I nominate A3r1us. He has been in the community for a sufficient amount of time, and is extremely active within the community (as in, his total playtime on his splits had FAR eclipsed my own. That doesn't necessarily matter when it comes to a moderator position, but to me it shows his activity is basically unmatched when it comes to the community), even when the community is in a "disinterested" state for a period of time. I trust his judgement in making decisions to accept and reject runs.

I'd like to point out that Mergy has gotten the card 000 drop again.

Video of the drop: https://twitter.com/Mergy_/status/779826733872713729

Video of Mergy taking that same disc and dumping its contents onto his computer and generating an MD5 hash of the image:

Allow me to point out that this could have possibly been faked by playing on his modified iso, getting the drop, hot-swapping discs (putting in a legitimate disc), and starting the recording.

My opinion is quite similar to n1nj4's. I myself am going to sit back and wait for more information before making a solid opinion. Jumping the gun in either direction will be bad. There is still research to be done; wait for it to conclude (or at least wait for the evidence to be conclusive) before branding him a legit runner or a cheater.

Spectre, I'm actually fairly surprised you're even associating with this community anymore. Don't you have too much fame after that Rex% WR to the point where you no longer have time to worry about FM? Weird.

Anyways, let's break down your post, why it's wrong, and why you're wrong.

"Rules, categories, and simple things such as shortening the game's URL, are completely outdated, the moderation has always neglected community-favored decisions in favor of their personal preferences."

The rules are completely updated. Which rules are you referring to that aren't there that should be? The categories are competely updated. Which categories are you referring to that aren't there that should be? (And don't say Rex%. Please.) I'm not sure what you mean about shortening the game's URL. I never knew that "yugiohfm" wasn't precise enough about what the game's name is. Strange. I'm interested in hearing your suggestion for this one. Which community-favored decisions are you referring to? Please be a little more specific.

Next, I will break apart your "breakdown of this game's moderation team", going point by point:

• This is quite possibly correct. Mergy will indeed be removed from the leaderboards if he has been found to be cheating. However, there is still research (not by me, Mergy, or any other runner) that is underway on the 000 card glitch. If this research concludes it is impossible to do this without a modified .iso, then you will be totally correct and Mergy will be removed along with his times. However, to conclude that now is a hasty decision. However, this is not my decision to make, it is Speedrun.com's moderation team decision. Also, not sure what you mean about my "personal interest". I'll go into that more later.

• I am not "temporarily out because of a ragequit". I'm out because of drama, this is true; however, the reason I left the moderation team was because I did not feel it was at all worth being at the center of a leaderboard that attracts so much drama. This isn't "temporary" as I have been gone for 10 months. So please, do not list me as a part of the moderation team when it is simply untrue.

• Kollin7 actually accepts and deny's more runs than Mergy does. Therefore, I'm truly unsure on where you got that information that he "does nothing". Clearly you didn't take any time to ask anyone or look on the leaderboards.

• This game is not as popular as you think it is. While it attracts maybe a few hundred viewers at its peak times, there are not many runs actively being submitted to the leaderboard. A moderation team only needs to be large to accept or reject runs, and nothing more. Runs for Forbidden Memories are rarely submitted, and they are accepted or rejected quickly after submission. Since I am not a part of this moderation team, I will change your "two other people" to "one other person" here. Kollin blindly colludes with Mergy? I'm not sure you know Kollin at all to be making that accusation, as Kollin "colluding" with literally anyone is laughable. Also, what would they collude over even if that was true?

Now, let me talk about why the idea you have that I am "colluding" with Mergy is hilarious.

First, let me make something very clear: I am not, at all, on Mergy's side regarding the 000 situation. Likewise, I am not on the other side of the argument either. To assume that I am on either side is to either misunderstand everything I've been saying/doing in the past few days, or to just be not listening to it.

In the past few days, I have encouraged each side of the argument to have their own opinion on the matter. Having your own opinion on whether or not Mergy cheated is totally fine. What isn't fine is when you start advertising your opinion as if it is a fact. To tell people that Mergy cheated right now is to tell a lie. To tell people that Mergy cheated is to tell people that you yourself know, for a fact, that Mergy cheated. And you don't. You, along with most people in the Forbidden Memories community, do not have the proper knowledge to make that assumption.

As soon as Mergy won card 000, research began. Users of the community (not runners, and in some cases not even viewers of FM) have been researching card 000 for a few days now. Basically, we are trying to prove a few things.

One, we are trying to prove whether or not winning the card could've happened because of a hardware anomoly. What that means is we are trying to completely rule out things like a badly damaged disc and the console itself. This is a good time to note that Mergy does indeed play on a console that is modified to play games from a different region. Testing is currently happening to see if that could, in any possible way, produce winning card 000 on an unmodified .iso.

Two, we are trying to figure out if he won the card due to an actual software bug. This is the one we are searching the most. There has been talk (years ago, and not in this community) of people getting the same glitch Mergy got on console, without modification. This talk was mostly on Neoseeker and on obscure YouTube videos. But a handful of other people have claimed to win glitched cards without any form of cheating. We originally dismissed these claims. However, this happening to a trusted runner of Forbidden Memories has made us take a second look. This is why we are researching whether or not a software bug (i.e. something exploitable) could have caused this.

Currently, an adequate amount of research has not yet been done to verify either of these things to be possible or not. We have decided that, once there is an adequate amount of research done to prove one side or the other, appropriate action will be take (i.e. a removal of Mergy from the leaderboards). Until that time, we are in a kind of limbo.

Spectre has not been a part of any of this research or discussion. In fact, the moment Mergy won card 000, he took it upon himself to go to r/speedrun and make a thread claiming Mergy cheated. He made this claim, in front of thousands of people unfamiliar with the game, without knowing anything about what had happened and why. Quite frankly, all Spectre wants is attention.

Good or bad makes no difference to him; as long as Spectre gets some type of attention, he is happy. This is not the first time he tried to do something controversial and stupid in order to get attention. Years ago, he completed a duel in the game relatively quickly. It was quite common to finish the duel as quickly as he did. However, in his thirst for attention, he highlighted it, calling it a "World Record" against that duelist, and proceeded to again post on Reddit about his "journey" to get the record (the record in a category that does not exist; a record in a category he didn't create until he thought he got the record in).

Finally, let me answer the point I've seen made a few times; the point that I am somehow colluding with Mergy in order to satisfy my personal interests. This alone makes no sense. What do I stand to gain by blindly being on Mergy's side? In fact, I have a lot of reason to NOT be on his side. I currently hold the 2nd best time in Forbidden Memories. If Mergy was found to be cheating, his time would be removed and I would be the record holder. So, if anything, I have a very good reason to do what you're doing by trying to get Mergy banned. However, I've remained neutral this entire time. Why? Because I simply do not have enough information yet, just like you don't. If Mergy is found to be a cheater, then he will be banned (not my decision). If Mergy is found to not be a cheater, he will not be banned (not my decision). Until then, I plan on sitting on the sidelines, helping do what I can with the research, and still being friends with Mergy. But remember, being friends does NOT equal "colluding".

Basically, Spectre is an attention-seeker. He tried to get attention the good way first, by creating "Rex%" (the name of the duelist is Rex Raptor). Next, he tried getting bad attention, by creating a Reddit thread saying Mergy cheated before he knew (at all) what had happened. And finally, he is trying to get more attention by making a post here on Speedrun.com, trying to be the leader of some type of "revolution against the Forbidden Memories leaderboards". Give it a rest, Spectre. We all know who you are; you can rest easy.

Anyways, I'm looking forward to your reply, Spectre. I can't wait to see how you answer my questions.

Poeple should not be replying to this thread anymore. This thread is not for a discussion on the glitch. If you'd like to discuss that, go to our own forums, or to Discord.

When the rules were thought of, we didn't think of writing in the savestate thing. It was never an issue to we never really thought about it. Therefore, it was whoever wrote the rules' mistake (I did not write them).

In order to rectify it, Matt's run has to be allowed to stand under the old rules, and new runs will be held accountable for the new rules. If you choose to not recognize Matt's run as legitimate, then you may, but this leaderboard will reflect otherwise.

Yes, grandfathered rules. It isn't a new ideology to do something like this.

But yeah, his run is allowed because the rule didn't exist. When new rules are made it does not invalidate old runs unless it's a BIG rule change that changes the entire game.

This isn't that big of a deal.

@spectre

There doesn't need to be a guide. Use ePSXe 1.8 and you're fine. As far as savestating for resets goes, I always kind of figured it was generally known to not do that, but I understand that not explicitly stating it can be unfair.

Matt's run will be kept, and the rules for his run will be grandfathered from how they were before this rule change. In the future, no savestates for resetting and nothing but ePSXe 1.8.

And console is a very good bit faster than emulator anyways, provided your BIOS is newer.