Sign is all printed, and I even got it laminated for effect. Anyone who wants to meet us down there for the unveiling of the sign, aim for 7 pm. <3

I'll just come up there every few months and tear a virgin lamb in half over the heads of anyone who does not abide.  That'll teach 'em...

I've been hesitating to say this because I don't want to seem contradictory to a solution, but I'd really rather not see autofail, personally.  It wouldn't ruin my experience, but it would bum me out a little.  Autofail is very counterproductive for me when trying to learn a hard chart because if I fail half-way through, I can't continue to practice the rest of the steps for the remainder of the time that I paid for.  If I had known how easy the last 200 steps of MaxX Unlimited were BEFORE I had cleared it for the first time, I would have cleared it months earlier, because I would have known that I could put all my energy into the harder parts, then recover during the slow parts and the freeze.  Same deal with The Legend of Max.  With Xuxa, I only had to fail it once, figure out where the hard parts were and when to recover, then I passed it--in heavy boots no less!  TBH, if auto-fail is turned on, I just won't play anything I'm not 100% certain I'll pass.  This means I probably wouldn't even bother to play any custom songs because I wouldn't know them.

then watch a video of the song on youtube

Look Davyn, I'm really not interested in talking to you, listening to your input, or reading your posts.  Nothing you've ever said has ever presented anything of value to me, so please stop trying to bait me to get into an argument with you.  If you're not trying to bait an argument, then please just stop responding directly to what I post.  Do you honestly think I'm that retarded?  I can look at a chart and know it on a technical level, but gauging how it will affect my body, which reacts to fatigue in a very unpredictable manner, especially when I only play dance games about once a month, requires me to actually play through the steps.  You don't understand me as a player, and you don't understand me as a person.  I can't stop you from posting to the general public or anything, nor would I seek to, but I want you to be aware that no post you've ever made has contained information that has helped, informed, or particularly interested me.

I'm not trying to be a dick here or anything, and I'm not saying, "hey guys, you should listen to the guy who stands to possibly put $10 into this machine over the course of the next year or so."  I'm just saying how I feel about an issue because nobody else seems to feel like pointing out that autofail is optional for a perfectly good reason.  If it's the most viable solution to the matter, then I can't complain; I just won't be willing to push myself outside of my comfort zone on that machine, meaning my experience might not be quite what I'd hope for.

What davyn said is perfectly valid. If you're not interested in listening to his input you're missing out on the perspective of a long time dancing game player who's probably equally as sick as the rest of us are of people who keep playing after they've failed. If you want to study a chart, watch it on youtube or play on a home pad.

Personally I like having AutoFail OFF on ITG, but not on DDR. I dunno, it's just the way the games come by default so it "feels" right to leave ITG with AutoFail Off.

I think Davyn and Tofu make valid points. I for one have NEVER been good at Stepmania and I certainly don't get any understanding of a song from watching it on YouTube (especially when the audio is off-sync, which it often is). We all have different learning methods, and mine is by doing it myself. I watch my friends play 12s all day and he makes it look EASY. If I were to simply watch him, then try it myself, I would have grossly underestimated the songs ability to kick my ass. I need to be playing it to gauge the difficulty and I will admit, with AutoFail OFF, I suffer the same shortcomings as Tofu did with Max 300 and TLotM. I might give up on a song, not realizing that the remainder of it is well within my abilities.

Another suggestion for leaving AutoFail OFF, is the noob. You all probably didn't even think of tese poor endangered creatures, but I see people put $2 to play this with friends and they both have obviously never played the game before. I know ITG will let players continue playing on Beginner and Light mode, even after failing a song, but will it let them finish the song if AutoFail is ON, or will it simply force them to the song select screen? If it does the later, I'm sure this will easily shun noobs from trying this game ever again.

I just think it's a shame that we're turning AutoFail ON simply because some jerks like to whore out long songs, which ironically, were not a part of the original game concept to begin with.

Then again, like Tofu, I barely play ITG at Acme, so our points are probably only worth 1% of the general playing populace. But, there's my 2-cents.

This is actually debatable.  r22 and r23 were released something like 2 weeks after r21, A while after that, I mentioned it to Foy (y'know, one of the original guys who worked on this game, who was still in close contact with the primary developers at the time and was, on top of that, a home dedicab owner) and he said he had never even heard of any plans for something after r21.  Since he continued to work closely with the relevant people for Pump Pro, I would think that not hearing about it probably means they weren't the ones who made it.  Additionally, these two patches came out after Konami has officially assumed the rights to the game per their settlement, so my money is on Konami hammering something out and forcing Roxor to put it through as "official."

As for autofail and newer players, I believe it leaves it on FailEndOfSong or NoFail regardless of the machine settings for Beginner and, most likely, Light; kicking them out of their song and back to the menu should be possible outside event mode.  If this is the case, no worries here; anyone with access to ITG Home or a personal cabinet should be able to gather this info very easily.

So the issue becomes entirely one of losing the ability to practice higher level charts vs. dealing with long songs.  I've almost always just walked off the machine after failing, because if it was hard enough that I couldn't do it, I usually was too tired, not just unsure of what's on the screen.

Lots of opinions on this, so I'll toss mine in as well.

I play at Acme.  A lot.  I do so because the ITG machine owns.  It is a spectacular version, with an amazing playlist, and is kept in pristine condition.  When I say a lot, I mean that I drop $5-$10 every time I go, which is 4-5 times a week.  I know there are many more players than just me, but I'd like to think that my $100+ monthly (very conservative estimate, probably closer to double that, I really do play a ton) gives me some pull in this conversation.

I will not play on an r23 machine.  I play r21 because it is a workout for me.  Songs like Heaven and Flower Forever push my stamina.  I am careful not to be obnoxious and play them back to back with people waiting, but when I go in at 3 in the afternoon and I'm the only person in the arcade, I want a workout.  I have lost almost 100 pounds by playing DDR, it is my motivation for playing.  I don't have a gym membership, I burn calories on the dance pads.

In the end, it's Bill's machine, and he'll do with it as he sees best.  He knows way more about the arcade business than I can ever hope to, and if he believes it in his best interest to limit play times on ITG, I understand his decision and respect it.  I certainly hope it doesn't come to that, though, because I really like living 5 minutes from the best ITG machine I've ever seen.  R23 would change that designation.

-Brian

Regarding the autofail debate: If you want to practice a harder chart, get a friend who can pass it or play the lower level version next to you. At least that way somebody is still playing the game while people wait.

SOMETHING needs to be done at ACME about long sets, and autofail on seems to by far be the lesser of two evils. Plus... no offense Tofu, really... I think you're a super rad guy and can't wait for you to come visit! But you live in Portland, whereas many of the people making a huge deal about NO R23 OMG AUTOFAIL ON IF THAT'S WHAT IT TAKES go to ACME 5+ times a week. It sucks that it has to come down to that, and we respect your opinion, but in terms of thinking in numbers as far as Bill's business goes, he's really not losing any from you. I hope that's not horribly offensive...

The idea is to take all of the notable long edits and add them to the machine in parallel to the r23 conversion.  A lot of the popular songs sit at about the 4:00-4:30 mark; it will make them count as two songs to have them hacked in to the machine.  This obviously passes a higher cost onto the players now exploiting the lack of song limits, but this was an ability gained by hacking files to get around existing barriers to song length.  Then again, for those of us trying to keep our sets to the original 6 minute sets (8 in marathon), all we see is the people who play two sets worth for the price of one not taking 15 minutes per set anymore.

In online gaming, hacks get you banned.  In dealing with a TV provider, exploits to get extra channels for the same price, get your account closed.  Slipping something by the IRS gets you an audit and fines.  Just because Bill's a nice guy and his business is a lot smaller in scale than the aforementioned groups doesn't mean you should be able to slide something by him and his supporters and not expect him to at least try and enforce the original price structure.  If you tried this with a more expensive service from a bigger company, you could expect a lawsuit.  Furthermore, once an exploit is exposed, the group will close it as soon as they can if people are using it.  r23 will do that.  Getting players to be reasonable about their sets will keep r23 from being necessary.  Simple as that.

I hate to be that blunt about it, but my concern from the beginning was Bill's income (when the r21 length patch first came out, I made sure to fail out of remaining songs once I hit the 6 minute mark, even if the arcade was empty and I know others who did the same) and it seems to have shifted into an argument over how it's inconvenient to wait 15 minutes for the guy on the machine to finish.  Furthermore, as I've stated in the other thread, I know I saw Bill say he was planning on dropping ITG to .75/3 songs since it had more than paid itself off, but in the years since r21 hit, that hasn't happened and I do have to conclude this is a function of long songs being exploited.  If this is about the cost of playing with long stuff counting as multiple songs, I contend that you and similar players owe me 25% of what I've put into that machine for the last two years (and you all owe a lot of other people similarly) and if it's merely about being able to play that stuff, Kevin will be adding those files to the machine, so you're covered and the argument can be over.

Another thing about R21 and .ogg hacks: not only are they an exploit of R21, not part of the original plan, but the ability to hack .oggs was debatably given to the community for songs that just BARELY fall under the time requirement. When the .ogg patcher came out, we were all excited about the ability to play that really good song whose chart happened to be 2:10 instead of 1:99; there are plenty of songs native to the machine that are 2:10, so this wasn't an unreasonable thing. 4 minute songs were never really part of the plan to begin with, and while there are some very fun ones, I see them as very much not my "right."

To stop playing at ACME because you can no longer exploit the system would be like, using Tony's example, canceling your basic cable subscription because your hack to get HBO, Showtime, etc etc no longer works.

We're not even going so far as to install R23 yet - but I'm just tired of hearing everybody talk about these charts as if it's their RIGHT to play them and the community and Bill are somehow taking something away from those who do. There are plenty of 2 minute long songs that push stamina. If you want to play for 20 minutes continuously, go to ACME at noon when nobody is there and keep shoveling credits into the machine and stop complaining when things get reverted to the way they are SUPPOSED to be.  Or play doubles. I hear that's a better workout.

Not at all; that's what I've been trying to stress in all of my posts--my 2 cents are really just two cents out of every $500 or so, so they need to be literally viewed as two cents.  Nonetheless, I feel that I should at least bring it to the table.

Also, if people want a workout they should get off the bar.  Trying to maintain balance and combo--let alone PA--on a 10 or 11 without the aid of a bar uses far more energy per minute than hammering out streams for 10 minutes.

Seriously, this is what I do all the time. Mainly because I have no job right now, and I can afford the time to do it. I know most people probably can't, but trust me. 12:00 on a wednesday, best time ever. I'm usually the ONLY person in the arcade at those times, and that's when I feel its okay for me to give it all I've got on Holy Orders, and Heaven. But god almighty, never on a Saturday. It gets so busy its jsut not worth it to hold up the wait with a 4:00+ song/s
Personally I don't want r23 on the machine much like everyone else. But hell, if that's what it comes down too, well.....thats life.
And I also think while autofail would be inconvenient, it would probably get the message across. Besides, it'd be nice to finally see those kids finally fail heaven 10 seconds in.

Interesting... I might see you there if you're going at noon on a Wednesday tomorrow.

well, I'm actually in colorado right now visiting family for the summer haha.
I'll be back in mid-late july. Basically though, other than the weekends, I usually am there tuesdays through wednesdays in the afternoon. Best time ever, because no one is ever there.

I agree.  I'm coming close to Heaven no-bar.  Most of what I play is without the bar now, short of 12's that are just too fast for me to move my legs and hit the arrows sans bar.  I have a lot more respect for people like Darryl who stay centered and balanced and can still play well, and try to model my playstyle like that.  But, after a certain point, even stuff like Loituma or I Can Walk on Water no-bar just don't really burn me.  I want to burn.


I do.  Well, not noon, but early afternoon.  Same thing.  Please understand that I'm not arguing for bad form.  If there are people waiting and you decide to play even a 10 minute set you're a douchebag and need to adjust yourself.  I have yet to run into a situation where people will refuse to play shorter songs if asked, but maybe I'm just a big intimidating guy (lol) and people don't want to piss me off.

One last point, just re-reading the thread here, I take issue with your math here, Kevin:

3*6 = 18, not 30 or 35.  A 15 minute set is 5 minutes per song.  Assuming a minute and a half to select the song and options, that leaves 3.5 minutes per song, which is almost double the standard song length.  To make the average set last 30 minutes, you'd have to play For A Lifetime (an 8 and a half minute, 3500 step behemoth) three times.  No way no how.  The standard (non-edit) set should theoretically last 8~10 minutes, setup time inclusive, with longer douchebag sets lasting 15~18.  If there are 6 people in line, it could very well take an hour to get to you.  but that's just because there are a lot of people in line, not necessarily because they're being rude.

I really believe people are making a huge deal out of something that isn't a terrible problem.  Every example I've seen here has been horrendously exaggerated.  Yes an arcade machine that is in constant use making $24/day would be unacceptable, but I can't possibly believe that absurd extreme to be anywhere near the truth.