[Don]

My reasoning is this: This site's competition is on a trust system.

Making emulator-users submit proof for every single of their submission means you do not trust emulator users.

Banning emulators means you do not trust emulators.

The question is: What is the real issue here? IF you don't trust emulators to emulate correctly, there are two options:

Outright ban all emulators, or just certain ones that cannot be trusted to be used correctly.


I just think it's wrong to only target specific people with proof-submissions. If you want a site with serious competition, you should either go all out or just leave it at the semi-serious half casual competition it is right now, with like 80-90% of the users being inactive or not good at any specific games.

EDIT: If you want to change the site, I would say you should upset more people than just emulator users. If everyone is at least partially upset, you're not picking favourites.

[Starlight_Glimmer]

no y'see that is the oppisite of what I just said.

if you want to talk about pissing people off a blanket ban on emulators will nuke some or all of ff's and bertins gamegear stats just to name two big ones.

with this rule if you like your stat you can keep your stat. period. if you like your run you can submit your run period.

with all this precious time being saved using emulators you have more then enough time left over to attach your video file along side... this really isnt that hard.

[Don]

See, the thing is I don't CARE about specific people. It's something that affects the whole site - EVERYONE. Get that in your head. You are not targetting specific people or thinking about the consequences for every single competitor. That's what I think this rule lacks.

[Starlight_Glimmer]

it will be a positive affect for everyone, even for the tiny % that have to submit video. competitors in the top 5 of this site will like the reasurance that the illegitimate device they are using is not compromising the top tier of the charts. because we know they want to play fairly too.

[SpinDashMaster]

Making emulator-users submit proof for every single of their submission means you do not trust emulator users.

Banning emulators means you do not trust emulators.

That logic is off. Just because two ends have a similar means, that does not imply one should achieve both ends with said means.

Jumping over a rock means jumping.

Jumping off a bridge means jumping.

------------------------------------------

The scope of this thread is being taken way too broadly, and everyone has begun to argue about several different things. Let me remind everyone of a few core concepts behind the original motion here, which I'm fairly certain everyone in the room can (or already has) agreed upon:

1) This new rule has absolutely nothing to do with players BSing. That's why we're not asking for across-the-board proof.

2) When it comes to emulation, the majority of TSC does not trust everyone submitting stats on TAS-able emulators because of TAS-ability (stfu autocorrect, I'm coining that term now.).

3) We can't just ban all TAS-able emulators (All emulators are TAS-able in some form, so the lines are blurred, which means we would have to ban all emulators.)

This is why we're only asking for proof from emulator users. Yes, a specific group is being targeted, and rightfully so. This has to be done if we're not going to entirely ban emulation because there are several potential TASers flying under the radar as we speak.

It's the last line of defense we have to keep the charts intact while still allowing emulation.

As for players whining about videos for non-emulated stats, that issue should be argued separately, in another thread.

[Don]

Let me just remind you: BSing is also possible without any kind of emulation. While TASing is probably not, the issue here still lies that this rule indicate that a few certain people have made an entire usergroup untrustworthy, which I think is unfair.

So if suddenly 20 console users bullshit all of their stats, does that mean all console users are untrustworthy?

The answer is: No. We should either go about it by a case-by-case basis, we've talked about all of this BEFORE and arrived at a stalemate. I'm offering compromises, but you all think that people will be too "targeted" with the ban of all emulators, but you acknowledge wanting to target a certain usergroup anyway.

Clearly, this is all just a discussion about convenience at this point. We're arguing convenience of all emulator users compared to convenience for the top percentage of people that compete, and either rarely use emulators or heavily depend on them.

All I'm saying is that if you want to impose a rule on an entire community just because of some black sheep, we can just force people to post proof for everything.

[SpinDashMaster]

And that last line I wholeheartedly agree with, Don. But it is nonetheless off-topic.

And we've got more than just 1 black sheep here. We've got a whole fucking flock we don't know about.

[Parax]

We are not talking about making things convenient for the top 5 players. We are talking about preserving the integrity of the charts.

I really think you're completely missing the point, Don. It is not and never has been an issue of trust. I'm not really sure how else to explain it though, it's been explained multiple times across this thread.

Also no, this doesn't affect everyone. Anyone who doesn't use emulators isn't affected by this whatsoever.

If we are going with the top 5 thing, I'm kinda thinking we should drop the requirement for tied non-time stats. Seems kind of silly to mandate proof for something trivial like a ring max.

edit: Also what SDM just said here^ is extremely relevant. We have a couple examples of how emulators can affect competitive players in a negative way, but to really understand why this is important, you need to realize that that's just what we know about. Imazor could just as easily have not posted a video and we would have no idea that he saved time by having his emulator lag. (Mind, this still is not an issue of trust - he very likely didn't realize it either, and no  one's accusing him of doing it intentionally.) Take into account how many charts and games we track and you can probably realize that this is potentially a very big problem precisely because we don't know how many charts are actually affected by things like this.

[Don]

I am sorry if I made this topic unbearable for everybody by bringing up points that are not the case here.
I just wanted to make sure that people remember that not everyone on TSC is a hard-ass competitor that will do everything for a stat, I am very well aware that there's all kinds of people on here that use either Emulators, Consoles or both.

I don't know about anyone else, but I would be happy with a regulation such as the one that Parax offered.

[Starlight_Glimmer]

ugh... WHAT!!! comeon! This is what we been saying lol. we just suggested changing it after night one to protect casuals. and I also like the addon about non time stats.

[Starlight_Glimmer]

Ok, honestly? This topic is dumb. It should feel dumb because it is.

Telling me any sort of weird compromise will become a permanent (or even an acceptable) solution and not just an eventual ploy for full proof in the end? That's bullshit.

Telling me this is not about trust? That's bullshit. (And this is exactly what I've been trying to get across - you may not be targeting it, but directly or indirectly, it is still being targeted whether you like it or not).

noooo... that is what a pinhead says. there's no rule making you verify if you're using an emulator or console... we have to take you for your word on that.

I get it hyper, what your saying is your afraid this new rule will expose on a wide scale how bad this problem is, and cause mass public out cry for an all out ban. In reality how this rule will be implemented is it will take many years (you might even be dead of old age by that time) to build up a huge archive of emulator runs. most of which people will only care if it happens to be a WR run, and said console person is really wanting to go for the WR. If you stand back and look at TSC as a whole with all the current rules and regulations, its is a very tiny rule.

While grandfathering in 10 years of records is even a hard pill for me to swallow; honestly I hate this the most. It is never to late to start a rule like this. Sonic games are still being made to this day, and new emulators will still be made, and as time goes on we now have a way to protect old charts that may have not been affected, and protecting future charts.

People are discussing s1 gba chart... idk if that is serious but I actually own that game. This would be a great start for the new rule.

[SpinDashMaster]

That's one hell of a slippery slope argument there, Hyper.

Parax pretty much hit the nail on the head when he said that this is more about verifying the accuracy of the emulation, as opposed to screening every player that comes across us for potential BS-ing.

While the latter is icing on the cake, we would never have implemented a rule like that without making it mandatory for all users to submit videos. That isn't the goal we're trying to reach.

What we are aiming to do here is protect the integrity of stats obtained via emulator. At the moment, many of the threads on this forum are expressing heavy concerns for using emulators. Some form of control HAS to be put into place on emulation, if we are not to ban it outright.

This is our only way to help ensure stats obtained on emulator are indeed performable on console. I, myself even got into a shaky issue like that when CN2T's wheel glitch method was claimed to be impossible on console. No one knew why I took my stat down or even what was going on at the time until I made a post in Rules Revisions explaining the issue.

Even though we eventually proved it to be possible on console, the doubt remains for other types of stats across various emulatable games to have similar issues.

The best way to go about this from now on is to have a hard recording of the events that occurred while acquiring an emulated stat, such that if those doubts return again (and mind you, they just did thanks to S&A bringing light, and I assure you they will again), we can just play it back and try it on console immediately, instead of having to wait three weeks in an LD thread for someone to post a duplicate video, when the person really doesn't deserve the embarrassment of being put in LD.

[RigidatoMS]

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?

You know my answer: keep the emulators. But I didn't understand: is it forbidden if I submit a stat done in my Android emulator and give a proof in a simple screenshot instead of a video?

[TimpZ]

I'm also still confused as to whether using a USB HDD on your wii for games would count as emulation. I can certainly think of differences but I'm not sure how it would affect many of the stats.

There's also using flashcarts, but I think those should be exactly like using an actual cart.

[Don]

TimpZ I use an USB HDD, but I use my own copy of the game on it, so shouldn't it almost exactly be the same?

[TimpZ]

The problem is that loading works differently. Loading the levels is faster, but I have no idea how the Colours engine for example handles loading solidities, objects, visuals etc. When you look at other games like Unleashed or Generations, such mid-level loading could make a difference.

If the purpose of this rule is to weed out the potential for differences in non-official ways of running the game, I think video should be required for that as well.

[Don]

You're probably overthinking this; Whenever I play with my Wii and the disc inside it, it loads slower than a normal wii would because the laser is slightly broken. Also, the way that the stages in colours work, is not depending on loading. It has a drawing distance depending on your camera, DsS showcased it once in one of his streams where he was able to break through something because his camera was weird.

Also, how is the wii supposed to emulate games for itself? As far as I know, using a USB loader just means that the wii reads a digital disc and everything that goes with it; It's not emulating a wii to read it, therefore it's not exactly emulation moreso than a different way to read a disc. It shouldn't be an issue of emulation in this case, really

[SpinDashMaster]

@ Android question: I think we need to do some research on emulation done on android to verify its accuracy. I would be fine with emulated stats from a phone not having a video stat given the emulation is accurate (Heaven forbid one could TAS through a phone.).

@ TimpZ: That is a valid concern and I would agree with classifying that as emulation since you're not loading the original cart/disc/official rereleased item.

But these things are sort off of the topic here. We want to figure out why the heck people are blowing up over such a minimally demanding rule. 'Cause come hell or high water, I'm going to see to it that it gets implemented.

[Parax]

When you look at other games like Unleashed or Generations, such mid-level loading could make a difference.

I don't know about Colors, but it definitely does not make a difference in Unleashed or Generations; those games only stream terrain data. The collision data for the entire stage is always loaded into memory. Faster loading wouldn't allow you to do anything that couldn't be done otherwise.

In any case, since Unleashed and Generations can both be installed to the 360 hard drive and both have digital versions available, and Generations is available on PC, I would chalk up any minor advantages gained due to loading off the hard drive (which would be strictly visual) as essentially a version difference. As far as Wii games are concerned, that is a bit murkier, since there is no legitimate way to do that, but I don't think this subject has come up before, so I wouldn't want to make a ruling on it unless someone comes up with an actual example of something like this affecting competition.

I wouldn't call it an emulation issue, though; it ultimately just comes down to however that particular game works. So I think ruling on whether that would be allowed on a case-by-case basis instead of having a blanket rule for it makes sense.

[TimpZ]

To make an example, in unleashed on PS3 there are spots where you literally go faster than the level art can load. If you had a way to make it load faster then you'd get the advantage of being able to see the terrain as opposed to not.

I'm no expert at the newer games or the exact implications of this. Perhaps it wouldn't be a problem in Colours, but what about Black Knight? Secret Rings? SA2B through dios mios?

I can't give a nice example like the 0.2 thing in the Colours final boss on emulator, but if you're reasoning you want videos to be able to spot such differences because you don't know of them either, I don't see why you wouldn't extent that to other unofficial ways of playing Sonic games.

[Groudon]

To make an example, in unleashed on PS3 there are spots where you literally go faster than the level art can load. If you had a way to make it load faster then you'd get the advantage of being able to see the terrain as opposed to not.

That's not dependent on speed since it doesn't happen every time.

[flying fox]

@ Android question: I think we need to do some research on emulation done on android to verify its accuracy. I would be fine with emulated stats from a phone not having a video stat given the emulation is accurate (Heaven forbid one could TAS through a phone.).

I have been using bluestacks, my phone and my iPod for Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 for a very long time now and have seen no difference what so ever.

[Parax]

I'd honestly be surprised if any of those games actually loaded anything mid-level. Emulation can potentially affect anything about the way the game runs. Running the game off an HDD should only impact loading, and there's no obvious way that it would affect how the game runs otherwise. I'm open to reconsidering if it's shown definitively that there are advantages gained by running the game off a hard drive on a system that offers no legitimate way to do that, but until then, this is just speculation.

Actually, I seem to recall Shadow the Hedgehog doing some collision streaming type stuff, but I don't know the exact details of how that works or any instances where that's problematic in a run on standard hardware.

[TimpZ]

I'm not sure how the games actually load from the HDD either though. Take a look at this, it's two tables of known errors in games using Dios Mios:

https://code.google.com/p/diosmios/wiki/GameIssues
http://crediar.no-ip.com/gc/

Now, the fact remains these issues are caused by from not playing it off of a disc. Not all of these problems are known and some are minor enough that they won't bother fixing them because the games run smoothly otherwise.

I'm not sure how the process works for Wii games, but I know that I've had problems booting a game or two on it (resulting in crashes a bit into the game).

That's why I think these should require video in the same manner as emulators.

[Starlight_Glimmer]

I think the rule should extend only as far as games you didn't purchase (unofficial) and/or playing on a device/in a way not intended by the orginal developers.

if anyone can take their official game, down load it to a hard drive on a console, and not by say a homebrew way. that shouldnt be a problem

[Don]

I can't even state how wrong this is. You're assuming things because you don't know how they work. We should also just put proof on Wii's for playing gamecube discs and put proof on 360 users reading xbox discs, because you don't know how it affects the gameplay, right?

I can see problems with maybe dios mios, but for Wii games: The wii is literally reading a disc from a hard drive. There is NO EMULATION INVOLVED. I switch the usage of disc and harddrive from time to time and I don't see any different behaviour from just changing the medium you use.

Maybe that might also be because, for both, I use my own disc. If there was any difference with any other discs, well...
Colours has this small feature where different copies have a different internal timer. I wouldn't be surprised if there were really small, other changes depending on the copy of colours you use.

Nonetheless: There shouldn't be any huge issues, and even if there were, you could not benefit from them. Crashing a game in the middle of an IL is not exactly... helpful.

EDIT: I've managed to crash my game on disc before, so... I really don't think it's a harddrive issue.

[Starlight_Glimmer]

Everytime I say something you misinterpret me. why would we require proof for a gamecube game being played on wii? this is official and intended by nintendo. thus any console user, with a copy of the game can do it.

[Parax]

https://code.google.com/p/diosmios/wiki/GameIssues
http://crediar.no-ip.com/gc/

I don't see a single listing in either of these links that affects gameplay.

[Don]

I am not misinterpreting you, I am merely questioning your logic. Just because you don't know how something might behave doesn't mean it will always be in the favor of the person using it, nor does it mean that physical copies

Also why is that question so impossible to answer? I am just asking that if you don't know how well the emulation of the game is because of backwards compability, put proof on it, because that's what you're asking right now.

 To give another example: I have shadow the hedgehog for xbox and play it on 360. I've been told it behaves differently than on xbox, which is why it results in a lot more softlocks and crashes.
I can crash the game by just pressing start at a weird time.
I just told you that the Wii playing a Wii game on harddrive is not prone to doing that, because i have a lot of experience with it and tried a lot of stuff with it.

My Wii playing my game on a harddrive is better than my 360 'emulating' my xbox game. That is a fact that I can rely on, even if you think I'm biased, I have a lot of experience to back it up. If you want I can also bring a lot of evidence to show to what ends backwards compability can screw up a game, i would just need to record my shadow the hedgehog adventures.

You can't just apply logic and then back it up by saying "but even if official emulation screws up, it's fine".

As for that, there's a rule for Sonic 3: * Any re-released version of this game (official or unofficial) that has been modified to create a functional change to level layouts is not permitted for use in competition.

If we were to translate that, it means we could use wrong backwards compability emulation as an actual argument, or maybe say that all re-releases should be put proof on because they're not to be trusted, even if they're on standardized hardware. I mean my SMC+ game can crash too, as it's a windows game, so i should always put proof on any stat that i can make with it, right?

TL;DR: This whole thing is foolish and we already derailed the topic enough as is.

[TimpZ]

Don you're completely missing the issue here. A game can have glitches that don't necessarily crash the game. Perhaps one that affect the timer in some way. There's a very big difference in using official releases on dedicated hardware and unofficial hardware. It's like overclocking the CPU in your Wii, it might look good on the outside and seemingly lag less but without intimate knowledge on the coding of the game you can't expect what will happen.

Parax, look at Legend of Spyro, The: A New Beginning USA. It notes having a glitch where some form of false hit makes the game unplayable, so obviously hitboxes or similar can be affected. P.N. 03 USA crashes at a specific point in gameplay, indicating that code in general can be affected in unpredictable ways. Other than that it's mostly music, video and crashes that are noted there, because that's what they're motivated to fix. Unlike a potential timing error that might make a boss faster because a certain animation comes up 0.2 seconds earlier that no'one would notice unless they meticulously studied the differences compared to the original to find them.