okay, so yesterday i made an announcement during linworth's town meeting regarding a video game tournament i have plans to attend on sunday at the fort rapids indoor waterpark about a 30 min. drive from here. the announcement was mostly made as a joke among me and my friends who play--i really didn't think anyone would be interested at all. but it did generate a response from my classmates.
mark actually stopped my chemistry class for 5-10 minutes today, right in the middle of discussing a problem on a worksheet. completely out of the blue, he looked at me and said "so you're a competitive DDR player..." and starts asking me questions like how much money is involved [a good friend of mine [also notable tessa's ex-boyfriend] won the nationals 2 years ago and scored $3000], how far most players are willing to travel [i've never left the state, but a ton of kids from michigan, indiana, pennsylvania, and kentucky will be at this upcoming one], etc. and even before class, ethan had asked me some questions about it, like if there was some underground culture based around it that no one knows about [YES], if we used different types of slang to talk about different aspects of the game [YES], etc.
so when i discovered that the OC post assignments for this week were totally up to us, i figured this might be something different to talk about. and at this point, the game is so deeply intertwined and involved with my life, it seems almost unnatural to sit down and explain it or talk about it.
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PART I:: THE BACKSTORY
i used to be one of those "anime kids" when i was 12-13. i went [and still occasionally go] to anime conventions. i had seen the game before, but didn't really know anything about it, until i saw this really awesome guy playing it at a convention i was at here in town in january 2004 [the game was initially released in america in 1998, so i'm not real old-school]. i was mesmerized by how good this guy was, and decided right then that i wanted to do that.
a month later was my 13th birthday. my good friend had bought the home version of DDR for the PS2 console and brought it over with some shitty plastic mats. that was my first real time playing, and i went for 6 hours straight, determined to get off the beginner mode by the end of the night. it was fun and so addicting! none of us had to worry about being embarassed --we had all just started so we ALL sucked, and it's not like we were playing out in public with people watching. i went to bed and when i woke up, i played for another 4 hours straight. i got hooked.
that april, 2 months later, my little sister had her birthday party at magic mountain polaris. there was a DDR 5th mix machine there! [there are over 10 different versions of DDR, called "mixes", featuring different songs, steps, and options--same game, with a twist!] i spent lots of time away from my sister's party, excited to play for the first time in public, on an actual machine! the 5th mix machine was in japanese, so it took me a few shots to figure out which buttons to hit to set up the game mode. i was still on a very basic beginner mode, doing 3 footers at best [every stepchart for every song in DDR has a difficulty rating, from 1-10, 1 being the easiest songs in the game, 10 being the most challenging], so i played one song over and over again, playing the same steps every time--i was afraid to pick anything else because i didn't know what i could do, and i was afraid to fail!
PART II:: THE OBSESSION
2 months after that, summer began. i had gained some weight around puberty and my parents were looking for ways to keep me active over the summer. my parents NEVER spent this much money on me, but we went out and got 3 different home versions, a PS2 [note that DDR is the only reason my family even owns a gaming console], a small TV, and two cheap plastic dance mats [no home dance pad under $40 is any good]. we spent $400 overall, just to keep me off my ass during summer. i was ecstatic, i was addicted and really wanted to get better at the game, and try and move up to the standard level [generally 5-7 foot rating songs]. tessa began to play with me too, although she never took the game quite as far as i did [although she is still involved in the community].
that summer/fall of 2004, i started googling "DDR" and "dance dance revolution" to look for some cool sites to fuel my new interest. i found DDRFreak, run largely by a NY player named "phrekwenci" [bastardization of "frequency"] and saw that it had a lot of good resources for players. i knew i wasn't really knowledgeable enough about the game yet, but i did want to meet fellow players in the area to meet up with at the arcade. on the forums, i met tom arnold [ally hays' boyfriend of several years--i introduced them, and we originally met through DDR!] and we played the 5th mix machine at magic mountain polaris [commonly abbreviated as "MMP"] together. i also met kyle, my first boyfriend as well as my first kiss, on the forum. how nerdy is THAT.
PART III:: THE COMMUNITY
also, around this time, i found another great site. little did i know, this site would seriously alter the rest of my teenage years. although the websites has had many makeovers, i originally joined when it was know as ohioddr.com. it was like DDRfreak, just with a better community, and more specialized towards ohio players. i joined and posted like the anime kid i was...and got "flamed" for it. some members tried to be nice, but others were pretty hateful. i soon learned that drama was the ohioDDR way [and still is!]. i got fed up with the haters, so i left for a period time. but not until i met some people from the site in real life.
tessa and i went to MMP often in these days, [here are some pictures from way back then!] the machine was in excellent condition, and with a bench right next to it, it was a great hangout spot. even though our beloved 5th mix was gone [the machine's software had been taken out and replaced with a game called "in the groove" or abbreviated as "ITG", an american-made ripoff of DDR--same game concept, with more options, different music, different steps, and a different look], there were still awesome times to be had there. one day, a few really impressive players showed up--being regulars, we knew they weren't from around these parts. when they enter their tags [handles/nicknames] in for their high scores, i recognized their names from the ohioDDR website! i felt creepy not saying anything, but knowing exactly who they were:: dan aka "hotjava", nick aka "muffin", and chris aka "special midget". these were my first friends i made straight from the ohioDDR community.
soon after, a tournament was being held at the other magic mountain location, on the east side, off of brice rd. [magic mountain east = MME]. i'd never been to this place before, but they had two machines--an older mix called 4th+, with less options, and the most common mix called extreme. tessa and i walked in and immediately noticed the crowds of players on the upper floor/balcony of the location. i instantly recognized most of the people from the forums, from the picture post section. again, i felt creepy knowing who everyone was, without them knowing me, and without ever speaking to them. i knew the tournament runner to be steve charron aka "ranatalus" [remember tessa's ex/guy who won the 2006 nationals i mentioned earlier? yeah, that's him], and i recognized sean iverson aka "finch" [who actually graduated from thomas worthington last year, i believe] to be the person who had "flamed"/ridiculed me the most on the site. we played a few pathetic-in-comparison rounds and left, without introducing ourselves or getting to know anyone.
PART IV:: BECOMING A PART OF TEAM C-BUS
soon, i realized that MME was the place to be. in the groove/ITG ["in the butt"/"in the gay" as some DDR purists call it] wasn't as good, and i had never played on any mix besides 5th before. also, it's where all of the good columbus players involved in the community congregated on weekends to improve their skills/scores. [you get a grade after every song--AAA is the highest grade you can achieve, having "perfect" accuracy on every step in the song [getting all perfects], AA is the second highest, meaning you have mostly perfects, but a certain allowed number of greats, termed the "cutoff" for that song [any more greats past the cutoff and it's an A instead of an AA] the DDR community has come up with their own term for a score between an AAA and an AA --called an SDG, or single-digit great. it means you have AA'd the song, but came close to a AAA--all perfects, but under 10 [hence the 'single-digit'] greats.] here are some older pictures from going to MME with a bunch of kids over a year ago.
i quickly became good friends with a lot of the premier players in central ohio like steve/ranatalus, and his friend jamis. i never really know how big this underground community was until i had joined the ohioDDR site and started hanging out with the big players.
PART V:: THE TOURNAMENT SCENE
in may 2005, i participated in my first tournament. this was the first time i really put myself out there and tried to meet as many people as possible from the community. it was a great time and an awesome first experience. the tournament was called GOM2, held in huber heights, ohio [near dayton], at a place called 180 skatepark. the long hallway leading back to the skatepark is basically a music and rhythm-based arcade. multiple DDR machines of different mixes, a hacked ITG machine, and lots of other music games like guitar freaks [which is what GUITAR HERO RIPPED OFF OF, but that's another rant], drummania [drum simulator game], and beatmania, which simulates a disc jockey experience. it's probably one of the biggest bemani [konami's brand of dance/music games] arcades in the midwest, thus making it the premier location for dayton players, as well as a total tournament hotspot. on top of this, the arcade is owned by the barcas, the parents of a long-time community member aaron aka "laika". this meant that the local DDR players had some standing in what went on at the arcade, and the machine's pads had constant maintenance done so they stayed in perfect shape. it's easier to negotiate with management when they have a son involved with the game.
this tournament was where i really made a name for myself in the community. i was still a "new-school" player at the time, in comparison to the other members, but now that'd i'd made friends with a lot of people, i began to build a solid reputation as a member of ohioDDR. here are some pictures from that awesome day.
PART VI:: THE CULTURE
it all went uphill from there. i've been going to tournaments ever since, and i couldn't even begin to count the friends and acquaintances i've made from the game. even though i've been playing seriously/competitively for about 3 1/2 years, i still have a long ways to go as far as skill [i can only pass 3 10-foot difficulty songs]. i have over 80 heavy-level AAs, and over 25 heavy SDGs, and only one AAA to date, which i actually just got a few weeks ago [note that many of my friends who are top level players have over 200 AAAs....X__X]. i'm awesome at dance games in comparison to an average people off the streets, but in the community, i'm still in the bottom half, although i recently placed 4th in a lower-heavy division tournament in akron called amazone2 [pics HERE]. i'm proud to be one of the few female competitive players out there, and i'm also proud to be one of the younger ones. [most players in the community are guys between the ages of 19-23...to put it this way, i'm managing the guestlist for this upcoming tournament's pre-party...there are going to be maybe 5 girls and 25 guys.] girls who get good enough to play in the upper level competition are ESPECIALLY rare, but i hope to be top-tier someday.
honestly, it's certainly not my life, but it's such a big part of it. i love meeting all these new people who show up every tournament, and i love the fact that i have good friends all over ohio and some from other states as well. i'm not good enough to be "professional" about it or travel around and make money, and not many people are. i came for the game, i stayed for the people. although the website is still as drama-filled and chaotic as ever, every time the bulk of the community gets together at a tournament or gathering, everyone has a blast. it's like a big family reunion, except you actually LIKE who you're hanging out with, and some of your relatives are hot. [lol] this is ridiculously nerdy, but i've only ever dated one guy who didn't play DDR--i don't know if i could date a "normal" guy, i'm just not sure he would really understand the extent of how this culture runs through my freakin' blood. it's a hardcore thing for some players...it IS some people's lives, but to prove that it's MUCH more about just having fun and being around a great bunch of people, i'll leave you with this video from the amazone2 tournament:
and yes, i was TOTALLY in the jungle gym when that video was shot, haha.
expect a post about FTRAPIDS1 when i get back on monday! =]
oh, and if you're REALLY curious, search youtube for "fgt ddr" ["fgt" is my handle/tag =]] and you'll probably find some tournament matches of mine, haha.
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