Southperry Stepmania Thread

Next Meeting: meetings stopped due to lack of interest

Meetup server has been changed to stepmaniaonline.eu, due to smonline.us being down all the time!

This week: Back to normal.

Required packs for meetups:
Touhou Pad Pack
KoMmunity Keyboard Pack V1
Keyboard Collaboration I
Keyboard Collaboration II
Keyboard Collaboration III
Community Keyboard MegaPack 1



Good packs that are not required for meetups but that you might like:

 Spoiler

These are in rough order of difficulty.

Keyboard:
J-Files (beginner)
BemaniRuler Originals (beginner)
DDR packs (beginner)
Hopscotch Mixes (beginner-light intermediate judging by 2nd mix)
Foon Mixes (beginner-light intermediate)
Otaku's Dream Pad Anime Mixes (beginner, judging by 5th mix)
Mungyodance 1, 2, 3 (beginner-light intermediate)
Ethereal Rising (beginner-lightish intermediate)
UKUG (beginner-light intermediate, with a couple heavy intermediate edits)
In the Groove 1 (beginner-light intermediate)
In the Groove 2 (beginner-light intermediate)
In the Groove 3 (beginner-light intermediate)
Touhou Pad Pack (beginner-light intermediate)
KoMmunity Keyboard Pack V1 (beginner-heavy intermediate)
Mintmania (beginner-light intermediate) (If you want video backgrounds, rename all the .avix files to .avi)
Super Simfile Song Pack (beginner-intermediate)
r21 12 pack (beginner-heavy expert depending on if you play with a c mod or x mod) (download requires registration)
FlipSide FFR Pad Pack (beginner-light intermediate)
Keyboard MegaPack 1.5 (intermediate-expert)
Community Keyboard MegaPack 1 (intermediate-light expert)
Otaku's Dream Keyboard Anime Mixes (light intermediate-light expert, judging by 5th mix)
F4 (intermediate-light expert)
Skor's Selection of High Quality Simfiles (intermediate-light expert)
Keyboard Collaboration I (intermediate-heavy intermediate)
Otaku's Dream 1st Touhou Mix (light intermediate-expert)
Cessyness's Pack Of Awesomeness (heavy intermediate-light expert) (another mix-pack put together by a KoMmie)
Keyboard Collaboration II (intermediate-expert)
Keyboard Collaboration III (intermediate-heavy expert)
Community Keyboard MegaPack 2 (intermediate-light expert)
F5 (heavy intermediate-light expert)
Project Liminality (intermediate-expert)
Red Fraction Pack (heavy intermediate-expert)
Touhou (beginner-heavy expert)
Touhou Project (light expert-heavy expert)
Xoon 4 Blue version and Red Version (expert-heavy expert and beyond)

Keyboard Solo:
Xiao's Solo Beginner Packs I, II, III

Pad:
UKUG (beginner-expert)
J-Files (beginner-expert)
Hopscotch Mixes (beginner-expert judging by 2nd mix)
Otaku's Dream Pad Anime Mixes (beginner-expert, judging by 5th mix)
DDR packs (beginner-expert)
KoMmunity Keyboard Pack V1 (beginner-expert) (most of these are actually pad files, despite the name "keyboard pack")
Mintmania (beginner-expert) (If you want video backgrounds, rename all the .avix files to .avi)
In the Groove 1 (beginner-expert)
In the Groove 2 (beginner-expert)
In the Groove 3 (beginner-expert)
Touhou Pad Pack (beginner-expert)
Mungyodance 1, 2, 3 (beginner-expert)
Video game Miniature Pad Pack (beginner-expert)

If any links don't work, let me know.

Feel free to dispute my difficulty ratings or suggest packs; I'll add them to the list of good packs if I like them or if someone seconds it.

How to play Stepmania online:

 Spoiler

You'll need Stepmania 4 or a 3rd-party build that supports online play, like 3.95. 3.9 DOES NOT support online play.

You should have the following options set:
Coin Options > Event Mode = ON
Machine Options > Menu Timer = OFF
Machine Options > Default Fail Type = Whatever. Don't put FailImmediate unless you're a masochist.
Machine Options > Judge Difficulty = 4
Machine Options > Life Difficulty = 4
Machine Options > Marvelous Timing = ALWAYS

Make an account at stepmaniaonline.eu. Once that's done, go in the options menu in Stepmania and create a profile with the username you registered with. Select "Network play" or something like that from the Stepmania menu (remember, you need 3.95 or 4.0). When it asks you where to connect to, enter stepmaniaonline.eu. When it asks for password, enter the password of the account you registered with.

Once you're in a lobby or game room of Stepmania Online, you need to press ctrl+enter to select things! Just plain enter is used for sending chat messages.

On meetup nights, I'll create a room there called Southperry. When you're in a room, pressing up twice will bring you to an options menu where you can adjust your speed mods and other options. (refer to this guide for how to add custom speed mods.) Pressing down allows you to select from the available difficulties of the selected song.

Speed mods info:

 Spoiler

By default, Stepmania uses a speed mod of 1x. It's very difficult to read most songs on 1x. I strongy suggest you use a faster speed mod. It will make it easier to play because there will be more space between the arrows. Constant speed mods (cmods) make the song scroll at a constant rate even if the song has bpm changes or stops. A mod of C300 would be as if you were playing a 150 bpm song at 2x. In single-player, you can change your speed mod by pressing Enter before a song starts. In online play, you can do so by pressing Up when in a room. You don't have to only use the speed mods available in that menu; you can add your own to the menu by modifying an .ini file. Follow this guide. I currently use C400, but I'm gradually turning it up.

Stepmania 3.9 users that don't want to copy their songs:

 Spoiler

If you already have 3.9 and don't want to waste disk space by copying and pasting your songs, here's how you tell Stepmania to look in an additional folder for songs:

Open up Preferences.ini, find the line that says "AdditionalSongFolders=" (should be right near the top) and put the path to the 3.9 song directory after the =. Example:

AdditionalSongFolders=C:\Program Files\StepMania 4.0\Songs

If you're using Stepmania 4 Alpha 4, Preferences.ini is in %appdata%\StepMania 4\Save\. If you're using Stepmania 4.0 CVS, it's in My Documents\StepMania CVS\Save\. If you have a lot of songs, be prepared for a long wait, since it'll have to rebuild the cache.

If you're on Vista or Linux, I think you could also do it by symbolically linking the 4.0 Songs folder to the 3.9.

Advice to new players: Use a non-default speed mod, use 2 hands to play, and set your keys something like dfjk so your fingers aren't crowded together on the arrow key.

I'm usually on Southperry IRC, so feel free to ask me questions there (in PM please, I don't pay too much attention to #southperry).