Catching up!

Recently I’ve been doing mucho work at the office, looking for an apartment with my girlfriend and other business, so I’ve been quite remote from my online duties, but after some R&R and with some spare time now, I’m back to my regular duties.
First off, check the miss system solutions I’ve provided in the “Miss System: Part 3″ thread in the FFR General Talk forum. Your vote in the poll will be greatly appreciated and please leave any comments you wish to make in the thread while you’re there.
I’ve taken the liberty of answering the FAQ questions everyone’s been leaving, so if you’re encountering problems with the program or just have a general question about it, check the FAQ section. I can answer anything except hardware compatability because I’m not quite a tech guy and questions about future site additions, features and programs. Aside from asking questions, members also have the ability to review songs featured on FFR, so be sure to use that option as well and read up on what people think about the created stepfiles. Members can also find out how to create FFR stepfiles and submit them in the FAQ section. FFR can never have too many songs you know.
Synth has fallen into the clutches of reality as well and has been void of the site for the most part. He’s been quite busy with finalizing Remix and has been working and taking personal time, so, no, the rumors about Synth being eaten by a malicious gang of wallabies at a company picnic are not true, he’s just been dealing with other things. However, we should be able to expect Remix in the near future due to Synth and bprc’s hard work and I must say it sounds like the new version is really coming along well. When the new version is released, I’ll get together information on league play as soon as I can. I’ll be around so Synth doesn’t have to babysit the forums and other areas of the site and can get his work done, so feel free to ask me questions too if Synth or bprc are not around to respond.
On another note, Synth has fixed up the bugs pointed out to him in the new beta version. Should you experience any more bugs with version .46, please leave a post in the Bug Report thread in the forum.
Until next time, have fun with the new version.

Beta .46 Now Online

I have released .46 beta for the online version today. Some very minor graphical changes as well as some optimizations to bring down the cpu requirements by a small amount. I will be making additional changes within this version before the day is over.

Cheers

*EDIT* I accidentally caused a sync issue with the arrows. Clear cache and reload. Let me know if you have any problems. Thanks to those who found the issue.

New Rock Song Released

First new rock song has been released. The bands name is ZAO and they are signed with Solid State records. ZAO is currently #2 on the Mp3.com metal charts and if you would like to support them, please buy their album that is due out this FEB or listen to their song on Mp3.com. Thanks to ZAO and their management for allowing us to use their material.

The level is medium to low difficulty and shouldn’t be a challenge for the pro’s. It also slides a half beat near the end on purpose to throw you a bit. If you dont see the song in the list, clear your CACHE and then reload.

There should be another song out sometime tonight. For those interested, I will be available in the FFR-CHAT at around 10pm CST.

More Rock Songs On Their Way!

Yes.. Yes.. I know it has been a long wait for you people that desperately wanted rock songs. Well, the wait is over. Tomorrow night I release 2 rock songs followed by even more in the next few days.

I would also like to let people know that we are accepting songs of all genre’s for the upcomming FFR R2 due out as soon as we deem it stable enough for public use. This is a good chance for signed or unsigned bands to get some expsosure and build a fan base. On average any 1 song is listened to about 10,000-20,000 times a day here on FFR.

See you all tomorrow night. BTW, I will be hanging in the FFR chat during the release to see responses and feedback etc. My guess would be somewhere around 10pm CST.

Over 7,400 Members Strong and Growing

I want to thank all the people who have registered out of the kindness of their heart over the past 2 1/2 months that this project has been alive. These 7,400+ members have registered even though they did not need to in order to play the game online.

Today I have figured out through my server stats and other sources that a good number of sites have been linking to FFR directly and not through Xqsite.com (The FFR homepage). This is a shame because it eats up our transfer bandwidth without getting to see any of the benefits. Because of this I am requiring all new visitors to register in order to play the game. Registration is private, free and only takes about 20 seconds to complete. It is literally THAT simple.

We are planning to start a public beta of FFR R2 very soon and you will need to be registered in order play this version because it keeps stats on each player as well as configuration data for each player. Soooo.. You might as well get it out of the way for R2.

Link to REGISTER if you have not already.Thanks again to all those who have registered and supported us and the FFR project. Good things are in the works.

Downloads Are Fun. :)

*EDIT* To play the downloadable version you need to register and proceed to the downloads section. The online version requires no registration.

Just wanted to apologize for the 24 hour delay in releasing the new downloadable version that you can play locally. The new version contains the first four songs from Dance#2 and is only about 3.8 megs with uncompressed splash screens and all 4 levels. Not too bad eh? This normally do not take that long to put together but we have been so busy with life/work/ffr r2 etc.etc.. blah blah.

Enjoy,

Synthlight & BPRC
Again, we realize we are nowhere near being the ultimate masterful DDR sim. We only hope to bring a little fun to people who are suffering from extreme boredom.

FFR R2 however will not be the same story.

Who? What? A New Downloadable Version Soon?

In the next 48 hours we will be releasing a new downloadable version that will contain 4 new and seperate songs from the first downloadable release. Check back often in the downloads area. The release could be as soon as tomorrow morning but may take a 48 hours depending on my workload.

Also for those who are Mac users: We are hard at work on releasing a downloadable Mac version that is completely self contained. We have not forgotten about you!*EDIT* It is Saturday now, we are almost there sometime this afternoon the new downloadable mix will go up.

*EDIT* It is Saturday around 5pm. Still working on this slight problems getting multiple Genre’s in one section. Should still be able to release tonight.

New Material!

The contest has ended and the new songs have been posted! Both songs are in Dance #2 section. Clear your cache and reload time!

Thanks to everyone who contributed with their “DWI” files. Our picks were not based on quality alone but rather what fit best for the song and genre. Submissions that did not win will most likely be seen again in the upcomming “FFR Remix #2″ which will be able to hold multiple “stepmixes” per song.

Obviously, Congrats go out to Bryan B and Pockets(not registered?).

Bryan B, your stepmix for Dendrite made me fell very much like I was at the arcade and seemed just challenging enough to be enjoyable for medium ability players. The steps fit the song very well and we hope to see more from you in the future. I couldn’t help but to play it over and over again during testing which unfortunately pushed back the release until today.

Pockets, Pockets are you out there? I could’nt find a name on our site to match your email address. Please contact me if you are out there.
It was actually scary how Pocket’s “stepmix” seemed to have come right out of the school of “Synthlight Stepmixes”. Seemed very much like something I would make myself. Everyone who submitted seemed to have problems with the last half of Skellybones due to the BPM changes. So we took it upon ourselves to consider it a challenge to the player when trying to hit some off those off beat arrows near the end. A very good effort and a good addition to our easier levels.

As soon as I get in contact with you guys, I will setup the shipment of those t-shirts out to you.

Cheers,

Synthlight & BPRC

4,000 visitors and insight needed

At about 11:30 a.m. EST Saturday morning, the site has received an additional 3,933 unique visitors from TechTV.com since being featured on TechTV’s The Screen Savers not even two days ago. Simply amazing.
On another note, there are a couple of items in the forums that would benefit from everyone’s participation. There are two announcements in the FFR General forum that address a couple of issues concerning FFR. The first is a poll on the miss system. The poll will accept opinions until Monday, so post your thoughts now so we can move on and address the next step in solving the issue. Secondly, there is a thread on tournaments and leagues that would benefit from everyone’s participation.
Thanks for everyone’s participation as this input will really allow us to improve your FFR experience…yeah, that sounded really corny, but you know what I mean.