Exciting news!
After doing some testing, it appears that the 1.42d unofficial patch for RTCW is suitable for speedrunning! This is particularly important because it means that people can now install the steam version of the game, then apply the unofficial patch and run on equal footing with 1.00. Some of the game crashes have been fixed, which should improve quality of life for runners quite a bit.
I have added a value for 1.42d in the Game Version variable, and the win32 binary distribution of the patch is available on the Resources page as a .ZIP archive.
See "Patch 1.42d readme.txt" and "1.42d_Changes.txt" in the .ZIP archive for author and change information.
Unless there's a compelling argument to be made against it in terms of fairness, I see no reason not to allow people to run on the unofficial patch if they wish.
I don't know if your aim is to have a competitive leaderboards on whatever version is best suited for running, or on the fastest officially released version, but from the "general speedrunning rules", mods, external file manipulations and unofficial versions shouldn't be allowed.
There seems to be several changes in the patch that could affect the gameplay:
- Added fix for laggy AI in norway map (thanks Zaero).
- Fixed tesla gun and flamethrower firing in noclip mode, when leaning, and when underwater.
- Fixed hint icon appearing for alarm boxes at ranges farther than they can be activated from.
- Fixed loading autosaves partially breaking briefing cutscenes.
- Added support for mouse buttons 4 and 5.
Your objection seems not to be against the changes made by the patch, but against the fact that it isn't in line with what the communities of other speedgames have decided. This patch is more readily available than version 1.00, and is almost guaranteed to be faster than 1.32 by virtue of having a working Heinrich skip, so why shouldn't it be allowed? Is there some general speedrunning authority that we all answer to that I'm not aware of?
The "general speedrunning rules" (note that I use quotes for a good reason) were established by SDA, many years before this site. Everyone followed it, but then the speedrunning community started to shatter to specific game communities, which sometimes made up their own "weird" rules.
https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Rules
There is actually no mention about using unofficial patches, but believe me, they are not allowed. The reason is simple - unofficial patches can change gameplay. Same thing can happen with source ports and mods.
If this community allows it, it's your decision and I'll have to accept it, even though I disagree.
Sourceruns is the case of its own.
I don't understand the 1.00 argument. You can easily get this version from ebay or any other auction. There are plenty of copies around.
To be fair, it seems SDA has definitely made some good updates to its rules since I last looked at them (which would have been in 2013 or so), and the ruleset as a whole seems a lot more reasonable than what I remember. Then again I may have been thinking about their verification guidelines:
https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Verification_Guidelines
which I still think are asinine. I welcome additional opinions on this matter; I've been running on 1.00 all along, and am happy to continue doing so. I will leave 1.42d as an optional game version for now, pending further input from people who would prefer that it isn't allowed.
P.S. You're right, original game discs seem to be easier to get than I thought. But the merits of letting people get into running the game via the steam version shouldn't be understated. Maybe we should see if downpatching the steam version to 1.1 would help.
Yeah, the SDA admins woke up and started updating the rules recently (even though it's too late anyway). Their verification guidelines are quite hardcore for 2016 and have been a subject to criticism, but to no end. It pretty much disallows all twitch vods, which is what majority of runners use.
Btw, I recall that in cases when the unofficial patch doesn't change any gameplay, it was allowed in order to fix crashes or video/sound issues on modern PCs. It's still a bit shady, though, since there could be a new hidden bug. The 1.42d definitely needs testing imho.
If RtCW works the same way as Q3, it should be enough to just delete specific pk3 files and use the 1.00 exe
I think people should be allowed to run either 1.00 or the 1.42d patch as long as it's specified.
For reference, I know Half-Life has different categories based on how you run the game. You can use the BunnymodXT injector to re-enable bunnyhopping in the standard Steam version which allows way more people to get into the game, or you can download mods of the game that will make it behave as older versions of the game (the pre-Steam "WON" version), and then there's also the NGHL Half-Life client which is also a mod. And Half-Life is very popular for speedrunning.
