Hello fellow Chroniclers!

I am happy to see that we have recently had some new runners for this game! Welcome to the community everyone!

I feel like this is a good opportunity to reach out and discuss some possible rule changes and/or additions that, in my opinion, will help provide a stronger ruleset for the game moving forward. I also wanted to provide the opportunity for the community to give their 2 cents on some of these different ideas, so here we are!

I don't want this to be a crazy, longer-than-it-already-is post, so please be advised that there will be a 2nd forum thread dedicated exclusively to the biggest discussion piece. Please be sure to check that one out as well.

FRIENDLY REMINDER: SOFT RESET & NEW FILE CREATION FOR EACH ATTEMPT

I should have created a forum thread to share this rule back when I made it a year ago, and I don't think I did, so I apologize for not putting it out there more publicly, but as of last year, all submissions should show a soft reset of the game, followed by the creation of a new game file. To clarify, this means entering the name of a brand new file every time (even if its just "........" each time). As an example, I recommend checking out any of AgentWyvern's recent submissions. I added this rule so that we could be 100% certain that no RNG values from an already-created file potentially carry over to the next attempt. I (we?) do not yet know if this is the case with Chronicles, but it feels like a best practice we could adopt until we at least know more. Please make sure you include the soft reset and new file creation for every video submission.

Full Disclosure: I made a very honest mistake when verifying JupiterClimb's recent runs and forgot about this very rule. I have reached out to Jupiterclimb about this. He plans on continuing to optimize all the categories he has submitted for and understands the new rule now, so I am going to keep his times up for now in good faith that he will beat those times and include the file creation for future submissions.

PROPOSED RULE CHANGE: BGM AND SE

As of right now, the BGM and SE are allowed to be turned off if a runner wanted to do so. It is well known that turning off the BGM and SE saves a substantial amount of time throughout the run. IIRC it was about 45-50 seconds when I was running on my US disc on a PS3.

Some good conversations I've had on Discord allowed me to think about this: If somebody were to come around and sweep the leaderboards with very optimized times to the point that turning off BGM and SE would become mandatory to compete with said time, then it could potentially make the viewing/streaming/grinding experience less enjoyable. In turn, I also believe that it could turn people off from running the game in the future.

I propose that we change the rule for BGM and SE to be "ON" for all categories and for game audio to be included in the submission. Let me know what you all think about this. I think most of us agree to use BGM and SE anyway, but I want to hear from you.

OK, PART 2 is coming within the next couple of days! Thanks for reading everyone and stay tuned!

Remember when I said PART 2 in the next couple of days? Oops. This time I mean it!