Nintendo's star character Mario has been in over 70 games. 70 GAMES!!! Which leads to the question, does the Super Mario series have a discernible timeline? Or are Mario games, like many have been led to believe, a random assortment of games with no attention paid to continuity. While this may ultimately be true, there ARE details in the Super Mario games that allow them to be pieced into a timeline order...and the implications of that are SHOCKING!
The blood line of Mario Bros is fully mapped out finally! Mario, Cranky Kong, Pauline, Jumpman... they all play a part in the detective work here!
Game Theory is one of my favorite YouTube channels. I recommend just about... Read AllNintendo's star character Mario has been in over 70 games. 70 GAMES!!! Which leads to the question, does the Super Mario series have a discernible timeline? Or are Mario games, like many have been led to believe, a random assortment of games with no attention paid to continuity. While this may ultimately be true, there ARE details in the Super Mario games that allow them to be pieced into a timeline order...and the implications of that are SHOCKING!
The blood line of Mario Bros is fully mapped out finally! Mario, Cranky Kong, Pauline, Jumpman... they all play a part in the detective work here!
Game Theory is one of my favorite YouTube channels. I recommend just about all of their videos, but this one is especially great :)
Re-Logic dropped a new teaser video today, along with some very important information: Terraria's 1.3 update will be released on June 30! Two new music tracks are also teased in the video, and some amazing background images for the underworld.
More discussion is going on at the official forums:
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 05/29/2015 at 02:31am
How dare you steal my news! Ha! Hahahaha, I'm just kidding. I thought about posting it, but obviously didn't. It's so small and yet the news is huge. I've been waiting for this since November and I am tired of waiting. I'm glad they finally gave us a date, even if it is still a month away.
I'm definitely looking forward to all of the changes that we're aware of, those things alone are going to be awesome, but I bet there may still be some things we may not be aware of yet. At least, at the moment, I don't think we know what achievements have been created.
Anyway, Travis, I like how in the latest Roundtable you said you buy the game when it's on sale so that you can give it to others. That's really cool. You gave me the PC copy that I have, but I've since bought the console and mobile versions as well (one of each).
Travis Admin Post Author
wrote on 05/29/2015 at 04:12pm
I didn't buy the console version, but played the demo. Honestly if I'm home and want to play Terraria, there's no reason not to play it on my computer. Mobile I did buy, but it's kinda clunky. For the kind of controls they need for that game it's good, but it just isn't as satisfying as playing it on PC. So I guess I'm a purist :)
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 05/29/2015 at 04:49pm
I didn't think it the mobile version controls were bad, I think I just got used to them. Vinny managed to beat the Wall of Flesh and I think some hardmode bosses as well on it. I like how you can zoom in and use your finger, also having the grid radius is kind of helpful, too. It seems you can only play via wireless network with friends that are nearby. My complaint with the mobile version is that the world is way too small and you can't change it. I did fight Lepus, which was difficult because it kept spawning more copies.
The PS3 controls take some getting used to, too. It also seems to have some exclusive content. You can also play two-player split-screen.
Makes sense. Get out the big update, bug fix then the ports later.
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 06/01/2015 at 01:40am
Ok, Travis, I have a big request for the next Terraria server. I want the Cheerful Ghost house to be bigger, much bigger than it has been. I always build a huge place, enough to house all NPCs that can move in. I also always add more space to even the place out and for storing things like chests, statues, and banners. I also have at least one room for my crafting area. I do this on my single player worlds and it's something I'd like to see on the next server world.
The reason i say this is because I remember the last (and first-for-me) time we played on a server, there was a small CG house with a few chests in it. I kept storing items there so that anyone could take freely. The problem with that was that the space was very limited, I needed more chests! Perhaps I should have stored more items in my own place, but I liked having those community chests and being able to use them with others.
Travis Admin Post Author
wrote on 06/01/2015 at 04:06am
Well, I think about 98% of the items in those chests were from you. :) In the past that's been more than enough to store our shared storage. Not to be critical, but I just stopped using those chests altogether since it was full of your stuff. Our use of them in the past was for things that we already had one of, or overflow boss items, things like that. It makes them way more useful that way if it isn't just nearly everything you find. That's one man's opinion though.
I think making the default CG bigger makes sense. Maybe we could make it small initially and them build up adding chests as we need?
That's what I typically do with my house, I just go up for more space.
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 06/16/2015 at 09:20pm
When should we create an event for this? Is it going to be our GotMC for July? Still, an event could be created and edited at any time.
Also, should we try out the new multiplayer features using Steam or get a hosted server? Perhaps we could try the new features and then get a server if that doesn't work out as well for us.
We need some more people in this conversation.
Travis Admin Post Author
wrote on 06/16/2015 at 10:19pm
Too early to plan since we don't know how the steam stuff will work or when TShock will update. Don't worry, it will happen.
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 06/16/2015 at 10:37pm
That's quite true, Travis, I hadn't really thought about when TShock would update. I wonder how long that will take.
Yeah, it will happen. Not sure about ON launch day, but we should get it going not too soon after that.
That said, the next version will handle Steam multiplayer with friends. Maybe a bit closer to the drop we could set an event and run a new Steam multiplayer map and then turn that into the server. I don't need TShock on day one or... ever, I don't mind doing it the old fashioned way
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 06/21/2015 at 04:10am
9 days, isn't it amazing? It feels like we've waited oh so terribly long for this update. I seriously doubt any of us will be at all disappointed. But, yes, I'm still counting down the days, anyone else doing the same?
The only things I can really think of that I'd like to see in Terraria seem to me like things that could perhaps be possible, but I doubt they'll happen. I'd like to see a big world containing both the Crimson and Corruption. It'd be cool if they even created a new extra large world size for this. It would also be very cool if they could get the world to wrap, like it does in Starbound.
The thing about the latest update (pre-1.3) is that I've only played it once. It was that time with our last server. So, fishing and Duke Fishron remind me of that time. I miss it! I miss fishing in the game and joining some of you guys in the game. It was very fun and I can't wait until we get started again with the new update.
So, is there anything (like I mentioned) that you'd like to see? What are you most looking forward to with 1.3? As for me, I'm just looking forward to pretty much all of the new stuff. I can't quite wrap my head around the Portal gun. I'm not sure how it will work and how effective it will be, but I'm guessing I'll be surprised.
Travis Admin Post Author
wrote on 06/21/2015 at 04:23am
World wrapping wouldn't work with how they have the biomes set up-- ocean is always at the world ends, for example. I would like to see some way of doing the corruption and crimson bosses, whether or not both biomes are present. Eater of Worlds is one of my favorite bosses.
Speaking of which, you guys cool with re-rolling until we get corruption? Since we did crimson last time.
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 06/21/2015 at 05:10am
It seems as though they could connect the oceans. I'm not sure how it is technically on their side, if that is a possibility. I wonder if they've thought of it or tried it.
What you suggest with the bosses sounds like a good idea. I'm not really sure how that would happen though. To summon many of the bosses, you need materials from that bosses's biome. If the biome isn't there, then you don't really have much to craft something. Although, it would be cool if perhaps they introduced something that was biome-neutral that could be used.
I was kind of disappointed that we got Crimson on the first server I played because the grand majority of my PC experience with Terraria has been pretty much exclusively Crimson. There may have been a couple of times I created a world that had the Corruption instead, but I barely played those worlds. However, that experience is the opposite with the mobile version of the game. With that version, I've only gotten Corruption worlds.
It kind of sucks that you can only get one of the two in one world, but it also gives you a reason to create another world to explore. It'd be cool, too, if some how the Portal Gun could transfer you to another world so you could go back and forth between Corruption and Crimson.
Anyway, I'm cool with "re-rolling until we get corruption." There are only a few disadvantages to that, though. First, there's the lesser chance of getting Vampire Knives, which we could steal from another world. Granted, there's a chance that chest will be there even on a Corruption world. Also, can we still make a Golden Shower in Corruption? I think one of the main ingredients (ichor) comes from a Crimson monster. The other drawback is the pickaxe. I think I read recently that the Crimson's pickaxe is better than the Corruption's, though I wouldn't consider that a significant setback.
"Speaking of which, you guys cool with re-rolling until we get corruption? Since we did crimson last time."
Sure. But I prefer Crimson, it's easier to farm vertibre than the Corruption stuff and I like the armor and weapon set visually.
As to wanting it to drop today, I am with you Greg!
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 06/21/2015 at 10:52pm
We could put it up to a vote when we create the event and have some other players. Jon, are you actually going to play with us this time? Last time you just popped in briefly, you were missed. I'm sure Tim will join us again, but I'm wondering if we can grab some more people. Scrypt seems like a Terraria-virgin, so I wonder if we could some how get him hooked. Hehehe. Anyway, I think it'll be cool, I can't wait!
In this episode of the Cheerful Ghost Roundtable we talk about what we've been playing, the latest Humble Nintendie Bundle & the latest craze with free to play games. In this episode you can find out how much our lifetime spend is on free to play games and if we regret any money we've put into them. You're welcome internet!
In this episode of the Cheerful Ghost Roundtable we talk about what we've been playing, the latest Humble Nintendie Bundle & the latest craze with free to play games. In this episode you can find out how much our lifetime spend is on free to play games and if we regret any money we've put into them. You're welcome internet!
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 05/28/2015 at 04:33am
Nintendo doesn't have a paid subscription service. They do have a service that you can sign up for and to access some things, you may need to log into that service. They are currently working on changing it a bit, though, there has been some news of it recently. They frequently have sales going on, which I can see from a notification on the game pad (the Home button lights up blue).
Other than sales, Nintendo has other promotions which people can participate in and receive digital download codes. When the new Smash Bros. games came out, one of the bonus rewards of registering both games at Nintendo's site was that I could get Mewtwo for free when they released him as a character in the new games. The games were out for quite a while before that DLC was released and Nintendo emailed me the codes to download that DLC for both systems.
I think it's cool to see Nintendo in a Humble Bundle. I did see news of this before, but I'm not familiar with any of the games included. I'd like to see more Nintendo Bundles, though. HB seems to be a great way to buy video games!
Rust assigns players a skin color on character creation, then ties it to their Steam account so they can never change it. This game design decision creates diversity in the player base and has forced many players to play as characters of an ethnicity different from their own. Since the game does not censor players' language, many of these players are hearing themselves called racial insults for the first time. While uncomfortable, this experience also pushes players who might normally be oblivious to those issues (or even participate in them) to consider things from a different perspective.
I find this super interesting. I don't know if I am actually interested in the... Read AllRust assigns players a skin color on character creation, then ties it to their Steam account so they can never change it. This game design decision creates diversity in the player base and has forced many players to play as characters of an ethnicity different from their own. Since the game does not censor players' language, many of these players are hearing themselves called racial insults for the first time. While uncomfortable, this experience also pushes players who might normally be oblivious to those issues (or even participate in them) to consider things from a different perspective.
I find this super interesting. I don't know if I am actually interested in the game itself, but I really like this design choice.
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 05/29/2015 at 03:04am
That is really cool!
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Path of Exile has been around for quite awhile. If you were in the closed beta it has been around now since 2012. If there is one thing that has always held players back from enjoying this game as a hardcore ARPG experience. It is that of desync.
Desync is when the information you send to the server is not the same as the information your client is reading. So you may walk around a rock to the left on your screen. The server says you walked around it to the right. Now you teleport back to before the rock so that the server can re-sync you to the information the server had on your last known location.
Well I recently received a beta key to their newest and biggest... Read All
Path of Exile has been around for quite awhile. If you were in the closed beta it has been around now since 2012. If there is one thing that has always held players back from enjoying this game as a hardcore ARPG experience. It is that of desync.
Desync is when the information you send to the server is not the same as the information your client is reading. So you may walk around a rock to the left on your screen. The server says you walked around it to the right. Now you teleport back to before the rock so that the server can re-sync you to the information the server had on your last known location.
Well I recently received a beta key to their newest and biggest expansion ever done. I can finally say with certainty that desync has been fixed. The game feels really smooth. The expansion will come out of a closed beta late June or early July. Hope any of you that are ARPG lovers finally find something you enjoy playing.
Overwatch is a upcoming game by Blizzard that is a FPS first for the studio. With each new gameplay footage drop the game looks like a really fun entry into the team shooter space. Taking nods from Team Fortress and Unreal Tournament, Overwatch is a game in a dystopian far future that doesn't bring the gritty dark tone with it. It's also an entirely new set of IP so nothing from the Diablo, Warcraft or Starcraft universes here.
The character shown in this gameplay reveal is Hanzo a parkour assassin that can climb walls and pick off other heroes with his bow. Whereas I don't typically enjoy playing heroes like Hanzo, the overall game mechanics seem interesting to try... Read All
Overwatch is a upcoming game by Blizzard that is a FPS first for the studio. With each new gameplay footage drop the game looks like a really fun entry into the team shooter space. Taking nods from Team Fortress and Unreal Tournament, Overwatch is a game in a dystopian far future that doesn't bring the gritty dark tone with it. It's also an entirely new set of IP so nothing from the Diablo, Warcraft or Starcraft universes here.
The character shown in this gameplay reveal is Hanzo a parkour assassin that can climb walls and pick off other heroes with his bow. Whereas I don't typically enjoy playing heroes like Hanzo, the overall game mechanics seem interesting to try and I can't wait to try the game out.
Blizzard is still unsure if Overwatch will be a free to play game or have some sort of up-front cost but if the success of Hearthstone or Heroes of the Storm is an indicator, we might be able to play this one for free too.
I do wonder how long after Overwatch releases the characters will show up in Heroes of the Storm. Maybe a preorder bonus! Buy overwatch and get the characters for free in Heroes.
More importantly, though, this game looks tons of fun! I can't wait to get my hands on it.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 05/27/2015 at 04:29pm
"I do wonder how long after Overwatch releases the characters will show up in Heroes of the Storm. Maybe a preorder bonus! Buy overwatch and get the characters for free in Heroes."
My guess is for the games that you can actually buy from Blizzard, there will be more digital incentives like Hearthstone packs, Heroes skins, special unlockables and the like. Since I have bought all the physical collectors editions since WC3 I like the idea of getting a bit more for it.
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In it's first ever console debut, The Humble Bundle folks are at it with the Humble Nindie Bundle. Partnering with Nintendo eShop all the games in this bundle are redeemable on the Wii U or 3DS. The titles available on the Wii U are Guacamelee, Stealth Inc 2 & The Fall. The games available on 3DS are Woah Dave!, Mighty Switch Force! & Moon Chronicles. Two games are available for the Wii U & 3DS such as SteamWorld Dig and OlliOlli.
If someone has a Wii U i'd love to hear about how seamless the games are to redeem and how they play.
In it's first ever console debut, The Humble Bundle folks are at it with the Humble Nindie Bundle. Partnering with Nintendo eShop all the games in this bundle are redeemable on the Wii U or 3DS. The titles available on the Wii U are Guacamelee, Stealth Inc 2 & The Fall. The games available on 3DS are Woah Dave!, Mighty Switch Force! & Moon Chronicles. Two games are available for the Wii U & 3DS such as SteamWorld Dig and OlliOlli.
If someone has a Wii U i'd love to hear about how seamless the games are to redeem and how they play.
The latest Mad Max Fury Road is racing to box office gold and on it's way has received a few parody trailers. Would a post apocalyptic Mario Kart game be fun? Not sure, but this trailer is.
The latest Mad Max Fury Road is racing to box office gold and on it's way has received a few parody trailers. Would a post apocalyptic Mario Kart game be fun? Not sure, but this trailer is.
Wick: I think our traffic graph (at the top of the post) speaks for itself. We had a huge initial surge (I assume from being on the front page of Greenlight for being ârecently submittedâ) which QUICKLY dropped off over the week as we moved further and further away from the front page. The later minor spikes came from exposure through Letâs Players and Twitch streamers.*
Then came what is only known as the Dark Times, where we werenât actively promoting it and were more-or-less sitting... Read All
So! Starship Rubicon just got Greenlit. A couple people asked for a postmortem. WELL I WAS GOING TO DO ONE ANYWAY AND HERE IT IS.
Wick: I think our traffic graph (at the top of the post) speaks for itself. We had a huge initial surge (I assume from being on the front page of Greenlight for being ârecently submittedâ) which QUICKLY dropped off over the week as we moved further and further away from the front page. The later minor spikes came from exposure through Letâs Players and Twitch streamers.*
Then came what is only known as the Dark Times, where we werenât actively promoting it and were more-or-less sitting pretty at a steady ~40% of the way to the top 100. We were banking on getting more bumps down the line from doing some conventions and maybe a bundle. Then BAM! Out of the blue, Greenlit! So what on Earth happened??? Why did we get Greenlit when we did? Read on for my best guess:
* (huge shout out to Stream Friends, Maris from GamerQuest, and many others)
jdodson:
If you notice one thing in our post mortem it should be that I am mostly going to agree with Wick on just about everything. He is not only smarter than I am but he also is really good at spinning fire so itâs best to avoid major disagreements.
Like Wick said, the first large traffic spike is pretty apparent. Front page Greenlight means votes. Some people have said having an animated GIF means more people will check you out, unsure if itâs true but I found other Greenlight games animated GIFâs distracting.
The other upticks in traffic was from our December 12th 2014 launch. As you can see the numbers start to head upward as the game generated more buzz. We launched a PR campaign on Cheerful Ghost, social sites as well sending out the usual press kits and review keys to game sites and the Letâs Play community. All press coverage we received, which wasnât much, was all very positive. That said, the majority of our buzz was from from the Letâs Play community. As much as I think I can craft a good press kit nothing beats seeing someone play the game and have fun with it. The night Wick and watched Stream Friends play the game on Twitch was magical.
Wick: Here you can see how our project was faring against the average top 50 Greenlight projects. The most obvious discrepancy is the traffic volume: about 3,000 visitors for us versus 20,000 for them (i.e. we had 14.4% the traffic they did) - an entire order of magnitude difference! D:
It gets a lot more encouraging once you start looking at the actual response we were getting, though: with only 14% of the traffic that they did, we had 34% of their favorites, 40% of their followers and 21% of their âyesâ votes! That is, even though we had much less traffic, each visitor to Starship Rubicon was around twice as likely to respond positively than a visitor to a top 50 project.
Interestingly, we still had 13% of the ânoâ votes that they did -- basically no per-visitor difference. I guess that thereâs just a standard âI donât care about this gameâ level that is applied to all projects.
(per-visitor) rubicon avg top 50 any vote: 75% 70% yes votes: 30% 20% no votes: 45% 49% favorites: 3% 1% (followers is basically the same)
jdodson: Itâs nice to see that Rubicon did better than the top 50 when our numbers are averaged out. I have some guesses as to why we were able to do this but none of them may actually be accurate.
Our Greenlight was basically a Kickstarter pitch. From the start of working with Wick I knew I wanted to focus on him and his story and talk about the game secondly. When you hit the Greenlight page the video automatically plays and you get a few seconds of gameplay and itâs Wick talking about the game. My only regret is the âbouncing on the moon camera workâ which is totally my fault. I was trying to keep the camera moving to give his talk some momentum but I went a bit off the rails. After looking at a ton of Greenlight pages and really enjoying some recent video game documentaries I asked Wick if we could focus on his story as the first push for marketing the game. I think this personal touch at first contact with the game helped soften the audience up to click yes. One thing I told Wick early on is people might not give a shit about the game but people are generally interested in hearing someone's story.
People that came to our Greenlight page were mostly from Indie / Greenlight friendly sources. We received no coverage on Kotaku, IGN, Eurogamer, Gamespot or PCGamer. Our initial spike was from the Greenlight front page, social sharing & Cheerful Ghost. Our later bump was from the games launch, Letâs Plays and Twitch streaming. I postulate these sources are more friendly than larger sites. âIndie sourcesâ have readership that might not always look for the next shooter or sport title. As such Rubicon is something they may enjoy whereas a more mainstream audience would never consider due to its retro charm.
Wick: Eh, I didnât find this graph very useful. It doesnât say anything new (besides it looks like top other items all get giant spikes rather than gradual climbs, probably from specific exposure sources).
Why is there an âask again laterâ option? Literally nobody I can see uses it.
Wick: Now for the Analytics data! ... Huh. Make sure you have screenshots and a video that gets to the point, I guess. I wasnât expecting the peak to be so drastic. The dwarf peak at 61-180 seconds are the people who actually watched the trailer, is my guess (itâs also pretty close to the # of people who came here through facebookâŚ)
Wick: Seeing that our traffic was dominated by Steam Greenlight campers, Iâm guessing that this is just the readout of that population.
...what strikes me as more interesting is how on earth Google knows this! Apparently they just use cookies to track what sites you visit and then stereotype correlate that to known datasets. Or they just ask Facebook.
Iâm not showing the map for spaceâs sake, but I was surprised that only 44% of our traffic was from the US! Next was Russia at 8%, followed by Germany/UK/Canada/France/Austrailia, but itâs a long tail. Apparently Steam is frigginâ global.
Two more minor notes: -- Social (fb / reddit) traffic was only 8%. I wish I could compare their responses versus people who found it through Steam. My moneyâs on them being waay more likely to give it a thumbs-up, but it would be nice to be able to see how large an effect it had. Is our better-than-average positive response due to a small population of supporters? -- Analytics saw a coupla significant spikes in visitors in the week or so before it was Greenlit that donât show up at all on the Steam graph. Bots that got filtered out? Valve internal traffic that somehow doesnât count? Who knows.
...............................................
Whew. Still with me? My takeaways from the whole thing:
Steam is massive.
Your pitiful-but-valient efforts at promotion for months will be completely dwarfed in volume by the sliver of people who happen stumble onto you through Steam in a single day (see point 1.)
You should still be upbeat and talk genuinely and politely to everyone who will listen anyway. Again, I canât back this up with numbers since Steam doesnât show detailed traffic data. BUT! The couple hundred (i.e. dozen) supporters who enthusiastically follow and support you are way more valuable in the long run than two thousand people just passing through.
The selection process is opaque and sorta hit-and-run.
I wanted to wrap this into another post about the process of technically integrating into Steam, but people were asking about the process and it had already gotten sort of long, so expect another postmortem sometime down the road!
Thank you for sharing! I guess I am one of those people on the outside that is really interested in steam integration. Either here or in person I hope to hear that story someday too! This is very interesting to too!
Bethesda let loose 3 seconds of new footage teasing an upcoming event where we will all learn more about "new Doom." From the horses mouth to you:
"Get the first in-game footage from DOOM . See the game unveiled at Bethesda's E3 Showcase - Sunday, June 14th at 7 pm PT."
The game looks great and I can't wait to learn more. Plus, didn't we all sign up to get the Doom beta when we pre-ordered the new Wolfenstein game?
Bethesda let loose 3 seconds of new footage teasing an upcoming event where we will all learn more about "new Doom." From the horses mouth to you:
"Get the first in-game footage from DOOM . See the game unveiled at Bethesda's E3 Showcase - Sunday, June 14th at 7 pm PT."
The game looks great and I can't wait to learn more. Plus, didn't we all sign up to get the Doom beta when we pre-ordered the new Wolfenstein game?
You win the "Most Creative Title Award!"