Cambridgeshire, EnglandAs a quick update, the video guide is almost done (sorry it's taken so long; enthusiasm has been low). Just the last 2 sections (Fluffy & the Trials, and then the battle with Voldemort) to go.
Unfortunately not. You could have an NTSC PS2, using certain adapters, but it costs a lot of money. It's a bit unfair to emulator users, but it's also wrong to ban the fastest official version. Maybe if we knew the exact load times of both emulator and PS2 FDS and SDS, we could have a loadless-time option to see who's actually fastest, which is calculated by taking off load times - I know Crash: The Wrath of Cortex does this because PS2 is way slower than Xbox and GameCube in terms of loads.
Welcome! FDS (Fast Disc Speed) is the option on PS2 to be able to play PS1 games at PS2's disc speed, which makes loading times much shorter (and possibly reduces lag). I'm not sure of the total time, but theRedhotbr found that, by the end of the intro, Emulator saves ~2 seconds over Standard Disc Speed (PS1's disc speed), but FDS saves ~2 seconds over emulator. We didn't really disallow it, but we were originally unsure how stable it was, so console runners tended to stay on SDS.
With game covers, in the early days of SRDC, they were the same aspect ratio and so, like MLSTRM said, the different formats of box art looked horribly stretched. Also, I find it better with some large and some small, because then, particularly with different leaderboards for different platforms (e.g. any console game with a handheld version), they stand out more against each other.
Anyways, great update, SRDC team. I especially like the new series layout, with the sorting options and everything.
It should be time to sort FDS out, because rules haven't really been set in stone. There were some thoughts a while ago that FDS was unstable, so it would be best to avoid it, but recently it's been shown to be faster than emulator (at least, the intro loading screens totalled to about 2s faster), and stable. I know I've been a bit of a tit about it, but I'd say now that FDS should be allowed; it's official hardware, and if it's faster, that's okay. I guess I've always been for level playing fields, but if it's faster, it should be allowed. What does the rest of the community think?
I'm not sure if FDS has been considered, but I'd say it's allowed, but be warned; console has been known to be unstable (random crashes, etc.), and FDS might amplify this. On the other hand, it may even fix it.
Actually, in many cases, I've seen emulators (ePSXe 1.9 as a standard) accepted for PS1 games, but that might be because PS2 FDS is usually faster than, or at least the same speed as, emulator no matter the inconsistencies, so emulators gain no real advantage.
Sometimes, if the true Any% is completely broken with just one or two tricks (Skyward Sword, I Wanna Be the Boshy 'Wrong Warp'), or with a certain character that completely breaks the game (I Wanna Be The Boshy w/ Sonic), a more popular rule-set for beating the game is named Any% within the community, even if it's actually something else entirely, most likely due to its popularity and that it's more interesting or technical (OoT wouldn't count for this, as the true Any% requires a number of tricks and such that make it an interesting run). TL;DR This is just known as 'Glitched Any%' while it is the true Any%, and 'Any%' is actually Any% No Game-Breaking Glitch. The community just find Any% No Game-Breaking Glitch better so they call it Any%.
Note: there may actually be a different reason due to how the game itself works (NG+ or alternate use of a previously-made file), which I don't know much about. This is just a guess.
Make sure your game isn't too 'Point A to Point B' otherwise you won't get accepted.
Okay, new idea. Sonic Heroes uses Game Time and the community says that a Game Over voids the run. We could do this to the letter, but as this is a much longer game, I'd say that we could use game time, but any resets (or, S+Q) will make it so that RTA has to be used (we can use Japanese RTA timing, which is at the last save of the game, after the credits, so that game-time should be equal if not faster than RTA). With this, though, I'd much rather just make a new subcategory. I just want a way so that the people without capture cards can compete at some level without being suspected as a cheater, instead of their proof being based off splits, which is easily suspicious, but I also don't want to void the current runs.
After thinking over it, there's one major issue I forgot - saving and quitting. The in-game timer can be manipulated by saving and quitting (Edge_rydia's Any% Easy PB's in-game time would be a segmented time). Although, it could help to figure out what the difference is between in-game and real-time when you don't save and quit. This way, it would be easier to verify whether the in-game time seems right or not. If the 3DS has no loading, lag, or frame-rate differences across regions (which, along with most handhelds, should be correct), then RTA and in-game will have the same difference every time. However, this will mean either banning saving and quitting (creating a new Any% NoS+Q) which will mean some current runs are invalid, or in-game time will be irrelevant altogether, as the time submitted will need to compare correctly to RTA, but will not be correct in the proof picture if there was saving and quitting. It's a complicated mess now, so in-game time won't be implemented, unless people agree to no saving and quitting. No-capture-card people will have to go back to submitting splits for now. :/
Hey Half-X, Your misc. categories would be more at home on Level Leaderboards. You just need to add each tournament as a level, and then 'Win the tournament' (or something similar) as the category. Also, could there be a Career World Champion category, where you start from a new file (JPEARCE or no JPEARCE being subcategories) and fight your way to winning the World Championship? It's just a thought, and it would make a good short category in my opinion.
It's in the Level runs section. The Resi mods used the Level Leaderboard format to create pseudo-subcategories before subcategories were a thing.
With your scenario right there, there's a major problem and I feel stupid for not realising it before; subcategories - your main solution - wouldn't be any different from using the filter. If you split PC from SNES, you wouldn't be able to guess if Player S had a better time than Player P, subcategories or filters or neither. Subcategories are literally just another filter, but a more blindingly obvious one because they are one big sign saying "WE SEPARATE THINGS", so your solution is already there; you're just oblivious to it. Not using your common sense SoBayed . You'd only know if Player S is quicker than Player P by actually watching the runs and timing the loads yourself. Side note, so you could group SNES and Genesis together, you could just use a variable of PC or Console.
Plus, even a mong would know that PC would be fastest and so Player P's run wouldn't overshadow Player S at all. But even a mong would know if there are different versions, there are already different leaderboards. Different ways to show people going fast on different versions. Different WRs being obtainable.
Also, back to subcategories being just another filter - for HP1 PS1, the top two runners on the overall leaderboard also have a little competition going on the slower NTSC-J version, where the results are different. The overall WR holder also has a time on PAL, which is slower than the only PAL runner on the overall board. You'd know if you used subcategories. But you'd also know if you filtered. Your splitting solution is already there; do you need a big sign next to the version list saying "WE SEPARATE THINGS TO MAKE IT FAIR FOR RUNNERS WITH DIFFERENT VERSIONS"? And on another point, I have my "Going fast" argument set up already:
Just because the point of speedrunning is to go fast, doesn't mean you need the fastest version. If you're going fast on a slower version, you're still going fast. It doesn't matter if a run is 20 minutes long, or 10 hours long, if you're trying to go fast, you're trying to go fast. Different leaderboards, created by filters, can show that. The 2nd placed runner on the overall HP1 PS1 leaderboard went fast on the NTSC-J version, which goes at a slower speed, but has beaten the overall WR holder's run on that version. If the WR holder can beat 2nd place on the fastest version, but not on a slower version, who is the fastest? Who looks like they have the most skill? NTSC-J is only slower because of cutscenes and text-boxes, so the actual gameplay is the same, so why isn't the WR holder ahead again? Which brings me to my next point:
People care way too much about the status of WR. WR doesn't equal most skilled runner. It just means a runner did well enough (and in a number of cases got lucky enough - see any Pokemon, Final Fantasy, or Yu-Gi-Oh game) to get the fastest on the fastest version so far. And even if you separated versions, using filters or whatever, the fastest time on a single version is just by someone who performed the best in one attempt so far, who could've just got lucky.
Many people are defending the system that is working perfectly fine in their games because you generalized a problem you found in only two games. You suggested to ban every version aside from PC in every game, because you found a problem in two games. Your other suggestion to separate by subcategory is, pretty much but not in the same way, already in place. There's a nice box on multi-platform leaderboards that contains a drop-down list to filter out versions. This is a leaderboard site. Leaderboards matter. Go through everything on many leaderboards (not two), and it will make sense. I hope I caught the bait well, and that you have a nice day in hell. :)
I don't even know why I responded. I think I get easily heated up, especially when it comes to topics close to me (not going to lie, I've felt suicidal a couple of times, including quite recently). I should stop talking. ok, done, bye
I didn't say 'don't care what people think', I said (not literally these words, but this is a summary) 'the only people that really matter are the others in the community' (here's a quote: "The sub-community of the game, who are the only people that can be good peers [critics] to the runner"). So actually, you can care what others think, but only the relevant others that have knowledge of what's going on, not irrelevant random shitters. If people being cyberbullied stopped caring what irrelevant people told them, they wouldn't feel hurt and wouldn't off themselves.
If relevant people were attacking them, that's a tough time, that's the real world, that's real criticism against them, but (I hate to say it) sometimes attackers are right by saying victims need to toughen up a bit and learn off of (relevant) criticism instead of battering themselves over it. Unless the criticism from relevant people is actually just insults with no weight behind them. In that case, words hurt, but then again, so does harming yourself, so that's not a good scapegoat. (I could also go on to a point of how, without feeling negative, you can't properly feel positive - it's just neutral - but I'm waffling on too much).
I apologise for how much I'm sperging out here, but I don't care. And I also apologise for going off on a tangent from the actual 'fastest version' problem. Oh well (I could have also gone on to a philosophical point of how, without feeling negative, you can't properly feel positive - it's just neutral).
I'd be very shocked if John Numbers used drugs to beat Narcissa's old WR. Especially seeming as John Numbers doesn't run OoT, he was the guy who beat Narcissa in the Nintendo World Championship. You mong. Plus, Narcissa's popularity and respect in the community didn't drop simply because someone beat her record; her popularity in only the speedrunning community nowadays has most likely dropped because she doesn't do speedruns as much any more - she mainly streams Smash and Super Mario Maker, with the occasional Goldeneye stream.
