Hi,

I had posted about live racing there but now I think it is better to make a new, dedicated topic for it.
Following Nicco's advice (thank you) after a bit of talking, I have just created a group which people interested in live racing can join. This should allow people to more easily find fellow players to race with.

This group purpose is to help SMB players organizing live races. If you would like to race SMB, come join our group !

What is a live race ? Here are the ingredients to a live race :
1. several players being present in the same place IRL or over the Internet (IRC is a good place to do so), at a given moment.
2. Rules. Eg. beat every level in world 2. Beat the game 'any %' (ie start from 1-1 and from there, beat Dr Foetus). Rules can be different from race to race and can be discussed.
3. Some sort of 'arbiter' who starts the race when everyone is ready, count points, etc. This is easy and IRC bots can do it for us.
4. When a player has reached the goal he tells it to this 'arbiter'. A player can of course give up any time in the race.
5. When everyone has finished a ranking is set.

Not mandatory :
(6.) Streaming. Streaming allows spectators to follow races in real time, which adds to the fun factor. There are good free tools to do this (check Speedrunslive 'tools' page. Personally I'd recommend xsplit).
(7.) If not streaming, there is always recording.
Is both a proof of the claimed performance (if needed), and a trace of the race. There are free or non-free tools to do this (eg FRAPS).
(9.) Commentators. Mostly for big races I suppose, but some races can be commented in real time.
10. FUN ! (this one is mandatory and can't be prevented :))

Since they already have a racing community and the ressources (website, ranking system, IRC channel, IRC bot) I suggest that to gather at #speedrunslive (see http://www.speedrunslive.com/) when looking forward to racing SMB.

Speedrunslive SMB page (I had to put this out of the quote tags for the link to work)

I can't give a source for that information (can't remember where I read it) but the game was made using C# (possibly XNA ?)
The game developpers created their own game engine (this particular piece of information can be found in the post mortem).

Bullets hell games are a lot of fun to play (and to develop, I suppose).
If you don't know about that ressource already, SA667, I would recommend you to check http://www.shmup-dev.com/forum/ . It isn't so very active, but some topics/tutorials are definitely worth a read.

No interest in racing ?

I was hoping to resurrect Super Meat Boy IRC channel (#meatboy@Rizon) and provide funny challenges as well.

Online racing is analog to playing SMB in multiplayer :)
I like Individual Levels speedrunning (the only category the leaderboards account for, along with 100%), but there are times when not having to replay levels 300 times to get the perfect time, but instead just get the best time possible in one single run is a pleasant change. I'm sure some of you like it and probably already do it. If so, why not come over IRC to have fun racing together ?

[don't post your info here]

You can add me to the OP list.

ps: apparently, a few people don't understand the purpose of this thread, which is (SMB Leaderboards related). If you don't want people adding you in their list mainly to compare scores, simply don't post your info here.

[not for charity]

I thought I would use this thread to point out that there are live races sometimes played (not for charity anymore, afaik) at #speedrunslive@irc.speeddemosarchive.com (IRC).

Most of the time, these are "any %" races using Meat Boy, that means you must beat Dr Fetus, and are allowed to skip 3 levels per world.

I have been streaming my past races on ustream like many other SRL members do, but it's not required. You can play on console or PC.
My current "any %" time is about an hour, which, like you can guess, isn't *that* fast.
Anyone can join.

I hope some of you come by so that we could organize more SMB races :)

I will try to beat some of these, but most seem pretty solid.
As I said in the comments, nice beating my 7-13 time, I wrongly assumed I was going the fastest path when doing my own run of it.
edit : done, beat your 7-13...by 0.02s (no need to thank me ^^). I haven't checked the rest yet, as I would like to speedrun a few hell levels first.

For the game to run at an update rate different from your monitor refresh rate, you want to *disable* v-sync not enable it. Besides, I think v-sync is only relevant to full screen modes, not windowed ones.

For a 60Hz refresh rate => find a way to add the new modes yourself (here is how to do it with ATI cards) or try Powerstrip or a similar program to set a custom refresh rate for your monitor.

[especially considering]

I think the vote should have some sort of feedback implemented.
Currently, nothing tells the player the vote has been saved. I think this should be avoided if possible, especially considering that when a level is finished, the player can do different things (retry, go back to menu, go to next level, etc.).
Examples of possible feedback :
- (visual) a pop-up "vote saved" (press any button to skip)
- (visual) animate the stars when the player click (eg shimmer)
- (visual) an icon like the one used to confirm a replay is saved, only a different icon
- (sound) a sound or voice
- etc.
I think another choice would be to use the "save replay" button, which is not used anymore, for the vote action.
For instance: press "replay button" to display/unhide the vote menu, then use left/right to select the rating, then press the "replay button" again to save.

[Play with whatever peripheral you're the best with]

Play with whatever peripheral you're the best with (be it keyboard, pad, arcade stick).
It is possible to play equally great at SMB using a keyboard, a pad or an arcade stick.
Do not think a specific controller will allow you to play the game better, as it is most probably wrong thinking.

That being said, if you absolutely want to use a gamepad, I would recommend you against picking the Xbox 360 pad.
It is an excellent joypad overall but the d-pad is simply bad.
For games with no actual analog support like SMB, joypads like the Sega Saturn pad (USB version or Saturn version + adapter) or Mad Catz Fightpad are better choices.

I still haven't updated the guide to include all of your videos, but I will soon considering how you're probably the fastest haha. Tell me about it, at least you have him unlocked I'm SO close!

Only a minority of the runs I've recorded are played as the best character, I think above is summed up about all you could find by checking my playlist.

I had forgotten Meat Ninja was banned (as well as Steve). So we don't have to consider them here do we ?

edit : oh btw I meant "MB" (Meat Boy) instead of "SMB" above.

2-10 : Naija (around 4.40s)
3-1 : Naija (around 4s)
2-3X : Naija or Runman (around 5s)
3-3X : Runman (around 7s). Not 100% on that one but I doubt Naija could go as fast.
4-1 : Naija (around 5s)
4-7 : Naija (under 4.50s). SMB is slightly slower (~4.80s)

edit : I forgot haven't bothering playing with Meat Ninja. It may invalidate all I've written above

I prefer playing SMB but I've uploaded a few Naija speedruns :
2-3x 4.98s
2-6 6.25s (not optimized)
2-10 4.41s
3-1 4.20s
3-1x 11.81s
3-3x 11.50s (not optimized)
5-1x 5.41s
5-2x 10.54s

What are your computer specs ?

A better time reference would be the players' median, average, best times and other global stats, but we don't have them and even if we did, cheated times would ruin them, so par times are the only reference times at hand...