With any% activity being pretty low at the moment I think it's time to bring this up.

The reason we reject paint lines from Sigils of Elohim in any category is because 'they require you to do other stuff before you start playing the game'. However, from a purely philosophical point of view this should invalidate the QR and Audio Log paint lines too. I believe that at the moment our rules are incoherent - if we are trying to reproduce the fastest way to beat the game on a just downloaded game, then we should not allow QR and Audio Log. If we are trying to reproduce the fastest way to beat the game with certain prior set ups, then we should allow Sigils of Elohim paint lines too. Maybe we can make dual categories - any% and 'New Game + any%'. From a purely philosophical standpoint I believe this should be the correct way to see the issue; all of our current runs would be reclassified as 'NG+' runs (including All Sigils) and new any% will ban QR and Audio Log paint - drastically altering the route for paint in A (we could still realistically get 5 quick paint lines - New game, solve Don't Cross the Streams, solve a puzzle that requires an unlockable item, unlock an item, go OoB - but it might reintroduce Connectors in the route because of Don't Cross the Streams being necessary). On the other hand, NG+ any% would have paint right from the moment you spawn (lines for New Game, and 4 of the 5 you get from Road to Gehenna + Sigils of Elohim; this would require people to buy Gehenna, but I think we could easily find some workarounds with QRs since paint in A1 is most likely irrelevant and there are quick QRs in many places).

Now the obvious counterarguments are (1) this would completely screw up our current times and create a bagillion new categories that nobody would probably run - although Eternalize and Transcendence aren't far from that atm - and (2) this might be a change that is unnecessary and might make the game less fun for the runners. I definitely understand these points, and it's why I want to create this discussion.

Should we be philosophically coherent in what we do and don't allow? Or should we create very arbitrary restrictions to keep our categories in their current state?

Correct, Kittaye. The description on darkid's site is inaccurate in a couple instances, but the pictures are completely reliable. Great resource indeed - worst paint isn't as bad if you know you have to get it beforehand (think places like C Star, where you would otherwise check ledge near spawn, top of the architecture thingy and in the best paint spot before finally crying your way to the entrance of unreachable garden to pick up the paint and bring it across the whole level).

Heh, "most elaborate" is a stretch since it's paint jumps and hard parkour everywhere so there isn't much that is innovative or alternative as much as there is stupidly hard parkour (see Oubliette, but really the whole run is like this). It's like taking the difficulty of A1's tricks and adding Paint in, completely insane.