[flying fox]

Since we have two weeks till hack night, might as get started since I think it might take a while to organise.

[Werey]

if srb2 doesn't make it then no hack night will happen

[Proxima]

I'm voting for Amy, Classic Heroes, and Retro Remix.

[Zorkiy]

Sonic 1 Tails
Sonic Classic Heroes
Sonic 3D: No Flickies

[flying fox]

The voting has closed. I know I said pick three games, but some people have thought that three games might be too much in one night, including me. So it's now gone down to two games. So what I'm going to do is pick the two top games, which are Robotnik's Revenge and Retro Remix. As for the next two highest voted games, which are SRB2 and Classic Heroes they will be raced at the next Unofficial Race Night. I shall schedule this next race for January.

[Werey]

Race night*

[Cream147]

I think a discussion of goals is needed here, particularly for Retro Remix, which to my understanding is too long to do a full game playthrough. Maybe Thorn could give us an idea of a good goal?

[SB737]

robotnik's revenge is very short, i did it in 10 minutes and i still had one death, i think that will take 20 minutes max to do, as for retro remix i suggest a goal that will take 1 hour for someone who has never/rarely played the game, i personally have never played it and I dont want to be up all night.

Also, I think we should do Robotnik's revenge first cos that is shorter, so there'll be a smaller range of times so we won't be waiting for ages for people to finish so we can get the next game started. Finally Robotnik's revenge should be time attack mode, not survival, (though that's pretty obvious it's good to clarify these things :P)

And yer, I think Thorn could give us a good goal, but if anyone else has any ideas feel free to suggest :)

[Thorn]

Cream147, SonicBoom737: For all of the talk about how long the game is, I streamed a run to see how long it would really take. It was an exceedingly shitty run that took about 25 and a half minutes. Proper route planning and better execution could easily bring it down to 20 minutes; to put things into perspective, the best Sonic 2 TAS I know of clocks in at 19 minutes and 55 seconds with real-time runs slower than that. I feel that saying "Well, I haven't played the game before" isn't a very justifiable reason, because you've been able to watch the voting and thus know what games to check out.

While RPGnutter didn't finish in a half-hour, his run of the game didn't take long either, and I'm hoping he ducks in to give his perspective as somebody who didn't develop the game. If you guys really wanted me to decide the goal, I would be saying to do a full-game run (not 100%) based on his stream.

[SpanielWare]

The 2010 release of Sonic 2 Retro Remix features a 'Classic' mode, which, as the name suggests, plays like the classics; it simply requires the player to complete each act to proceed to the next and eventually beat the game. (No Special Stages are available, and some acts from Adventure Mode aren't in the level progression.) Download it here - I've beaten it a couple of times myself and it's definitely worth a shot. I think that racers will generally prefer to race the Classic mode of the game, but in the long run it's up to them as to what goal is decided on.

Damn, ninja'd by Thorn! (Also this post is mainly directed at the other racers; Thorn created the hack along with DNXDelta so I'm pretty sure he knows what the Classic mode is :V.)

[Thorn]

^ I think that using a deliberately older and buggier version of the hack is a very bad idea. The 2011 release isn't without bugs, but they're much more pronounced in the 2010 version. I also believe that if classic gameplay was what most racers wanted, my hack would not have received votes in the first place.

[SpanielWare]

You raise a good point. If the racers want the 2011 version, then the 2011 version it shall be! :D

[Cream147]

The reason I raised this is because I was watching MastaKirby stream this live yesterday and he said it took him 3 hours approx to playthrough the game. He was playing completely blind, which I for one certainly won't be this weekend, but I do know that people do like to hop into these race nights and play blind or near blind - that certainly happened last weekend with S1GG. I'm not saying that we shouldn't do a full game race, but I just think it's important to think about how much we want to accommodate for those playing blind, if we accommodate for them at all.

At any rate, clearly Robotnik's Revenge is the game that should be played first, as that game will end lightning fast.

Also, definitely 2011 version.

[Thorn]

^ RPGnutter was near-blind as well. I know that some people have made very long streams of the game, but most of those long streams have consisted of this amazing three-step process:
1. Get stuck on a level
2. Die and restart the same level; don't go to a different level
3. Rinse and repeat for an hour, THEN try a different level
This is something I cannot accommodate even if I try.

Also, HyperSonic7701 took several hours to finish S1GG two days before it was raced, but he raced it anyway, so I can't baby other people while more serious racers are taking what they feel is necessary time. If people want to race blind, we'll of course allow and even encourage them, but I don't feel that we should be making special accommodations for them. They can always open YouTube mid-race and watch a complete run, then mimic it. :P

[Bilan]

ANY % GAME CLEAR OR BUST.

It is really not that hard and/or time consuming to clear death egg from a fresh file, in fact it's about equivalent to the Generations race from a new file.

I beat it mostly blind in around 90 minutes? I say mostly, because on an earlier attempt I had a go at the first and second zones (although I got almost no emeralds in Zone 2), and I watched Thorn play through previously and vaguely remembered a couple of things he did.

tl;dr dying and getting stuck trying to get a single emerald is for suckers, this game is entirely manageable as a "beat the game" race. Also we can just tack robotniks revenge onto it and make it multi-game, which is ideal as it doesn't mean stopping and starting over a 5 minute game.

Also I 100% did not read any other posts in this, I just jumped here on divine intuition

[SB737]

i agree with thorn, i thought the game was massively long from the way people are making it sound, in actual fact it seems to be a similar length to sonic 2, and it certainly doesnt seem to be longer than sonic3&K, so a full game race should be fine, i'll be watching some speed runs of the game and betrying it out, so if people are playing blind then thats their choice, but i think everyone participating will probably have to at least watch a few youtube videos, and spend a little time playing it

[Thorn]

^ Optimally, it's about Sonic 2's length. Casually, it's longer; Bilan described that pretty well and gave his reasoning.

EDIT: A breakdown of necessary progress, for the lazy. :o It lists the number of emeralds in the game available up to each locked door and how many must be collected.
Need 03 of 14 available emeralds for Zone 2.
Need 10 of 34 available emeralds for Zone 3.
Need 17 of 53 available emeralds for Zones 4 and 5 (the game opens up here allowing more flexibility in how to progress).
Need 35 of 88 available emeralds for Zone 6.
Reach the signpost of Zone 6 for Zone 7 (it loads after the end of act bonuses).
Clear Zone 7 to finish the game.

[Mastakirby]

Had now idea my crappy playthrough would generate a discussion about the length of the race (I feel kind of bad now lol). Yea my run was by no means a serious blind run, it was more of a casual playthrough to see what the game was like before the race this week. There was a lot of walking around and exploring which I usually don't do on a first playthrough but I REALLY loved this game. Anywho speedrunning this blind shouldn't take anywhere near as long as three hours, the hint's at the beginning of each act are pretty clear and the time attack emmy's are pretty easy to snag after you get to know the levels. Sorry once again for people to worry about the length of the game.

[Cream147]

Mastakirby, you have no reason to feel guilty. I was going to bring up the discussion of goals anyway, because I think it was a discussion worth having. Your stream was the tipping point.

The thing is, I played this myself blind yesterday anyway, and I got a time of 3:30. Now, I won't say I was speedrunning it, but I certainly wasn't exploring. I'm a particularly bad player at this sort of game, so I felt I would be a good representative of the lower end of the spectrum if you will. 3 hours plus IS a realistic possibility for someone playing this game blind. However, 3 hours plus is also a realistic possibility for someone playing SADX Sonic's story blind, or even S1GG if you game over enough times. Having played the game through myself now, I do think the funnest thing to do would be a full game completion.

[SB737]

so we'll do a full game completion for both games
First Robotniks Revenge
Then Sonic Retro Remix

Is it back to 10pm GMT? because of the clocks turning back etc, I was little confused?..

[flying fox]

Sorry I haven't posted in here for a couple of days, been busy and looks like it's time to step in and sort this out.

For Robotnik's Revenge we shall use Time Attack mode. For Retro Remix we'll have a full game. We're also going to use the multi-game feature on SRL, so that way we don't have to wait for people to finish one game and then start the next one. The race will be 10pm GMT.

[Inuyasha]

We're also going to use the multi-game feature on SRL, so that way we don't have to wait for people to finish one game and then start the next one.

And since I don't want to race S2RR, I'm out.

Oh well.

Let me know if you change your mind. :\

[Bilan]

Don't want to race the only game with decent substance? Race Robotnik's Revenge some other time!

Starting a 5 minute race, then having to wait for all entrants to finish, then making a new room on SRL, then waiting for everyone to be ready so that we can race the actual good game is 100% ass.

[Inuyasha]

then having to wait for all entrants to finish, then making a new room on SRL

You're free to make the new room before everyone finishes.  Why is this even a problem?

By forcing a Multiple Game Race you're forcing anyone who wants in to play both games even if they only want to touch one of them.



Also, you act like it's easy to gather people up for races on games that aren't stupidly popular.

[Bilan]

By forcing a Multiple Game Race you're forcing anyone who wants in to play both games even if they only want to touch one of them.

[Thorn]

So, hey, while I think it's kind of cool that I joked around saying "my hack or ban" and it suddenly got voted to the top, the shit-slinging at each other isn't so cool.

Bilan / flying fox: Anybody who can't finish Robotnik's Revenge in a timely manner probably won't finish Sonic 2 Retro Remix. Therefore, we could set the S2RR race for a half-hour after the RR race, and anybody who hasn't finished Robotnik's Revenge and misses S2RR would be in the "likely to forfeit S2RR" crowd anyway. In this respect, I think a Multiple Game Race may be silly considering the likely length disparity; S2RR even has its own game designation on SRL because werster raced it before.

Inuyasha: On the other side of the argument, the race was going to be set as more than one game since the initial voting started, so arguing that now you only want to touch one game is going against what the race actually is anyway. I'm not quite sure where that line about gathering racers for unpopular games came from, either, as we had plenty of votes for various fan games when fan games in general cater to a niche crowd. They're often love-it-or-hate-it, too: the "popular" ones such as S2RR, SRB2, Before/After the Sequel, Megamix, etc. all have this distinction.

While I make no guarantee here, I'm looking at releasing a "TSC Race Night" version of S2RR that cleans some things up. It won't make substantial level layout or physics changes (as that would be unfair to people who have been practicing), but it will address some of the more prominent bugs and ease aerial control. If I can't get things sorted out, the 2011 version is stable provided we disallow one glitch I spotted on Mastakirby's stream.

[Cream147]

Bilan / flying fox: Anybody who can't finish Robotnik's Revenge in a timely manner probably won't finish Sonic 2 Retro Remix. Therefore, we could set the S2RR race for a half-hour after the RR race, and anybody who hasn't finished Robotnik's Revenge and misses S2RR would be in the "likely to forfeit S2RR" crowd anyway. In this respect, I think a Multiple Game Race may be silly considering the likely length disparity; S2RR even has its own game designation on SRL because werster raced it before.

I agree with this. The length disparity would make Robotnik's Revenge worthless in a multiple game race.

Also, to my knowledge, the initial concept was that each hack was going to be raced separately. That was certainly my understanding. The idea of them being raced in a multiple game race has only developed since. I'm racing both games either way, but my vote would definitely be to race these two games separately, even if it does mean (shock horror) having to wait a few minutes between races.

[flying fox]

Also, to my knowledge, the initial concept was that each hack was going to be raced separately. That was certainly my understanding.

Since we have two weeks till hack night, might as get started since I think it might take a while to organise. So I was thinking maybe up to three games. So let me know what hacks you want to race in.

At the moment I'm doing the same thing with hack night as I did with race nights doing a 'lets try this and see if it works and if not we'll make it better' or something like that. If people don't like the more than one game being raced we'll just race one game then.

[Inuyasha]

So I was thinking maybe up to three games.

This statement does nothing to clarify that you wanted to race all three games back-to-back in the same race.  I certainly assumed that there would be separate races for all three games, as that's what I thought was the most logical way to handle it.

[flying fox]

That was posted before I knew there was a multi-game race option. Now that I know about it, the option do this is there. If people don't like the decision I made fair enough, just say I don't like this I'd rather do the other option and if there's enough people wanting this, I'll change the decision.