Hello.

I have a suggestion that might attract more people to recording. The “newest” version should be the default one, because most people play on that version. So when these people check the site to consider if they want to try and beat some record, they see that top runs were recorded on some old versions with unfixed shortcuts. And if they still want to record they have to find those old versions somewhere and adjust to them. It’s what often kills the mood (and I asked quite a few people on my steam about this).

I know that there is a version filter, but it’s an option, and not the default top that user sees when he checks the site.

I think this change can even the odds a bit and attract some new players. Records on older versions should obviously be available under corresponding filter options. The filter could be positioned above the categories with “newest” being first and default option.

Of course the suggestion could be further discussed and improved by talking with top runners (mrfailz, burhac etc).

Regards, mujik

A lot of games come with uncomfortable requirements towards certain people like requiring specific versions, hardware or stuff in general like hard tricks. Basing the "correct" version on feedback from a wide group where most people are casual and aren't interested in speedrunning the game in the first place is a rather poor way of selecting one. If older versions are available, they will most likely be used regardless of game simply because they're faster. It has always been like this. Other versions are allowed, but not recommended as they are slower.

That gets me to my point: if you really care about running the game, and don't want to get an older version of the game to be competitive; just play on whatever you have (like newest in this case). That is by far the best way to prove your agenda.

Downloading an old version is a very small barrier of entry to speedrunning the game and a very common theme among speedgames. The adjustment to said old versions is very minor and they (should) be very easy to find for download, as we have a separate Discord channel with download links for every version we use (maybe we need a better way of pointing a new player that doesn't use Discord to these download links). A new player is probably only gonna download one of these versions to start with, as most of them are only useful for ILs.

I get that the majority of people play on the Steam version and maybe even see that version as the most legitimate, but the minority of people that invest time into the game feel like playing on Steam version exclusively (since the effort of downloading a better version is so little). Runs on the Steam version can still get pretty competitive times on the leaderboards. You probably aren't gonna get many WRs with it but you can still speedrun and develop your own skill in that version just fine.

If people really wanted to speedrun the game on Newest, they would just do it, like you do.

How will new players be attracted by seeing less interesting with fewer skips? Besides there's not really that much difference between versions that you will notice when watching or playing them, and you can easily find them in the discord.

I understood you. just wanted to see more people than a couple. Just try. Your choice: enjoy the sunset or sunrise

It's just an unfortunate thing about this game and how campaigns got released over time. Imagine if Portal had a few chambers released every update and the old chambers got patched occasionally on these updates. They would use many different versions for ILs and a main version for full-game runs. That's the scenario we have here. As weird as it might look, it's good to have it pretty clear which version of the game is being used, considering that we don't have any way around this and that there are many versions to be used for speedruns.

HL and Portal all have a main version (mostly) because the games were released and didn't have levels appended to it over time.

No, it will not be "correct" because all of these old version were actual "Steam versions" before and it would be unfair if someone did a speedrun at that time and someone else couldnt beat this time later because the skip got patched. All of the versions released by Valve are allowed to be speedrun on.

who said that this is not "correct". Section in stagnation, very few people. I'm just trying to increase the number of players

There's no correct version to play. You have a fastest version to do a run but no version is "the" correct version to play anything. You can't just pick a version and say "use this because we want you to". As I said earlier, for all the categories a beginner would try, one version would suffice and that's a very small barrier of entry. If that barrier is too big, Newest can still be really competitive, specially in Co-op. If people really wanted to play they would

"still doesn't have one right version for speedruns like a hl or portal?"

HL has had a few different versions be used for speedrunning over the years, even in the last few years people have been using different releases of the various pre-steam versions of the game for different reasons. You could also make the same argument for that game that people should use the steam version, but no-one really does because of the bhop speed cap and overall being a worse version to run.

As others have said every official version is valid, you can't force people to use the one "correct version".
And really, its a speedrun, the correct version is always whichever is known to be fastest at the time. There's still literally nothing stopping people from running any version they want, including newest.

As stated, the old versions are entirely legitimate ways to run the game as they are exactly what was released by Valve officially on Steam at some point in time. Many games have this option when possible, playing on old patches, game cart versions, or what have you due to some things not being fixed yet.

People can easily start runs and practice on Newest while they feel out if they enjoy running the game or not. Many campaigns can be played competitively for a starting player on Newest, then when they are ready they can take the step to get the old versions to pick up some things like a slightly easier Dead Center 1 skip, or a much easier (but not that much faster) Coaster skip. A lot of things patched in Newest has a workaround, either being slightly slower or harder compared to an old version like both of those previous examples. You can definitely still run on it and learn a lot.

We actually have a very good setup here, our old versions are incredibly easy to run and do not interfere with your main installation, and you can have as many different versions to launch as you want. Many other games don't have it nearly this simple, and for some games you even need to buy an entirely new and faster console! We should consider ourselves lucky.

Unfortunately, but understandably, this site does not allow uploading full old versions to it since that is essentially piracy. As a newer player that has spoken to other newer players recently, how do you think we could get the word out here that the old versions are easy to get through Discord? Would a guide in that section help? A post on the forum? I'm not really sure where new players might be more likely to check, but we can see about adding something somewhere to point them in the right direction.

thx, master. Thank you for trying forum, and not for dogma and axiom. its enough for me.