High Scores - what shall we do?
5 years ago
United States

I'd love to see you do #3 if you can swing it.

I like the idea of you creating multiple sites that use the same user accounts, and the same over all 'ecosystem,' while having specific purposes. ZSR, speedrun.com, and your coming high score site.

New York City, NY, USA

Speedrunning is both the present and future. As such, I think it is entirely appropriate to house a separate "high-score" section within speedrun.com.

Furthermore, having a single, centralized repository for gaming records, be them speedrunning times or high-score totals, would better work to promote unity among a diverse array of gamers.

As appealing as the name highscore.com is towards serving as a compliment to speedrun.com, I simply don't think there is enough value-added in the name alone if you are encountering unreasonable resistance from the current owner of that domain name.

However, the speedrunning community at large is highly creative, and if your heart is set on having a separate website to manage high scores, I imagine you could start a naming contest for potential domain name ideas that would produce a viable alternative to highscore.com.

United Kingdom

I'm fine with having high scores on this site. I don't think it would really impose on the speedrunning.

France
xDrHellx
He/Him, It/Its
5 years ago

[quote=Pac]1. Add high scores to speedrun.com. 2. Work with the owner of highscore.com to try to improve the existing site. 3. Try again to buy highscore.com (offering more money), make a completely new website in its place, while trying to salvage as much of the existing data as possible. 4. Make a completely new high scores website under a different name / domain name.[/quote]

Personnaly, i think 3rd option is rude, but worth a try. If it doesn't work, then 4th option would be the best one, imo. Mostly because i don't think having high scores on this site would be a good idea long-term. People barely manage leaderboards so far, i think it would be worse if high scores gets added. Plus, that would probably lead to more drama, there's already enough here without that stuff.

As for 2nd option, idk the guy but i think it would be problematic eventually.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Victoria, Australia
stoot
He/Him, They/Them
5 years ago

Honestly, I like a combination of options 1 and 3/4. I don't think the high score section needs to be on a completely new website, but a URL that links to the high score section of the site would be nice.

Haute-Normandie, France

Add highscore to SRC

Canada

I feel 3 would be the ideal solution, but 4 would be a good alternative if 3 is not an option.

Barcelona, Catalonia

Options 1 or 4 are the ones which seem better for me. I don't think it is a problem to add highscores as a category in the same webpage as speedruns (actually some games do it using the ascending order and ms as points). Using a new url is also ok, and I don't think it necesarely need to be highscore.com.

United States

I like options 1, 3, and 4, with the order of value being 3, 4, then 1.

I have done a bunch of work regarding the boogie-word that is SEO, as well as some web development for work so I understand that a clear, concise domain such as highscore.com can help the site in an invaluable way. I think considering how much the general public has support for high score runs (a certain movie helped), I wouldn’t be surprised if the money is recouped and then some relatively quickly assuming the request is not incredibly unreasonable.

Making a new domain would also be a smart move. In terms of domains, there are a few options you can probably get to work (the one that stays in my head is scoreattack.com, which currently redirects to shmups.com, so you can maybe talk to the owner there). None as good as highscore.com, but good enough that it wont negatively impact the site greatly. Getting a userbase to migrate as soon as possible would be the best way to have your site gain legitimacy as the centralized high score hub, and having a physical site actually usuable and populated is the best motivation there is.

For the same reasons as the last point of the above paragraph, having it on speedrun.com wouldn’t be the most ideal, but it isn’t terrible. I’d rather it not be just because as you’ve stated it isn’t the point of this site and it might confuse people/make it harder to navigate, especially if you are trying to find a site to submit high score runs on. “Why is the high score database on speedrun.com?”. Probably overstating how bad it would be though. There is already a precedent of sites migrating to speedrun.com, as in zelda.speedruns.com, maybe you can make is hs.speedrun.com or highscore.speedruns.com?

I do want to note that while there has been a lot of discussion around high scores, especially given the updates around the King of Kong, I’m really unsure how much interest there truly is in the activity of going for high score world records. If we want to go by Twitch alone, this is anecdotal but I very very rarely have come across high score attempts being livestreamed in comparison to speedruns. Even the “holy grail” of high score attack games, Donkey Kong, doesn’t surpass 5k followers on the game directory, something that is easily done by even relatively esoteric runs like Lost Levels. On top of this, even places like Twin Galaxies, while they do have some activity, pale in comparison to speedrun.com. I’m unsure how much the last point is due to the sites usability though, as it is both difficult to navigate and get scores accepted. All I’m trying to say is that before you really invest a huge amount of time to the site/features necessary, make sure the demand really is there. Some of this feels like preserving the legacy of high scores rather than making a future legacy to me.

All of that being said, I’m happily willing to lend a technical hand if you proceed to move forward with this.

CoolHandMike, love and 9 others like this

We have low%, who gets a run with less stuff wins; if same amount of stuff, time breaks the tie.

A high score run is a negative low% run. Who gets more stuff, score, whatever wins, time breaks tie.

Only option 1 and 4 look good for me.

S.BAZ likes this
Massachusetts, USA

I own ore.run (think: http://sc.ore.run) and would turn it over free of charge, though I can imagine that's not the route src wants to go. I'd love to have Donkey Kong high score tracking here, we definitely need some kind of alternative over TG. Thank you for giving this serious thought.

bensweeneyonbass, SpacePilot3012 and 3 others like this
Germany

@PMniac Like on speedrun.com, each community would decide that themselves.

404UNFX likes this
Michigan, USA

I can only comment from a small and one-sided place: how high scores would look like on the Spyro leaderboards. There's one game in particular that high scores would make sense for - that being Spyro 3 with the skateboarding levels. Since it's such a small fraction of our series of games, it seems reasonable to incorporate it in the already present leaderboards in a similar way that Individual Levels are. I bring this up because other games maybe have similar situations in which it's a minute thing and the already existing infrastructure of speedruns.com can do the trick.

Apart from that, highscore.com seems like the perfect companion site to speedrun.com so I hope you can manage it - fundraising or otherwise.

Madison, WI, USA

Hi there, I'm affiliated with the staff at the former Video Game Scoreboard (videogamescoreboard.com). I can ask some of the staff and see if they'd be interested on cross-promotion or a reboot if that's something the speedrun.com staff would be interested in.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
United Kingdom

Either Option 4 or Option 3 is what appeals to me most. With Option 3 tried and seriously considered before trying Option 4.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
ShikenNuggets likes this
Texas, USA

I’m going to use an example of a different site I used to browse a lot. Scorehero.com and bandhero.com actually have a smart way of linking their sites they have which is by a little logo of the opposite site at the top of the page. I think you could do something similar with this approach, and this could allow you to either get your own of a different domain, add on to your existing (such as highscore.speedrun.com or similar), or even the one you’re trying to buy. This will make it clear that these sites work together, and people can choose at that point for which they want to browse. Ideally option 3 is great, but if not then make use of your current domain or make a different one entirely. Maybe in the future that person will be more willing to make a deal with you if not now.

jummy0 and KingOfJonnyBoy like this
Argentina

Option 1, just add High Scores to this page. It's the easiest way.

England

I really like option 3.

Have two sister sites with essentially identical setups and styles, one for speedruns and one for highscores. Have a link between the two at the top of every page, possibly even keep it consistent from game to game (so switching to highscore.com from src while viewing a specific game keeps you on that game)

I'm pretty sure there would be a lot of people willing to donate to the attempted purchase of highscore.com, I certainly would be.

Tigame and 6oliath like this
United Kingdom

1 and 4 are the best options but i think option 1 is better.

I think it would be like Leaderboard but high scores and you can add it in or not. But I don't know about adding games with that in motion.

Honestly all four options you laid out are great imo @Pac

Here's a thought, though.

To speedrun. A speedrunner. Speedrunning. The action of running though a game with the goal of speed. It's a term and we've all helped coin it.

What the heck do you call someone who attempts to get high scores? A scoregamer? A highscorer? An eScorer? (Pls no)

This is an opportunity to not just create a hub, but to breathe new life into an old hobby. If you're interested in positioning it alongside speedruns, why not match the branding and wording?

If we need to, we can coin a new term. I know I joked months ago that someone should get scorerun.com, but I could get behind that.

Or pointrun.com

Or topscore.com

KingOfJonnyBoy likes this