Super Mario Kart - September 27, 2014

2014-09-27 12:22:32 am

Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/SuperMarioKart.html

Super Mario Kart (Any %) (Single Segment)

Verifier Responses

Quote from HyperZoot:

AV good. Timing is ~37:30 by my count, give or take a few seconds.

Overall run quality is good. A couple minor mistakes here and there, and seemingly bad luck on items. Usually the mistakes only happened on the first lap, and the other laps would be well done. I say accept.

Quote from CyberBotX:

A/V good, no cheating detected. Overall, the run is really smooth. There are some mistakes and RNG trolling here and there in the run, but DK's audio commentary explains a lot of it.I'm sure a faster time can be done, but I'll give this an accept because getting good luck with items and the AI is harder than it looks.

Quote from AlecK47:

A/V good, no cheating detected

Adding up the race times yields a total time of 25:39.73

This is a very good run, all things considered, but it's definitely improvable. There are a few legitimately sloppy moments and item luck could certainly be better, but neither were that bad; and just as importantly, AI trolling was quite limited.

Using Bowser/DK, playing cleaner and getting better luck in the same run would be no small task, but could shave off a significant amount of time. I'd estimate as much as a minute could be saved, and would definitely be interested to see how low it could go.

It's by no means the strongest (or manliest) run DK's done recently, but I'd say it's good enough for the site. Accept

Quote from Alowishus:

Audio and video is good. I really enjoyed watching this run. The commentary from DK outlines what is going on excellently.

The run is overall good. There are some cases of bad RNG - with feathers on Choco Island stage for example which could save a lot more time. However as explained by DK there's really no desire to play half way through a run to then reset based on bad RNG.

Apart from that there were a few small mistakes like falling into lava etc. This didn't occur too often to incur a huge time loss.

Overall the run can be faster but that would be dependent how much you want to grind out a 40 minute run to get amazing item luck. For that reason I would say accept.

My only major issue would be with the runs timing. In my experience with All Cup runs you usually time from the start all the way to the finish/credits/end of last race but in this case it looks like the times for the races were all added together giving a time of 25:30.73. Clarification is needed of this since another verifier has timed the run at 37:30 which is a substantial difference. On the knowledge base it does specify to use ingame timer and being a racing game this could make more sense.

Quote from ars4326:

The run looked good. Everything looked legitimate, and I didn't detect any cheating.

I've forgotten how tough the AI gets on the higher cups! There were mistakes made, here and there, in the more challenging races, but the runner recovered well from them and managed to pull off good time, nonetheless.

I'm going to go with 'Accept' on this one!

(this is the first run I've verified on SDA. By all means, if I overlooked any criteria feel free to correct me and let me know!)

Quote:

Opps, this has been waiting on me... sorry...

The is an accept for a ss run. I would rather see less bumps from here and there but the play is super solid and the other drives dont troll much at all. I would like to see more from this category though.

Decision: Accept

Congratulations to Jeremy 'DK28' Doll!

Thread title:

Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/SuperMarioKart.html

Super Mario Kart (Any %) (Single Segment)

[b]Verifier Responses[/b]

[quote="HyperZoot"]AV good. Timing is ~37:30 by my count, give or take a few seconds.

Overall run quality is good. A couple minor mistakes here and there, and seemingly bad luck on items. Usually the mistakes only happened on the first lap, and the other laps would be well done. I say accept.[/quote]

[quote="CyberBotX"]A/V good, no cheating detected. Overall, the run is really smooth. There are some mistakes and RNG trolling here and there in the run, but DK's audio commentary explains a lot of it.I'm sure a faster time can be done, but I'll give this an accept because getting good luck with items and the AI is harder than it looks.[/quote]

[quote="AlecK47"]A/V good, no cheating detected

Adding up the race times yields a total time of 25:39.73

This is a very good run, all things considered, but it's definitely improvable.  There are a few legitimately sloppy moments and item luck could certainly be better, but neither were that bad; and just as importantly, AI trolling was quite limited.

Using Bowser/DK, playing cleaner and getting better luck in the same run would be no small task, but could shave off a significant amount of time.   I'd estimate as much as a minute could be saved, and would definitely be interested to see how low it could go.

It's by no means the strongest (or manliest) run DK's done recently, but I'd say it's good enough for the site.  Accept[/quote]

[quote="Alowishus"]Audio and video is good. I really enjoyed watching this run. The commentary from DK outlines what is going on excellently.

The run is overall good. There are some cases of bad RNG - with feathers on Choco Island stage for example which could save a lot more time. However as explained by DK there's really no desire to play half way through a run to then reset based on bad RNG.

Apart from that there were a few small mistakes like falling into lava etc. This didn't occur too often to incur a huge time loss.

Overall the run can be faster but that would be dependent how much you want to grind out a 40 minute run to get amazing item luck. For that reason I would say accept.

My only major issue would be with the runs timing. In my experience with All Cup runs you usually time from the start all the way to the finish/credits/end of last race but in this case it looks like the times for the races were all added together giving a time of 25:30.73. Clarification is needed of this since another verifier has timed the run at 37:30 which is a substantial difference. On the knowledge base it does specify to use ingame timer and being a racing game this could make more sense.[/quote]

[quote="ars4326"]The run looked good.  Everything looked legitimate, and I didn't detect any cheating.

I've forgotten how tough the AI gets on the higher cups!  There were mistakes made, here and there, in the more challenging races, but the runner recovered well from them and managed to pull off good time, nonetheless.

I'm going to go with 'Accept' on this one!

(this is the first run I've verified on SDA.  By all means, if I overlooked any criteria feel free to correct me and let me know!)[/quote]

[quote]Opps, this has been waiting on me... sorry...

The is an accept for a ss run. I would rather see less bumps from here and there but the play is super solid and the other drives dont troll much at all. I would like to see more from this category though.[/quote]

[b]Decision:[/b] Accept

Congratulations to Jeremy 'DK28' Doll!

Vorsch

2014-09-27 09:10:35 am

The verifiers didn't mention it, so I'm wondering : are you guys aware that this run is very far from the WR? KvD has a 31"44, almost 6 minutes faster than this run : http://www.twitch.tv/smk_machine/c/4283655

DK28's run is clean and shows a solid level of play, but is nowhere near what some of the super mario kart experts can do.

Alko

2014-09-27 10:13:10 am

Caution: This user contains Kana ^_^

Quote from Vorsch:

The verifiers didn't mention it, so I'm wondering : are you guys aware that this run is very far from the WR?

The verifiers are supposed to not care if a run is close or far from the 'world record' (inverted commas, because the term's not always as clear as in this case), they are only supposed to check if the play quality is good (or equal to an old run being obsoleted). SDA has never and never will be a 'world record' site.

AlecK47

Edit history:

AlecK47: 2014-09-27 02:47:16 pm

2014-09-27 11:50:08 am

Although I can't speak for the other verifiers, I may as well give some context to my decision. Also, in rereading my comment I realized that I made a bit of an editing or typing mistake: that line of mine about there being about a minute of improvement was supposed to be for a run using Toad or Koopa, but I somehow managed to not clarify that point at all... go me. I did look for a bit to find a better run to no avail, though I should say that I considered the existence of a run much like the one Vorsch linked to be a foregone conclusion.

First off, the runs are actually different categories, not because of character choice, but because KvD used an inert character in the second slot so that a significant number of obstacles would be despawned. This wouldn't affect every track, of course, but it definitely makes things easier, especially when using Bowser or DK because it's much easier to deal with having to go off your line with Toad or Koopa thanks to their better handling. As far as how much time it saves, that's pretty much impossible to determine objectively, but it's still a strong point in favor of DK's run, and ultimately one of the main reasons I gave it an accept.

Second, KvD had some really damn good item luck, which gained him even more time. More than one GV (even if he messed up the feather use in one, it's still good luck to get it), CI2 and the finish to Rainbow Road in KvD's run are great examples. This is more of a neutral point because better luck is to be desired, but generally runs that have top notch execution are regarded slightly better than ones with a comparable (or even slightly better) time that was achieved mostly through luck. Not to say that KvD's run was all luck (I probably shouldn't have to clarify that, but this is the internet after all), just that luck is weighted slightly less than play quality.

That said, I realized from the get go that using the characters he did would cost a lot of time, and I absolutely factored it in. Having now compared the times and strategies between the two runs race by race and overall (I'd rather not list numbers here simply because of the differences mentioned in the previous two paragraphs), and doing my best to take differences into account I'd still give this one an accept. Had I seen KvD's run I probably would have actually called DK's a "weak accept" and said that it barely scraped by, which I nearly did even without seeing KvD's, but meh.

Edit: I should probably mention that the actual time difference per SDA timing (race times, not real time) is at most five minutes. Likely less because of having to give up with the second player, which would add a significant chunk of time over the course of KvD's run.

Although I can't speak for the other verifiers, I may as well give some context to my decision.  Also, in rereading my comment I realized that I made a bit of an editing or typing mistake: that line of mine about there being about a minute of improvement was supposed to be for a run using Toad or Koopa, but I somehow managed to not clarify that point at all... go me.  I did look for a bit to find a better run to no avail, though I should say that I considered the existence of a run much like the one Vorsch linked to be a foregone conclusion.

First off, the runs are actually different categories, not because of character choice, but because KvD used an inert character in the second slot so that a significant number of obstacles would be despawned.  This wouldn't affect every track, of course, but it definitely makes things easier, especially when using Bowser or DK because it's much easier to deal with having to go off your line with Toad or Koopa thanks to their better handling.  As far as how much time it saves, that's pretty much impossible to determine objectively, but it's still a strong point in favor of DK's run, and ultimately one of the main reasons I gave it an accept.

Second, KvD had some really damn good item luck, which gained him even more time.  More than one GV (even if he messed up the feather use in one, it's still good luck to get it), CI2  and the finish to Rainbow Road in KvD's run are great examples.  This is more of a neutral point because better luck is to be desired, but generally runs that have top notch execution are regarded slightly better than ones with a comparable (or even slightly better) time that was achieved mostly through luck.  Not to say that KvD's run was all luck (I probably shouldn't have to clarify that, but this is the internet after all), just that luck is weighted slightly less than play quality.

That said, I realized from the get go that using the characters he did would cost a lot of time, and I absolutely factored it in.  Having now compared the times and strategies between the two runs race by race and overall (I'd rather not list numbers here simply because of the differences mentioned in the previous two paragraphs), and doing my best to take differences into account I'd still give this one an accept.  Had I seen KvD's run I probably would have actually called DK's a "weak accept" and said that it barely scraped by, which I nearly did even without seeing KvD's, but meh.

Edit: I should probably mention that the actual time difference per SDA timing (race times, not real time) is at most five minutes.  Likely less because of having to give up with the second player, which would add a significant chunk of time over the course of KvD's run.

UraniumAnchor

2014-09-27 09:25:46 pm

Not a walrus

Couple of things, some have been covered already:

1) By default this game would use game time, not real time, but that's probably academic anyway since I don't think there's any significant strat differences. If there ARE, then the two would be separate categories.
2) Using the second player to save time would put a run in the multiplayer category, regardless of if the second player is ever actually used.
3) The verifiers gave this run a pass and didn't break any guidelines while doing so (the mere existence of a better run isn't even a formal guideline, let alone a qualification for rejection, especially when there's another run already on the site).
4) KvD is more than welcome to submit his runs here if he can record them to our specifications (full framerate, no overlays over the game, and a clean audio track), and even if it's a different category if it's significantly improved over this run it could obsolete it. The site's runs are only as good as what people send to us, so if you want to see a good run here, convince somebody to send one in. Smiley

Couple of things, some have been covered already:

1) By default this game would use game time, not real time, but that's probably academic anyway since I don't think there's any significant strat differences. If there ARE, then the two would be separate categories.
2) Using the second player to save time would put a run in the multiplayer category, regardless of if the second player is ever actually used.
3) The verifiers gave this run a pass and didn't break any guidelines while doing so (the mere existence of a better run isn't even a formal guideline, let alone a qualification for rejection, especially when there's another run already on the site).
4) KvD is more than welcome to submit his runs here if he can record them to our specifications (full framerate, no overlays over the game, and a clean audio track), and even if it's a different category if it's significantly improved over this run it could obsolete it. The site's runs are only as good as what people send to us, so if you want to see a good run here, convince somebody to send one in. :)

DK28

2014-09-28 03:00:12 pm

General Kong - Bullets and Bananas

Woohoo!!! Thank you verifiers! Happy to see this accepted.

A couple things, I believe I covered these in the audio commentary:
DK/Bowser. I know they are faster, I did my segmented run with DK. Wink

I used Toad for consistency. He's my main driver and after a lot of testing, I made the decision to use him.
2 players. As stated, having the second person in play takes away a lot of obstacles. Anywhere you see pipes, Thwomps, etc, there will only be half as many when there are two players. This helps a lot when using Bowser or DK. I wanted to specifically do a 1 player run.
Submitting. My segmented run is from 2009, now there is this SS. To my knowledge, these are the only SMK runs ever submitted to SDA. Tongue