As far as I know, there are no readily available guides for SMK speedruns. Most SMK runners come from the Time Trial community, where they already have years of experience playing the game competitively.

That being said, the run is fairly straightforward: play through all four 150cc cups in order with no console resets. There are no sequence breaks or anything like that. The only thing you need to learn to start off with is basic driving (which is actually really hard and has a lot of depth on its own). Then you can start adding layers with more advanced stuff like item-based shortcuts and whatnot.

You can use any external timer, like Livesplit, and upload your splits along with your run. We don't have any strict restrictions on recording MK7 runs due to how annoying it can be to set up.

Hey Ninjas, I apologize for the late response. I admit that I completely forgot about your post. I talked about your application with Croco and we both agreed to mod you. Welcome on board!

As for MarioManTAW, Time Trials will not be added to speedrun.com. If you're interested in them, there's already the Player's Page, which implements Time Trials leaderboards far better than anything we can do here.

I can assure you that the times on that site are not only real, they're not even the best around. The main hub for Mario Kart Time Trials is the Player's Page; you can find the MKDS one here: http://www.mariokart64.com/mkds/. If it's videos you're after, you should check out the WR history site, which you can find here: http://mkwrs.com/mkds/.

I see that Goomba has addressed most of the points that needed to be, but I'll throw in my own (personal) two cents.

One of the reasons that I dislike enforcing video proof (beyond top level times) is because it creates a barrier of entry for the leaderboard. Let's say you're new to speedrunning and want to learn a game whose leaderboard requires video proof. Before you can even appear in the leaderboards (and thus "enter the community"), you have to invest in recording equipment, you can't just boot up the game and start playing. Another consequence of mandatory video proof that I dislike is that, even if you're a low-/mid-level player, you have to record every single one of your attempts, just in case it might be a PB. If a player is restricted in their access to recording (for whatever reason), then it can stifle their improvement, because they're being disincentivized from doing runs, since any potential PB that's unrecorded is considered "illegitimate".

I'm not going to discuss RTA vs IGT in this thread. If you insist on opening up that can of worms again, please open a new topic (or bump an old one) so the conversations can be kept separate.

While capture cards are the best option and you should use them if you can, you can also point a camera or webcam at your TV screen and record that way. As long as you can tell what's going on in the video, it's acceptable as proof.

Personally, I think it's fine if you don't have video proof for this kind of game/category, because 1. there's little competition and 2. recording runs on DS is really obnoxious, especially for runs of this length (assuming no DS/3DS capture card, which is a hassle in and of itself).

If people object to my Any% run being on the leaderboards, then it can be removed. I just don't think we need to be particularly strict when it comes to evidence for Zero Escape speedruns.

They're not separate categories, Wii/Wii U are just listed as platforms you can play MKW on. The fact that you can filter by runs for one of the platforms is a byproduct of how speedrun.com leaderboards work.

That's normally only the case for older games (like SMK/MK64).

Seems rather pointless to me when the Player's Page exists.

This is a good idea, I added All Missions as a main category.

Jumpyluff, what do you want for IL charts?

[quote]I guess some time difference is PAL/NTSC, but not 9 minutes PAL/NTSC difference is it?[/quote] There's no difference between PAL and NTSC.

Cyberscore's charts operate with a different ruleset than the leaderboards here, so even if we wanted to copy all their times here, it wouldn't be possible.

[quote]That website is just cancer for the speedrunning community in my opinion.[/quote] Why is that?

Sorry for the delay, I got caught up in the start of the academic year.

Upon consideration of those who applied, I've decided to add SnipinG117 and BlazeFlareon as mods for MK8, and TheCrazyCroco as mod for MKW. I look forward to working with you guys to maintain the quality of the Mario Kart leaderboards. If you have Skype, you can add me there (my username is the same as here).

I'm leaving applications for MKW mod open, as I think it would be a good idea to have a second one.

Apologies for the late response.

While I understand your concern, I'd like to find a compromise between the need for proof and the issue of recording handheld gameplay. I'm not sure how well the idea of requiring full video proof past a fixed time barrier would work. Perhaps something could be done with splits and/or sample gameplay?

As for Marv specifically (since I assume that's who you're referring to), he's a well-established member of the Mario Kart community. He has a solid Time Trial timesheet, and is one of the best MK7 players in the world, having held numerous WRs. I know this isn't solid proof of his MKDS speedrun, but it is a form of "soft" proof.

http://www.speedrun.com/mario_kart/thread/ermcv

Please respond in the other thread.

It was recently brought to my attention that King is no longer interested in moderating the Mario Kart leaderboards. Given that he was the main person who took care of the Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart 8 leaderboards, there is now a vacancy for moderating these leaderboards. The idea is to get two or three new mods to handle MKW and/or MK8.

Ideally, new mods would be:

• mature. As a leaderboard mod, you're a representative of the Mario Kart speedrunning community. Behaving inappropriately (be it on the forum here or elsewhere) deteriorates discussion, and reflects poorly on the community as a whole. Personally, I think this is the most important trait to have, as cheesy as it may sound.
• available. You should have time to check the site to approve runs every two or three days (this doesn't take very long). You should also have time to check the forum and respond to discussion once or twice a week (this takes longer).
• knowledgeable. You should be well-acquainted with leaderboard rules, game mechanics, strats, outside resources, etc. This is for matters such as approving runs, debating changes, as well as helping new players out.
• pre-established. This is perhaps the less important point, but you should (again, ideally) already be someone other runners know and respect. This makes many things easier, such as justifying your promotion to mod, intervening in debates, and contacting people.

If you're interested, post in this thread with some reasoning as to why you'd be a good pick for mod, and mention which game(s) you're interested in modding.

I know this may seem a bit over-the-top, but my goal is to maintain the quality of the leaderboards. If you have any issues with this or any other aspect of the Mario Kart series on speedrun.com, feel free to let me know.

Edit: I'm going to leave this open for a few days before I work through the applications. I will consult other people to make a decision, as I am not as familiar with the MKW/MK8 communities as I am with the others. If you have an opinion on someone else's application, feel free to post it here.

As mentioned previously, room on the main page isn't a reason for individual cups being misc categories or not.

While you may have a point about being as inclusive as possible in terms of tracking categories, the site's infrastructure needs to enable a clear distinction between what is "featured" and what is "tracked" for this inclusiveness to be viable while still maintaining the leaderboard's other roles (see my post in kirkq's thread). As discussed in said thread, the current state of the site does not allow for this to be done properly. To quote kirkq: [quote=kirkq] Anyway I guess this discussion isn't really going anywhere else. I'll probably push the team to integrate some "tracked vs featured" changes at some point to add more options, but it may not be in the near future. Misc categories aren't an ideal solution I agree, and I have some ideas to move those around a bit too eventually. [/quote]

Once these changes are implemented to allow a significant distinction between "tracked" and "featured", then we can consider this discussion again. In the mean time, I think my last post in the other thread addresses the remainder of yours.

While we could have categories for multi-game runs, I'm not sure whether speedrun.com currently has a way to handle them properly. Either way, if multi-game categories were to exist, they most likely wouldn't be individual cups per game, but rather multiple full-game runs (such as SMK/MK64/MKDD as a "Classic Trilogy" category or MKSC/MKDS/MK7 as a "Handheld" category, for example).

The number of categories is irrelevant and isn't a reason for separation in the first place. Individual cups simply don't have their place as a main category.