[yoshifan]

Well, I hear that this game might be coming out pretty soon, so here's a hype topic!  If you haven't been following, it's out in the US on May 23.  Official gameplay footage can be found here.

And yes, there's been talk of adding 3D games to TMC before; I think the main reason it hasn't happened is laziness.  In the meantime, I think some Galaxy 1 charts are in order - it'd be a bit awkward to add Galaxy 2 before 1.  I'll leave the coin charts alone for the moment, as I don't know whether people wanted to have one coin chart per galaxy or per star.  That's something worth discussing for Galaxy 2, as well, when people get to play it.

EDIT: Galaxy 1 times charts are up.  Discussion for coin charts (per galaxy vs. per star) is welcome.

*EDIT 2*: Galaxy 2 charts... are up!
Still have to decide between level or division totals, though.  Also, game-completion-time charts will be added in the future.

[Cream147]

Important news about Mario Galaxy 2, it appears to show you the time it took you to complete the level at the end of each level, as shown in a Gamespot playthrough of the first level. I would assume that it will save these times for each level, and store your best. If that really is the case, then we can expect Super Mario Galaxy 2 to be a great game to compete on. This was one change I was really hoping would happen from the first game and Nintendo have read my mind.

(The accuracy the time was shown to was centiseconds, so it has the potential to be very competitive)

[Thorn]

Because I love you guys, here's the breakdown on the number of missions for Times... and those are the important rankings, clearly.~ Pretty much all levels are legit for tracking, really... there's a few cases where you speedrun an existing level, but they have a tendency to change one or two level attributes to screw with you, and even if they don't, checkpoints might be removed. There's no need to track timed mini games separately, since they get utilized in the main mission times. Score-based mini-games do exist, but I'll let somebody else worry about those. All times break down to centiseconds.

Spoilers, of course... don't be thick, that much should be obvious. >_>


Sky Station: 3
Yoshi Star: 3
Spin-Dig: 3
Fluffy Bluff: 3
Flip-Swap: 2
Rightside Down: 2
Bowser Jr.'s Fiery Flotilla: 2

Puzzle Plank: 3
Hightail Falls: 3
Boulder Bowl: 3
Cosmic Cove: 3
Wild Glide: 2
Honeybloom: 2
Bowser's Lava Lair: 2

Tall Trunk: 3
Cloudy Court: 3
Haunty Halls: 3
Freezy Flake: 3
Rolling Masterpiece: 2
Beat Block: 2
Bowser Jr.'s Fearsome Fleet: 2

Supermassive: 3
Flipsville: 3
Starshine Beach: 3
Chompworks: 3
Sweet Mystery: 2
Honeyhop: 2
Bowser's Gravity Gauntlet: 2

Space Storm: 3
Slipsand: 3
Shiverburn: 3
Boo Moon: 3
Upside Dizzy: 2
Fleet Glide: 2
Bowser Jr.'s Boom Bunker: 2

Melty Monster: 3
Clockwork Ruins: 3
Throwback: 3
Battle Belt: 3
Flash Black: 2
Slimy Spring: 2
Bowser's Galaxy Generator: 2

Mario Squared: 2
Rolling Coaster: 2
Twisty Trials: 2
Stone Cyclone: 2
Boss Blitz: 2
Flip-Out: 2
Grandmaster: 2


Now, here's where the fun begins. You can of course have divisions of Star 1, 2, and 3 to keep things organized (although if somebody skips a star, it might change their charts around). But with the exception of Grandmaster, for every Star you have, there needs to be a similarly numbered Green Star division. This leads to 242 submissions... and if TMC wants separate character divisions (which I would advise against doing given that only one time saves per mission),  you can double that.

[yoshifan]

Thanks for the information, Thorn.  I suppose I don't understand enough about how the game works to decide on categories and divisions (given that I haven't gotten the chance to play yet), so I'll leave it to you guys to discuss for now.  It is definitely exciting that there's a saved time for every star, though.

[Miles9999]

1. Leaving out Fluzzard races would be stupid.

2. Why number the stars instead of using the names the game provides?

Also the game sends the completion time to the Wii Message Board when you beat the game/collect every star, so there should be two additional charts for those.

And SS charts! *shot*

[Thorn]

1. Leaving out Fluzzard races would be stupid.

Nobody said they were being left out.

2. Why number the stars instead of using the names the game provides?

Because that would mean that instead of a 49x7 table for rankings, we'd use a 242x1 table. Guess which one is a more sensible layout, factoring in how long some of the mission names are and that using actual mission names means appending the galaxy names to every Green Star mission for clarity.

Also the game sends the completion time to the Wii Message Board when you beat the game/collect every star, so there should be two additional charts for those.

Everybody would submit to that once and then never bother to better it, save maybe one crazy person.


I'm not bothered to read that tiny text.

[yoshifan]

Sorry for being away lately... and I am still not picking this game up for another week (when school's over).

Assuming the stars for each galaxy are organized more or less like Galaxy 1, I'm leaning a bit toward using the names instead of galaxy + number, if the game itself doesn't number the stars.  Though, I also see that the TSC chart format is better optimized for a format like galaxy + number.  The level list could benefit from compact view; and if we made galaxies the levels and star numbers the divisions, the charts in a particular galaxy could link to each other.  Hmm... makes me wish that charts could have subtitles, or something.

Some possible ideas for the charts:

Level - galaxy + star name, Division - something generic like "Mario"
    * A grand-total time is possible.
    * Charts of the same galaxy will *not* link to each other.
Level - galaxy name, Division - star name
    * Totals might not be possible (but I'll have to check).
    * Charts of the same galaxy will link to each other.
Level - galaxy name, Division - star number
    * Totals by star number, as well as a total-total, are possible.
    * Charts of the same galaxy will link to each other.
    * Game doesn't use the numbers (right?)

[Taillow]

I went and looked through every level to see where any extra scores are.

--------

Scores (Galaxy - Star Name):
Fluffy Bluff Galaxy - The Chimp's Stomp Challenge
Freezy Flake Galaxy - The Chimp's Skating Challenge
Honeyhop Galaxy - The Chimp's Score Challenge
Shiverburn Galaxy - The Chimp's Ultimate Skating Challenge
Melty Monster Galaxy - The Chimp's Bowling Challenge
Slimy Spring Galaxy - The Chimp's Coin Challenge

--------

The Chimp's Bowling Challenge is one of the easier max-able scores <_<

And Yoshifan, no, the game doesn't use star numbers.  Not counting green stars (Which are all named Green Star 1/Green Star 2/Green Star 3).  In fact, the star arrangement is very similar to Galaxy 1:
In picture format.  Excuse the horrible quality.
Scores and race times (Which I think are only in the Fluzzard stages) appear in the spot directly above "Clear Time".

As Thorn stated, for every galaxy that has 3 stars, there are also 3 green stars.  For those that have 2, then 2 green stars.  The only exception to this is Grandmaster Galaxy, which has no green stars.

[Cream147]

Level - galaxy name, Division - star number
    * Totals by star number, as well as a total-total, are possible.
    * Charts of the same galaxy will link to each other.
    * Game doesn't use the numbers (right?)

This looks like the most sensible one to me. Even if the game doesn't use numbers (being British, I don't have the game yet, and therefore do not know), I'd imagine that it's obvious what number is what, and it's most important to make it presentable (and allow the most possible features to operate) I think.

[yoshifan]

Right, so... I have now played the game (just 30 stars in, but still).  And no, I'm not from Europe, just a strange coincidence that I only just got a chance to play. >_>

Anyway, here's how I'm assessing the Times chart options right now:

1. Level - galaxy + star name, Division - something generic like "Mario"
    * A grand-total time is possible.
    * Charts of the same galaxy will *not* link to each other.
Quite doable, though less features than option 3.  Plus, longer chart names.

2. Level - galaxy name, Division - star name
    * Totals might not be possible (but I'll have to check).
    * Charts of the same galaxy will link to each other, and viewing the charts in compact view is possible.
Would rather not go with this option.  I don't think the chart creation system will take kindly to creating 120-ish different division names... at all.

3. Level - galaxy name, Division - star number
    * Totals by star number, as well as a grand total time, are possible.
To be fair, totals by star number aren't going to be very meaningful, in my opinion.
    * Charts of the same galaxy will link to each other, and viewing the charts in compact view is possible.
    * Game doesn't use the numbers for the normal (non-green) stars.
Most likely option, I think.  The numbers don't really seem confusing as long as you look at the in-game star select screen (see Taillow's post).  But I still wish we could have star names as subtitles for each chart or something.  For example, someone could get confused when transferring their times from Cyberscore to TMC.


Then, there's Fluzzard races and the Chimp's score-based challenges.  We could:
- Add Fluzzard races as part of Times, and put the Chimp's challenges under Scores.
- Group both Fluzzard races and the score challenges under "Extra".

What do you think?

[Cream147]

Option 3 definitely. I was wondering if using that option you could have a galaxy total time. No problem if not obviously, but was just something I was wondering. Also, I would put Fluzzerd and Chimp both underneath "Extra", but that's just me.

[yoshifan]

Option 3 definitely. I was wondering if using that option you could have a galaxy total time. No problem if not obviously, but was just something I was wondering.

Oh, yeah, actually we could.  We could have Level totals like in TSC's Sonic and the Secret Rings (and with option 3, the Levels are galaxies).  The Level totals themselves will also have to count toward the rankings if we do this, but I don't see any real harm in this (~40 totals versus ~240 normal charts, and having low totals is a mark of good consistent play anyhow).

Also, I would put Fluzzerd and Chimp both underneath "Extra", but that's just me.

Thanks for your input, I was thinking the same.

Also, if we can manage to add the two game-completion-time charts (see Miles' post), I guess they can also go under Extra.  However, adding game completion charts may take a bit more work because they'll be in a hh:mm:ss format, something new to TSC to my knowledge.  (Yes, we could always masquerade a mm:ss.xx format as hh:mm:ss, but might as well try and get it right... anyway, we can add these charts some time later.)

[yoshifan]

Okay, so for Times, it seems like we will go with Option 3.  To clarify, that means it will be like:

Levels: Sky Station, Yoshi's Star, ...
Divisions: Star 1, Star 2, Star 3, Green Star 1, Green Star 2, Green Star 3
* For Totals, we'll have at least a Total/Total (total time for all stars).  We can additionally have totals for each star number (Total/Star 1), and/or totals for each galaxy (Sky Station/Total).  What do you guys say on this?  These totals can always be added some time later, though.

Then the Extra category... maybe something like this:

Levels: Wild Glide, Fleet Glide, Fluffy Bluff - Stomp Challenge, Freezy Flake - Skating Challenge, ...
Divisions: Fluzzard Races, The Chimp's Challenges
* I saw that Cyberscore named the Fluzzard race levels after the galaxies, so I did that as well.  Besides, there are two different stars associated with each race, which creates a little ambiguity if we want to use star names instead.  For the Chimp's challenges, a reminder of the challenge theme seems like a helpful addition to the name, along with the galaxy name.
* We should be able to make separate totals for the races and the Chimp's score challenges.
* Game-completion times (to be added later) would add another two levels and another division, and maybe its own total chart as well.

So I will add these whenever I can.  Any more opinions or suggestions?  Opinions on which totals should be added?

[Cream147]

I'm very pleased with the layout of these charts, I think it's been done in the best possible way. I'll start attacking the charts with times in a few hours. My opinion on totals is simple, yes to galaxy totals and don't really care about star totals, fine if they're there, but I wouldn't miss them if they weren't.

One thing I need to ask you yoshifan, how do you get sub 4 seconds on the first green star of Sky Station?! Seriously, with a run that I think is not too far from perfection I can barely get sub 8. Can you avoid the talk with the luma at the start?

[yoshifan]

One thing I need to ask you yoshifan, how do you get sub 4 seconds on the first green star of Sky Station?! Seriously, with a run that I think is not too far from perfection I can barely get sub 8. Can you avoid the talk with the luma at the start?

Yes!  Wait for at least a half second or so before you skip the second opening cutscene (where Mario/Luigi is flying toward the planet).  By not skipping the cutscene immediately, you will be able to move as soon as the level starts.  After you skip the cutscene, hold left and jump as soon as you can (I mash A and get it most of the time).  You should jump away from the Luma without talking.


Oh, and some considerations for totals (some of which I realized yesterday):
- In order for Total/Total to work, it looks like we'll want either Level totals (by galaxy) or Division totals (by star number), but not both, and not neither.  So, pick one!
- Level totals make the most sense, but will add 49 totals charts, which might clutter your times page if you do something like sort your times by rank.
- Division totals won't make clutter, but they don't make a lot of sense; star numbers don't carry much meaning of what the star is about.  For example, comets can appear as star 2 or 3.

[Cream147]

Thank you so much for that tip! I'd found out you could do the trick before you responded, but I tried about 50 times and I couldn't do it because I didn't know about the waiting in the second cutscene! Now I do it's really quite easy.

Galaxy totals>Star Totals is my opinion on the totals.

[X-5]

it kicks ass that the game tracks your best time for every level. We've been needing that since super mario 64! People go for fast times there even though they gotta manually time it :P I can't stand manual timing like that though so I never bothered.

Look out for me, I am gonna have some fun going for fast times once I beat the game! 14 stars and counting.

[slowbro]

it kicks ass that the game tracks your best time for every level. We've been needing that since super mario 64! People go for fast times there even though they gotta manually time it :P I can't stand manual timing like that though so I never bothered.

Look out for me, I am gonna have some fun going for fast times once I beat the game! 14 stars and counting.

I'm looking forward to it :)  I enjoy seeing people's new times go up, including when they beat mine.

And I agree totally that the fact SMG2 keeps track of times for every star kicks ass.  For me, that took this game from being 40 enjoyable hours to being 95 enjoyable hours, even though I never got super-serious about going for fast times.