What Games have an in game timer and use it?
5 years ago
Washington, USA
EmeraldAly
She/Her, They/Them
5 years ago

Dark Souls, but I doubt IGT screenshot "proof" would be accepted.

Valhalla

Whether or not an image only is considered proof enough is going to vary from community to community.

But in general: no vid no did

HowDenKing likes this
New York, USA

I believe Goldeneye and the other Bond/007 games go by in game timer, but I also don't know if a screenshot is considered proof there as I don't run them.

North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

Any idiot can photoshop a number text in less than 5 minutes. So, image links should be permanently prohibited in speedrunning imo.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
HowDenKing and blueYOSHI like this
Finland

Kamiko on switch has an ingame timer, sadly the times are ranked in real time first IGT second but we have a few in game time runs only.

@spiderhako If it's not a WR i don't see why a picture isn't enough, cheaters get caught when their runs bubble to the surface. I doubt many mods verify all of the runs fully, i'd imagine that a lot will just check that the IGT and RT are matching and maybe check a few hard points in the run.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Finland

yeah but if it's not a WR run i don't see why it really matters, cheating in it self is petty and if somebody wants to cheat an average time i don't really see it as a problem, since there are faster non cheated runs. For an example if the game has few runners, i'm sure as hell going to accept image proof and not drive away the few potential runs, on a more popular game you can be more picky on what you accept as a proof, but that's just my opinion, all of these rules are just lines in the sand after all. When cheaters get enough eyes on them they will be caught eventually anyway.

Washington, USA
EmeraldAly
She/Her, They/Them
5 years ago

It's almost 2019. Record your damn speedruns.

Washington, USA
EmeraldAly
She/Her, They/Them
5 years ago

[quote]I doubt many mods verify all of the runs fully,[/quote]

I'll tell you what I do. If it's a brand-new runner, I watch every frame of the run. If it's a known runner, posting a plausible time, I check that the timer started and stopped in the right places and maybe a few places of interest within (did the runner get <x skip> first try, etc.). If a known runner posts a time that does not seem plausible, I do both of these things -- check the start and stop points, then watch the whole run straight through. Maybe they made a truly remarkable improvement (it happens). If it's a run with additional restrictions ("glitchless any%," say) I check start and stop time then "thumb through" the run (twitch and YouTube video players allow you to advance 5 seconds at a time with the arrow keys) with a mind for where glitches might be or any other restrictions (one of my boards has a category which restricts menuing, which is relevant if you die, so I check on deaths to see if the full death animation was waited out). You're right that we don't always watch every second of every submission, but I'd like to think that ideal is closer to accurate than it's not.

Finland

that's pretty much what i do as well, though i haven't ran into any sketchy runs other than a few minor timing mistakes. What i'm kinda getting at is that if you want to cheat an okay - to better than average time it wouldn't be too hard to slip by the mods so an argument of not allowing screenshots as verification is kinda moot to me. And again when talking WR level records then you are going to be needing some more proof than a simple screen cap.

New Jersey, USA

the fact that people who blatantly say that they're fine with cheated runs on the board is allowed to moderate is mind-boggling to me

EmeraldAly, Lonne, and MASH like this
Finland

If you are referring to me that's not what i'm saying at all. I'm giving the benefit of the doubt for the dude who doesn't have the capture card or means to upload videos. Obviously if a cheated run is found it should be removed and the runner penalized but for a non wr run that's not significant you don't need video for it, especially if the ranking is done by IGT instead of RT, obviously you cannot verify RT runs from a screenhot.

United States

@Bemels Most people will look to the current WR holders and the ones near them for strategy and such, but you need to remember that these are leaderboards. The current WR run will probably fall in rankings. So what used to be a WR run could very well be dead last. So if you have the viewpoint that non WR are maybe ok with being cheated, then you could have cheated runs better than previous WR runs.

This would be an insidious corruption of the community where no one can trust any submitted run, nor rely on the experts of the game, the mods, to accurately judge and place their runs. If runners have no trust in the mods, then there really is no point for mods. If there is no trust in mods then you cannot trust the leaderboards. A corrupted leaderboard undermines the whole point of the community on this site. Without trust few would want to submit their runs on the site, and the community would definitely suffer.

That is why it is important for mods to judge each run as best they can and to prevent cheated runs.

Bemels likes this
United States

People have made some good points. But some seem to be tacitly assuming that there is one right proof standard or one right way to verify runs that applies to all games. But why should we think that's the case? (In fact, this is one major reason why this site is better than a draconian system that rigidly applies its catch-all standards top-down like Twin Galaxies.)

The OP mentioned a DS game. If you're not emulating, then capture cards are very expensive and recording with your phone can be a significant annoyance (especially for longer games). For these kinds of games relaxing the video proof rule (or even the screenshot rule) for non-elite times makes a lot of sense.

Naturally, some people will reply with the standard “You can run the game without a leaderboard.” That's true of course, but some people will be a lot less likely to learn a speedrun if they can't submit to leaderboards. You might think that's the wrong approach, but any one person's opinion is irrelevant, since there is no single “correct” approach to a hobby. There are people like this (and if that is how they get enjoyment out of this hobby then good for them), and Bemels made a good point about driving away potential interest in the game.

Even if you don't care about the enjoyment of other people who share your hobby (but not in the exact same way you do!), there is a potential problem in terms of accuracy. Some people who can't costlessly record a game will run the game but not worry about submitting at all. For instance, there are a lot of handheld games where I have no doubt that many runs have been done faster than a lot of times on the leaderboard. This accuracy problem is not completely eliminable of course. My point is only that there are some cases where a strict video-only rule actually makes the leaderboards less accurate, not more.

Darkmon likes this
New Jersey, USA

i will give you that, generally unless it’s WR, it’s ok to just submit a screenshot due to the price of capture cards (from experience)

i don’t necessarily agree with it, but i get it

Valhalla

At the end of the day you can't prove a run that isn't recorded.Even in examples of hand held games, no vid no did. If the old speed gods of yesteryear developed their strats and posted shitty camera-pointed-at-TV and then recorded to VHS just to get their runs online, I think the kids today with a phone in their pocket can get a little bit more creative than just a pic of your IGT. The very reason why it doesn't count as proof can be seen with the big cheat man Todd Rogers himself, who photoshopped an IGT pic lol.

As far as having lax video proof for runs that aren't WR, some people care about competition. Feels pretty shitty if someone beats your spot on a leaderboard with his no vid run.

EmeraldAly, Quivico, and HowDenKing like this
North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

Why are you guys even treating a WR run and a non-WR run differently? Are they both runs? Yes! Do they need to be proven? Yes! Can one have an image proof while the better time has a video proof? Absolutely disagreed!

At the end of the day, no video, no did! Simple as that. Also, it isn't that hard to set a camera to look at a TV screen.

Finland

You are taking this way too seriously, plus not everybody has stable enough of a connection to the internet that they can upload videos, i have worked in rural places where i basically had no phone coverage and the only available internet access would have been an costly and unreliable satelite internet connection. While an extreme example i wouldn't want to gatekeep people out of the games i and they love to play. And the difference between WR and non-WR runs are that non-WR runs are not pushing for boundaries.

If we both would be into track running, and i would tell you that i improved my time from what is considered slow to a standard time, would your first reaction be to require same level of proof as some other guy telling how he broke the world record and his morning run? Not every people aim for that number #1 spot, some just enjoy being part of the community, and being on the leaderboards counts towards that, whether the guy is number #1 or the last one on the list.

In the end we can argue about this all we want, but in it is in the hands of the moderators of every game to come up with the rules and what evidence is acceptable for verifying runs.

Valhalla

There is no gate keeping whatsoever. It's calling for actual proof of your run lmao. Bringing up the exception of the exception doesn't make you right, and I'm not reading your analogy.

Some people care about competition in speedrunning, so yes, some people take it seriously. Don't like providing evidence? Don't try to submit runs then. You're not being told you can't speedrun, you can do that all day offline.

The bigger roadblock for wannabe speedrunners is acquiring the games and consoles anyways, not a phone with a camera that everyone has.

TalicZealot, Hako and 3 others like this
Finland

Way to be an asshole, the best thing to do is agree to disagree, there are some people who put the community in front of the competition and vice versa in speedrunning and we clearly stand on different sides of the whole thing.

KomradeKontroll likes this
United Kingdom

Given your extremely lax approach to speedrunning and competition, I'm not quite sure why you're on a site like this. You don't want to show any proof for a run, so why are you even here?

I'm overweight with a dodgy foot. Is there an Olympic event I can take part in? I care more about the community than the competition, and I think you're an asshole for saying I can't take part.

Actually, that's a bad example. Your situation makes even less sense than that. The thing you're asking for is exactly why people like Todd Rogers were able to prosper. Because no-one cared enough to want actual proof.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Hako likes this