The cdm would lose it's charm though without Mario on stage saying "et donc" every few seconds.

Antistar wrote on 03/08/15 at 07:41:16:


Not as much as donq lol. Ben pointed that out to me a few years ago, and now its the only word I hear when you do your French speeches.

Instead of writing more PMs with Guillaume/Sami, I just ask here (and on the French forum in some weeks if it helps):

I'd like to catch the same train all people from UK/NED take at Montparnasse. Unfortunately I can't arrive at Gare du Nord earlier than 12:05pm. Understandably you'll need more time to get the metro with a bigger crowd you are partly responsible for, Sami. I don't request anyone to wait too long for me, but I want to know as soon as possible which train from Montparnasse to Le Mans you are looking for so that I can figure out if I'm able to join this one or not.
You said usually around 1pm...I've never been in Paris and don't know how quickly I could reach the metro. What I've checked though, is:
- metro station Gare du Nord is directly in front of the railway station exit (more than 10 min to reach?)
- metro train M4 leaves every 5 minutes there
- travel to metro station Montparnasse Bienvenüe takes 25 minutes
- walk to Gare Montparnasse (more than 15 minutes?)

Assuming it's very crowded everywhere (likely in such a capital, I guess), I should reach any train after 1:30pm, probably a lot sooner, but to be on the safe side. Is this unrealistic? Then tell me!
In case the "main group" heads for the metro before I arrive, I'd still like to spend this time not alone in Paris, if possible (@ Guilherme: Do you already know more about your schedule?).

By the way: Who takes care of the internal tickets? Sami told me it was Florian Valandina the last couple of years, which means he waited at the train station, or what? More information appreciated .

Matthias

It's cool to read you already took some information properly!

This said, I'm slightly surprised to read you'll arrive in Gare du Nord if you come directly from Germany. Unless you travel through the Netherlands and/or Belgium?

The station where you're supposed to arrive at if you travel through a train from Germany is Gare de l'Est, which is less than 10 minutes away by feet from Gare du Nord. I used to "help" people for that super easy walk in the previous years but now that I'm coming to CDM by car with other players I won't be there for it. And it's really an easy path to perform anyway, there are many direction boards to make you go from one station to another, and people will help you.

Anyway. First thing is 12:05 is a good arrival time, don't worry with it. The best thing to do is to meet Sami & co. at Gare du Nord, perhaps they'll be with some French player(s) like Flo Valandina or Samuel Gomez. They've been using that subway path for 2 years now so they're OK with it and you'll just have to follow them.

About French internal train tickets + Paris subway ones: this is why I always try to gather the most people in the same trip from Gare du Nord to CDM place, to make them send me the money so I can order/pay the train and subway tickets, give that stuff to a reliable French player who will travel with all of them, just like I did with Flo Valandina in 2013 and 2014. I don't know if he'll be there for that in 2015 though and I'd appreciate if Sami got in touch with him to ask about it.

Feel free to ask for more information. Ah, and thanks for registering on the FFSMK site for CDM!

About what time do things usually wrap up on the last day? I'm asking about the closing ceremony, other games, etc... My wife wants to head to Paris that afternoon (the 22nd).

Also, I just put in my registration (cool that you guys don't charge people flying from another continent). Should I register my wife too? She won't be playing, but she'll be around some of the time. She's planning on touring around Le Mans and other cities in the area and will be back at the venue in the evening each day.

She wants to head out Saturday afternoon, tho. When's a good time to go so I won't miss too much?

We're planning to leave for Paris at 5 as of right now. Coincidentally, that's the time she suggested before I even posted, so Guillaume just kinda confirmed it for us.

So I was inspired by Karel playing for the 150cc all cups record the other day and I turned on the old SNES. I tried my own all-cups run on Twitch and embarrassed myself in front of a couple people... Finished in 41 minutes, lol. I couldn't get a boost to work properly, failed a couple long boosts and overall had a crappy showing. So I decided to practice a little bit today; I'm hoping not to embarrass myself too much when I get to France... After a little MC1 (relearning how to boost) and CI1 (favorite track) I went to KB1 for some reason, probably cuz it's the last track I pr'd on. After about only 15 minutes...

https://youtu.be/8j0YMGxTUdM

Look out world! I still have some talent left in these fingers!

I am, however, a realist and do know that I will get my ass handed to me on PAL.

Edit: Lol, looks like I never tried embedding a video before. The link will have to do.

Dan H wrote on 04/14/15 at 06:55:20:


Cool to read and definitely nice to see you picked up a controller and decided to relearn SMK. I know that can be quite challenging after a long break. One of the most surprising things for me is that you picked KB1 as one of the stages of action; I guess that's where you and I differ.  

Keep it up though!

Aron Langerak wrote on 04/14/15 at 07:14:21:


Watching Takashi play RR on NTSC 150 and then on PAL after is one of the funniest SMK related things I have ever witnessed. From godlike to crashing literally every corner.   It's SO not the same game.  

Dan H wrote on 04/14/15 at 06:55:20:


PAL really is not that difficult! All of my PAL PRs came in the span of less than two months and I'm only two positions lower on PAL (#36) than I am on NTSC (#34), where I have devoted far more time and effort. The Non-NBT part I did find a little more challenging, however.

I think you could make Top 30 overall on PAL (never mind NTSC) if you really gave it your full effort, Dan. Especially since you have so much unreached potential in your flaps.

From my own experiences, I'd say that in most cases, putting in the same amount of effort on both NTSC and PAL should get you about the same rank on each, though I can't really be sure if this remains true for, say, the Top 10 on PAL, where there is more activity and some of the most advanced techniques (e.g. VL2 island jumps) are considerably harder on PAL-- just more dedication from the top players all around. I would imagine that Scoub did indeed work harder for his #9 on PAL than he did for his #9 on NTSC. But just making, say, Top 40 is probably no harder on PAL than NTSC. (Your mileage may vary...)

Maybe you won't be able to get your hands on an actual PAL game in time for the CDM, but you can practice in an emulator. It will at least help you with things like the startboost timing, or other techniques that might have to be adjusted for PAL, but do realize that the game does not run exactly the same on emulator as it does on the real SNES (Sami and I have both tested and confirmed).

Joe Reinreb wrote on 04/14/15 at 16:19:31:

I thought Vanessa was Dan's bride? And I love how you call her... "NES"  

My wife's name is Jessica, so Jess and Nes are close, I guess... She'll be at CDM for parts of it (will be seeing lots of sites), but she has zero interest in SMK. She's not really a gamer, and she gets easily frustrated if she doesn't grasp something right away, so that's not really conducive to the grind the is TT-ing. Heck, she gave up on Fable after only a couple hours because there were "too many buttons." I guess I shouldn't have shown her pure archer techniques, lol.

As for playing PAL, I, for the most part, held my own against Joe and Dave when we played back in 2009. When I made the return trip to Joe's I held my own again, but only on Mushroom Cup. After a few rounds of PAL I'll be somewhat used to it enough that I should be able to hold my own against the mid-tier players. The key word being should. I'm mostly going to CDM to meet the people I've known online for years and have fun, drink beer and eat lots of food. Competing is pretty far down on the list when it comes to what I want from this trip. At the top of the list is giving Karel a BIG KISS on the lips as soon as we meet! Then maybe after five years, when the restraining order wears off, I'll return to another CDM.

KVD wrote on 04/15/15 at 06:37:35:


And you say SMK only brings you bad luck...

Joe Reinreb wrote on 04/15/15 at 07:31:06:

That's pretty much what I'm thinking.. that's partly the reason I screw up so badly at CDM's