It's ok. I saw like 30+ runs in one day and sometimes is pretty hard to know if there's people cheating or using turbo, especially with 4 players runs and a lot of categories. A list should be great, because I can be more carefully with that runners. Thank you very much for this thread @Hurriboy !
Hello Hurriboy.
I have to say this is a disrespect to our team. You know we were doing runs for months, and getting this new rules out of nowhere without putting a dead-line to upload runs or telling to the community the futures changes.
The idea is not bad at all, but most of the mods can't verify one video in about 5 days, how are you planning to verify 4 videos now?
I hope you verify our runs, it's not something we did yesterday, we were doing this for month and when we got them all upload them all-together.
I repeat, you didn't even warn about this, I feel very frustrated now due this situation.
Greeting, Epica.
As I told Hurriboy when I spoke personally with him, I have lost my passion to really speedrun as I do not have the time for it anymore with college and a full time job. Therefor I am stepping down as a moderator of the outbreak series. I would not mind being a verifier at a later date if that is needed provided I have more time in the future.
I've not made my opinions public but there was talk of (as I put it as that was the impression I got) nuking the online times, and start afresh. Hurriboy has at least listened to the community and tried to find the best approach going forward acknowledging his position as mod and as part of a team.
Outside of REOB I've taken somewhat of an interest in speedrun cheating and watched how others have cheated and amazed at how people spot these cheaters. I wouldn't know where to begin with cheating and question whether I'd spot them. With categories that get more competitive, cheating can be more prevalent and harder to spot.
Back to REOB though, certain categories are becoming highly competitive and while I'm not familiar with speedrun teams in REOB, just a few names, I am aware that cheating has occurred and while not by an entire team it did benefit the team and all it can take is one person to secretly use cheats like turbo to invalidate a run even if the rest of the team isn't aware.
My initial reaction was that no community I'm aware of (though not got extensive knowledge) has nuked all the runs, there has been a grace period to remove runs, make a new category and then ultimately it's up to prove runs used cheats or provide additional proof. However, with this being coop and the mod community in REOB being as it is, it is going to be extremely hard if not impossible to do this when the role itself is voluntary. With only 1 person's POV, it is practically impossible to be sure cheating has occurred.
As for holding on to runs...well that's a double edged sword. Yes it is wrong that runs people have worked hard on are denied, however, it can also be said that runs completed say 2 years ago can be verified and then it appears on the surface that said person/team has had the WR for 2 years (basically denying anyone a chance to take them back). Submitting every run when there is obvious improvement is inefficient of course but there comes a point when runs are being sat on purely so that people can swamp the boards so runs aren't taken back quickly. You also compound the problem for mods by dumping several competitive runs in their lap and expect them to verify them when, again, cheating has been and can be used to get those extra precious seconds. It could be also unfair if say another team had new WR saved up and waited for others to take the WR away only to verify the runs and not only take them back but to make it look like they never lost it in the first place. Is it against the rules? No. Moral, No.
Am I saying runs should be submitted after so long? No, but at the very least consider your role in these events. I've sat on runs for up to 2 weeks in part because I felt there was sufficient room for improvement and there was probably plenty of runs submitted so mods had something to do. 2 weeks is one thing but 5 months? Why? I can't think of any reason other than to grandslam the board and stop anyone else taking them back until you had all of them and having the appearance you were undisputed for months when people could take them back in maybe weeks. The only time I've broken that rule is submtting any% runs offline but only because they are copies of the extension runs which were submitted within days of achieving them and it was just more efficient to submit my best extension time.
You have also said yourselves that the rules were unclear. I have had questions too and it was simply common sense to not do a run until I was certain or err on the side of caution (like using the train in BFP in melee runs). To be fair I don't think 4 POV is something that you would have asked for before trying but it was discussed that at some point all 4 POVs would be needed as a future proof measure. In my personal opinion you holding on to runs and then dumping them all at once as competitive WR didn't help. It would send a red flag to me if I were a mod and I feel this has pushed the mods (now just Hurriboy) to not only accelerate the changes he thought he'd have more time to implement but also has the difficult task of deciding if all the runs are verified or all are rejected and the rest of the community then has to take the consequences as well. If you had submitted a run or a few runs that happened close together then Hurriboy I'm sure would have had an easier time verifying the run(s) and said okay from now on new rules or hold off on more runs until I add new rules.
Ordinarily I'd say runs before any rule changes should be verified or rejected for proven cheats but Hurriboy knows his stuff and has spotted cheating where not many others would. However, if all he has to go on for off screen cheating is the tracker then he has to at some point question if I run is valid based off of the evidence he has and introduce new rules if necessary. The question then is to allow pending runs which might have some cheating to be verified or ask for more proof. I'd say probably verify unless cheating can be proven and if so the all submitted runs should be rejected depending on how difficult the cheating was to spot. Again, this doesn't help people if runs were submitted in bulk.
Not sure what else I have to say on the matter or if I've been clear in what I said but I think I'll leave it at that. I think this could have been handled better or even avoided if runs weren't backlogged and should be avoided though not enforced as a rule. The alternative is this can happen again and roles could be reversed where for example, my team can dump all the runs and then new rules are enforced.
Sorry for the long ramble.
Those new rules are very sudden and understandable, but I and many others werent told before that, even when this was a discussion that you (Hurriboy) were considering, like you said in the thread. Yet some online runs were still being submitted and verified during february and before. I can only hope that this wont stir up more than what is at stake right now.
I'd like to clarify my points for the record.
I'm not saying you or anyone has cheated in the runs that have been submitted. I said quite clearly that individuals HAVE cheated in the past (I don't even know who) even without the knowledge of others on the team and that is a fact. All it takes is one person it doesn't matter who to cheat and I've seen people outside REOB go to amazing lengths to cheat when times get competitive and it would be naive to think cheating doesn't happen. I don't know anyone in, let's say for the sake of argument, "your team" and I have no personal experience with which to form an opinion. If you personally were at the centre of cheating then your offline runs would be under the spotlight as well and unless something has gone on privately I'd assume your offline runs have been routinely verified after moderation.
I'm sorry you don't find my opinion welcoming but I'm not a mod though I have offered and this was my opinion as someone on the outside but is also affected. I don't have Hurriboy's ear, I get the same chance to talk to him and/or Wowee as anyone else who has discord. I don't know anyone outside Hurriboy, Hurricane_Kris and Gary_Danial in terms of speedrunning this game so as much as you can criticise me for lacking intimate knowledge of all of you, you can't also say I'm being biased against you and would say the same thing to anyone speedrunning. As for your team's circumstances it's good that you can offer proof to back up your runs but I am not psychic and would naturally find it odd that runs were sat on for months.
As for my privilege, I have none and if you don't believe what I say then I don't see how I can prove it. I've raised my concerns about modding in this group and have even spotted mistakes made myself and have had to notify the mods or edit them with a comment stating I made a mistake and some were as obvious as you could get like using guns in melee or David in Mark runs. I've even reported to Hurriboy upfront when 8 runs have been blanket submitted all X minutes ago which I doubt Hurriboy would have been aware of. I don't know how far you investigated but perhaps you compared which runs had 0 views and who verified them. I could have kept quiet or not cared but I felt it was worth saying because if runs were later found invalid it looks bad on the mod/s and possibly me.
And as for melee and wrenches I've been told you can use them. Why I didn't one run I don't know without more information. You've had words now with Hurriboy so I'm not going to muddy the water. This is a place to give an opinion on the rule changes and I've given mine and now I hope I've clarified it further.
I hope that we can all get along as well and mean no ill will and I hope that comes across in my responses.
