osu!weekly #82

An interesting map pool led to some interesting and unusual plays being made in the most recent bout of the osu! World Cup! We return with more news and games for us this week, so read on to get up to date with everything circle smashing.

We're back with another round of Loved maps for you to vote on! In case you are incredibly behind on the news, the Loved category of maps has is an active effort by the osu!staff to promote and reinvigorate unique and interesting maps that may not necessarily be suitable for ranking in the modern day mapping environment. The maps that make it into this category are determined by popular vote, so if you have a map you would like to see become loved, head on over and have your say!

It's worth noting that recently, Tom94 has returned to regular development on the new osu! rework. Tom was the original creator of the second revision of the pp (performance points) rating system. His expertise at both the game (being arguably the most skilled member of the development team at the actual game) and data was integral when it came to making the new framework tick. That being said, the new open source osu! codebase, along with the community sourced web repository is up on github for everyone to contribute to and work on. Its definitely possible to learn from scratch and still help us out, so go take a look if you want to assist in making osu! a better place for everyone!

However, if you're having trouble finding the time to help us out, you can still check in on what we're up to! Our bi-monthly open development meeting is up for everyone to check in on, live at peppy's twitch channel at 1600 UTC today (29 November 2016). If you want to have a look at what the previous open development meetings have brought us, you can check out the full history of meeting notes at peppy's dev blog.

The call-to-arms has been sounded for judges looking to cast their ballot in the next beatmapping contest! It seems like we can expect a new standard only competition to pop up at any time now. Are you excited to see what new song we have in store? I know I am!

The voting for the Community Beatmapping Contest is slated to open shortly, either this week or the next. Things have been pretty quiet on this front for a while, but they're about to get a lot louder.

A new Christmas themed Fan Art contest is underway! Pretty much an old osu! tradition at this point. Like to draw? Whip out your pens and get to it!

Rumours are floating around about a new Featured Artist hitting the roster soon, or possibly even several! More on this as details emerge. Don't know what a Featured Artist is? They're talented musicians who have volunteered to release their music for free to the community for people to map - no strings attached! How cool is that? There's some seriously talented people in the roster already.

Missed the OWC quarterfinals last weekend? Never fear, Junihuhn has you covered with a 15-minute quick recap on all the major events! Evrien's also written a piece on the matter just after the Scorewatch section, if you're more text inclined. Or you could just watch the video and read Evrien's piece at the same time. No biggie.

Scorewatch: November Week 4 (with Raveille)

Did your favorite OWC team get knocked out of the tournament yet? No? Still clinging around? Well, let's not let that distract you too much, we have a bunch of scores this week!

ihd kee, previously known as idke and part of the USA OWC roster, set a breathtaking SS on Dragonforce - Seasons with the Perfect mod, which forces a player to restart the map if the player gets anything but a 300. This 6.32* 193BPM map gave him 402pp with 86.48UR.

Accidentally dropping out of the 600pp club, this man had no time to Spare! He set a 602pp score on Jun Maeda x yanaginagi - Killer Song with a 99.71% HDDT FC. How about you guys give the No.1 UK player a warm welcome back to the 600pp club? Unless he somehow overwrites it!

osu!taiko has got its first ever 12,000pp player! Who else could it be but _yu68? He set an impressive HDDT 98.97% FC on Ayatsugu_Otowa - Chouetsu Shite Shimatta Kanojo to Sore o Umi Otoshita Riyuu and gained 558pp. That score shot him right past the 12,000pp barrier! Congratulations!

In osu!mania, SillyFangirl set the first ever FC on Yuyoyuppe - Aiae on Wafles' SHD with a 977036 99.34% score. However, he was 429 points short of his personal best, which is absolutely astonishing yet heartbreaking to know about. Spread the word though, this play has never been achieved. It is breathtaking.

An example of pure talent and pure heartbreak.

OWC Week 3 Recap: And Then There Were Fewer (with Evrien)

The quarterfinals weekend is an interesting one, with competition rising to a whole new level, and a mappool where "mercy" is crossed out from the selectors' dictionaries. Close and tightly-contended matches were not alien to OWC, but seeing them come up will make even the most distanced and indifferent viewer widen their eyes and inch forward in their seats. From the initial 16, we are down to 12, and this number is only expected to go down from this point on. How did the players fare? Let's recap.

Australia became the first one to say good-bye to us on Saturday, and they left having felt the love from Russia. South Korea and China won against their European competitors, Germany and Poland, quite convincingly with two 5-2 sets, before welcoming the last remaining Asian team, Taiwan, to join the Winner's Bracket fray next weekend. The fourth semifinals Winner's Bracket contending team, USA, received a full-body experience of the Brazilian passion and actually struggled to keep up for a while.

Facing this defending champion team, the Samba Legion showed that being high-seeded does not limit one from putting up a show. However, despite their valiant effort, the Brazilian players fell short against the mighty American eagles on the AR8 tiebreaker map.

China wins against Poland as Totori/Rustbell cooks up an extra-SSpicy plate in Chinese Restaurant

Sound Horizon, the artist that composed Raijin no Hidariude, said in one of their songs: "History tends to repeat itself". This coming weekend, the match-up will make many players yell "De javu!". USA and China went across each other in both the Winners' Finals and Grand Finals last year, and this year this fated pair will greet each other at the semifinals!

Meanwhile, Taiwan and South Korea, two teams with a longstanding rivalry since their 2013 finals match-up, will also cross blades. In Loser's Bracket, Canada will rise up to challenge the European giant, Poland. The United Kingdom, having just narrowly clenched a win from Norway, will cross paths with Brazil. Russia and Finland, emerging from their earlier win quite powerfully, have dates with Germany and France.

What do you think? Will history bring the same tides back once more, or will the players prove otherwise? Be sure to tune in to the livestream to find out!

We did promise more challenges, didn't we? Well, whether you like it or not, we'll be getting more of it next week, courtesy of Starrodkirby86. Until then, here are the solutions for the puzzle we posted at the beginning of the month. Did you manage to find all of them? Let us know in the comments!

With that, I'm afraid we have ran out of time, space, and things to actually write about here in the 82nd issue of the osu!weekly. However, as we all know, the news never sleeps! If you have anything you want to share with the world here, head over to the osu! development discord and drop either deadbeat or myself (Nyquill) a call. Alternatively, fire us an e-mail at news@ppy.sh with your groundbreaking discoveries. See you next time!

—Nyquill