@The_Stellar As long as its somewhere that people can access via the boards here on SRDC, and they don't have to join the Discord to find out that kind of info, thats more important imo. I joined the discord recently, but because the server uses a bot that is asking me to verify on a website, and considering the issues with impersonation bots doing this to get peoples' accounts or other details, I left without verifying myself, meaning this information might not be accessible to all runners who don't want to verify with bots of this nature, if indeed that information is posted on Discord.

I guess I am just of the opinion that the category/game rules are the best place to put as much information about what is and isn't allowed for a run to be valid, because its likely the first place people are going to check before guides, resources, or discord servers. At least, this is something I do before deciding to get involved with a speedrun community, but I suppose not everyone does that :D

@Slysonic sorry for talking a while to reply to your post, that sounds ok, but maybe something more like the below quote blocks (as one section, the quote feature doesn't seem to work very well on here) would work better, as it explains why emulators were previously banned [inaccuracies in emulation], why they're still banned [due to OpenGOAL], and what the emulators can be used for (this can easily be copypasted to TPL and Jak 2 boards, with some minor corrections).

Emulators are certainly likely to be useful from a "practice" point of view, especially for any runners who either don't have the requisite console (PS3), can't acquire a copy of the game (somehow) or aren't ready to use the OpenGOAL project due to not being good enough, but I can agree its probably not a good idea to allow emulator runs yet on the main boards, and since there's OpenGOAL, it probably won't be necessary.

Emulators were banned for Jak 3, due to previous inaccuracies in the primary emulators used to run the games (PCSX2 and RPCS3). Although these emulators have become far more accurate in recent times, we've taken the decision not to allow speedrun submissions that are done on emulator software. This is not due to the previous reason, but because the main games (Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Jak 2: Renegade, and Jak 3) have become available on PC thanks to the dedicated work of the OpenGOAL project.

The OpenGOAL project allows players to have an identical console experience on PC, without any of the minor speedups you gain from emulation tools, but also provides additional speedrunner-friendly functionalities. These are covered in their own boards, with the Jak 3 board here: linktotheboard

Emulators can be used for new runners as a form of practice platform for all tricks (as any tricks, glitches and the like will all be possible on OpenGOAL when you decide to submit formal runs), but you cannot submit a time to this board that was based on the use of an emulator. Times on this board are for original hardware devices only, and we will continue to invalidate runs.

@Slysonic these are all fair points and makes a lot of sense. Personally, I thought the original PS2 copies were no longer easily obtainable since the PS3 HD Collection, but as you say, the popularity of the game probably means there are enough copies out there, alongside the not-so-great emulated version on PS4, where this isn't likely to be an issue.

I wonder then, if it might be a good idea for this kind of reasoning to be put on the category boards, just so newer runners can understand the logic behind why the emulators are banned on the main boards. That way, its easy for people to find without hunting through forum threads that may get deleted later, and also reduces any chance of people asking the question in future, as I've seen this being asked on the TPL/Jak 2 forum boards from time to time, so having the info in an easy to find place helps runners overall. :)

@DatBoiiJord that would be interesting! I'll have to take a look at the Hoverless board, that may just be the glitchless / No Major Skips board that I'm used to seeing elsewhere :D

Hey @Slysonic thanks so much for the detailed reply!

So from what I'm gathering, the reason emulators were banned was just because of the inaccuracy of them at the time, and they're now only currently banned (on the main boards) because of the open-source decompilation project.

Since they have been allowed on the Jak X board, I am curious as to whether that means there's scope for emulators to be allowed on the main boards. At the moment, the open-source projects are their own separate game boards, which means currently with the emulator ban (and the guides saying PS3 is the best version to run), eventually the main game boards are liable to die off as nobody will be able to run the original game (outside of a poor emulated version on PS4 or somehow having the original CD's for hardware PS2) and eventually, the HD Collection will vanish into the ether. While that seems very unlikely to happen, it does limit the number of runs that can happen.

I have not done any runs in the game yet, mainly because I am so bad at the games that it takes me hours (and often days) just to complete one of the games lol, and thus probably my opinion is not too important in this, but if emulators are much more accurate these days, I feel there's scope to allow emulator runs so people have freedom to keep running Jak games, long after the fact (and effectively means the boards are infinitely supported if people want to). Plus, someone might not necessarily want to use the open-source projects (I don't mind using them, though I'd rather do runs in future with the original game)

I do recognise the open source projects are naturally the place for speedrunners just due to it better supporting speedrunning stuff that you mentioned, but I do think having emulators be allowed would be beneficial to the community (including other runners from other communities). Whether that happens now or in the future, thats for the community to decide, but this helps a lot with my understanding of the communities' direction.

Hey @DatBoiiJord thanks a bunch. I had a look at the Category Extensions, but there does not seem to be a Glitchless category for Jak 3 (or any of the other Jak boards), which I do find a bit surprising since thats often a staple in most boards (alongside the Glitched Any% and Hundo boards). I assume that a submission to All Missions without using glitches would just be accepted normally, even if it would never be possible to WR it?

Perhaps a separate discussion worth having as to why there's no Glitchless/No Major Skips category, as it feels a bit weird that there isn't one, considering all the glitches that exist in Jak games haha.

Hi folks, just a couple of questions regarding this category:

1. Is All Missions basically a glitchless category? I couldn't find a category in any of the Jak boards for "Glitchless", but the description of All Missions sounds like a glitchless board (I assume this logic would apply to the previous Jak games of TPL and Jak 2).

2. Is there a guide for All Missions? The link in guides does not work (URL times out), if that could be fixed to point to the aforementioned google doc, that would be great.

TIA for any help on this :)

Hi folks, making this a separate thread. I observed that the rules ban emulators, and thats fine if this is a position that is being taken on the boards, but I cannot find a thread anywhere in any of the boards (Jak TPL, Jak 2, or here) as to why they are banned: the rules just say that they are banned, and I've only found vague comments in some threads which don't sound convincing.

Does anyone have a link to the decision making that led to emulators being banned, or is this something worth reviewing (ie its an old decision where people just banned emulators and didn't review further)? I note that the guides hint towards the PS3 HD Collection being the better version to run (faster loads, all the same glitches are present etc), but obviously the PS3 is harder to come by and buying games from the PS3's PSN Store is a bit of a pain to handle nowadays.

Emulators for the PS3 version are obviously very WIP and unstable, but PCSX2 for the PS2 copy is relatively stable and is at lesat a better proposition than using the PS4 ISO copies; however, I can't do any runs for the game (or TP + Jak 2) because of the emulator ban [I don't have the ability to bring my consoles to the computer, nor to capture them: I also only have the HD Collection, so it would be the only thing I could run in any case].

TIA for any replies on this one. :)

Hi folks, just a couple of questions regarding this category:

1. Is All Missions basically a glitchless category? I couldn't find a category in any of the Jak boards for "Glitchless", but the description of All Missions sounds like a glitchless board (I assume this logic would apply to the previous Jak games of TPL and Jak 2).

2. Is there a guide for All Missions? The link in guides does not work (URL times out), if that could be fixed to point to the aforementioned google doc, that would be great.

TIA for any help on this.

EDIT: Jinxed with Paulmall lmao.

Just to bump this thread, I chatted with the mods on the Croc discord and the change was made to allow most emulators and remove the restriction that you must use ePSXe. Game rules have been updated to confirm that people are all good to submit runs with any other emulator you prefer, staying within the general confimes of most speedrunning rules (so no cheats, use of a specific widescreen hack [does not mean display aspect ratio], using a save state or macro etc). :)

Hi folks. I recently made an account on the site, as I'm looking to get into speedrunning in my free time. Probably nothing advanced like true Any% runs with glitches, but mostly glitchless/No Major Skips. One of those runs I wanted to do -- at some point -- was this game (Any% No Hovers), since I can treat it as a No Major Skips run, however I note the ruleset of this game requires that for emulators, it can only be ePSXe.

In general nowadays, ePSXe is widely considered to be a bad tool for PS1 emulation. At the time these boards were made, it was likely the only decent emulator despite its inaccuracies, but since then, new emulation tools have been released: DuckStation being the notable one for Windows. Newer emulators like DuckStation are much more accurate than ePSXe (DS also doesn't have any of the audio popping issues that plague ePSXe), which has been abandoned for years and receives no further updates.

From my perspective, it does not seem to be sustainable for the long-term future of speedrunning for the game to encourage use of an outdated and mostly inaccurate emulator, but changes to the rules would require the vote of speedrunners and this game moderators. I also can't recommend other speedrunners to play this game because they also don't use ePSXe, thus any run they do would be rejected for using an invalid emulator. From my perspective, I'm no longer using ePSXe and have fully moved to DuckStation, and thus I cannot run this game on emulator and have it submitted here due to the ruleset requiring that I must use ePSXe.

So my thread here is about whether the community should consider updating the ruleset in order to make it more likely that new speedrunners, such as myself, can submit their runs using a more updated tool. I note the previous thread made a few years ago suggested this, but nothing has changed since then. Additionally, it seems that only one of the moderators is active within the game, so that hinders some progress I feel....

Thanks all. ^_^

EDIT: I suppose this could be a good time to review the rules for the game: by having some set standards for the game, then individual category rules, just so those are kept separate for consistency.