Clarify Video Submissions Rules
4 years ago
Switzerland

Following the Waxpro runs' rejections, maybe we should clarify the rules for the video submissions.

Personally I don't really have an issue with stuttering videos... Yeah, they appear cheap and all but it is very reasonable to assume that this person did not cheat by splicing, using TAS, or so... Broken rules (use Addons,...), proven cheating, technical submission problems (wrong or missing video, ...), or missing clips of several seconds, should be the only reasons to reject. And require quality videos will not even help to bust cheaters anyway...

Now if the consensus wants only high quality videos, we need to make that rule clear. But I would rather reject all ghost replays than just bad videos... I could just make an imperfect Oliver's Math Class TAS 59.742 and submit a non stuttering ghost replay then...

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Andet likes this
United States

Yes, I would not have rejected it either personally. I think that of all the ways to cheat, splicing a video and then making it stutter would not be easy to pull off. You'd have to edit the timer and the replay file message that appears at the end, as well as make the splices look realistic. But maybe I'm missing something because I'm not that good at editing videos :-P. Or if we just want to hold record videos to a higher standard then that's a different story.

Just to clarify things to everyone, no one is questioning the legitimacy of Wax's times, the problem is just whether we should accept stuttering videos in general. ;)

As for Wax's times, if the problem is that stuttering videos are suspicious, I think Wax uploading the replay files should be enough. If the problem is quality of videos, Wax can send me the replay files and I can record it.

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Wax-stk likes this
Switzerland

Cheating via video editing should basically be impossible without being trivial to spot, except in Story Mode where one could splice runs at loading screens, though they would need to both know how to put back the time the timer was at, and be very careful with audio...

However if the cheater has good programming skills or game internals knowledge, he could mod the game to get unfair advantages. Ghosts can also be edited in any way, though good knowledge of how they work is also needed to be actually able to edit them and make them consistent with the game's mechanics.

This is the summary of what a cheater could do here. Requiring high quality videos will not really help in any case to detect cheaters, especially not in the second situation. Also in general, cheaters should be pretty rare, and probably none would ever bother cheating here; if they used time to grind instead of cheating, they would get decent times Lol...

Now if the runs were rejected for the low quality than the cheating possibility. I think that bad quality is inherently not a reason to reject a submission (unless major problem like missing clips of several seconds). Also, when I see others communities not even requiring videos after Top 5 or 10... Personally, ILs over 5 s worse than 1st or Full Runs over 2 min worse than 1st don't even need a video, just a picture of the finish screen would be enough for me... That could be useful if for some reason a runner's recorder stopped working or so, at least he has a chance to show his time. But that would be another controversial debate Lol.

If another moderator (mainly Alistair Findlay; not sure if Kitoko and Brmbrmcar are still active here) agrees that the Waxpro's runs are valid, we will verify them and his future runs, even if they still stutter. Though of course we will insist such that he fixes this... Otherwise we will have to agree, and if we choose to require minimum quality, make new rules (things like enforce solid 720p30 minimum, good audio, etc.).

Andet likes this
Limousin, France

Hello, it's nice to have opened a post for this problem of recording my videos. I'm sorry I couldn't answer earlier, but I was disconnected from wifi for 2 days. As you may think, I didn't cheat, I don't know any more than a printf in code :D, the replay file is here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1buksJcZOAb7VV7htFY5NqxSUT7bPMhYF/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wEInppAWuTYe8cUmukOu-mXdfsVsSApr/view?usp=sharing I understand that Alayan rejected the run but on the other hand he is a developer and is responsible for any problems with the recorder included in the game. I will try to re-register with simplecreenrecorder and obs, in case the problem comes only from the recorder included in the game. I would like to add that I have a low-performance computer (5th generation i3 core, no special graphics card, etc...).

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Andet likes this
United States

Thank you for uploading! I have recorded high-quality videos of your time trials and you may upload them on your YouTube channel. Then I can go ahead and verify the runs (I assume Alayan is okay with that). However, discussion on this thread should continue of whether stuttering videos should be accepted in the future, of course. ;)

If we choose not to accept stuttering videos, hopefully you can find recording software that works well with your computer for later runs, but if not, I will be happy to record for you (very easy for me to do).

Antediluvian Abyss reverse: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_spzdUkBZ33o5HH31CyisAhEhaSwWZpz Bovine Barnyard reverse: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1TQXV_HGu8Ht9QO8SZHn0BK7tH2fNUpNQ

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Alayan and Wax-stk like this
Limousin, France

Thank you very much, after testing, the problem does not come from the game recorder, I am sorry to Alayan. I think Manjaro doesn't handle graphics cards well since I have good quality recordings on Debian/Ubuntu bases. ()

Andet likes this
France

I have to agree that there are some more serious potential issues with fake ghost times and other methods. We may need to think of ways to improve reliability there, though I don't think we've had real issues there for now.

But a stuttering video makes basic verification painful. If there has been some slight gameplay tweak to boost the kart, I feel I'm much less likely to catch it if there is a lot of stutter because of how distracting that is.

In the end, we need to draw the line somewhere, and having decently smooth video is imho a good standard to have moving forward. Thanks Andet for recording proper smooth videos for WaxPro.

Andet likes this
United States

True, there might be other ways a stuttering video could hide sonething aside from splicing

Switzerland

In this case, probably for now we should not have precise rules and just expect players to submit "good enough" videos. As long as a verifier is fine with a submission, it can be accepted. For example in the Waxpro's case, Andet and I were fine with his videos, so such submissions should still be accepted. Unless the flaws are literally breaking the video, if one doesn't feel like it should be accepted, but cannot prove that the player cheated, just let the submission unverified and someone else verify or not. If after some time nobody verified then we can reject. Someone else can always rewatch a validated video and reject it later if he finds out and proves that the player cheated.

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Andet likes this
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