I can get not wanting them on the main boards (for the reasons listed below), but why not make a sub-category like SM64 and just warn people that EMU runs might be cheated and are harder to verify?
I understand that it's near impossible to detect TAS and they often have faster loading times, but why ban them altogether?
I personally backed up a lot of my library and use emulators to use them more portably and with controllers I like or to play with friends through parsec/netplay and was wondering why they're generally banned entirely from speedrunning.
There was just a relevant thread on this:
They're banned on various SRC leaderboards, that doesn't mean you can't run games on emu/vc. If you care enough about competing you could get a leaderboard approved setup down the line I suppose, or petition for a category for emu/vc.
@Pear thanks, thats exactly what I was asking. Makes sense that people want all board to be 100% accurate (which realistically isn't possible with emulation of anything past n64), but its still sucky since a lot of OG hardware has started to wear down and break and especially game disks are susceptible to breaking (my OG copy of mkwii broke 2 months ago and I had to pay $30 for a new disk for my runs to count anywhere). Even then, it's very much possible to TAS on original hardware, although its much harder for the average game player. Hopefully emulated runs are allowed more in the future.
@Komrade like I mentioned in the thread Pear linked, a lot of games don't care how many people would set up a petition (look around the MKWii forums for an example). And your first point makes sense IG, but a lot of why people speedrun imo is seeing their name up on the board against other people. Not too many people are driven to improve on their own.
@Komrade here's some examples of the threads I was talking about: -https://www.speedrun.com/mkw/thread/s17yn -https://www.speedrun.com/mkw/thread/oijik/1#xlmpb -https://www.speedrun.com/mkw/thread/us9qj -https://www.speedrun.com/mkw/thread/tzgrk -https://www.speedrun.com/mkw/thread/aej7o
@Liv those make sense and I tried to explain exactly that at the top of this thread, but I still have some questions:
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Not accurate -Too difficult to moderate. Emulator updates affecting loads/performance, so having to scrap older runs, etc. ^why would older runs have to be scrapped? Load times already differ between consoles, so I don't see much how that would effect anything. If anything, load times are basically as consistent on consoles as emulation on high-end PCs.
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Draws attention away from the main competition (console)
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Creates an entirely separate "WR" for emulator, which may end up being slower than console ^these are fair points I suppose, but I generally feel as though the competition should be centered around the game, not the console, but I guess my opinion is very subjective here
-- Cannot be reasonably verified ^this is 100% agree with which is why I believe these runs should generally be in a separate category so that cheated runs aren't viewed as the best. It's very hard / near impossible to detect TASing on dolphin, but at the same time it's equally as hard if not harder to catch a cheater on OG hardware if there's no handcam. A simple attempt at a fix could be requiring controller inputs with dolphin with something like gamepad viewer, but even that's not foolproof. In general, it's definitely easier to cheat on emulators, but it's generally hard to catch cheaters on OG hardware as well, especially if they don't have a handcam (which I personally don't want to standardize since I prefer to hide my IRL self as much as I can).
@Komrade I understood the point you made. I was just explaining my thoughts on emulation on the leaderboards. I enjoy speedrunning just as much as anyone else on this site, and I would easily speedrun a game without it having a leaderboard. However, having a leaderboard to compare to and compete with often makes it far more enjoyable for me personally to speedrun as I enjoy competing with other people. If that wasn't the case, there'd be very little reason for this site to exist (in my opinion), but I'm glad it does.
I'm not trying to disregard anyone's opinion on this thread, I'm just trying to have a discussion on emulation in speedrunning and trying to better understand what people are saying, sorry if I'm coming off as an ass.
Lol you're fine dude I'm just saying. These things vary from game to game, and with "newer" consoles emulation is either so poor that communities don't allow it, or the ability to cheat is too great to allow it. I'm mixed on either, really. You could always round up emulator runners and start your own leaderboard offsite. What's stopping ya?
I really like this site lol, also too lazy to make my own. Also the wii/gc/wii u emulators aren't exactly all that new with dolphin coming out in 2003 (almost 18 years ago now). Although cemu is kind of new which is why I can understand disallowing it. I can get why people wouldn't want cheating on the boards, but that's why there'd be a subcategory.
Similar to most console players, most emulator players aren't trying to cheat, and if someone really wants to cheat, having to play on console won't really stop them (it's really easy to get something like a turbo/macro button on a custom controller to TAS on a real console). Obviously, its easier with emulation, but its not very difficult with just about anything as even newer consoles allow most USB controllers which can allow you to easily connect stuff like that.
Your emu leaderboard could be as simple as a google sheet. You're not going to convince the people that disallow emu by trying to convince others. You could save yourself the time, hassle, kicking, and screaming and make your own, or wait for them to change their mind a decade down the road. Up to you.
[quote=Komrade]You're not going to convince the people that disallow emu by trying to convince others.[/quote]
@Komrade While I agree that the mods that're currently disallowing emulators on boards probably have a somewhat strong stance on the matter, we also have to take into account that leaderboards on this site are not owned by the game mods, but rather they're run by their respective community. With that in mind, convicing others might actually be a valid strategy to get some changes done.
I mean, if we didn't have these sort of discussions every now and then people wouldn't really have a chance to change their opinion, so we might as well see where this leads us.
I waited 5 years for a version of a game to get unbanned and the only thing that changed is someone that mods it finally decided they wanted to run the fastest version. Knock yourself out.
^ That's actually my issue with DMs becoming available on SRC, but I know people will just use Discord anyways. I've had far too many conversations forced on me in private that would likely get those people removed as mod themselves if it was made public. There's a reason I don't mod anything anymore and it's because I don't want to be associated with such behavior myself.
I'm not sure the problem has a solution though. Voting moderators on and off doesn't just have potential for abuse, it would be abused to the fullest extent. People would find ways to trick the system day one. The first thing that comes to mind are leaderboards that "auto verify" runs without proof that are slower than X time. If a requirement to be a part of the "community" is to just have a run, then you could probably bot up a ton of runs and vote moderators out lmao.
Another issue with the "community holds all the cards" idea is I have had, on two separate leaderboards, popular and unpopular, one person make two accounts. They proceed to submit a run on each account, and quickly slide into the forums to demand changes. They quickly try to play the "community" angle because "lol two runners vs. one mod, mob rules homie". It was easy enough to spot it as it was happening, but having happened on a popular and unpopular leaderboard I imagine it's a trick people try often.
Moderation ain't simple, at least it shouldn't be. I think there should be people running a leaderboard that know how and when to make the right decision. Otherwise to leave it all up to the "community" means running a site like pbtracker. Extreme example maybe, but what's the point of moderation if the moderator is unable to make decisions? Moderators should be replaced with a switch at that point.
Unfortunately this is realistically one of the best system I can think of in order to handle the human element. This design allows for the least abuse, but also doesn't allow communities to properly vote if the mod(s) of a game decide to simply ignore them. People always ask for reform, but most people don't have a solution that could realistically be applied or don't have a way that their ideas could be well-enforces. It's a very complex problem and even thinking hard about it, I can't really find too many better solutions than the current one (which obviously has its flaws).