Progress and Reflections
Posted on: December 3, 2008, at 01:25:38am

I've come a long way since I've started.

3.22 years ago, sitting at a picnic in a county park, a school friend opened up his laptop and began to play a wonderous game called DWI. He invited me to take a look at it. I distinctly recall trying the song Waka Laka, and having a great time. Right around then, FFR was getting off the ground. He suggested that I sign up and play around a little bit. I agreed to try it, and was honestly not impressed.

DWI had much better timing, and as a full screen environment optimized for desktops, it was a LOT less laggy. I installed DWI and started playing as many songs as I could get my hands on.

A year passed. I had given up interest in Keyboard DDR, and I had moved on to the MMO Runescape. I'm glad I've moved past that stage in my life, but it existed, and attempting to deny my addiction would be like attempting to deny world history: there are no good consequences that come of ignorance. I had been bedazzled by MMOs, and would continue to be for a year or two more.

Around June of 2006 (IIRC) I stumbled across the Stepmania site. Installed it, add the first songpack, and suddenly realized that.. HEY! I was pretty good at this Stepmania game. I started a small club at my highschool, which grew a bit larger, then dissolved. We played together, and grew better together, but then real life got in the way and we had to stop.

After this there was another long period of inactivity. I was growing restless, and took up guitar hero for a month or so. It's a great game, but has little replay value once you've exhausted all of the songs. Perhaps the new version that allows you to write your own songs will fix this problem. In any case, I was back onto rhythm games for good. I came back to FFR, and to my surprise, the little, struggling website that I had once known had grown into a swelling community of over a million. I'm not sure what my position is in terms of user #, but I'd wager I was in the first 50,000. I've had this account for a long time, and I've gradually moved up in skill.

I guess that the best indicator of how jaded/cynical you are is the reaction you experience to given combo numbers.

When I started:
100-150 combo: Pretty good.
200 combo: Quite good.
300 combo: REALLY good.
400 combo: UnPRECEDENTED.
Full combo: expected on songs of difficulty 4 and down.

Now, It's more like the following:

800 combo: Decent
1000 combo: Average
1500 combo (on songs with more than 2k notes): Pretty Happy.
1900 combo: Really good.
Full Combo: Expected on everything of difficulty 10 and down.


I'm comfortable playing all of the FMOs on the site, and very few FGOs (Blue Rose is the sole exception.. I think it's basically just a long FMO), and I enjoy playing multiplayer with intelligent, conversational human beings.

I'm going to be a Math Major next year, and playing FFR really helps me to unwind in the middle of a difficult problem set. This reflection should serve as a personal reminder on all of the hardships and happy memories I have of playing this great game, and being involved in this community.

If you've read through this and have a comment to leave, please do so in the comments section of my profile.