Why ITG is better than DDR (not a flame thread)

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pkmnx
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Post by pkmnx » Wed Mar 09, 2005 5:38 pm

Original source code does not a full gaming experience make. Cosmetics, how the UI functions, minute (and large) changes compared to competition...eh, I'll not dance around the topic. Is ITG Stepmania? No. Does it use some of the source code? Probably. But here's some cold, unarguable facts:

- Every song in ITG1 was either created by the game producers or licensed through their efforts. -Every- song. Oh, and yes, every single video and piece of artwork, too.
- Roxor is comprised of a staff that listen to the player base. Konami of Japan, producers of DDR, were not only several thousand miles away - they were closed to the American player base, considering that we "weren't supposed" to have their game anyway.
- Stepmania showed popularity as software. If, as you claim, ITG is simply an arcade port of it...how many arcade games started as software ports, and how many console games were started from arcade ports? Porting PC software to a different platform has been LONG established as a bona fide way of creating games.
- And, simply, ITG is not Stepmania. The similarities begin and end at the fact that they're both dance sims and that they have many pf the same mods. ITG has features that SM never did: Marathons based on ever-changing mods, a single established and well-rounded UI, and methods that appeal to players of all calibers, to name a few. But mostly it has a proper "DDR feel" - its own songs, its own originals and remixes of those originals, etc. Stepmania as a collection of h4x0r3d songs lacks the...I'm not sure, feeling?...that proper DDR mixes made you get. ITG has that feeling, which will be expanded upon in ITG2.

And I was trying to be objective about the skipping in my last post, but honestly, I think it's worse in Ft. Wayne than here - it's never, ever troubled me enough to warrant it as a valid concern.

What I'm stressing is this: the only thing that matters for a game is how it plays, not its development cycle. And ITG plays a damn sight better than DDR.

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Post by CaseyDidder » Wed Mar 09, 2005 6:09 pm

never has pkmnx sounded more intelligent. AAA for you!

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Post by MonMotha » Wed Mar 09, 2005 6:39 pm

I'm talking code lineage here, though actually StepMania has a good chunk of that stuff already (the Marathon mode may be new).

You'll notice I gave them credit for the artwork, songs, and packaging and distribution. They do a pretty fine job with that, actually. However, as far as the "tough stuff" goes in making that game, they had most of their work done for them.

StepMania is released under the MIT license, which basically means that they can do whatever they want with it (including selling it for profit), and, unlike the GPL, they are not required to contribute their work back to the project in any way. This happened with the WINE project, and it caused a lot of problems. In fact, WINE got forked and newer versions of WINE are GPL to prevent that kind of thing from happening.

I'll give Roxor credit. They took a rather rough opensource project and packaged it up nice and pretty. Basically, they added that "feeling" to StepMania by taking care of all the silly stuff (song syncing, step patterns, etc) for you. It does well, but you know what, they had a very serious chunk of their work done for them.
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Post by CaseyDidder » Wed Mar 09, 2005 7:07 pm

MonMotha wrote:I'm talking code lineage here, though actually StepMania has a good chunk of that stuff already (the Marathon mode may be new).

You'll notice I gave them credit for the artwork, songs, and packaging and distribution. They do a pretty fine job with that, actually. However, as far as the "tough stuff" goes in making that game, they had most of their work done for them.

StepMania is released under the MIT license, which basically means that they can do whatever they want with it (including selling it for profit), and, unlike the GPL, they are not required to contribute their work back to the project in any way. This happened with the WINE project, and it caused a lot of problems. In fact, WINE got forked and newer versions of WINE are GPL to prevent that kind of thing from happening.

I'll give Roxor credit. They took a rather rough opensource project and packaged it up nice and pretty. Basically, they added that "feeling" to StepMania by taking care of all the silly stuff (song syncing, step patterns, etc) for you. It does well, but you know what, they had a very serious chunk of their work done for them.
by your logic monmotha, stepmania had all the work done for them then, ya know since DDR was already out and all. You're wrong, accept it. for once.

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Post by MonMotha » Wed Mar 09, 2005 9:46 pm

Actually, you completely missed the point. Stepmania was written from scratch, borrowing nothing but the concept of DDR. ITG basically took StepMania and threw it in an arcade cabinet. I'll give them credit for polishing it up and making it look nice (and they did a pretty good job at that, other than the skips), but I'm sorry, they didn't make that game.
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Post by pkmnx » Wed Mar 09, 2005 9:59 pm

To keep this as a non-flaming thread, I'll sum it up like this.

MonMotha: you put credit in programs having written all of their stuff from scratch, whereas I don't care. We disagree; neither of us care about the other's opinion; end of discussion. *nod*

Anyway, I seem to recall this topic was about how ITG is better than DDR, not about how its code wasn't original. :wink:

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Post by MonMotha » Wed Mar 09, 2005 10:03 pm

Indeed. I dislike the business ethics of Roxor (similar to Transgaming, maker of Cedega, who did something similar with WINE). ITG is actually pretty fun. Anyone who watched me play it would know I did enjoy myself. Since my background is in this kind of stuff, I tend to put a little more weight on technical quality than most might.

If ITG2 fixes the skipping, more power to them. I'd be really happy if they'd contribute their fixes back into Stepmania so that it wouldn't skip on other systems as well.

I really liked a few of the songs on ITG. Anubis Expert especially is very fun. Hopefully they'll put hands/mines in 7-9 footers ITG2 and bring the fun stuff down into the range where everyone can play.
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Post by CaseyDidder » Thu Mar 10, 2005 12:14 am

MonMotha wrote:Indeed. I dislike the business ethics of Roxor (similar to Transgaming, maker of Cedega, who did something similar with WINE). ITG is actually pretty fun. Anyone who watched me play it would know I did enjoy myself. Since my background is in this kind of stuff, I tend to put a little more weight on technical quality than most might.

If ITG2 fixes the skipping, more power to them. I'd be really happy if they'd contribute their fixes back into Stepmania so that it wouldn't skip on other systems as well.

I really liked a few of the songs on ITG. Anubis Expert especially is very fun. Hopefully they'll put hands/mines in 7-9 footers ITG2 and bring the fun stuff down into the range where everyone can play.
skippings isn't ITG's problem, i've played on quite a few machines w/o skippage, the only machine to do it is Putt Putt, go fig. Your arrogance in your opinions about a game are about the same as mine and my skills in DDR, cept mine are proven -_-x

get off your high horse, you've been beaten by pkmnx.

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Post by MonMotha » Thu Mar 10, 2005 12:16 am

Gosh, I thought my opinion of the game was pretty good, save the skipping. I guess you just really are a god of all things in this world, Casey.
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Post by TaQa » Thu Mar 10, 2005 12:32 am

Actually almost everyone I've talked to that plays frequently on other machines say they skip just about as often as Ft Waynes does. However ITG2 is supposed to fix all of that.

And Jeez Casey, you're one to talk about getting off of High Horses :-P Just because he's not on your side of the argument doesn't mean his opinion is totally void, and he should stop preaching it.

But anyway, I agree with MonMotha that there should be some eaiser songs that have hands in them. Hands are fun, but not everybody can do stuff like Queen of Light.

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Post by CaseyDidder » Thu Mar 10, 2005 1:30 am

TaQa wrote:Actually almost everyone I've talked to that plays frequently on other machines say they skip just about as often as Ft Waynes does. However ITG2 is supposed to fix all of that.

And Jeez Casey, you're one to talk about getting off of High Horses :-P Just because he's not on your side of the argument doesn't mean his opinion is totally void, and he should stop preaching it.

But anyway, I agree with MonMotha that there should be some eaiser songs that have hands in them. Hands are fun, but not everybody can do stuff like Queen of Light.
I've played in PA, NJ, Couple machines in OH, and Fort Wayne. Only Fort Wayne skips. Ppl in Chitown say their machine doesnt skip either. I hvaen't heard the Louisville ppl talk about skipping either.

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Post by hascoolnickname » Thu Mar 10, 2005 7:57 pm

I was told by one person that stepmania was released under GNU, so the developers never saw a penny for it. I know this one guy who is super pissed at everyone at roxor- he says he was on the dev. team for SM but I don't think he is telling the truth.
The truth is that for ITG they really didnt do that much. They just skinned it(takes a lot less time than actually making the game yourself, the honorable thing to do :wink: ) and then shipped it off.
Of course I am going to be wrong on some of these aspects, and I know there will probably be some flaming, but I don't care. That's not going to change the fact that they ripped sm.

oh and as for the skipping- that might have something to do with hardware. Since they probably have it running of a linux or bsd box inside the cabinet(I have never seen inside for myself) they might have it set to too high grapics settings for the video card or the ram. That or if they run off a disc, it is scratched.
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Post by pkmnx » Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:03 pm

Our Mishawaka machine barely ever skips, and when it does, it's hard to notice.

Let's keep this nice, eh? >.>;

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Post by MonMotha » Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:15 pm

Actually StepMania is MIT licensed according to their Soruceforge page, which basically says "do what you want; just don't sue us". Anybody is allowed to make changes and sell the modified version (and prohibit redistribution), without ever making the modified version's source available. This is in stark contrast to the GPL which requires the modified source be made available to those who the binary is distibuted to, and those people must also be allowed to freely redistribute under the same terms.

Back on topic, I noticed something. ITG songs tend to average around 2 minutes, rather than 1.5 which was normal for DDR. This can make things harder by being more tiring, and of course, a longer game is always nice for those playing to get their money's worth. The challenge of keeping the steps from becoming repetitive is even greater with longer songs, though ITG seems to do an OK job.
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Post by CaseyDidder » Thu Mar 10, 2005 11:13 pm

MonMotha wrote:Back on topic, I noticed something. ITG songs tend to average around 2 minutes, rather than 1.5 which was normal for DDR. This can make things harder by being more tiring, and of course, a longer game is always nice for those playing to get their money's worth. The challenge of keeping the steps from becoming repetitive is even greater with longer songs, though ITG seems to do an OK job.
uh duh? they advertise that very point. 90% of there songs are above 1:50 mark, and only 2 are under, at 1:47 and 1:48. 50% are over the 2 minute mark, and no I'm not jus pulling these numbers out of my ass.

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