Huge pad pack compilation project - looking for helpers [check page 1 for updates]

[Mollocephalus]

Recently i've been playing a lot of ITG, and by a lot i really mean it. Since i have access to many public cabinets and am able to update their songlist, i decided to start compiling a series of packs which feature the best pad files out there. Pad simfile releases are very fragmented, and too often they only feature expert charts. Unfortunately, this does not allow new players to get closer to the game. On the contrary, most people get quickly turned off by the very small selection of easy files and the lack of musical genres.

What i want is to make ITG available to anyone, no matter what their taste in music or their skill level is.

Goals

• collect all the neatly stepped, fun files that are out there
No matter who made them or where they come from, if they're good they should be in.

• fully chart every song in singles mode from expert to novice
Doubles is much less played, so i'm okay with not every song being charted. Before making new steps, i'd rather combine different files into one. If a chart has unarguably better steps than the other, then it should replace the old one. If they are both valid, it can be added as an edit. As general rule, i'd prefer having a max of 1 edit chart and only if it's really necessary.

• make modifications to improve the playability
Softening abrupt and unreadable bpm gimmicks, cutting boring/repetitive sections of the file, fixing the sync or the bpm, correcting stepping inconsistencies or mistakes; anything that can help to make the file a better file.

• if a file makes use of hard bracketing
Put the bracket chart into edit and duplicate it into the original difficulty without the brackets, so it can be played normally. People who don't have perfectly raised pads can't play that kind of file.

• make a different and good looking graphic set for every song
And of course, replace an old set if it doesn't look good enough.

Priorities

• all files must have a novice difficulty Deadline: september
Nothing harder than a 2. Refer to itg officials. A convention is coming up at the end of summer and novice charts are of the utmost importance to make people start play the game.

• need a new pack name
It must be something simple and easy to remember. The current one sucks and it was originally made cause the first pack replaced an old arcade pack called "expert pack"

How can YOU help?

• reccomend files or packs to be included (before sending files, check the packs to avoid duplicates)
• send your own files!!
• download the packs below and make/add new charts to the songs lacking them
• improve a file in any way you see fit
• make a new or a better graphic set for a file (bg size=800x600 / bn size=418x164)
• share the project with people who are interested and willing to help out

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Please keep in mind that regardless of the support i'm going to get, this is still happening. I did it all by myself during the last few months and now i have 6 packs, of which 1 still in development. Download them and see for yourself. Every pack has 99 songs except for pack 6.

Pack 1 (v4): https://mega.co.nz/#!AJhCxCYT!YKt-_a...LiJMY21MxuvtMg
Pack 2 (v4): https://mega.co.nz/#!RQYE0a5T!v5oUeC...6S0n7nU3ExAxuc
Pack 3 (v4): https://mega.co.nz/#!RAZCCKhT!1Px9Yc...2MAQoMO-9yM6Ik
Pack 4 (v2): https://mega.co.nz/#!QRY1ETCA!txEk1-...PSXxLmXSIEULFs
Pack 5 (v1): https://mega.co.nz/#!pYRxFZrC!MAmiTD...OZPuijUe5702Sg
Pack 6 (v0): https://mega.co.nz/#!YNARnSrJ!8ZWjgE...quUWxhtRKruAng

[Mollocephalus]

reserved for updates

[TC_Halogen]

I absolutely love this idea, holy shit. You have my full support.

Are you up for people sending in random single releases too?

EDIT: if you want the word spread out and the project worked on seamlessly, I highly recommend that you create a Dropbox with all of the files so that people can view the entire pack list and work on them at will. You could have people add changelogs for when they complete a file and tack their name on it so that other people know not to take the same file. I have a feeling that if we were to spread this to AIJ and r21freak, we'd get some decent attention.

[Mollocephalus]

Originally Posted by TC_Halogen

Are you up for people sending in random single releases too?

That's very desirable!

Originally Posted by TC_Halogen

if you want the word spread out and the project worked on seamlessly, I highly recommend that you create a Dropbox with all of the files so that people can view the entire pack list and work on them at will. You could have people add changelogs for when they complete a file and tack their name on it so that other people know not to take the same file. I have a feeling that if we were to spread this to AIJ and r21freak, we'd get some decent attention.

That's something that really needs to be done, yes. Since organizing takes a lot of time, i wanted to know if there were enough people interested beforehand. If only a few do contribute, it can be done by simply tackling a file at once and alerting other people about it.

Originally Posted by TC_Halogen

I have a feeling that if we were to spread this to AIJ and r21freak, we'd get some decent attention.

I'll definitely do that.

[Arntonach]

Don't forget ziv, that community's simfile output is crazy and it's not all bad neither. I'll also see if spork, k/eternal and santiago are interested too.

[TC_Halogen]

Completely forgot about them.

Be a bit more vigilant on submissions from ZIV, though.

[ddr_f4n]

Oh hey it's this pack you asked me about :V

I just released my vocaloid pack so I might help out on this. Fortunately, there's been a recent trend for normal pad packs where fully-charted difficulties are becoming a thing (except for gimmick packs like Sharpnelstreamz and all)

[~Zero~]

Supported. I will do stuff.

edit: Also pack essentially looks like a "Mute Megapack featuring other people." Considering I am just going around opening folders randomly. That's what I have noticed. Well Sudzi has a few as well.

[Mollocephalus]

Well, i skimmed through a lot of packs and i still have to check many others. Mute just happens to make a lot of fun files, but you'll see there's plenty of mudkyp, sudzi, happy feet, gpop and many others.

[DDREncore]

Originally Posted by Arntonach

I'll also see if spork is interested too.

I'm down. Feel free to use any of my work out of the DDREncore Rebirth folder on ZIv. All but one song is fully charted (singles and doubles), cut to a reasonable length, have graphics, and encompasses an absolute ton of genres. Beginner-Heavy is DDR style, Challenge is ITG. I have been told some of it is a little overstepped, but I enjoy them :P

-Spork!

[Mollocephalus]

I'll definitely take a look! thanks

[Wafles]

I'm crazy hype for this actually, sorting through pad pack files is really annoying for me because I'm a pretty average player (can pass a lot of 11s but thats about it).

I'm not sure how I can contribute, if this is still in progress after my current project finishes I would like to help in any way I can (probably charting easier difficulties)

[Mollocephalus]

It looks like this will take a lot of time, i already went through some packs but there's a ton of material i haven't checked and that surely deserves to go in My goal for now is to finish these first 6 packs, and then make another one at a time.

[rikame]

I'll add my many cents. First, I'm posting something that I myself would have really appreciated and so I'm thinking that many other might as well. 2+GB took a toll on my awful bandwidth

Edit: I would have posted a link to the album instead of cluttering the thread but this is my first post so I can't.





Anyways, I like what you're trying to do. My biggest concern right now is an extention of what zero said, there's a very significant inbalance of what charts / stepartists are represented in the pack. I did see notable changes in the later volumes, such as the introduction of CT's files, which is good. That said, there's a ton of mute files and, as much as I love GPOPS, the entire pack seems to be in there lol (and I didn't see any representation of gpop's touhou files, which are just as good). There's like, a single Valex file and there are many extremely good steppers who had no files in the pack at all (I could make a pretty long list but, really, 0 Spooty files). There could definitely be more variety. I and, if you post this on r21freak, many other might be willilng to make suggestions.

I'm not sure if this is a concern for everybody else but something else that I will say is this: when I say "there should be more files from x person" that does not mean that I am offering license to use their files. I'm not sure to what extent you've been doing this already but you should ask people for permission to use their files whenever possible, for two reasons. The first is that they may not want all or some of their files to be in the pack. The second, which has a good chance of applying to mute if you didn't ask already, is that the files you're using might be old versions (he constantly tweaks his files). Another example of this is actually my personal experience with that gigapack thing compiled on SMOnline (I didn't hear a word about it until after the fact). A lot of my old, really, really shitty files were used in it. Some I didn't want to be revived from the dead at all and, more tragically, I had already completely rewritten many of the files that were used which were millions of times more playable and those are obviously not what made it into the pack. Just food for thought.

Last thing, many of these files lack lower difficulties, which doesn't seem to be in the spirit of making a pack friendly to more novice players. Sure, they could be slowly filled in, but you definitely need to ask the original creators before doing that.

[Wafles]

Originally Posted by rikame

but you definitely need to ask the original creators before doing that.

why?

you can still credit the authors steps for their difficulties (I don't know what that thing is called where you put their name as like, the description for the difficulty level and it shows up at the bottom of the screen after you select the file but you can do that and still retain author ownership).

its unrealistic from an organization standpoint to do this, and so long as you're not modifying the original difficulties all the easier difficulties are just resteps - which this community is no stranger to

[TC_Halogen]

I already intended on asking permission because it just seems like the right thing to do.

Asking WinDEU for Big Bad Queen Chrysalis (not in the pack; I'll get to those later): www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZEMShdIHFc

EDIT: some of this list is from the MGD series, which to my knowledge only needs Novice charts, yes?
EDIT #2: if this pack does get far, please give me the opportunity to check all of the files and normalize the syncs for any files that might not be perfect

[CondorTalon]

Originally Posted by Wafles

why?

Originally Posted by rikame

...for two reasons. The first is that they may not want all or some of their files to be in the pack. The second, which has a good chance of applying to mute if you didn't ask already, is that the files you're using might be old versions (he constantly tweaks his files). Another example of this is actually my personal experience with that gigapack thing compiled on SMOnline (I didn't hear a word about it until after the fact). A lot of my old, really, really shitty files were used in it. Some I didn't want to be revived from the dead at all and, more tragically, I had already completely rewritten many of the files that were used which were millions of times more playable and those are obviously not what made it into the pack. Just food for thought.

Like...

EDIT: also, saying

Originally Posted by Wafles

...so long as you're not modifying the original difficulties...

when two of the points in the OP are

Originally Posted by Mollocephalus

• make modifications to improve the playability
Softening abrupt and unreadable bpm gimmicks, cutting boring/repetitive sections of the file, fixing the sync or the bpm, correcting stepping inconsistencies or mistakes; anything that can help to make the file a better file.

• if a file makes use of hard bracketing
Put the bracket chart into edit and duplicate it into the original difficulty without the brackets, so it can be played normally. People who don't have perfectly raised pads can't play that kind of file.

makes no sense.

[TC_Halogen]

yeah... I don't think it's a good idea to modify the original difficulties.

The purpose of this pack should be to supplement the files so that they are fully charted. Modifying the files means you're deviating away from the stepartist's original intent.

Also, confirmed for Big Bad Queen Chrysalis, yay.

[Valex]

I don't care if you use my files, but don't modify anything in any chart I wrote without my permission first

[firemon22]

can u make list of the files that are in each pack in the first post