History of keyboard Stepmania pre-KBMP

[Arch0wl]

NOTE: I'm posting this here because a lot of newer players post on the brag board, in contrast to the Garbage Bin which is more old-school. I realize that this is the "brag board" which would imply that every post here should be about Stepmania scores. However, throughout the history of FFR people have used this board as the de facto board for general keyboard SM/FFR discussion, as the closest thing we have otherwise is the simulators board, which gets very little activity in comparison. As such I think my post here is definitely on-topic despite not seeming that way at first glance.

(note2: this is entirely from my perspective, so it may be inaccurate and/or biased in some ways.) (note3: this was originally posted on rfraction.com)

In the beginning... there was Delight Delight Reduplication. I wasn't around then, however, I know enough about it to know how it worked. Basically, .bms files were the Japanese equivalent of our .sm files--they could play different gametypes like DDR, IIDX, Pop'n Music, and so on, so when people made simfiles they made them in .bms format.

This was how BeMaNiRuler got started. Essentially, every file was intended for pad back then--his were too, even though probably very few, if any people could do them--but his were especially notable for how hard they were. BMR's "V", the same "V" that's in the KBMP, was essentially the hardest song available for a year or two. Most people either loved or hated his stepfiles. This was the closest thing available to a "keyboard sim" for a long time.

"Dance With Intensity" came out some time later. Stepmania was around too, but it was very, very primitive compared to how developed it is now. After a while, people began to switch to the .dwi format instead of the .bms format, and so did BMR.

The most popular websites for sims then were DDRManiaX (BMR's website), DDRUK, and DDREI (DDR east invasion). FFR and bemanistyle didn't exist yet. Those three sites still exist today, but DDRManiaX and DDREI are only traces of what they once were. DDRManiaX mainly hosted simfiles by BemaniRuler, later featuring files by cmcm (V Heavy Beat Remix and Manhattan Sports Club in the KBMP) and KeeL (who you now know as Kyle Ward, the creator of ITG's music).

DDRManiaX was the most popular. In terms of website function today, DDRManiaX would be comparable to FFR, this website, or ODI, while DDREI was comparable to the stepmania.com forums. Nearly everyone on the forums played on pad, and if you played on keyboard it was shameful.

This was magnified by DDREI's TournaMix series and DDRUK's "bumper packs", along with other prominent pad file sources like Animix and DWInsanity. However, TournaMix held by far the most influence. If your simfile was #1 in TournaMix, everyone would have played your stepfile--think of KBMP's popularity now, and imagine if each song was ranked according to subjective "quality". It'd be sort of like that.

The TournaMix judges held a huge influence over what kind of files were made. The thought of a keyboard file was preposterous. Lots of people played on keyboard, but not many talked about playing on keyboard. This was magnified when BMR released his "A" file and his "Gravity" file. They were, by far, the hardest files most of us had seen, but he insisted that they were to be done on pad.

The attitude most had towards hard songs back then was very different than the attitude now. While most people like to play hard songs now, players back then thought of hard songs as this entity entirely in left field. BMR was an analogy you used when you wanted to say something was absurdly hard to the point of being comical. To my knowledge, this type of thinking doesn't really exist in the SM community today, but you can see a remnant of it--go into your SM editor and you'll find a mod called "BMRize."

Additionally, the word "bull****" back then was not used in the same context as today. When a player called something "bull**** hard" it was more along the lines of "you have no business making something that hard." Steps that followed the music, as nearly every keyboard sim does today, were frowned upon as "karaoke steps".

Some time around TournaMix 4 or 5, BMR quit, and DDRManiaX gradually declined afterward. BMR was the essence of DDRManiaX, and I can't stress enough how much of an influence he had on simfiles. If he had never made simfiles, FFR would be very different than how it is today.

Around this time, the Stepmania team released "SMMAX" and epically pwned the Dance With Intensity team, because prior to SMMAX everyone joked about Stepmania and how awful it was. SMMAX was of much higher quality, and it rapidly gained converts, including myself. It was a much less polished version of the SM you're used to playing now.

When I say "much less polished", I mean it. All of your sims had to be made on 1x, there weren't any notes beyond 24ths (much less 32nds and especially not 64ths), and syncing songs was a royal pain in the ass because whenever you would select a certain section of the song and "record" your notes would go offsync. This is the SM editor equivalent of having to walk "fifteen miles uphill in the snow."

As many still used DWI, SMMAX had many opponents. One annoying but persistent attitude was the sense of superiority people who denounced the SM editor had. Nearly all files were made in notepad before the SM editor, so, given how esoteric making files was, very few people did it unless they knew exactly what they were doing. All of you are familiar with one person that made his files in notepad: DJ Ren, the author of "Cynic" in the KBMP, though he wasn't that bad about it, and not nearly as bad as the people on DDREI and DDRManiaX were.

I started making files a little after BMR released his "A". My first file was "Jam Jam Reggae (Jam Jam Mix)" from Beatmania Core. A guy named "Kamek", one of the most popular sim creators at that time, helped me with the syncing. Back then, syncing was much more difficult and there was no AutoSync, so lots of files suffered from what was known as "Yellow Arrow Syndrome", where all of the arrows are shifted a 16th note and are flat, yellow arrows, sort of like on older FFR songs.

Nearly all of my files were denounced for having "karaoke steps" or being "too hard." I gained a reputation for both. Again, at the time, the attitude was that playing on a keyboard is just simply absurd and you shouldn't even try to get better scores. A common condescending retort was "Why would you ever want to play on a keyboard? That's stupid. I'd rather play IIDX." That's partially how I developed the dickish personality I used to have, because it became difficult to stand up to those people in a civil manner. Very few of you, if any remember these people--they were before FFR even existed--but even to this day I feel an irrational sense of satisfaction in knowing how popular keyboard SM is, just because those pompous pricks have been one-upped to the extreme.

The prominent keyboard sim creators at this time were Cynic, DJ Ren, Skor (skorpion9x), and myself. A very good portion of the sims you've played in the KBMP are from the days before "keyboard sims" were a legitimate distinction, such as Cynic's LAB. Nearly all keyboard sims were made with the attitude of "well, someone might be able to do this on a pad..." although it's unlikely any of us expected our sims to be done on one. In fact, you may find this hilarious, but many of us were ridiculed by people on bemanisims.com (ran by Bemanistyle's Keith, and eventually merged with BMS to become the bemanistyle sim DB) because our sims were regarded as "impossible". Yes, the majority of people back then, even those that played on a keyboard, thought stuff like Kick Your A heavy was "impossible". I'm serious.

One sim creator that deserves focus is SkoR. He was the first stepfile creator to make keyboard steps to lots of music that differed radically from the DDR/IIDX norm at the time. SkoR can be held responsible for the majority of music associated with Stepmania up to the KBMP (you can credit the IDM craze to primarily aperson), including power metal (Dragonforce, Rhapsody), Mindless Self Indulgence, and especially the classic "stream file."

The first explicit keyboard sim--as in "keyboard only"--was made when Chakrila or "ChaQ" made Flight of the Bumblebee. VERY oldschool players might remember this file--it was 400bpm and started out with nothing but 8th note jackhammers on the left arrow for about 8-10 seconds, and had jumpstream at later points in the song, with rainbow arrows all over the background.

Even after there was a minor following of keyboard players, it was still very underrepresented compared to the pad scene. Pad file creators were still the majority, and when I entered a file in TournaMix, it was met with the usual complaints--"karaoke", "impossible", "too hard", etc. Keep in mind nearly everyone played 8 footers back then, and even 9 footers were occasionally regarded as "really hard".

FFR changed this dramatically. Without FFR, the SM scene would not be nearly as popular as it is today. The reason FFR changed everything was because it was explicitly keyboard, and everyone that went there was a keyboard player. The people at DDRManiaX and DDREI, of course, thought this was the most retarded thing conceivable, and regarded FFR and its community as ****. If you brought up FFR in an argument to show why keyboard sims shouldn't be discarded as a joke, their argument was that FFR didn't count because it was worthless, though they phrased it in a less blunt way. Currently, FFR is the most popular music game site on the internet that I know of and DDRManiaX doesn't exist, so we clearly know who got the last laugh.

The early days of FFR added some major contributors to the SM scene: Reach, Nima, and Hyrogashi. All of us openly competed with each other, which dramatically increased our skill levels, and all of us except Nima made sims. Reach, to my knowledge, was the first person to have made keyboard sims without a background in some sort of dancing game. He represented an entirely new generation of SM players.

Hyrogashi, Reach, Nima and I competed without much knowledge of "styles", "setups", or what have you. This is probably what made Hyrogashi so impressive, because he played with one hand and got a lot of scores I had trouble beating at the time on index, such as AAA'ing BMR's "A" around the same time I did.

Hyrogashi quit around when Yanah's "Club"--a techno song by FFR's own jewpinthethird--was released. The indexers, such as Volkov and myself, were destroying Hyrogashi's score on it. This file made the difference in styles, such as one-handed versus index, apparent to him, and he didn't like the inequality between styles, as he knew that, eventually, to be the best, he would have to give up one hand.

The first instance I can remember of "calling bull****" on someone was when Reach posted a fake score on Flight of the Bumblebee and I called him out on it. This is, to my knowledge, the only time he ever did that and he's been legit since. The first major BSer the keyboard community encountered was AlternateOblivion. At the time, the best player was a guy named Volkov, from Australia. Nima, Reach and myself later surpassed him, but for a while I was under his shadow in index ability.

Around this time, I had made "arch0wl.com" as a discussion site for people in the Stepmania/FFR community. Eventually we became oriented around impressive videos as well, but it still remained a forum--there was no need for an index or navigation page.

So, you had a keyboard community around this time, but as far as sim creators go it was very spread out. Bemanistyle's sim DB was pretty active, and I believe FFR's sim DB was in its infant stages, but we had no "packs" of simfiles to go off of, like the DDRUK bumper packs or TournaMix. This is where I got the idea for the Keyboard Mega Pack.

I noticed that, if someone was going to run a Stepmania tournament, they would need some sort of common "song list" to go off of. I organized what I thought were the most authentically "keyboard" files at the time by all of the major keyboard authors at the time, polished some files, added CDTitles for those that didn't have them, added song information, and released it. To my surprise, it was very popular.

After that, much more people got involved in the Stepmania scene--FFR, my site, and everywhere else. Spectere and a few others spearheaded the Community Keyboard Megapack, and eventually much more packs were created. Reach and Eggman had become some of the most popular sim creators out there. The scene sort of continued in this direction for a while, with a progression towards more technical simfiles like the kind Toph developed, but I don't remember much after that because my participation and involvement in the scene declined rapidly about a year after the KBMP was released. Eventually, we got to where we are now, but I don't know enough to write the post-KBMP history.

Timeline of files for prominent pre-KBMP file makers:

http://www.omgdidinsane.com/wiki/ind...les_by_Arch0wl
http://www.omgdidinsane.com/wiki/ind..._by_Kilgamayan

[iCeCuBEz v2]

ok

[Izzy]

Why are you so focused on the past. Also i believe you are way to focused on yourself. that pack of simfiles was not really an important event at all.

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by Izzy

Why are you so focused on the past.

Simfiles from 2007
    *  [new heavy steps] Ahh, Das Ist Musik
    * [new heavy steps] America, **** Yeah
    * [new heavy steps] Beast and the Harlot
    * Battle with Magus
    * [new challenge steps] Breaking the Habit
    * Dancing With Kadafi
    * Denpasar
    * [new challenge steps] Dragonball Z
    * [new heavy steps] Fury of the Storm
    * [new heavy steps] Gaussian Blur
    * Gaussian Blur 2
    * [converted from solo] Gaussian Blur 3
    * Gay Bar
    * Girlfriend
    * [new challenge steps] Go, Go Power Rangers!
    * [edited challenge steps] Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
    * Is This the Real Thing?
    * [new challenge steps] Katamari on the Rock
    * [new challenge steps] Koopa's Theme
    * Navras
    * NoClue
    * One Love
    * [new heavy steps] One Winged Angel (Advent Children version)
    * [new challenge steps] Pokemon (full version)
    * [edited heavy steps] Reality
    * Sonic Boom
    * Shaka
    * Stabwound
    * [new challenge steps] Superfabulous
    * [edited heavy steps, challenge steps] Super Mario Bros
    * [edited challenge steps] Those Who Fight (piano version)
    * Tir na n'Og
    * [edited challenge steps] Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
    * [new challenge steps] World Revolution
    * Yakanko
    * [new challenge steps] Zelda no Densetsu

I've also made more files for a pack being released in June than the years of 2003-2004 combined.

I posted it because it's interesting for new players to read and because I've seen new players say a lot of ignorant things that could be avoided if they knew what happened in the past.

Also i believe you are way to focused on yourself. that pack of simfiles was not really an important event at all.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=FB-IiGgNYT8
http://youtube.com/results?search_qu...&search=Search
"KBMP" returns 468 results on FFR. (For comparison, other packs return around 100. That's not counting individual song returns, obviously. "Quasar" returns thousands and the true number is more difficult to know.)

[Izzy]

This isn't a matter of facts because its all just ideas. Just because you say something triggered something else its still mostly opinion.

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by Izzy

This isn't a matter of facts because its all just ideas. Just because you say something triggered something else its still mostly opinion.

I don't know what you're talking about. If you're saying it will be biased because it's coming from my perspective then I addressed that in note2 before the actual post even began. I'm assuming you didn't read it?

[Mans0n]

Rofl i don't even understand the point in all that, so u spent alot of time on the internet and became famous in your own way. Good job

[Izzy]

I did read it thanks. Even from your perspective its extremely ridiculous. The only real way to look at the past is that it evolved as a community and not by any individual people to this extreme of a degree.

[Mans0n]

Wow, how random, A random thread about the past about the poster who posted.

[Arch0wl]

Mans0n - it's supposed to be fun to read. Most oldschool players and new-generation players I've showed this to have found it interesting. I don't know why you're seeing it that way, but OK.

The only real way to look at the past is that it evolved as a community and not by any individual people to this extreme of a degree.

I don't know what you mean. I agree?

[massflavour]

i remember you posting this awhile ago. good read.

[samtorx]

i very missed the point of this

[SkySeal]

brain explosion

[EAGAMES]

That was an interesting read.

[Tasselfoot]

it's a fascinating read... i'd be interested to read BMR's side of this story, from similar timelines and thoughts. as izzy points out, it does focus on Arch... but it's Arch, so i kind of expect it.

and, it does seem to put BMR down... which is really a bit sad, given not only his history (which Arch does clearly note)... but you neglect to mention all that he did and still does for FFR. for just one example: you've noticed the new layout of FFR, right? guess who did all the graphics for it.

[Arch0wl]

It focuses on me because it's from my perspective. Almost any account of an event from a single person is going to be biased, so unless you have a team of people that describe the events from a detached perspective it's going to be skewed towards something. Even writers of history textbooks have trouble reducing their bias towards their own nation of origin or residence, for example.

and, it does seem to put BMR down... which is really a bit sad, given not only his history (which Arch does clearly note)... but you neglect to mention all that he did and still does for FFR. for just one example: you've noticed the new layout of FFR, right? guess who did all the graphics for it.

If it seemed like I put BMR down that wasn't the intention at all--I actually meant to emphasize his role. The sim community would likely not exist today if it weren't for BMR.

edit: Yeah. "BMR was the essence of DDRManiaX, and I can't stress enough how much of an influence he had on simfiles. If he had never made simfiles, FFR would be very different than how it is today."

Also, I didn't know that he still did work for FFR, so I apologize. That's pretty incredible.

[Izzy]

Why do you believe that a single person influenced an entire simfile making community. Nobody single handedly did anything like that.

[jsloanismadpro]

izzy wussup ,why you gotta be hating?

if it wasn't for kbmp i would be no where close to how good i am now, and neither would a lot of other people.

bmr was VERY influential to the way simfiles developed and the way things played out with dwi, stepmania, itg and almost everything related, to me this is a fact and it probably is to anybody else who's been in the scene for as long.

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by Izzy

Why do you believe that a single person influenced an entire simfile making community. Nobody single handedly did anything like that.

Since the vast majority of people making keyboard files for FFR took their tecniques from people that had already been making files, the SM scene as we know it today largely came as a result of DDRManiaX, DDREI, and bemanisims. DDREI and bemanisims wouldn't exist if it weren't for DDRManiaX, which BMR founded. Hence, yes, BMR did have a huge influence on the simfile making community.

FFR would still exist without BMR, except you likely wouldn't be nearly as good as you are now. The entire reason FFR's difficulty was ramped up in the first place was because of the competition between Reach, Hyro, Yanah and myself (among others--those are the people I remember most) to one-up everyone else by making harder files. Hyro made Rondo, I made FotBB/Payon, Hyro made Caprice, I made Revo, Yanah made Club, Reach made Ice Climber, Yanah made ASb, I made blur, and so on. (They probably weren't created in that order but that's to the best of my memory.) None of us would know how to make files if it weren't for learning the techniques from DDRManiaX.

[bluguerrilla]

I mean, you've got a point Izzy but he agrees with you so I don't really see the point in continuing to go on about it.

Personally, I missed all of this so I'm glad to read it. Even though it is slanted to what he expreienced it does show a natural progression towards 'what can we do harder and better', or at least 'harder'.

I'm glad that when I looked for a DDR game that I could play with my fingers that something like it existed.

It's kind of funny that the only reason that I knew something like it existed was because of Arch0wl's e-famousness (lol quasar).

Edit: ninja'd