There is no server (to my knowledge) as the community is quite small. There's an old video guide in the Guides tab that might help, and also ThaRixers GDQ run which has some more explanation. Otherwise I feel like asking in this forum is the best bet, and maybe ping some runners on Twitter or such?

I came back to look at the situation here (oh yeah I'm a mod too maybe I should care) because I considered running this again (maybe just for the meme, but I'd like I fairly timed meme so).

I think the best way would be to do time without loads. Of course because there's no real good way to auto-remove loads, it would have to be done manually. But for the Mission Mode this is 10(?) loads (EDIT: I realised it's more like 20, one for to the menu and one for back to gameplay), and maybe for your console they will be consistent, so you would have to just time them once and then you can work out your final time easily every other time. This would mean you could run on any console and could compare easily.

If my above idea is good, I dunno if that would mean we can keep emulators. The obvious one people use is Dolphin, and the only issue otherwise besides loads is accuracy, and Dolphin seemed accurate when I was playing with it.

Also if we did that above idea, I wouldn't mind allowing playing from a HDD or similar (can be done on all the consoles but it's something people like to do on the Wii/GCN) because, like Hit & Run, it just makes your attempts faster, and with load removal it doesn't really matter. Good god I feel for people trying to grind attempts on the PS2 version.

Also completely off topic but I checked a few runs and some people seem to run with a memory card inserted. I am pretty sure it's faster to remove it because the autosave takes a few seconds after every mission ;)

EDIT: I did a couple of runs on my XBOX version installed to the HDD and then did some ghetto timing after and loads mostly seemed consistent, although like I said it wasn't frame perfect timing. It was 3:12 or so of loads.

Good to hear. The major skips weren't patched out though, I know they're possible in Any% (there's a couple of American copy runs on the leaderboard).

Sorry for the late reply, I wasn't getting notifications for this board.

I am assuming the duplication must've been patched out of the American version (it was released a year or so after). The workaround is to route some other bones in of course, you'd just need to find the next fastest 3 to get. I have a (really poorly written) guide in the Guides section on the locations of a lot of bones that might be able to help.

That is, as long as you are doing it correctly? You need to leave the area and come back in to load it again for it to work.

If you don't skip the cutscene, CJ crouches during it; I assume that is what he's referring to?

Just for transparency, I bought this up in our Discord server but will make a note of it here too:

There is 2 different versions of GInput, the one we are talking about is Silent's version, but there's also an older version by Deji that is available here, which does a lot less. I am not sure what it's like in relation to reasons we want Silent's GInput banned though; all I can say is I used it for a bit many years ago and I know MisterPost did/does as well.

1, but I'm not sure if you would then make "without mission skips" default, like it is for 100%, or make "with mission skips" default, which would make the shortest full game runs show as soon as you choose that category.

Also option 2 would be a little bit dumb, seeing as 100% with mission skips is not run by anyone yet, so you'd end up either making a category no one runs, or 100% would just go back to how it used to be, where mission skipping is banned.

(Also like I said to reydawg for the hypothetical moving of another category, you'd probably want to ask for an admin to help you move them over if this option wins.)

[quote]you missed the IF in my post I have no idea if it works on fresh copy[/quote] Yeah, bad phrasing on my part, I want to also know if it works on a fresh copy, and if so, I would be OK with it, aka I agree with Gael.

As long as what Gael says is correct (you can buy a fresh copy of the game and download the iFruit app, link your account and then do the run) I am fine with it.

Most of my arguments on "DLC" usage is basically to answer the question: can someone who buys the game today do what you are doing?

• For last-gen DLC you can still get that I am pretty sure (unless they removed them in the final patch)
• For bonus money you cannot.
• For iFruit it is still downloadable from all mobile store fronts IIRC.

Also the iFruit app is available on iOS (so iPod/iPad/iPhone), Android, Windows Phone, Windows 8/10 (so if you're on those on your PC you could technically use it there) and PSVita (but unfortunately not on PSTV), so hopefully making it accessible to quite a lot of people.

I know some people I've talked to have suggested moving it to "Grand Theft Auto Category Extensions" area/game; if you were to do this I would suggest asking an admin (Lighnat0r maybe) to do stuff on the backend to move it all over. I wouldn't want someone doing each run manually, sounds like torture and if you were going to move obsolete runs too, would take forever.

I was going to respond to other stuff but I didn't feel like it, but I will address a few things in ryedawg's post above.

"Example zotons last submitted run was 692 days ago" - I have tried to be somewhat involved in the community though since, and I imagine I did a run since then. But like I said I am fine not being a mod, so this is a moot point.

DLC usage - the forum was around when that was an issue it seems: one thread and another. I found it funny people were talking about DLC back then when on the PS3 it was rolled into the main updates, therefore if I wanted to update the game I would have it. Of course I could avoid using it, but it was offered for free and everyone could get it at the time so I saw no point against it. "not having internet" was a weird excuse (which is exactly what I said back then) when the leaderboard required a video. Only response to that I think I got was that they might upload videos from another location, such as a library (for an 8 hour run?). I am glad that trying to avoid it helped find strats though.

" I at the time told zoton and matt i would mod the boards. Once they saw this they went and told the super mods to make them mod" - (I am going to assume "super mods" in this context means full mods) back when this happened, I had no bad feelings toward ryedawg, I don't remember specifically going to get mod so he couldn't. I mainly did it because Dekap was the only mod and was neglecting the leaderboards; runs were waiting verification for ages, so something needed to be done about an inactive mod.

" let the community self implode because they do not deserve to be saved from them selfs." - does this sound like a guy who cares about fixing a community? Why would you fix something you want to self implode? Seems a bit weird. But OK.

After all of that I will point out what I've pointed out to some other people already: I am fine with having the mods purged, although I know DarkViper isn't. Lots of the mods were inactive and the times were being proved to be incorrect and I did try to tell the people to pay more attention but I guess they didn't. Ryedawg does clearly show some care for the board, and is even trying to keep a log (which TBH speedrun.com should already be providing, but doesn't) but I wouldn't want him being the only mod, especially with a game with this many runners.

Also I found it a bit weird that I wasn't notified really, I thought maybe a ping from Gyoo on Twitter seeing as I was a supermod at least, and when I first saw this thread I thought it was the start of a discussion until I looked at the mod list. I understand his reasoning though.

That's all my thoughts for now, I might post some more tomorrow, it's late and I have a headache. Thanks for reading!

@yellowelevator815: I added you as a mod. I did see your tweet from before but didn't get a chance to respond. Also I don't check my YouTube comments because I'm not very active on YouTube anymore. Didn't see anything from you on Twitch though(?). If you ever need my attention again, Twitter is the best way, just hope that I'm not busy and forget to respond.

Load remover has been added into LiveSplit; updated the original post with a link to the short guide I made (which can also be accessed through LiveSplit itself).

The Discord invite has expired (you need to make one that is permanent and doesn't have an expiry time) and your Google Doc is still protected.

@InfiniteSheldor: There is no way that I know of right now, no, especially seeing as consoles are quite locked down; that doesn't help.

@BenevolentLife: If you are using Steam, have a look at the "Set Launch Options" section on >>>this page<<<. If you are using uPlay, go to the "properties" tab when you're on a game's page and scroll down and you will see this area (screenshot mine where I have already put it in):

Just click Edit, paste it in and click Save. After this when you start the game up it should tell you that EasyAntiCheat is not installed and online play has been disabled. If this doesn't happen, like I said before, try restarting and trying it again.

EDIT: Oh and you can also do it like you would for any program or game and make another shortcut to WD2 anywhere and right-click > Properties and add it to the end of the target box.

(Funnily enough adding tons of launch arguments was a hot Watch_Dogs 1 meme because of the whole "make the game run better" and "make it more like the E3 trailer" stuff that went on with that game.)

Yeah unfortunately removing load times from console runs isn't exactly easy and there's no real way around that besides playing on PC. Load times are usually worse too on console, which makes it even worse.

@BenevolentLife: Besides making it more accurate, I can't do anything else to make it work with you, you need to add "-eac_launcher" otherwise it will not work, there's nothing I can do to fix this. If it still doesn't work, please try restarting your PC; even though this sounds crazy it works for others and worked for me and I have had no issues since. If you do this, do feel free to test it though, I need feedback to make sure it works with others (this is my main concern).

@InfiniteSheldor: There seems to now be a sub-category for console runs so it would go there; you could remove them manually (but that sounds like something that would take too long and be annoying) or just put the same time in both boxes when you submit (so the runs get sorted correctly; due to limitations of this site you can't organise different categories by different timing methods IIRC).

I agree with what BenevolentLife said, seeing as there is no reliable IGT method; although he could copy his time with loads into the time without loads box just to make sure the sorting works if someone comes along with a loadless time? That's what we did on The Simpsons: Hit & Run because we only started using loadless timing after a lot of runs had been done.

Also I am currently discussing load removal in >>>this thread<<< if you want to join in on discussion there.

(OK so I swear I just posted a reply to this thread and now it's not here? Am I going crazy or what. Anyway here's a rewrite because I can't exactly remember what I wrote before.)

You can insert it into LiveSplit yourself right now, not sure if it was obvious but the link to it is in the OP; I've made it more obvious now because this site doesn't underline the links (you can right-click > save link as to download it).

I also only completed the game today and I couldn't find many other areas or screens I think are masking loads, although there might still be a couple but having the main ones be removed is the best at least. I did notice the "character" screens in Motherload seem to be masking loads though and have found a memory address to detect those; I will add that in soon.

I will get it added into LiveSplit itself soon, as that seems to be an easier way of testing this for other people. Oh and yes I do plan on writing a guide on how to set it up, seeing as you have to do a little bit of extra work with the game to get this working, although I'm not a huge fan on video guides.

EDIT: The load remover is now available through LiveSplit itself; a guide on how to set it up can be found here. Please post in the thread if you have any issues with it.

ORIGINAL POST: I hope I don't need to explain why timing without load times is good, so I won't.

I have made a simple load removal script for this game for LiveSplit...

(this is a link) which can be found here <<<

If you want to use/test this right now you can add it to your layout by downloading it and adding it using the Scriptable Auto Splitter component, although once I know it works for people other than me I will get it added into LiveSplit so you can just activate it from the splits editor.

This detects the load screens with the bar on them, which to me seem to be the only loading zones (and I'm playing from a HDD so any loading should be noticeable to me). I haven't tested it with all loading screens of course but it should be fine.

As you can see from the comment in the script file, you will need to add "-eac_launcher" to your command line argument launch options which is easily done in uPlay or Steam. This disables EasyAntiCheat and is needed because EAC blocks the memory from being read.

Also as I write this I see the leaderboard is already set up to take both times with and without loads, although I don't know which it's organised by (hint: it should be organised by time without loads).