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Fluffyumpkins wrote:I could swing by this Thursday. Anyone else in? If nothing else, we could get some hot SN2 action in.

I believe he was referring to the Schaumburg location. I'm pretty luke warm on DDR X in general...and I'm definitely not wasting my time/money on it until I know something has changed here in Indy.

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Ho wrote:

Fluffyumpkins wrote:I could swing by this Thursday. Anyone else in? If nothing else, we could get some hot SN2 action in.

I believe he was referring to the Schaumburg location. I'm pretty luke warm on DDR X in general...and I'm definitely not wasting my time/money on it until I know something has changed here in Indy.

Yes, was referring to the Schaumburg Gameworks location, what location in Indy are you talking about? I will take care of them as well.

Gameworks Studio in Indianapolis.

Geochi1 wrote:

Ho wrote:

Fluffyumpkins wrote:I could swing by this Thursday. Anyone else in? If nothing else, we could get some hot SN2 action in.

I believe he was referring to the Schaumburg location. I'm pretty luke warm on DDR X in general...and I'm definitely not wasting my time/money on it until I know something has changed here in Indy.

Yes, was referring to the Schaumburg Gameworks location, what location in Indy are you talking about? I will take care of them as well.

Do you represent GameWorks, Konami, or Betson in some way?

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Gameworks Indianapolis will have DDR X sensor updates installed after 1pm today.

Hi,

I am currently residing in japan, and I have played on the official DDR X JPN cabinent...
It has been about a month since I played, but from what I remember I really liked it.
It had the huge LED stands and all. The pad was nice, and I am 90% sure it was NOT all one sheet of metal. It was all separated.
Pad was responsive as well.

If I get a chance to get to play on it again (it's a 700yen train ride away) I'll try to take some pics, but japanese are very anal about you taking pictures of things in stores etc...

hearing this news about the ddr usa cabinent makes me sad.... i'd rather just play on an upgraded ddr machine from a previous version...

I thought maybe with this new pad design the sensors would have a reverse break in period, meaning that they are under sensitive and have to be working in a little. However this is not the case, and the pads still suck. I can't even imagine how bad they will be a year from now.

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Geochi1 wrote:

trythil wrote:I tried out the DDR X cabinet at the GameWorks in Schaumburg. Ugh, what a mess.

The lag issue is very real. I haven't ever experienced such a problem before on any DDR or PIU cabinet; on this DDR X machine I went from As and Bs to Cs and Ds. It's nice to know (in some way) that the problem isn't isolated to a single location.

Another thing that really bugs me about DDR X is that the video backgrounds for some songs (Xepher in particular; I think DoLL was affected too) were just stretched from the 4:3 aspect of earlier machines to 16:9. And man, it looks horrible. Some videos were properly centered, but all videos I saw had very obvious macroblocking and noise issues, which isn't something I'd expect to see on any sort of modern arcade hardware. (If Andamiro can make it work, you'd think Konami could too...)

Ah well. One nice thing about the Schaumburg GameWorks is that they have all of their dance machines (Extreme, SuperNOVA, X, and an ITG cabinet) lined up, so it's pretty easy to go back and forth between machines.

Sensors at this location were updated Friday evening, June 19th. Would appreciate any feedback you may have.

Just got back from playing; here's some thoughts:

I was at GameWorks Schaumburg on the 19th and today (26th - 27th). The weekend of the 19th, the pads definitely had a better response -- freeze arrows, for example, could be held. The latency issue was still present, but it sounds like that's a glitch of the hardware + software that can't really be fixed on the floor. That said, thanks for working on the pads; it did make a difference.

Unfortunately the sensors (or something in the pad) seems to have gone bad again, as I can no longer hold freezes. (The other explanation is that I lost 10 pounds or so in a week, which would be frightening...)

inkscape: draw freely

Given that these things are made of wood (yes, wood) and the behavior (actually usable when very recently serviced, almost unplayable otherwise), I have a sneaking suspicion that these are the same design as the famous "Crapo Cabs" that were popularly placed by Namco. They certainly feel more like that design than a real DDR stage (I've played on both). Sad. It may be cheaper, but it DOESN'T FUCKING WORK, and we all knew that already from previous experience. *Sigh*

Oh, and yes, many of the background movies are just stretched to 16:9 from 4:3, even though the game handles the aspect ratio correctly from a graphics point of view otherwise. That's really dumb on the movies that are already 16:9 letterbox. Also, TERRIBLE COMPRESSION. Jeesh, I think I could have done better by pointing a Hi-8 camera at a TV screen then dumping it on to a SVCD.

Charts look decent, though. Some songs are OK. Some songs are pretty generic.

A normality test:
+++ATH
If you are no longer connected to the internet, you need to apply more wax to your modem: it'll make it go faster.
If you find this funny, you're a nerd.
If neither of the above apply, you are normal. Congratulations.

In response to Geochi1's report that "sensor updates" had been installed, I visited out GameWorks Studio in Indianapolis again on Thursday night, June 25. I played one game of DDR X. My experience was unchanged. In fact, if anything, it might have actually been a little worse.

The dropped freezes were definitely an issue. I stood on the stage with my left foot fully on the left arrow panel and right foot full on the right arrow pad with my weight evenly distributed to conduct the same test I did on my first visit (as shown by this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjb-Pc2Q3ZA). Unfortunately, I didn't take a video this second time, but I had to lean rather severely to one side or the other to get a panel to stay lit consistently. And by leaning to that side, the other side would either begin to flash as in the video or simply go out entirely.

Also, I was with a friend who does not play DDR regularly. Her first impression was that she had to stomp considerably harder than she was used to on the stage to get it to register. We played on the SuperNOVA 2 machine also at this location to confirm her impression. I agree with this assessment based on both of my visits to play DDR X.

Assuming that the sensor updates have indeed been installed, I did not notice any positive effect. As before, the machine is playable but the experience is markedly inferior to what I have become accustomed to on pre-DDR X (US) machines. It takes more effort for me to play and my scores are lower on these new cabinets. And even if the stage were to work as well as a traditional DDR stage, the cabinet is still butt ugly in comparison to JP DDR X cabinets and even classic DDR cabinets. That diminishes my overall enjoyment of the game as the ambiance that the cabinet presents is very much a part of the experience for me.

After I experienced no improvement in the performance of the stage, I tried to ignore the cabinet and concentrate on the game itself for my remaining songs. I was able to find some enjoyable songs with decent charts and the visual presentation has some remarkably nice touches I enjoyed. There were a few elements I thought looked a little bland, but overall I thought it was easily superior to SuperNOVA and maybe a little nicer than SuperNOVA 2. I think I could enjoy this game on a properly working cabinet (I'd still love to play on a JP DDR X or even on a classic cabinet that has been upgraded to X).

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From the little bit of time I got with the game while MonMotha and I were there this past Thursday, I can only concur with Ho about the game itself being pleasantly good.

I can also attest to the pads being made of wood, and wanting to drive my fist through my face over Betson's RETARDEDNESS regarding their pad and cabinet construction.

trythil wrote:

Geochi1 wrote:

trythil wrote:I tried out the DDR X cabinet at the GameWorks in Schaumburg. Ugh, what a mess.

The lag issue is very real. I haven't ever experienced such a problem before on any DDR or PIU cabinet; on this DDR X machine I went from As and Bs to Cs and Ds. It's nice to know (in some way) that the problem isn't isolated to a single location.

Another thing that really bugs me about DDR X is that the video backgrounds for some songs (Xepher in particular; I think DoLL was affected too) were just stretched from the 4:3 aspect of earlier machines to 16:9. And man, it looks horrible. Some videos were properly centered, but all videos I saw had very obvious macroblocking and noise issues, which isn't something I'd expect to see on any sort of modern arcade hardware. (If Andamiro can make it work, you'd think Konami could too...)

Ah well. One nice thing about the Schaumburg GameWorks is that they have all of their dance machines (Extreme, SuperNOVA, X, and an ITG cabinet) lined up, so it's pretty easy to go back and forth between machines.

Sensors at this location were updated Friday evening, June 19th. Would appreciate any feedback you may have.

Just got back from playing; here's some thoughts:

I was at GameWorks Schaumburg on the 19th and today (26th - 27th). The weekend of the 19th, the pads definitely had a better response -- freeze arrows, for example, could be held. The latency issue was still present, but it sounds like that's a glitch of the hardware + software that can't really be fixed on the floor. That said, thanks for working on the pads; it did make a difference.

Unfortunately the sensors (or something in the pad) seems to have gone bad again, as I can no longer hold freezes. (The other explanation is that I lost 10 pounds or so in a week, which would be frightening...)

Thank you for the feedback. Was just at Schaumburg Gameworks location and did find an issue with the pads which has now been resolved. Would appreciate any and all feedback again.

Ho wrote:In response to Geochi1's report that "sensor updates" had been installed, I visited out GameWorks Studio in Indianapolis again on Thursday night, June 25. I played one game of DDR X. My experience was unchanged. In fact, if anything, it might have actually been a little worse.

The dropped freezes were definitely an issue. I stood on the stage with my left foot fully on the left arrow panel and right foot full on the right arrow pad with my weight evenly distributed to conduct the same test I did on my first visit (as shown by this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjb-Pc2Q3ZA). Unfortunately, I didn't take a video this second time, but I had to lean rather severely to one side or the other to get a panel to stay lit consistently. And by leaning to that side, the other side would either begin to flash as in the video or simply go out entirely.

Also, I was with a friend who does not play DDR regularly. Her first impression was that she had to stomp considerably harder than she was used to on the stage to get it to register. We played on the SuperNOVA 2 machine also at this location to confirm her impression. I agree with this assessment based on both of my visits to play DDR X.

Assuming that the sensor updates have indeed been installed, I did not notice any positive effect. As before, the machine is playable but the experience is markedly inferior to what I have become accustomed to on pre-DDR X (US) machines. It takes more effort for me to play and my scores are lower on these new cabinets. And even if the stage were to work as well as a traditional DDR stage, the cabinet is still butt ugly in comparison to JP DDR X cabinets and even classic DDR cabinets. That diminishes my overall enjoyment of the game as the ambiance that the cabinet presents is very much a part of the experience for me.

After I experienced no improvement in the performance of the stage, I tried to ignore the cabinet and concentrate on the game itself for my remaining songs. I was able to find some enjoyable songs with decent charts and the visual presentation has some remarkably nice touches I enjoyed. There were a few elements I thought looked a little bland, but overall I thought it was easily superior to SuperNOVA and maybe a little nicer than SuperNOVA 2. I think I could enjoy this game on a properly working cabinet (I'd still love to play on a JP DDR X or even on a classic cabinet that has been upgraded to X).

Comfirmed today that the pad updates in Indianapolis Gameworks were just installed this morning...sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for the feedback.

I'd like to know what these "updates" consist of.

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Geochi1, Do you have any idea if these "sensor updates" have been installed at the Gameworks location in Columbus, OH?

I am also very interested in what these updates consist of, as DAVE101 is asking.