Hi guys, after a few chats with members of the sims speedrunning community I have written up what I believe will be the optimal ruleset for fairly running the game. I'd like to hear your feedback on these changes, and if you have any ideas or suggestions you may leave them below. This sticky will be updated regularly regarding rule changes and stipulations.

Below are the updated rules which spread over each board:

-The run should start with a “New game" -Timing starts when the in-game clock starts (this will let players with lower-end PCs run the game fairly due to eliminating loading time) -You must be living in one of base lots or homes of the town of your choice. You are not able to immediately merge into an existing household if you have started a “New Game”. -After choosing your home or lot you can build a home and/or enter Manage Worlds if you choose, however you may not place custom lots or rooms. -No cheats or mods are allowed (cc for sims is allowed) -Sims must have clean skill points -No use of the Gallery after starting a new game

Edits: 25 July 2019

• Use of the Gallery is no longer allowed in runs
• The timer will now start when the in-game clock starts

28 July 2019

• CC for Sims is now allowed

So time starts as the in game clock starts? Just to be extra clear. Seems fair, though if players have low-end PCs they're still going to suffer if there are other loads in the run.

Thanks Momo I cleared that up.

It's true that players with higher-end PCs will have advantages over lower-end ones even with the proposed changes, however I believe skipping the initial loading time will at least give a fair starting ground for each run.

Sounds good! Do you need any help with retiming?

@Mcguy215 I manually reviewed most of the runs yesterday and removed loading timers, however all of the runs in the max skill categories still need to be changed. Any help would be appreciated!

Ok! But how should we keep track of which categories are finished and which aren't?

@KLucius I am just going to put a note in the run to show that it has been fixed.

Good idea! I'll edit the notes of the runs I verified later tonight.

Could you please update the rules for all categories? Like the max skills. Because currently it doesn't say that gallery use is disallowed and that timer starts when you hit "save and play". Would appreciate it, thank you.

I think snowy39 is right. We are using gallery but rules says that is disallowed and I and him used another methods to re-time our-run. He used save and play method, I used IGT method and disproportion is ridiculous. bc:

1. Prob nobody knows about that and in leaderboards I'm about 20+ s faster when currently I'm 1/2 s faster in both ways of re-timing
2. If somebody will makes speedruns in such categories like maxed skill will be disappointed with rules if they will not change. This is not about who is faster or better or whatever else but rules in 2019 says that you can't use gallery and every run after setting this rule using it kekW. Rules should forever the same for everyone. I mean idk why runs what are not about current rules are verified, that set chaos on question what is legal or not.

Welp, I didn't know you count not use the gallery. I didn't see these rules until just now. Clearly states 'No Gallery' yet most MAXED runs have the gallery being used.

Yeah, i personally was going off what was said when you press the "view rules" button in every individual category.

Same. Usually has worked for every run I do.

Bonjour qu'entendez vous par la galerie s'il vous plait ?

Please, use English language next time. With "gallery" we mean while you start the game you use "house" which you build earlier, which ones are saved in gallery. This is usually faster than building and gives advantage, bc you can save "house" with items which are blocked on the new game like special items from career, what gives you needed mood.

You could use specials lamps from ts3 dlcs instead but no everyone have ts3 with dlcs. If you ts 4 runner you could use them only for aspirations runs where you can't according to rules use gallery

Can I get a rules clarification? On the Strangerville run rules, it states that any run with only base game and Strangerville will be considered without expansions, which I think is fair, but for Maxed Parenthood and Vampire Level 10, the without expansions run is considered not a valid category. Why wouldn't they also be considered without expansion runs with only base game and either Parenthood or Vampires (respectively)?

hi all! i wanted to quickly clarify the use of the gallery in runs since it's been a while since i ran the game, and i want to make sure that going forward everyone has the correct rules in front of them before they attempt a run (and note that i'm going to be going through the categories and cleaning them all up in the next week or so, so that the rules match and are accurate).

to me, it makes sense to allow the gallery use for build/buy and not cas. this would allow all players to pre-build their ideal lot for the run, making use of unlockable items, full grown plants etc, but still requires the player to make the correct choices in the run and allow for some variance. if we allow cas, i think it'll really cut down on the competitiveness of runs, especially the skill ones. if for example, a player is doing a max x skill run, they'd be able to upload a sim that has x skill almost maxed (since the gallery saves skills), add them to the family, do 1 action and then immediately finish the run. whilst we're aiming to be the fastest, this doesn't show off the player skill or tricks in the run since this is all pre in-game clock and the majority of the work done for the run isn't seen.

i know that everyone has access to the gallery, so it's not about fairness, but instead to encourage more people to run a category. if someone's maxed a skill in 15 seconds because their sim was 99.99% there, and the only way to beat that is to have a better computer, then what's the point in having that category? we all like records, but it's not as fun if there's only 1 runner in the run.

also going forward, all aspirations/skills that require an expansion to use will be valid to run at the "without expansion" run if they're only using the bare minimum, and "with expansion" if they use extra packs.

@JijiBerry, in the rules it already says that Sims must have no skills before starting a run.

It goes without saying that no progress should be made with the sim you're loading from gallery. It's just so you don't need to go through the character creation part, which isn't necessarily a show of skill, but rather a convenient way to skip the repetitive parts - assigning a sim a name, traits, an aspiration, and preferences.

@Snowy39 that's fair. i think lots of runners use their own library not the gallery to grab a sim they've been using to run which is fine. the skills and extra traits don't show in the gallery, so someone might grab a sim they like the design of without noticing (which obviously is on the runner to see, but it's been missed in the past). it's more for further clarification of the rule, which can't be a bad thing, considering that we've had issues previously with runs being verified that don't follow them.