High Scores - what shall we do?
5 years ago
British Columbia, Canada
Zericc
He/Him, They/Them
5 years ago

I'm in favour of integrating them into SpeedRun.com because it would result in a more streamlined user experience. Only one account, one website to search, one tab to log into on my computer. Clicking on a person's account and seeing what they're run in speedruns and high scores is better than finding their (potentially different) accounts on two sites. It also opens up the possibility of someone having a username on one of the sites, and it being taken by someone else on the other.

I hear what is being said about the watering down of the name. I don't entirely think it is worth creating a sister site over. Its not like "Twin Galaxies" says anything about high scores in its name, and people came to know it as the authority over time. If we centralise high scores here and the site remains credible, people will defer to this site. It is a matter of credibility not of name.

Overall, I'm just happy you folks are working on it. Keep up the good work.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
bensweeneyonbass, Caitelady and 6 others like this
Switzerland

I feel like the best thing for the beginning would be to just use something like "highscores.speedrun.com", similar to how YT and it's gaming version works so you can just replace "www" with "highscore" (or "hs" as a shorter version?). If enough people submit runs and everything that it's actually worth to buy a expensive domain, then we could still do that, I feel like it's better than just ""wasting"" money on a domain at the very beginning /edit: This would obviously only work if the highscore part is integrated into SRC, user accounts, games etc are shared

Edited by the author 5 years ago
S.BAZ, DarkEonMaster and 7 others like this
United States

Option one is the easiest and most pratical. Plus, it will give this site more traffic, which I know will cause more people to visit the site and more often. Let's not separate the community.

Pennsylvania, USA

This is a speedrun website, it has no use for high scores. I'd recommend helping the dude with his website. Putting scores on a site that's entire emphasis is times really just makes no sense and should not have even started to begin with

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Pottoww and SaimeZX like this
Canada

Ahh my friend Pac...

Remember Facebook in 2006? You had your basic wall, displaying the 10 most recent posts your friends made. You had your profile picture, photo albums, and that was it. All of which made sense to the site's name, "Facebook."

Nowadays, it's basically a news aggregator... reposting articles from AJ+ or NOWTHIS or Buzzfeed or what have you, isn't exactly what "Facebook" implied with its name years ago. Most people now use Facebook to chat in groups with people they don't know in person, again, a huge departure from what its name intends. It evolved, it grew, and aside from a few angry statuses when they'd randomly change their user interface every now and then, people hardly blinked an eye. We used to post on our friends' walls to chat about what party we were going to that night... now it's the last place you'd do it. Facebook is no longer a place for just your "face" in a "book"-like format, nor is it the one and only place to talk to our real-life friends online.

Yes, having highscore.com to yourself would be the ideal here, but it's not happening. It's not worth $10,000 or $80,000 or whatever the guy wants, just on the mere principle of the thing. Leave him in the dust. You will add high scores, and if they run anywhere near as smoothly as speedrun.com runs, it'll become the internet's first every truly trusted and go-to place for high score records. This is just the beginning. You have created a kingdom and now you must conquer other realms, other lands, greener pastures and bluer seas. High scores are yours for the taking and we will call you KING when you have bestowed your treasures upon us.

For now I'd just suggest using a subdomain, like highscores.speedrun.com, with easy access to redirect when someone travels to speedrun.com. "High Scores, a speedrun.com property" taglines and whatnot.

You've got this Pac, this is yours for the taking.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Wrap, ShinLarc and 21 others like this
United Kingdom

I feel like a good option is just to have high scores placed onto this site, similar to how zeldaspeedruns was.

KingOfJonnyBoy likes this
Ontario, Canada

My two cents, keep them separate. While there can be overlap in the audiences this doesn't mean you need to force it. Have two sites, but under one main banner.

MASH likes this
Australia

I like the idea of having highscores.speedrun.com. Seperated but not segregrated. Organisation without isolation. Sounds good to me.

British Columbia, Canada

Being a part of the records and speedrunning community, having both groups being in different parts of the website and not integrated into the same area would be the best and most liked. There would be one part just for how it is right now and then there would be a whole NEW other part for the highscore records.

(The problem, all of this may deplete or even ruin the traffic through Cyberscore, TSC, VGR, highscore.com, MK player’s page, and other Video Game Record websites.)

Zoe and DarkEonMaster like this

Every time someone links an unused URL, and every time someone visits that URL, the systems that price the domain may perceive it as more valuable and inflate the price.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
diggity likes this

Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of the domain scorerun.com. Sure, it's analogous to speedrun.com, but it doesn't stand very well on its own; if speedrun.com didn't exist it would sound dumb.

YUMmy_Bacon5, Gaming_64 and 13 others like this
California, USA

Option 3 sounds like the best solution. Mainly improving the site, adding more recent, modern games, and working with the owner to make it more like this one, with mods of specific games, categories, etc. Either that, or add a subdomain to this site, like @RWhiteGoose said.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Bogdan_mk likes this
Ohio, USA

Unless the high scores runs had a speed factor like "get the highest score possible whilst keeping a decent pace." If not then with many games it would just become farming points until the time runs short or the points are maxed out, which it's probably the most boring thing I could ever imagine. And it doesn't sound very competitive, but I could be wrong.

At the same time, it could a really good way to usher in a new crowd and introduce them to speedrunning as well.

As for a solution? Idea 3 seems like the best idea.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
DarkEonMaster likes this
Victoria, Australia

Cyberscore admin here (Haruhi).

I don't have a lot to add before a formal discussion is had between us and the sr.com administration, but I'm just dropping in here to let those of you who are following this thread know that we're reading too, and receptive to any feedback/information you have regarding a potential collaboration/connection or even just the highscoring landscape in general. We're all well aware that it's imperfectly handled for a lot of scenes (largely due to the huge variety in formats required in the highscore/fastest time world) and even if your criticism is harsh, it's likely still valid, so let us know!

I fully intend on involving other key players in the high score website world in the discussions (VGR.com, Scorehero.com etc), as Pac is actually the latest to come to the table regarding a couple of discussions I've recently had about connecting the sites a bit more.

theluge, DarkEonMaster and 6 others like this
Scotland

Even tho I already commented I just kind of wanted to say one other thing probably mentioned before idk :) I don't want them to be segregated so much like maybe scores and speedruns could appear on peoples profiles tue same maybe just a little switch tab like il's are but the tab is at the top of the box or something like with misc runs and stuff. idk ^_^

Pat_Speedruns and Bogdan_mk like this
Växjö, Sweden

My honest opinion is that Cyberscore works very well on its own as a global videogame highscore site and I see no need to implement a similar section on Speedrun.com. I also share the opinion that Speedrun.com should stay close to its roots as a speedrunning site and not get overshadowed by high score communities. I personally link my Cyberscore account here on Speedrun.com as well since your SR.com profile works very well as a place to link your gaming achievements together.

Cyberscore implemented speedrunning as a part of their leaderboards a while back and honestly, for me, it only made the site worse. IGT speedruns are fine, but the site should stay put to records that are being tracked in-game.

If you decide to create a sister-site to Speedrun.com for high scores I would have no opinions against that decision. But for me, creating a partnership between SR.com and Cyberscore (and potentially highscore.com) to bring the communities together seems like the best choise. If done well, it would connect the gaming communities without disrupting them individually and open up for an even more globalized site. The two sites could easily bring that to a win-win situation.

S.BAZ, DarkEonMaster and 4 others like this
Washington, USA
EmeraldAly
She/Her, They/Them
5 years ago

Question - what is meant by a 'high score run' ? Is it something other than what it sounds like?

Because it's probably been literal decades since I've played a game where I got a score, other than like sports simulation games.

North Macedonia

A high score run is exactly what it sounds like - getting the highest score in the fastest time. Typical highscore games are subway surfers, temple run and such

Växjö, Sweden

High score runs have nothing to do with speed unless the speed affect your score.

DarkEonMaster, paintophobia and 2 others like this

@EmeraldAly Just like how speedgames weren't all built to measure the player's speed, many scoregames weren't built to measure score.

It would be foolish to limit high score leaderboards to games that actually show your numerical points. Just like it would be foolish to limit SRC to racing games with in-game timers. Any game with a measurable objective can be "scored" outside the game's own systems.

In any case, plenty of new and popular games do measure score, so it's not like it'd be only retro games.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Novaeu, Bogdan_mk, and blueYOSHI like this