New York City, NY, USAHi, recently a user by the name of @kirbyPlayz has thrown a huge tantrum on the forums for Hot Lava (https://www.speedrun.com/Hot_Lava) over not getting moderator for a game he didn't even run (or own, for that matter).
Normally this is whatever, just someone being weird, but he posted recently something to the effect of "if you don't unban me from discord and give me mod back i will track you all down and murder you."
This insane and concerning post was made literally on this site, though he's since deleted his post, but I'm almost positive the site mods can see it in his post history. I'm probably just not looking in the right place to report someone, but this thread should still be useful since a glance at his post history shows he bothers every board he can for moderator, and gauging from his response here, it's probably best to post this as a warning for others.
No problem man. Feel free to join the discord for any more help if you need it, people are usually more active there.
It's actually quite simple, just copy the spots we walljump off of while spamming r1 (with the ravager out) and holding X during the whole process.
We use these specific spots because the game is a little wonky in how it handles walljumping. Normally, you get no distance and speed and if you try to ravager with these its going to do nothing.
But, if the surface we jump off of is a little sloped, the game just FREAKS OUT and gives the jump off the wall more momentum and height, and by spamming the ravager while holding X we get to keep this angle and speed and can cross big portions of the map doing so.
Just copy the spots we do it off of, and if you get a really fast and glitchy jump off, you know you got it and can just start spamming your ravager.
EDIT: Also make sure your left stick is neutral this whole time after you jump off the wall (basically just leave it in the center/default position)
So is there any chance to get an update on the situation for my game(s) Thief: The Dark Project and Thief: Gold?
It's pretty lame having odd restrictions because I'm only a "normal" moderator. I would think at this point I had shown what I believe is solid evidence that 3 of the 5 super mods either don't care anymore about the game or never have. I've managed to work (somewhat) with Jake regarding recent changes but he takes days to respond to even the simplest of discord messages (even when hes online most of the day). He's also rubbing a couple people the wrong way.
It's just still unsettling these people can just suddenly undo most of the changes I've put in place on the community's behalf, and I could get pretty much all of them to vouch for my bump-up in rank. It's also getting a bit taxing having to verify everything on my own, as it's either me or waiting 6-7 days for Jake to get to them. But I can't add verifiers cause lol reg mod. At this point its beginning to feel a little slightful that I'm being kept down like this when I've seen a couple people come in here and get complete moderation rearrangements with little to no evidence tbh.
I don't even care about removing these three random supermods no one here has currently ever talked to or heard about, but I will say it's just lame seeing them with any ounce of power when I know damn well they probably aren't even aware of it or care for it.
Pretty much agree with what Jake said^.
There's nothing wrong with having to spend a little cash on a hobby. Should people who like to bake as a hobby just get all of their ingredients for free? I think we can see why that would be silly. And I used to sell my copies of games to friends if I didn't want to play them anymore so I don't see an issue with just passing off something you don't use. And honestly, most of the listing's ive found are like $5, if it was something ridiculous like $50 or more I'd be more flexible on this topic.
So yeah, the unofficial copy of the game won't be supported as the go to method here or anywhere any time soon, And I will ONLY share it with someone if they can prove to me that they bought/have an old copy the game physically and just can't install it because of some circumstance and you just can't figure it out. But again, since I've mentioned it existing a couple times throughout this topic, anyone can easily just look it up and find it now, so that was a mistake on my part talking about it. Though I actually do have a way of detecting it which I won't point out so beware ;p.
Also I would just like to point out that technically, G2D would still entail purchasing the game, that being Gold, from steam or GoG (at least in theory), so I'm not absolutely 100% against posing it as an option for people depending how runners would feel. This would obviously require me or others to take a look at the game and see how it compares/differs if it does at all. But I can see the issues one would have comparing it to authentic, 100% definite TDP runs.
Emulators, usually, are mainly options for most games due to ease of participation, but any game worth its salt would have them ranked separately on their own Sub-Category just due to potential differences that can occur in the emulation process. I don't think G2D would be as extreme a case, Gold and TDP are fairly similar games, but it would probably be smart to rank it separately from the rest of the authentic TDP runs. But making another board split at this point would just be... bleh.
I think that does it for my 2 cents on this topic, was just trying to respond to Amorphous and Crystaline's points and I'm content with the discussion we've all had. At this point, I'm moreso interested in how @The_Count feels, since he's the last TDP runner I haven't talked to yet.
Let's just remember to keep the conversation here civil and mature, we just discussing degenerate video game hobbies here.
I've found that a lot of listings for the game on sites like Amazon and Newegg are mostly from Retro Game stores, which I don't think is a "Joe Random" in any sense. At the end of the day, these small businesses offer a collection of old classics and will ship them to you, which I think is fairly reasonable. Some cheaper than others, and most of the time they are used, but it's like buying a used copy from GameStop back in the day. It's just business.
At the end of the day, there's no stopping anyone from running the game on GoldToDark or a pirated version of the game as of this moment. There is no way to 100% validate whether someone actually owns the game or not. You could have just submitted some runs via a pirated copy of the game or the G2D mod and unless something was painfully obvious, I would have no way to call you out on it, so outright banning something like that would kinda be pointless cause you can fly under the radar just by lying about the legitimacy of the copy.
That reminds me, I have to sift through G2D myself, and see if I can spot any obvious differences between the runs. I know there are patrol layouts and enemy changes between the levels from TDP to Gold, and the modder might have messed things up in that regard. And from there, I'd have to see if the changes warrant another board split, which honestly at this point is the LAST thing I'd want to do.
And while on the topic of modding, we ALREADY allow a mod for the game and have it ranked on the leaderboards, that being NewDark. This already changes up some of the map layouts and gameplay mechanics significantly, and we do that to make participating in the community, which in this case is actually getting the damn game to run and record, much much easier and less daunting of a task for interested runners. To me, G2D would fit the same bill but for more of an "acquisition" problem rather than getting the game to just work/record, which might just be an even more important issue for this game in particular.
I'm going to hold a vote on the Discord soon-ish, and just to gouge opinions on the matter and see how people would feel about allowing G2D as an option for running The Dark Project. As of the moment, it's just me, Onegin and The_Count that even run this game, but I'm curious if it would bring some of the Gold runners over to try the game out as well.
Also, I've rethought my stance on the "unofficial" download and for the time being, I'm just going to sit on it until I gauge opinions on that as well.
It's a topic to discuss, for sure. If I can't manage to get a hold of Jake relatively soon-ish, I'll just make the decision on my own, seeing as the other 3 mods don't even play the game anyway and have been AWOL for the longest time. (Why are they still supermods?)
I'd have to see a run of the GoldToDark to see how it compares/differs. Honestly I just don't know how it works and I'm just curious if TFIX would even recognize it when you try to install.
I do agree being a "purist for the sake of being a purist" is an issue here a lot, it took me forever to finally split the boards between NewDark and OldDark, which was something probably EVERYONE wanted but was stalled for... reasons? However, I'd probably feel more comfortable using the "unofficial" download, since I know for sure its TDP and is workable as an OldDark installation (which can be a toughie to get running) and also easily upgradable with tfix. But that brings with it a sense of sketchyness, so it's just an awkward situation.
Also good to see someone who finally agrees TDP is a better game than Gold. Though, the Gold run is actually pretty fun so don't overlook it ;p
The Dark Project is in a very awkward spot nowadays. There's no "official" digital version for the game purchasable anywhere, so it kinda resorts to paying for a physical copy from second hand sellers, and that has the potential to be a whole mess on its own, let alone jacking up the price by quite a bit. Another issue is that sometimes it just wont install, I believe @OneginIII had issues with his game not reading his CD key or something to that extent.
I believe GoldToDark has been discussed in the past (before I even began participating in the community), and it was always disallowed because its more of a "mod" than a traditional game, and there's no way to verify it is a 1:1 copy of TDP, as some things between TDP and Gold were changed, however minor they may have been. I am willing to be more lenient on this, as I understand the difficulty of acquiring this game can be a hurdle for potential running.
Alternatively, I also have an... "unofficial" download link somewhere that could make things much easier and streamlined for new potential runners. Again, I have no issues with this method of acquiring the game, but it should still be discussed before it's allowed outright.
If you want to run Thief 1, for the time being my short answer would be to run Gold, as it's the easier of the two games to get a handle of. Sooner rather than later, We'll have an official answer for TDP.
I've decided to try communicating with Jake again and he's so far been working along with us and has participated in recent votes. I'm still a bit miffed he has basically been uninvolved up until now, so it could be a one time thing or some other situation. Looking back on the post, I went a little too harsh on him, but he has in the past acted in the way I presented (just having his say be the "be all end all" for a discussion). I've edited the original post to reflect a less harsh view on him, but I still stand by that it's not very comfortable having him basically be the person wielding the most power at the time being.
I still stand by what I said for the other three mods though. None of them have shown any worthiness for their positions and were mostly the ones responsible for letting the board decay like it did. So I guess at this point the overall request I'd be making is for me and Jake to be series mods, because the other 3 just couldn't give a damn and really shouldn't be in their positions.
I'm sorry I didn't reply sooner, as I was giving the situation time to take its course, and I also wanted to make sure that when the time came for me to say something, it would be as sincere and genuine as it could be. I feel you might have gotten the wrong idea about the situation I had presented to you, and I would like to clarify some of those misunderstandings.
First, "Right now you seem more concerned about your personal position than the state of the board." I mean, I guess I am? It's a rather unfortunate situation when you feel unsure about making further changes due to a group of -- and this is the key part here -- uninvolved, more power-wielding moderators looming above you that can just undo everything you're trying to do for the game you are passionate about. Is it wrong that I don't want to have this nagging feeling over my head?
Just the other day, we held a discussion about a recent framerate abuse in the discord that could speed up the game by about 1-2 minutes, and everyone was definitely intrigued by the possibility of seeing its potential and was excited, and Jake shot it down and said he would not allow it to be used in runs. It gives off the vibe that everyone else's opinion was just irrelevant I guess, and basically a guy who has never submitted a run to the game, and "occasionally" verifies a run or 2 now and then can just make that decision and it ends there no if ands or buts. I could hold a vote, have everyone vote in favor of, and still not be able to make the change, and then possibly even lose the chance to have any effect at all by him demodding me and we just return to where we were before I decided to speak up against this nonsense. A decaying board ran by people who honestly couldn't give a single fuck. I hope you see the precedence that sets and the unsettling feeling I get whenever I'm going to make any sort of change.I also want to clarify I am not for the FPS change, if that matters any bit, but I still want it to go to the community to decide.
Again look at the mods. Alderius, who is this guy? He's literally not anywhere online and I can't talk to him in any capacity, it's actually ridiculous. One run to his name and then poof, he's gone. Voetiem, ok. He is sort of active in ANOTHER game, but has not responded to any sort of communication by any of us, and honestly it just seems he got lucky by requesting the game early on. I don't even think he has ever ran the game in any capacity. Socrates, he probably the most basic definition of a guy that has moved on. That's fine and dandy, I'm not saying everyone has to devote huge chunks of their time to maintaining a board for an old outdated PC game, but if you're gonna put yourself in a position of series mod, you better at least respond to people when they try to contact you, and not just blatantly ignore them. If you want to move on, step down and move on. I already discussed Jake, and he's shown the most involvement of the mods admittedly. He just has a very blunt way of posing his opinions and hasn't really shown a willingness to really get any more involved other than answering an occasional question about mechanics. He hasn't really shown a commitment to the community when it comes to listening to opinions, and comes off disinterested most of the time. Most don't even know why he's mod other than he just knows a lot of things.
I also can't help but feel a bit slighted by the way the MGS situation was handled. Now I will preface this by saying that I totally agreed with miniomegaking and the community on their situation and stand behind them, and I'm glad it worked out. However, he didn't really provide any evidence, and quite frankly the people that ended up having their mod status removed actually were involved in at least running to a degree (well, at least one of them had a decent amount of participation). You said you didn't want to do much more for thief because it was a "weird situation I don't understand", but his word was kind of just taken. Looking at one of the people demodded, he was clearly a native french speaker and probably knew bare-bones English at best. Maybe he was not involved because he couldn't even communicate at a basic level? It's not like, say, he was just disinterested in the games he moderated and, despite being fully active on social media and even in the discord dedicated to the speedrunning of the games, and just remained outside and didn't involve himself in conversations intentionally.
Yes, I am this mad about the situation. It is what it is.
Update on thief. Updated the leaderboards, actually listened to the few players we had, and have done more for the game in 2 weeks than any of the current "mods" (and I use that term VERY lightly) have ever done for the game. I think it's fair to say I should go up to super.
Possibly a reach but demodding some of the ones who have done absolutely NOTHING for the games would be a huge plus, but one step at a time I suppose.
I've added subcategories to the game, NewDark and OldDark, which was pretty much a needed thing that's been requested for a long time now.
I decided to make NewDark the "main" subcategory, as in, it's the option that shows first between the two. If you go to "view all" on the level leaderboard, it shows all the NewDark times, and Thieve's Guild doesn't have a time yet. To see OldDark times you have to go to each level individually and hit the OldDark tab up top to see the times you're looking for.
I can just make OldDark the "main" subcategory, but seeing as most new people would probably struggle to get the original engine recording/playing, I felt most of them would just be playing on NewDark anyway.
For the sake of being thorough, I went ahead and got definitive answers from people who actually RUN THE GAME and not these SDA board squatters.
Too many pictures it'd end up being a huge wall of spam so I just put all the links in pastebin https://pastebin.com/iPgzQcKq
I'll reiterate again: None of these 4 current mods besides ONE have ever run Thief 1 in any capacity, SDA days or not. If they ran anything it was thief 2, and years ago. They got lucky in being the first ones to request for the series and end up being "authorities" for a game none of them could give a single damn about. The only "active" mod is basically a glorified verifier, and pretty much just ignores the community.
Psych0sis: The user has runs in the series. It's at least partially super moderator discretion who to add as what level of moderator. If users feel that changes need made to the board details, they should voice their concerns on the forums. I'm not sure what's up with the weird social situation. I'd also try discussing with the series moderators if possible.
I've taken the advice in this post and hit up Voetiem, Socrates and Jake (again), not Alderius because he has no contact information of any sort and has literally vanished off the face of the earth, and color me shocked, none of them responded as expected.
It really sucks because I'm trying my hardest to set some ground rules on what is and isn't allowed in regards to mods (the game is very old, and it NEEDS mods for some people to even run the game and record it), clean up the leaderboards, create guides and tools for new runners, and I can't do most of this because I'm stuck behind this wall of SDA oldheads who haven't touched the game in about 3 years getting lucky that they requested for the srcom page before anyone else.
Also want to point out the statement "The user has runs in the series" is irrelevant because NONE of them besides one have even ever PLAYED THE GAME since it was added to the boards. Thief Deadly Shadows, and Thief 2014 have their own mods, mainly because none of these mods run them (IMPORTANT), so I think it's only fair The Dark Project and Gold have their own mods who CARE about the game and want to actually work on building the scene.
I don't mean to come off like a jerk here, honestly, it's just a frustrating situation. I went out of my way to set up the discord for the first time since these games have been on the site, gathered in new runners who have dabbled their toes into the games and it's just going to fizzle out because the only "authority" we have is afk 6 out of 7 days and doesn't listen to any changes that come up.
I really don't know where else to go with this situation and I'm at my wits end. I'm requesting mod for Thief: The Dark Project and Thief: Gold (https://www.speedrun.com/thief1 and https://www.speedrun.com/thief1.5 respectively). I’m only requesting mod for these 2 because they are the only ones I’m interested in running. I’m not entirely sure where to go with this right now so I’ll just post the situation here.
As of the current moment, there is only one active mod that’s doing any sort of work for the game, and even then is only there to verify runs once every 5 or so days (usually the weekend). The other 3 mods are series mods but I’d like for them not to be involved with this game. One of them is more involved, barely though, in another game and has never submitted a single run to any of the games of Thief, while verifying maybe 10 runs in the years he’s been mod. Another mod has never verified a single run the entire time of his tenure, and has submitted only one run over 2 years ago. The last series mod, admittedly, was at least somewhat active in the past for Thief 2, but hasn’t verified a run in over 4 months and was AWOL for a length of time before that.
Currently I am verifier for both games, but I politely asked for Mod for both of them, citing reasons such as making it easier and quicker to implement changes for the community, and verifying runs more frequently. However, I was pretty much blatantly ignored 
(despite the fact he was even having discussions on discord DURING my message, and has had some since). The requests and suggestions from our small community of members for implementations for the leaderboards has fallen on deaf ears despite an UNANIMOUS agreement for them from everyone involved in running the game(s). This led me to eventually come to the decision his moderation status should be brought into question. As stated before, he’s the only currently semi-active mod, but if he can’t interact with the community and its concerns on a basic level then something should change. He’s also never submitted a run for the games I have requested mod for.
Like I said I wish it didn’t come to where it is now, but I was left with no other choice. I was shown no respect in my attempts to discuss the matter, nor have I ever been in the past to be frank, and I’m not keen on trying to discuss this any further after that non-interaction. I’m the only member setting things up on our pages, like links to the discord (which I had to create for those of us interested in running the game because the old one was “bothering him and his friends who don’t speedrun”), guides/tutorials, and links to patches etc. etc. I know this might not be the absolutely correct thread for this perhaps, but I am out of ideas.
This is the new discord going forward primarily for Speedrunning only. Old one still there for general thievery talk and FMs, but you would have to ask for an invite. This link will never expire.
This is the new discord going forward primarily for Speedrunning only. Old one still there for general thievery talk and FMs, but you would have to ask for an invite. This link will never expire.
This is the new discord going forward primarily for Speedrunning only. Old one still there for general thievery talk and FMs, but you would have to ask for an invite. This link will never expire.
Hey, dunno if you got the last post's link, but we set up a new discord for Speedrunners only (for the time being).
https://discord.gg/szrsPQ3 - Link is set to permanent, I will make a thread on all the thief games for this.
