I have no idea how this procedure works on this site so hopefully I'm not barking up the wrong tree, but I have been toying with the idea and would like to request moderator status. This is the most serious speedrunning I've done thus far, and by far the most I've been and possibly ever will be involved in a speedrunning community. I care about this game and the series has always been one of my favorites, dating all the way back to launch when I spent hours in Versus daily honing my high pounces and rock throws. I never knew back then how great it was to speedrun, and now here we are...

I'd say it's a fair statement that I am pretty deeply involved in speedrunning this game and working with its community currently. My list of accomplishments up to now would include submitting (with deagle) the campaign voting script, creating handy speedrunning tutorials to teach new players (thanks for the co-op help, Scibsj!), streaming it very often inspiring an influx of new runners (this also led to an autosplitter, thanks bill_play3!), pushing WR's low enough to encourage removing load times so it's fairer for everybody to compete, finding many tricks and optimizations / figuring out how to set up known tricks, and working hard on making sure the new custom campaign categories are the best they can be along with, of course, the others that are helping find and experiment with campaigns as well.

If elected as your new moderator, there are a few things I would like to improve. All ideas are encouraged to be discussed and argued against, for, or changed. Any moderator could enact these currently, but since I am very active I may as well go for it if we're all in agreement, and I can help to accept runs and make other changes now and into the future as I don't plan to be going anywhere. Regardless, I'd still like to toss around these proposed changes anyway. I would like to...

• Maybe remove the "Platform" column to reduce clutter? Darkossz proposed removing consoles originally, realistically consoles will not be able to compete and nobody is running them now nor would I really expect anybody to in the future. Definitely open to discuss this, however, since many other games have platform differentiation even if nobody submits anything but PC. Pretty much there for completion's sake.

• Add a difficulty column that is based on the lowest difficulty played in the run, so submitting things like Expert becomes viable and will essentially have its own leaderboard by sorting via difficulty. Expert doesn't change a lot, but there is no denying the sheer volume of spectators that feel the lowest difficulty is cheap. I've been saying recently that speedrunning is half a spectator sport, so I think there is value in running on the highest difficulty to say you've run the game at the most it has to offer. Unsure if Realism should fit in anywhere? Might warrant more discussion.

• Modify the rules to explain the new loadless method, particularly mentioning in co-op that the timer resumes on the first person loaded in. Also a brief mention on how to submit difficulty assuming that column is added.

• Work on converting more top times to loadless, and see what the boards do if all legacy times are moved to the with loads column. This will be reverted if it makes things weird but I want to try because it's inaccurate as it is right now.

• Reorder the version number dropdown in submissions so default is Newest (most likely choice for newbies) and it descends in order they are likely to be used. If the platform choice is kept, also reorder that so PC is default since it's easy to make the mistake and leave it PS3 right now.

• Create nifty icons to replace the first through third place trophies? I've always wanted unique ones that relate to the game like they do with Super Mario 64 and stuff, definitely up for ideas on what would be cool.

No matter which way we go with any of this, I just want to take a moment to thank you guys all around here for being involved and for sticking with me in stream all this time, helping build viewership and keep my sanity through countless Sacrifice Solo restarts. There is no way I could have ever predicted how involved and how far I'd get before I started early this year and it's been a good ride thus far. <3

I wouldn't have an issue if you were moderator given your activity and obvious interest in the game. I'd be open to discussing any of those proposed ideas in greater length as well.

Thanks! Feel free to discuss any of the ideas here since it's where I've placed them, regardless of how things go I'd still like to get opinions on some of it.

Since no one mentioned anything else on this thread, I guess that it needs more opinions. I totally agree with Cyberdemon: Master is quite active and has a lot of interest in the game. The ideas brought up are pretty nifty, like making the rules on the timing clear and the 1st-3rd place icons. He would be a good mod for this game.

as long as you don't build a wall to keep all the LMOE/scripted runs out while making the runners pay for it im perfectly fine with voting for you breh

also an idea for the placement icons could be that "4" icon from the game launcher but colored bronze, silver and gold

Nah, the LMOE wall was just a campaign promise, nobody ¤really¤ expected me to carry through with it. We all know DarootLeafstorm is never going to pay seconds for it, and what am I to do, tax other hard-working runners their seconds? That'd cause civil war! Anarchy! In seriousness, though, I may as well answer since people know I am not exactly a fan of the LMOE of scripted categories, but they won't be going anywhere. I wouldn't want to make DarootLeafstorm (Treescrub) a sad panda.

Anyway, thanks, guys! Icon-wise I have some ideas to play around with and when I get a good chance I'm going to throw some sets together to post here to see how they look when they're tiny. So far the ideas are...

Common/Witch/Tank - Probably a bad idea that won't look good small, but eh... might as well see how it goes.

Molotov/Pipe/Bile - Generally the order of importance you want them in from a speedrun, with molotov = bronze and pipe = silver working pretty well. Bile it falls apart a bit, maybe color it gold? Then we basically have Jarate...

L4D hand showing 3/2/1 fingers - MrFailzz's idea, I quite like this one if it looks alright when it's small. Might try a set with its regular green color and a set with each hand colored for its placing in case the green isn't obvious.

L4D "4" icon - Not bad, I wonder if the number could be changed to 3/2/1? Might be weird to have a "4" in there when it's meant for top three placing, even if it's colored. I'll try some variations of this too.

As for the loadless times, an alternate to shifting them to the with loads columns, assuming it doesn't work which I don't expect it to, is to just mirror the times for now so it's more obvious. Over a long period of time into next year I would like to update them here and there until many are done since there are some close to each other that might unfairly shift around without loadless being calculated. Unfortunately, any runs without an available video will have to be left alone, hopefully it isn't too many.

Wow, alright, I didn't realize those icons were 16 x 16, that really is limiting options... the L4D2 launch icon colored bronze/silver/gold is actually my favored one so far, I think. It looks like it's too small for the hand with the fingers but I'll go forward with it anyway because it's close. Common/Witch/Tank I'm definitely not even trying.

Geez this thing is small.

Spammy triple post time rather than edit in case anybody has already seen the previous posts.

I started on the icons and sort of got on a roll... an hour flying by later and here we are. Looking for any opinions you guys can give, more ideas, or any icons you think are definitely good. Surprisingly, the detailing isn't too bad... the throwables got a bit lost, especially the golden bile, but the hand is respectable. Personally, I'd say both the L4D "4" colored and the hand seem like decent choices. First image is a collage of the large versions so you know what it's supposed to look like, the second is a collage of the properly-sized icons.

http://imgur.com/P7mr5Us

http://imgur.com/l8rKihs

The hand looks the best to me, also, I may just get back into scripted runs just to get decent times and show you up. Maybe make it gold, silver, and bronze jockeys in memory of all runs ruined by jockeys?

the L4D symbol looks the best to me so far. maybe color the silver one a bit darker just so you can see the 4 a bit better? not really necessary but an idea for it

3, 2, 1 looks best, easier to tell what it is at a glance.

The Master as Mod 2016 Make L4D2 Speedruns Great Again

Thanks for the opinions!

Bronze/Silver/Gold Jockeys would be great, but unfortunately the detail of the Jockey is going to get lost just as the throwables did. There just aren't enough pixels to do anything but the simplest thing, we're lucky the hand even worked out as well as it did, really.

Time for another collage, I colored the silver a bit darker, removed the throwables, and added new variants that I like to call "bloodier" which has more of the blood trail on the left so it's a bit more obvious that it's supposed to be based on the L4D symbol. I think this is probably the last I can think to do with it, so likely one of these sets will be the winner. I'd love to get them uploaded to see how they look on the page, too.

http://imgur.com/UJB6UN8

i think i still prefer the colored '4" symbols, but the newer version of the 3,2,1 with the red background doesn't look bad too. not sure which of the colored 4 symbol set i prefer

colored 4 symbols look the best imo

Cool so if I just go a head and mod TheMaster no one is going to oppose it right? Hes obv the most qualified as of late spez: just went ahead and modded him I know I should make this a community decision but lets be real he deserves it.

Hey pixel, thanks, much appreciated, as well as the support from all of you! There does seem to be quite a bit of support here including from Cyberdemon so hopefully it's alright. I'll do you guys proud. I'll try and work on the rules when I get the chance, they are due for an overhaul with everything that has changed lately. I think I'll also make a changelog thread to keep a history and transparency of whatever changes I've made, that might be a good idea.

tfw im the only non supermod :( :( :(

In fact i don't why everyone is supermod :LOL:

Huh, so you aren't... the only difference between Supermod and Mod that I've read is that Supermods can appoint new mods. If you trust them to not wreck the leaderboards, you can hopefully trust them to not appoint somebody else that will wreck the leaderboards, I guess?

Really, we don't need Supermods besides some active people in case new mods are necessary in the future, and at the same time it doesn't really matter if everybody is a Supermod either. It doesn't seem like a problem to just bring Cyberdemon in to the lame red sword hilt club?

You'll lose your cool loner status, you green-hilted rebel. Way to conform.

To be honest I like the little green sword hilt better than red. I wish there were blue, though. Blue is the best.