Mario Kart: Double Dash!! Players' Page

Standards are up!

Alex @ Sunday, May 30th [link]

Just in case you haven't noticed, we've now introduced some standards for MKDD. If you've been a part of other Kart sites, you'll already know what this is. For those who are unsure...

A 'rank' is the name of a particular title - it describes a level of playing, a level of skill, and level of perfection (maybe luck too, hehe). We have chosen 26 such ranks for this game. Other MK games have different amounts, and even different names. Our ranks are called (in order from hardest to achieve to easiest to achieve):

God - This is the highest honour you can acheive in a kart game. If you reach this rank, you'll go down into the history books. ;)

Titan A, Titan B, Titan C, Titan D - there are four of the Titan rank, but each is equally impressive. Titan is second only to God. To be a Titan, you'll need to be darn good at this game, and have spent hundreds (possibly a few thousand) hours practicing and perfecting your times :D. You are defintely one of the world's best.

Hero A, Hero B, Hero C, Hero D - the four Hero ranks are below the four Titan ranks, but Heroes still means business. If you're a Hero.. well, as you can imagine, other karters will probably look up to you! You must be consistent, know the best routes and shrooms, and pull of lots of crazy SSMTs :)

Expert A, Expert B, Expert C, Expert D - these guys are below Heros, but as the name suggests, are experts at the game. SSMTs are a must. :P

Advanced A, Advanced B, Advanced C, Advanced D - karters who practice each course for a good while can quickly start using advanced mushroom strategies, do plenty of MTs, and generally know the quickest route around a track. :satisfied:

Intermediate A, Intermediate B, Intermediate C, Intermediate D - these folks are still in the learning stages. They know how to MT, but are still getting used to the course dynamics, and might sometimes go off road or hit a wall. :confused:

Beginner A, Beginner B, Beginner C, Beginner D - just starting out. Probably not very good at MTs (or can't do them at all yet), and slightly sloppy racing. Your consistency and skills will improve with some practice. :blush:

Newbie - just one of these. You pretty much automatically get it if you have a time (or even if you don't!). Spending just a good hour on track for the first time should see you jump into the Beginner stages. :hehe:

Right, so those are the 26 ranks. There's two outliers (God and Newbie), and four of each of the six the inner ranks (Titan, Hero, Expert, Advanced, Intermediate and Beginner). The way the ranks work is simple - you move from the lower ones to the higher ones. How? Just play more, and beat your own scores! Can you drop back down to a worse rank? Nope - if you reach a rank once, it stays (presuming the standards themselves do not change, and they are not expected to)!

Right, so how do you earn your rank? Ok, listen carefully... Each of the 16 tracks has a lap and course time, so that's 32 'tracks' altogether. Each is assigned a 'standard', which is a particular score on that level (viz. 1'20"000 LC 3lap). Each standard corresponds to precisely one rank (those 26 listed above). So there are 26 standards per track! That's a total of 32x26 = 832 standards altogether.
The God standards are very fast. If you reach the particular God standard on a given track, you are considered 'godly' at that track. The Titan standards a bit slower than the God ones, but still very difficult to reach. And down the list we go to the Intermediate standards which are easy to get if you practice for a few days, the Beginner standards which are easy to get if you don't crash or go off the road a lot, and finally the Newbie standard, which is a sure get.

Right, still with me? So each of the 32 tracks has 26 standards on it, one per rank. And your particular time fits inbetween them somewhere. For example, if you have 1'19"678 for LC 3lap, that beats the Expert D standard (which is 1'20"000), but not the next standard up - Expert C - which requires beating 1'19"500. So, your rank for that track is Expert D! If you improve your time and get 1'19"499, then your rank becomes Expert C for that track. And so forth. Each of your times already has a standard! Go check them out on your profile. If you're missing a score, you get given Newbie automatically.

Now, each of the 26 ranks also has a point value. This point value is in shown in the standards page (click the button on the left). These values are actually quite easy to remember: 0 for God, 1 for Titan A, 2 for Titan B, 3 for Titan C, ... and down to 25 points for Newbie. Lower scores (closer to God) are better.

Now we come to the part about how your overall rank (called ARR) is calculated. We just sum up all the points from the 32 tracks, and get an average. This average determines your rank. For example, if you meet 1 God standard (ie. beaten a God standard somewhere) and have two Titan D times, and you don't have any other scores submitted (all 29 of them will be assigned a Newbie value), your average is (1x0 + 2x4 + 29x25)/32 = 22.94. You can improve it by getting Beginner D or better on those 29 track that have missing scores, or improve those Titan D scores to Titan C or better. Of course, if you have a God time somewhere, you cannot receive any less points than 0 for it - so no matter how many times you beat it, it won't decrease your ARR score any further.

Now, what do we do with this ARR score? We match it up against a table of ARR scores - there's 26 of them too, one for each standard (just like each track). Notice that the minimum ARR score possible is 0.000 (32/32 God standards were met), and the maximum is 25.000 (32/32 Newbie). Instead of having the cutoffs at precisely x.000, we actually use cutoffs of x.499. The rationale here is that .499 means that "more than 50% of your time are the next standard up". I'll make a page with the exact cutoffs soon. But to get the idea, I'll list a few:
    * ARR of 0.000 means you're God
    * Between 0 and 1.499 means you're Titan A
    * Between 1.5 and 2.499 means you're Titan B
    * Between 2.5 and 3.499 means you're Titan C
...etc, until we get to 23.500 to 24.499 being Beginner D, and 24.5 and up is Newbie. Makes sense?

To see your ARR score, click the button "ARR" on the left. To see the standards, click "Standards". To see which standard each of your times satisfies, just visit your profile. When we update new scores for you, their rank will automatically be updated in accordance with the site standards. So just like your AF and PRSR scores can change when you get PRs, so too can your ARR.

As it stands right now, we already have 15 Hero's (three Hero A's, six Hero B's and six Hero D's). We do not yet have any Titans yet, and most certainly no Gods! Good luck in climbing up the ladder.

Call Underway

Derek @ Friday, May 28th [link]

Hello again, guys. Just wanted to let you know that the Proof Call is officially under way. All people in the call will be held to the standard of their times as of May 26th. This call is much more extensive than the first, but is going favorably in the first few days. I've gotten much more encouraging responses from players. Two were validated immediately for having video proof available, and a few others will probably do the same in the days to come. By the time this is over, our top 50 will be fully validated. Well, unless we have to boot a bunch of people, hehe. Don't make that necessary! Work with us and we'll work with you.

So far less than half the players have responded to me (2 days later). I'm going to need you guys to help me out. If you're unproven and in the top 50, PLEASE...check your email if you haven't already. The only unresponsive player in the top 10 currently is David Grard. If you're reading this now, please check your email and get back to me.

The following players I was unable to reach:

Prashant Bhoja (inbox full) :cry:
Matt Brown (blatantly invalid email address) :doze:
Casey Mast (defunct email address) :confused:

If any of you are reading this, please email me immediately so we can start your proof process.

I'll keep everyone posted on how things go. I aim to have the majority of the call completed by July. It will definitely be finished before August, even if we need to take down players. But please, don't make us do that guys.

I'm baaa-aaack

Derek @ Wednesday, May 26th [link]

"Don't call it a comeback--I've been here for years" - Sir LL Cool J, IX

I'd tell you why I'm here...but...you already know. Being the page's proof guru, I am here to make you all hate me again. It's time for Proof Call #2. Reminder, all players validated in the first call are exempt from this one (because you already hate me and there's no reason to waste time on you guys when there are plenty of innocent guys out there that might not hate me yet).

With some assistance from Paul Tanney, I've already combed through the top 50, citing outlying times and outlying players and will soon be sending out emails to those needing proof. For those unfamiliar with the process, I'll summarize once again. If I have selected you for a proof call, you will receive an email containing a request for video evidence of certain claims. For most, I will ask for one taped run (on your best track, placing in the top 5) and then a scroll of all your times from the "Records" section. For other, higher-ranked players, you will be asked to provide several taped races on a variety of tracks. The times scroll applies for you, too. I understand that compiling a tape of several runs requires two VCRs, typically, and can be annoying. I will try to subject this request to the fewest people possible. But validation will remain the highest priority. My personal policy on proof, typically, is that I like to try to validate PEOPLE and not necessarily TIMES. Successfully complying to proof requests this call means your name is "good" and you will remain in good standing with us for a while, probably. If you are one of those rare people that has a lot of skill and can get the times you *falsely* claim...but lied anyway? You can go to hell.

A reminder for those unfamiliar with taping techniques, the process is simply described as follows. You're most likely playing on a "audio/video" channel (e.g. "Video 1" or "Line") when you play if you've used the red/yellow/white adapters in connecting to the VCR or TV. If those are running straight from your console to your TV, unplug them and run them into "audio/video IN" on your VCR. Now the VCR is receiving the gaming data, which is necessary in the process. You should already have a coaxal connection (regular cable wires) carrying the information from the VCR's signal OUT to the TV's signal IN. With this connection, you would change channels through the VCR and not the TV (VCR's do this, I promise), so you could simply tune into the line that's displaying the game (again, something like "Video 1") and from there hit Record at any point and it will record what's showing directly onto your favorite VHS tape!!

And the HIGHLY FAVORABLE alternative to that process, is simply capturing your runs straight to your computer and avoiding the process of mailing your proof tape to moderators. In this case you'd still need to be recording while playing, but as soon as you got the desired time, you could hit stop, rewind to the start of the run, then set up things on your PC as needed for capturing purposes, then hit "record" on your capturing software, and voila, lots of time saved. We encourage all players to submit video proof online if they have the capability. Proof is good.

I will post more details as I figure them out. Just wanted some of your newer players to be prepared. Approximately 15 top players were validated last call, and about 10 others already carried a "good" name in the online community due to proof given in the past. My primary goal is to keep the top 50 clean for now. And as I always say, if you're making up 118th ranked times to feel good about yourself, then damn, your glass is half empty. Kill yourself now.

Cheers!

What's been happening?

Alex @ Tuesday, May 18th [link]

Hello to all,

New Players:
A few new players since the last update.. I'll probably miss a few, but I can recall Casey Mast, Greg Ziser, Stefan van Dijke,
Jack Garret, Mike Simmons (yes, the famous MK64 swimmer :P), Kevin Lowrey, and Jonas Patterson. Right, hopefully I got those correct..? Let's see how they fare.
We've also had a few returns from veteran players, notably Geoff Patterson, Luke Mulders and Vincent Zee! :blush:

New Records:
A total of 12 :O! Firstly, David Grard has laid claim to a 34's lap in DKM with 34"828. This pushes him closer to Guillaume's unverified old mark. Jon Prentice edged Alex Penev in PB flap by a mere 0.003, for 22"399. Fernando Moritz has been practicing his short-distance lately, taking away WRs from top names like Alex, Paul Tanney, Stefan Baczynsky and John Anderson. Moritz's latest WRs were 28"915 DDD, 1'00"755 WC, 34"132 DDJ, 8"690 BP and 33"258 YC. Luke Mulders took away both MCR titles with 1'29"675 and 28"607. Last but not least, Richard Karlsson upset Andreas Rudmarker's contribution to the WR charts, by taking back both WS titles with 1'40"790 and 31"529 :crazy:.

Movement:
Usually the AF tables and PRSR tables speak for themselves, showing the relative movement of players. The major story since the previous update has been Moritz jumping into second spot in AF, slightly ahead of Grard and Anderson. The fact that he's moved into first place for fastlap statistics (0.1% lead on Alex in PRSR, and 0.5 seconds in lap totals) seems to be helping. Prentice still has a handsome lead on Tanney and Grard in laps, but also trails Moritz and Alex by the same amount.
For course totals, Alex is still first, followed by Grard Anderson and Baczynsky. The battle between Baczynsky and Anderson appears to be quite close in the stats, but Anderson dominates the matchups 20-12.
Even closer is the battle between Francois Chu and Jonathan Steel (25th and 26th). The matchups are 18-14 in Chu's favour. Chu also has small leads in both totals, AF and PRSR, but Steel appears to be quite active and might overtake. :D

Site:
You may have noticed the database being offline a few days ago. Reason was that our host rebooted its servers for security reasons, and the database had to be restarted (but I wasn't online for a few days). This shouldn't happen very often anyway.
Also, we're in the process of creating standards. We've come up with 25 different ranks (god, Titan A-D, Hero A-D, Expert A-D, Advanced A-D, Intermediate A-D, Beginner A-D and newbie), and we will soon formulate the cutoffs for them. Stay tuned. ;)
By the way, check out the Site Logo topic in the message board.. think you can beat my current picture? Sure, why not.. but show it off to the rest of us as well!

Mario Kart DS

Mark @ Tuesday, May 11th [link]

It appears Nintendo has unveiled plans for its next Mario Kart game due to appear on the Big N's next generation handheld gaming device the DS. IGN has a brief article, some pics and a movie of the tentativley titled, Mario Kart DS. Go check it out.

MKDD Logo and Link-Button Design Contest

Mark @ Monday, May 3rd [link]

We are going to hold a contest to see who can come up with the best design for the front page logo of the MKDD Players' page and for a link-button other sites can use to link to us. If we like your design then you'll leave your indellible mark on the MKDD Players' Page and receive all of the fame, accolades, money and women that goes along with winning the contest. ;)

For further details go here. Good luck!

Profiles

Alex @ Sunday, May 2nd [link]

I've added the rank of each score to the profiles. It appears next to the PRSR percentage and the WR-delta (all in the same column). You can still click the red flag to go to the chart and highlight your time and see how much you need to improve to gain a position.

It looks alright to me under Firebird on 1000+ resolution, but I'm sure it will feel more and more squashed now for 600x800 people (tsk tsk, such tiny resolution :plain:) Give me a shout if there's a problem with the displaying, or if you think I can make it less squashed somehow.

Update

Alex @ Sunday, May 2nd [link]

Hey hey,

New Players:
First we'd like to welcome the 8 new players that we've had in the past 10 or so days.. David Grard, Olivier Lavenant, Rob Ziegler, Marius Mollenhauer, Andre Wachsmuth, Maxime Hababou, Piet den Dulk and Ben Lerner. They've entered the AF table at positions 2, 12, 13, 24, 51, 121, 135 and 198 respectively. :D

In particular, the comparisons between Rob and Olivier are very close.. Rob wins the matchups 17-15, Olivier wins both total times stats by a hair, and Olivier also wins the PRSR and AF stats by the tiniest of margins as well. Could be a tough battle between these two!

New Scores:
215 new scores were updated since May 1st.. a fair bit. You may have noticed the DKM WRs exchanging hands quite frequenly as of late. Stefan Baczynsky was the latest to stake his claim - 1'47"460 (what the.. :crazy:) and 35"049. Alex went back to reclaim his SL flap with 24"391 from Grard, managing to squeeze in a new 3lap score of 1'16"294 as well.

Continuing the let's-push-Alex-around (why me? :confused:) attitude by Moritz and Baczynsky and from last week, Paul Regeffe took back his BC flap with 46"091 (so close.. :blush:), and hit an arguably unbeatable 3lap of 2'20"606. From the opposite end of the planet, Rob Ziegler decided to poke Alex a bit as well, taking back the MCT titles with 1'37"538 and 31"901. John Anderson found a new favourite course in YC, claiming both WRs with 1'44"027 and 33"322 just before being edged by newcomer Richard Karlsson's 1'43"964.

Movement:
News of the week is David Grard, jumping straight into 2nd spot on AF and PRSR AND total times with his submissions (Stefan reclaimed 2nd spot in the 3lap totals, though). Grard has been submitting to the French MKDD site for a while now, so he's got experience. He's ahead of (French rival) Baczynsky and Anderson on most stats, so there is little doubt that he's currently #2. How far can he go?

Other surprising news is Rob Ziegler and Richard Karlsson getting WRs, being relatively new players to the site. Nice work, guys! :D

Dave Phaneuf, Richard Karlsson and Ian Morley have been the biggest movers in the Average Finish table, taking off 54, 15 and 6 points respectively in recent updates. François Chu and Prashant Bhoja made a modest improvement as well. PRSR-wise, again Phaneuf and Karlsson have made the biggest improvements, whilst most other players have been hurt by the new WRs being set almost daily!

Site:
We've got 315 players and 7704 scores as of writing this message. The most popular courses are BP 3lap (283 scores) and BP lap (270), followed by LC 3lap (267), PB 3lap (258) and LC lap (255). We now have 96 players from the USA, 58 from the UK/Ireland region, 34 from France and 33 from the Netherlands, with the top players from those countries being Jon Prentice (a decent lead on Ziegler), John Anderson (Tanney close on his heels), David Grard (Baczynsky still in it) and seemingly-inactive Luke Mulders (Bart Janssen-Bouwmeester making a move). :P

New Video's

Paul @ Saturday, May 1st [link]

Well finally i recieved a video from Paul Regeffe in the mail for mkdd , which he sent over 2weeks ago :P , anyway the runs that were on the tape were:

Bowser Castle 2'21"461and 46'295 :crazy:
Luigi Circuit 1'17'917
Dry Dry Desert 1'34'142

http://videos18.free.fr

so enjoy those!!!

And Matt Flees also made a video of his 1'48"695 and 35'183 DK Mountain Runs , so thanks Matt for making those. ;)

http://server1.vortiginous.com/smb/mariokart/

:D