Gave in and had to scratch the itch. I added the ability for runners to submit a time with milliseconds to the leader board. I added milliseconds to the WR run for Tyris. I am willing to re-time anyone's run to add milliseconds on request. I'll leave it up to runners choice when they submit a run whether they provide milliseconds or not, and just time to the accuracy they provide. Unless it's a tie or something. This is reversible though so if it's an unpopular decision I can change it back.

Thanks for the input, I think I'll take your advice and wait until we have a decent reason to time more accurately. The app is nothing really. I write code for a living so whenever I have a repetitive task it usually ends up getting automated :P

Fair enough, I can move the Sega CD runs that were submitted for Gilius and begginer mode into the Sega CD leader board and update the rules again. I can then remove the Sega CD option from the platforms allowed in the other leader boards.

I agree that it should be easy for runners to consistently time themselves, and I hadn't put much thought into it whilst posting. I have stubbornly kept to my own timing method for this precise reason. I can more accurately hit the last split when Death Bringer's axe impales him at the end of his death animation, rather than trying to split as I land the last blow. But I'm not going to argue the case for swapping to that as our current rules are quite established (and it would make a sub 8 min run harder !). I don't think the 3 frames it took for the screen to change in my example is really significant, but I have noticed that some runners don't start their timer as they hit the select button to start the run, and can start shortly afterwards.

I take your point that this isn't really necessary until two runners are tied again. Although I think it would be a shame if someone got a sub 8 min run with 7:59.6 and I had to round it up.

In terms of how hard it is to time a submitted run, I find it easier to frame count with Yua now, where previously I had run my own timer whilst watching the run and hitting the start and end split manually. I just take the start frame and the end frame and plug it into a html app I made http://house-keeper-spots-88787.bitballoon.com/ (30fps for youtube videos, 60fps for my own recordings).

For now I guess we don't need to do anything, I certainly don't think it's worth re-timing all the runs on every leader board.

For now, I've updated the rules for the Sega CD category to be Tyris Flare only. Other Sega CD runs will be added the the leader board for their relevant character category. Wasn't sure if it made more sense to have all Sega CD runs in the same leader board or not.

First of, congratulations to InTheMug and beadle111 for their tied WR runs. But it got me thinking if we need to start timing the runs more accurately.

I wanted to ask the opinion of the community before I make any changes to the leaderboard. But I thought that now the run is getting quite optimised we should time runs to tenths of a second?

This also made me think about having a consistent start and end frame we agree on for accurate timing. I've made a couple of gifs to show what I mean.

Starting frame:- http://imgur.com/a/cTy66 This gif shows that when I press X to start the game, the screen does not change for another 3 frames. As it would be impossible to tell when a runner hits the start button, perhaps we should start the timer on the frame when the two un-chosen characters disappear?

Ending frame:- http://imgur.com/a/M4AKp The ending frame is more clean cut I think. When you land the killing blow death adder begins his death animation. So we should stop timing on the first frame of this animation.

Tools:- https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Yua I have been using Yua to extract runs from my OBS studio recordings. I like it's ability to step through a video frame by frame so I have been using it to look at the time at the start and end frame of everyone's runs. We could potentially use this tool to count the frames in a run too, as it has a frame count at the bottom left (as seen if the above gifs).

Rounding: I noticed that before I started verifying runs, Jesse_Porter seemed to round to the nearest second. .5 would be rounded up, and anything lower rounded down. I admit I've been a bit lax with this and usually always round down. Should we always round down, or should we round .5 up? I think this is important if we swap to tenths of a second or not.

What do you all think? Is this overkill?

Click your username in the top right, go to settings. Then under notifications tab there are checkboxes to get notifications or emails for lots of different events such as forum posts in a game you follow. I don't think you could set it to only email for golden axe if you have followed other games though.

Wow, this was unexpected. I thought the admins would have made you a mod instead. Anyway, I've rejected the TAS from the leaderboard and made a co-op category. I copy pasted the arcade mode rules and added that any character combo is permitted. Let me know if you would like any changes.

As noted last week by EightBitSteve, the moderators for Golden Axe seem to be inactive. We currently have two issues that are noted in the game forum that have not been replied to by a moderator for some time.

EightBitSteve has asked for a new category to be added to the leaderboard for 2 player co-op, it's my understanding that he needs to link you his runs to put a case forward for the category which is fine.

The second is that a TAS run on the Tyris leaderboard was approved by a moderator despite obvious signs (text at the start of the run) indicating it is a TAS. This has been mentioned in the forum but not acted upon.

I feel that we would benefit from a new moderator at this point, and EightbitSteve has already noted an interest here - http://www.speedrun.com/Golden_Axe/thread/b50rj

Not sure what the process is but I know the Golden Axe community will back this if needed. Thanks.

Been looking forwards to seeing your run since you first posted. I can only imagine how hard it must be getting consistent positioning with two players.

Well this is sad. First I was excited that someone had crushed the record and there were new strats the learn. Then I saw the tas text at the start of the video and thought maybe it was a new tas and I could still learn something. But it's just a frame for frame copy of Mukki's TAS here -

Very exited about a co-op category, can't wait to see your run. I also agree with your thoughts on PC version being easier, I could not play as well with a megadrive controller. I personally do not consider my runs to be in competition with runs on original hardware. But having said that, I'm a relative newcomer to this site and if there is a president with other games to keep megadrive and other platforms in one category then I'm happy with that, you can always use the filters on the leaderboard :)