User:Ultra64Detective2401/What is MIPS Hole? An Explanation

Given the fact that MIPS Hole articles have started to become recommended to people out of the loop of the purpose of this wiki, and that the current explanation can be confusing to newbies at first, in this post, I plan on outlining exactly what MIPS Hole is, in the clearest way possible. (This is, of course, unofficial:I’m not an admin, I’m doing this because no admin has done it.)

MIPS Hole is a wiki set in a fictionalized version of this world, in a style similar to the SCP Foundation Wiki. More specifically, it is based on the Super Mario 64 is Personalized alternate reality.

...That was probably still confusing if you didn’t already know about the SCP Foundation and the personalized rabbit hole, so let’s break it down.

What is an ARG?
ARGs are interactive stories that adapt to user responses. Have you ever played a game, watched a movie, and thought “I wish this were real. I wish I could talk to these people.”?

These are essentially the closest you can get to just that. They’re entire alternate realities that you can interact with, as if you were there yourself. Everything there is therefore presented from an in-universe perspective:The perspective of those living in this alternate reality.

MIPS Hole takes place in one of these alternate realities. This explains why you might have noticed terms like “mythos” and “non-canon” around here, It’s not a description of reality. Think of the reporters as characters in a story, but characters you can actually interact with using a character of your own. The “mythos”, therefore, is the mythology that MIPS Hole is describing, and deviations from it are therefore not canon to the mythos-Just like deviations from a story are not canon to a story’s plot. A story that you, yes you, can eventually add to.

What is the personalized rabbit hole?

The personalized rabbit hole started with a post of an iceberg on 4chan. The main premise is thus:Every copy of Super Mario 64 is personalized by an artificial intelligence. Said AI alters the game based on the way the player plays the game. It can bring back unused levels, change the floors, change the game’s missions, and even make new enemy variants! These tend to be rare, however, usually the game’s personalization is so small that it’s hard to notice. Said small amounts of personalization is the explanation for why it feels different when you play someone else’s copy of the game.

However, the version that MIPS Hole uses is somewhat different than the initial 4chan posts:They’re designed to be somewhat more believable, so that suspension of disbelief is easier. More specifically, MIPS Hole sets some limits on what can be accomplished by the AI, which the Community Canon outlines in detail. But the jist of it is:No, the Wario Apparition can’t appear in real life, and if it looks like a bad creepypasta, it probably won’t be accepted as canon. (That means no hyperrealistic blood!) In that case, it will either be labeled as such by an admin, or be deleted if the page is REALLY bad. (If it’s somehow so bad that it’s funny to look at, SigmaShield, one of the admins, might just archive it as a Ztar Article.)

Each noticeable alteration to the game (deviations from the decompiled ROM) are known as anomalies. The wiki itself serves as a database of said anomalies, describing what is known of each anomaly on the page, and sometimes compiling reports on said anomaly as well. Said wiki also contains speculation on what might be causing these anomalies, why there’s an AI in the first place, and why (and how!) it has been covered up. There are also pages for each major reporter of the anomalies. If you’ve seen the SCP Wiki, this should seem familiar.

Also similarly to the SCP wiki, MIPS Hole also has joke pages. These pages aren’t meant to be canon, they’re just people being funny.

Now that you’ve gotten the basics of MIPS Hole, the next thing to do is to check out some of the pages, but make sure to start with the Rules page and the Community Canon page! After that, the Sedimental Pages are good places to start, but feel free to browse! After that, you can check out the Star Articles for the best the wiki has to offer, or, if you want a laugh or two, check out some of the joke pages! That’s why we have them!

You can also lurk in the Discussion threads, to see the story evolve in real time (and also sillyness! It can get fun there!) Who knows, you might witness the (fictional, of course!) discovery of a new anomaly!

Hopefully after you’ve read this, and then read some of the articles I mentioned, you’ll understand what MIPS Hole is all about. Then the header at the top of this blog post will make sense. And you’ll be seeing a story get played out.

If you read those pages, but are having trouble suspending your disbelief, I have a series of posts (starting here) meant to serve as a case demonstrating the existence of the AI that was described-The first three posts should hopefully be sufficient, although the posts afterward continue the “investigation”. Try to read them in the mind of someone who’s heard about every copy being personalized, but doesn’t really believe those claims. That should hopefully help you get on track.

Now, most of you will probably be fine just seeing the story evolve on its own, watching to see what happens next, how more and more anomalies are reported on.

But some of you might decide you want to be a part of the story yourself.

In that case.. well... I actually don’t know how to help much, besides pointing to the guidelines in the Rules page, since I haven’t made that many articles myself (nor a single Star Article), but there are a few tips I can give.

For one, try to do your research on Super Mario 64. There’s a lot more to the game than it seems. Pannenkoek2012 and UncommentatedPannen have a lot of videos explaining some of the inner workings of the game. The Cutting Room Floor has a lot of info on the game’s beta builds, and unused content. Knowing about these builds will be important if you want to make a page about one of the game’s prerelease builds. While MIPS Hole is an alternate reality, we do try to base things mostly in reality-What’s in there shouldn’t contradict what we know about the beta builds. However, referencing builds we know nothing about, referencing builds we only know some about and expanding what we do know to work with the greater lore is good. Same filling with filling in gaps. Start with the facts as a base, then build on top of that.

Second, as the guide suggests, use good pages as a building ground.

Third, make sure to have good spelling and grammar when making pages. It is rather important, it’s hard to understand what a page is saying if there’s too many typos. And be especially careful with the title-A typo in a page title is both unprofessional and a mess to fix.

As for making reports, try to frame the anomaly as a thing you encountered while playing the game. There’s plenty of reports being made in the comment sections of anomalies, and in the Discussions, so you can use those as examples.

I can’t help you any further than that, but some of the admins and veterans might!