Make Stepmania Great Again

[Dinglesberry]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

Do you think the front page on FFR should have some sort of "First time playing StepMania?" link with explanations pointing out to all these sticky threads for the sake of conveniency?

The argument is that a new player who has no idea what the game is wants to just download a game and play, not spend and hour researching.

Also you overestimate people, there's lots of people who don't know how to navigate to the SM folder, unzip files etc...

What needs to be done regarding actual changes to stepmania, imo is:

Make stepmania come with xwidget, work with Mina and make til death the default them, integrate the game with online play so it's basically like osu in terms of profile, leaderboards etc - If I were to design it, I'd make someone configure their profile first time the sign in, set your key binds, speed mod, scroll dir, note skin (include lots of the common noteskins) etc - I feel like the most logical thing would be to encourage spread play right off the bat, rather than having arrow keys be default.

Of course, to implement a leaderboard, there would have to be a standardized song list.. Ive noticed that stepmania online is working on a pack search/a way to index individual files I suppose, from the news post, so perhaps it would be possible.

[SKG_Scintill]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

Make Street Fighter/F-Zero/Age of Empires/Timesplitters/Goldeneye/Starcraft Great Again

games lose players

[SKG_Scintill]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

If I were to design it, I'd make someone configure their profile first time the sign in, set your key binds, speed mod, scroll dir, note skin (include lots of the common noteskins) etc

"Ok I never played stepmania before, but my friends told me to give it a go."
"So let's start this game up for the first time!"
- SET UP YOUR SPEED MOD AND NOTESKIN -
"What is this shit? Let me play the fucking game!"
*never comes back*

[MarcusHawkins]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

Anyways, if nobody here shares the same desires for more autistic friends with strong fingers like I do, then I guess that's fine.
But if anyone is in the same boat, and wants to maybe thrust some life into this quaint little community with me, then let's try to do this together.

I am one of these autistic people with strong fingers, so I am with you all of the way!

[Staiain]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

Basically I need to put up even more effort to get new people to try out the game (AND STAY) when they stumble upon my strim, sure thing man I'll be putting more effort into that than ever

[Celirra]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

tl;dr: Most of the information you could potential want as a new player is already here, it's just a matter of pointing them in the right direction.

Do you think the front page on FFR should have some sort of "First time playing StepMania?" link with explanations pointing out to all these sticky threads for the sake of conveniency?

The crux of the argument really boils down to, contrary to most "popular" games you do kind of have to use your research skills to find what you want; there's not a good megathread/textdump/google doc/whathaveyou (maybe I should make one or something...) that would make it easy. Sure you can point people in the right direction, but having a doc you could just link easily, say with an embedded link to the newest version of xwidghet's build or whatnot.

Naw but really, I would like to see this game grow but this game is incredibly niche, and rhythm games have really left the public eye. I don't think it's going to get much bigger anytime soon, and I'm fine with that!

I agree to that much; I really don't expect massive growth. It's more maybe having the ability to keep a steady stream of people to counteract those who leave so it doesn't shrink.

Make stepmania come with xwidget, work with Mina and make til death the default them, integrate the game with online play so it's basically like osu in terms of profile, leaderboards etc - If I were to design it, I'd make someone configure their profile first time the sign in, set your key binds, speed mod, scroll dir, note skin (include lots of the common noteskins) etc - I feel like the most logical thing would be to encourage spread play right off the bat, rather than having arrow keys be default.

Of course, to implement a leaderboard, there would have to be a standardized song list.. Ive noticed that stepmania online is working on a pack search/a way to index individual files I suppose, from the news post, so perhaps it would be possible.

That's the kind of thing that would be great if done right, but I feel that much development is beyond the scope of most people here to really pull off to an extent where it would be good unfortunately. Ideally, yeah that would be perf.

Basically I need to put up even more effort to get new people to try out the game (AND STAY) when they stumble upon my strim, sure thing man I'll be putting more effort into that than ever

Didn't intend to blame/push pressure onto you in any way, apologies (it did somewhat come off that way, oops); I more used you as an example of the kind of thing that is helping the game and community and what we really need. I'd say you're the primary source of new players actually playing Stepmania, so massive props for that!

[lofty rhino]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

Where my necromancers at?

[sunn0glasses]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

All very interesting considering this is one of the simplest, most simple and such a basic level game that is combined with music on again, such a simple and base level. This game should be core material not only for so called rhythm gaming enthusiasts but for planet earth. Think about just how core the four arrows being tapped to the beat of a song is man it is surreal when you think about how just basic level this is nothing more than a rhythm game that can be played on any computer. If you know what a game is, you should know about this game. If you know what music is, you should know about this game. The statistics are astonishing that the small communities dedicated to the 'press 4 buttons to the beat of a hit song' genre have such dwindling and mixed reviews. Furthermore I reiterate by saying it is astonishing that stepmania needs be made great again when it's just so simple and core of a game in terms of just how games are played in general. In closing it is just flabbergasting that this game is not literally the most popular game on earth, not even top 3, not top 10, but somewhere in the second half of the top 500 most popular videogames.

i dunno if you're being sarcastic, but i actually agree 100%. stepmania is good for your soul

tbh stepmania is not that hard to set up - plus its fuckin free. who doesn't like free games?

however, stepmania is niche as fuck, and it shouldnt be too surprising that it's not super popular.

but i've been thinking lately, stepmania has done a lot to spread music and get players listening to things they'd never think to listen to otherwise. when i got into stepmania in like 2007 or whenever, i was like 15 and hearing venetian snares and m1dy and dj sharpnel and shit like that for the first time. shit blew my mind and had big influence on what music i listen to today. that said, i feel like if stepmania is going to make any significant gains in attention, maybe the content itself is what needs to engage new players. hear me out - there's a lot of cool young alt internet kids these days, not saying i'm not one myself, but my point is there's a lot of cool young folk that spread hype within "scenes" on soundcloud, facebook groups, the internet in general. and if i had to guess what niche group of cool kids would be naturally into stepmania, it'd be ravey weeaboo ex-DDR players. but in a broader scope, i would think people who are into electronic / dance music / new music might be somewhat entertained by stepmania. maybe stepmania should have more of a presence on soundcloud? maybe more simfiles of relevent and upcoming music should be made?

i dunno, just poopin the words outta mouth so wat up

like, for example, what if a site like NESTHQ did a feature on stepmania? that'd get a lot of eyes on stepmania for a hot sec. well, how would something like that come about? probably if there was some content that would spark interest, hit some trendy shit, you know?

as with any project you want to get eyes on, it takes some delusional self endorsement, and just bein a ho

[djaero]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

Stepmania? Plz, Dance With Intensity is the one and true DDR sim. Viva DWI!

[Dinglesberry]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

Since I started getting somewhat ok at stepmania, now I only list to Plunderphonics high bpm pseudo breakcore breakbeat mixes

[Celirra]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

So all jokes aside does anyone have any nifty ideas?

[Mahou]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

Not really.

[sunn0glasses]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

i was hoping someone would build off what i said before

here's an idea: corporate sponsorship - get sponsored by monster energy and go pro, profit etc

[Celirra]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

i was hoping someone would build off what i said before

here's an idea: corporate sponsorship - get sponsored by monster energy and go pro, profit etc

Wasn't sure how to expand off what you said earlier, it seemed pretty good to me. Again I'm not sure how we'd go about it.

MLG Stepmania would be neat, doesn't Osu! kinda have that going already though?

[Mahou]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

here's an idea: corporate sponsorship - get sponsored by monster energy and go pro, profit etc

Lol.