Since I don't see one for Halo Wars, there's a discord channel for RTS speedrunning: https://discord.gg/dy3GRjw

Since I don't think there's anything for WH40K up, there's a discord channel for RTS speedrunning: https://discord.gg/dy3GRjw

There's a discord channel for RTS speedrunning: https://discord.gg/dy3GRjw

Since I don't think there's anything for Warcraft up, there's a discord channel for RTS speedrunning: https://discord.gg/dy3GRjw

The game is on one console, so real time across runs should be near identical. I don't think there'll be a need for 'time without loads'.

For campaign runs, the timer should start on pressing A to 'Finish Briefing'. Starting it on selecting a profile doesn't seem right since it doesn't actually start the game, and you can still back out and the profile will remain blank. Starting it on the beginning of the mission would be inconsistent, since you'd have to use your reaction time to start the timer. Starting from a mission restart would be manipulating the loading.

For individual missions, the timer should start on the first black screen after loading the mission (in contrary to above). Missions are more likely to have closer times against each other, so accuracy is important.

Both should end when the (last) mission has fully faded to black at the end.

Generals and Zero Hour has auto-generated saves for the start of a mission. There's something I discovered sometime ago in Red Alert 2: The auto-generated saves never change the RNG value or difficulty, only restarting the mission does.

I was wondering if Generals and Zero Hour may suffer from the same issue. If so, it might be better to start ILs from restarting the mission rather than using the provided save files. Needs to be looked into.

While there's not enough activity right now for this to be a thing, I thought I'd post some ideas how the series could have its own marathon categories.

• Tiberian series - All campaigns/missions in the Tiberian timeline. • Red Alert series - All campaigns/missions in the Red Alert timeline. • Generals series - All campaigns/missions in Generals and Zero Hour. Fastest one to complete. RIP Generals 2 :( • The First Decade - All campaigns/missions in the games included in said collection. Would probably take over 24 hours to complete. • The Second Decade - All campaigns/missions in the games released after The First Decade. • The Ultimate Collection - All campaigns/missions in the whole series. Sleep is for the weak. • Attack of the Mods - A possibility if we get enough runs in modifications. Could include Dawn of the Tiberium Age, Twisted Insurrection, Mental Omega, Rise of the Reds/Shockwave, and C&C3: The Forgotten.

There is a RA game on iPhone, but that can remain excluded from how difficult it can be to get now as well as recording it. Tutorial missions would probably be excluded, too.

I've mentioned this a couple times in various spots; I'm doing an overhaul of the timing methods of the series by retiming all the videos I can find. For the most part, the times that current exist will still be there, but there'll be more recorded down for each run for completion sake.

• Real time - Generally useful, but since all the games are on PC (baring console ports) there's still load times that can vary between runners for Tiberian Sun and onward. The older games (TD and RA1) have literally no load times with modern PCs. • In-game time - Also generally useful, except for games who track only minutes (TD, RA1, Renegade) or absent (Generals, RA3¤). It becomes inaccurate when save & load is used. • Time without loads - This can be the best measure for timing, though it does require manual work. For all the RTS games it starts when the player gains control of the battlefield to when "Mission Complete" is shown on screen. Reloads and pauses are not subtracted from the time, so it's acting as real time for when the player is in control. In-game cutscenes are not subtracted since they can be theoretically removed.

Notes on the games:

• The in-game timer for Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert 1 appear to track based on number of frames rendered. On speed 6 for RA1, it records at about 4x the speed of real time, so it's accurate to 15 seconds. It's not super helpful, so real time is more reliable. Still, showing the screen at the end of the mission helps with credibility. • Tiberian Sun, Red Alert 2, and Tiberium Wars provide in-game time accurate to the second after the mission, so they're useful for both individual mission and campaign runs. They can still be skewed with save & load or load times. • Generals doesn't have any kind of in-game timer, so real time is required. • Red Alert 3 has in-game time, but it's not easily available for campaign runs. It's a shame since it means either campaign runs can't use their times for the individual mission leaderboards or runners have to waste real time to check each mission's in-game time.

Unless there's some kind of inconsistency found, I suggest using time without loads as the dominate time for the series as a whole. Real time and in-game time are still recorded, though, for people who prefer those timers. The only problem is RA2's Soviet Leaderboard; using this method would put my run above Volound's, despite how his run is clearly better than mine. The cutscene he doesn't skip in the last mission punishes him. Should skippable cutscenes be excluded from time without loads? I'm not inclined to say yes, but I don't want my run above his either.

I was trying to check Harmak's runs for in-game time on each level, but you can't see the time unless you hover over the level again to see the record.

I'd like to make a suggestion: after a run, go back over each level for the in-game time for each so the total time can be written down. It wouldn't be mandatory since real time should probably be used over in-game time, but recommended. It would let you write down IL times, too.

Cover: http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/cnc/images/a/a7/C%26C3-the-forgotten_logo.png/revision/latest?cb=20120810011658 There's no fake game cover art for the mod, so there's just the logo to use

Background:

Overlooking the wikia for the missions, I've noticed there's multiple choices on some of them. My current predicament makes it difficult for me to check in game to see if there's differences based on the arrow selected. If someone could list the variations to each mission, it'd be a great help.

I'm not sure what causes this to happen. My best guess is during the time Tanya walks onto the bridge (being technically on land and in air), the game isn't sure she's alive. It's at about the same time the internal timer starts to monitor her status, and if she's flagged as dead by mistake, the mission is over from Tanya dying on the inside.

Until the cause is known, I'm opting to exclude the time wasted caused by this glitch in full campaign runs. The segment can't be spliced out of the video, but it can be removed from real time and not penalize game time.

There's several games in the series that have mods with campaigns that can be ran. Ones that I know of are:

• Mental Omega - Already added to the series with a few mission runs. Really well made and well polished, but the difficulty is absolutely ridiculous. Tread lightly. • Twisted Insurrection - Also already added but with no runs yet. Stand-alone mod that doesn't require Tiberian Sun. Also well made. • The Dawn of the Tiberium Age - Combines the best parts of Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert 1, including the factions. Not much of a campaign yet. Also stand-alone. • Rise of the Reds - Mod for Zero Hour. Adds Soviets and Europe as factions and overhauls the existing ones. Plans on having a campaign. • Renegade X - Re-creation of Renegade brought to Unreal Engine 3. Have not been able to install this so I'm not 100% sure their campaign is complete. • OpenRA - Open source re-creation of Red Alert 1 with competition in mind. Also has mods for Tiberian Dawn and Dune 2000.

This isn't all encompassing, just the ones I've noticed a lot. I'll be happy to add one once someone does a run of it.

From now on I'll post here for all things related to stats, to prevent making too many threads, and to casually post new things. Until I make new versions of the following to put into the thread, here's what I've posted so far:

• User Stats thread - Compiled with data from 2016-06-05 • Game Stats thread - Compiled with data from 2016-04-21 • Black hole'd runs - Runs that don't exist on any leaderboard, regardless of obsoletion. Compiled with data sometime around 2016-05-09 • Games with co-op categories - Compiled with data sometime before 2016-05-13 • Runs that have been pending for a long time - Helpful for those looking to replace inactive moderators • Leaderboards with the least/most time with the most players/runs • Runs without videos, by ranking - Lists the runs with the highest positions by leaderboard that are missing videos, and in most cases actual proof. Take those runs with a grain of salt. Leaderboards with poorly organized times with/without loads make their positions inaccurate, so some runs are higher/missing as result. HiveMC DeathRun's runs were removed because of how they prove their runs. The Mario Kart series has quite a lot of world records without videos. Portal 1/2 also has this problem, among others. • Shortest Leaderboards - Lists the 1000 shortest full-game leaderboards for people who want to do an easy and quick run.

Note: Google Sheets seems to be somewhat buggy with the temporary filters (what you make when you sort).

I made a sheet with player statistics. Warning, it's fairly large and may be a bit laggy: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NsM3cCofvnlpUeZcrluS8q7fUMHAjFb0-susGnI9mM4/edit?usp=sharing

Here are the stats I gathered for everyone and used to rank with:

• Run Count • Full Game Run Count • Unique Game Count • Unique Leaderboard Count • Unique Full Game Leaderboard Count • Total Time • Total Full Game Time • Run Activity • Full Game Run Activity • Time Activity • Full Game Time Activity • Combined Activity • Full Game Combined Activity • World Records Held • Full Game World Record Held • Top 3 Records Held • Full Game Top 3 Records Held • Sum of Weighted Records • Sum of Weighted Full Game Records • Best Weighted Record

To the right of the sheet are rankings, depending on how you value things. • MasterOfOne ranks a player's best rank, from any one stat • AverageRanking does exactly that • JackOfAllTrades ranks a player's worst rank, from any one stat • MasterOfMasters compares everyone's best rank, across all ranks • AverageAverage works similar to the above and below • JackOfJacks compares everyone's worst rank, across all ranks • And Weakest Link is what the player's lowest rank is. Most peoples' are Best Weighted Record.

Notes/Comments:

• Separate Full Game was used since ILs can inflate positions more than they should. That, and people generally like full game runs more than individual levels, except for best of compilations, which I enjoy (doing).
• Combined Activity is the same as Activity on the site for games. It's Run Activity + Time Activity.
• Weighted records are [NumberOfPlayers]^0.5/[Position]. Ocarina of Time Any% has 753 records, so the WR holder would have 27.44, 2nd place 13.72, 3rd 9.15, etc. It's slightly skewed as it includes emulator runs regardless of settings. I may end up changing how it's calculated.
• Proper separation of Full Game and Level is dependent on the games' moderators. Halo Co-op is an example where level categories are classified as full game. I can't do much about it unless I manually adjust them when calculating.
• It does not know when a leaderboard is sorted descending, such as Metroid Prime's Frigate Escape. The API currently does not supply that information. Even if it did, I'm not entirely sure how to go about implementing it.
• -- Found a work-around. Using Excel to help with this for now. Shaved off 11% of the total time, most of which were from fake runs. Next time I make stats it'll exclude those runs' times.

Repeating what I mentioned to CCNeverender on Twitter.

The in-game timer seems to be exactly like what real time w/o loads would be, minus the menuing, rounded to the nearest second for each mission. I strongly suggest using it as the primary time for both full-game and level leaderboards.

The other two timing methods aren't required until there's a tie, in which case real time w/o loads can be used, again for both leaderboards. Unfortunately, because of how the site is designed, we can't have all three (real time, game time, and no loads) without looking cluttered.

What timing methods should be used?

• Real time starts at clicking the campaign difficulty and ends upon seeing the 'Mission Complete' screen on the final mission. I think that's fine, though it does end up including load times. • Game time is the sum of times displayed at the end of each mission. It uses whole minutes so close records can become disputed. That, and like the rest of the series, save & load, or even restarting, can skew mission times. S&L can be banned for individual levels, but how do we treat it for full-game runs? • Real time (no loads) could be used to compromise between the two, though three time columns aren't much fun to deal with. S&L/Restarts are accounted for and load times are stripped.

Right now I have it set to sort by game time. Any thoughts?

Given the number of possibilities this game has, it's swamped by the number of sub-categories it can have:

1. Faction (for now there's only Renegades, but there's plans for up to 6 factions total)
2. Single-Player or Co-Op (each faction presumably has both)
3. New Game or New Game+ (If you start with a blank file or with all the unlocks)
4. Bronze, Silver, or Gold (Depends on the number of stars you get on each mission; one, two, or all three)
5. Beginner, Normal, and Hard (Can be a non-subcategory variable. I know 100% can't be done on Beginner)

Going HAM on all them would total to 216 possibilities NotLikeThis . It can be thought about more when there's more runs/runners.

While cleaning/updating the information for some games, I've had a few things come to mind:

• Names -- I'm assuming this is set to use Extended ASCII? I've only seen Unicode be used for Japanese names. Also, should characters 0x7F to 0xA0 not be allowed? There hasn't been any games that have needed to use them, and those who are using them shouldn't be (most notably Mickey’s Speedway USA). I pick on those ones because sometimes they can be stored as Unicode instead.

• Other Translations -- Not for the site (I'm sure that's a long term goal), but for games/series. I think having at least a PAL name entry would clear up some confusion. Some games try to compensate for this (like Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando/Locked & Loaded) so that they can still be searched. If a PAL entry is added, similar to how time is now handled, the website would default the name to the region. I'm not sure if it's worth adding anything deeper than NTSC/PAL/JPN names.

• Abbreviations -- Should these be overhauled? Some series have the same abbreviation as one of their games (like Portal series and the first game) and some even being different games entirely (Ib and Infinity Blade, frustratingly). Not every game can be abbreviated so easily. What about games with same abbreviations (like Super Mario Bros. and Super Meat Boy)? Is it chosen by first come first serve or popularity?

• Games with off-site leaderboards -- Not all of them are treated the same. Why are there entries for the Donkey Kong Country games while others like Super Metroid and most of the Halo series are missing? Are they supposed to be left blank to redirect users like with DKC, or gone entirely? It would also be good to have a list of which games are not on the site. I tried making something of a list a little while back.

• Release Date -- Which release date should be used? The US release, the Japanese release, or whatever one was first? With months being added, it would be good to clarify this.

• Milliseconds -- I know choosing between centi/deci/milliseconds is planned, but shouldn't the box for milliseconds always be available? Keeping track of specifics can help when there's ties, rather than needing to dig back to videos and re-record their times to break them.

• Other Game Types -- As I've mentioned in the update's thread, there may be more game types that should be added to clean up the odd 'game' leaderboards we have.

• Game relationships -- I've yet to go in deep on this. Some games have relationships with each other; some being alternate versions, platforms, regions, etc. Some games are completely different with the same title while others are virtually identical. Maybe some kind of tag similar to series can connect them; I need to research this more.

• Following series -- I'm unsure whether or not this is a known problem. It's not possible to follow series boards to know when there's a new post.

Maybe I've mentioned too much in one post...

Difficulty categories are a mess to deal with for any game with them. I'm using Hard, Normal, and Easy as generics for reference.

• Separate categories for difficulties - Can cause a lot of clutter if there's more than one or two categories (like Any% and 100%). You need to check each one to see the times. On the off-chance a hard run is faster than an easier run, it might not be noticed because they're not stacked against each other. Especially so for Normal, since middle categories are often ignored; people look for the fastest and/or hardest runs. • Subcategories for difficulties - A little better, but still has the problem of different times being noticed. Defaulting to one kind of screws over the others. • Difficulties are recorded but are on the same leaderboard - This puts easy and hard on the same board. In most cases easy will be on top, and since hard runs are below easy, even for the best hard run, it'll skew the perception of it since it has a lower rank. • X difficulty only - This isn't very fair for players who do the easiest difficulty for speed, or for players who do the hardest for the challenge. • Hardest and easiest difficulty only - Probably the best for most games. Sometimes middle difficulties have enough difference to justify running it too, though.

I thought of a possible solution for the site to add. It doesn't address all the issues, but should get most.

Categories for up to certain difficulties - Example being Any Difficulty and Hardest Difficulty. This separates the two main concepts: fastest and hardest runs. Defaulting to one doesn't hurt too much since the category title shows which one users are looking for. For games with notable differences for middle categories, a category can be enabled for Normal+Hard.

There'd need to be a 'sequential' setting for variables for this to work, meaning the values higher on the list are considered greater than the ones below. Then subcategories are set for upto said values.

Edit: Now that I think about it, this could somehow extend to platforms and regions, too.