The 'Shroom:Issue 126/Pipe Plaza

Director’s Notes
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Hello readers! Welcome to Pipe Plaza, the 'Shroom team that's probably the lesson you fall asleep. I hope not though, we're pretty fun. We even have balloons... somewhere.

You might notice that Pipe Plaza is looking a lot smaller this month. That's because our long-time Community Report and New Articles writer, has had to stand down due to time constraints. We wish him all the best, and hope that he follows up on his promise to return to write for Pipe Plaza.

In the meantime there are lots of sections you readers could fill. If you want to write Monthly Report, Featured, Projects Seeking Contributors, New Articles, User Interview, Community Report, UPdate, or Birthday Wishes just write out an application to (you'll find him pretending to be Hobbes on the forum) and you might get the chance to write for this brilliant sub-team.

Section of the Month

Tip of the Month
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Remember, wiki editing is like writing a research paper for school: you should have reputable sources for any news you encounter, especially for unreleased games. Leaks can be false, and posting wrong information looks bad for everyone. Make sure you cite your sources as well if it's not something that's explicitly stated in game- for example, if Peach says in-game that her favorite food is pie, no need to cite. But if Shigeru Miyamoto says her favorite food is pie out of game, that's something you need to cite.

Upcoming Game
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Greetings everyone! Alex95 here to tell you all about an upcoming game and my thoughts about it. ' was announced as one of the several games at this year's E3 as the sequel to 2012's '. You know, that game Shulk is from. The sequel offers more of the same from the original game, but also gives us plenty of differences to experience. If you've played Xenoblade Chronicles or  before, you'd know what to expect. This is a role-playing game, or RPG, centered on the main hero Rex. One day, he encounters a being known as a Blade named Pyra, who has become lost from her paradise home of Elysium. Thus begins the story. Typical RPG stuff occurs from this point: Explore the world, complete side-quests, buy gear and items, fight monsters, win! Or die. That depends on your level. The Xenoblade Chronicles series is known at this point for having large worlds to explore. Xenoblade Chronicles Xs Mira is larger than The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wilds Hyrule, so imagine how big this world will turn out! The world of Xenoblade Chronicles was set on two colossal beings locked in combat, and it appears Xenoblade Chronicles 2 will do the same with the player exploring large beasts called Titans. The previous Xenoblade Chronicle games had a more realistic tone to them. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is instead going in the extreme opposite direction with an anime-styled look and cel-shaded graphics. Think Toon Link's head and style on regular Link's body. Yes, the earlier games did have an anime feel to them, but XC2 is heavily animed. Whether that's a good or bad thing is up to you, but the brighter colors may make it easier to see where I'm going. I get lost a few times in Xenoblade Chronicles X because I can't differentiate a wall from an enemy or character sometimes (the game is dark in more ways than one…). Personally, I'd rather it stayed with the more realistic characters, but I can see this working. Now let's talk game play. You explore the world, collect items, and talk to non-playable characters (NPCs) like you would any other game, but the battles are where things really start to heat up. Literally. See, Pyra appears to be a flame-based Blade, and she acts as a partner to the other characters. You assign her to one of the lead characters and she'll add a flame-based property to their attacks. There are several other Blades as well, like a guy in a suit of armor and the love-'em-or-hate-'em Nopons (like Riki). These partner characters will offer various skills and parameters, but the lead characters aren't going to be defenseless on their own. They have use to a total of four skills of their own, called "Arts", which is limited compared to the previous titles. Players have to assign the Arts strategically before they enter battles. Do you want this character to use nothing but offensive Arts, or do you want them to hang back with healing Arts?

Thoughts I'm not very familiar with the Xenoblade series, with the only game I've played begin Xenoblade Chronicles X. I'm having a lot of fun with it, though it appears it may end up being secluded from the other two titles. I may be completely lost if I ever play Xenoblade Chronicles 2. There's no set release date for the game at the time of this writing, but when it does come out, I'm sure it will satisfy the RPG fans as there is a lot of content in these games. Usually, I'd link to the game's main site here, but, uh… there isn't one at the moment. But there are some trailers on Nintendo's YouTube channel, so go enjoy watching those!

Poll Committee Discussion
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Welcome to all Shroom readers! I’m Stargazing, here to present this month’s Poll Committee Discussion! I hope you’ll all enjoy.

What’s New? It’s analysis season! This Shroom issue also has our Awards Analysis section, where the entire Poll Committee analyzes all the Mario and Fail Awards. Please check out this section and seeing in-depth looks at everyone’s hard work!

We also have a new banner stretching over our polls page, drawn by. I highly suggest checking that page out to see it and our many polls of the past.

Now, without further ado, let’s jump straight into my analysis!

Archives How do you feel about Super Mario Odyssey returning to the Super Mario 64/Super Mario Sunshine style of 3D gameplay? (, August 13th, 2017)

Are you still buying amiibo? (, August 20th, 2017)

With seven Kingdoms having been shown in Super Mario Odyssey, which one is your favorite thus far? (, August 27th, 2017)

If you were a Paper Mario series partner, what species would you want to be? (, September 3rd, 2017)

Analysis


 * How do you feel about Super Mario Odyssey returning to the Super Mario 64/Super Mario Sunshine style of 3D gameplay? -- The heavy support for the return of Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine gameplay mirrors many opinions I’ve seen from elsewhere in this community, although to a certain degree. While Super Mario 64 is very popular in comparison to lots of games from its era, Super Mario Sunshine doesn't seem to be. Despite that, it's clearly a very welcome sight.
 * Are you still buying amiibo? -- Buying the amiibo you’re interested topped this poll, which is what me and all my Animal Crossing cards voted for, but many people also stated they never bought an amiibo. People have told me about a grey area with this option though. They have never bought amiibo, but have received some as a gift, so they went for that option. A fair chunk of voters have also stopped buying amiibo altogether, which I can understand.
 * With seven Kingdoms having been shown in Super Mario Odyssey, which one is your favorite thus far? -- The majority of votes, including my own, went straight for lack of information about the kingdoms. However, taking the results of the previous Odyssey poll in my analysis, I was a little surprised to see Seaside Kingdom in last, judging how the lack of interest in the game was an option. It makes sense though, those who don’t care too much about the game wouldn’t vote in a gameplay-centered Odyssey poll.
 * If you were a Paper Mario series partner, what species would you want to be? -- Most of the community went for the Yoshis, which I can understand. They’re cute and trusty sidekicks to Mario… until he drops them at a very wide gap near you. Koopa Troopas and Boos were also pretty high on the list, but also being a new species entirely. Making your own character is a lot of fun, so this is very understandable.

Oh, and that's all the time we've got! Thanks so much for tuning in this month, stay tuned for the next release, where will be your presenter!

Forum Update
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Welcome back to the Forum Update! Today we'll be taking a look back at what happened on the Super Mario Boards during the summer, and finally getting back up to date with this section!

News
 * The eleventh Mario Awards took place on August 11th:
 * Mario Awards XI
 * Fail Awards IX
 * Community Awards X

Statistics June


 * 38 is the highest amount of new members so far this year.

July

August

Bold means a new entry. Italics mean inactive for at least a month. Bold and italics scare me.

Thread(s) of the Month(s) June's Thread of the Month went to Mr. Edo's The scandalous truth about Daisy and Sarasaland revealed, a shocking exposé on the Sarasaland and its princess. Runners-up include:
 * Freakworld's Daily Kanji Thread, an interesting thread where Freakworld attempts to learn kanji in eight months and quits after 34 days ...
 * GBAToad's GBA rates Japanese Kit-Kat flavours, where he discusses and reviews some of Japan's large array of Kit Kat flavours.
 * Mr. Edo's Official Flamewar Thread, although keep in mind that actual flamewars are largely discouraged.

For July, LB LOOK by Turboo won Thread of the Month, though you'll need to check out another thread first for context. Runners-up include:
 * Lord Bowser's Mario Awards Hugging Game I - Sweet Sweet Mansion, the perfect antidote to the Mario Awards Killing Game from a couple of months ago.
 * Packy's The hottest most legendary debate of all-time: Is a hot dog a sandwich? (it is, you are all wrong).
 * Perch's Eleven years, where he looks back on his time in the community.
 * Uniju's Katawaredoki, a quite consistent edition of Sippin' Time.

August's Thread of the Month went to Lakituthequick's Occasional Art, in which LTQ shares some of the art he's done and the process behind it.
 * Shokora's Backstory of mysterious old man in WL4 finally revealed, an interesting discovery of some deep Wario lore.
 * TheFreshPrince's please do survey, in which TFP puts forward some important questions.
 * Time Turner's The Very Official In-Universe Mario Timeline, pretty much what it says on the tin.

Quotes
 * "it's my duty to vote magikoopas as much as physically possible" - Anton


 * "they can replace nabbit with rabbids now they could call him rabbit" - Crackin355


 * "i made my own mii a princess and he's a dude so miitopia gets a 10/10 from me" - GBAToad


 * "it's ok man if you can't see it in 70 nanometer 4DX Imax smellovision there's no point seeing it at all anyway" - Nabber, on Dunkirk


 * "We Still Don't Like Sticker Star a motto for our generation" - Perch


 * "The entire course of human history has led to us being able to play as a cartoon fat Italian plumber flying to different worlds and controlling realistic dinosaurs with a living hat while battling a turtle dragon man and rabbits. What a time to be alive." - Roserade


 * "I've been thinking about the giant robot fight scene from The Rugrats in Paris and how much property damage the babies committed, not to mention how many lives they probably took - I mean, the robot is stepping on cars, breaking bridges, smashing through fucking buildings. Do you think the babies know what they're doing? Chuckie is causing billions of damage to the city of Paris and murdering innocents. Who would have been held accountable for this? I find it difficult to believe that even in the universe of Rugrats the babies would be tried in a court of law." - Moofle


 * "We out here" - Porplemontage

Awards Tournaments I'm going to talk about Awards Mafia in a bit more detail, as I did with the Killing Game in Issue 124, but firstly here's a link to the other tournaments that took place:
 * Anniversary Scavenger, hosted by Lakituthequick.
 * Art Contest, hosted by Anton.
 * The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth Tournament, hosted by DragonFreak.
 * Guess the Results, hosted by Anton.
 * Mario Kart 7 Tournament, hosted by Stargazing.
 * Mario Kart 8 Tournament, hosted by Lakituthequick.
 * Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Battle Tournament, hosted by Freakworld and Lakituthequick.
 * Minecraft Games, hosted by Toadbert and Uniju.
 * Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon Tournament, hosted by Meta Knight and Packy.
 * Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Tournament, hosted by Alex95.

Awards Mafia 6
 * Game Thread
 * Sign-Ups/Lounge

Awards Mafia 6 was hosted by GBAToad and Perch, and took place from July 4th to August 31st. It was won by the Tanookis, the Innocents, Shoey and Mariofan169 after ten days and one Splatfest.

The Mafia suffered a very early blow when their Godfather, Tucayo, killed the Granny and was in turn injured, which all but exposed his role in the thread. And, despite a few close calls, they never could recover.


 * "I need a break from killing innocents" - Tucayo


 * "suggestion for improvement: people who signed up for the mafia game should, ya know, play it" - Anton


 * "I'M THE WORLD'S GREATEST SERIAL KILLER" - Shoey.

Thanks for reading.

Retro Feature
Written by: Hello, readers! I'm your Spotlight manager and Pipe Plaza Director, Yoshi876. Welcome to Retro Feature, a section in which I delve deep into the archives to bring you the best blasts from the past.

I've missed using my little infobox for a few months now, so I'm glad to have it back in action for this month. Shyguy27 joined the wiki on 16 October 2007, and although he was present within the community for a while, in that time he only contributed one 'Shroom section, and that was after some spurring by former Critic Corner director.

In the one section that he submitted, he provided a playthrough of Terraria that he and Dippy did together. But you're not here to listen to me bang on about Shyguy27, you're here to read his one 'Shroom section. Enjoy!

The 'Shroom Report
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HI, everyone! I'm your objective Statistics Manager, Tucayo, here with your monthly dose of The 'Shroom Report! As a reminder, in the Milestones section, writers will get mentioned every 10 team sections and every 50 overall sections, teams will get mentioned every 100 sections, and The 'Shroom will get mentioned every 500 sections. All information is based off our Historical Sheets. This section will cover Issue 125.

Tables are based off the End-of-the-Year Awards tables, so credit goes out to. We have something quite curious here. Two users writing the same section, in the same issue, for their first ever section. Congrats and welcome!

Anniversary Announcements
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And now for the most exciting reading of today! Anniversary Announcements! Okay, maybe not, bet there are other exciting things in the paper. But let's get onto the exciting thing for us!

The Rip Van Fish The prize list has been completed and the distribution has began! People will be called to pick their prizes one by one, and have 24 hours each to do so.

Tournaments All tournaments have finished! Let's look at the final results since last month.

And after that last summary of all the tournaments, we have once again reached the end of this month's Anniversary Announcements! I hope I've been able to inform you once more!

This also was the last AA for 2017! I had fun again this year, and hope you had too! Hopefully we'll meet again next year! Arigatō, sayōnara! https://ltquick.nl/q4o9Xq1.png

All information above was correct as of 2017-09-13.