Hello. I have a question regarding a rule that we use for Flintstones 2 on NES. The rule is that a save state is allowed only if we are using a save state to set up a manipulation to be used in the first level of the game. It involves a game over which sends you back to the title screen which then leads to the start of a run. This manipulation can be done on console, but it takes two to three minutes to set up.

Before you post "ask the mods for the game." I am a mod for this game. I made this rule in an effort to cut time from setting each run up. I did this on console till I got an Everdrive. Pretty much every runner for this game has done runs on emulator so this rule hasn't been an issue. I've seen comments saying that this sort of thing provides an unfair advantage to non-console players and should not be allowed. The rules on the site say emulator functions are not allowed, but the same rules say that it can be allowed if mods explicitly say it's allowed. I don't like this answer because on one hand it sounds like we are cheating. On the other hand it sounds like we are fine only because I said so. I'd like information from other people not connected to this game. Do I continue to allow this rule to stand or should using a save state be banned?

Regarding site rules about runs and emulation: The "general gameplay rules" are rules that state what is banned and what is allowed in runs, and are very common across so many games, so that game moderators won't have to state the obvious on any game and category (like "Cheat codes are disallowed"). But still, moderators/community for a certain game can decide to override those rules in some cases, and it's perfectly fine if that is the consensus of the majority of the community.

The general rules state that "Tool-assisted emulator features such as save-states, re-recording, or frame advance are not allowed". Your case of using save-states is a bit tricky - you don't use them during the runs for an unfair advantage (like resetting a death), but you do them just to save the time of a runner before the actual run starts. That is not a bad thing and I personally don't find any problem with that. If I had a physical copy of the game and console, it probably would be very irritating to spend 2-3 minutes before each run if I want to do the manipulation, but I can also always move to an emulator with ease and do the manipulation there.

That leads me to your final points:

• You are not fine with this rule JUST BECAUSE you as a moderator said so. Game moderators should represent the speedrunning community of the game. I obviously don't know the history of this specific rule - who came up with it first, if it was requested by several runners or not, if there were any discussions about it in your Discord channel, etc. But, the fact that this rule is here after several years; the majority of runners are using an emulator; and also that the rule was never an issue for the runners (by your words), means that the entire community have no no problem with it.

• About comments saying this rule provides an unfair advantage to non-console players - maybe they are right, but it's also subjective. The emulator players don't have any change in the gameplay itself by using the emulator, console players can do the same thing. Cutting time from setting up runs is a convenience to the runners.

• About comments saying that the rule seems like cheating - I wouldn't pay much attention to that if the comments are coming from external people that don't run the game or don't know it. For example, there are comments out there by people (not speedrunners) that think using glitches in games are also cheating and thus should be banned.

This sounds like RAM prepping (where you perform actions within the game to load values into RAM that don’t get reinitialized later on) in order to manipulate better RNG for the first stage. I’m of the opinion that anything like this should always be banned, irrelevant to the question of using a save state. I don’t agree with allowing actions to be performed that aren’t timed and then using the results of those actions in a run.

I feel like any action that contributes to the behavior of the run - so any action or manipulation that affects the run in any way - should be included in the time of the run. Otherwise, you could take this way to the extreme. What if someone found a way to influence the entire game’s RNG by playing the game for 20 minutes? Would you allow that to be used? To me that seems really unnatural, but that’s kind of the issue with RAM prepping in general.

Your game isn’t the first game to allow save states to be used to bypass the time it takes to do RAM prepping, but I personally think the whole concept should always be banned in a game. Some games do this by always having runs start from a console power on so as to avoid any RAM preparation from being done. That’s how I would go about it. I would either ban RAM prepping by always having the run start from a power on (or a true console reset if that reinitializes the RAM) or I would require that anything you do in the game be included in the final time. In either scenario, save states would obviously be banned as an emulator only function.

The latter method allows the manipulation to still exist, it just makes sure that the action is always included in the run. My personal method of choice would be the first option because then it removes the whole gray area of RAM prepping in general and starting from power on or a reset vs. an in-game death is just so much more reasonable to me.

So I guess the answer to your question is that I really dislike any game that allows save states to be used at all, no matter what their purpose is, but I also don’t like the fact that you allow RAM prepping either.

As an emulator runner myself for games in general, this comes off as iffy to me personally. The closest extreme case I can think of atm is Mortal Kombat for Game Boy which can be played using Goro. However in order to do so, one must first beat the game. So the community decided that loading a save state was accepted as to not force a game clear inbetween every attempt.

It will as always, come down to a community decision. In this case, im personally leaning against it. If runners want the additional timesave that bad, they might as well add some extra time setting this up more naturally. Then again, you could supposedly load state to an earlier in-game point and just cut vod highlight a bit further down regardless. So really, unless you still have access to prev podcasts still, I doubt you can trace back to see what people truly did.

I think savestates should never be allowed to set up pre-run manipulation. The Final Fantasy III any% run had something similar with setting up RNG before the run and people used savestates for it but its no longer allowed. In general anything that is not possible on original hardware should not be allowed in my eyes, if you want to/have to do a pre-run manip, then you gotta set it up every time. Seems annoying but is the only reasonable way imo, not the only game that has stuff like it.

All these responses are awesome. Thank you for taking the time to reply.

I did not read the "General Gameplay Rules" before making this rule. I just assumed that because we started from the title screen it would be fine. I thought the manipulation wasn't cheating because it is something that all console players are able to do. Setting up the manipulation is such a monotonous task and any failure results in a reset and thus having to set up the manipulation again. You could do the manipulation, then screw up the first level. I was so sick of doing the set up that I added the rule just to get attempts going at a quicker pace. The basic explanation for why this rule is here is to save the 2-3 minutes of set up. Had I read the "General Gameplay Rules," I probably would not have added this rule.

Now I feel that I have the same opinion as all of you above. I agree that a run should start from the first power on or a reset. Both of these reset the manipulation so it doesn't work. This rule has put me in the position I'm currently in right now. The community is mostly (mostly being everyone except me) against changing the rule. Taking action to remove this rule would probably have more negative impact on the game than positive. I feel that the community for Flintstones 2 wants the rule to stay because they started speedrunning the game after I made the rule. I was hoping I could find a rule on this site that would support my action to ban this rule. That's unfortunately something I wasn't able to find on this site. The "General Gameplay Rules" actually supports keeping the rule thanks to the note before the list (I think that needs to be removed or changed.) So the entire choice or action to change this rule falls on the mods. Mainly me because I made all the rules for the game.

In the end, I want the community to be happy. We're a small but growing community. I don't think the runners will be happy if I were to change this rule. Clearly this is unfair to the current runners because the rule has been around for three years and most of the top runs for the game follow the rule. If I were to change the rule to eliminate the save state, I think that the manipulation would also need to be banned so the playing field will always be the same for runners. That would also invalidate all the top runs. My best run included.

That's an idea that came up in the discord. I don't like the idea of adding another category to compensate for one thing. It happens within the first 55 seconds of the run. Anyone without prior knowledge who sees the two runs probably wouldn't be aware something was different.

I guess I shouldn't rule the possibility out completely. I'd just hate to have the game go from three categories to six.