I wonder, if I, or another staff member, would host a contest for time trialing certain levels of Super Mario World, how much interest would there be for it?

The idea:

The set-up would be much like the Tetris Attack tournament from last time - a number of people (preferably at least 12, maximum 32) would have to sign up for the contest.
Then, they play the contest in bracket form. Just like with Tetris Attack's tournament, netplay is used, 1 vs. 1.
This to avoid people from using TAS (or any other kind of way one would cheat) and thus cheating their way out.
We would most likely use ZSNES 1.36 and Hamachi, like we did last time.

One has to play the specified level for that round - you'll hear that during the contest - 5 times in total.
If you beat it, that counts as a turn, but if you die, that also counts as a turn.
The best of the five times count, and whoever has the fastest time, wins, and advances to the next round.

If there is a draw between the fastest times, then the level is played another time, and the one who is fastest then, wins. If there's still a draw, repeat, until one is faster than the other.

If one of the two is unable to beat the level at all, he automatically loses, regardless of the time the other player achieved.
If both are unable to beat it, retry just as long as one of the two is able to beat it. Come on, guys. SMW isn't that tough.

As for the timer... I'm thinking of providing a custom sprite or a patch that installs a mm:ss:mm timer. This would bring draws back by a lot.

I'll come up with the rules at the eventual sign-up thread. For now, I just want to have a good measurement of how much interest there is, so if you'd like this contest, please post here.

If you have any suggestions about how my idea could be altered, that is also appreciated.

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--------> Don't follow "Find Roy's Dignity", my hack. Because it's pretty outdated. <--------

By 'providing', I meant giving a link to the sprite so that one knows which sprite to use. Such a sprite is already available on SMWC, if I recall correctly.

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--------> Don't follow "Find Roy's Dignity", my hack. Because it's pretty outdated. <--------

Cool! I'm in. When you non-TAS super mario 64 you have a timer. I might try to make it, maybe with some help from Iceguy

I'd love to do this. It sounds like just the thing I'd be good at. I'd better get practicing on my speedruns!

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Now with extra girl and extra hacker

Count me in if you do this :>

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<-- this is the dope on dope

Hm...I am mildly interested in this, I suppose. I was actually considering making my timer sprite into a patch, putting the patch into a form that would work better than the sprite. I can give you the details if you are curious. But, although I'm not really a time-trial kind of person, I might consider participating in this.

I would just like to point out that using netplay could be considered unfair for people without high-speed internet connections, but then again, I can't think of any other way to avoid cheating.

The honor system .. but then again, who would actually follow that system here?

In related news, as I stated on IRC, I think this is a rather neat idea. Since I'm usually the one judging these contests, it would be a nice change of pace to participate in this.

I would join but I can't insert sprites.

Sucks.

Actually I think a lot of people are unable to do that. Plus I actually want to turn into a patch. So I'll provide an IPS, instead. That's much more convenient to anyone.

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--------> Don't follow "Find Roy's Dignity", my hack. Because it's pretty outdated. <--------

I could join for the joy, if there is any spots left

This seems like an interesting idea.

Count me in if it starts.

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Your layout has been removed.

Alright. I think there's a decent amount of interest in it. I'll make a sign-ups thread this week (but first I need to prepare a few things before that, like decide on final rules, create the IPS patch we're going to use and create the Hamachi networks).

This thread is now redundant.

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--------> Don't follow "Find Roy's Dignity", my hack. Because it's pretty outdated. <--------