yeah fair, if I end up doing another run I'll probably include the video for future proofing but probably is overkill for the moment.
Maybe I'll do a TAS run to find the fastest route and upload as a new category? Could useful to see what an impossible run looks like.
Hi all,
Been thinking about this on and off and I am concerned about cheating with this game. Older games are far more susceptible to cheating because their inputs are much simpler; this run on PC in particular in my opinion.
Specifically I think I could download Auto-hotkey (or similar) and create a perfect run in less time than it took me to get the current run. after 61 attempts. (Please don't go and do that, lol) The game is so short and the inputs so simple that you could almost just type them out to get it done. I've got most of them written down already from when I put the route together.
My concern is that a perfectly executed run, and a TAS run using keyboard input playback, would be virtually indistinguishable. Parts of this run look like TAS already due to input buffering, so you wouldn't even need to try too hard to make it look realistic.
There are too many stories about cheating in the community, and how something could have been done if there were preventative measures in place.
Not sure what the best solution would be, but at a minimum I would suggest a video feed of the input device be included in the record attempt (eg video of the keyboard in my case). Not sure if there's something else that can be used (like an official timer app or something) to ensure the footage isn't sped up, but gotta start somewhere.
As an example, here is a video I just found when trying to re-find my own video (it's 8 years old so it could be anything). Dude is either using a different emulator, or straight up splicing, which is detectable in the first 20 seconds of the video compared to mine; though it does seem like the inputs are done by a human.
I'm just thinking we could be pro-active and make cheating in MM3, at the very least, too hard to be worth it.
I'd happily have my record deprecated and have to do it again if this seems like a good idea. I've got some ideas anyway, so would incentivise me to try some stuff.
Found a way to get enough gold for the hirelings without doe meister, takes max 1 min (haven't timed it) but might be a little rng dependent. Wondering how hard it is to replace the orb, keeping in mind we want to avoid refreshing the might buff if possible. Probably visit dragon cavern for gold and replacement orb, but not sure. Again probably some RNG where you don't need extra gold depending on how the first money grab goes, which is not ideal.
Sorry, just realised that everything in this run (for msdos platform anyway) is glitchless, so we could add a NMG category for not using the 'meister' codes. The start of the run would be different but the end would likely be the any% repeated, unless it is faster to get crusader for the thief instead of collecting the 100k gold to get thief for the Raven. Worth exploring possibly, though I would rather make a 100% category first.
Confirmed that 'doe meister' and 'orb meister' appear under the 'super clues' heading on page 236. The other passwords listed are not portal destinations and can all be found somewhere in game (eg joabary and smello). There is a portal code to skip directly to the end of the game (blastoff); obviously using that would be pointlessly easy and with input buffering there would be no difference between runs making the category pointless, as such it should be banned. Getting easy money and an easy orb is not game breaking, so I advocate for the meister codes being allowed. The alternative is a much slower run, not sure by how much, might be worth a look.
Doubt had been raised about the legality of the 'doe meister' password for the any % run. It is unlikely this password appears in-game; however it does appear in the official guide book published by new world computing: http://www.thealmightyguru.com/Wiki/images/9/97/Might_and_Magic_III_-_Isles_of_Terra_-_DOS_-_Cluebook.pdf
I think this makes it part of officially allowed play, though the community can discuss. The password is encrypted in the book, and there are others I am curious about; I will decode them to make sure the code actually appears here and see if there is anything else useful.
You can run a C program, or Basic program, to decrypt them, or do it manually with a simple cypher (reversed alphabet substitution).
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.
Also I'm really sorry if that means the runs need to be done again, because they look pretty tight :(
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.
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?
