Submission #4252: Masterjun's SNES Super Mario World "11 exits" in 08:07.53

Hello guys it's finally finished, the new 11 exit TAS of Super Mario World!

You can go ahead and skip YI2 if you want, I mean it's not like there is something important happening right there... Do not think I wrote a code in RAM that allows me to change my position at any time by using the 3rd and 4th controller!!!! I totally wouldn't do that!!!

I know that YI2 and overall every level is not optimized but since this is not TASVideosPro I thought I'd go with it.

No I don't like submission texts because I have to write stuff here. I won't waste my time here on the regular TASVideos. but go check out the detailed explanation on TASVideosPro.

Nach: Before I get into the judgment for this run, I'd like to go over the route and warp background as exists in Mario games till this point.

In the original Super Mario Bros., the game expects you to complete 32 levels spread across 8 worlds in order to complete the game. However, they added warp zones, which allow one to skip a bunch of levels. They hid the first one in 1-2, by going over the end of the underground ceiling, which allows you to warp to worlds 2, 3, or 4. The only other underground level in the game, 4-2, also has a warp zone at the end if you go over the ceiling, which skips only two levels, taking you to world 5. It was probably a prank from the developers for those who found the first warp, and they made this warp so easy to get to with a tall pipe to stand on reaching the ceiling near the end. They hid a proper warp earlier in the level which can take you to worlds 6, 7, and 8. For TAS videos, we feature the fastest route as can be used with warp zones, as well as a warpless run.

In Super Mario Bros. 2 USA, they dropped selective warp zones, and instead offer sub-con warp pipes. They also littered these throughout the game, and existed everywhere you could find a potion and a pipe in the same location. For TAS videos, we feature the fastest route as can be used with warp pipes, as well as a warpless run, and the fastest run with a suboptimal character.

In Super Mario Bros. 2 Japan, they also littered warp zones throughout the game, but this time around decided to offer backwards warp zones, and put them in every single place someone thought they were being clever by jumping over a flagpole. For TAS videos, we feature the fastest route as can be used with warp zones, as well as a warpless run, albeit with some special circumstances due to multiple ports of the game and multiple players.

Super Mario Bros 3. radically changed the way things work. The game now offers 8 regular worlds, each being a map. The amount of levels in each world is no longer uniform. Levels now may have multiple ways to be completed, and some completion methods may change how the map is affected. You can also get some items to alter or bypass things on the map. Due to the map style, many levels are also completely optional. For larger skips, warping, the game featured warp whistles. A warp whistle would take you to a special 9th warp world:

Which world you used the warp whistle from would determine which of the 3 paths in this world you would begin on:

Worlds 1, 2, 3: First path of 2, 3, 4.
Worlds 4, 5, 6: Second path of, 5, 6, 7.
Worlds 7, 8, 9: Third path of 8.

You could technically go backwards to 2 from 3, 5 from 6, or replay 2, 3, 5, 6, and 8 from themselves. For TAS videos, we feature the fastest route as can be used with warp whistles, a warpless run which doesn't use any world skipping, but does take the fastest possible route through the levels and maps in each world, and a 100% run in is development.

Super Mario World came along and kept the map idea, and multiple level endings, but dropped the item idea, and also shook things up. A lot more emphasis was placed on multiple ways to complete levels, and this served more to alter the map and game progression than items. Since there are no more items, such as warp whistles, special locations hidden with top secret secondary endings off a beaten path were now used to reach the game's 9th world, the warp world, known as Star World. The game also has a secret 10th world, but that's not relevant here.

If one wanted to come up with a warpless Super Mario World run akin to the previous Super Mario Bros. games, one would simply need to TAS the fastest route that avoids Star World. The 96-exit branch is akin to a 100% branch that would exist for Super Mario Bros. 3. However, this is much less natural within SMW, as the multiple exit idea with map changes is now fused with the warp idea, so a clear correct non-shortcut route through the game is no longer obvious without direct comparisons to previous games.

The real fastest run of Super Mario World, warped, akin to the previous games is the fastest route which makes use of Star World, or as it's currently known 11 exits.

Unlike the previous games so far on this non-pro site, no one has submitted a route which can complete the game by warping more than the official warp methods allow for. But with Super Mario World, our beloved Masterjun has found a way to break the game and warp to the ending from the very beginning of the game, featuring a faster than fastest route. This makes naming for the real fastest route difficult. Right now it's 11 exits, even though that's not necessarily the best appellation for it.

Comparing this run and an 11 exit run shows considerable difference between the two, and indicates there is a naming problem. Either this run needs an additional appellation, or the other set of runs need something more appropriate. However, what is up for judgment here is not some logistics issue of naming, but rather whether these two runs are compatible in their goals, and serve as the same route.

This run adds a TSR into the game to allow one to change Mario's position within levels by entering warp codes on the extra controllers. However, one questions why not do the same thing for the map itself? Why specifically these 11 exits? If one wants to really push the boundaries of the notion of 11 exits completed, the 11 exits completed should be anything but the standard ones, as we would for TASing notions elsewhere.

In the thread, I enumerated 6 possible ways to handle this judgment. I will elaborate on each, and my judgment upon them.

This would mean we'd call this run 11 exits, TSR or something like that and publish it alongside all our other numerous SMW runs. But why 11 exits? If you have a TSR, why not 10?

This sort of goes against the spirit of the existing branch. If we look at route name alone, it should technically obsolete it. However once code is being added/modified, why not go all the way? This run is trying to pigeon hole the criteria in drawing the lines between the different ones, without drawing any additional lines between the types of abuse occurring to the game itself. After all, the current 11 exit utilizes built-in abuses for completing levels too quickly, so one questions, why not this too? After careful examination of what the audience wants, from the audience members I determined are representative (meaning the ones that agree with me), there should be a line drawn between any run which adds/modifies code and all other run routes. Meaning this run is now the same branch as the fastest run.

This would mean obsoleting the fastest run, which this is slower than it!

Neither of the two above make sense, and this even less so.

Now I strongly considered this, especially based on feedback from Warp. Fitting username considering the issue at hand.

However, based on an existing precedent where a special branch distinguishing technique can be used for a warped or warpless run and we only publish the warpless, which shows off the technique more, I can't accept this, as we [|already have a 96-exit TSR run up on pro] [EDIT: joke link removed].

Perhaps the rules on pro should be different, but without generous donations from people like Bobo T. King who gave us unlimited access to his credit card before he reported it stolen, we simply can't afford to right now. Therefore we're going to limit pro to the precedents we have on free TASVideos right now.

However the run on pro should probably say more than just 96 exit in order to better differentiate it from the ones here.

Since none of the above seem to apply...