ZIv Contest 2025 -FIFTEEN YEARS OF ZIv SIMFILE CONTESTS-

I will be more than happy to take this conversation toward DMs, or my discord account (vective.). I don't intend to cause more drama.

Woo! I have good memories from summer contests! (not really) but I learned a lot throughout the years I participated in. Considering this is a special commemoration, I'd like to be part of it. ♥

and please, do not make a collab week. I don't have any friends here

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You're in! Welcome!

tried to join that Triple Cross server and was instantly banned before i could say anything, so i guess we have that going for us

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the song audio for the edits needs to be the same as the one featured in the original?

When we created (what used to be) the Zenius Contest Discord server in 2021, we did so for many reasons, including the outdated functionalities of old internet forums for discussion, and for possibly having a small alternative community for likeminded people. Over time, the size of our server ballooned and participation exceeded previous records - we had multiple rounds in Summer Contest 2024 that broke 50 files, more than the previous record in 2020, in the middle of the pandemic. The actual zenius website ended up being used just for file uploading and management.

In fact, it turned out that what intended to be just a small offshoot, or even just a place to talk about the contests, became its own community that ended up far eclipsing the very low activity that is on the actual site these days. I used to think that this was just caused by how outdated this place is...

...but this thread (and countless previous ones) have shown to me that the reason why our community actually ended up growing, completely independently of this place, was because this forum in 2025 is a small scattered mess of people who hold bitter grudges against others based on fights happening here, or in certain other microscopic adjacent communities and private Discord servers, from all the way over 5 years ago. All of these people either weeded themselves out from our server or just were banned for repeated negative behavior. Everyone else, the people who ACTUALLY are wanting to be in a community that is passionate about DDR, DDR contests, and other rhythm games too, just joined our server and completely abandoned this website.

When my moderators had the idea of rebranding our server and completely abandoning the Z-I-v branding, I initially had small reservations just from a feeling of wanting to preserve tradition - but this thread of pure toxicity has shown once again that this was the best decision we've made in a long time. Goodbye!

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It says it has to be everything new except the song, but i'm not completely ssure about the song cut itself. I guess it has to be different as well
//
Me quedo con la duda si es obligatorio, pero dice que tiene que ser todo nuevo. Sólo dice que "la cancion" tiene que ser la misma.

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You can COMPLETELY COPY the cut!! The person who made the cut has no rights to the audio UNLESS they are the sole copyright holder of the song (i.e. they made the song or they made a remix of the song). So if you like someone else's edit of Katy Perry's song Roar, you can use any existing cut you find! Hope that answers your question.

However, if you would like to make your own version for the cut, feel free to do so instead! All that matters is that it is the same song.

Sounds like ElectroJuan is asking if they have to copy the cut?

Anyways, just quickly popping in to clarify one thing since I have original music from past contests that can be used for the theme: yes you guys are allowed to step my music for the purposes of this contest. This not only applies to this round and the songs that would be eligible, but for all my music for the entire contest.

That is all. Me go back to living the life I've moved on to and thinking about how I want to handle what has transpired here.

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Quote: forcednature

this thread of pure toxicity

I tried to compile the toxicity on this thread. Let me know if I missed anything.

Quote: Ben Speirs

And to your last point, if this goes ahead, we can just compare the signups and participation levels LOL

Quote: Ben Speirs

The last two events under the ZIv branding we carried out we posted here, and the only people who engaged with it are those who are banned!

Quote: darkanine

It just feels like every contest on there is a popularity contest and year-after-year, the people who win the contest are the people who helped host it in the first place

Quote: Kikoia

You are not owed a chance for redemption, regardless of tenure or emotional investment in a community. The fact that in your petition to us, you couldn't even bring yourself to even name the reason why you were banned at all shows that it wasn't a frivolous ban, or an attempt to make it some kind of popularity contest move.

Quote: Vinylyarou

Woo! I have good memories from summer contests! (not really)

Quote: forcednature

this forum in 2025 is a small scattered mess of people who hold bitter grudges against others based on fights happening here, or in certain other microscopic adjacent communities and private Discord servers, from all the way over 5 years ago. All of these people either weeded themselves out from our server or just were banned for repeated negative behavior. Everyone else, the people who ACTUALLY are wanting to be in a community that is passionate about DDR, DDR contests, and other rhythm games too, just joined our server and completely abandoned this website.

Reminder that the deadline for Round 1 is July 21st. The round will officially start on the 14th, so please do not upload your simfiles until then. I will post the category where you are to upload files, but it will be on Zenius -I- vanisher. Here's a reminder of the theme! You can work on your files now if you want

[Round 1 - ZIv EDIT WEEK]

To meet this theme, you must submit a stepchart to a song that has been previously stepped by someone other than you and uploaded to ZIv. This can be an edit of a DDR XX original, a song from a previous simfile contest, or any other song that does not originate from DDR itself. So no DDR EDITS, but any other song appearing on ZIv is fair game. Feel free to use the search function to see if your song counts for the theme.

I think it goes without saying, but DO NOT COPY ANY OF THE STEPS OR GRAPHICS FROM THE FILE YOU ARE EDITING. Please make a new simfile entirely, just using the same song that they did.

The deadline for Round 1 is July 21st. The round will officially start on the 14th, so please do not upload your simfiles until then.

Goodluck with your contest! I might participate next year

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I share your curiosity(?), from here it looks like a bit of a shit fight and all that's really happening is that I'm thankful my clothes have been clean of it since 2020.

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I don't know who's right or wrong in terms of what happened in the past either (I'm technically still in the server, but I'm not active much on Discord regardless, and I haven't seen any evidence to corroborate either side of the story), so I'm not gonna say much more on that. Regardless, it is refreshing to see a new (or rather, old) contest pop up on this site again. I most likely won't have time to join even if I wanted to (as much as this is probably my best chance to finally host a theme week for the first time), but I'll keep an eye on this and see how it develops.

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I was asked to provide additional context. This is the last time that I post here, I hope that we can just exist in peace together after this and be excited for the new Challenge charts coming out tomorrow.


darkanine was banned from the Triple Cross server (what used to be the Z-I-v Discord server) earlier this year after repeated negative actions and rule breaks. these include:

- posting inappropriate / adult content in an LGBTQ+ thread in our server that made multiple people very uncomfortable

- using his role as a contest host to promote his own music and pinging it to everyone (blatant abuse of mod powers)

- multiple times erratic behavior in general, just being inconsiderate and rude to others and not handling arguments in any healthy way, and other incidents such as being disrespectful of our female mods (misogyny much?)


Last week, he asked us to be unbanned from the server and included a lengthy note and explanation. said note mostly consisted of his past and the circumstances under which he was breaking. We viewed it as insincere and did not unban him. I could link it here but am choosing not to because it includes personal and sensitive information.

It is understandable to disagree with admin decisions and to find a ban to be unfair. However, he then took this conflict to other unrelated places, including the DDR XX server, and this website. I find it disingenuous to claim to stand against toxicity, but then to take conflict elsewhere and spread hostility. But that's just one thing...

Obviously, anyone can choose to host a contest. Nobody owns the patent for doing so, and if an alternative community wants to be formed here that is completely removed from the Triple Cross Discord server (which is the direct spiritual successor of Zenius contests), I would not have anything against that in the slightest, in fact I would be welcoming of it and even might check it out myself.
But this act of blatantly trying to copy an existing community and misleading others with the same name and branding as the original is cheap and an obvious act of trying to inflict as much damage as possible and create a conflict, as darkanine has admitted himself in previous posts in this thread. (posts #30, #38)

In my opinion, if you want to host an actual alternative DDR contest, I truly wish you all the best with that. But this is not a genuine contest, and anyone who chooses to interact with this will find out soon in the worst way. And if this doesn't turn out to be true, I will be positively surprised.
In case that you are wondering where the real thing is, you know where to look, and if not, then just shoot me a DM.

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If one of the biggest problems with this contest was the use of the ZIv branding, then why was a thread not made about this year's contest? Seems like that would have been the easiest way to resolve this.

I, for one, would not have known that Triple Cross was also using the ZIv name if it wasn't for the now-deleted bit of your earlier post that had that information in it. I just assumed you all were calling it the "Triple Cross Summer Contest" or something.

I have no dog in this particular fight with this user because I don't know all of what went on, but I think it's interesting that you make this holier-than-thou post acting like you are above the drama and toxicity on this site when, in the last contest I participated in a few years ago, you essentially forced many of the users out because you were so mad about your files not doing well that you accused multiple people of cheating and even got the contest runner to issue formal warnings to people...until I showed them the data which showed that we were awarding points to far more people in far more variety than you were. I got those warnings rescinded with a formal apology from the host, but by then you had made things so toxic and discredited our work so much that it felt like the only choice was for us to drop out and not continue on in the contests that we had been participating in for years, some of us since the very first year. And from what I've seen from my Twitter's mutuals post, there's still plenty of drama (and cheating accusations) that happen in the contests to this very day.

Trust me, you've contributed to the drama and the toxicity too. You're not above the rest of us in that regard.

Also, it's not a flex in 2025 that your discord server has more activity than an old-school style forum. You used the ZiV branding and the userbase to build up your server and still use the infrastructure of the website to upload files. As much of a mess as its been, this forum has survived 20+ years thanks mostly to the work of Alan but also to a far lesser extent the hundreds/thousands of users who were posting here back when DDRFreak and BemaniStyle were still the 'cool' places to post. Rather than acting like you're so above the site, maybe be a little more grateful that the site has existed this long, has built up this userbase and that the bills are still paid so that you can host all your simfile contests here.

Man, it's almost as if I explained in the letter that during that time I was hospitalized due to mental health issues. I'll post the excerpt here that explains all of that.

"In 2023, I had the worst mental health episode in my life. It affected all aspects of my life, including my schooling, my job, my family, and my online presence. Bipolar disorder is something only medication can control, and in 2023 I was not under the right medication. Ultimately, my bipolar disorder stems from the trauma from my mom passing away, and years of neglecting my own emotions. My bipolar disorder is special, because it comes with “psychotic features” (the official name). This means, when I am manic, I have delusions that make me lose touch with reality. One of the delusions I had was that I didn’t need sleep and I could survive on 30 minutes here and there, which is proveably false, but my mind, at that moment, didn’t listen to reason. Unfortunately, this manic episode in 2023 (ten years after my mom passed away) resulted in me posting strange things online due to my delusions, and I believe that I negatively affected people during this time. The episode culminated in me severely endangering my life, and I got arrested and taken into a mental hospital, where I was given new medication. I was in the middle of hosting a simfile contest at the time, but as you can imagine, it is impossible to do that when I don’t have access to any of my stuff. And I certainly wasn’t in the right mind to do so anyway."

I'm not saying that my behavior was okay at all, but by banning me, you are claiming that I am unable to change and improve, and now it just feels like your decision to ban me was ableist (if we are gonna use the -ist terms now).

I hope you understand I am not spreading hostility. I am simply aiming to host a contest and have people participate that want to.

Reading everything that has been commented, I find it regrettable and even shameful that there are people who badly behavior for a contest which win nothing.

Of all my participations, I reached the 2nd or 3rd round and I didn't go around complaining or crying because I lost, it didn't discourage continue creating simfiles, and despite my mistakes as a creator, I continue to perfect my technique day after day, and I have taken criticism very naturally, as well as thanking those people who supported my projects.

I feel ashamed that there are people who discredit this forum, the only one that has survived for several years and brought together the entire community that was left in limbo when another pages died. I am grateful for those who maintain this page, since it has been the place where I was able to find out how my favorite game, Dance Dance Revolution, was progressing, and meet fans who take their time to share their creations (simfiles, themes, dancers, etc.) as well as receiving feedback to improve my shared work.

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Literally the only regrettable thing I did was call this contest ZIv Summer Contest 2025. And I have since changed it. I have never said I am trying to create "as much damage as possible". And I didn't start the conflict, y'all came here to do that. Every single message from me about the conflict is in response to someone else's message from the server. I guess I can't stick up for myself.

As stated, I would love to settle this via DMs or discord (vective.). I don't care to entertain this any longer. The contest must go on.

/reads thread


Clearly we need more numbers then. Put me in, chief.

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