?"

I could certainly try. But for whom would I produce?

There doesn't seem to be a matching influx of players to match the flow of those retiring (note: for the purposes of this thread, I'm ignoring FFR, and focusing entirely on SM). samt0rx and exouds gave up SM for school (which I applaud), ieat and dynam0 seem to be missing.

All in all, that's a pretty significant loss. The only other people posting scores, at least on FFR - and I'm unsure as to where else to look - other than those that I would consider "established" are Ravia, Bzt, MrRubix, and myself. I can't believe that I just grouped myself with them, but, to be honest, it's true.

Anyway, I guess my point would come to this:

How much longer do you (you, the reader, and I placed this thread in the BB to hopefully attract a certain audience) think that this will go on for? I mean, Stepmania as a competitive whole.

I would be lying if I said that I played Stepmania ENTIRELY "to have fun". I love competition. That being said, however, I also cannot deny that it feels ****ing awesome to clear a ridiculous song like vertex GAMMA or earthquake. However, given a long enough timeline, I'm eventually going to "peak" and no longer be able to improve. That's where the apparently declining competition and stemmed influx of simfiles particularly concerns me.

Honestly, if I didn't have people like thaor posting their scores on youtube, smitty and ledwix and loot on the bb, I'm not sure how much I would care if I could eventually FC Disregard or 8bit oni or pass MIHC. I'm not entirely sure that it would be worth the effort. I absolutely HATE competing against myself.

So... how much longer will YOU Stepmania for?

smile!
midare

ps. i just wrote a stepmania essay. english much?

pps. so no one feels left out: massflavour, necros, revolutionomega, dazzled, yay.