Hello,
I'm a Worms Armageddon speedrunner and in the last week I've started learning how to run Worms 2 as well. I bought a copy on GOG, but it did not seem to work with my Windows 10 PC at all. I looked up possible solutions and found Worms 2 Plus on GitHub, which has done the trick.
However, I have noticed the following stipulation in the Game Rules:
"You may not use any 3rd party modifications, e.g. ReSolution or other Worms 2 Plus tools, because these alter the game and result in minor differences to the original game."
Obviously I don't want to complete a run of the game only for it to be disallowed, so I have two questions as to how to proceed:
-
Re: "minor differences", are you able to advise upon what these are and to what extent these would give a runner an advantage over playing the original?
-
Do you have any ideas on alternative ways in which one could play Worms 2 on a Windows 10 PC without using Worms 2 Plus?
Thank you, RB
Hi RuffledBricks,
In most speedrun game communities I'm familiar with, any 3rd party patches are normally banned, since they alter the game, and it could be argued that it's not quite the same game being played as someone who is, say, speedrunning the original game on a Win 95 machine.
Usually these are banned regardless of whether the 3rd party devs claim it affects gameplay or not, since allowing it would be taking their word for it (including all future updates to the software), and there could be bugs or alterations that even the devs themselves are unaware of (which I have seen happen with other game patches).
I added the 3rd party mods ban, to keep in line with the general philosphy of speedrunning, however I'm open to looking for a compromise (after all, the ban technically excludes my own run that I made earlier this year).
Looking at the tools, I can see that ReSolution on its own doesn't actually modify the executables, rather it hooks the game while it is playing. So perhaps an argument could be made to allow ReSolution. Are you able to get the game running on ReSolution alone? I think I was able to do so myself, before I tried out Worms 2 Plus.
There is of course the counter-argument that upgrading the resolution gives an unfair advantage to modders, since they can for instance aim more accurately at far away targets. At the top speedrunning level, perhaps this doesn't matter so much, since one would usually be memorising positions. But still an issue to consider.
There is also the possiblity of having a 'Worms 2 Plus' category extension, in addition to generic Any%. This would be a misc category which would allow this approved bundle, and anyone who happened to be running the original game would be eligible to submit to Any%. This is the solution we used in the Azure Dreams speedrunning community; we have misc categories that permit use of Adrando; a Github software that adds bug fixes and Quality of Life upgrades to the game.
Hi Hex, thanks for the detailed response.
I understand the arguments re: trying to preserve the original game experience without modification, and I do think it is important to aim for that as much as possible. However, I also think accessibility counts, particularly for older games. If game rules are too insistent upon real hardware for their runs then the leaderboard becomes less a celebration of the runner's skill and more a celebration of what they happen to own. Which typically makes for an empty leaderboard.
To give an example, I've been part of the ZX Spectrum speedrunning community for a year and a half, and for most games that I'm aware of the mods tend to permit emulators purely because it's too difficult to obtain the original hardware for most people (the leaderboards which don't allow this are pretty much dead). To counterbalance cheating, however, the community has run tests on all known emulators to check accuracy, so as to ensure that runners only use emulators that accurately replicate the Spectrum's speed. Minor differences to colour occur across the emulators but given that these do not affect the speed of the game these are ultimately overlooked.
With regards to Worms 2, it's worth noting that runs on its successor, Worms Armageddon (which I'm one of the mods of), are not done on what one would call the OG game. In fact, we currently have a rule that runs should be performed using on the most recent community patches for the game provided by Deadcode to Steam, to ensure a unified experience. These patches are technically approved by Team 17, despite them having had no influence on the creation of them themselves (none of the original devs who worked on the second generation of Worms games are still at the company).
Worms 2 Plus, whilst not quite as 'official' in its rollout, is nonetheless approved by GOG. To the best of our knowledge also, the gameplay effects of W2+ are purely tweaks to the music functionality and to multiplayer games, not to the missions. Should evidence come to light that W2+ drastically affects, say, the enemy AI or other key aspects of the missions then I feel adding a rule about it might be applicable, but I worry that implementing it pre-emptively proves too limiting.
With ReSolution, I acknowledge that the ability to see the entire map at once could indeed be seen as an advantage, but it is not one that I am particularly interested in using. I can't remember what the original gameplay resolution was for Worms 2 but I've set mine to 1024x768, as I find 4:3 resolutions work better with overlays for streaming and it helps viewers see the game better. I don't need to be able to see the entire map to figure out the shots I need for a speedrun, and the zoom feature I am happy to disable in the .ini file given that I only ever trigger it by accident anyway!
If creating a separate category for Worms 2 Plus is necessary then so be it, although - ego-driven argument alert! - I have to admit I would be slightly dissuaded from the project if it had to be a Misc category. It would feel a little unsatisfying to route and complete a 2.5+ hour speedrun for it to not even show on the default view of one's profile. I feel perhaps something as simple as a Worms 2 Plus subcategory for Any%, or a column denoting its usage, might prove an acceptable compromise.
In the meantime, I am currently asking around the Worms 2 community to see if there are any viable alternative options to W2+, but at present it doesn't look too promising.
Anyhow, do let me know your thoughts on all this.
RB
Since you mention hardware and emulators, I should point out that I have no issue with hardware, in fact I'm very much in favour of the use of emulators too. (If someone to run Worms 2 through VirtualBox for instance, that'd be fine by me). The issue is more of a software one, since a modded game is programmatically a different game from the original.
I'll do a bit more research on Worms 2 Plus, since from what I understand it is a bundle of things, some of which alter the executables, and some of which don't (for instance ReSolution). But I do agree, if it is clear enough that gameplay can't be affected then maybe it should be permitted. However I do think that we should restrict to originally-permitted resolutions - I'm not currently sure what those are.
I'm curious as to what you meant by Worms 2 Plus being 'approved' by GOG? Since I have the GOG version myself, however I didn't see anything about Worms 2 Plus, I had to find and install that manually.
At the very least though, I'm fine also with the backup option of making Worms 2 Plus a 'main' category/subcategory alongside Any%, there's no real reason it would have to be a Misc, that's just how we do it for Azure Dreams.
Sure, I didn't think you were against emulators or anything like that. More I was just trying to make the point that with games on defunct platforms/operating systems you're going to severely limit who can run the game if there's no leeway regarding contemporary methods of playing it.
I'm glad to hear that you would at least be up for making a main W2+ category at any rate. Personally I feel it would make more sense as a sub-category of Any% rather than a completely separate one, given that both runs have more or less the same aims, but as long as it's possible to submit such runs in some way then it's all good. I got a response to my query regarding playing W2 without the mod, and the advice given didn't fix the issue, so it seems like this is the only way for now.
And in answer to your question re: GOG, the support staff at GOG do suggest on their help page that people install W2+ in order to make the game work, which I think can be strongly interpreted as approval.
Thank you very much!
I've always liked the way TWW leaderboards are settup: https://www.speedrun.com/tww , with tingle tuner and versions listed and filter-able by.
Excited for Worms 2 speedrunning :D
Oh, I checked the original resolution for Worms 2 btw and it was 640x480. Dunno if you would want to make that a rule?
I think if we had a separate Worms 2 Plus subcatgory, then there will be no need to limit resolution, as we are establishing in the definition of a category that it's a modification for Compatibility and Quality of Life.
Looking at the Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 page (https://www.speedrun.com/rct2), I see that they are doing something similar; they have 'Original' and 'OpenRCT' categories, the latter allowing the use of the open-source OpenRCT2 reimplementation to play the game.
I'll go ahead and add the sub-category, time will tell whether anyone is hardcore enough to tackle the original, either on an older windows, or through VirtualBox or something.
Excellent, thank you.
Also, good shout on adding the IL leaderboard, as we've been generating a lot of videos for those recently. Should those be split into Original and W2+ as well?
