May I offer some reassurances that if Chris and Tuan are put in charge of the tweaks that it will surely be done to a level of obsession and accuracy that will make everyone happy. I'm positive they've done the proper research and wouldn't let anything go awry. If for some reason they weren't able to get it working up to specs, they'd surely abandon it, as these guys do need their scores, foam or not. Additionally, with the level of rigor these guys play, it would certainly be consistently kept accurate.

This being said, the feel of the pad might be very slightly different, but I would venture a guess that it will feel just fine; it's not all that big of a modification. Believe me, I am a person highly resistant to change... And a while ago I would have opposed such a modification. But based on what I've personally heard about the feel and performance at this point I think it would be an overall positive change.

Anyway this is my 2-cents, thanks for your consideration!

Hey Allan, thanks for your support! 

I am confident that foam modding will be a positive change and our community will benefit from it. If anything goes wrong and the pads aren't functioning properly, I'd be the first one to change it back. Scoring is important for anyone who plays this game competitively and I will never jeopardize that. 

To our ITG community, lets be open minded and give this a try! I know that change is a scary thing, but without change their will never be room to grow.

I don't like the foam mod idea. No explanation.

Listen, Tuan, Abbye, and I, we've all been pushing really hard for this change to happen. We strongly believe that "foam modding" our pads will result in better play and better feel for everyone. Please don't make this harder for us, especially if you have absolutely no reason for why you don't like it. 

Stopped by acme for a bit and have to say i am pretty disappointed by the itg cab.  Pads were ok but the odd song selection and monitor problems made it a no play for me.  Fiesta 2 was ok though but volume was way low and i couldnt hear it at all if any other game was in play

It's a shame the reputation system doesn't seem to be functional, because it means I have to call you out. Right after a post presenting the idea in a friendly, accommodating fashion and specifically saying to be "open minded", you're belittling someone who has legitimately expressed concerns, and that is not okay.

The screens been messed up for weeks now! I've been playing with the background hidden, only way I can actually read the notes! Only time I play with the background on is when I'm trying to score. 

As far as the song choices go, I understand that there are so many more packs out there but there really isn't anyone who is capable of putting pack on the machine other than Tony. Hopefully, Tony will find the time to put on more packs on. 

Once we have some time to sit down and fix the USB issues, custom songs will be a pretty viable alternative to filling the entire drive with every song in existence (especially if the hub is USB 2.0). It just needs to be done, but it's difficult to schedule downtime for an arcade machine...

What the fuck is wrong with you guys I wasn't serious. I'm actually open to the foam mod idea. Tuan gets my post and he's the ITG king so that makes it ok.

Sarcasm doesn't travel well over the internet. Don't expect people to always get your shitty jokes.

Your are all dumb and I hate you all.

<3

I hate you. 

I didn't know it was you... gonna punch you over and over and over and over and over...

Love you Chris <3

So pretty much minus Hollie who doesn't even really play much/doesn't play flat footed.
And Scott who has his own ITG Dedicab/and I can respectfully agree with backing Bill in wanting to not make changes to a cabinet that doesn't belong to them/doesn't want create problems with the machine so it can continue to make profit.

It's fairly unanimous that everyone wants to foam mod this sucker.

As Allan mentioned, Not only will the whole thing be maintained by players who are very good at this game but it there is an issue it will be resolved/removed in minutes.

I'd be willing to volunteer my services at the end of this month while I'm in town at the end of this month for Pax.
I'm probably one of the more experienced modders in the group and I'm overly confident I could get these pads in tip top shape for everyone.
They would be sensitive enough for 7 year old girls to trigger the pads and accurate enough for pros to beast 16ths at 250 with little to no miss fires and everything in between.

Obviously the demand is there so something should be done.

As for the Song packs on the machine. It really should be cleaned up a bit.

I like Scott's concept of having fully charted packs only. It really eliminates tension between people playing on different difficulties.

Packs that come to mind are:

ITG
ITG2
ITG3
ITG Rebirth
ITG Rebirth 2 (lol)
All or any of DDR
Pendulum
TranceMania
Tachyon Alpha
Any of the Gezebo De packs
and some others I can't think of off the top of my head


Packs that aren't fully charted but people pay attention to on Groovestats:
DragonForce
Tachyon Beta/Delta/Gamma
Mute Sims 1-8
and a few others as well

Packs that people love/most people can play/has a good following:
Easy as Pie (lol)
Any popular tournament packs

yeah

obviously none of this will happen without Bills consent because like it was said before, this is his machine and he gets final say. People tend to forget about that.

Oh and I'd also REALLY like to stress at Sara one of our newer members of the team will be moving here(to the Seattle area) at the end of this month.
She has her own dedicab and her machine was the the main machine(of two different dedicabs) at Fort Rapids 7 which is basically our annual national competition for any serious players.
Her machine was used for the lower division AND upper division and her pads got wonderful reviews.
That being said, she does all her own pad work.
You honestly couldn't get a more expert opinion on the matter and she could/would probably be more than willing to help with any modifications done.

I might be the only one who feels this way, but I'd be disappointed to see the anime-themed packs go away.

I think all the duplicates should go.

It's fine with me if you guys want to experiment with your mods.  If it does not work out, I know you can put it back to what it was.  Hopefully it works out.  :-)

Guys you need to calm down at Travis. I read his first post and blatantly knew he was joking from the start before I read any of your hostilities that followed. Additionally, you should know who this person is anyway, and if you don't because you're new to the community or whatever else, you should just hold off on chewing people out until you are... Sarcasm can be hard to read but his was extremely blatant and y'all got defensive right-quick.

Also
Song selection and monitor problems? The monitor is slightly off at the ends but there's 0 effect on the actual part of the screen where anything is to be 'looked at' and there are over a thousand custom songs... I don't know where you'd be coming from to think this machine as a 'no-play'.

Lastly
These have been broken for over two years. So quickly while we're bringing it up, when exactly did you guys expect to 'have the time'? Because frankly we've heard it all plenty for literally years ...

Thanks, Allan. That sounds reasonable.

Thank you so much for giving us the green light for this! I have the materials to mod the pads all ready to go. Only thing left for us is to wait for someone who can balance the sensors after the modding is finished. Is Tony the only person who can get into the machine? If so... TONY PLEASE HELP US, WE WANT THIS DONE! 

"You need to calm down, because you're wrong". See how that instantly defuses situations and makes everything better?


Because I know the OS it's running on, I know why it's not working, I wrote a substantial portion of the memory card handling code, I've set up several non-standard OSes to run memory cards correctly under Linux, and Tony and I have been in talks to make it happen once our respective schedules line up for a free day. Also, I moved here less than 2 months ago and we still found time to renovate the AC drive. Perhaps you should hold off from chewing people out until you know what's going on.

You know this, and Tony knows this, but I don't think the rest of us knew this.  From my perspective, we've had non-functional USB ports for a very long time, and I just figured they were never going to work again.

Post in my capacity as the acting moderator of this forum:  Nobody has crossed a line yet, but this thread is clearly getting a bit tense and I don't actually like deleting posts and yelling at people, so this is just your friendly reminder to keep it as civil as possible!

Post in my capacity as a dance game player: I don't play 14s or really competitively at all, so it's up to you guys whether or not to foam mod (as long as you have Bill's approval, which you now do,) but I am curious HOW flush the arrows will be with the brackets after the foam mod - IE will I still be able to no-bar 7s by feel or will I not be able to tell whether my foot is on the arrow or the metal part? I'm not gonna be a dick if the mod doesn't suit my playstyle, but I would like to know what I can expect!

Post in my capacity as Tony's wife, in which I REALLY struggle to take my own advice about the whole civility thing: Tony has a challenging, exhausting full time job, which drains him of much of his energy.  This job also requires him to be out of state on business for 20-25% of any given month.  Despite this, he still took the time to build you guys an awesome fucking computer, and has not been lying when he has previously referenced all of the time he has sunk into trying to figure the whole USB thing out.  He also frequently makes EXTREMELY inconvenient last minute ACME trips to fix things for you guys on a somewhat regular basis.  Despite this fact, you guys spend a lot of time criticizing him, spamming him with text messages, and demanding he do additional work as your whims see fit. 

I am Tony's goddamn wife and even I am not half as naggy and entitled as many of these posts (and said aforementioned text messages.)  I understand how some of you could be frustrated with the fact that USB is still broken, but think about what you've gained: an INSANELY fast computer, complete with 1000s of custom songs and mods, many of which Tony has taken unplanned and unnecessary ACME trips just to add to the machine for you.

LAY OFF.

And if you don't, then you would at least do well not to even think about trying to get to Tony through me as many of you (actually, literally many of you - I am not singling anyone out, I swear) have tried in the past.  The only thing worse than nagging a dude who has spent a lot of time busting his ass for you is asking his wife to do it instead, and this particular wife will not tolerate it.

Don't forget every Mudkyp pack; including the two Korean packs

Also all of the 'We Love Noise' packs by Gazebo

Let me start with the caveat that I play at Acme no more than once a month these days, so don't really expect machine decisions to take my preferences into account.    But I still like to run my mouth and express opinions, so with that clarified....This is pretty much the same as my attitude towards the foam modding idea.  I don't really play much of anything harder than 7s and 8s with the occasional weak 9, so am mainly concerned as to whether I'll still be able to "feel" where my feet are without looking down to check, especially during Double.  Not sure how recessed the panels generally are after foam modding is done.

The whole "7s and 8s with an occasional 9" thing is also partly why I remarked on the anime-themed sets.  There are a fair number of such songs in those sets, which is why I tend to play from them.  If a new set shows up that's entirely songs rated 10 and higher, I have to skip it, because I know that's way beyond my abilities (but I'm aware there are people who are just warming up on 10s before playing harder songs).  Yeah, I could keep to the other dance games at Acme, but it's nice to have options.

On the USB issue, I never used it to keep track of personal scores, so the only impact it has on me is reduced motivation to try to write steps for a song, as there's no public place to test them out (or play them) after writing them.  Apparently that hasn't slowed SPERGIN down any.