Hey everyone, sorry for being late to making these changes and not communicating much. Life's been busy. I'll be posting this thread in each game's respective forum so hopefully every runner sees it. If you don't feel like reading, there will be a quick summary at the bottom.

Anyway,

All three Xenosagas will be undergoing a timing change. I prefer to do things democratically, or do what the community in general wants. So after speaking to nearly everyone who has done a run and is still reachable to talk to in some way, starting from New Game was unanimously favored over starting time from Power On.

The timing end rules for English of each game will also be applied to Japanese. Existing times will be adjusted for the timing changes when I have more time to get that done. Or if I get volunteer(s) to help with that.

This is to avoid confusion and to keep things consistent across every version and every platform, as starting from Power On introduces very inconsistent time gains and losses before you even get to start the run proper, as well as English and Japanese being unnecessarily different. I understand why it started from Power On previously, for both old Japanese RTA traditions and to avoid cheating devices being used. However it should be easy to spot abnormally high crit/evade rates, unusual damage values, above average stats, etc. It was also strange to me that Xenosaga was the only series to hold onto Power On timing for English when Xenogears and Xenoblade do not. Again, for consistency and avoiding confusion. No one likes doing it either, at least everyone I've asked regarding this.

For Xenosaga 3 in particular, I am debating combining English and Japanese to the same board. There are only a handful of text boxes in the game that don't skip instantly that I don't see it worth keeping them split. Xenosaga 1 and 2 will remain split due to things exclusive to them such as Xenosaga 1's compatibility with the BB Unit, Xenosaga 1 Reloaded existing, and Xenosaga 2's early Erde Kaiser menu glitch, all of which are JP-only.

Before I do bother combining Japanese and English for Xenosaga 3 (If I do), the last question I need to ask the community is whether or not Turbo should be universally allowed or to remain Japanese-only due to the JP runs that already utilized it. I don't have much against Turbo but I don't want to make every decision if there are conflicting views on it.

I've also added Enel as a mod so that I'm not the only one. Never know when I may not be able to address run submissions and leaderboard stuff, so two mods minimum is good to have.

Summary: -Each game will start from New Game instead of Power On. -Japanese end time will be the same as English across each game. -Existing times will be adjusted for the new timing rules. -Xenosaga 3 may or may not combine the English and Japanese boards. -Should Turbo remain Japanese-only, or be universally allowed or banned? -Enel added as a mod.