This is a vote thread regarding the potential banning of clearly non-legit uses of memory monitoring, for example: copcar "lockedness" monitor for GTA3, other RNG monitoring and so on.

The options are: 1 - rules should not change at all (right now they don't mention memory monitoring so technically everything is legit) 2 - put "if it can be done with pen and paper, allow it" in the rules, applied to memory monitoring (so that 100% checklist and autosplitters are still fine) 3 - rules should include banning memory monitoring altogether

You can include your reasoning in the post if you want to.

2

edit: I agree on rephrasing it, was gonna give it a mention but I didn't think it was relevant to the poll.

3 - it is the purest rule and the checklist and autosplitters are for show anyways.

Oh and #2 needs to be rephrased because it sounds kinda silly.

2

2 is fine by me as long as we have it written explicitly in the rules

2

2

1

To be honest this entire discussion is pointless. If someone decides to 'cheat', he will just do it, no matter if it's banned or not. At the moment there's no way to prove that you're not reading memory with some evil intentions. And even if we made program to check for others application that are accessing GTA's memory, it could be easily fooled by anone who really cares. None of the runs could be verified unless it's done on LAN party with different speedrunners who can prove that no suspicious software was running at that time. Adding a rule which mentions memory watching will only encourage people to use it. I guess that most of the runners are not really aware of this and when they see an additional rule, they may get interested in memory watching. But if you HAVE TO force this ban, I vote for option number 2.

The fact that it's not addressed in the rules means that it's allowed. That must change, in my opinion. I can't imagine people developing these tools just to cheat, especially that we are supposed to have trust in each other in the community. It's just a necessary formality, so we don't have the same conversation in the IRC about it again.

3

because the stats menu is a thing for a reason

2

2

EDIT: The pen and paper suggestion stems from a similar question about Hearthstone deck trackers, which would track which cards you had drawn from you deck, letting you know what was left and therefore what chance you had to draw the card you wanted.

The lead designer of Hearthstone said: "any app that duplicates what you can do with a pencil and paper already is fine." https://twitter.com/bdbrode/status/511151446038179840

The point here is that, you CAN write down everything you had already drawn, but it would be a pain in the ass. While trackers like this do provide an advantage (less to think about, less time writing shit down in the pen/paper case) it's an ACCEPTABLE advantage, like someone having a slightly faster PC or a lower response time screen. Your never going to get 100% even playing field.

EDIT 2: It obviously needs to be rephrased

2

There is a very clear line between an autosplitter/a checklist and things like a program checking for things you can't actually observe without doing it in the game and therefore giving you an advantage. The former does not actually help you to get a good time (and please don't try to argue that they do, it's silly) while the latter is just blatantly cheating. Usually these kinds of things need to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Pidgeonholing everything just avoids a proper discussion and leaves a lot of people unsatisfied.

However, pitpo brings up a good point. There is no way to actually check if somebody used these kinds of things in a run. It might be obvious for the few applications it has available right now, but might be less so for things which could be found in the future. Looking for "suspicious behaviour" or making false accusations can lead to witch huntings in no time, we need to be careful about that.

Since this is about the wording of the rules I don't think leaving it completely unadressed is a good idea either. Therefore I vote for #2, even though I think rephrasing it is probably a good idea.

I don't use an autosplitter, or a checklist, so I vote 1 Kappa Serious now, the pen and paper explanation sounds reasonable, I see #2 as most sensical, so I vote for it.

Fatzke has already mentioned most of my thoughts on the matter.

Having said that, if the e.g. 100% routes ever change to the point where nonlinearity is necessary and tools like the checklist would provide additional insight beyond just being nice for stream viewers (but useless to the runner), I would be in favour of banning it.

I'm not a fan of the phrasing for option 2, since technically almost anything could be done on pen and paper (e.g., you can have an RNG table along with the printed out code and figure out whether at time X a car is going to be locked or not).

Considering that the discussion started off as one about runs being tool assisted, the widespread use of programs like wsplit or livesplit have already made them that. I'm not in favour of outright banning all useful tools for speedrunners (that let them know when they should reset and thus lets them complete higher quality runs). I don't believe that autosplitters or the GTA3 and VC checklist provide any insight that would result in a better run than if the run had been performed without said programs.

I would like to vote for a more narrowly defined version of 2; i.e., allow the use of autosplitters and the checklist as long as they provide no advantage beyond just being nice for streams/recordings.

2. I'm unsure of how the rules should be worded for this, but as long as runs can be separated by using an autosplitter for example, and using a banned tool, on a case-by-case basis.

For phrasing. How about whitelisting?

"Every form of memory monitoring is banned except for autosplitters and the 100% checklist."

If one day a third non evil application is written, it can be discussed and added to the list.

There already is a 3rd "non evil app" - overlooked Earleys' MP3 Randomizer (I believe it reads game state from memory)