Here's my proposed wording for the rule:

Mods that facilitate a gameplay advantage are not allowed; this includes but is not limited to retexturing bosses, enemies, animals, or rooms in a way that increases visibility of the respective entity.

This rule is descript enough to make clear that Totorock's pink End and red flowers during The Boss are not allowed, but open-ended enough that mods like the black Shagohod and potentially the Portable Ops guards would likely be agreed by most to be acceptable. Anything else can be decided on a case-by-case basis.

You know you can see and hear Kerotan being shot, right? Game audio is already required for all full game runs, so this rule is nonsensical.

The day after starting this thread, I polled runners on their opinions of how this board decision was handled, and runners overwhelmingly disapproved. I made a post in the announcements channel in Lime City, to which everyone was allowed to react with their votes. After an @everyone, dozens of runners responded and overwhelmingly agreed that the allotted time was not enough. Runners have had 11 days at this point to vote in the poll.

Here are the responses. Keep in mind that I was the one who posted all of the initial reactions, so the counts below only include my reactions when they are intended to count as a vote.

Were you aware that this vote was being conducted before it ended on November 10th?

13 responded 'Yes', 33 responded 'No', 0 responded 'No Opinion'

Would you have participated in the vote if you knew about it before it ended?

20 responded 'Yes', 18 responded 'No', 6 responded 'No Opinion'

Do you find the duration of the voting period (2 days, 22 hours, and 49 minutes) acceptable for a vote of this significance?

2 responded 'Yes', 41 responded 'No', 2 responded 'No Opinion'

I find it completely unacceptable that the moderation team is willing to look dead in the face at 41 runners who disagree with how the change was handled and not recognize their mistake. This mistake can be easily solved and all parties made happy by simply following the suggestions outlined in this post. Everyone will be happy, runners will feel included, and runners can submit their runs to a board in its optimal state.

Instead, a huge number of people are unhappy that their voices weren't allowed to be heard, and the moderation team is refusing to make this right. How is this acceptable?

2 days and 23 hours was not enough time for the community to come to a decision on how to handle the most important issue that the MGS3 boards will ever face. The vote ran from Tuesday morning to Friday morning (US time) and didn't even break 3 days before the thread was locked. The vote was conducted in the middle of a work week, and if you didn't see it while you were in the middle of your work week then you simply don't get a say on the matter. When this issue was brought to Haus' attention, he replied saying that he has "been contemplating this decision since launch of mgs mc". I have been thinking about this issue since Master Collection came out, and I have been listening to other runners' opinions on the matter, and I still couldn't come to a conclusion before the thread was closed.

Additionally, there are numerous people who didn't even know that the vote was happening before it was closed; Beez only found out about it when he happened to overhear Speedy and I complaining that the vote was closed after less than three days. Likewise, Shard only learned about it just a few minutes ago when he overheard us complaining about the same thing. How many more people didn't even know the vote was happening?

Moreover, this was not a community decision. The decision on what to do with the boards was already made independently, and people were simply asked whether or not they agreed with the changes. Although people were offered the opportunity to suggest other options for how the board should be changed, none of the possible changes that were suggested were talked about in the SRDC Mods channel here in LC, and the board was changed exactly as Haus described the next day. Due to this, there is no reason to believe that any of the suggestions posted were seriously considered.

It is imperative for the health of the board that the boards are reverted to their previous state, runners are given the opportunity to discuss how the board should be changed going forward, and given a generous amount of time to vote on the issues.

What, exactly, I think should be done:

Revert the board exactly to its previous state. This includes removing the new boards.

Create a forum post dedicated to allowing runners to discuss potential board change possibilities. This thread should be open for 1 week before proceeding, and should be left open at least for the duration of the voting stage.

Hold a vote to determine how the board will be changed, with clear and concise multiple choice questions (when applicable) for each issue at hand. This vote should be open for 3 weeks.

Once the vote is concluded, total votes for each given option should be tallied and publicly posted by a moderator, at which point the winning options will be decided by a simple majority, or whichever option has the most votes, whichever is higher.

Execute the changes decided by the community.

As it stands, the poll that decided the ultimate fate of the board was not conducted in a way that gave runners the choice, consideration, information, or time to come to an informed conclusion about what should be done, and I think these changes would resolve that.

Additionally, shortly after writing this, I learned that existing runs on the original MGS3 board, now the HD Edition board, were rejected rather than just deleting the category. This is unacceptable.

Smith

This isn't the way the game was intended to be played. Learn to not used glitches, then it will be a real speedrun.

Voting is now closed and the community has decided to merge NG and NG+ runs. These are the final results: 12 in favor (10 of these voters have a run on the board) 6 against (4 of these voters have a run on the board) 2 abstain (both of these voters have a run on the board)

Thanks everyone for voting!

This thread exists primarily to serve as a courtesy call to those not in the MGSR Discord server to bring to their attention a vote currently being held in the server on whether or not New Game and New Game+ should be merged into one sub-category.

Should New Game and New Game+ be merged into one sub-category? If it is decided that NG & NG+ should be merged, a variable will be added to denote which was used in that run.

A vote in favor is for showing New Game and New Game+ runs in one sub-category. A vote against is for not merging New Game and New Game+, keeping the board as it is now.

Runners can, of course, vote here in the forums if they prefer. A simple majority will determine the outcome and voting will close in 47 hours (midnight UTC).

Sorry, but Speedrun.com rules prohibit users from illegally distributing games on the site. Subsistence can be had for cheap these days, so I genuinely suggest buying a copy locally, especially since you're in a PAL region anyway.

@uShiUtzy All loading times, including time spent loading saves and loading individual areas and cutscenes, are entirely unaffected by a runner's Internet speed. The loading time is the same as it would be on a PS3, specifically the same as playing the game off of a disc, and using an HDD. If a runner's connection is poor, they may experience typical issues associated with a poor connection, however that runner's loading time will not be affected in any capacity. For segmented runs specifically, the time spent saving a game is not counted towards IGT, so playing via PSNow would have no effect on segmented runs in this regard whatsoever, and would have no effects that are unique to multi-segment runs. I'm also not sure how the issues you raise would affect IL runs to begin with.

Playing on a PS3 emulator is not the same as playing on a PS3, and it is for that reason that all emulators are banned from the boards. As far as PSNow runners competing against other PS3 runners goes, it's important for me to remind you that PSNow is running these games on a PS3. It's not an emulator, it's not RPCS3, it's literally a PS3 in a server farm. It is true that PSNow is slower than the optimal PS3 configuration; PSNow is approximately equivalent to running the game from disc with an HDD. However, it's still a PS3 running the game, so separating it into its own category would be nonsensical. Separating PSNow runs from other PS3 runs would necessarily require the separation of all other runs done on hardware similar to that used in the PSNow services (which is 8 of the 14 runs on the NG Euro board) if the desired end goal of exactly even comparison is to be achieved. Such a separation would fragment the board in arguably arbitrary ways. The fastest way to play PS3 would still be to play in the configuration that top runners do today, which is a 43XXX super slim, SSD, English, digital. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the hardware that Sony uses for the PS3 server farms to host PSNow content (PS3, HDD with disc-like speeds) is still the most common way to run the game. As such, PSNow runs have more runs to compare against than any other runner configuration.

My point is that exactly equal comparison is impossible because MGS3 is always slave to the hardware arms race, and we can't reasonably have a board for every combination of PS3s that run MGS3. If a runner is interested in comparing their run to runs done on similar hardware, filters exist for precisely that purpose.

Also, the boards aren't necessarily separated by platform, but specifically by version. This is why HD Edition PS3 and HD Edition Xbox are separated, but Xbox 360 and Xbox One are not separated. Despite Xbox One runners having a distinct advantage, they are running the same version of the game, and the runners of MGS3 collectively voted to separate the boards accordingly. Likewise, a person who is running the game via PSNow is, indeed, playing the exact same version of MGS3 as every other HD Edition PS3 runner. Every version that is separated on the boards has distinct differences from any other version, and experienced runners can tell exactly which version of the game a runner is playing by just watching the run. From things like aiming sensitivity difference between the PS2 version, PS3 version and Xbox 360 version, and camera angle changes between the Xbox 360 version and the Shield version, to complete gameplay overhauls like the 3DS version, each version has differences that warrant separation. I cannot find any such difference that warrants separation for PSNow.

If it ever becomes known that PSNow runs a different version of the game, or that hardware differences make comparison of PSNow runs impossible from any other PS3 run, then Mini, Apache and I will be happy to separate the categories appropriately. However, we are not currently aware of any such differences. Regardless, I've made a note to talk to them about PSNow and how PSNow runs should be handled going forward.

Thank you for your concern, and I'm glad you've brought it to our attention.

The way that PSNow works is that Sony hosts what are effectively server farms for PS3s, which run the games on the consoles, then stream it to the end user's device. This means that someone who is playing the game via PSNow is, in fact, playing the game on a PS3 with PS3 hardware and, as such, such a run would be submitted to the HD Edition PS3 category.

Even if the game is being streamed to a PS4 or a high-end PC, it is still being run on PS3 hardware, and therefore runners would not see any sort of advantage by streaming the game to such a device.

Thank you for your concern.

A multi-segment run is one where the runner saves the game and/or loads from a save (excluding New Game+ start saves, which say "Operation Snake Eater completed" on them). The primary purpose of multi-segment runs is allowing the runner to do strats that are generally considered too unsafe for a single-segment run, since the runner has as many attempts at the short segment as they like.

Multi-segment runs also allow the runner to do strats that are otherwise impossible, most notably, killing The End by old age, which is by far the fastest way to kill him. However, this is only possible in multi-segment, as it requires the runner to load from a save. Other, less significant, time saves are doing caution strats on European Extreme, then using a save to clear that caution in the next room.

Multi-segment runs can be done in as many sittings as you please, you can take as long as you like to do them, and you can use as many saves as you like.

Pretty much what everyone else said. There's not much that I can add to the discussion; sadly the separation of the categories is an unfortunate necessity. That being said, PS2 absolutely has an identity all its own, featuring some PS2-exclusive skips, as others have mentioned. Numerous MGSR members have interest in running PS2, myself included, and I submitted a (trash) run just a few days ago. Hopefully the category will become more active and you'll have the competition you want.

Nope. Auto-aiming is a staple in the 3D Metal Gear games and is used in every run that I know of. Have at it.

I feel like I need to raise the question of whether or not runners should be allowed to submit a ripped from disc, unpatched US version run of MGS3 HD to the boards. The specific setup is this: an unpatched on-disc copy of the MGS HD Collection or MGS Legacy Collection is ripped to an SSD, and is then played from SSD. Because the HD Collection disc is version 1.0 (unpatched), the runner just chooses to never install the update. Version 1.0 loads faster than any patched version of the game. This setup requires some sort of custom firmware loaded on your PS3. If we compare this setup to the digital version of MGS3 HD available on the PlayStation Store, the PSN US digital version always comes patched, so it loads slower. The Japanese digital version of MGS3 HD available on the Japanese PlayStation Store always comes unpatched, so you get the faster loads, however the Japanese dialogue loses 9 seconds in Ocelot's call due to the dialogue simply being longer. The dialogue during torture and The Boss' unskippable cutscene are all identical in length, and therefore have no time save or loss on any version. All said and done, playing a US copy of the game that is unpatched and ripped to SSD loads as fast as JP digital SSD, but doesn't lose time in Ocelot's call.

Should runs done under these conditions be allowed on the board? Considering this 9 second time save is only available to people who are running custom firmware on their console, opposition to allowing these runs is understandable. Not allowing these runs would affect me and at least one other runner. If these conditions are determined to be not allowed, I'd rather it be determined now and only remove one run from the board, as opposed to this being decided later and having to remove more runs from the board.

I make the argument that this should be allowed because a 9 second time save does not have any substantial effect on runners' ability to compete with one another. Additionally, considering the fact that playing on version 1.0 saves far more than 9 seconds (about 40 seconds on LT, and about 1:40 on non-LT), allowing runs like this makes competitive runs more accessible to people who cannot or do not want to obtain a JP digital copy, such as myself. If these runs were to be disallowed, the only way to be competitive on the high end would be to play on JP digital, which may be totally inaccessible to some players.

Input from runners is appreciated.