[RigidatoMS]

If a proof is needed, there's a simple way to avoid fake videos: not letting them to record with the emulator or screen recorders. To show the proof recorded, use a camera or a cellular phone and play in windowed mode.

Um, you do realize it's trivial to record a video and then play it back and record the recording on a camera, right? That does absolutely nothing.

Wrong. If they want to record it, they may be playing it. No playbacks.

[fastnaturedude]

It would be splitting hairs and pissing off a lot of people if we simply banned emulators that had TAS capability (Heck, I even know about a method where one could pseudo-TAS through Gens Plus).

I don't recall "it would be an unpopular decision" ever being a motive for whether or not to add/change a rule in the past here.

For what it's worth, I'm all for banning whatever TAS-capable emulators we need to, because I actually own at least one physical or digital copy of every Sonic game I own <_< All the classic Sonic games and quite a few of the new ones are easy to get on Steam, and they go on sale for ridiculously low prices very often.

Aside from actually buying Sonic games, I suppose an approach TSC could take would be to sort of adopt an unofficial official Genesis emulator for everyone to use for competition? I dunno, I'm not a high-up Genesis game competitor or anything, just throwing in my two cents. I'd much rather be a little inconvenienced with an emulator that doesn't have some nifty feature than have anyone be able to TAS a run...

[Brian]

I actually thought about the same idea Infersaime had, but I thought that most people would say that by doing this you'll get less people to submit stats since some won't want to bother recording their runs or some BS like that. But I really think it's a very good idea. One more thing is that banning TASable emulators for a given platform is something that should only be done if there's any other candidates that can run the game flawlessly, otherwise it's obvious that it wouldn't be good. Last thing is the fact that old consoles have tons of options of emulators, so I don't really think that there'll be no emulator that can run the games without emulation problems but doesn't have any TAS features.

[TimpZ]

Huh?

I don't see your problem. The first paragraph you quoted comes from me proposing a rule that would allow people to use whatever emulator they choose, even put videos on youtube for their fans or whatever, while not giving them the benefit of using very simple methods to cheat if they get called out.

The second paragraph is me aknowledging the fact that it might seem silly to allow the use of an emulator but not using it for proof, even backfiring on legit players. However I do think that no'one in their right mind trying to prove their legitimacy would use a tool so readily available for cheating in the first place when good alternative solutions exist. And if allowed, should put the provider of proof at a disadvantageus position in some form which would need to be formulated among the rules.

If you trust a player to submit a stat without recording, and you trust that player to submit a stat without recording, it follows that a video submission from the same actions should also be assumed trusted, regardless of if you can bring even Jesus in to intervene for you to help you TAS the game.

No doubt, there's ways to go about the system and find ways to cheat, and make it look spotless on a recording. No matter how many rules and edicts we put in place, it's always going to happen. While I understand your intent, this rule would simply implement far more hindrance on players and reduce several convenience factors on fair players, while not really doing much to the general state of affairs.

Huh?

This is why I changed my initial stand point slightly. If I trust someone with their stats I honestly wouldn't care if they used Gens Rerecording or not. It's not a question to begin with since no explicit proof is necessary at all. But if they do fall under the radar, they shouldn't be able to slip away so easily if they do use for example Gens Rerecording 11b.

The second part makes it sound like laws shouldn't be enforced, because there will always be criminals. There's always a balance between too few rules and too many since you don't want it to be easy to cheat but you don't want to make it hard to compete. I personally don't think that banning a TASable emulator (for Genesis at least) from competition would provide such a hassle that someone wouldn't bother to compete at all, while being completely ineffective at stifling cheaters.

The only person I've heard complain about that so far is Sonicboom and he even said he would accept such a minor inconveniance if it would help the site in general to catch cheaters. As for your case, I don't know enough about your setup but it initially seems there are a few ways you could improve your setup for doing attempts, while not using Gens, without paying a dime.

There are also some tradeoffs you could do. For example if you're so desperate about using GensPlus or its record/replaying features, provide a community savestate on the level select and tell people that you must load that first, then create a giz. Synching a Gens Rerecording TAS to GensPlus from a savestate was fairly hard but was made a lot easier because I could create the starting point myself. If someone were to not use it there are ways to tell I'm pretty sure at least given someone creates a giz within a few minutes (or hours? Days?) and always loads the savestate before going into a level.

Inuyasha also brought up a valid point that no one's responded to about emulators with TAS features also tending to be the most accurate ones because they're open-source. I'm no emulator expert here but if anyone wants to list some highly accurate, closed-source emulators without TAS features, be my guest. Inaccurate emulators are just as bad as emulators that facilitate cheating.

Just like converting a TAS to a non-TAS emulator with replaying features is a bit of work, rewriting the source for one to include such a feature is a lot of work for something as simple as submitting a stat for this site. There has to be some form of line where the amount of work to cheat is considered unreasonable. You could disassemble the game, hack an input-player in and put a TAS in a table that executes when you hold B while going into a level which plays a TAS that was made with certain timer values in mind which are written in RAM at the start of the level, then buy a flashcart and play on a real console. But no'one would question something like that unless it's obviously TASed because that amount of work to get it going would be completely unreasonable for the achieved result. There are currently no restrictions on what emulator a person is using except the obvious like reasonable accuracy, full speed etc. Given the amount of work I had to put in I don't think it's a stretch to ban for example GIR's (that don't use savestates) while banning Regen (which I think is closed source?) if it is released open source some day would be.

[SpinDashMaster]

Yeah... I'm about done with the walls of text loaded with straw man/slippery slope/hasty generalization fallacies left and right coming from TimpZ.

The bottom line is this: you either ban all emulation outright or you don't. Anything in between is an awkward attempt to make ends that partially justify the means.

In other words, take your hand out of the cookie jar when you're discussing this, please.

[TimpZ]

Maybe you should start pointing out the flaws in my post instead of relying on generalising my arguments as "hasty generalisations". Personal attacks gets you nowhere in an argument.

I strongly disagree with your statement that emulators are a do or don't. It's not all black and white, a gray area exist that I believe should be discussed. Or maybe you feel like if all emulators would be banned, all the official ones should be banned as well on GC, PS2, PS3, XBOX, XBOX360, Steam etc... That's a gray area right there.

But I believe I've repeated myself enough in this thread so I'm done posting for now unless something new comes up.

[SpinDashMaster]

The last fourteen times I called you out, you either misinterpret the entire thing or you come back with something even more jank than the previous remark.

Maybe we don't feel like trodging through all that text anymore. I know I sure as heck don't.

[Brian]

This is probably my last post here, just to summarize my thoughts: Ban only TASable emus, unless there are no other good alternatives out there. The "ban all or don't ban any of them" would do no good if either option is chosen IMO.

[Cream147]

If we're limiting the scope of the conversation to ban all emulators or ban none, then the answer is ban none. I personally don't understand why we can't have a more nuanced position, but this conversation has got boring and is not advancing.

[SpinDashMaster]

All emulators are TAS-able in some form or another.

Where it gets hairy is defining what qualifies as a TAS-able emulator, at which point the shit hits the fan since the cheating can jump from emulator to emulator, as TimpZ has already pointed out.

With that line blurred, "all emulators" and "TAS-able emulators" are in an inseparable group. Therefore, we find ourselves forced into a simple crossroads: You either ban all emulation here and now, or you don't.

[Cream147]

Yes, but we don't need to mess around with defining "TAS-able" emulators in any precise way. We make a rational decision of which specific emulators are acceptable, and create an "emulator whitelist", with all other emulators banned. That would be my proposal.

[SpinDashMaster]

To make such a whitelist would be exactly the same thing. You can't even do that, because the whitelist will dwindle as each emulator is shown to be TAS-able in some form or another.

You basically just said: don't do X, do X.

[Cream147]

I don't want to trash the forum with continuous discussion between us here, but nevertheless, I must respond to this. With regard to your point that "the whitelist will dwindle as each emulator is shown to be TAS-able in some form or another", this is the point that I think we're getting tied up on.

Yes, it is possible to do some kind of TAS on any emulator. However, it's all about how difficult it is to do it. With Gens the tools are right there, right in front of you. Even I could do a TAS with Gens, and I'm not the most technical of people. With Fusion, maybe it is possible to TAS in some way, but you'd better believe that it's a whole lot more difficult. I'm not going to be doing a TAS with Fusion. Where do we draw the line here? We draw it wherever we feel it should go using common sense, rather than any precise rule.

We're never going to stop all cheating, so if the attitude is stop all cheating or don't bother doing anything, then we might as well not bother. However, I feel that this measure would decrease the amount of successful cheating, and not horribly inconvenience people. Now I'm definitely fed up of discussing this, so for now, this is my final word!

[SpinDashMaster]

Difficulty index is subjective. We mentioned this in the chatroom discussions of pre-act slope glitch savestates. They are the same in essence as beginning with an elemental shield, regardless of if one takes 10 minutes and the other takes three.

The same approach applies to how difficult it is to TAS in one emulator versus another. The line cannot be drawn at a subjective matter such as difficulty, but instead a tangible one such as capability.

And that puts us right back at square one -- the same two-forked road. Because all emulators are TAS-able in some form or another, you have to ban them all or not at all.

[Brian]

Where it gets hairy is defining what qualifies as a TAS-able emulator, at which point the shit hits the fan since the cheating can jump from emulator to emulator, as TimpZ has already pointed out.

With that line blurred, "all emulators" and "TAS-able emulators" are in an inseparable group. Therefore, we find ourselves forced into a simple crossroads: You either ban all emulation here and now, or you don't.

Really? Is everyone a robot that can only accept something that's not subjective? Why there can't be a rule that says something along the lines of: "No emulator that has built-in these functions are allowed to competition: Re-recording, frame advance, slow motion or any type of frame rate control, (insert here any other TAS capabilities that could help making a fake video)." Is it really that hard to distinct the "easy to TAS" emulators from the "hard/impossible to TAS" ones? Hell, there could be a list as Cream said, and I'll doubt until someone proves me wrong that it's not possible to draw a line that separates the easy ones from the hard ones, even if arbitrariness needs to come into play, which is not something that has not been done before in any where that have rules(and actually goes well with them).

Sorry for the rant, but this argument about all emulators being TASable in some form, thus making all of them fall into the same category and eliminating any chance of making a rule that could ban only a portion of them based on their TAS capabilities really made me want to say something.

[TimpZ]

All emulators are TAS-able in some form or another.

As I pointed out, you can also TAS on the console itself. In fact it would probably even be easier than TASing on Fusion. But you have to agree that TASing on emulators with that function is different from hacking a ROM or building a TASbot, hacking an emulator or building a TASing shell specifically for that emulator. I say ban the easy alternatives.

[SpinDashMaster]

Drawing a line between easy and difficult is subjective.

No matter how "human" nor "arbitrary" one might think a partial ban might be, the list would be just that -- partial. Partial to players who want to continue playing on emulators, despite the fact that one could still cheat on them; difficulty of said cheating aside.

With no way to separate the types of emulators without approaching from a difficulty perspective, one cannot implement a partial ban without being partial to a specific group of players.

[Brian]

I just made a bet with a friend of mine that SDM would say that XD

"one cannot implement a partial ban without being partial to a specific group of players." I really would like to know what's the problem with this, even though I don't think this is a valid affirmative because I don't think that the majority of the emulators for a given platform (in this case, genesis) are being used by the player base, which always tends to gravitate towards a selected few options in these cases, at least as I see it.

And there's one more thing, you say that as if some players would all of a sudden have an advantage over others, as if "being partial to a specific group of players" (which as I stated before, is something that I think is avoidable, despite my lack of knowledge of which options of emus there are) would affect the competition in such a big way that it's better to stay the way it is or ban all of them. Seriously I don't think that'll be the case. If that's not what you meant with that line, sorry.

[SpinDashMaster]

The problem with being partial to a specific group of players is rather obvious. You unlevel the playing field when any group of competitors has any advantage over another. Especially when it comes to burden of proof through said videos, where one person's recording might lie on a banned emu, but another's just so happens to be on an accepted emu. Looks like the unlucky player has to re-record everything using a different emulator. How fun!

[Parax]

Just like converting a TAS to a non-TAS emulator with replaying features is a bit of work, rewriting the source for one to include such a feature is a lot of work for something as simple as submitting a stat for this site.

You are completely missing the point. The problem isn't that someone might add a new feature. The problem is that the emulators with TAS features are also the most accurate emulators, which means banning them forces players to play on less accurate ones.

Let me ask a question to hopefully make this debate a little more clear. What TAS features, specifically, are we talking about banning? Obviously frame advance is out. What about save states?

Personally, I don't think it's impossible to have a subjective rule in place, but I also don't think it's entirely unreasonable to expect someone to get an official release of the game if they want to compete on it. So eh. With that in mind, here's another question: Who here would be personally bothered if emulators with TAS features were banned? Similarly, what if all emulators were banned?

[DawnyDaz3]

Is it possible to submit a legit stat when played on the emulator with a controller without any TAS features? The controller (Not the Keyboard) might help to avoid TASes especially when played on Genesis emulators and such.

Say for example, you are playing on the Genesis Emulator and you quickly spam the 3 buttons to get maximum speed for a spin dash in the keyboard. That might not be possible if one with the controller was to do the same thing.

[TimpZ]

The problem is that the emulators with TAS features are also the most accurate emulators, which means banning them forces players to play on less accurate ones.

This is not true.

Here's also a useful guide to deciding on what emulator YOU should use, depending on your computer and preference to accuracy: http://segaretro.org/Comparison_of_Sega_Mega_Drive_emulators

Acording to this list, Regen, Fusion, HazeMD and RetroDrive are all emulators that are more accurate than the ones designed for TASing.

Let me ask a question to hopefully make this debate a little more clear. What TAS features, specifically, are we talking about banning? Obviously frame advance is out. What about save states?

Save states is a feature that's easily detectable if you were to make a video and it's also a feature in some of the official releases. I would not mind allowing that. Reading RAM in real time or the ability to dump it somewhere are other features I would want to ban.

EDIT: I know 50fps is allowed normally, but I wouldn't oppose to require 60fps if an emulator is used.

[Brian]

SDM, this problem is avoidable by doing 2 things: Let's say the rule is in place and no stats submitted prior to the creation were erased. If someone get called and gives a video done on one of the banned emus as proof, if their stat was submitted after the rule, then it will be erased, since it is in disagreement with it in the first place, but if it is one of the stats that were submitted before the rule, then it should be looked at normally. That's what I think it's fair to everyone regarding the rule. Also, if this rule gets approved, I believe a major post will be done and put on the front page, so no one can miss it, and therefore any one who doesn't know about it and submit a stat using one of the banned emulators is the sole causer of any problems regarding that stat in the future.

[fastnaturedude]

The problem with being partial to a specific group of players is rather obvious. You unlevel the playing field when any group of competitors has any advantage over another. Especially when it comes to burden of proof through said videos, where one person's recording might lie on a banned emu, but another's just so happens to be on an accepted emu. Looks like the unlucky player has to re-record everything using a different emulator. How fun!

What?

This topic isn't really about the burden of proof argument, it's whether or not we should ban TAS-capable emulators from competition. Neither adopting an official emulator nor banning all emulators from competition gives any player any kind of advantage over any other player, so long as we make it known that "hey, you can't use x or y emulator when submitting stats, or it doesn't count, sorry!" All emulators are pretty much equally as easy to get and use in my experience.

Partial to players who want to continue playing on emulators, despite the fact that one could still cheat on them; difficulty of said cheating aside.

No, we adopt an emulator that you can't savestate/frame advance/TAS/whatever on. Period.

I mean, if it comes down to either letting the potential for TASing continue or banning all emulators, I'm all for the latter. SDM's right in saying that we can't halfass this if we're going to do something about it.

[Gpro]

One thing I want to know is this: Why would it be a problem switching to a different emulator? As TimpZ said, the non-TASable emus have better accuracy. For recording, all you'd need is something like Fraps or Bandicam or something like that (or even using local recording via XSplit or OBS). And all of these are easily accessible, if I'm not mistaken. And most Genesis emulators aren't that hard on PC usage, I don't think.

And the thing Brian_pso brought up about the whole ruling thing... That's also a pretty good compromise if you ask me. While it might seem like it's being contradictory, why should someone who broke the rule before it was implemented be punished in the first place? For one like this, anyways.

The last thing I want to speak about is that this rule would be a little bit of a failsafe against potential BSers, which is pretty obvious (yay for reiterating obvious things >,>). It's to help make sure the competition stays clean. I like the honor system, but even you guys know there have been countless BSers in the past. This can help lessen that amount. Not to mention the fact that people that were to TAS the 2D Sonic games... If they're smart or good enough, they'd be impossible to catch in the first place. The only thing to go by would be speculation and would allow them to get away with posting TASed stats. I dunno about anyone else, but this seems like a pretty good reason to go by this.

The only hole I can think of is if they don't make videos for their stats, which I guess could be avoided by requiring videos for a certain percentile or something like that? I dunno, this last part

[Brian]

Requiring videos for each stat is a nice thing, but as I said before, some people may just not like it. But speaking of methods to help having a more clean chart, allowing just non-TASable emus to be used, and requiring a video of every stat to be recorded - not that you NEED to upload it too, it's just for the cases where someone gets called, in which case, the absence of a video voids the stat right away - would be a good way to do so.

[Inuyasha]

I do love how you guys take a random chart that lists the status of emulators *now* as if it means that the emulator will always be at that state forever.  The chance of one person fixing a flaw in an open source emulator is much, much higher than the chance of a flaw being fixed in a closed-source emulator just due to the nature of the projects.

Also, it's piss easy to splice two parts of a video together in a pause, and pause-buffering is still allowed. >>;

[TimpZ]

I do love how you guys take a random chart that lists the status of emulators *now* as if it means that the emulator will always be at that state forever.  The chance of one person fixing a flaw in an open source emulator is much, much higher than the chance of a flaw being fixed in a closed-source emulator just due to the nature of the projects.

Also, it's piss easy to splice two parts of a video together in a pause, and pause-buffering is still allowed. >>;

None of those emulators I listed in my previous post are open source as far as I know. One of them are even discontinued. If you're talking about flaws as in inaccuracies, who knows what will happen in 2020, it does not concern the current situation and will have to be adressed in the future if it is a legitimate concern.

Splicing videos together without savestates is not "piss easy" by any means. Also as mentioned, savestates is a feature in official emulation as well. In any case, it's irrelevant to the current discussion. Just because it might be easy to cheat in one way does not mean measures shouldn't be taken to make it harder in another.

[Brian]

Just because it might be easy to cheat in one way does not mean measures shouldn't be taken to make it harder in another.

This, the guy missed the point completely. But responding to something he said: We are talking mostly about genesis emus here, and holy shit, if there's so few emus out there that emulate sonic games properly, than what the fuck does the genesis have to make emulation such a hard task? I think we have many emus that run the games without problems, so this argument about emulation acuraccy should be outright forgotten from now on.

[SpinDashMaster]

Not requiring videos from players rolls us all the way back to the start. If you trust a player to not show a video, you may as well trust them to use whatever the heck emulator they want.

Any further discussion in this thread if it were to implement anything pertaining to emulators must result in required proof in every stat. Otherwise players can goof off all they want inside the domain of other emulators.