[valius]

Interestingly enough, the stepmakers have a policy as such:

"If we can pass this chart with a C no-bar, it goes into the game."

The charts were designed to take into account no-bar, so it's obvious it's pretty significant to PIU culture. The game may be getting harder, but the abilities of players are growing to the point where everything can be done no-bar (except RAW and Bee [a] NM, but those charts are very "special")

There are TONS of bar players, to be sure, but there are lots of no-bar players as well. And there are some in-between.

I don't think the speed mod is really the same kind of issue. It was a feature added into the game at the time, so no one could have taken advantage of it till MAX.

The bar, however, has been with us always, so anyone could've used the bar at anytime, and people have. "Official" Andamiro tournaments never really happened till 2005, and prior to that, in the Extra days of <= 2000, tournaments were mostly freestyle or freestyle only, so, for a while, speeding rules weren't even considered. There were speeding tournaments later, but none of the large scale of WPF. (Let's not even mention the near death of PIU in 2003-2004 because of two crappy mixes, Premiere 3 and Prex 3.) 2005 was the first year of official tournaments along with the no-bar rule set in place. 2006-2007 with the hardest charts ever kept this rule in place.

And now 2008 comes, with NX2, which DOESN'T have anything harder than the hardest in 2007 in either Arcade or Special Station, and a bar rule is placed... it's kind of strange, isn't it? It MIGHT make more sense if AM stepmakers made something WAY harder and more stupid than Bemera NM, but they didn't. It's not a change I care about, but I'm sure a lot of competitive players are scratching their head at this point, while bar players are rejoicing. It certainly does feel like a progression... particularly since strong players from Latin America can make the hardest charts look pathetic and will only grow.

Anyway, I'm not sure how long this bar rule will stay since it was thrown out last year as well in the middle of the year.