• The part where my ambulance did a wheelie after warping on Paramedic may be worth putting on there. ()

• PCJ flipping around and killing me at the airport ()

• Fatzke's excitement over sniping seagulls at the end of VC bingo.

• Rolling away with the Hunter ()

will edit this post with further suggestions

It's a lot easier to do initial back-and-forth talking on IRC though. I basically summed up what I put in IRC in my post, and added more to it as well, but yeah, you make a fair point; nothing final should be done until it's posted about on here I suppose. (or discord but eh)

1. In the words of the great Powdinet, "If you're going to meme, at least meme correctly".

I didn't say that TBD taxi wasn't absurd. At least it isn't like 50% of the entire run or something.

While saying "100 Packages" is synonymous with "All Packages", and most people know that 100 = all in this case, "All" is much more explicit as to what the goal is: you just get every single package there is, as opposed to just getting 100 packages (which also happens to be all of them). Powdinet also makes fair points about the number in the stats not counting correctly in GTA III, and how the games specifically say "all" themselves when you get all of a collectible.

As for 100%, it feels like a different subject matter than collectibles. The rules do make it seem like you are getting all percentage-awarding objectives completed, but of course, the advent of duping meant a completely different category for stats menu 100%, and nobody wanted that to be the main 100% category, so we end up here. If you could dupe packages and the like, then that could be taken into account, but you can't, so I'll vote for B for now.

I don't think you should switch versions within one run.

I did that with Voices of Babylon in AoE1 and it just felt super dirty, so I beat that run and deleted the old one from the site. I'm not sure what it is, but I just think that switching between two completely different game versions like that mid-run is not right. I did switch between Rise of Rome game versions mid-run in All Campaigns (to avoid the annoying save glitch and so that the last campaign is playable) but if it's not a gigantic pain in the ass it'd be better not to switch.

I did have the idea for having categories like "All AoK Campaigns" and "All Conquerors Campaigns" ages ago, if any of you are willing to run something like that then it definitely could be added.

I did agree with Omega to remove it, so "without concerting with other mods" is not 100% true. I'll make known my intended relevant modding decisions in IRC from now on so that I don't do something that people actually end up hating (like if I made Gaël a mod... OneHand )

In any case, I'll go with 3 now that the topic has been brought up a bunch recently. I honestly don't deep-down care about what is under "misc categories" since they are all hidden by default, but if we're talking about whether it "should" be removed or not, then by all means, yes: as a reference, I can only imagine it being used by an extreme minority, and even then it could be documented in a better way than having a near-empty leaderboard category; and the respective categories in III/VC never had any competition at all, and I'm certain never will because the runs are so absurd. My run to bop yours in VC was a one-off and doesn't count as competition, in my opinion. The categories were never really worthy of spots on here in the first place, even if hidden under miscellaneous.

(Says the guy who created GTA III NG+ in-game 100% on this site. You did ask nicely and I felt nice though, but now for serious biz.)

edit: Actually, I think a good option for documenting the existence of duping your way to 100% in a speedrun fashion would be to drop a link to each WR in the rules of the 100% categories. I already have in the VC 100% rules "(see In-Game 100% NG+)", so that could be used to link to my run, and there could be one for GTA III as well. Very subtle and easy to access as well.

For keeping you all updated on run improvements and whatnot, will it mainly just be looking on speedrun.com leaderboards?

I'm currently standardizing all the times to a new rule: timing starts when the scenario loads. The reference I am using is when the cursor disappears. Timing ends as usual, on "You Are Victorious!". This is to keep it more consistent with the rules of the other AoE games, and besides, cortez666's videos start from exactly that point anyway so this can make it possible to keep his runs.

Sorry for taking literally forever to bother with this, it's my duty to maintain this leaderboard even if I don't know AoE3 inside-out.

You should only jump into the mission marker when you have a phone call ringing, and in such a way that you can still take missions during the call. My tutorial thing on YouTube should cover the backup stuff:

The Zebra Cab is a consistent spawn and is fast in case you get shitty-ass fares, and it's not too far from the Hyman Condo anyway.

I decided to inquire about it in #gta. I tried it and elaborated on what I had seen Powdinet do before on stream. Turns out you can probably do Taxi Driver in around 20 minutes.

1. Bring a Zebra Cab to the Hyman Condo in Downtown. Save.

2. Save a replay over the minigun rampage in downtown (or whatever nearby rampage you prefer). I'll probably stick to this since it's the closest in location and would reduce risk of load time stuff. Also it fits the best with route changes for me anyway. Wait for four minutes, two for the insta-rampage failing, two for the duping.

3. Load save. Rampage-start taxi, then once you get onto the Trial By Dirt bike, start counting the dupes up from 2 (since this'll reflect how many fares you end up getting). Press F3, then press F1-F3 in very quick succession so that you can cancel the rampage and restart it in this tiny window before Trial By Dirt restarts itself.

This is a pretty quick way I figured you could do it. It may seem inconsistent at first, and yes it is very difficult to get consistently. It's just -really- quick succession with the F1 and F3, but not so quick that you press them at the same time and screw yourself over.

If it starts without a rampage, you're screwed. Load the game and try again.

4. Dupe until you have counted to 50 (or 49). Start taxi and drop off a fare. Return to Hyman Condo and repeat (new replay and all) but with the amount of dupes you'll need to reach 99 fares (otherwise crash [?]).

5. Deliver the final fare. At this point I'd guess you'd want to do the minigun rampage as well regardless of your route.

APPARENTLY doing 100 fares in two sessions works without crashing as well, I'll look into that.

4m (replay) + 2m (duping) + 3m (estimate of worst-case scenario taxi fare and back downtown) + 4m (replay) + 2m (duping) + 1m30 (estimate of worst-case scenario taxi fare) + 1m30 (estimate of worst-case scenario taxi fare) = 18 minutes if you don't fuck up

You could also make one continuous replay for both super-duped Trial By Dirts but that's kinda risky imo, in case you get a super shitty fare, and waiting for long enough to guarantee it to be safe is a time waste.

Video of me failing horrifically and showing that this will actually take practice:

Yeah, I've seen the game before, it's pretty cool. I wouldn't add it to this series simply because it's clearly "Star Wars" and not "Age of Empires", even if it does use AoE2's engine. Maybe I'll play around with it some day, I don't know.

ugh, I wish there was a Haitian-friendly PC version that wasn't in Japanese or that had rampages (like Green Pepper except that doesn't have them). Cool to know this stuff though.

edit: Actually, a DVD version on PC that wasn't from Germany / [region with censored stuff] might do it, but I don't know about those.

Alright, so it turns out that it's no different than a normal version of the game. Oh well.

This box is a generic Vice City retail version box that you'd find in the UK, but it should be quite similar throughout regions.

alternate photo:

Notice how on the back, it says "© 2003 Rockstar Games"

This is the back of the box of my Japanese retail Vice City game. This time, notice how it says "© 2002-2004 Rockstar Games, Inc." This makes sense, seeing as the game was released in Japan in 2004. This is why I think that the next image will be very relevant.

Credit for this image goes to jmoyer07 on eBay, who I just bought this version cheap from. I was not aware that there was such a thing as this until I Google'd stuff about different Vice City releases, and "Vice City Jewel Box (2004)" or something along those lines showed up.

Anyway, yeah, notice that this time it says "© 2004 Rockstar Games, Inc." Just like the Japanese version, sorta. Japanese version says 2002-2004 but they both mention 2004. This strikes me as interesting because my own retail international case says "2003-2006" on the back, completely ignoring 2004, while this other English/international jewel case thing only says 2004, as if it's a totally different thing.

It seems to me that anything post-JP has the new SCM crap. The German Green Pepper version was released in 2009, and it functions pretty much the same, as in, the Cherry Poppers instapass works. So I am hoping that it would apply to this English version as well.

TL;DR I bought what may be a slightly different version of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and it might be useful for speedrunning, cause maybe language switch + CP instapass. OneHand

[TUTORIAL] How to get into Escobar International Airport without losing your weapons in GTA Vice City (be sure to comment rate subscribe)

Patrick, I always did it in runs by waiting for a call to ring, and then dying.

Empiresfreak, I honestly don't know why that is a 1:44, according to the rules it looks like it should be a 2:12 or something. I don't really know much about AoE3 though, I mostly moderate AoE1 and AoE2, so I'll leave it for now.

This thread may or may not actually be very actively used but I got an idea for one such optimization and it'd be good to come up with more if not already done.

The Party package pickup (100%):

Basically you want to follow the sidewalk, then begin to slow down and turn towards Lance's house when you see the sharp-ish turn in the sidewalk. Try to grind against the wall, and right before the stairs, turn the slightest bit to the right so you're more likely to get out on the left instead of on the right. Also, if you turn right (which I don't do in the video) you'll be able to drive away faster without having stairs blocking you off perpendicularly.

Vice City Port Authority package speed: