How often does anyone play this game anymore?

[GammaBlaster]

lost interest, prioritising real-life, chipmusic and speedrunning instead

ITG scene is now kinda dormant in this small part of Australia, and my ITG mood got killed 2 years ago because of a fuck-up I did that I'd rather not go into further detail (I've kinda gotten over it but it has still discouraged me to get back into ITG)

occasionally I still step because it's good rhythmic dictation practice, or if I need to decipher one's composition techniques (see ._Pulse and Powerflux)

edit: it's also astonishing to see most of you guys in your mid-20s already since I last joined in 2009 l0l

[SKG_Scintill]

I play new packs, but most files only once
Sometimes I play during breaks in college
Also I have to playtest my own files
So eh
Once a week

[MarioNintendo]

I'm playing whichever game I am stepping for. This means I am still heavily invested in Stepmania (hell, last summer I had the biggest skillboost of my life). I have stepped 13-14 songs, and counting, for the upcoming vgmp4. I feel like I'm one of the few people still excited about what this game has to offer. However, I'm playing FFR less and less, due to the mess that the batch queue has become. There are a few songs I really want to step before calling it quits. We'll see what happens. I suspect I won't be able to ever stop playing this game somehow.

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by lurker

the rhythm gaming community as a whole doesn't approve of CTF

How do you mean?

[Deadlyx39]

I think a lot of it also has to do with the fact that there's other games that are just more desirable to play right now, such as Osu! Plus it's not like there's that many people even playing rhythm games anymore (at least compared to 2006-2009).

[Wafles]

I probably stopped playing and making new files around 3 or 4 months ago now. Not sure if I'll be back or not, but at the moment I just don't have much drive to improve at 4k anymore. I've been playing about an hour/day of osu standard, but thats about it.

IMO - the reason this game doesn't stand a chance in this day and age is a total lack of online/community features built into the client. At this point its probably too late to start when osu already did it right. Forums don't do it anymore.

[Kyzentun]

I don't know how many people play this game, but a fair number of people have dowloaded the last few releases.

5.1.-2
Linux: 37
OS X: 42
Windows: 430

5.1.-1
Linux: 334
OS X: 382
Windows: 3277

5.0.11
Linux: 588
OS X: 1046
Windows: 13908

5.0.10
Linux: 10443
OS X: 11922
Windows: 157086

Raw data
I believe the actual number of linux users is substantially higher than the download count, many probably build from source, which is not in this count.

I play 2-3 hours per week on pad, and 6-10 on keyboard. I've gone for months without playing on pad though, and spent a couple years only playing 1-2 hours per month on pad. Overall, stepmania doesn't have the same "play until my feet hurt and I can barely walk, every day" draw that it had when I first started.

[leonid]

speaking of osu what does osumania lack compared to stepmania? Is osu truly the nextgen stepmania with decent online ranking system?

[customstuff]

Super Mario 64 speedrunning became my new thing, so I dropped rhythm games completely. However, I've recently picked up SM again due to seeing how well it went at AGDQ and I'm having a lot of fun with it, even though I only play a couple hours once in a while.

[ca25nada]

I hardly touch SM anymore over o!m and BMS since around a year ago.
Only reason I start up SM now is just for theming.

[blazziken]

I still playing online and making files , Matra (Leo137) still do it too i have a group of friends who sometimes still playing online

[Jousway]

Originally Posted by Wafles

IMO - the reason this game doesn't stand a chance in this day and age is a total lack of online/community features built into the client. At this point its probably too late to start when osu already did it right. Forums don't do it anymore.

well gee who's fault is that
community that wanted to stay on older versions forever

[hi19hi19]

Originally Posted by Jousway

well gee who's fault is that
community that wanted to stay on older versions forever

If SM5 had integrated online scoreboards, minimal configuration required, live chat, social features such as a friends list, online multiplayer ready to play out of the box, spectator mode, and a curated centralized database of files, I can personally guarantee you 99% of people who were holding out on older versions would switch.
Obviously these things are possible because I literally just listed some of the features osu!mania has over SM.


I'd love to see them implemented!


*crickets*

[Hakulyte]

Originally Posted by Jousway

well gee who's fault is that
community that wanted to stay on older versions forever

I can assure you that this is the complete opposite, but lots of things happened and none of them were explained in details. It's really just a matter of getting projects done.

[reuben_tate]

Hopefully activity will pick back up when the summer starts? A large portion of the community consists of students so hopefully many people will have a bit more free time.

[Frank Munoz]

add rng
everyone loves rng right?

[MooMoo_Cowfreak]

Originally Posted by Frank Munoz

add rng
everyone loves rng right?

It worked for survival mode in Street Fighter V




Just fucking kidding that shit is abysmal

[Wafles]

Originally Posted by Jousway

well gee who's fault is that
community that wanted to stay on older versions forever

Not sure if serious, but this would be pretty backwards if thats how you really felt, right?

Why do you think people stayed on old versions? Because of a lack of features that would make people want to upgrade. Just echoing what hi19 said - if you had given people community features people would be way more interested in upgrading.

Since I started playing the game zero effort has ever been made for online features. The effort that has been made has been some moderate effort (which died off recently) from the SMO team - but they're only doing what they can with a really weak text/command based online client. A couple themes have basic support for online features, but nothing that actually encourages online play.

And the thing is, its not even the current players that you should be caring that much about. Its new players - and attracting new players in 2010 or later requires a strong online client with good community features. The fact that its now well into 2016 and no effort has been made on this front is really unfortunate IMO. I saw a fair amount of flak on this from new players on r/stepmania shortly after the AGDQ showcase, and I know a lot of them gave up after seeing how archaic SMO was.


Look, if it wasn't the devs goal to make SM a popular, community driven VSRG, then so be it, totally their prerogative, because its not like they're getting paid for it. But you can't really expect to turn around and blame the community for it after the fact.

[Kyzentun]

As one of the current devs, I don't have any personal desire for online mode. But if someone else wants to improve online mode, I'll help with the knowledge I have of other parts of the engine.
I don't know if people realize this, but I essentially earned my position by walking in and doing stuff. Nobody came to me to ask me to start working on stepmania. I saw stuff I wanted to fix and started doing it. So if you have some thing you think is important and the skills to carry it out, go right ahead and do it.

[Buta-san]

ive always played for the music, if theres a new song i want to play i play it, if not made i make a chart and enjoy alone.