Hey dudes, I just started running might and magic games and was looking at other records. I'm not a huge fan of the memory manipulation runs, though they are impressive I feel they should have their own category since they are so far from actually playing the game.

Anyway in this case it looks like a whole lot of setup work is done before the timer starts, this seems wrong. I'm not sure if the stuff that happens before a new game is started is required or not, since both runs do it, but the stuff done on the character creation screen is obviously required. Since it is part of the strategy for performing the run, I would think it would need to be done in real-time and without scripts, and would need to be part of the timed run.

The videos shown obviously either speed up the recording or use a script to perform the steps required on the character creation screen.

Might be annoying for people, but at least the run would be longer, more actions would be included in the timed portion of the run, and competition could be a little stronger?

To summarise, I think you should be able to perform only the actions shown in the timed portion of the video, and still succeed in performing the run - this does not hold for the current runs.

Also I'm really sorry if that means the runs need to be done again, because they look pretty tight :(

Problem with disallowing memory manipulation in any% is that in the old any% route, before we had total control over the game, it still uses the same glitch (5th slot). Any% without 5th slot would be pretty much the same as any% NMG so no point in making that a category, is there.

As for timing the party creation, I don't have a strong argument against it other than just that it's quite common for speedruns to not time such things.

Now I realize that there's an obvious conflict of interest as I'm the record holder as well as a moderator, I want to keep the record, so I'm inclined to not change the rules. Moreover, are you saying that you'd want to run the category if the rules were changed, or that you'd just like to see the run done "properly"?

Might be annoying for people, but at least the run would be longer, more actions would be included in the timed portion of the run, and competition could be a little stronger?

It would most certainly have the exact opposite effect. I'd personally much rather retire from speedrunning completely than "compete" in typing text in little boxes.

Oh and mind replying to my PM? I had some questions regarding MM3.

Yeah fair points. I will run all the MM games eventually, not yet sure I'll run the memory altering ones (mm7 is my fav but the any% is un-runnable without the memory glitch, so i'll start in NMG) I will probably do MM6 because it is so short, so its easy to do a few iterations on it to get a decent time. Doubtful i'll approach the WR though.

I cant reply to messages yet, For some reason my account has to exist for (arbitrarily) a week before I can send messages, even if I'm just replying.

Short answer, wrong place, I don't see anything in the rules for mm3 about needing to find the value in-game to use it (i don't think it is shown anywhere in game btw, but that's hard to check, I'm only 50% sure it is not). It is a cheat code I think, but it is used by the SNES runs too so I guess it's a question of whether it should be allowed. Given it is any% and something like memory alterations are presumably allowed, I would think you would need a NMG category to disallow it (it is less cheaty than altering memory imo since it is intentionally part of the game).

Timing: its good. I managed to get my autosplitter to work with the places you suggested and improved my time; not enough to re-upload.

Gog exclusive: hard to justify, just seemed the easiest way to ensure consistency. If other emulators or settings do not provide an advantage then theres no reason to disallow them, requiring this version just seemed easier since it could be hard to detect when other emulators or settings are giving an advantage without doing frame by frame comparisons throughout the run.

I have started putting together info for a 100% run (it's hard to figure out everything you can and should do in the game, lol; so far i have 31 orbs, 37? artifacts, alacorn, trueberry, etc). This run would probably disallow the 'meister' portal codes, but as with not recording the time for the memory exploits here it may be better from a QoL perspective to just allow it. Although if there is a slightly higher effort way of achieving the same it might be better.

Alright well if you guys think the codes are fine that's your choice, it's not really my place say.

Regarding the versions, I do agree, but I'm just not expecting it to be a real problem. A runner is obligated to do their best to prove legitimacy and we should take their word for it, unless there is a reason for suspicion.

And sorry, I didn't mean to hijack this thread so let's continue in a new thread on MM3 forums if need be.