I decided to inquire about it in #gta. I tried it and elaborated on what I had seen Powdinet do before on stream. Turns out you can probably do Taxi Driver in around 20 minutes.

1. Bring a Zebra Cab to the Hyman Condo in Downtown. Save.

2. Save a replay over the minigun rampage in downtown (or whatever nearby rampage you prefer). I'll probably stick to this since it's the closest in location and would reduce risk of load time stuff. Also it fits the best with route changes for me anyway. Wait for four minutes, two for the insta-rampage failing, two for the duping.

3. Load save. Rampage-start taxi, then once you get onto the Trial By Dirt bike, start counting the dupes up from 2 (since this'll reflect how many fares you end up getting). Press F3, then press F1-F3 in very quick succession so that you can cancel the rampage and restart it in this tiny window before Trial By Dirt restarts itself.

This is a pretty quick way I figured you could do it. It may seem inconsistent at first, and yes it is very difficult to get consistently. It's just -really- quick succession with the F1 and F3, but not so quick that you press them at the same time and screw yourself over.

If it starts without a rampage, you're screwed. Load the game and try again.

4. Dupe until you have counted to 50 (or 49). Start taxi and drop off a fare. Return to Hyman Condo and repeat (new replay and all) but with the amount of dupes you'll need to reach 99 fares (otherwise crash [?]).

5. Deliver the final fare. At this point I'd guess you'd want to do the minigun rampage as well regardless of your route.

APPARENTLY doing 100 fares in two sessions works without crashing as well, I'll look into that.

4m (replay) + 2m (duping) + 3m (estimate of worst-case scenario taxi fare and back downtown) + 4m (replay) + 2m (duping) + 1m30 (estimate of worst-case scenario taxi fare) + 1m30 (estimate of worst-case scenario taxi fare) = 18 minutes if you don't fuck up

You could also make one continuous replay for both super-duped Trial By Dirts but that's kinda risky imo, in case you get a super shitty fare, and waiting for long enough to guarantee it to be safe is a time waste.

Video of me failing horrifically and showing that this will actually take practice:

This box is a generic Vice City retail version box that you'd find in the UK, but it should be quite similar throughout regions.

alternate photo:

Notice how on the back, it says "© 2003 Rockstar Games"

This is the back of the box of my Japanese retail Vice City game. This time, notice how it says "© 2002-2004 Rockstar Games, Inc." This makes sense, seeing as the game was released in Japan in 2004. This is why I think that the next image will be very relevant.

Credit for this image goes to jmoyer07 on eBay, who I just bought this version cheap from. I was not aware that there was such a thing as this until I Google'd stuff about different Vice City releases, and "Vice City Jewel Box (2004)" or something along those lines showed up.

Anyway, yeah, notice that this time it says "© 2004 Rockstar Games, Inc." Just like the Japanese version, sorta. Japanese version says 2002-2004 but they both mention 2004. This strikes me as interesting because my own retail international case says "2003-2006" on the back, completely ignoring 2004, while this other English/international jewel case thing only says 2004, as if it's a totally different thing.

It seems to me that anything post-JP has the new SCM crap. The German Green Pepper version was released in 2009, and it functions pretty much the same, as in, the Cherry Poppers instapass works. So I am hoping that it would apply to this English version as well.

TL;DR I bought what may be a slightly different version of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and it might be useful for speedrunning, cause maybe language switch + CP instapass. OneHand

This thread may or may not actually be very actively used but I got an idea for one such optimization and it'd be good to come up with more if not already done.

The Party package pickup (100%):

Basically you want to follow the sidewalk, then begin to slow down and turn towards Lance's house when you see the sharp-ish turn in the sidewalk. Try to grind against the wall, and right before the stairs, turn the slightest bit to the right so you're more likely to get out on the left instead of on the right. Also, if you turn right (which I don't do in the video) you'll be able to drive away faster without having stairs blocking you off perpendicularly.

Vice City Port Authority package speed:

Gonna post it here in case anyone missed it. Basically I used this already known clip and applied it here. You just clip into the mansion, chainsaw Diaz, and then go to some trigger or other in the hallway.

[10:09:47] <mhmdfvc> I've been wondering about something for a while [10:09:57] <mhmdfvc> whether or not campaign runs should require the scenarios to be done in order or not [10:10:13] <mhmdfvc> I did a glory of greece run out of order but it feels odd

Speedruns don't usually stick with what's intended in a game, but to me it doesn't feel right to do the last scenario where your civilization is at the top, and to end it in the first scenario where you're in the Stone Age or something. I have to admit, this may sound like a very dumb argument, but let's go look at the intended scenario order. If you start from a fresh player profile, you have no choice but to do them in that order. Sure, you could just HOME RUN or I R WINNER your way through them all and then do an out-of-order campaign run, and I really don't have a good argument against that, but I don't get the vibe that it really feels "proper". Also, every single campaign run that is up on the AoE series leaderboards has the scenarios done in order as far as I know, so it wouldn't even affect anything currently up.

There could be a rule where you'd be required to create a fresh player profile for campaign runs for every reset past the first scenario so it's less "NG+" or however you want to call it, but I don't see the need for it really. Just an idea that people might wanna think about.

For the other side's sake, free scenario order would allow for more RNG-heavy scenarios to be done earlier on, and would be more convenient for grinding.

Personally I'm in favour of having and enforcing a rule that requires any campaign run to have done the scenarios in order, because, while it's possible to mess with the order for the sake of convenience, it just contradicts the point of the campaign in the first place. I'm not sure how many people who are interested in AoE runs will even see this post but I'll give it a go.

VOTING 1) Add rules for keeping the intended scenario order for campaigns. This does not include doing campaigns "in order" for All Campaigns. 2) Leave it so that the scenario order can be decided on by the runner.

If you have more to add, please do so. I need more opinions.

I'm gonna add them under "ROM hacks / Mods" since they aren't part of the original game/expansion, and they're basically just glorified mods anyway. If you want to be in charge of moderating these, just give me a shout.

Going off of the Wonder Race idea for AoE2, maybe people would be willing to run RM or DM in AoE1. There's no way to generate a fixed seed map (to my knowledge) though, so it'd rely quite heavily on map RNG. Don't feel like elaborating much now, but there's the idea.

So I see there is Story 100% and there is bonus 100%, but there is no Story + Bonus 100%. Is there any reason for there not to be such a category? Otherwise, I think I'd like to do runs of that, and that it'd make sense to add it.

probably isn't consistent and probably won't speed up anything but whatever

http://www.twitch.tv/mhmd_fvc/c/6814841

With this, the definition should include, but should not be limited to: "regular missions", Offroad Missions, Firefighter, Stadium Events, and SSA races. There are also others I haven't tested that I think might bring this value up like Pizza Boy or Paramedic. The only downside of this thingy is that maybe this address is irrelevant somehow, but someone would have to prove to me otherwise first.

gimme yo thoughts please

I saw a few minutes of a CoD1 speedrun and I saw the guy bhopping and wallstrafing, so I tried it in CoD2 as well. Not surprisingly, they were faster than straight-up walking. I made some videos to show just how much faster they are.

Pro: They are both faster (apparently) Cons: It is hard as hell to control bunnyhops, and there are few places where you can wallstrafe for a decent amount of time that I can think of.

Bunnyhopping:

Wallstrafing:

actually, I was hit by a grenade in the wall-strafing example and didn't notice until after I was done editing the video. oh well, it also feels faster anyway so I won't doubt this strat.

Just like the thread for GTA3 Bingo but for Vice City bingo. There is already a bingo program from centuries ago, but I and a few others thought it'd be good to add some new things. For example, some could be inspired from the Super SSA race, or something else ridiculous. Post any one of your ideas here!

So I'm working on an autosplitter. It started out pretty shit and I made a video on the progress but I got it to finally split consistently.

Here's another video of it working:

Basically it's an AutoHotkey script and it reads a couple of memory addresses to know what relevant things are going on, and then it sends the appropriate hotkeys to split the timer. I would make something that hooks into WSplit or something, but that doesn't seem feasible at all. Also I don't use LiveSplit so I won't be bothered making a plugin for it that does this. At least this will be compatible with any timer that supports global hotkeys (read: every timer ever).

I'll post more updates on it here. If anyone reading this wants my shitty work-in-progress version of it, just shoot me a PM on Twitch and I can send you a special customized version, as I have not yet added options for each user to do so.

This is not possible in any other version of the game to my knowledge, so I'm wondering: should this be allowed? Then again, the ICE CREAM MISSION insta-pass is allowed, so I'm not sure. Share your thoughts here.

I never had an Xbox so I never got to play Midtown 3, so I am clueless about the game. If you know about the game, let me know so I can make you a mod.

So when I was in this "all campaigns on hardest difficulty" race, I would find my game crashing quite often when loading certain saves, so naturally I resorted to Google to find some fix for the issue. What I found is that any version of AoE prior to 1.0c (1.0/1.0a/1.0b) and version 1.0 of RoR work totally fine and do not experience these crashes. Upon further investigation, it seems that loading a save that was saved while any projectile is being fired causes a crash upon loading, but using these game versions will prevent such crashes. You don't get to press period to select idle villagers, but it's a good tradeoff, in my opinion. TL;DR: Instead of downgrading you can always just be careful with your saving habits, but downgrading is just for safety's sake.

One issue if you'll run "all campaigns" or just the First Punic War campaign in particular is that it crashes upon starting the campaign in RoR 1.0, but works fine in 1.0a. (designed for 1.0a somehow?) Therefore you can either keep 1.0a and do all campaigns with careful saving (or no saving if you're good), or just save it for last with 1.0 and quickly exit out of the game and patch it, or just have a separate folder for 1.0a for quick switching so you can avoid patching mid-run.

The link for AoE 1.0b (latest version without the glitch) will be in the "Resources" section on the left panel. I think that a fresh install of RoR from any disc will produce version 1.0, including the Gold Edition disc (can check version by going into multiplayer and creating a game room), but in case there's someone with 1.0a on the disc, there will be a "downgrade" in the resources section on the left.

should it be a thing? I know absolutely nothing about GTA2 but from what I know some residential is glitched, and WordOfWind has done glitchless runs before so I'm wondering if it should be added.

ractrot's discovery, afaik.

Pretty fast. Basically you start the first one normally, and for the next four you jump (whilst holding W or S, depending on which way you're facing) and then after some time press F3 quickly thrice and it should work. [done with a 2:27 waiting period after saving the game in the video, though 2:25 also works. 2:26 is the ideal middle-ground between going fast and being safe, imo.]

I find that jumping only when the text (mission instruction) appears is a good way of ensuring it working; while going a few frames earlier may technically work because of the time it takes to jump, it's pretty YOLO and not really worth it. Also, be sure to be pressing F3 quickly in succession to give a higher chance of it working, though that might require SSD or RAM Disk.

Another tip for getting this consistently is to make the jumps a bit on the edge of the marker rather than closer to the middle. This gives you more leeway for pressing F3 and this makes this a HELL of a lot more consistent.

IGT is no more. OneHand