osu! News

2013 NewCAT Applications

Makar — Sun, 19 May 2013 06:04:07 +0800

The Chart Assembly Team (CAT) is currently looking for volunteers! The CAT is responsible for selecting maps for the monthly and themed charts. We are looking for dedicated and active members who have the confidence and judgement required in order to nominate, vote, and criticize maps for these charts.

Some basic information to know before applying:

No modding experience is required, but it is a plus. We are primarily looking for members with a good amount of playing experience; however, modding shows that you have the ability and experience on judging maps, which is a essential part of what the CAT is responsible for.
Actively play maps, especially new ones! Monthly chart picks are chosen from maps that were ranked in the most recent month. Themed chart picks are chosen from maps that fit a specific theme which is chosen by the CAT staff.
You do not have to have experience in all modes. Being active in just one mode is sufficient, but the more the better.
We are looking for osu!mania applicants as well. Maps for this mode will be included in the next chart.
Be friendly and open-minded to the people around you; it's an important part of being cooperative on a team like this.

If you are interested in applying, you can do so here. Afterwards, send me a forum PM with the subject line: "CAT Application Verification." The forum PM requirement is to prevent others' from applying for other users, so please don't forget to do so as it is mandatory.

Application deadline: June 1st, 2013 at 00:00 UTC
New members will be announced at the same time the June monthly chart is released (which is approximately June 14th)

As a side note, DeathxShinigami has stepped down from his position as manager, and I will be taking care of the team. If you have any questions about CAT, feel free to PM me on the forums or in-game. I look forward to seeing your applications!

Regional Team Management

Ephemeral — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:37:51 +0800

As of now, the BAT is now officially managed by three enterprising individuals, hailing from every end of the planet!

NatsumeRin represents Asia/Oceania,
Kurai represents Europe and,
Garven represents America.

Together, they manage the Beatmap Appreciation Team and will be responsible for overseeing all major changes to the Ranking Criteria, and also handling the recruitment of new modders and mappers into the BAT. Expect more announcements shortly as they begin accepting BAT applications!

May 2013 Ranking Chart

DeathxShinigami — Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:03 +0800

Another month another chart~ Hope you all enjoy the May 2013 chart!

Chart

May 2013 Chart Packs
osu!standard
Taiko
Catch the Beat

Also my apologies for not having anything else of note to really say but congrats to our winners of the April chart!

April 2013 Chart Winners
osu!standard: Rain
Taiko: Ca Calne
Catch the Beat: ScreaMGirL

osu! Public Release (b20130509)

peppy — Thu, 09 May 2013 11:39:22 +0800

In order to push updates more regularly, it is important to me that the update system doesn't piss the user off. I've spend a bit of time reworking it to ensure this is the case. From the next version, you will notice the new update system in action, which will almost never force you to restart osu! unless you are willing to. Also in this build is a fix for all most previously broken replays, and the ability to spectate someone who is spectating someone else.

I've been spending a lot of my time recently on the new modding system, which is coming along quite nicely. Expect more client-side updates once that is finished!

The end of the MAT

Ephemeral — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 16:52:41 +0800

It has been a long road, and a hell of a journey. From the team's beginning as a measure to help address the slowing ranking cycle many years ago, the MAT have gone through a number of changes to become what they are today.

Or rather, what they were.

Effective immediately, all previous MAT have been promoted to members of the Beatmap Appreciation Team with full privileges and permissions, and the Mapping Assistance Team has been permanently dissolved, gone forever.

Members of the MAT who had a particular role (such as mania-only MAT or taiko-only MAT) will adopt that role amongst the BAT, and their forum titles will be updated in the coming days to reflect this.

No changes have been made to the ranking cycle. A map still needs a bubble before it can be ranked, and approval maps need at least two.

Let's all welcome the following 27 members to the team!

bossandy
Byakugan249
chonicle
DJPop
Elly-chan
Entozer
Frostmourne
Gabe
happy30
Jacob
Kei
Kenezz
Leorda
lovhin456
LunarSakuya
Makar
Melophobia
Nymph
Nyquill
popner
Roddie
Shulin
spboxer3
Strawberry
Teara
wcx19911123
xxheroxx

April 2013 Ranking Chart

DeathxShinigami — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 01:35:01 +0800

Hi everyone! DxS here as the new Chart Manager presenting the new April 2013 Chart.

Chart

April 2013 Beatmap Packs
osu!standard
Taiko
Catch the Beat

And shout outs to our latest chart winners below~

Video Games Winners
osu!standard: AmaiHachimitsu
Taiko: kanopu
Catch the Beat: CLSW

March 2013 Ranking Chart Winners
osu!standard: Swatty
Taiko: Ca Calne
Catch the Beat: Dusk

Another note that there have been some difficulties in rewarding the latest chart winners their monthly supporter tags. Hopefully I can get that all sorted out in the next upcoming days.

osu! Public Release (b20130328)

peppy — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 13:23:51 +0800

Due to a largely negative response to the "unified ranking" change I made, I have since made further adjustments by separating the ranking types into a new dropdown. As of this release, country ranking is also available! Keep in mind that even though these features are only available to supporters, there is a chance they will still take a while to display due to the amount of processing necessary.

The ranking display also shows 8 instead of 7 scores without scrolling. I'm also experimenting with removing the load delay for supporters, which should make rankings feel a lot snappier at the song select screen (this may be reverted depending on load).

Lots of bug fixes too.

osu! Public Release (b20130325)

peppy — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 17:53:19 +0800

This release continues to fix some elements of the new skin which were affecting older skins (there's still a few cases left like the ranking screen which I am still working on – bear with me!). It also adds an exciting new feature called unified scoreboards. You will now see friends, same mod plays and local scores all in the same listing at the song select screen! This is currently limited to supporters only while I load test the system, but this may change in the future.

A quick video of unified scoreboards in action:

SPOILER (click to toggle)

Hopefully this will make the game much more competitive for players which aren't aiming for the top 50ish scores, which are highly contested. You can now see how you are doing against your friends and people who play using the same difficulty modifiers as you.

This build also adds a button to make it more apparent that online ranking is available at the ranking screen by scrolling down.

More to come :).

2013 Staff Restructuring

Ephemeral — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 19:47:28 +0800

As of the 20th of March 2013, the staff roster has been adjusted to clearly define the roles we all have within the staff, and as such, some permissions and privileges have been adjusted to account for the changes. In the interests of transparency, this is being presented to the community at large in order to better inform you all of whom amongst the staff can best help you should you ever require help.

Language Surveillance Division has been renamed to the Chat Moderators and all members are titled on the forums as a Chat Moderator. Assorted moderators with moderation rights over major forums have been rounded up and added to the group.

Support Team has been properly consolidated into a formal group, and dedicated Support Team members now have forum titles designating who they are.

The old Administrators group is gone and has been replaced with the Global Moderation Team. Members of the GMT solely focus on moderating and have global forum and chat moderation access privileges, but no longer have the BAT map management options available to them. The GMT will be expected to be the first line for community users to contact for issues regarding ingame and forum conduct.

All users with access to ACP have been titled with Administrator, regardless of their role. In addition, any user with their own individual role has been given a title to represent what it is they actually do. It should now be obvious who does what!

If you require assistance with anything related to beatmaps, any Beatmap Appreciation Team or red-named person on the forums should be ready to assist you. Make sure you ask nicely! Anything related to player moderation in game or on the forums should be directed at member of the Global Moderation Team or if you are having issues on a language subforum, your local friendly Chat Moderator. Finally, if you require help with any administrative affairs such as provisional name changes or other profile-related issues, speak to any user whom is titled as an Administrator. They are the only ones who will be able to help you!

osu! Public Release (b20130319)

peppy — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 13:36:44 +0800

In one of the biggest releases in recent times, this update brings over two weeks of going over (almost) every fine detail of the default osu! skin/UI and revamping to make it more consistent, modern and to add HD support. I plan on going over this in more detail in the coming days on my dev blog but until then sit back and enjoy!

A few things to note:

There may be random bugs. Report these in the tech support forum, not this thread. please :P
Taiko, CtB and osu!mania redesigns are currently underway. Expect them to be updated over the coming weeks.
There are still a small number of elements which haven't been updated – for example, the spins-per-minute counter. These will come over the next few days.
For those using custom skins, you can force fallbacks to the new default by ticking the checkbox in the skin options screen. Default behaviour will be to use the old elements so they align properly when skins don't replace all skinnable elements.
The ranking screen is somewhat of a work in progress. You currently need to scroll to see your online rank performance. This may change.
I will make the new skin available for use as a template in the near future. Keep a watch on the skinning forum.

I have a lot more to say about the changes, but am a bit worn out and will do so in the near future. There are a lot of little gameplay changes which make for a better overall experience which have not been pointed out in this post. See how many you can spot, and let me know if any have improved the game for you.

Also I can't forget to give many kudos to RBRat3 for his help with many of the new skin's elements, including the slider ball, spinner, editor UI icons, mod icons and many other touches. Also worth a mention is the few users that stick around on the test build and provide near real-time feedback on the changes (hi MillhioreF, statementreply).