So if I choose "before purgatorio", can I start in ring/zone 1?

Also ask: What does "merger rules" mean?

I will probably ask more questions here about unlock ring category after these questions.

1. The "Before Purgatorio" subcategory is meant to refer to the time at which the run happened . I don't think that it would be fair to accept new runs to that subcategory even if you started your run from R/Z1 considering that

• An important part of the unlock ring category is that every part of the run should be achievable on a completely brand new Roblox account . That isn't really possible anymore
• Due to the recent series of revamps in the early areas of the game, it's almost a completely different speedrun . So many towers are multiple minutes longer now
• Oh yeah I almost forgot: I might be wrong about the exact details of all of this but I'm pretty sure that with the release of Purgatorio, the way tower points work was changed (steeples went from 0.5 -> 1, citadels 2 -> 1). That does even more to affect the category than the revamps now that I think about it

2. "Pre/Post-Merger Rules" refers to before/after the tower point requirements for both worlds were merged together; towers beaten in World 2 used to not count towards progress in World 1 and vice versa, but now they do. You are allowed to submit runs to the "Pre-Merger Rules" category as long as you only complete towers from the same world

So I need to create a new account for unlock ring category? I saw everyone create a new account for that category after game code rewrite (Purgatorio released).

Yea pretty much. I feel like I remember hearing that deleting and recounting all of your badges would reset all the cutscene data and whatnot but I don't remember if that's true or not. In either case, you would have to make a new account at some point though