My longwinded history of FFR

[Freak83]

I don't mean to ramble but this is long, it's a history of my FFR since I found this site a year ago.

Wow it's been almost a year since I started playing this game... Feb 1 I believe, 2 days before I started on the forums...

Back then I had never even heard of Dance Dance Revolution, a friend showed me this site and I was forced to come here against my will. Strangely enough though I enjoyed the game right from the beginning and thought it was the first of it's kind. There wasn't much songs here yet, barly any in fact. He advised me to start with the Mario one, I did so and missed quite a few arrows, probably failed it cause I had never done this before.

Anyway I kept coming back here for a few days and soon the second poll was up, the first I saw was "Non-FFR related, what is your favourite colour?" The new one was "Should Arch0wl be let back onto the forums?". Now I hardly knew the use of a forum back then too, I was a major newb in all aspects. Anyway I decided I wanted to know a bit about this Arch0wl guy so I came here onto the forums to find out a bit. I didn't know how to find anything written by him so I just went around looking manually, I think the very first thing I posted was in bug report section about the top FF7 scores being hacked.
NOTE: (I doubt they were, at that point I thought FF7 was too hard for anyone to complete and hacking was the only way to get your score on the song that high)

Anyway I managed to start finding some posts by Arch0wl and posted several requests for him to be let back on here. Meanwhile in the game I was still a newb but a bit better. I was passing Mario with a full combo every time now but songs like Story of Snowman and Sunshine Girl were still too hard for me.

Time went on, I quickly learned how to use forums and was excited about it so I became the fastest poster here quickly surpassing everyone's post count. That was my 15 minutes of fame here when the main thing being talked about was my "uber" high post count. Then it came the race to 1000, QreepyBORIS was catching up and so was CMCAdvancedSP. QreepyBORIS was ahead of me by about 20 near the end but I made a last mad dash and was the first to reach 1000 posts. I cooled my posting majorlly after that for a while and several people surpassed me. My glory was over.

The FFR chat room back then wasn't used much either, you could go in and talk to yourself for hours, it was amazing to go in and find someone else in there. Eventually for a new FFR release I believe it was, we were to meet up in the chat room if we wanted to find out about it. The chat room had webcams and mic's now but still wasn't the same version as it is today. I know myself, Qreepy, Arch, and many other common users were there, first time we probably heard each others voices too.

It was around then I believe that I managed to meet my goal which I had been trying to do for a while, fully combo Story of Snowman and Sunshine Girl. Note that this was the old FFR version where it was much easier to miss. In the forums I learned more of Dance Dance Revolution and Stepmania too. I think it was around then when I composed my first stepfile, "Over my Head" by Lit. It was my first one and highly offbeat and had arrows that made no sense whatsoever. It's currently rated a 6 on bemanistyle and I think whoever rated it was either drunk or stoned at the time.

New admins came, jewpinthethird first and 87x second. I was finally getting better at the game too, every time I tried to do Rondo all I saw were blurrs of arrows, Hyrogashi and Arch0wl soon released their famous Caraprice and Revolutionary Etude. At the time I saw no difference between these and Rondo. A blur of arrows, now I see differently though.

The new FFR version came out eventually, newer members may only know this one but many of us know that many "secrets" dissapeared with this new release. However many new songs came with it as well. I quickly became addicted to 4F73R M3 and got much skill on there as well as Stepmania which had helped me train a lot by now.

Just a few short weeks ago I was at a friends and we finally went to an arcade where I go to play DDR for my first time ever. Sure I completely sucked at it but I got to play it. I also got my PS2 dance pad around then, I still have no game for it.

Finally the last chapter, today I have begain to see some changes... in rondo. I am no longer seeing the arrows in there as a blur, I'm finally seeing them naturally and am now working on it to master the song. I'm advancing some more.

So this is how long it takes to go from complete newb to high advanced, about a year. And it's been really fun the whole way!

[Lupin_the_3rd]

Bravo!! encore!!

i'd write mine but i've been here like 3 months hahaha

[banditcom]

I had old screenshots and your name was in the highscores on some of them Freak. :P That was back when Tek.Ni.Que was here.

[Arch0wl]

I remember my first post was complaining about how offbeat the songs and timing were and how easy everything was XD

and then Hyro made Rondo, and I was like, "that's still too easy and super offbeat omg"

[jewpinthethird]

I remember when there were only about 10 regulars on the forums...hell maybe not even that.

Yeah...Arch is the only person who has been banned and aloud back on the forums. I think.

[User6773]

It omits much. Good work, though.

[87x]

yes.. nice job.. i remember most of that stuff (none of your personal reference things) but im mad i missed the banning of arch0wl.. that happened during my 3 month (i think 3) leave of absence.. i would write a review of my time here at ffr.. but i can't remember a lot of things that far back ... great job freak.. but i would of liked to see the beginning of the "welcome to the valley of the dead" introduction slogan in there.. great job anyway

[Freak83]

Ah there was nothing special about how the "Welcome to the valley of the dead" came about. People seemed to be making introductions of their own to use on everybody so I just made that up from randomness and said it every time and never stopped. Don't remember when I started really, except I've been doing it for a long time.

[hydrojakep]

i dont even remember my first post, and look how long i've been using the forums.


it may have been the dora one but i am not sure

[Moogy]

Hmm... I came here at the end of August cause I found the link somewhere. I already played DWI, so I was pretty good at DDR sims already. The first post I ever made was about Project Dolphin. Then I turned into the most active poster ever and got 2200 posts in four months and stuff.

[Privateer]

I've been here for a long time. I came just a bit after Freak873. It was neat seeing the accidental upload of .47, because it did bring back some memories.

My first FFR post was a question about whether or not people get good by memorizing the arrows lol.

[User6773]

When I first arrived, Revolutionary Etude was the hot new song....that I had no chance at.

The background was orange and awesome. (Why'd he ever change it?)

There were secret secret songs, and all was wonderful

[plasmix]

At my sister's birthday about a year ago (in February), I was surfing the web when one of her friends says, "Hey, wanna see a cool website?" And I said sure.

So I was introduced to FFR. The first song I tried was Terror From Beyond. I still remember fumbling over the keys. Then, I decided to check the classical section. I tried Rondo, or "Fast Piano" as it was called. I was like "HOLY CRAP".

I don't know why, but I sort of forgot about FFR until early June.

The new Harry Potter book had come out and my dad decided to be nice and grab a copy. ($15 at Sam's Club) Unfortunately, my other sister called dibs, so I did something to pass the time. Then, FFR came back into mind, and that's when I started FFR again.

[Anticrombie0909]

My first DDR-related experience was about three years ago in California, where my friend (already aquainted with DDR and FFR) taught me how to play on a Pump-it-up Machine. We played for about four hours straight, and from then on I was hooked. I came back and started playing FFR almost nonstop. I got fairly good in a short period of time (I could beat BTC with under 30 misses within a week or two). I played for a couple of months before I signed up (never seeing the need). I remember the old forums (which I went into maybe twice and posted once on), the old chat and .47...like privateer said, it does bring back memories. The first new song I remember getting was...wow I totally can't even remember. I do remember when Arch was banned, and I remember him coming back. Although I don't remember what he was banned for...anybody know? Anyway...yeah, this site's been through a lot. We just need a big sign saying like:

WE LOVE YOU, SYNTHLIGHT!

Too much? Yeah, I thought so too...

[plasmix]

I think Arch like posted the location of all the secret songs on a news bulletin.