**[center]Last updated September 25th, 2017, with the removal of the "About that snd_rebuildaudiocache thing" section since it's fixed in the modern downloads now. Also updated the addon section to "Why Addons are Banned" to reflect the new rules.[/center]**

Welcome, person that might have followed the link here from the rules! Here we will explore in more depth what each rule means, why it was made, and what you need to do to make sure your run is squeaky clean for submission. Thanks to bill_play3 for suggesting this thread.

[big][center]~ Timing Methods and Load Removal ~[/center][/big] You may be wondering why time is removed specifically for loads but not in other areas, such as cutscenes or events. Runs on this site are generally considered RTA* (Real-Time Attack) *where timing starts on gaining control and ends at the end of the category. This includes timing any scripted events in the game, including cutscenes. When a level ends the screen blurs for 2 seconds, then the scoreboard appears for 6.5 seconds, meaning that is actually a scripted sequence which lasts exactly 8.5 seconds before loading is triggered, and so only the amount of time the game is actually performing the load is removed. There is a significant difference in time between different machines in how long loading takes, even between runs on the same machine some months apart, so it is necessary to ensure the runs are timed fairly and accurately regardless of your hardware.

There are a few methods for removing your loading times. It is very highly recommended that you include in your recording either the available autosplitter running in Livesplit set to Game Time* (which can be changed by right-clicking the splits, hovering over Compare Against, and clicking Game Time) or ensure your recording has the option set to capture your mouse cursor. The final method is by using the red loading icon in the upper-right. The mouse cursor is preferred as it always appears the moment loading initiates, while the loading icon in most versions has a chance to show up late by a single frame, and in the case of game version 2.0.2.7 (which is widely used) *it can show up roughly a quarter of a second late! Since using that mark would mean you are including more actual loading time in your run, if you forget to capture your mouse cursor or do not want to use the autosplitter since it can be laggy on some systems, you do accept the time loss by having to use the loading icon as a backup.

[big][center]~ Timing Co-op Runs ~[/center][/big] Removing loads for a co-op run is a tricky thing, and unfortunately we have no means at this time to force all players to load in together. The best way, then, is to require that the player who loads in first* (always the host of the server) *has their perspective recorded so that it can be timed by their map loads, resuming timing the moment the first player enters the next map. Without this, another player could be loading first and taking any number of actions or gaining ground in the map while the time is still paused for another player that is still loading in.

If any players that are not the host finish loading before he does, their game will actually wait for the host to complete his load while they wait to come in themselves. You can force players to load closer together in this way by using the "Local Server" option through the main menu with a player that has slower loading times than others in the group.

The current situation for co-op timing isn't entirely ideal, but it is the best that currently exists and is far more fair than not removing loads at all. We've tried methods to force all players to load in simultaneously but nothing has worked so far. Maybe some day...

[big][center]~ Why Addons are Banned ~[/center][/big] All addons were disallowed because any particular one could potentially lead to an advantage for one player over another. An example of addons that would give an advantage would be changes to special infected skins* (like bright white) *so they are easier to see, changing the sounds they make so they are more noticeable and easier to react to, changing item skins or models so that it is easier to see where they spawn, and so on. Banning all addons outright keeps the rules much more simple and ensures that everybody is on equal footing, playing the game the way it was originally intended.

[big][center]~ About Those Banned Console Commands ~[/center][/big] In addition to commands protected by sv_cheats, there are some more not protected by a cheat flag which still aren't allowed. Criteria for banning a command could be based on some simple questions, such as:

*Can it be used by the client, or only by the server?

Is it available as an option in the menu system, or only possible through the console?

Does it bypass an element of regular gameplay?*

"z_difficulty" was disallowed because it can only be executed by the server, not the client. This means it couldn't be used in official Valve servers, either. It also bypasses the cooldown timer in the voting system for newer versions of the game.

"changelevel" was disallowed also because it can only be executed by the server, and because it badly breaks the intro cinematic in a way not otherwise possible through regular gameplay if you use it to switch to the first map of a campaign.

"kick" was disallowed again because it can only be executed by the server and is not otherwise available to be used at any time you'd like. An exception was found later in the Dark Carnival finale that uses a developer oversight to force the bots to be kicked from the server, and this method was allowed since it occurs during regular gameplay. Click here for a thread with more details on how it works.

[big][center]~ Using Milliseconds to Break Ties ~[/center][/big] Eventually times were lowered enough to where a whole-second tie was uncommon, but did start to happen. Milliseconds were enabled when submitting times so that they could be used to determine who was truly faster. It is not used when regularly submitting because it makes the leaderboards look very cluttered for an unnecessary bit of information when most runs are full seconds apart. Keeping the Millisecond field at 000 will cause it not to show on the leaderboards at all, so that is required unless your run ties another* (for example, you both have 11m22s) *in which case a moderator will time them both precisely to break the tie.

April 4th 2017,

It's been too long! Good to do something again, while I was busy I've been building up a to-do list to work through which is starting to trickle in now. Did some easy stuff today.

Updated the wording in all bhop script categories to say that it is ¤required¤ to use the script since some sneaky folks a while ago were saying it was ambiguous how it said "allowed" and they could submit normal runs to it, which was kind of true by the old wording. It now says use of the script is required, and I also moved it to the top of the rules since it's the most relevant change compared to the regular categories.

Updated flow in the rules section where it lists what campaigns are run in the main/all campaigns categories. It was kind of just a big chunk of text before that was hard to look at, so I tried to make it flow better and have the campaigns stand out more by adding hyphens. It was hard to come up with a good way and that's the best I landed on.

Added a Realism Yes/No column across the board to support the new strats being deployed in the L4D1 campaigns that we found recently where Realism mode is about 20s faster in finales, to add more information about the run.

Made the LMOE, LMOE Bhop, and Solo Bhop Level Leaderboard categories miscellaneous, so they are now within that tab like it is on the Full-game Leaderboard.

Made a post to decide the fate of an Expert Realism subcategory once and for all (for now). Voting closes in a week, go over there and check it out! http://www.speedrun.com/l4d2/thread/phwzb/1#2hezc

Well! This sure has been a while. Yay busy.

Here's what we'll do. I'm going to link a poll with a simple yes or no on if the Expert Realism subcategory should be added now or not. In a week when this timer ends (http://itsalmo.st/#expertrealism) its fate will be decided. Please take your time, mess around with it a bit, try to get used to common health and give it a chance, then come back and vote as you'd like. If it does come out to no I do want to revisit it again in the future, so if you aren't against it but don't want to say yes right now feel free to put in a no anyway. I know we have some stuff coming up like the bi-weekly challenge so I want to keep it open like that. Please do vote seriously.

http://www.strawpoll.me/12722572

Now for my own responses,

I wouldn't want the reason for not adding an Expert Realism category to be that there already exists other categories. To be blunt, I strongly believe that a subcategory for highest difficulty has much more business being there than LMOE and especially more so than using a bunnyhop script, especially considering how often people seem interested in watching a run on the highest difficulty, from my own observations. I wouldn't want using a script to stop the inclusion of something that exists already in the base game.

Running Expert on LMOE wouldn't change as much there (IMO), although I think the only way to really apply it would be a blanket setting that will cover all categories including LMOE, otherwise it would have to be applied to individual categories many times over as the site doesn't seem to have an easy way to only apply Level Leaderboard subcategories to certain tabs. Its main purpose is for regular runs, of course. EDIT: Derp, obviously this wouldn't apply to LMOE since Realism isn't a thing you can stack with LMOE. There would have to be another one that's just Expert if it were to be added to LMOE as well.

It wouldn't be so bad to deal with commons, I think our recent Expert Realism experience with the new strats there has proven you can overcome it. I wouldn't really worry about the runs not being possible, even Sacrifice 1 Tank which you'd have to come up with a new plan to kite it around efficiently (and that is a good thing, different strategies). If anything, it would probably train you to better handle things on a lower difficulty once you get used to it. I know once I get done with Realism the regular game seems so much easier in comparison.

February 26th 2017,

Forgot to mention in the last update that another bit was added to the rules at the end of the addon section that states game audio must be audible clearly enough to confirm that no sound addons were used, just for safety. I've seen a couple of runs with extremely low audio that you couldn't really tell, and if they are banned we should always be able to listen to the game.

Updated the speedrun.com logo with a custom one, nifty! Thanks, bill_play3's nameless friend!

February 18th 2017,

It's been a while!

Updated the rules for more clarification, adding to the addon section of the rules that HUD mods are allowed ¤excluding¤ the item radar, which was technically allowed in the previous wording but definitely should not be.

Condensed the sections in the rules about how bot kicking isn't allowed and the changelevel command isn't allowed into a new section that simply has a list of commands which aren't allowed. As well as everything protected under sv_cheats, this section also includes the commands "changelevel" "kick" and "z_difficulty". Created a thread to discuss if the "map" command should also be disallowed.

Updated category terminology for the bhop script categories. Previously as examples it was "Main Campaigns (Bhop Script)" and "LMOE Main Campaigns Bunny Mod", which was pretty inconsistent. Basing the new names off of a slightly shorter version of the name and description of the official script in the resources section these categories were created for, I updated all names to be consistent with themselves and read "Bunny Script" instead.

New thread posted to finalize adding a new, high difficulty subcategory. Coming soon!

Firstly, any changes currently being experimented with on adding difficulty is being done on the Death Toll Solo category, so you can check there if you'd like to see what the current state of this looks like.

I'm looking to finally add a difficulty subcategory to all categories so that there can be a default category for the way we've been running, and another category for the highest difficulty for completion's sake to say "I did all of the things!" There seems to be some demand for Expert runs seeing all of them uploaded to YouTube and the comments on GDQ runs, and I do see the value in speedrunning the game in its most complete state. It isn't unusual for a game to have separate categories for other difficulties, or at least the one for the highest.

Mechanically, the run will work by being classified as the lowest difficulty ever played for any amount of time during the run. Voting for Easy accidentally would invalidate it being submitted as the higher difficulty, and this will be stated in the rules.

Normal and Advanced difficulties will not have their own categories as that just clogs up the place and realistically won't be run as they aren't much different.

There are just a couple more things to figure out...

What to name the default, lowest difficulty category? It could be named "Easy", but that may be odd since we switch difficulties to kill AI. It could also be named "Any", "Any Difficulty", "Noob". There are some options, and feel free to suggest others if you can think of any. This name can be changed retroactively so it isn't dire to figure out immediately, but I would like to solve it right away if possible.

Should the higher difficulty category be Expert....... or should we go all out and make it Expert Realism? For completion and to match other uploaded runs, Expert Realism would actually make more sense. I'm on the fence with this one.

The conversation came up in Discord today so here's a thread to discuss it. Should the "map" command in the console be allowed during a run at the end of a campaign to switch to the next?

Currently, changelevel is disallowed since it is a server-side command (meaning it wouldn't work in an official server) and breaks the intro cinematic of the campaign switched to.

The "map" command instantly launches a listen server on the specified map. This does not break the intro cinematic, and it is arguable if it's a server command or not as it launches a new server, not exactly affecting the server you're currently in besides closing it if you were already the host.

My opinion on the matter is that it will bypass the vote creation timer (relevant to All Campaigns) and could be used to instantly switch campaigns once the end credits sequence starts, removing the need to time your campaign vote and also bypassing the voting lock they have when said sequence begins. Also the fact that it's borderline a server-side command as those are disallowed (changelevel, kick, z_difficulty) in part because they can't be used on an official server. Technically this can be used on an official server, it will just remove you from it completely and place you on your own.

It's also a quandary if this command is "intended" for use or not, since the lobby system has an option to launch on a local server. You could either argue that the lobby proves it is an intended command, but you could also argue that the lobby proves it isn't an intended command since the lobby is the system they have in place to use it.

Looking for opinions.

That's right, we have an "official" speedrun.com L4D speedrunning Discord server! If you're looking to get started it is a great place to go to ask questions and get help, and if you're a veteran there is plenty of discussion about new strategies as well as people looking to group up with others for co-op runs.

Check it out! https://discord.gg/HHJcT5C

burhac covered the other spawns, actually, including the hill.

Wooooo RESEARCH! Hopefully this will go into making the next co-op attempts great again. Thanks, guys.

I see what you mean. Understood. Just wanted to make sure I knew what was up and I don't think things are taken any wrong way like you'd think. I'm cool with working through stuff, if I weren't I wouldn't be here... opposing opinions are always going to exist, all that can be done is to try and figure out what's best for the boards which is always what I'll try to do at my human best. I can't really speak for others there, but, at least I can try to think about things and work out what I can while working with others here.

I think it'll all be worth it in the end, especially when more submissions start coming in and we get some good stuff being posted for the first time in a long time. Also, L4D1 run at AGDQ 2017 went great, woo! I may not have been there running it without the community that's grown, so I'm always appreciative of that on the inside no matter what, and hopefully anybody else that posts about stuff knows that it's always about trying to make the best environment for us to run this series. I should probably stop my post here or five more, long paragraphs will follow, but, anyway, I think we've said a lot already and are hopefully good right now.

Hmm... respectfully, I will have to disagree on the version column being unnecessary. Many games do make this distinction, and with some of the major skips available in the old version it can be pretty valuable to know that is what was used. This may apply most to new players, actually, so that they don't see a run and try a skip on Newest unaware that they are actually comparing to the old version. It changes enough to be an important distinction. As for not being able to tell if some runs are 1.0 or not, well... I suppose if they don't use any 1.0 skips, they are essentially the same as running Newest? In that case it can just be marked Newest so it's close enough and we have the choice so future runs can choose now to keep it accurate. I'll be waiting longer before taking that step to make sure there isn't any way I can mark some runs accurately after investigating it.

They may have set it up in the first place, but that was many years ago and it was still in that same state from back then. Categories needed an update to have better flow with L4D2 along with a cleaned up Level Leaderboard, the rules were very barebones, and submitted times were very inconsistent. Things have come a long way since they had established the start of these boards, since then L4D2 activity has skyrocketed and the rules cover much more and are much clearer, as well as timing having a clear method that makes sense to how the game truly loads. Add lack of response to all of that, and there is a clear need for a modernization to happen here, improving it with the experience of how the L4D2 boards have evolved over time. Many things, mind you, that already existed in L4D2 before I came in. I haven't done many major changes over there, mostly just got the loadless thing worked out (which was in progress already when I came aboard). These boards were antiquated, those boards were iterated on much more, therefore here is now much closer to that improved state.

If anything in my post came off as sassy than I am sorry and assure you that wasn't my intention, I was trying to explain everything leading up to this moment as thoroughly and factually as I could.

Hmm, interesting note about the menus, thanks... that will be handy if any runs go by the menu, although the first few I've checked haven't, unfortunately. I might need to skim them for 1.0 specific tricks like the Dead Air 2 drop. I'll have to work on that a bit later.

I mean, another mod posted... I had to respond with something. Might as well make it thorough. I do that a lot.

Woohoo! Finished up the last of the loadless times, everything is in order now. Two runs exist without videos,

http://www.speedrun.com/run/9yo5xxjz - he claims loading screens were timed and it is slow enough for that to be likely, so I left it alone entirely.

http://www.speedrun.com/run/kz56ggey - I added 8.5 x 2 to the original time to compensate for the scoreboards under the assumption that it used the blur timing method. It shouldn't be too far off in this case... if I learn how the old timing worked it can be made more accurate, but that will have to do for now.

I finally added the version column. For now it is marked as not required, otherwise all of the runs go poof because they don't have a value entered in it yet meaning they don't show up. I'm not sure how to determine at a glance which runs are 1.0 and which are Newest since I don't yet have experience with it, is there an easy way to tell? Once all runs have something in the version column it can be made a required value when submitting.

Besides updating that, I think the last thing I have to do is move over some relevant resources from the L4D2 boards.

Hello flicky, welcome back! It has been a while.

The runs are not removed completely, they still very much exist, just in a rejected state awaiting a video or demos with a message stating so. You can see one here: http://www.speedrun.com/run/0zn5xelz (anybody can view this link)

The rest can be easily accessed by clicking the hourglass at the top, runs awaiting verification, click show old, and look under Left 4 Dead. Not the most intuitive system I know, but they are there.

Let me try to explain my reasoning of why they are (temporarily) rejected. They had no original proof of the run, not a video (the line is completely blank so nothing existed), nor demos easily accessible for anybody to watch. Somebody should not be required to contact another person to acquire the submitted run so they can see what the first place time looks like. Moderators should be held to the same submission standards that any other runners are, and bypassing the video requirement (or any proof) by self-verifying doesn't seem right. Note that I am not implying there was any wrongdoing in the runs in question, I am simply attempting to hold them to the standards the other runs were held to which is fair for everybody.

Also consider that I did try to contact both of you months ago to no response. Let's be realistic, if we couldn't garner any reasonable response here to figure out how to properly submit a run in the first place, nobody will be able to get these demos on request. After conferring with some other community members, I made the decision to temporarily reject them pending these demos and they are readily available to go right back up when such a time comes. Nothing is deleted.

The boards were sitting stagnant with vague, inconsistent timing rules, and attempts to ask how submissions were supposed to be done was never met with a response, so Cyberdemon (moderator of the L4D2 boards) requested on the site forum that I have moderator status since I've been doing work on the L4D2 boards for a while now. The site granted that request, and I went to work. The L4D2 community here has evolved immensely over the past year with a lot of great people having come in, it is very active now! We've learned much about the game and how it works, and refined the rules and timing method further around that, even including an autosplitter that can remove loads based on a loading flag in the game (when it truly loads, not the scripted scoreboard). The same guy plans to port it here once he has the game.

Considering how much we've learned about how L4D2 works and have a clear, fair, easy system in place that has been working for the many L4D2 runners, and seeing that both games are extremely close to each other, I took the initiative to largely port the work here so there is consistency in the series, and with it L4D2 runners have expressed interest in submitting times here as well. The categories and rules were a big step, now anybody coming in can know what to expect by reading the rules and submit without any trouble.

Side note, the run times as they were previously submitted were all over the map in consistency, I still can't figure out what the timing method was... only a couple of runs I could match up with the time pausing based on the scoreboard trigger (when the music starts playing) which was my best assumption at the previous timing method (which isn't actually when loading occurs, it's essentially a cutscene). The majority of the other runs were varying by 3-4 seconds faster than even that method which is quite off. One run in particular was more than 30 seconds! http://www.speedrun.com/run/kz56g8ey

If you have insight as to what the old timing method was such that I can match it up with what the submitted runs were saying, it would be greatly appreciated and a big help in updating the last few runs that are left.

Also, some runs are still up that no longer have a video available, but those are left because they were submitted to the standards at that time and were viewable then. I just need to figure out how to adjust the timing of those now, which I should be able to do if I can figure out how timing was done previously. L4D2 has runs like these as well. Unfortunately, accounts do get deleted down the road sometimes and videos are removed, but at least at some point they were watched and verified fairly.

In closing, the community is fantastic that has been built around L4D2 and they are likely coming here now as well. Some stuff is still a work in progress and I have more resources to port, but most of the important bits are done now and people can submit at any time, including myself once we're done with the AGDQ craze.

I hope you understand my actions more now and take a look around to see the changes made and check out what's been up with L4D2 as well. Maybe even start running the game again, the more runners the better! Thanks for taking the time to read this wall of text, I go pretty deep into explaining things sometimes. A gift and a curse.

Hah, I know, when I saw that time I felt a little bit bad, but, time to get a WAY sub-53, right? I'll be doing runs too sometime after AGDQ.

Huh, no idea how Vegas works. That's weird it is converting it, that may be where the difference is coming in... you could grab Avidemux if you want to try that way, unless Vegas has a different way of displaying the file. Shrugsies.

I ported rules over from L4D2 and fit them in here. Pretty much everything should be there now. I didn't include banning addons because I wasn't sure if addons work as easily in this game or are as readily available? Figured I'd skip it for now until I know more. Individual Maps have some unique rules like requiring a demo.

I've downloaded almost all of the individual campaign runs so I should be able to get those times updated soon.

January 1st 2017,

After a long session of completely, thoroughly breaking the Dash mutation and discussing how it changed the runs entirely, I've added a new subcategory to both levels which is called "Co-op Idle Abuse". The "Co-op" subcategory now disallows usage of idle spamming to hit a flag multiple times with a single player, and... well, I think the rest explains itself. This was necessary to keep the integrity of the mode in one subcategory while allowing it to be just utterly decimated in the other subcategory. Seriously. It's SO broken.

Going with the terminology we've been using, changed two of the Full-game Leaderboard categories to read "Solo Main Campaigns" and "Solo All Campaigns", adding Solo to both, to tell the differences in the categories apart more easily. For consistency the Level Leaderboard categories have been changed from "1p" to "Solo" as well.

Hmm... problem with Freezard's SDA videos is that they don't embed here properly. The best I can do there is include a link directly to the insane quality (ohhhh how encoding has changed) runs so that can be followed directly to the video.

As long as these mysterious demos exist it can be timed by them as well, although the All Campaigns run does kind of sound like they don't have even demos for that going by their description... well, I guess the AGDQ 2013 run could be used, sure, and hopefully they can produce something eventually to get the current run back up. If not, well... the time is very slow and could be very easily beaten again with a video, I guess. It's crazy, our AGDQ 2017 run is going to be a staggering 20 minutes faster than that one if everything goes well. We've come far.

I checked the No Mercy run again to confirm and came out with 11:15.007 again when based on the first frame being the first time you see first-person view. This is examining the video as downloaded directly from YouTube. If based on when the HUD starts showing like in level transitions the time is 11:14.974, figures it's a single frame from the next second! In this case HUD showing for time start looks accurate so I'll go with that, which would make this run 11:14. Avidemux doesn't show total frame count, but their video is 29.971fps so I'm not sure what you mean by 60fps. To time this, I am using the exact method shown in the load removal tutorial I made for L4D2, which I should probably copy to the guides here too. Maybe you can spot our differences? http://www.speedrun.com/l4d2/guide/y3so9

My timing on the run was based purely off of the perspective of the first-loading player that's in the upper-left, removing a couple of extra frames where the loading icon is showing and black frames until the next level shows with a HUD. Even if it were a typo, 11:37 is even more out of whack... if I eventually manage to figure out how they did it I'll report back, but I have a feeling it may remain a mystery.

We can talk about it more on stream sometime if you'd like, where I could show you how I am examining the frames in real-time as well. It looks the same as what is shown in the video in that guide, though.

Seeing this, I timed your Original Campaigns run to see what I'd come out with and I have 53:00.100, so we have a little bit of variance. So close to the next second once again! I'll update your run to that time for now and we'll see where our differences are coming in.

By the way, I will probably be leaving the time as a single column, displaying only the loadless times. I actually plan to change L4D2 to this format as well but have been waiting until all of the runs there are updated first so it's easy to track what still needs to be done in the meantime considering there are far more runs to change than there are here. It'll look much cleaner to just have one column and then ensure all future runs are always loadless.

It's pretty easy to cut the frames up and grab the time, especially since I'm used to doing it, so it's alright. I should be able to get to at least some later today. Thank you for the offer still, I'll let you know if anything changes.

I actually see, while looking at runs that actually have videos that they do include loading screens so that's very good. It'll be easy to update those. I just don't understand how they were previously getting the times... the current first place No Mercy, for example, is submitted as 10:37, but when I time it based on the upper-left perspective (who appears to be hosting) I get 11:15.007. The end sequence from blurring to loading icon takes 8.5 seconds. If you add 8.5 x 4 to their submitted time, you still only get a time of 11:11... maybe I'm just missing something, I'm not sure yet. This is why we never submitted our times in the first place and was asking what to do. Weird. The video doesn't seem to be running slowly either because the end sequence, in my best estimation, is taking 8.5 seconds as it should, or at least extremely close to it based on when end music starts. Oh well, the new methods will take care of this confusion and create a new, easy standard to go by. Now, if I can't figure out a consistent point they took timing from, this will be a problem when I get to the runs that have no proof of their time at all which leads us to...

I am considering rejecting the runs that were uploaded and approved by a mod, bypassing the video requirement (which is every videoless run), and says "demos available upon request!" so that they can see it and upload these demos for others (I'll put up a video based on them personally if I need to). It doesn't seem right to have submitted the runs without any original video or even uploaded demos just because mods have that ability (I tried, I can bypass the video requirement), and because they bypassed this requirement I'm not sure I can adjust the times reliably enough. Any thoughts on this?

Yup, time without loads as we're doing it in L4D2 will be the standard here, removing only when the loading icon appears up to the frame where HUD reappears. It's really odd how the current rules worked, that loading was included in all campaigns/original campaigns but taken out in the single campaign runs. Pretty inconsistent. This will apply to everything except for the individual maps category that is in each individual campaign on the level leaderboard.

For individual maps, that will be purely control gained/lost, which I currently need to figure out for the rules how to time reliably. Control gain is pretty easy, generally when you see first-person view (some campaigns are a little different, need to investigate), loss is the hard one because the only method I could find to know exactly when it triggers the end level sequence is the tick that the music starts to play. Not a problem if demos are required, just a little cumbersome to always have to examine the ticks to find the timing. Oh well.

Anyway, I've been holding back a bit since I haven't yet tried to work out what the other times are to adjust them yet, and I've also been streaming and all, not to mention wrecked by anxiety over AGDQ. I may be able to do something today with timing the other runs and rules after some real life stuff.

Yeah, I was thinking the same about the categories and solo. L4D2 was actually set up with the same naming scheme, only naming the Co-op category as such, and I was thinking of adding Solo both over there and here.

Oh, I also need to add a version column. There is only Newest and 1.0, right?

Welcome to the community, jabba!

Indeed, the L4D2 section as barely visibly linked above has many resources including a script for voting difficulty, although it is very easy to bind it yourself without it to whatever key you'd like. I should probably port some of the guides and resources over here.

Firstly, two of the difficulties are named differently internally than what you see them as for some reason. When binding to change difficulty, it is "Easy" for Easy, "Normal" for Normal, "Hard" for Advanced, and "Impossible" for Expert.

There are two ways to change it. One is the way you mentioned, for example, "z_difficulty Impossible" will change the server difficulty immediately to Expert, but you need to be hosting the server to do this and it isn't an allowed command to use during a run (I use it only for resets).

The other way is by voting difficulty, which is the accepted way we handle changing difficulty and campaigns. The command is "callvote changedifficulty Easy/Normal/Hard/Impossible" choosing whichever difficulty you'd like. Be sure to capitalize the first letter in each difficulty name, if you don't do so the vote that pops up will display an error of "%s1" instead of the actual difficulty name.

You can copy/paste what MrFailzz wrote and change the key after bind to whatever you want to use. I have a toggle like that myself. Or you can split it and put different callvotes on different keys if you want to always have one call a specific difficulty. That is up to you.

I'm not sure why binding to certain keys wouldn't be working. Perhaps it was an error in how you were writing the binding out? See how using MrFailzz's recommendation works out and feel free to report back if it still isn't working.

Also note that the leaderboards here are under renovation and still require rules, guides, resources, and the times currently submitted need updating. I just got control recently and am gearing up for AGDQ 2017 so I haven't gotten to ironing it all out just yet. If you submit anything, we are going to use the loadless timing method as seen on the L4D2 leaderboards, so for now you can refer to the rules and guide there to learn more about how runs will be timed once I get that finalized over here.