Hi everyone,

There has been talk on the Discord server of banning the use of emulators. I would greatly appreciate it if everyone shared their opinions and provided reasoning here on what I should change the rules to.

Some things to think about: should we ban emulator use only for runs under a certain time? Should emulators be allowed for ILs but not full game runs? Should we ban emulator use only in the future, or should we remove all past emulator runs?

Again, I want everyone to share their opinions. Even if you are a lurker here, please leave your opinion.

I think separating runs the way SM64 does (into console, emu, and VC) would be the best way. I don’t think it would be fair to remove runs that people have worked so hard on (like ILoveSMB’s)

I don't think we should remove past emulator runs either.

There are two reasons I don't like the idea of separating the runs like in SM64. For one thing, newcomers to the community wouldn't know how much time advantage VC and emu have and wouldn't know how the runs compare. For example, someone not knowing about the loading times might see ILSMB's PB and think that's better than all the DS runs, which isn't fair to the DS runners. Or they would totally ignore the VC and emu times, which isn't fair to those runners. My other reason is that there aren't enough VC and emu runs to make competitive leaderboards; I think everyone deserves to be on the same leaderboard so they can know what place they rank.

VC is still a release of the game on a Nintendo console. Emu is basically someone's custom made console that can also run the game. I will also stand by not removing any current runs and just looking to the future. It would be particularly unfair to people who were told that emu was allowed and then it's like hey, surprise, we changed our minds. The point of the rule change is to make the runs featured on the leaderboards more legitimate and NOT to punish runners. I will also say this: I am not a fan of any "under a certain time"-type rules. Everyone should be held to the same standard regardless of their current standing. Having consistent rules is pretty important after all. Same goes for ILs. We should strive for fair and equal application of the rules. On the topic of separating VC from ds runs: I'm not strictly against it but I also believe it deserves its own thread and shouldn't be lumped into this discussion. Let me also describe some of the advantages afforded by an emulator in an effort to add some relevant information to the discussion. Allowing the use of keyboard controls gives the player the ability to both mash more quickly and do frame perfect turnarounds, something that is nearly impossible on a dpad. It also allows them to adjust the firmware settings in order to get better rng manipulation. Now, nobody has actually done this yet but let's not give them the opportunity. In addition, we allow (and encourage) people to submit webcam footage of their consoles. It's actually much harder to fake than raw game footage. As it stands, someone could create a tool assisted run in an emulator and submit it as an RTA time. As far as we know, this hasn't happened yet but we technically don't know for sure. Lastly, I want to bring up something that I don't think anyone here has considered. Allowing emulators encourages people to illegally download the game. Think about it. According to US law, downloading a videogame ROM from the internet in order to play it is illegal. There is some debate over whether it's ok if you've already bought the game but the truth is we can't be sure that our runners are using legitimately obtained copies. That might not matter to many people but the folks at Nintendo worked very hard on this game and I hate to see people depriving them of revenue. The main argument for allowing emu seems to be that it's much easier to stream but since the game came out on wiiuvc, this isn't true anymore. All you have to do is hook up a capture card to your console. Not only that but finding a physical copy isn't an issue anymore (not that it ever was), since the game can be downloaded from the Nintendo eShop. In fact, streaming wiiu footage is much easier on your CPU considering most capture cards support DirectShow and your PC doesn't have to worry about running the emulator, which can take up significant resources. Obviously I will support the will of the mods but in the end I'll feel a lot better about the integrity of these leaderboards if they go with a game-wide ban on emulators moving forward.

Then what are we going to do about ilsmb?

If I change the rules, I won't be deleting past runs done on emulator.

I'm fine with that.

I’m extremely iffy when it comes to emu/VC runs because I have no experience in the technical side of this game, and so I can’t say anything tech-related things for certain. However, what I understood from the discussion so far is that emulator runs are unreliable for accurate timing, even with the built-in recording feature. No matter the player's skill level, it’s unfair to both the player and the rest of the runners to have their times be inflated/deflated just because of their PC capabilities. VC, I find, is perfectly acceptable since it’s an official hardware with mostly the same controls from the original DS (correct me if I’m wrong) with uniform load times. We can time the load differences for all categories at some point. Another issue with emulator, like lakitu said, is that it allows for a series of inputs that are otherwise impossible on original game. Overall, I personally think that there aren’t many legitimate reasons for future runs to be done in emu because 1) webcam recordings are perfectly fine under our current rules(not just on OG, but even on VC!), 2) load time differences fluctuate way too much, and 3) getting your hands on either OG or VC isn’t exactly the most difficult task. (It’s one of the best-selling games of all time, after all. Not just in terms of DS games)

Of course, I strongly disagree with deleting emu runs from the past.

As for separating the leaderboards, I don’t have much issue with it so long as we create tabs for "all", "OG" and "VC" with the "all" being the default. I don’t know if you can have tabs for "all" AND its subcategories simultaneously though; we're gonna have to work that out. Main issue I have, like Wal said, is that the "VC" tab might not have enough runners to accurately indicate the relative placement of participants.

tl;dr: future emu runs should be banned, VC are fine. Splitting the leaderboards is ok, so long as we have the "all runs" tab along with it

AndreMH said had an interesting point. I strongly agree with the leaderboard separation, if it is possible, to an ''all'' ,which would add the loading times (just as the current leaderboard), an OG tab and a VC tab. However, I don't think banning later emulator's runs is a good idea. If runners have a slower computer, they can only be disadvantaged. If the current loading time of 50 seconds is calculated without lags, I don't see any problem if anyone wants to run NSMB on emu and, at the end, loose time because of slower loadings. I really hope my opinion is clear, Don't mind the English mistakes.

I'm gonna focus on ILSMB's post for a moment because he's the only one so far to offer a dissenting opinion. I also want to make something immediately clear: load timing is absolutely not the issue. We have the ability to accurately time out loads on any console, including emulators. I also want to point out, for anyone unaware, that ILSMB himself runs on emu and is a little biased in his opinion on the matter. He claims that we would lose a lot of runners, but if you actually think about it, that shouldn't even be a factor in the decision. At the end of the day what matters most is the integrity of the game. People will either switch to doing console runs or leave. That is completely up to the individual runners. What ILSMB is really asking is "is it worth alienating members of our community" and to that I would have to respond "we're not alienating anyone". Runs will not be removed, and people can just switch to doing runs on console or they won't and we can't control that. What we can control is the fairness of the rules and the quality of the runs displayed on the leaderboards. And something not so readily apparent that still must be considered is the cost of NOT having emulators banned. It means that anyone who's dedicated enough could submit a fake time and we would never know. It would sit there right next to all the legitimate console runs and there wouldn't be anything we could do about it. Not to mention the incredible ease with which runs can be spliced. Having access to savestates means redoing a segment is only a keypress away. Lastly, I'd like everyone to consider ILSMB's statement "I think we should try to accommodate, not reject." While this sounds good in principle, this kind of thinking leads to an incredibly slippery slope if you're willing to follow it through to its logical conclusion. If you actually apply that principle as it's started, then it can be used to justify things such as not requiring video evidence because we're "accommodating" people who can't record. The slippery slope goes in both directions too. If we allow emus then what's to stop someone from using whatever console they want to run the game? Not all emulators are created equal. How do you judge which ones should be allowed and which ones shouldn't? The answer is none of them should be allowed because none of them are completely accurate to the original. So I understand why ILSMB would say that but I don't think he really believes it. It's a misguided argument at best and a disingenuous one at worst. And I'll reiterate one more time: VC doesn't have anything to do with the current discussion and trying to group everything together just muddles the issue. It's very possible that vc runs will get separated from ds runs in the future but right now we're dealing with the more immediate issue of emulated runs.

About splicing, isn't it as easy as in other games? If it is, how do other communities deal with it?

@PainPita whenever emulators are used it becomes that much easier to submit non-RTA runs. Most speedrun communities have not banned them however. It would be a bold and, in my opinion, necessary move for us to do so.

I think emulator runs should be done live with a controller cam, or with some form of controller cam, as there have been a lot of instances of TAS runs being called out for unmatching controller cams. Alternatively, split emulator runs into another category as suggested above, or leave them be. Unless they're getting WR runs I dont see much reason for concern.

Wah suggested having a separate leaderboard for nsmbs emu and I guess that could work. The only thing is it would mean moving all the current emu runs. But it makes sense since I think everyone can agree that it's not fair to compare emu and console runs.

So I was thinking about it earlier today and developped a little bit my point of view since I really don't think this discussion should be over yet.

First of all, even if no one pointed this subject out, I don't think that doing a democratic vote is good for the following reason: the most popular option may not be the best option. The most rational decision is needed, and I deeply think that this point isn't arguable.

Then, trying to be as rational as possible, I changed my mind. Emulators should be banned and the runs already done removed, and in a perfect world, this would apply to every game. Playing illegally the game should make any run invalid. (same for mine done on a cartridge with 70 games on it)

Is this being rational, or is this being alienated by what I've been told by the laws? Anyway, the discussion isn't over and we must be rational to find the best solution to this problem.

Sincerly, PainPita

a separate leaderboard would be more appropriate