Hi everyone,

There has been talk on the Discord server of banning the use of emulators. I would greatly appreciate it if everyone shared their opinions and provided reasoning here on what I should change the rules to.

Some things to think about: should we ban emulator use only for runs under a certain time? Should emulators be allowed for ILs but not full game runs? Should we ban emulator use only in the future, or should we remove all past emulator runs?

Again, I want everyone to share their opinions. Even if you are a lurker here, please leave your opinion.

I think separating runs the way SM64 does (into console, emu, and VC) would be the best way. I don’t think it would be fair to remove runs that people have worked so hard on (like ILoveSMB’s)

I don't think we should remove past emulator runs either.

There are two reasons I don't like the idea of separating the runs like in SM64. For one thing, newcomers to the community wouldn't know how much time advantage VC and emu have and wouldn't know how the runs compare. For example, someone not knowing about the loading times might see ILSMB's PB and think that's better than all the DS runs, which isn't fair to the DS runners. Or they would totally ignore the VC and emu times, which isn't fair to those runners.
My other reason is that there aren't enough VC and emu runs to make competitive leaderboards; I think everyone deserves to be on the same leaderboard so they can know what place they rank.

the issue i have with unseparated is how unsure we are on how quick emulator runs actually are - especially with an emulator like desmume which requires a decent PC to run

desmume can run extortionately slow on certain machines during levels and if it's not running at 60fps it's not running at a consistent frame rate, meaning the gameplay speed can fluctuate a lot

we do have the added load times but that doesn't account for the time some runners could be losing in comparison to a DS runner due to slow gameplay. i just think desmume, from a timing perspective, is inaccurate, and i don't think runs at a decent standard (which i regard as sub25) should be using it. i don't think it is practical to remove previously done runs however. this should just be a rule instated later on

VC is still a release of the game on a Nintendo console. Emu is basically someone's custom made console that can also run the game. I will also stand by not removing any current runs and just looking to the future. It would be particularly unfair to people who were told that emu was allowed and then it's like hey, surprise, we changed our minds. The point of the rule change is to make the runs featured on the leaderboards more legitimate and NOT to punish runners. I will also say this: I am not a fan of any "under a certain time"-type rules. Everyone should be held to the same standard regardless of their current standing. Having consistent rules is pretty important after all. Same goes for ILs. We should strive for fair and equal application of the rules. On the topic of separating VC from ds runs: I'm not strictly against it but I also believe it deserves its own thread and shouldn't be lumped into this discussion. Let me also describe some of the advantages afforded by an emulator in an effort to add some relevant information to the discussion. Allowing the use of keyboard controls gives the player the ability to both mash more quickly and do frame perfect turnarounds, something that is nearly impossible on a dpad. It also allows them to adjust the firmware settings in order to get better rng manipulation. Now, nobody has actually done this yet but let's not give them the opportunity. In addition, we allow (and encourage) people to submit webcam footage of their consoles. It's actually much harder to fake than raw game footage. As it stands, someone could create a tool assisted run in an emulator and submit it as an RTA time. As far as we know, this hasn't happened yet but we technically don't know for sure. Lastly, I want to bring up something that I don't think anyone here has considered. Allowing emulators encourages people to illegally download the game. Think about it. According to US law, downloading a videogame ROM from the internet in order to play it is illegal. There is some debate over whether it's ok if you've already bought the game but the truth is we can't be sure that our runners are using legitimately obtained copies. That might not matter to many people but the folks at Nintendo worked very hard on this game and I hate to see people depriving them of revenue. The main argument for allowing emu seems to be that it's much easier to stream but since the game came out on wiiuvc, this isn't true anymore. All you have to do is hook up a capture card to your console. Not only that but finding a physical copy isn't an issue anymore (not that it ever was), since the game can be downloaded from the Nintendo eShop. In fact, streaming wiiu footage is much easier on your CPU considering most capture cards support DirectShow and your PC doesn't have to worry about running the emulator, which can take up significant resources. Obviously I will support the will of the mods but in the end I'll feel a lot better about the integrity of these leaderboards if they go with a game-wide ban on emulators moving forward.

Then what are we going to do about ilsmb?

If I change the rules, I won't be deleting past runs done on emulator.

I'm fine with that.

I personally think vc and emu should be sub categories. It might not be the most precise but better than jamming everything together.

Alternatively, we can force players to use DeSmuME's built in recording function. It exports a lagless video even if the game was running slower. It should automatically make all the loads consistent, tho someone needs to test that out.

But after all, I feel like what makes NSMBDS stand out from the rest of the series is the diversity of platforms. You can go into the filter and see how many runners we would lose if we remove a certain platform. I think we should try to accomodate, not reject.

Also you can look into the load remover sometime. I haven't had any success with it yet, but I'm sure it would help a ton if it can work. The Crash Bandicoot 2 community is pretty experienced with it, so maybe someone can go talk to them.

I’m extremely iffy when it comes to emu/VC runs because I have no experience in the technical side of this game, and so I can’t say anything tech-related things for certain. However, what I understood from the discussion so far is that emulator runs are unreliable for accurate timing, even with the built-in recording feature. No matter the player's skill level, it’s unfair to both the player and the rest of the runners to have their times be inflated/deflated just because of their PC capabilities. VC, I find, is perfectly acceptable since it’s an official hardware with mostly the same controls from the original DS (correct me if I’m wrong) with uniform load times. We can time the load differences for all categories at some point. Another issue with emulator, like lakitu said, is that it allows for a series of inputs that are otherwise impossible on original game. Overall, I personally think that there aren’t many legitimate reasons for future runs to be done in emu because 1) webcam recordings are perfectly fine under our current rules(not just on OG, but even on VC!), 2) load time differences fluctuate way too much, and 3) getting your hands on either OG or VC isn’t exactly the most difficult task. (It’s one of the best-selling games of all time, after all. Not just in terms of DS games)

Of course, I strongly disagree with deleting emu runs from the past.

As for separating the leaderboards, I don’t have much issue with it so long as we create tabs for "all", "OG" and "VC" with the "all" being the default. I don’t know if you can have tabs for "all" AND its subcategories simultaneously though; we're gonna have to work that out. Main issue I have, like Wal said, is that the "VC" tab might not have enough runners to accurately indicate the relative placement of participants.

tl;dr: future emu runs should be banned, VC are fine. Splitting the leaderboards is ok, so long as we have the "all runs" tab along with it

AndreMH said had an interesting point. I strongly agree with the leaderboard separation, if it is possible, to an ''all'' ,which would add the loading times (just as the current leaderboard), an OG tab and a VC tab.
However, I don't think banning later emulator's runs is a good idea. If runners have a slower computer, they can only be disadvantaged. If the current loading time of 50 seconds is calculated without lags, I don't see any problem if anyone wants to run NSMB on emu and, at the end, loose time because of slower loadings.
I really hope my opinion is clear,
Don't mind the English mistakes.

I'm gonna focus on ILSMB's post for a moment because he's the only one so far to offer a dissenting opinion. I also want to make something immediately clear: load timing is absolutely not the issue. We have the ability to accurately time out loads on any console, including emulators. I also want to point out, for anyone unaware, that ILSMB himself runs on emu and is a little biased in his opinion on the matter. He claims that we would lose a lot of runners, but if you actually think about it, that shouldn't even be a factor in the decision. At the end of the day what matters most is the integrity of the game. People will either switch to doing console runs or leave. That is completely up to the individual runners. What ILSMB is really asking is "is it worth alienating members of our community" and to that I would have to respond "we're not alienating anyone". Runs will not be removed, and people can just switch to doing runs on console or they won't and we can't control that. What we can control is the fairness of the rules and the quality of the runs displayed on the leaderboards. And something not so readily apparent that still must be considered is the cost of NOT having emulators banned. It means that anyone who's dedicated enough could submit a fake time and we would never know. It would sit there right next to all the legitimate console runs and there wouldn't be anything we could do about it. Not to mention the incredible ease with which runs can be spliced. Having access to savestates means redoing a segment is only a keypress away. Lastly, I'd like everyone to consider ILSMB's statement "I think we should try to accommodate, not reject." While this sounds good in principle, this kind of thinking leads to an incredibly slippery slope if you're willing to follow it through to its logical conclusion. If you actually apply that principle as it's started, then it can be used to justify things such as not requiring video evidence because we're "accommodating" people who can't record. The slippery slope goes in both directions too. If we allow emus then what's to stop someone from using whatever console they want to run the game? Not all emulators are created equal. How do you judge which ones should be allowed and which ones shouldn't? The answer is none of them should be allowed because none of them are completely accurate to the original. So I understand why ILSMB would say that but I don't think he really believes it. It's a misguided argument at best and a disingenuous one at worst. And I'll reiterate one more time: VC doesn't have anything to do with the current discussion and trying to group everything together just muddles the issue. It's very possible that vc runs will get separated from ds runs in the future but right now we're dealing with the more immediate issue of emulated runs.

About splicing, isn't it as easy as in other games? If it is, how do other communities deal with it?

@PainPita whenever emulators are used it becomes that much easier to submit non-RTA runs. Most speedrun communities have not banned them however. It would be a bold and, in my opinion, necessary move for us to do so.

I think emulator runs should be done live with a controller cam, or with some form of controller cam, as there have been a lot of instances of TAS runs being called out for unmatching controller cams. Alternatively, split emulator runs into another category as suggested above, or leave them be. Unless they're getting WR runs I dont see much reason for concern.

Wah suggested having a separate leaderboard for nsmbs emu and I guess that could work. The only thing is it would mean moving all the current emu runs. But it makes sense since I think everyone can agree that it's not fair to compare emu and console runs.

So you say my opinion is biased. Well, to be honest, I agree with you; my opinion on this matter is in fact biased.

I believe many of you have looked into my profile and found that all of my runs have that [Emu] icon on the top right, and you might ask, why the hell do you run on emulator all the time? What's wrong with you? And why on earth would you use emulators that are very laggy or are so immature that they still crash all the time? And then you'll tell me "unable to afford a console is not an excuse, because if your computer is good enough to run these emulators then it's more expensive than a console, and therefore you should be able to buy a console."

Well, you're right...for the most part. So at this point, since we're talking about bias, let me share a rather personal story with y'all.

First of all, I'm a student. The law makes sure I stay in school. I can't support myself even if I have the ability to, because I'm not old enough. So just keep in mind that my parents still have complete control over my soul.

My mom is the kind of person that I call "Gamerist." She deeply believes in the outraging statement that "video games are like drugs and are bad for children." I can't really blame her; there's too much influence out there. Hell, even the World Health Organization listed playing video games too much as a mental disease. There are articles pumped out every now and then about how video games are bad, bad, and bad.

So at this point, you've probably already figured that there's no way in hell my mom would ever agree on my buying video game consoles. Luckily tho, my dad's a chill dude and bough me a second handed 3DS for my birthday. The first thing I new was my mom fought my dad because of it. Then, she set a strict time limit on my 3DS usage and forbid me to take it to school (I go to a boarding school away from home, so basically I only get to see my 3DS on long breaks like Christmas). Of course that's not enough time for me to practice speedruns on it, considering how little time I'm given and the fact that my mom always signs me up for additional classes during BREAKS (yes, you heard that right: class on Christmas day). I did play some games casually on it until one day it died on me, which was before I started running NSMBDS.

So now I don't have a single game or console on my hands. My old computer (a MacBook Air) was dying, and I asked for a new one. My mom finally decided that it was acceptable for me to own a high-end office laptop, a Lenovo Flex 5 (google for details if you'd like). So there you go, that's the laptop I've been doing all my runs on. It's ok for recording on an emulator, but it's not powerful enough to run some games at full speed. I've done a few streams with it on my home's Wifi with this laptop and it was ok, but as I said I live on a dorm most of the year, and I'm sure y'all know what dorm Wifis are like.

So there you go, that's my life. I have a high-end office laptop that's indeed more expensive than a console that can do enough emulation for me to work with, and my mom would never allow me to own a console as long as I'm still spending her money. Hopefully I answered some questions you wanted to ask.

So let's get back to the topic for a bit. Would we alienate runners? Yes. I have no choice but to run on emulator and would have never ran this game if it was not allowed. The most outraging thing for me when I hear people talk about banning emulator is that it's not my fault that I'm using it. I want to own a console as bad as you want to wake up a billionaire tomorrow morning. But I can't. I have no control over it. I get furious when people question me like a criminal on such topics, because I simply cannot change the fact that I'm not getting my hands on a console within the next 6 years.

At this point, some of you might say to me, I don't give a $h!t about your life and your feelings, so let's just say that it's easy to splice with emulators and the loads are inconsistent and ban it for good. Well, first of all, I advice you to at least try to put yourself in other people's shoes for a moment, because it's a very useful skill. Secondly, as I said, we adapt and do not reject. Perfect examples are the SMB1 and SM64 leaderboards; you can head over to see how they handle the problem. They both chose to find a solution instead of shaking their heads and rejecting, and both are getting much more popularity and competition than if they had done otherwise. Also I do believe DeSmuME is an open source emulator, so if a talented individual can program a "RTA build" of DeSmuME like what the Pokemon community did, that would also work.

Regardless the harsh attitudes I've been seeing from a lot of the posters, they're right about one thing. The speedrunning community is going to be hesitant when it comes to emulator runs. It's a fact that I had learned and that I have to accept. So although I had lot of fun with the exciting moments of accomplishment and salty moments of rage and disappointment, I decided that it might be time that I say goodbye. Some of you might already know, but Newer Wii DX will be my last speedgame before I leave the speedrunning scene. In 6 years, I'll be able to buy a console with my own paycheck, and I'll rejoin the party then. I'm sure y'all will make great progress and grind off these few seconds in these years while I carry on with a new hobby I found for myself. So there you go, if you always hated me, then congrats, I won't be bothering you anymore fairly soon. If you have been supportive, then I'd like to thank you for everything you've done. You can find me on MKW Worldwides and join me on my journey to 9999 as I wait for my console.

So I was thinking about it earlier today and developped a little bit my point of view since I really don't think this discussion should be over yet.

First of all, even if no one pointed this subject out, I don't think that doing a democratic vote is good for the following reason: the most popular option may not be the best option. The most rational decision is needed, and I deeply think that this point isn't arguable.

Then, trying to be as rational as possible, I changed my mind. Emulators should be banned and the runs already done removed, and in a perfect world, this would apply to every game. Playing illegally the game should make any run invalid. (same for mine done on a cartridge with 70 games on it)

Is this being rational, or is this being alienated by what I've been told by the laws? Anyway, the discussion isn't over and we must be rational to find the best solution to this problem.

Sincerly, PainPita

(tldr) I think emulators should be allowed since this game is not very NEW anymore, but if neccesary, creating a separate category for emulators would be good.

a separate leaderboard would be more appropriate