Very Very Beginner Questions

[Tehee]

1. What exactly is SMO? Do you compete with other people or can you just play by yourself and be ranked?? 7
2. Different playing styles: The only ones I really know are the pad and 4-key. What are the other ones and how do they work?
(Also, what do you suggest the keys be set to for 4-key? I've been using the arrow keys with one hand... but I'm beginning to suspect that I've been stupid.)
3. In the rules and etiquette post it says that you shouldn't join a pad room if you use 4-key. Does this mean that you shouldn't be choosing 4-key songs or that you can't be using a keyboard?
4. Is it okay to use the keyboard for pad songs?
5. What exactly are the instructions once you reach the lobby and join a room? Rules said do not immediately pick song>> wait for someone else to choose? Then what? Find the song in your wheel, or does it start automatically? What is the operator(?) position?

Sorry for all the questions, but I really have no clue about SMO, and can't seem to find the info I want. (trust me, I tried)

Thanks!

[foxfire667]

1) StepMania Online, is an online server with which you can play with others (or yourself if you wish), and have all of your stats recorded while you play Stepmania on this server. You can leave your room open to the public (so that anyone can join), set up a password and invite someone else to join, or not share the password and play a session alone. All are acceptable, although if you intend on playing alone, I would suggest using the /secret command when you create the room, to prevent cluttering of the lobby with one player un-joinable rooms.

2) There are several ways you can play StepMania, but the main play styles for singles (4 key) you will see on here are pad, spread, and one handed. Pad and one handed are fairly self explanatory (especially since you mentioned you played one handed), but spread is slightly different. Spread slits up the four inputs and gives each hand 2 of them, allowing for better control and speed on harder steps. Typically, the fingers that are dedicated to the keys are the index and middle fingers of your hands, as they are the strongest and most responsive. If you choose to play spread, it is highly recommended to do the same to achieve the greatest amount of skill boosting over the smallest amount of time.

- Which keys you choose to use will be dependent on a few factors, but the most important one being your keyboard itself. Depending on your keyboard, various setups might not be possible due to your keyboard being unable to register three or four particular keys being pressed down at the same time. Open up notepad (or anything that you can type in) and feel for keys that are comfortable to you, then press all four of them down. If all of the letters show up at once, it is an acceptable combination to use for spread, if they do not (and make a beeping noise after a second or so of holding), find a different combination and try again.

- Depending on what you feel is comfortable, you can choose keys that are close together (such as hjkl), have a more wide setup (like askl or qwop), or perhaps even a slightly diagonal arrangement (like qslp). All of these methods can be equally effective at giving you a good boost in skill, although it should be noted that if you wish to do a lot of jacking or vibrating, that a close spread setup is more desirable. Highly skilled players may occasionally switch up their setup for something involving such patterns, and return back to their original setup when they are playing less vibrating-intense material.

3) All this rule means is that if you are using a keyboard, you should try to avoid entering rooms which tell the people in the lobby that they are pad rooms. Pad and keyboard are BOTH 4-key, but the players of the respective styles typically do NOT have many similar packs (due to keyboard players vast skill gap in terms of arrow density and pattern control). If they do not have similar packs, they will not be able to play with each other, making the SMO experience a bit frustrating to players trying to play songs for their particular styles. If by chance (because you played one handed) you have a vast amount of pad packs, I wouldn't be concerned with you joining any sort of pad room, so long as you have what they do, and are willing to play it.
- Oh and, yes, you are definitely allowed to use a keyboard. You are allowed to use whatever really, so long as you made your own room, or (if you are joining another room) have common packs for the play-style they mention in the room title / description. If it doesn't have a room title / description explaining this, assume it is keyboard, but if when you join they say otherwise, leave if you do not have the proper packs to play with them.

4) It is perfectly okay to do so. At the moment the leader-boards are rather arbitrary, and we aren't really concerned with who played with what for whatever song at the moment (plus that would be pretty difficult to monitor anyway). You can play with whatever, to whatever file.

5) Then what? Enjoy yourself basically. If you join a room, if you have the packs that they do, when they select a song you will be automatically brought to it. The room owner will start this song (typically after checking if everyone is "ready", post yes to them if you are good to go) and it will begin for you automatically. You play the song and finish it (or fail it depending on your options / ability to play the file), receive your grade and other results (and can check others results by pressing up or down at the results screen), and then you press enter to go back to the room. If the owner has put /free on, (or has given you /op status), you have the ability to choose a song as well. If everyone in the room has the song, it will be selected (otherwise it will say who doesn't have it) and you should select again. Don't be concerned if you pick something everyone doesn't have, just pick a different SM pack and try again (aim for common ones, as they have a higher chance of everyone having them).

- Keep in mind that all selecting done in SMO (except posting text in the chat and from the options) is done by pressing Ctrl + Enter.
- You should also note that whenever you join SMO, your speedmod will ALWAYS be 1x until it is changed. To change this, press the up arrow to access the options menu. If you plan on switching over to spread, it is also recommended if you haven't already to use C-Mods (C400, C500, etc) instead of X-mods (1x, 2x, 3x, etc). It makes files a lot more playable to not have to worry about BPM changes altering the spacing of the arrows.
- Since you are asking these sorts of questions, I feel you may not have many packs (or at least actual packs / common packs). is a list of common packs I have seen on SMO, although this relates to keyboard packs only at the moment. If you are switching to spread, and wish to play keyboard files, I cannot recommend enough to check this thread, and download at least a few packs from the list I posted. If you want to check out other packs aside from common keyboard packs, or see the contents of most packs, refer to the thread link I posted for those details.
- You are probably wondering that the command stuff in red is. These are commands you can use on SMO (depending on if you are a room owner/operator for most of them). You can use these commands simply by typing them into the chat as you would any other word, and then posting it. To see a list of these commands type /help in the chat box. The most useful command for most room owners would be the /free command, which allows for ALL people who join your room to have the ability to select and play songs. Typing in some commands a second time after they have been activated (such as /free) will deactivate them.

I hope that answers all of your questions. If you want to know more (or I overlooked something in this behemoth of a post) just post again and I'll gladly answer.

[Tehee]

Foxfire667:

...Wow, okay, that answers everything I wanted to know, plus probably everything I didn't know I wanted to know.

Thank you so much for taking the time to put it together!

(Just a thought: it would be nice if this was all eventually put into an introductions and instructions page/post somewhere on the website)

[foxfire667]

[Izzy]

Really helpful information. It's not often that new players visit and post on the forums so we can devote a lot of attention to such people.