We must bring back DDR!

[rbh221]

Okay, I used to play a few years ago. When I was 13-16, I'm 18 now, and a local arcade in my town just got an old DDR machine. I went and played today, and realized, how much I missed. If there's any DDR community left, I know you'll agree with me. There's a lot more internet out now, so if we really tried, I think we could do it.

I'm working on a global Facebook group as we speak. I would like if you joined. First ITG got sued, then GuitarHero came out; I knew it was a sign of the end. BUT THERE WILL BE NO END, IF WE'RE WILLING TO FIGHT! Who's with me?

Here is my current plan:

Make a Facebook group.
Go to every DDR forum and spread the word.
Tell all my current friends about the game.
Update the DDR Freak Machine Locations guide.
Ask everyone to join me.

So I ask you, will you help me bring it back?

Edit:

Here is the Facebook group:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&gid=307219121521

I hope everyone will join. Please, spread the word.

[PureBlue]

I joined the group. I'll be inviting everyone I can.

[rbh221]

Thank you! I'll be working around the clock to get this whole thing moving.

[Baby's Tears]

how can u bring back something that has no substance. Tell konami to give us better songs and steps maby there the ones who can bring it back.
_________________

Just got my Red Octane Ignition padV 3.0
(^-^)v

[DahrkDaiz]

The main reasons DDR is fading away is because:

Failure to expose DDR. Konami has relied solely on word of mouth and publicity to spread DDR. There has been very little to no advertising campaign. This is definitely a fluke that DDR has still remained this popular.

Failure to have consistent releases. Supernova, disregarding what you think of the game, was a successful release. Many places got upgrade kits or new machines. It was actually pushed out as a revival of DDR. The problem is that very few arcades upgraded to Superova 2 and even fewer got a DDR X cabinet. Most DDR machines today are still Extreme or Supernova. Konami dropped the ball severely after Supernova.

The bad economy. This goes hand in hand with the lack of arcades upgrading to the latest versions of DDR. When arcades are doing poorly, the last thing you want to do is take a risk on buying a $12K machine that's broken or doesn't bring in more $$. This is why you might see quite a few more PIU's in smaller arcades.

Aging community. Many people who enjoyed DDR several years ago have grown up and have moved on. I've personally been playing it for 6 years and those who I started out playing with simply aren't enthusiastic about it. There are pockets here and there, but you see it in this site yourselves, the community is falling away. Supernova revived it somewhat, but Konami just doesn't put forth the effort to make DDR more popular in the US.

[Da-Risin-Smoke]

Sucks for you because it's dying now, but when I joined, Extreme just came out.

Luckily, if you were really passionate about it, you would play Stepmania, maybe make your own cabinet, and edit your own songs.
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I eat mop.
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Groovestats

[chennymountain]

I just went on DDRecall. IT'S SO EFFING EMPTY. Most of the newest forum posts are from 2008-2009. It's kinda depressing really seeing a website that used to be full of didder players and now looks like a ghost town.
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DDR? Did someone say...DDR? DDR?! DDR?!?!

[Russo`]

ddrfreak.com forums are dead.
itgfreak.com forums are dead.
ddrecall is empty, as said, and also, dead.

I mean, there all still many, many top-tier players playing this game. We can't necessarily bring back DDR to life. The entire songlist from Extreme, and I'm assuming other mixes, have been AAA'd. I still enjoy playing, and so do many other people.

I also just came back to this game not too long ago, actually a week ago, haha. It saddens me when this game is kinda going to dust, but if you look at it, more new and new players are coming everyday and it's always pretty cool to see a new player AAA'ing things, and not the same people.

Aka, Twix, Cali-Mist, Flash, you know..

Also, going on Facebook for the whole thing, you shouldn't do. Just like the other guy said, make some new Stepmania charts, try to get them noticed as possible so then you'll see other top-tier players posting a video on it, haha.

Also I forgot to say, the dancing game community doesn't have the greatest kinds of people. I've been told, and still haven't experienced that many top-tier players, and just players that know the whole community are jackasses. I still haven't met one that is, but I just wanted to let you know that if anyone has anything to say about you're whole Facebook thing, just ignore it.

Took me long enough to realize that..
_________________

I love this dancing to death. I'm striving to become the best, will I accomplish this? We will have to see. Be sure to watch out for my simfiles, videos, and posting new groovestats scores from day to day or something. I Will become the best.

[NIQ9]

Community-wise, the 3 most active forums are AIJ, ZIV, and r21freak. (I don't post on BMS, so I don't know how that's going) r21freak is seeing more traffic now than it was this time last year. Still nowhere NEAR what DDRFreak was 4 years ago, but it's far from dead, and we still have site events kind of often.
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Recall___YOUTUBE
simfiles

[Haoie]

Joined!
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Baby getting Higher, we're getting Higher
Open up your eyes, everyday is a surprise
You are the one, baby the only one
Tonight

[pleasedon'thurtme]

I wonder how many players have abandoned Dance Dance Revolution for In The Groove, Pump It Up, or maybe some other music game. EXTREME is sort of getting a little old for me because I've played it over and over, but I would love to try something like 5th Mix. I wish I had a decent home pad. I still have yet to pass any 10-footers on pad, though (not counting Bag on 3x or Sakura). I'll check the link next time I access a computer that doesn't block facebook
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Hate only bad actions, never people themselves because they bear the potential to become the good people you want them to be.

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[8ftmetalhead]

I'd be on this site as much as I used to be if it didn't lag so much... every time I go to reply to a thread I end up getting a timeout, and it's been that way for almost 7 months now.

Ahwell.

In any case, I shifted to ITG because it was a couple metres away from where my favourite SN2 machine WAS, before it got shifted.
Then I bought a laptop because playing ITG was too frick expensive.
Still, I end up hanging around the cinema arcade up the road where there's an extreme machine, and thanks to my befriending the technician, it's hopefully getting unlocked on monday. Not sure if I should push to get doubles for one credit enabled, but paying $4 to play doubles is a bit steep, I have to say.
I'll see if I can entice the tech, but as I say I don't want to piss him off after he's been so nice the past couple weeks.

But yeah I would play more DDR if it wasn't so expensive and if I could be bothered at home. If I had wired up my home pad better to allow usb connections (or to avert the axis problem) I'd probably just play stepmania but ohwell.

And I did get into pump too but it's still just an issue of money and time and bother and stuff.
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[Suko]

Wow, I thought paying $1 for a set was bad, but you've got it really bad over there in NZ 8ft. I don't know how the exchange rate works out, but I'm amazed that you even have people who play that game in arcades if that's what they're charging per game.
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"Arcades have gone away but the culture is not gone."

DDRecall | Groovestats | Beatspace | UI Bemani Club | Suko's Shirt Shack

[8ftmetalhead]

Well there's 3 main arcades in the city that I know of, Timezone, Time out (cinema branches), and Yi Fengs, NZ's largest arcade.

Timezone has a hacked ITG2 ddr cab, which quite often overheats. It was just out of commiss for about two weeks as 3 consecutive power surges took it down. They took the entire main street down, and it was the only thing running in the arcades after they happened, but it wasn't on a surge protector and the cpu got fried.
That machine is $2 per game with doubles for one credit enabled, and it's got a couple thousand songs on it. It's getting old though, and some of the songs are really terrible. (Like seph^2 songs... noone plays them and newbies sometimes select them and wonder why the frick they get a 18 foot chart when they'd fail a 2 foot.... they shouldn't be on there..)
They DID have a SN2 up until christmas, it got moved to another arcade. That was also $2 a game.
They've got Pump NX2 upgraded from an older version, that's pretty alright. It's only $1 because pump isn't very popular.

The whole arcade runs on swipe cards, and has regular deals and the like to keep people coming in though, sometimes it's double dollar top ups (ie pay for $40, get 80, which is when most people put like $500 on their cards), half price games (but only if you buy a card to use on that day), super sessions (certain days )where you pay like 20/40 bucks and some games, inc ITG and PIU are on free play)

Yi fengs, despite being NZ's biggest arcade, is really shabby. They've only got a PIU NX2 dedicab, which is impressive, but the pads aren't put together too well. a couple of sensors are dying, and the bars aren't secure (they wobble). And yet it's $2 a game.
They've also got a DDR extreme in TERRIBLE shape. It's $1 a game, but it's completely unplayable. I've jumped on the pads with enough weight to shatter the plexi, and still no response. Their other music games are also ridiculously expensive, Guitar/drum freaks V9 is $3 per game. The older versions are $2 or $2.50, I forget. They attract the wrong sort of people though, not as in faggy randoms, as in faggy abusive players, who turn the machines off and on to try glitching free games and who rape the instruments.
Still, they've got pretty much every standalone game ever released, aswell as parapara paradise and that korean drum game. Which is also $3 a game.

Timeout is an arcade I've taken a liking to recently. While their machines are a little old, they're still going pretty strong, and they're quite well looked after.
They've got a working extreme machine, and with a bit of heavy footing I've ended up with a full combo on So Deep and 300-350 combo on Max 300 (the stop always drops me though).
Fail is set to end of music, which is nice for the beginner players, but the songs aren't yet unlocked at all.
I'm going to have this sorted on monday hopefully, since one of the techs has turned out to be a real nice guy, and I've finally convinced him to unlock the machine.
As I say above, I'm not sure if I should ask him to enable doubles for one credit. I might wait till after he enters the code and confirms it.

Afterall, it's not like it'll damage business. I've never seen anyone use doubles mode there before anyway, and it won't increase maintenance since doubles songs generally have the same (if not less) steps than the singles charts, just spread across both pads.

I'll let you guys know how it turns out eh?


And in terms of actually reviving the community, I've been meaning to go round encouraging players to get onto DDR freak and the like, but aside from the fact that I haven't had time, the site isn't really in a good enough state to be drawing new players in.
Like DDR UK is trying to do, a revamp of all the old topics might be a nice idea.

It's not really very fun to come in here and see posts from as far back as 3 months on the first page of EVERY forum.
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[8ftmetalhead]

As my latest facebook update reads :

I got to enter the unlock codes on the DDR Extreme machine up in Timeout queenstreet today. There's now a total of 240 songs on it, and a whole load of new courses unlocked. MEAN. Still no joint premium. Then again, the pads are only really suitable for singles play atm.


So YAY.
I played Paranoia Survivor Max for the first time today. OH MY GOD it has some wicked turns in it.
_________________

The Zenius - I - Vanisher homepad building and modding thread!
http://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/viewthread.php?threadid=3350&page=1

[Da-Risin-Smoke]

I joined, I'm a sucker. :]
_________________

Knock knock.
Who's there?
I eat mop.
I eat mop, who?
Haha, you eat your poo.
Groovestats

[8ftmetalhead]

Finally got a video of my local ITG machine. Would have gotten one of the extreme too but my friends wouldn't come to play (since they don't like DDR) and the attendant said I wasn't allowed to take photos of the machines... I'll just ask one that I know better when I see them next, I think.

In any case, here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86pyZcq35RU
Playing my favourite custom song, haha. I'm on de left.
_________________

The Zenius - I - Vanisher homepad building and modding thread!
http://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/viewthread.php?threadid=3350&page=1

[powerplug]

[powerplug]