I have no exhaustive list of things that have changed, but a random example is Montezuma 4. In regular AoE2, it's possible to run past the first castle without taking any shots. In HD, it starts firing at you.
Secondly, aggro ranges are generally bigger in HD than in regular AoE2. I'll see if I can make some kind of comparison video some time.
Honestly, I don't think Standard or Moderate runs are particularly interesting in AoE2, since the AI becomes very trivial to deal with, and the tiny aggro range just lets you run through scenarios. It's still worth keeping track of what people pull off, though.
I'd be in favour of having one category where you stick to Hard mode only, and one where mixing difficulties is allowed (though I can't think of a single scenario where you'd want to switch away from Standard).
HD seems to be the hardest version to run, since the AI has been changed a bunch and certain strats that were previously possible on AoE2 no longer turn out to be possible in the re-release. In that sense, HD Hard isn't perfectly comparable with AoE2 Hard, but I think that simply listing it as a separate variable is enough.
Can't say that I agree with allowing cosmetic changes such as custom skins. You could very easily replace enemy skins with very bright colours, so that they stand out while doing runs (e.g., bright pink hunter, springgreen smoker, etc). Would bring a somewhat silly advantage to speedrunning the game over unmodified versions.
For co-op, the only version that's been used is the latest Steam version. It's a stable release in the sense that there are de facto no new patches coming out for it. Primary reason for using the Steam version is that it requires no modification to be able to access multiplayer mode, whereas older versions require some fiddling about to get around Steam.
For single player individual levels, any version is allowed (as long as it hasn't been modified, of course). In general, the latest version is just as fast as the 1.0 version, with the exception of Dead Air 2, Dead Air 3 and Death Toll 3, where crescendos can be skipped far more easily than in later versions.
flicky added this category earlier today. It's been listed under "misc categories", so as to avoid clutter. Looking forward to any new runs for it!
Don't see how it matters for trilogy runs. Second game and all that, after all.
Bumping this with an idea (but I don't have any saves to test it)
Could you leave the helicopter near the apartment, drive to film studios, drive the limo, and then switch to the chopper as soon as you trigger the cutscene?
Now that we're talking about timing changes, when are we finally gonna ditch RTA and exclude loading times? RTA is a left-over from when oasiz was the only runner and he couldn't be bothered to use very precise timing methods because he didn't need 'em. It's already been determined that loading times vary by quite a lot between runners, despite them always seeming practically instant.
Hey, NM-speed is already there (unless you meant full episodes). Difficulties other than UV or NM don't belong on the LBs, as they get zero competition.
Thanks for those amazing stats on browser usage, Tryst. It would be nice to know how many people in a relevant demographic (e.g., speedrunners/gamers) still use IE8 or IE9, which is most likely.... 0%?
The issue has been acknowledged and will be fixed, but this is hardly a priority right now.
We could always bribe Lighnat0r and see if he could sax the page up.
That's a pretty huge difference for collecting fish. Good to know.
Is it necessary to complete all the maps before doing this glitch? If not, then I don't see why it would be called NG+. It's just a heavily glitched NG any% run then (and also impressively boring).
Two of the moderators have submitted runs to the LBs within the last 2 months. Are you certain that they have entirely stopped running the game?
If the scene is indeed kinda dead, then I can add another moderator for this game.
You'd be best off discussing it with the active community for your game, whether emulators are accepted and if so, in what form. Generally speaking, emulator runs aren't that comparable to console runs, not only due to lag and loading differences, but also control differences (e.g., some games are easier to play on keyboard than a gamepad).
If other runners agree with the use of emulators, then it's fine to submit such runs.
Though segmented runs don't see much competition at all for most games, I do think it's worth keeping track of them, as they can be invaluable resources also for SS runs. Separating them from SS runs would be logical, of course. I suppose it would be easy to just create a separate tab for segmented runs for games where someone's done a segmented run and have SS as the default category.
Might be a good idea to keep track of known differences between both versions, so we can optimise our runs better. If you know of any differences, just post 'em and I'll stick them into this post via edits.
-- In AoE, collecting shore fish is 2 seconds faster than in RoR for every 10 food. -- In RoR, Persians are 30% more effective at using farms. -- in AoE, Phoenicians are 15% more effective at woodcutting -- in RoR, Yamato have 20% faster Horse Archers, Scouts, Heavy Cavalry and Cataphracts. -- On maps like Oppression, villagers move considerably faster in AoE compared to RoR.
