Hey, everyone. I've been playing/running this game for a good amount of time now; and with the recent rule changes that were made at the beginning of this year, regarding the Tracker and other things, I decided to just break the silence I had with this game's speed community, and say something.

I don't see anyone stepping up to say what needs to be said, so I went and made a long exposé on Google Docs that highlights exactly WHY these changes are detrimental to the speed game, and were also done in an ill-informed fashion. I have a feeling some will appreciate what's in it, since I've seen these kinds of comments in the past, regarding different issues that arose during this board's existence.

It's up to you if you wish to read through it (in which I hope those that have the ability to work on the boards DO READ IT), but I'm absolutely tired of what this game has went through and become, now that many have left the scene. I want this game to be great, but it takes someone to not sugarcoat the issues at hand that are in SERIOUS NEED of Addressing to make Outbreak what it could be, in Resident Evil Speedrunning. In advance, I thank you for your time... and for SOMETHING to be done.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aGYP24XFXF990_05l5z6-kee8KCrmmoVWYZ9OuanbY8/edit?usp=sharing

I've just noticed the level leaderboard is completely different. It's really sad because the game has been run that way for over a decade (In terms of people running categories as an IL and having its own "WR") Very stupid in my honest opinion

Edit 1 - I've also just noticed that it's been set to Full Game Leaderboard by default. Somehow the Full Game looks worse than the old level leaderboard. As I said earlier, the game has been ran IL for god knows how long and defaulting to Full Game which has 10 runs is just not the right move in my opinion

My whole relationship with REOB and speedrunning it stems from the drama that happened last year both directly (burnt out) and indirectly through my team having their own reasons for not wanting to run. I'll leave that statement at that because I won't speak for others and the drama was long ago so no need to bring it up again. Removing all my/team runs will likely always be a questionable decision but it's done so no point dwelling on it, I moved on.

I can't do anything about the online runs and as for offline I just found myself doing other things but in short, the drama left me with no interest at all to run. The rule changes weren't the reason per se but once I got burnt out it, it became the norm and that might be the same for others. I tried to stimulate motivation to run again but I got the impression people had other things they'd rather do and had no desire to run again, nothing about the rule changes though that doesn't seem to be the case apparently but I digress.

Part of me just hasn't cared what happens, give me a set of rules and someday I'll try and get back into running but I have other priorities now and I'd rather do that especially when my team shows no interest in doing runs online. I even asked others who showed some activity and they had stopped for now (again nothing about rules being an issue). If I could do runs again online and have fun with others I think I'd probably be back at it regardless of the rules as long as they don't keep changing.

Constant rule changes is going to become a growing reason not to come back for me because I actually got as far as setting up REOB on my new pc and set up the controller overlay+tracker. If I want to produce a good quality stream and runs that meet the rules I want consistency and not have to keep changing my overlay every time a change is made that requires me to change. There comes a point where we may not be happy with the rules but if the points have been brought up and the mods have their say then I follow it. It sounded like Max was aware of the pros and cons and in the end, made his judgement. Changing the rules yet again also means there will be so many versions of speedruns that newer runs can't compete with older runs or older runs getting away with things that are no longer allowed.

I volunteered to be a mod and put it to the community that if they weren't happy I'd step down. Despite my efforts, it just fueled the drama and negatively affected me so I stepped down and have no desire currently to volunteer again especially given I've been inactive in the running of the game. Others have volunteered but dropped out or were later removed but I'm sure Max will add more mods as they deem it fit. Verification of runs is a topic of debate. One of the reasons the drama blew up was because runs were sat on for months and then dumped en mass for verification with a community that was subpar and poorly equipped to handle it. This then precipitated a need to review the rules and runs put on hold. Had runs been submitted when they were set we'd likely not be in this situation but we are.

I had a hard time following everything you said when it could have been more condensed. I got the overall gist of what you said and I think separating emu and console was brought up but I recall the reason being vaguely along the lines of more categories to mod and more mess to sort out on a board that has mixed emu and console for so long. The mods are going to be the ones to run this new show in their free time and Max sounds like he's worked hard to do what he has with lots of stuff going on rl so I'd rather work with him in implementing the rules he's set. Ideally, it sounds like the only way to fix the impasse is to split emu and console and having a tracker for console but that will mean going through old runs and determining which version they are and I don't know if the console version will have problems with PAL and NTSC, language used etc. Having my ps3 streamable means it might be fun running emu and console but if the rules are constantly in flux I'm just going to continue sitting on the fence and waiting for things to set in place.

So don't think I'm anti or pro your case Rose, I'm just having a hard time caring when I haven't regained my interest after the drama, other stuff is going on that I'm giving my attention and people who I would run with don't seem to want to run regardless of the rules which they had a hand in coming up with.

Lot of rambling but I think that's all thus far so see what others say. I'll go with the consensus and eventually run again even if it means offline only but not if the rules keep changing.

After seeing the posts in the forums/discord and having discussions on some of the issues I want to pose some solutions to the ongoing debate and problems that people have with the rules. All of the issues seem to boil down to two major things:

1.) Creating rulesets in terms of cheating vs. inclusivity and 2.) The tracker with the codes given as part of it.

There seems to be a solution that hopefully most will be ok with, hopefully without resulting to infantile insults as has been seen in the forums before with past occurences. That solution is to separate the boards between Hardware and EMU, which is fine I can make a different variable for this and then each set will have it's own rules associated with it, therefore allowing the moderators to track cheating better with the tracker while also still being inclusive to console players, which were here first btw. We will backtrack on the tracker elements and require them for EMU runs again and at the same time the input display will also be required. In addition to this I will continue to work on making the display aesthetically pleasing to everyone as that was a concern for some reason as well as I saw in some forum posts. So I think this is an "easy" fix that will stick and the rules will not have to be changed at all in the future again, unless something crazy comes up. If anyone has anything else to bring up now is the time to do so, not in a couple of weeks. So don't just sit on thumbs here and come back later with more problems with the rules once these are confirmed in. Also thanks to the people that did raise the concerns with me and were willing to speak to me in DMs about the issues it helped out a ton.

If a console section is to be made then that brings in to the equation versions. I don't know how much it will vary but we're dealing with an old game so PAL/NTSC will mean 50 vs 60 fps and I know that can make a big difference as runs get longer or every second counts in shorter runs.

Language has also been known to affect times. REOB has little scrolling text but it's something that should be realised if you're going to go down this path.

File 2 had data transfer you could use from file1. Not saying this is a no no or further rules just this might need looking at as it's been so long since I've touched it. I think it just means you don't have to buy file1 stuff in file2 in which case that's okay just unlock it or transfer it and you're done. File 3 would still be a no no.

PS2 and PS3 can also be an issue...I highly doubt this but again, just for the sake of future proofing, have it as an option.

Nothing can really be done about hardware if someone has a SSD then not a lot can be done though it should be an option people tick so people can see why someone may be faster (and not a cheater).

Sadly PAL (or maybe just EU) REOB1 users can't play online. We never got that feature. Only NTSC I think would be a REOB1 submittable run online.

If I think of any other console related points I'll add them here but anyone else may want to see how other games deal with console runs. This wasn't really explored much that I can remember because splitting emu and console was almost rejected straight away so before diving in this needs careful planning. I'm not saying we have more categories for ssd/hdd and pal/ntsc but at least raise it and have them as selectable options so I personally who is for example 5th place can say "I'm the fastest pal user or hdd user" and everyone can see the wr holder has ssd ntsc so has some advantage.

In short, EMU and console need their own specific rules (emu can be more liberal now and console needs it's own set of rules though their will be overlap).

P.S. I just loaded my REOB1 and REOB2 on my PS3 and it came up immediately with this option to play in NTSC 60 fps which I can as I'm playing it through my pc monitor. That means that most/all people should be able to play in 60fps so this point is null and void but still my above points stand. Certain criteria should be set when submitting runs.

Seems my PAL ps3 can't play REOB2 online at least unless I jailbreak it and make it work with JP version. Something I'm probably not prepared to do for this one game even if the console is old and outside warranty. Still offline would be open to all with the mention of what version they run and Jp can of course have online to themselves. Unless anyone knows how anyone can play online, I may well have set things up wrong. It says my connection is fine but when I try to log in the DNS authentication fails.

I mean, like all people know I think, that you need a Japanese console and a Japanese copy of Outbreak to play Online Silver 😁