I think I suggested that in the past, like 3 years or so ago, and someone was against it, may even have been BIll.

Of course, I'm still all for it.  Even if we can't raise ALL the cash for a new machine or mix, even contributing a part of the cost of a machine or mix may be enough.  And even if Bill tells us not to, we can conveniently ignore him and do it anyway ^_~

For the time being, I say we see who would be willing to enter into a "pledge" system, like a certain amount of $/month towards a machine.  I don't have details yet on how it would work, but I'd like to gauge interest.

Let's make sure we can cut a deal with Bill first though.  I don't want any money I pledge to go to nothing.

i said that we should do a car wash... i think if we put kevin in a speedo we could earn enough in one day

But we'd get busted for having shota.

fine Mark in a speedo

If u took pics ud make even more money :>

As far as AFFORDING machine upgrades, I was actually thinking of something along the lines of a fundraiser tournament:

-15 dollar (yes, really big) entry fee
-Easy-ish songs so that less skilled players are comfortable entering
-Inform other close regions, like BC, Oregon, and California of what we're doing and invite them to participate.

Then we could have people contribute second hand video games/consoles, bemani controllers, or goodies they get for free at work as prizes and all of the actual money would go towards buying upgrades. (That, or ten of the fifteen a head goes to upgrades and the winner just doesn't get much.)

The first two points conflict, IMO.  No one is going to want to pay $15 to get knocked out in the first round (not to mention, the people likely to win won't have much to play for).  And unless we get attendance in the hundreds, there's no way the amount of money would be significant.

Let's just focus on getting more people into our community so we don't have to worry about raising/spending such ridiculous amounts of money that most of us likely need for other things.  I may as well put the ~$1,000 I'd have to donate towards a trip (perhaps moving) to somewhere with better machines, if I wanted to play them that badly.

I'm not saying my way is "right" or that you should go donate 1k of your own money to buying dance game upgrades. I AM saying that brainstorming is better than bitching about DM8/not having GF to session with DM, or how old IIDX is, or whatnot.

I do agree that we should welcome people into our community, because it's an awesome thing we're building here. I also, though, think that if we can help the upgrades along, well, why the hell not?

Also, just so you know where I was going with points one and two:

If we pulled players who can't pass 11s on ITG into our community with a tournament that focused on 6-9 foot songs, they still wouldn't win, but they'd have fun competing and probably join the community and not feel bad paying the entry fee. This could be done by advertising near the machines or something. That, plus the local group of twenty or so players who would enter (I know lots of us don't usually enter tournaments, but I think more of us would if it were for a good cause), plus players from other areas, could very well make a 32 player tournament. If we did have a high entry fee, like fifteen dollars, that'd be 15 x 32, nearly five hundred dollars, which'd be a great START on an upgrade kit.

Again, I'm not saying this is what we have to do, I just think it's a neat idea because it promotes the spirit of community and working together AND potentially gets us better games.

Yeah, this is a pretty good idea. Future tournaments could charge an entry fee and only award prizes that have been sponsored somehow. 100% of entry fees would go to helping out with upgrades, and people would still win stuff.

We'd have to run like dozens of tourneys to make enough money for an upgrade, though.  I'm for the idea; but it probably isn't enough.  Using the tourneys to get the word out about the community would be a much better idea.  The reason Bill isn't upgrading is because the community is too small.  If we had more people, problem solved, and we wouldn't have to worry about money.

Suggestion from another thread:

Whatever brightness/contrast tweaking was done on the drummania was waaaay too much, haha. Green is pretty much invisible now, so you can't hardly see the green notes or when you get a great. Not to mention half of the song names in the song select menu are in green. >_> But it was neat playing happyman again.

The problem I see with two divisions is "on the fence" players, in other words, players who would do exceedingly well in the low-end bracket and do crap in the end bracket, and I do think there are a few in this community that fall into that.

But, I do realize that no solution by anyone can make 100% of everyone happy. Human nature and all. So, with that in mind, it's a pretty good idea.

drummania with ugly screen D:

that is not good

man... oh well. i'm gonna be there later, i finally got myself a usb flash drive hopefully it works

I might go tomorrow, but still have a little of a cough left... Will probably be playing mostly DM/air hockey.

As for brackets, if I divided the brackets more finely than two, things probably wouldn't work.  Perhaps we should set a condition for when you should join the upper bracket... Something like if you can pass 11*s or higher without much of a problem, you should be in the upper bracket.  We could also award higher prizes (assuming we're doing a sponsor-only prize deal) for the upper division, to prevent people from preying on the lower division.

Two brackets is better than one, though.  Consolidating people into the same bracket when the gap keeps growing every year is not the way we want to do things.

Hmm, sorry about the Drummania's green problem guys; I think part of the problem is the green color was already an issue but the brightness was so low that noone noticed it.  Anyhow, it didn't bother me that much; did any of you guys call the Masterman number and report it?  Well Bill will probably read it here anyhow.
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As for fundraising, it definitely looks like there is support to do that.  I guess I would still be for a combination pledge+tourney fundraiser system; that way we get big influxes every few months and small influxes inbetween.

Now I'm a person who would donate anywhere between 25-50 bucks a month towards a new machine, just saying that.  I think some here would donate 0-5 a month, anything helps; that's cool.  What I think we should lead for in the pledge system is if we do it, to appoint a banker (someone trusted with money), have a pledge list, and perhaps a rewards list (whoever donated the most gets x free credits on said machine, or something cool, I'm open to ideas on this) to encourage more and higher pledges.  I would vote we do a monthly pledge bracket, and then tabulate how many donated (not including names, just # who donated/# who pledged), how much was raised, etc. etc.  Then I think every month the banker should get that money to Bill, or something; we'd have to work together to come up with that idea.  One problem I'm concerned about is accountability of the banker and making certain noone knocks him/her out and steals all the pledge money (since this forum is generally publically viewable, right?); but I think if we got the money to Bill quickly instead of hoarding it up over several months we could ensure theft would not occur.  But yeah, handling people's money is a difficult issue.

I think in terms of legality we should agree that any machines/upgrades that are bought with the fundraising money are the property of BIll Masterman; because the property of the "community" is a gray area and then people who "donated more" or who somehow "deserved it more" might make allegations.

Another aspect I think we need for a pledge or a tourney system is an AGREED UPON upgrade/mix as the goal.  Then, assuming we make that goal, we have a rotating system.  So for example, the first one up is a Pop'n Fever (just as example), we raise money for that, then the pledge system continues per normal but the next goal changes (ie now a Drummania V4 or something crazy).  

I should state I don't think the goal should be 100% of the machine's cost.  I don't even think Bill would support that much.  Therefore we should work with Bill, after we've determined a machine we specifically want, and see how much of the cost % he would be willing to work with.  We'd have to negotiate.

Regarding tourney fundraising: I've never been involved in a DDR tournament, ever.  Honestly, I can barely pass 9 footers on DDR and have yet to play anything higher than 9 on ITG.  I usually play doubles 8 or 9, and in any case I'm not a PAer.  I think from now on I will go to tournies to support the players and buds I have there, but unless there is a bracket for less skilled players such as myself I will likely not participate.  

Anyhow, just some musings.

I still think there's no way we are going to raise thousands of dollars, and by the time we do, it will be too late.  Even if we could raise $500 a month (which is a ridiculous amount in itself...), that would still take probably about a year to get an upgrade.

Okay; I also pointed out I don't expect us to raise 100% of a machine's cost.  

An upgrade a year IS BETTER THAN the current situation, also, imho.

Let me play devil's advocate for a minute here. I think you all might be getting a little in over your heads here (heck, Bill hasn't even said he's for the idea).

Let's say Bill grants us half. The community will only need 50% of the cost of an upgrade/machine to obtain one.
Let's assume the upgrade will cost us as a community 3-5k. Remembering that 10k is the all-inclusive cost of repair, shipping, maintinence, power, and space consumption for the life of the machine which in itself is unlikely as it will likely never make any money even at the 5k cost.

Let's also say Tada grants us so graciously 1k for a machine he'll use as he mentioned. And then all 50 users in the forum donate another $50 each. That would bring us to $3500. We're still $1,500 from what it would likely take to obtain an upgrade or machine even at 50%.

So, again, let me bring this back into reality. What would likely happen is that Tada wouldn't be able to grant us $1000 (or maybe he would to spite my post :) Either way, this forum has approximately 15 active members in two weeks time. They would, collectively (we assume not all would contribute and some would try and make up for that) raise about $150-300. So where are we? Somewhere between $150-1300. That is nowhere near where we would need to be to even consider it.

This isn't even taking into account that bill would likely be swallowing the other 50% and then take a loss while the machine is in operation. I remind you that 8th style, to date, is still very much a loss leader for ACME for some and will likely never recoup.

Tournaments are a good idea, but then again you need sponsors for free. James is a good example of why- he is interested in winning. If the prizes aren't good enough, "then screw the community". Who wants to pay to play for a fundraiser? It's a huge gamble at best.

I would say we're better off discussing this with Bill before everyone gets their hopes up. I can also nearly gaurantee Bill wants 100% nothing to do with tracking donations or playing accountant for pledges.

I'll be honest, I don't have any ideas for getting a new machine but I am also trying to be realistic. Take the $50 you'd pledge, drive to Canada and make a day of it. :)

Bill is a nice guy, and an awesome arcade operator. But at the end of the day this is a business and he has to make money if we want to keep him around. Businesses are not run off of good faith, fundraisers and loss leaders. If you truly want to make a difference, get the word out about Narrows and ACME and get people to play the shit out of their machines, not just Bemani, but everything.

We benefit if his arcades benefit and that is the bottom line.

edit: this was made before the two posts preceeding this, sorry, took time to write :)

Yeah, as pessimistic as that last post sounds, I agree with the logic.

I honestly, truly, 100% for fucks sake believe that there is a difference between pessimism and realism. I would love NOTHING more than new Bemani. I just bought a KBM3 myself. I am looking at houses that have a large den so I can buy a IIDX Machine and DM myself- I HAVE SUPPORTED THE SERIES FOR NEARLY 8 YEARS. But sometimes you need to take a step back and see what is really possible given your circumstances. :)

I'm not saying it can't happen- we played a large part in why Illusionz got all their new Bemani at the time, but we also know where they are now.

Well, you were playing the devil's advocate and you played it well.

I personally never stated a timeline in terms of when the goals would be accomplished.  I think that if there are people who support fund-raising but somehow think it would yield results in a short time frame then they should expect to be disillusioned.  It's not an easy path.  But just because it's difficult doesn't mean we should bow out.  I also think that the more courage and perseverance we show, we in turn prove ourselves as a capable community and  that both encourages others to join us and also encourages others to support us (maybe even financially).  Personally, if I look at this community, we haven't PROVEN ourselves in any way other than that we are good arcade patrons and some of us get together and a number of us have big dreams.  Now, that isn't bad, but I also see a lot of dissidents in the community and a lot of naysayers.  Looking at that from an outsider's viewpoint (which will be an important perspective to view from if we want to encourage further and increased support) I wouldn't want to support the community.  But I think a cohesive and long-term fund-raising program through pledges+tournaments would change the outside perceiver's view to much more of a positive one.  Instead of a "Hey these kids play arcade gamez and they hang out, that's swell" it would be "wow these young adults/adults really love their hobby and maturely support it, maybe there's a reason...I mean, they fund-raise and whatnot too, I mean, maybe I should join or look into it more."  Positive perspectives, not necessarily unrealistic ones, are important to a community.

I also never stated nor expect Tada to give $1K and am in no way counting on it.  In fact, I'd rather have everyone give a little bit a month than have Tada give a lot all at once and nothing at all; he shouldn't be expecting big and immediate results even if he donates that kind of money.  But everyone should do with their money as they want; for me, I am comfortable enough to give $25-50 a month.  And why should I go take $50 to Canada and spend it in a day if I could pledge it and work to improve the situation down here?  Personally that's not the moral path I'd like to take, though others may and are free to differ.  But as an adult I can make my own decisions on spending, thank you very much.  I would expect the same of Tada, since he's over 18.  And even some of the less than 18 members of the community display adult characteristics that I would expect could enable them to make wise financial decisions.  I don't think we should belittle any of them by advising them of "better" ways to spend their money.  If the community can make a good system, they will WANT to spend their money to support it, after all, because it will be a logical and responsible choice.

As for Bill, I bet he hasn't responded because in a way he is waiting to see what comes of this, which is cool.  I merely stated his involvement as a option, but we can work around it (though it would admittedly be difficult).  Bill is a businessman, and we should all respect him as such. That is, if we show a mature commitment to a reasonable goal and follow through with it, I'm certain he will agree (though that will take more than just a month or two's follow-through, it will take a long time to convince him).  At the moment we don't have anything solid so I can't expect him to be solid on it either.  That's perfectly acceptable and I don't think we should discount him as an option just because he hasn't replied; rather we should be working now to draft some kind of proposal for him.

I think that's all I have to say at the moment.

This is what we have to do.  Not some stupid fundraisers.  Even if it does come down to us raising the money, it will be split more ways, and cost less per capita.



I guess my post was misunderstood a bit; replace "have to" in this case with "be required to" for what I was trying to say.  And, for the record, I have not officially donated anything yet, so do not hold me to it.

Well I never took what you said as an instant $1K towards fund-raising; and as I stated above I don't think you should do that.  It's also immature to hold people to donations they haven't pledged, so I think that was just a general misunderstanding of your comment as some sort of pledge, but rest assured I think that's cleared up now.

As for fund-raising being "stupid" I take some offense to that.  I worked for a fund-raising program for a couple of years and I know it works, but you have to be professional and devoted to it.