[Don]

The reason why I did not provide such an example because there is none. I would have no problems following the new rules myself, as I keep saying.

I do firmly believe that PCs that are worse than mine are going to have serious trouble with emulating and recording at the same time, however, so I am just speaking up. Not EVERYONE has a good enough PC for that, believe me.

My other issue here, at this moment, is that everything said and done about this feels like an indirect way to force everyone to abide by new rules, just because there have been small issues in the past where BS Calls have been taking ages to be finished, or even made.

This is not a natural solution, this is not a logical solution, there is no reason as to why I would accept this without any reasoning, aside from the threads I've already talked about.

And I DO think that these threads are relevant here, because that is ALL information on recent topics about this.

[Zorkiy]

If you own a mid-tier laptop from 2005 or thereabout, you could run most of the most efficient emulators at full speed, while also streaming in like 96p 15fps.

I can say that a 2008-2009 laptop could not handle emulating even 3D Blast on Gens at full speed w/ streaming.

Also, emulating and emulating+recording is a difference (as Don said already). For example, chances are there're configurations which are able to run Dolphin at full speed and are not able to record w/o a performance impact at the same time.

[CriticalCyd]

Guess I'll post my 2 cents as well.

While I'm all for proofcalling and stuff when there's suspected BS, I feel like proofcalling someone just because they play on emulators feels a bit unfair. If the emulator was previously proven to be inaccurate, sure! If recording video or inputs doesn't really take a toll on the performance and takes but a few clicks to set up like TimpZ said, sure why not, I can get on board with that! But making it an across the board thing just completely disregarding any and all specifics, that just doesn't seem well thought out to me.

Which brings me to my main problem with this: why wasn't this discussed publicly in a big way beforehand? It seems to me that a big rule change like this would really benefit from lots of voices from many different perspectives. Get the people who run on emulators in there and the people who actively run the games it affects even if they don't run on emulator like myself. It's highly unlikely the admins are gonna know all specifics, nor do I expect them to, so let the community itself take care of that I'd say.

So yeah that's my thoughts on all this. And yeah I know emulating is piracy and all that, but let's be real here, money is tight for a lot of people and not everyone can or wants to spend a lot of income on their hobby, which is why emulation isn't just straight up banned to begin with. Sure the competition is serious and real and I love it, but at the end of the day it's still just videogames ;)

[Parax]

I just want to point out that I suggested this rule a good two months ago in the thread about banning all emulators and everyone in the thread seemed to agree with it, except HyperSonic. Just about everyone in there seemed to be insistent that things needed to change, and most of them seemed to be satisfied with this compromise... So yes, this -was- discussed publicly first, and did not just all of a sudden come about because of the stuff s&a posted about Dolphin.

Here is the thing I don't get. Why should this rule seriously impact anyone? It's not even about how fast your CPU is or etc, the fact about it is it only applies to emulators. If you really, really can't record your stats for whatever reason, you still have the option of playing on an official release. You can get a ton of the classic games on Steam, or Virtual Console, or Mega Collection, you can play the GameGear games on the 3DS VC or on SADX, you can get both of the Sonic Adventures on 360/ps3/pc, etc. There's a lot of options. You are perfectly allowed to get stats and not post proof for them if you're playing on an official release.

And of course, you're perfectly allowed to use emulators, too. There are just stricter proof standards now.

Those who are against it, taking this into consideration, why is this such a big problem to you?

[Don]

I feel there are too many loopholes for this, and that some people do not have the time, money or effort to put into getting the hardware to actively avoid having to use emulators, or recording them.

Saying "emulators need proof" is nonsensical, because we've already had various threads where somebody posted a proof-video where we could not even see that he TASed. Proof like that can still be abused, you can still do things you shouldn't be able to and nobody would know any better.

As for the implementation: Who is going to look at all the proof? We've had some instances of bad proof, where we only found out a stat was invalid because some TSC individual randomly decided to look through proof. You would need to dedicate manpower towards just looking at proof, which at this point, you don't even look at.

Another thing is all you have to say is "I got it on console." and all would be well; no proof needed. Of course people are still going to suspect something, but they cannot actively call BS on somebody who maybe faked 1 or 2 stats. This is not going to solve anything, except making people show more effort for stats that could be believed to have been gotten legitimately.

Lastly, I feel it's too late to make a rule like that now that is only forced on ALL emulators. If anything we should look at certain emulators and evaluate whether or not they should be banned individually, or make a different rule entirely for individual Emulators.

[Parax]

I don't really understand why someone would lie and claim they got an emulated stat on console, instead of just submitting the stat without getting it at all, which is a loophole that TSC's system has had for a decade. It's not even an issue of faked proof there because they'd be doing it specifically to avoid posting proof.

This doesn't 100% prevent BS calls, no, but the idea is if someone's stats are called into question, there is a lot more material to work with to identify whether a stat is legitimate or not. It's one thing when we're just working with someone saying "I got X time" or posting a YouTube video or something, and it's another when we actually have an input file to analyze. Having more material available will make it more difficult to BS.

[Don]

This doesn't 100% prevent BS calls, no, but the idea is if someone's stats are called into question, there is a lot more material to work with to identify whether a stat is legitimate or not.

You could say that about any supposedly stat gotten on a console. I truely believe that proof should be either enforced completely, or be on a voluntary basis. People that want to show their aptitude at sonic games will do so.

[Starlight_Glimmer]

Stop talking about a legitimate bser. We know a legitimate bser can abuse anything. This tackles "ONLY" accidental bsing

real life example: you do a speed run and your time is say 1:12:75 its the best you can do, but you get on an emulator and do the EXACT same run, but because a frame skips here and a frame skips there your time is now 1:12:50 should it stand? If your answer is no, your for this new rule.

the rule really only enforces the current rule that a game emulated must not deviate from the official version of said game.

[Don]

Again flim flam, the idea here would be testing out emulators. In your case you strongly are against Dolphin because there's 2 instances in which the emulation does not go correctly and gives you an edge. We're talking about full scale emulation here. ALL emulators. I feel like making a case against certain emulators would be a better start and would lead to a better solution.

[Parax]

I am open to better solutions. Emulators are not my area of expertise at all. I've been trying to implement these changes based on feedback from the community and discussions on the forum/IRC. If a lot of people think this is a poor solution, I'm open to better ones.

A lot of people thought there needed to be changes, and I agree to some extent. I've seen tons of instances recently where people post stats that were done on emulators while the game wasn't running at full speed. I've also seen a lot of instances recently where someone tried to pass off an emulated run as a TAS. Emulators are incredibly messy and overall shitty for competition, but enough people rely on them that I didn't think shutting them out entirely was the way to go.

So if we don't do this what should we do instead?

Also, apologies for springing this on everyone. Yeah, I posted this a good two months ago, but I realize I probably should have posted a thread warning that the change was going to be implemented in, say, a week. For the time being, I've removed the rule so we can have a discussion about it first.

[Starlight_Glimmer]

no, your missing the point, if your computer hiccups even 1fps during a run and gives you a .05 second advantage your not gona know that, but ur still gona submit that time, even tho its essentially cheating; its against the rules. what this rule does is provide a chance for a hardcore competitor who is using a legitimate version of the game to have a fighting chance... what if your time is unbeatable just because of that hiccup? that's bs

[Don]

I think we should do the thing that ~Thorn~ said in his retirement/return post. Delegate work. Administrate. Get more people to work on the site, get more intel on the emulators, work out a solution with the competitors. Just overall more people to work on the problems that are evident, and get more information overall in order to work towards getting a satisfying solution. And building a team that can enforce a solution that is made by most, if not all, of the community.

I know that this might be too much, but i do not think that rapid decisions in a heated conversation with 2 people will warrant enough to change how the site works.

[Gpro]

When the people who are unable to cheat need to be questioned for legitimacy by the people running the program, or system, then entire thing is completely messed up.


We should probably add a function where you can choose whether you're submitting the stat on console or emulator, and list the amounts of emulators and stuff. MAYBE that would be an easier thing, and if certain emulators have problems and the people are becoming suspicious of said person, then the emulator proof rules should apply. It might be difficult to implement (I know nothing about site changing shizz), but I feel that this might be the best compromise, unlike my previous post, which I didn't think very much on

[Parax]

It's like saying all speedrunners are super nerdy people with glasses fitting inside of one single category and play one single game.

???????

I know that this might be too much, but i do not think that rapid decisions in a heated conversation with 2 people will warrant enough to change how the site works.

Did you miss the part where I posted about this two months ago? This was not a rapid decision that came about from a heated conversation between 2 people. At all.

[Don]

Maybe it was not a 'rapid' development, but you can't deny that there was some heavy things going on between the main people bringing up the argument. And Again, that was the reason why barely anyone took part in that discussion, as it feels rather... personal between those two guys.

Alas, as previously stated, that was not what I intended to be taken into consideration. I was trying to emphasize the fact that TSC should be trying to find a solution together. Or at least, with more people rationally talking about it as a team rather than as individuals.

[Starlight_Glimmer]

I know that this might be too much, but i do not think that rapid decisions in a heated conversation with 2 people will warrant enough to change how the site works.

Did you miss the part where I posted about this two months ago? This was not a rapid decision that came about from a heated conversation between 2 people. At all.
[/quote]

most everyone against this its not reading/ understanding... flying fox is mad cuz some people don't have computers...

parax I think you did a great job, and you know I hate to say that. Of course there will be tweaks made, like I think 2d sonics for the time being should be exempt. thats what most people are blindingly angry about. and while every emulator suffers from this, 2d sonics will be more resistant to the affects, by only tracking seconds. and remember angry people are the loudest. ;)

[Don]

Your arguments are just towards 3D sonics, again. I firmly believe you want Dolphin to be removed entirely from the emulation, because it has potential to have greater inaccuracies than other competetive emulators, due to having a big amount of 3D games on the Wii/GCN platform.

Just say it directly, even though you are banned from TSC and will probably never compete here again, I do believe that as a banned member you probably now more about BSing than I do!

[Parax]

Don, please don't make personal accusations like that. It is irrelevant what you think he actually wants when that's not what he's arguing for. Further, he's banned from the forums, not from competition, and I've been willing to overlook his bandodging for the time being because he's actually had some valid points to make and been posting pretty reasonable stuff. Turning this discussion into little personal needles and accusations is not productive.

[Don]

Parax, he's been attacking people himself, but I'm going to stop talking about this now.

So all in all, we have 4 opinions: Yes to the rule, No to the rule, enforce 3D emulators, or wait until we can get a proper solution done.

[SpinDashMaster]

I'd like to know where the hell all you kids were when we were all actually DISCUSSING this.

If you cared that much, you would have spoken at the time it was relevant -- when this was actually up for debate.

And while the thread at the surface looks primarily like me bitching, we actually got a lot accomplished (And TimpZ and I kind of deserve the credit for bringing those involved in the thread to that consensus, despite how annoying I've sounded as of late.)

You folks would do well to reread that thread, because a lot of what you all are trying to bring up has already been addressed by myself or TimpZ, and we worked very hard to bring several opposing opinions together on the matter. It's not exactly fair for you all to stampede in, not knowing much of what was discussed, and sit idle only until we take action. You're committing the same sins I have before I left this place.

EDIT: On an off-topic remark, S&A being civil? I think Hell froze over.

[Starlight_Glimmer]

sdm are you for or against emulation for competition? I never got the chance to read that. and I personally probably wouldn't of cared at the time. but after running into this problem multiple times personally, and having a great understanding of what potientaily is happening on a large scale is scary to me. dont get me wrong I still am who I am, I also understand the zero tolerance against me. but what we can all agree on is the love of competition and I think this is important

[DarkPolarNight]

Here are my thoughts:

I don’t know much about emulators, but I do know that there is a big difference in the range of emulators-as in some are basic some have very complex features.

Therefore, I strongly disagree that the ruling should be applicable for “all” emulators.

Take the games that have basic emulators. Sonic 1+2 can be done on Fusion, Advances on the Visual Boy Advance emulators. Someone new comes to the sight-maybe doesn’t want to take competition seriously and would be rather happy to achieve say yellow times…….would they really want to make the effort and provide video proof to every stat they do? I just think that it would discourage competition for those that play on an emulator that play more for fun- (as in not aim for records, or solid red stats).

Working out which emulators cause problems and implementing some kind of changes, with the identified emulators, may be a way forwards? (Not knowing enough about this, I don’t know how/who/when could identify these emulators and/or whether this is too complex to do).

Also, TSC is over 10yrs old. What is different now that additional rules need to be put in place compared to a 2, 5 or 10 years ago?

[SpinDashMaster]

Honestly, S&A, life is short. I'm done ignoring you. I don't know if the rest of TSC feels the same way or not but if I had the power I would have unbanned your main account already.

I deliberately left my exact stance on emulation out of the thread, expressing only logical deductions based on what others had posted. (Though my own opinions are rather obvious, I'd like to allow as much emulation as is possible, as long as it's accurate)

To sum it all up, we narrowed it down to 4 choices, and the middle ground in the OP is what everyone all agreed on, save for one person.

To make it more explicit, not much is really changing here. We simply only want an emulator-produced video file whenever you're using emulators and it's possible to do so. We're not asking for much here.

[Starlight_Glimmer]

I would only kinda disagree with, that you would have to acknowledge not only would an emulator have to be 100% to be accurate (if that's even possible) but the computer its being used on would have to be 100% (no random hiccups)

I like the point dark polar brought up about casuals because most of use start out as casuals here I just don't know how many of us start out as casuals on emulators, that should be looked into.

The beauty I see with this, is if one day joe speed runner wakes up and says "hey I want to be the record holder on so&so chart" and goes all in on it. this will ensure that's chart remains beatable by keeping an archived history of the emulated run, making sure an illegitimate max wasn't created by a computer hiccup. (legit bser and max record aside)

an aside point... why wouldn't you want to show off your speed runs?

that's it for me tonight... think this is a good thing, but hey

[flying fox]

most everyone against this its not reading/ understanding... flying fox is mad cuz some people don't have computers...

I don't know where you got the idea that I was mad. However, looking back at my post I realised that it wasn't well thought out since if you don't have a computer, you can't use emulators anyway >_> At the time I posted that a lot of real life stuff was happening at the time and I got very distracted, I shouldn't have posted so just disregard what I said earlier. Sorry about that :/

[Strong Bad]

So far this has been the best April Fools I've seen. Good work.

[Auriman1]

Back when I was a more active competitor, I did most of my competition on morning commutes. In addition to my Nintendo DS and Gameboy Advance, I would play some other games using emulators on my PSP. None of those emulators had any video recording capabilities. If such a rule existed at the time, I probably would've opted to just never compete at all, because it wouldn't have been practical for my time or resources.

It also seems odd to require proof all of the time for one form of playing the game, but not the other. In my personal opinion, all that does is actively encourage people to lie and say they weren't using an emulator to achieve their stats, especially if they legitimately don't have a good way of recording during their attempts on a regular basis, but still want to compete. In comparison, if emulators aren't a weird inconsistent taboo regarding rulings, if something doesn't seem right and people are playing fair, they can show what they did and specify what they used, and if there was some weird emulation flaw, it can be addressed in some way.

If "always submit video evidence" needs to become an official rule, so be it. But if it does, it should be all across the board, consoles and PC's included. However, there's no doubt in my mind that would cut the active competitors down significantly, since that sort of evidence requires special setups in many cases, and lots of less enthusiastic competitors will decide it isn't worth the hassle. That comes with the territory of absolute evidence.

Even if this topic was just an elaborate April Fool's prank or an attempt to get more people talking and bring more opinions out of the woodwork, that's just my two cents regarding such a rule. I didn't bother commenting on the other topic since I found it impossible to take what seemed to be one, maybe two people's whining about emulators seriously. Maybe there was more active discussion happening in the IRC, but if there was I wouldn't know, as I don't use IRC.

[Starlight_Glimmer]

parax has said they are open to ideas to make the rule better, and so far alot of the arguements are just straw men arguements wanting to completely strip the rule, while at the same time admitting the rule will have little to no effect to them.

having time sleeping on it I wanted to make a suggestion that we only make video mandatory when a WR is achieved? ( or maybe top 3 or top 5)

I think this would protect the casuals while also protecting the hardcore competitors, and also making the window of people it will actually affect drastically smaller?

[InferSaime]

having time sleeping on it I wanted to make a suggestion that we only make video mandatory when a WR is achieved? ( or maybe top 3 or top 5)

I think this would protect the casuals while also protecting the hardcore competitors, and also making the window of people it will actually affect drastically smaller?

Now this in my opinion is a really good idea, but I would make it if a red stat is achieved. As that would mean it's more accurate I guess, I mean if you go by top 5 for example then it wouldn't be fair if you get like 5th out of 20(here you beat like 75% of the players) you do need to provide proof while if you get 6th out of 100(here you beat like 94% of the players) you don't. While with red stats it's immediatly the top 20%

[Parax]

Back when I was a more active competitor, I did most of my competition on morning commutes. In addition to my Nintendo DS and Gameboy Advance, I would play some other games using emulators on my PSP.

I'm not very familiar with the PSP one in particular but aren't homebrew console emulators generally really laggy and not well-optimized? In that case being discouraged from using it actually seems like a good thing.

having time sleeping on it I wanted to make a suggestion that we only make video mandatory when a WR is achieved? ( or maybe top 3 or top 5)

This seems like a decent compromise if enough people are on board with it. (oh the irony, having to compromise on a compromise)