Welcome to the Starmen.net Mailbag! The mailbag is your chance to sound off on various topics and ask the questions you want to know about the site and other happenings in the EarthBound world. Updates are made every week so check this space to see if your letter was posted! Before you submit make sure to read the submission rules.

It's my fourth update, and I'm pretty pumped. Oh, and no more ONE LINE mailbag letters. Put some effort in, please. :) I mean, I'll still post them because I don't play favourites. But try and write the best letters you can.

This Week's Topic:
Some of us have been visiting Starmen.Net for a long time. Some of us have not been here all that long. Throughout your stay here at the site, what is the greatest thing you have witnessed? It can be on the forums, in the IRC channel, on the main page, and so forth!

Perhaps the first thing of what I like about this site is that there is true democracy (figurative), which refers to the whole site. I am a very new guy; I just joined this fansite two months ago, yet I feel like I am part of the fansite now. I really love the fact that, whenever I feel like posting something, and especially when I try to put decent effort into my work, it always comes up onto the fansite. Even better, there are numerous ways to participate in the fansite, such as the Mailbag, Fanarts, etc. In other words, anyone get to have my say posted as well, regardless of his/her experience with this fansite.

I must say thank you to all the staffs in Starmen.Net for running this great site, and I wish you good luck in continuing the fansite. Starmen.Net forever! :)

Mailbag is so much cooler than Fanart. I'm glad someone finally agrees with me.

The staff here are great, and the sections are always fun to follow. I'm very proud of our team. Especially ShadowX. He's been the man forever. Go e-mail him, and tell him he rocks. Seriously.

As for mailbag, I also post every single letter. Everyone gets a voice. Does that make me awesome?

30,000 plus Mother 3 signatures has to top my list. Others include: Giovannis HUGE donation, Starmen.nets EGM appearances, and the DYI Devotion currently underway.

That petition was so cool. People worked so hard to get multiple donations, and people all over the world came on board. The Devotion site "caught me off-guard" (not really) and it's something very exciting. Mother 3 translation? I'm psyched! It's about time somebody does it!

My earlier years here were pretty rough. My screen name then was ness_78759. I chose it because that's what Yahoo! gave me when I made my first mail account ever. Ness was already taken by Yahoo!, so they offered Ness_78759 by tacking on my zip code of Austin, Texas to it. Neverthesless, people gave me the largest slack and all sorts of comments that they began to call me "Ness many numbers" "Ness 90120" "Zip Code Ness" "Ness 399485690293" and all sorts of things that were mocking me. I'd always tell them to stop. One day I went to the chat room and it ended up exploding that everyone was changing their name with many numbers (to bash me) at the end of it. It can all be seen here at: http://starmen.net/chat/boirc/1923874intro.php It ended up making IRC history. Simply one day I decided to change my name Zip Code Ness to get rid of the problems and the bashing. I actually like my new name. You can see me as "ness_78759" all around stonehendge in the AOE or on the old forum board.

My favorite that that used to exist on Starmen.net was the Apple of Enlightenment contest. A topic would be posted, simply a "what if?" topic, and then we'd send in entries of stories, flukes, comics, and other things of possiblities of the "what if?". I ended up creating a series of works called "Jeff's Mistake" that would show Jeff getting the topic of the contest wrong each week and making something else that was funny. Those were the most awesome years of Starmen.net in my opinion, and the contest was better than any ordinary fun fest. Each year the fun fest is about snow or spookies, and nothing else. How often do you get to make an entry about "what if Mr. T was one of the chosen 4?" or "what if the chosen 4 were afraid of cooties?" and so on. Thus I tried to revive it via the Art Forum, but it never got off the ground. Dang it!

I'm glad you stuck around, buddy. People can be cruel.

I loved the Apple of Enlightenment contest as well, and I wish it'd come back. One thing you may not know is the original staffer's name actually broke the site. d`Jeu was the staffer at the time, the apostrophe broke the code or something. It was really amusing.

I remember creating some animated flukes for that contest. I wonder if they can be found.

Wow, what do I like about Starmen.net? Well, there are a few things that I love about this site, I've been watching this site since around when it began, but was just to stupid to actually sign up, but even before I did sign up, I noticed that the site always seemed to retain a friendly environment that seemed more like a community than a website, and I think that's what I like most about my favorite website, Starmen.net

To an extent, I agree. But there are so many trolls/haters on the forums and IRC which make me despise the community.

Luckily for each bad apple, there are 4 or 5 solid buddies.

I've been coming to Starmen.Net (as a forum member) since around 2000, so I was here for the big petition and some of the Sieges and Call'Ns, but the single greatest thing I have witnessed during my time here has got to be the announcement of Mother 1+2 with the mention that Mother 3 was in the works.

The forum exploded!

I could barely keep up with the multiple topics that sprouted up celebrating the news. It was incredible, and definately one of the best times to be a devoted EarthBound fan.

Before then, the Mother 3 forum was this boring place full of "What If?" topics, but after that there was so much hope and speculation and excitement.

It rejuvinated the community and is one of the best (if not THE best) moments in Starmen.Net history.

That PK Call'N (What a lame name!) was amazing. I remember getting some guy who had personally received maybe a hundred calls that day. I was the guy who pushed him past the breaking point. He even told me so. I apologized, and we had a brief discussion. It was a good time.

I used to ignore the Mother 3 forum, and not much has changed. I refuse to be spoiled.

I'll join you there someday, buddy. You're one of my favourite posters. No lie.

The greatest thing I've ever seen on starmen.net was a friday, a long time ago. A hurricane had hit my area pretty bad and school was canceled, of course I didn't know that. I thought I missed the bus. I ended up waking up my dad and getting him to drive me all the way there in hurricane force winds. We got there and no one was there. Only a lone janitor outside waving at us to go home. It's 6 o'clock in the morning, I'm wet, and I'm more than a little ticked off at myself for not checking the news. I couldn't sleep. I got up and did what I often did, I checked starmen.net. As the page loaded up, a peculiar site met my eyes. A smiling skull in a crimson wave was the frist icon. A name was scrawled across the skull. My name. It was my skull, I had drawn that skull, it was gyigas. I had won Artist Spotlight. I pretty much exploded! The day had taken a turn for the best. I never considered myself much of an artist, a good one at that even. I thought my art was nothing mmore tham a photoshopped scribble I drew inbetween frequenting the forum. I was extremely pleased! It was totally awesome! Now-a-days I've continued my work and I've even heard a few people refer to me as "one of the greater artists on the sites". I don't think I'm good at all but everybody seems to disagree.

This was my favourite letter when I first read it a week ago.

It is amazing how something so small can make a whole of bad stuff ... good. I've seen so many people win "Artist Spotlight" since you have, and everytime I do, I wish I had the same talent. As many of my friends on here know, I really want to be good at creating pieces of artwork. (Notice how I didn't just say "drawing". That's how serious I am!)

Great letter, and I hope we see you next week!

Even though it made the site completely unusable, I'd have to say the Mars/reidman coding war that happened that one time. I don't remember the reason (it must've been pathetic), but the results were humorous. "OMG REID ADDED POP-UP ADS! KILL HIM!" Why the moldy old couch just gave up is something else I forgot, but I'd have to say that was great in a different sort of way.

I remember what you are referring to, but not specifically. I must have been really focused on something at the time. I don't remember what. If I do, I'll let you know.

All I remember was the popup stuff. Good times.

The greatest thing I've seen happened very recently. What is it? The translation of Mother 3. I haven't been here long, really. So, seeing a group of seriously devoted fans take action themselves is really something worthwhile. I wish I could be part of it, but I understand Tomato and his efforts to go solo on this one. That, and Tomato will probably do an excellent job with the storyline. Also, I believe the translations's unedited, with all language and nudity in tact. Another plus for the Mother 3 translation, but not in the perverted sense.

lewahi likes pr0... Okay, I'll refrain.

I am so excited for this translation. Ever since my sister and I saw that sign in Fourside about EarthBound 2, we were ecstatic. We were too young to think it could be a joke. We assumed there was a sequel. Speed ahead to EarthBound 64, and its cancellation. I have never been so sad in regards to a video game. It was awful.

But then ... fast forward to this year. The countdown to Mother 3? That was so huge. It is the biggest news in the history of this site, by far. You heard it here first, folks.

I cannot wait to play this game!

The petition. That thing was a MONSTER. The atmosphere at the time was awesome.

But then again, we've done petitions before, so while that was great, that certainly isn't the most unique.

Translating Mother 3? Wow. That too, is amazing. One of the first times SM.net has ever decided to tread such waters, from what I can recall.

But I gotta say, for me, it was when Mother 3 was cancelled. That was such a huge and dissapointing shock to us all, and served as the catalyst for that crazy petition and the more recent happenings. Mother 3 being cancelled only brought out the best in the SM.net community, and it really prooves how devoted we are to this game series.

With the exception of PK Hack, Starmen.Net has never treaded these waters; you are correct. PK Hack came out years after EarthBound had already bombed. This translation is assuming there will be no English translation ... let me rephrase. It's assuming there will be no *official* translation. But hey. With the way Nintendo has treated us, I'm totally behind this project.

I'm biased. I want to play this game so incredibly much.

"MOTHER THREE WILL BE TRANSLATED IN ENGLISH and 43 other languages!"

Am I the only one who'd be stoked about a pig latin version of Mother 3?

"Oop-say, I-way, arted-fay. ... Orry-say."

You know, I'm really torn on this one.

See, I discovered this place. That was cool enough. Then I found some fangames, such as those Funfest entries DarkLink570 something did, and then there was Rescue Reidman.

Good times.

But I digress, now I seem to have stumbled upon Radio PSI (about one year ago), and let me tell you, it smells even better my socks. That's hard to top.

AND THEN I discovered Mansion Maniac's super-interactive radio, and I never watched Toonami ever again. It was the greatest day in history. (That is not to say that other folks like CarpStrike or Gonmon aren't cool too. And where's SimonBob?)

In conclusion,

Strike hasn't been my CO-DJ for like a month. KNOW YOUR PRIORITIES, BACONMAN!

Rescue Reidman was such a cool idea, but I have yet to play it all the way through. I will, though. I promise you that.

RadioPSI is a load of fun. We have six extremely committed DJs (Seven if you count Coreyback, and you always count Coreyback) who are all very good at what they do. One of my finest moments was getting on the RadioPSI roster. Back when it was just Sephy and myself. Good times, I have to say.

I prefer it now though. I rarely ever miss a radio show, unless I have homework to do. And even then ... I usually just tune in, and not work. It's fun. Mansion may have the flagship show, but people should give the others a listen too. They all have some fun segments.

THOMAS DOLBY ONE HIT WONDER CHAMPION. KING CARPARAMA WINS! BOW TO ME! ALL HAIL KING CARPY!

(Only slightly kidding.)

Hmm..the greatest thing I've witnessed to happen at sm.net, eh? Excluding the current thing (Starmen.Net fan translation of Mother 3), I've only been here since 2002, and besides the obvious one of the Mother 3 petition finally reaching 30,000 signatures, I'm gonna spice it up and say when LousySpy and Aquas posted the "This is My House" flash movie.

Why? Well, when I first saw it, I was at work (a summer office job) and I had to share an office with someone else and I was clicking around on the forums while on a break and came across the short flash movie. Since I shared an office, I had to use headphones so I wouldn't disturb the other guy. I watched it and almost imploded because I wanted to laugh SO HARD, but I couldn't because that other guy was there. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen at the time and it hurt so bad to not be able to laugh-out-loud.

Seriously, it physically hurt. D:

I've got a big beard!

That video was fantastic. I loved it. I remember watching it first, and then seeing who had created it. The first thing that came into my mind was "Hey, Aquas. I beat that guy in TetriNET."

Funny flash videos are more painful than people give credit for. It's a sickness.

I will learn to make flash videos someday. I promise you.

I miss Everdraed.

Why Ninten has Asthma and Ness gets homesick while Lucas doesn't have any weakness (Or Flint)?

Are you serious? It's because the vaccines for homesickness and asthma were ported to the GBA, duh.

I believe I was in 7th grade when my dad first got the Internet for us (one of the first things I did was look for Earthbound stuff, and that's when I found what was then earthbound.net). That would have put me at 12 years old, 9 years ago. In all that time, the greatest things I've witnessed are the sheer numbers involved in the "our voice to Nintendo"-type projects. According to the devotion, we got 31,338 signatures for the Mother 3 petition. That just boggles my mind for a super-old game with non-remarkable graphics. If memory serves me right, NP Siege II broke the 10,000 milestone. That was equally impressive to me--I didn't even know that many people liked Earthbound. Well, I'm getting lazy so I'm going to end with the runners-up:

2. Giovanni having donated all that money. I don't know how much it was, but from the way everyone spoke of it, it must have been a lot.

3. NBN using the big script during story time in the chan.

4. Luna`: PORN SITE YAY

5. Blueberry muffins.

- Cheebee

Those petitions were big news. I wasn't as surprised as you were. In fact, I was surprised it took as long as it did to hit 30k. Now, I love EarthBound's graphics. I am a huge fan of the style. The battle system was so cool, and I never thought there was any alternative. I wonder what would have happened if I had played something like Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy III first.

2. There is a spot on the site for donations. He's given a few grand.

3. Hahaha. NBN was great. I wish he was active on IRC again.

4. I was there for both times. HILARIOUS. Oh, and I'm sorry Luna and I made fun of your Zelda story. Did you ever read the one written about us? The one with the hobo and the yellow bikini. It's hawt.

5. piez :(

Carparama summarizes:

New responders, and a few surprises. All letters entertained me, and that's important.

I hope I reaffirmed a point for you guys. Starmen.Net is a great site to be a part of.

Oh my goodness, it's 12:30PM and my eyes hurt. I still have to deliver papers and go to my job! Yuck!