Texas, USAAfter a discussion in the discord, we have concluded that the only real benefit to being able to watch the RNG ram values in real time (0x030007FC xxxx and 0x030007FE xxxx) is retroactive viewing for research purposes.
Therefore, until a way is discovered to take advantage of seeing the RNG advance in real time during runs (in a way that would alter the runner's decision making), having the values on screen is totally encouraged for emulated GBA runs in the name of figuring some more stuff out about how this version of the game operates under the hood.
Nobody wants to dedicate entire runthrough attempts to capturing the ram values if they're just gonna wind up being invalid for the leaderboard, and loading from savestates will often lead to inaccuracies, so for the time being this seems like the best course of action. We will be sure to update everyone as soon as we find something out and/or decide to reverse this decision.
FYI This has nothing to do with the spears% run that turned out to be illegitimate.
After doing attempts of the category I've learned how easy it is to accidentally fire the gun when you don't mean to. Emptying your mag during npc downtime is already allowed and recommended, but we also decided that it would make sense to allow runners to save, quit, and reload the stage from their last checkpoint in the event that they do accidentally fire the gun at an enemy or other interactable thing. This makes it to where you don't have to reset after one human error that's easy to make, and the run is still technically completed with only spears.
Hopefully this will make other people that are looking into our categories feel less daunted when they read the requirements of the run and do attempts of their own.
I apologize for never fully auditing everyone's submitted runs. At this point, I've had to remove two illegitimate runs from the board for either falsifying their timer or breaking the rules of the category, and while I was taking a break from speedrunning last year they had to remove a mod from the leaderboards for rejecting legitimate runs and being immature with their power.
I never assumed that this speedgame would pick up in popularity, nor that people would be so desperate for world record times or high positions on this leaderboard that they would go out of their way to cheat. King Kong is an excellent game and a really cool speedrun and I pledge to no longer allow it to be tarnished by this behavior as this community grows.
Inspired by Paper Mario TTYD's "Glitchless" category, I had the idea of creating a category that excludes the fire trick and checkpoint skips, purely in the name of variety and the possibility of a Truly Deathless speedrun of King Kong. I put the category up on the misc board along with the rules for which techniques are allowed and disallowed so that anyone who would like to attempt that version of the run before I do may do so. If it garners enough interest I'll consider moving it to the main board.
First of all, if you haven't already done a The Log run, what the hell are you doing? https://www.speedrun.com/pjkk/The_Log
Second, seeing that after all this time we actually have some competition starting to stir, I took it upon myself to frame count each of the submissions of this IL. As a result, the position of your run on the board may have changed.
The unfortunate fact of the matter is that starting time from stage select and starting time from Chased by V-Rex fadeout in a full game run gives the latter an advantage of just over half a second (which also happened to be in my favor). So, I decided to make that "fade to black" the timing keypoint in the name of fairness. (On the 360 version, it's the moment "Loading" appears.)
Not a single runner on the The Log board has an accurate number on their on-screen timer. So, feel free to continue timing your run however you wish and submit it in video form so that I can do a frame count of my own and adjust the time down to the millisecond.
Have fun falling off of a log.
holding the analog stick forward is what we're all used to, but holding the analog stick diagonally to get to where you're going is s i g n i f i c a n t l y faster. swimming in water, walking through tall grass, anywhere.
the latter half of my new PB showcases this, including my realization that it's true. check "the cave." i golded the stage by almost 10 seconds.
Probably don't need a forum post for this but whatever
I'm not exactly sure why some platforms can skip the opening movie cutscene and some can't, but I'm pretty sold on that it's an NTSC vs PAL thing. No one knows for sure though since I don't have literally every version of the game at my disposal to test ;p [EDIT: I've finally accrued an NTSC GameCube version of the game and, sure enough, it can't skip that cutscene either. Also you can't zoom in on Kong's face during Sacrifice.]
Anyway, I think it'll be better for everybody if we move the official start of the run where we start the timer to AFTER that cutscene, when the loading screen for The Venture starts. Not just to cut a free minute off of the run, but it'll settle the arbitrary "gentlemen's agreement" we have to just not skip it, when it would obviously be faster to skip it. Plus, if the cutscene is removed from any vod, there will be no copyright trouble. ;) Everyone with me on this?
I was recently made supermod on the king kong series when i asked for the supermod there to make me a mod for a specific game, is there anyway I can make myself a regular mod for that game? Everyone else there is inactive so I want to make edits and such, nothing too extravagant though. This is the game btw, I have the WR for it http://www.speedrun.com/Peter_Jacksons_King_Kong
edit: I only ask because I'm new to this site and know how to do and could find nothing. ;p Any help would be appreciated!!!
