So, as you all probably know Nintendo is shutting off Wii U and 3DS online service completely in April, early next month. This is a just terrible decision that I hope modders fix -- and they will, I expect -- but for the official service, the big question was, can the Mario community beat every level in SMM1 before the servers turn off and make the game mostly useless? Of the millions of levels made in the first Mario Maker most were cleared years ago, but tens of thousands were left uncleared, most very difficult. The community got to work, though I doubt that even most of the people clearing the levels thought they would succeed...
But, weeks before the deadline, they did! With one exception, but it kind of doesn't count. Yes, all of those tens of thousands of extremely difficult levels fell to the games' best players. I'm not one of them, I'm pretty average at Mario sadly. Then it came down to only one level that was discovered to be exceptionally difficult. It's only ten seconds long, but requires 18 frame-perfect inputs in that time and more within that time. Several people are still playing it, but it still has not been cleared...
Because after a while of people trying, the level creator admitted that the level was actually tool-assisted. Somebody had found a way to make a TAS (tool-assisted superplay) work on real hardware in SMM1 on the Wii U, and made use of that to upload this level, Trimming the Herbs, and one other, bombs5. Nobody knew before this that it was possible to do that in SMM1 back when you could upload levels to the game, so this was a somewhat surprising revelation, but given how insanely hard the level is it makes sense. Illigitimate levels like tool-assisted stuff don't count towards the 'beat all the levels' goal since the goal is to beat evey level acually uploaded by a human, so with that SMM1 was declared cleared some days earlier when the last legit level, somewhat amusingly titled The Last Dance, was cleared. Now, even though it's a TAS, Trimming The Herbs is possible for a human to beat. bombs5 was cleared within the past few months, so despite it being not a legitimate level it's possible to finish these stages, just extremely hard. I hope that someone does clear this last level and some are making progress, but a human matching TAS perfection is really hard so we'll see... but either way, all legit SMM1 levels are cleared, and that's an amazing accomplishment given how many millions of stages were uploaded and not deleted!
I think it's more important all those levels get backed up and hosted somewhere online. There's some history there, including some very notable ones like John Romero going and making a Mario Maker level of his own. Did you know the guy is STILL making packs for Doom? The first one? He recently released Sigil II, and that game is designed to make you hate life on Ultra-Violent with a cyber-demon on every single level and with an initial pair of levels that feels as hellish as Thy Flesh Consumed and it's first two levels did. Perfect Hatred indeed.
Oh right this! I had actually thought they already turned off the servers for these games, but oh right, they paced themselves and shut off the store first. It's a shame... especially since I can't even congratulate The Completionist for backing up this stuff now that it's public he's been scamming people with a fake charity for over a decade.
Good news on that: all SMM1 levels have been backed up by the community.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MarioMaker/comm...o_maker_1/
Quote: Oh right this! I had actually thought they already turned off the servers for these games, but oh right, they paced themselves and shut off the store first. It's a shame... especially since I can't even congratulate The Completionist for backing up this stuff now that it's public he's been scamming people with a fake charity for over a decade.
Yeah, the servers go down on the 8th for online connections and online play for 3DS and Wii U games. They shut down purchasing well before online. Fortunately everything important has been backed up as far as I know so it shouldn't be lost media, but a lot fewer people are going to mod their consoles to get them back online than will just play a console while its online works, so online play on these systems will go down substantially. Still, it's fantastic that hackers have saved all of this stuff from being deleted.
Well, the guy grinding Trimming The Herbs the most, Sanyx, did it! Just incredible work managing to beat this insanely hard level. Sure, it's very short, but the number of frame-perfect tricks is ridiculous, there are at least 18. It apparently took Sanyx 140 hours of grinding to clear it. It's both insane that the clear actually happened before the deadline, and that he managed to put so much time into the level in such a short time... heh.
The clear video:
https://twitter.com/sanyx91smm2/status/1...0RDhCpMCYQ
That leaves one level still uncleared by a human, another level that wasn't legitimately uploaded. It's a level with 81 midairs. A midair is doing a shell jump mid-air, and it's a very difficult trick in SMM1 which I'm pretty sure is frame-perfect. Nintendo removed midair shellljumps from SMM2, in probably one of their better decisions about that game. (The worst change by far to SMM2, by the way, is the spike hitboxes. What in the world were they thinking with how huge they are???) Anyway, I don't think anyone has been trying to clear the 81 midairs level legit, it's too hard. But TTH was possible, amazingly enough, and now it's cleared with only a few days left.
I'm just glad that this means ONE thing, my levels got another playthrough! They aren't amazing levels and I definitely wasn't trying for anything "kaizo" level or whatever, but they're apparently harder than average, I guess? I was admittedly aiming for a challenge curve I personally found satisfying, which is about where modern Mario games stick their "special world" level difficulty.
I didn't make many SMM1 levels for various reasons, most of my levels are in SMM2. The three levels that I do have uploaded in SMM1 got some plays though, thankfully.
Here are my final thoughts on the shutdown. I know going on about this same subject over and over when we agree is kind of silly, but I felt the need to anyway.
So, tomorrow's the day, Nintendo turns off Wii and 3DS online servers next morning. I may have played a lot more Mario Maker 2 than Mario Maker 1, but even so I'm quite sad about this. I know that with purchasing disabled online play being turned off as well was inevitable as few companies would spend money on servers forever for no return, but even so, it's awful and should remind everyone yet again about how horrible for preservation our now 'physical media is mostly dead' world is. Sadly, only hackers can save us from companies shutting off servers the moment a game or platform becomes un-economical, and not all games or services get such work. I'd rather companies keep the official servers on forever, that is the best way. That isn't going to happen, though, so all we can do is rely on other means to save exceptionally amazing games like Mario Maker 1 from the deletion of almost all of its content.
The thing is, though, I do not like having to install hacks or such and still haven't put custom firmware on my 3DS or Wii U, though I should soon now that it's been fully shut down and Nintendo has left us 3DS and Wii U fans no choice. And yes, I do still love these systems, and still use my 3DS almost every day. I love DS and 3DS puzzle games that control with the stylus! I just do not like touch controls designed for a finger anywhere remotely near as much as those designed for a stylus due to how much more precise styli are. There's a reason why we write with pens and pencils, and don't dip our fingers in ink: increased precision is much much better. It's the same with games. I understand the reason for having a cellphone with a touchscreen for using basic internet functions, but for the precision you need in a game there is no contest at all between 3DS or Wii U touch, with their respective styli, and the finger touch design of the Switch or Vita. But anyway, I know I've said this before, and most people either don't care or don't agree. That is truly unfortunate.
I don't think there is much else to say about this topic, though, really, I've said it all before. It is awful and will continue to happen more and more often as most media is now digital-only and thus can be deleted from existence much more easily than it could before. All it takes is a company who wants to cut costs or get a tax writeoff and presto, that thing you liked is gone forever now unless pirates saved it! Only consume new products, not anything old, that doesn't make companies as much money. Capitalism is a fine system, overall better than any other economic system humans have invented (particularly with some socialist elements mixed in), but this problem needs to be solved: we must stop the destruction of media.
Fortunately this time all of the Mario Maker 1 levels that are about to be deleted by Nintendo HAVE been backed up by the community, but other times, such as that new Road Runner movie that WB decided to delete out of existence without releasing, things just vanish forever without any kind of reason. I know that the videogame market isn't growing as fast as it was previously, while costs and development times continue to spiral out of control, so companies are trying to protect what profits they have, but some solution that allows for the continued existence of media must be found; we are going to lose too much of value otherwise.
Shutting down online play is one thing, and it's sad; I deeply love Splatoon 1, it is my most-played Wii U game by a good margin. Sure, the game got partially ruined by hackers, but it's an amazing experience regardless and it is one that its sequels do not come close to; I still greatly prefer Splatoon 1 over 2 or 3. That Splatoon 1 disc I have will be rendered mostly useless without online and most of its content will become inaccessible, as there is no botmatch mode. But at least that content exists ON that disc. Deleting millions of Mario Maker levels is something worse because they only exist on Nintendo's servers. Sure, many of those levels are awful, but many others are great. A lot of truly amazing, fantastic levels were made for that game, levels which advanced the platforming genre in interesting ways. That Nintendo is getting rid of all of it without any kind of official way to back it up provided is horrible. Because we can't assume that future consoles will all be hacked; some surely won't be. Anything deleted from those platforms will vanish entirely. This day is another reminder of the great challenges game preservation now faces. I hope that somehow preservation wins.
I've got some good news:
https://pretendo.network/
And yes, a part of this network restoration involves all those beaten Mario Maker levels getting steadily added to these fan servers.
Oh and, if you want the most streamlined "just follow this recipe" method of hacking your Wii U and your 3DS, follow these guides:
https://3ds.hacks.guide/
https://wiiu.hacks.guide/
The fan communities behind these projects have really managed to make all this stuff as streamlined as easy to follow as possible. I mean, I'm with you, I don't like that these services have been shut down. In an ideal world, they'd have published tools to allow anyone to host servers for all these games and no hacking would be needed, just plugging in an IP address for a host server. Unfortunately, this is the best we can get.
The games and DLC itself will need to be attained via... well... not to put too fine a point on it, piracy. If they're not going to sell the content, they're not missing out on lost sales by definition.
But, in any case I'd hack your Wii U sooner rather than later. The internal flash on that system is known for failing at this point so hacking is the only way to allow you to backup your interal flash and allow you to recover down the line. Sadly, Nintendo used rather poor quality internal flash on everything from the DSi to the Wii U. I can only hope they didn't cheap out when it came to the Switch.
(8th April 2024, 10:09 AM)Dark Jaguar Wrote: [ -> ]I've got some good news:
https://pretendo.network/
And yes, a part of this network restoration involves all those beaten Mario Maker levels getting steadily added to these fan servers.
Oh and, if you want the most streamlined "just follow this recipe" method of hacking your Wii U and your 3DS, follow these guides:
https://3ds.hacks.guide/
https://wiiu.hacks.guide/
The fan communities behind these projects have really managed to make all this stuff as streamlined as easy to follow as possible. I mean, I'm with you, I don't like that these services have been shut down. In an ideal world, they'd have published tools to allow anyone to host servers for all these games and no hacking would be needed, just plugging in an IP address for a host server. Unfortunately, this is the best we can get.
The games and DLC itself will need to be attained via... well... not to put too fine a point on it, piracy. If they're not going to sell the content, they're not missing out on lost sales by definition.
But, in any case I'd hack your Wii U sooner rather than later. The internal flash on that system is known for failing at this point so hacking is the only way to allow you to backup your interal flash and allow you to recover down the line. Sadly, Nintendo used rather poor quality internal flash on everything from the DSi to the Wii U. I can only hope they didn't cheap out when it came to the Switch.
Pretendo.. OMG.. That's F-ing brilient.
I bet someone could probably fix this in DNS without a homebrew hack needed.
(8th April 2024, 4:05 PM)etoven Wrote: [ -> ]I bet someone could probably fix this in DNS without a homebrew hack needed.
It's not so simple as that. There's a lot of built in security checks that need to be bypassed apparently. If it could be done with a simple DNS check, I'm sure they would have. I've seen lots of DNS bypass things for the PS3 for example. One of them hosts an online server for Metal Gear Online, another for Demon's Souls, and another for the DLC in Metal Gear Solid 4. Heck, on the PS4 there's a DNS hack to allow me to redownload P.T. if I delete it.
But there's a key restriction. These things only work if you already have an authorized copy of these games. They can't be used to allow you to download content you don't already own and have registered on the system as belonging to you. That P.T. DNS hack I mentioned only works on systems that had at one point downloaded that P.T. demo. Very helpful, but incomplete.
Well hold the phone, because it looks like:
https://pretendo.network/blog/4-8-24
They now have a pure DNS method for stock Wii Us. They don't yet have such a method for 3DS though.