@Bl00dyBizkitz, This isn't the right thread for that. Can you post on the "General Issues and Requests" thread or start a new one? That's where the discussion has been happening, so I don't want to split it across multiple threads. I'd read the whole thread before posting too since many points have already been debated.

I made a guide for what equipment you need to stream: http://pastebin.com/mWHreqap

Can you add that to the bottom of the OP White?

Well Silver we have a requirement atm that says a timer must be on the screen; I think that's what the concern was about. I'd be hesitant to remove that requirement too since it could make it easier for people to cheat and harder to verify (we'd basically have to retime the videos ourselves and we wouldn't be able to allow split VODs).

If it's on screen (i.e. in the VOD), yes. If not, we'll have to evaluate. :/ If you can, feel free to record a small test video and link it here since I'm not familiar with PS4 streaming and what shows up on screen.

White, please update the OP to say the following as video proof is now required (I also reworded some of the bullet points for clarity).

• All submissions require video proof. Split VODs and internet drops are generally ok but may take a bit longer to verify. If your video is in multiple parts, simply put part 1 in the "Video Link" field and all other parts in the comments.
• Runs submitted before February 17th, 2016 are considered "legacy runs" and may not have video proof.
• All runs must be done as an RTA (Real Time Attack)
• Any run where you stop the timer or do not complete the run in one sitting will cause it to become a segmented run. These are not accepted on the leaderboards (although they are a fantastic way to practice/learn runs).
• All runs must use a timer of some sort. The recommended timer is LiveSplit, available here: http://livesplit.org/. Runs without a timer visible in the video will not be accepted.
• Emulator runs are accepted on a game-by-game basis. Currently only GBA and DS KH games allow emulators. Please visit the individual games for emulator restrictions.
• Only original game copies are allowed. Any non-original game copy (including a burned ISO with the English Patch) is BANNED due to inconsistent load times and will be immediately rejected.

Well it's been over 2 weeks since the last reply and the overwhelming majority of responses are in favor of video proof, so I'm calling it official. We officially require video proof now, which also means no PBs should be submitted manually by leaderboard mods without first receiving a video link.

I'm open to an exception for DDD, but a separate thread should probably be started on that.

I'll fork over $50 to the first person to get sub 3:10 in KHFM HD Proud Any%. And $100 to the first person to find a useful, reproducible clip that becomes part of the speedrun route in KHFM HD Beginner Any%. Must save at least 5 seconds and be 100% consistent.

I love the new themes Dax has been creating. They hit each point of mine from above:

1. Woo more proactiveness!
2. The images are 1920x1080 but are dark enough to read text on easily. That being said, they do fuck with viewing the site on mobile quite a bit, but speedrun.com doesn't have a mobile site as it is right now, so not really much of a worry.
3. Very subtle images imho. I didn't even realize there was a background on one of the pages I was reading for a good couple minutes.
4. Consistent theme across all games but with a unique twist for each. Perfect.

Logos still have to be made consistent and CoM + KH2 still need themes, but other than that we're sitting in a much better place! I might mess around with modifying some text colors slightly via CSS on some of the pages, but in general I think they look great. Thanks again Dax and Sally!

P.S. I'm not a fan of the "KH font" speedrun.com logo. Not because I don't necessarily like the idea, but more because every single KH font I've looked at just isn't very good. Additionally, it somewhat sends the wrong message from a usability standpoint since that link goes to the main SRcom homepage and not the KH series page.

Oh also, ideally all Japanese versions of the games should come first in the list order, but it is not that way currently due to a technical limitation of the site (only being able to provide release years for games, not dates). A future update is planned that will include full dates, which will fix that problem.

I'll sum up some of my quick thoughts here before I go to bed and hopefully be able to explain in more detail if people have questions:

1. Thank you SO MUCH for being proactive Sally. Cannot stress that enough. Easiest way to make these things look nicer and more professional is to just make changes without fear of being wrong and then iterate from there. I've been wanting to finish up the cover images for a while, but I'm pretty slow/horrid with GIMP, so it's been holding me back. Cannot stress enough that no matter how much I may disagree with factors, I very much appreciate you taking the initiative to change things.

2. I am not a fan of background images in general, but especially as full-screen stills from the game. To make background images look even kind of decent, they first need to be at least 1920x1080, which slows loading for everyone and does not support different sized windows very well. In addition, it makes text harder to read and gives the boards a more "Geocities fanpage"-type look.

3. I am much more in favor of subtle changes that fit the individual games using background/text colors that are still readable but give a slight personalized look. I also think Google's Material Design is a great layout to follow, but I'm not exactly sure how much of the site is customizable via page CSS yet, so we may only be able to tweak colors. I'll look into this.

4. Consistency is key. Games should be individuals but all clearly tied to the full series. With that in mind, our cover images need to be more consistent. Two main factors are inconsistent right now: a) Some HD games use the collection logos (KHFM HD uses 1.5), others use the Final Mix logo with "HD" added to the logo (KH2FM HD), and b) Some games have the text from the Japanese logo for their JP versions, while others have "(JP)" added to the English logo. a) I prefer the latter option here, where we use the game's Final Mix logo with "HD" added. In these cases, however, we need to be careful to match "HD" as closely to the collection logos as possible. b) In this case I prefer the former option, where we use the Japanese logo. From personal experience, I know the Japanese logos can be incredibly hard to find in the correct format, but we should be able to recreate any that we can't find suitable images for.

Please let me know if any mocks get made as I can write up any CSS we need for the pages within a few minutes.

I requested a feature for LiveSplit for segment ids or "alternate split names" that would be used when importing splits or for comparisons during races. They originally included it in one of their milestones, but I haven't checked on the status of it in a while. Should that get implemented, the idea would be to have a curated list of segment ids by the community, and then your split name that is displayed can be anything you want.

Using LiveSplit 1.6, a friend and I tried to use the autosplitter for a casual co-op run, but the splitter would never start the timer, and after starting the timer manually, it would reset all segments to 0.0s. Any ideas how to fix this? The autosplitter works fine for Portal 1 and presumably works fine for the single player campaign in Portal 2, although I didn't test anything besides it automatically starting the timer.

Thanks, Hobz

"The only honest bit that threw me off [...] it just kinda happened..."

When the SRcom leaderboards were created initially they were set up requiring video proof, so it did just kind of "happen." However, we did have very weird rules on the gdoc on "video proof is required but occasionally splits can be accepted," a rule that never defined the use of "occasionally" and was rarely enforced anyways. We even explicitly had a rule for requiring video proof for WRs which was also not well-enforced (see BB's 2.5 Beginner WR where Twitch deleted the VOD).

"The only question I have to ask is will a run be rejected if say twitch servers go down and you miss lets say 40 minutes of your run?"

IMO, not if it was originally livestreamed and has audio. Simply link all the parts, and as long as the majority of the run has video and both the starting and ending splits are included, there shouldn't be any issues. Now if it were a YouTube video of a non-streamed run, then you should definitely have the whole thing.

"If you have atrocious internet from AU/NZ and don't really have the capabilities of uploading your run to youtube due to internet speed/data?"

This point is so iffy to me just because we have people like Rizz and Sonic who stream on very poor connections all the time, but most Internet Service Providers don't put a hard limit on your upload data anyways, only download. This would be more easily handled if we had an actual case of this, but so far I've yet to hear from anyone who legitimately has a reason they haven't been able to record a run.

"I think I prefer the idea of having continuity with having video proof being allowed besides the handhelds"

I would limit this to only 3DS personally, since emulator is allowed for GBA and DS runs and recording from a PSP is quite simple from what I understand.

Thanks for contributing to the discussion!

No reason Standard shouldn't be Sword/Shield imo btw ;)

To clarify: Staff gives you 1 extra MP, for a total starting amount of 3, not 3 extra. Also, yeah it's mainly the abilities that make it worth it, like Timmi said. Due to the scaling of the game's bosses, we actually already max out on damage on most of them, so taking the Sword wouldn't really benefit us at all. It is used for the Standard and Proud modes, however, where you don't get the Power Ups at the beginning.

"... community can be more open to newcomers and not have huge gaps they have to jump over to be on our leaderboards/part of our community."

I still don't understand how an $8 capture card is considered a "huge gap." Has anybody complained about not being able to record runs and given their reasoning? I'd love to hear from them, because right now I haven't met anybody who "can't record" their run.

Should we chat on TS then? Hard to convey tone over text. I'm free atm.

My post may come off sounding hostile. Sorry about that, it was not my intention. Text is hard.

Liquid, please read the entire thread carefully before you respond, because most of what you've said was already covered. I understand the rise of emotions in this situation, but please take the time to properly contribute to the discussion. I'll paraphrase the points for you.

"No other community I've seen rejects runs that are a good chunk away from the world record."

This is false. Several communities simply don't accept runs that are slower than certain times, period. IIRC, one example is the Mega Man community, but I could be misremembering.

"Usually communitys have just a general idea of when to reject based on time."

What does "general idea" mean? Who draws the lines? When do they change? Are they rank-based or time-based? What happens when leaderboard mods don't check the forums and people are questioning the times?

"Regardless, I feel like if they AT LEAST provide some splits,"

No way to enforce this on speedrun.com without making people post splits in the video link, which leads to many more rejections from people not understanding our odd submission process...

"or even if we have this arbritrary rule that after a few personals bests, then you need start providing video proof, cause chances are that many people won't be able to record their first run at least for a few runs."

As I mentioned before, I wholeheartedly disagree with the fact that people can't record their first run. Please see my post above for detailed reasons, but I recorded my first run when I was so broke that I literally ate only pistachios for a week.

"I can understand rejecting for having no proof at all, but splits should be accepted."

Splits are very easily fudged. It's been done in the past and could easily happen again (Riley_got_pb is one example).

"We are also not calling other people bad, its just generally known that once you hit a certain time, then you need to start giving us more proof of the time."

Or we just give everyone the same rules, you know, like how the world works.

We should update this post when we've ironed out the video requirements discussion.