The Domain is registered until July, 2012 so nobody else can claim the domain. Jason or whoever the current admin was will have to go in. It's hard to know if the database crashed, or if the the site's code/config got changed.

Should be interesting to see if anyone in charge still cares about the site.

I think the site has only stayed alive so someone could get affiliate revenue from visitors clicking on the links to buy DDR products. They clearly sold out and had 3 paid links on the bottom of the left column.

Even if it is gone for good scott, the site has been in a coma for more than a year or two.

The last 4 maybe even 5 years it pretty much went into a stasis of no news (well important news at least). Sadly it won't cause any news at all. Probably just a silent stir in the dance game community.

Everybody seems to have just moved on in general or to smaller sites like this one. Which thank god Jon you found us when we posted years ago, I might have never found this good forum

ddrfreak.com led me to this site when i moved up here 6.5 years ago.

it would've been nice to have it die a proper death instead of a database fubar crash.

oh yeah, anyone remember this video from ddrfreak?:

DDR Freestyle - Synchronized Love

That is my all-time favorite freestyle/doubles routine video.

You guys do not have to worry about this site being abandoned or shut down! I'll keep hosting it as long as I have money to pay my rent and the web hosting.

With the other sites slowly dieing, if we want to expand the scope of the forums to include other topics and conversations, lets do it!

For anyone on Google searching for a local DDR machine or for DDR around WA/OR, this site ranks well. We get a good amount of traffic from search results, so as long as we reach out to people in the local arcades to tell them about the site, the site should be in good shape.

It's a pity that they're down, hope it's not permanent.  Their forums have always been too slow to really be usable, what I'm more upset about is the now lack of a central DDR machine database.  That was their main use to me (and I actually picked my current city/house based on the geographical presence of DDR machines).  I know there are a few sites that have DDR machine locations/maps, but nothing really comparable to theirs (in terms of size)

 

Z-i-V's Arcade locations database is probably the best option at this point.

http://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/arcadelocations.php
http://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/arcadelocations.php?locationid=321

It is a shame what may have happened to DDR Freak. They had a huge resource of history and information in those forums. Yes, they were nearly impossible to access due to the lag, but there was a ton of useful stuff there.

However, I did see this coming a while back and I took the liberty to copy all of the help/text files hosted at DDR freak for archiving purposes. I've currently got them hosted on my site (which is by no-means awesome or official, it's just something I threw together in 10 minutes to host these things for my reference). So, if anyone wants to check out some of the tutorials and FAQs they used to have over there, I've got'em at my Dance Guru site.

Also of note, I took the DDR Freak Dictionary and made an article of it in this site's article section. I even added a handful of entries or edited existing ones to TRY and make it a bit more relevant to modern conditions.
http://www.pnwbemani.net/articles/music-games-faqs/ddr-and-itg-deffinitions/50

This is true, DDR Freak's was arguably the largest, but I would guess that 1/3 of those machines are no longer in the places listed, if those places even still exist.

Lastly,
Word.

Kevin Kim DDR - Dam Dariram

This is still my favorite from the site

Database error doesn't mean the site is dead. Like BlueSS said, the domain is still valid at the very least... just needs a site admin to actually notice that the site is  broken and fix it.

Even though the only times I ever look at the site now are for machine locations, I would be a little sad to see the site die. It brings back memories of when I started playing DDR back in early 2001 (DDRFreak's forum was actually on different forum software at the time, they changed to phpBB in 2002 and wiped everything). It reminds me of when I'd actually get excited to step up onto that stage and then start smashing arrows. Back when getting a crowd made you feel hella hype. Back when people actually freestyled (I've always been terrible at it but I've always enjoyed watching old videos from those tournaments). And DDRFreak actually became the regular posting place for people in the Rio Grande Valley, where I used to live in south Texas before moving here. So many memories...

I think it was the posting place for the entire nation back then. There weren't exactly a plethora of other places to go to.

Suko, your Dictionary page is awesome. I'm going to try to find a way to better highlight and emphasize that those articles are there.

DDR Freak is back!!!!! 

Even thought the site's back up, looking at the forums that place seems REALLY dead. Anyone who was using it might use it less since the recent crash...

The site's up, but nothing was posted or said anywhere to why or who fixed it. :\

I know, it's so sad. Even the random chat is dead.

For some reason machine locations don't show up when you type in ddrfreak.com (without the www.)

I knew it was only a matter of time, but it looks like DDR Freak is down, probably for good this time. Damn...so many good memories.

http://www.ddrfreak.com/

Alas! I saw that, too. Went to check in on DDRFreak for a particular thread I remembered, and everything is gone. On the plus side, some googling lead me here 

Does anyone still visit this forum? If so, does anyone know the status of DDR freak? After more and more arcades with DDR machines around me keep closing, I have decided that this summer I'll be doing my own research to catalog the cabinet locations in a 100 mile radius of my town, and if its easy enough to do I'd be interested in maybe buying the domain to get it up and updated nationwide again.

Anyone with info, lemme know please!

Sure, people still come here. It's not nearly as active as it was years past (what bemani forum is?), but it's not dead.

Regarding DDR Freak's closure; No, I don't think anyone here knows what happened. I can speculate that the hosting expired and no one bothered to renew it for the fourth or fifth time since the site closed down years ago.

If you're interested in documenting DDR (or any Bemani) arcade game locations near you, check out the ZIV arcade locator. You find existing locations, update or remove outdated ones, or even add any new ones you find to the map:

http://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/arcades.php

Fantastic! Thanks 

The more sites that keep closing down, the more new visitors we seem to get. I'm sure Z-i-V gets huge influxes though, since it's the main hub for bemani these days.

I wish there was some way to archive those forums. I'm a nostalgia whore and love reading through the old stuff from a decade ago. Reminds me of what it was like to play back then when DDR was bustling with activity.

Funny story, I recently visited the Ocarina of Time message board I used to frequent back in the early 2000's to catch a little nostalgia, and many of the same people from back then were actually still posting! It kind of made me feel fuzzy inside.

I emailed Jason Ko directly about DDRFreak.com and he said that the server has had some issues for a while and he just finished getting it rebuilt. He told me that he will be restoring it soon with a backup that is about 1 year old.