Seven years.

[MrGiggles]

Originally Posted by Vanilla Mnm

Nice, Arch. ;o
Is there anybody that is older than you that's active? Or was active? Besides Synth.

Oh & jewpin isn't really around anymore, he logs on still, but hasn't posted since July 18th.

He still posts frequently in ffya.

I'm less inclined to nostalgia bomb as I wasn't around till 05 and actually ditched for a few years end of 06, maybe 07 i don't remember.

[pokelda]

Were you busy bringing the joys stepmania to the children of impoverished nations during your off time?

[Arch0wl]

Absolutely.

Coolboyrulez asked the juiciest question here, so I'm digging into it:

Originally Posted by Coolboyrulez0

How do you think the current community and general feeling of this place compares to that of it 5 years ago?

The game is more streamlined and everything is established. There's so much that the community has standardized over time.

Let me put it this way: part of the reason players now can be so amazing at the game so quickly is because everything is set up for them. When people like Reach, Hyrogashi, Nima and myself were most active, everything was chaotic, everyone was constantly fiddling and we were still inventing terms to accurately describe our playing experience. Slowly but surely, our disjointed experimentation started to create some coherence and players continuously expanded on this to create the much more structured environment we have now.

[Dr Tran]

remember that arch sm history thread? good read

[MrRubix]

Originally Posted by Reach

Back in the day I got an A on blur and Arch0wl called BS on me and it turned into a massive flame war thread about how such feats could never be possible.

Even a baby SM player can churn out an A on blur nowadays.

Oh Arch, <3

I tell these sorts of stories to new players all the time. People don't realize how much the old communities sucked compared to today's. I remember someone making a response video to Arch, who had called BS on his BMR A score. His name was Turbo-something... perhaps Arch remembers? Some Asian dude retorting to Arch with his own quote "How can you score so well on A but suck at everything else?"

Anyways, I don't have much identity with my name because I've used so many over the years. Obviously I just associate myself with myself -- Marcus. I've been around since the early days of DWI (I started playing late middle school IIRC), and I feel like there are so few people left from that era who still play.

[Tokzic]

it blows my ****ing mind that people have upped the ante on this game so much

like, it's ridiculous how high the standards bar has gotten in less than ten years

[MrRubix]

I think there are a variety of factors at play, there.

I'd actually disagree with Arch -- there's far less structure now than there was a few years ago, but there's certainly more content and functionality in the present time, even if it takes some searching. By this I mean there were multiple DDR/SM sites that were very active and constantly discussing these games. Now a lot of those sites have died in activity or have stopped altogether. I wish my old hard drive back home wasn't shot. I tried really hard to recover my files, but to no avail. There was nearly a decade of DDR/DWI/SM history on that thing. Files and videos you just can't find anymore. It's a shame.

But I do think there were important changes that contributed to the skill progressions of today:

1. Harder files. People couldn't really push themselves when the hardest charts were on the level of PSMO and BMR files. Only when harder, well-stepped files were churned forth, people had something to strive for.

2. Stepmania's progression. With so many features now compared to before, I would agree with Arch here that "everything is set up." DWI used to be totally barren -- fairly shoddy control, limited functions, etc. Now we have CMods, different noteskins (more people switched to Note, and Note is more helpful when it comes to learning to read more advanced patterns and timings), scroll options, etc. We can better customize the game to match what is most comfortable to us.

3. Play styles. Most people actually played four-key or index for the longest time. Spread is actually a relatively new concept.

4. ITG. The communities were still pretty active when ITG was alive and kicking. It provided the first real boost of difficulty after DDR Extreme (nobody cared about Supernova). I remember looking at Pandemonium and Vertex and going "No ****ing way do they expect this **** on pad."

5. Modularization of patterns. Maybe I was out of the loop on this one, but back in the day, few people referred to patterns by technical terms. You rarely heard "trill," "jack," "jumpstream," "candlesteps," "runningmen," etc. Now, those terms are well-known, and we can better isolate each concept and understand exactly how to read/execute them.

6. Mindset. Of course, all of the previous points I mentioned allowed people to push the limits of what was possible. This makes goalsetting easier for newcomers. It's always easier to reach a goal when you know others have achieved it. The end result is a community full of people who can give advice/tips/etc, whereas before, those tips would be hard to come by because so few had accomplished certain things. Paranoia used to be insane, then people dominated it. Same thing followed suit with Max 300, PSMO, BMR's A, etc. Then we had Yasu and Take dominating Max300 stealth. Dukamok beat up Reach's Air on pad -- MadMatt can now tear apart Salieri on pad as well. It's amazing how one minute we can say something's impossible, only to wind up laughing at that mindset in hindsight. It's been, by far, my favorite part of the rhythm community.

I know a few of those points can be combined but idc.


To some extent, I still feel a bit weird for still finding fun in rhythm gaming. I've been with it for so long, and I know that many of my friends IRL who I used to play DDR/SM with no longer play, and so I wonder what it is about this game I enjoy so much. I think it's definitely the skill progression. I love being able to push limits. There's always some harder goal to reach. Unfortunately, this desire has beat my hands up, leading me to retire from keyboard gaming (and I've been very good about it). I guess part of me still holds onto it for sentimental/nostalgic reasons. I still consider FFR relatively new even though it's been around for a while (I remember playing FFR after it was just a few months old in a bubble tea cafe with some friends, haha. I'd also play it in the computer labs sometimes in high school). I started playing DDR a bit before DDRMax was released, I believe. DDRMax2 followed shortly thereafter. People had to play Maxx Unlimited with Freezes off because they couldn't read it otherwise, haha. DDRMaximus was the first in the nation to FC the song, as well. More random facts that people have probably forgotten by now, lol.

[JD_Flava]

Originally Posted by MrRubix

To some extent, I still feel a bit weird for still finding fun in rhythm gaming.

Strongly agreed, not to mention that every single person I know thinks its weird that I play these games. I don't even know one person that plays FFR/DDR/stepped games (for anytime longer than just a phase anyways). To me, it just hasn't gotten old yet. I haven't been playing these games as long as you though lol

[Arch0wl]

On that note, the main reason I've played SM recently is because my girlfriend totally out-of-the-blue decided to start playing Stepmania. It weirded me out at first, because she doesn't usually play video games except at parties.

[Reach]

Harder files. People couldn't really push themselves when the hardest charts were on the level of PSMO and BMR files. Only when harder, well-stepped files were churned forth, people had something to strive for.

This was definitely one of the biggest factors. The upper limits of playing ability hadn't really been tapped into at all. I remember when I first started, Arch was the best player around and I was amazed by the fact he could actually full combo FOTBB on SM. It didn't seem all that possible, but then again there weren't any harder files for SM at the time, and I was also using a one hand setup.

Eventually way harder files came and I started to make my own to push the bar. If I had have made gigadelic back in the day it would have most certainly been deemed impossible. Even when I did make it, I didn't think it would ever be FC'd, but I almost ended up doing it myself in the end.

[MrGiggles]

I just switched to spread a short while ago and wow does it make it much easier. I had this retarded arrow key setup that pretty much guaranteed inter-finger-interference.

[Bluearrowll]

I find it interesting how if you put today's stepfiles and players into the world of 2003 and 2004, everyone would **** themselves because of the progression we've all made. From my standpoint it's all theoretical though because I havn't exactly been here forever. I registered on this site November 17, 2007 and this was also my first rhythm game, so i'm technically a newcomer compared to someone like arch0wl. From what i've read here though, I can pretty much say if today's players were put in the old community, we'd be considered 'bs' because such 'scores' would be 'impossible' in that era. It makes you wonder what will happen in 2011.

[MrRubix]

A long, long time ago, people were generally bad at making hard files simply because it was uncharted territory. You'd end up with **** like The Pledge or Solar Plexus, which was just a bunch of random BS. Either that or you'd get a plethora of offsync crap. Once people started stepping better, they were able to make harder charts that still went with the music and actually made sense. It's a skill that was sort of self-reinforcing and slowly led to the progression to legitimately harder files. Today, we have a wide range of files with variegated difficulties here on FFR, all in one place.

[banditcom]

My banditcom IGN account is 9 years 4 months old. ;D

[ledwix]

I guess you could say that this website is the equivalent of your Master Sword pedestal; looking at it enables you to travel back and forth between your Young Link and Adult Link.

[makdaddy]

noice OP

I looked at mine and saw that I'm 6.73 years, crazy

Looking back at my old threads, I realize just how completely idiotic and obnoxious I was.

P.S. I was about 12 when I made my account