A few thoughts here:
1) Easy/Normal/Hard is an obvious delineation
2) Greenalink has made good use of S&Q as a time save. It's a personal thing, but I tend to think of S&Q as something which makes speedruns less interesting, both to run and to watch.

My immediate inclination is to suggest "let's follow what e.g. LTTP did and make NMG categories which also precludes S&Q, and allow S&Q and fish flying in Any%" - this would leave us with Six categories - NMG Easy, Normal, Hard and Any% Easy, Normal Hard.

Pedantry, but:
- Those four categories fail to account for Easy/Normal difficulty levels
- Calling it "Glitchless" (and saying 'no tricks') begs the question as to whether retro skipping cutscenes is okay. That's why I think NMG might be a better call here.

just gonna throw in my 2 cents here since i'm actively learning/running the game

from personal experience in moderating leaderboards having all 3 difficulties (Easy, Normal & Hard) separates the competition way too much, on an already not overly popular speed game. This will just spread people out across 3 difficulties instead of 2

Here is what i suggest
https://gyazo.com/563ebe03412c3e118607bbd992fbe610
Easy & Hard as the main categories (you can bundle Normal runs within Easy Mode) so maybe it could be "Easy/Normal" or maybe just keep it as "Easy" with the addition of Normal mode runs being allowed to be place there. i only say bundle them together because there isn't an overly big difference between the 2 difficulties, unlike Hard mode.

Any% NMG rules (my opinion)
https://gyazo.com/f2ff85735f02b60b848a299e5ad8d413

Any% Rules (My opinion)
https://gyazo.com/b843dc53c5d1b3303aa80deae0adeaea

Wasn't really sure how to word the ending of the timer but i'm sure you get the point 🙂

That's my thoughts anyway, i'm Happy with what ever is decided.

I get where you're coming from; personally, I suspect all people who run Normal will also run Easy. My gut says "if we're excluding a category, make it Normal and Hard, and Easy runs just aren't accepted" - but I still feel relatively resolute about having all three (Easy/Normal/Hard).

I love the NMG/Any% with subcategories idea and am behind it 100%.

Easy/Normal Together
https://gyazo.com/0643bef1c5006a4ffcdf5abe3b389613

or

Easy Normal Hard
https://gyazo.com/13818c2e2512e25f92956f07a9e8b425

looking at them together does seem quite odd so i think maybe having all 3 separate does work as long as some form of competition exists. That is my only concern and a big reason why any board i'm apart of usually doesn't have a middle ground and goes for easiest & hardest instead.

I'm adding you all as mods for now.

Sounds good; glad to help out verifying runs, etc.

Before I take unilateral action, it sounds like we have some consensus around Any/NMG -> E/N/H. Any more thoughts before we make those categories?

Editing this post away because I was stupid and didn't read it through thouroughly enough. XD

I think you guys are doing a good job!
Can't wait to see your runs and get to know you guys better! ^^

Also, should Rebooting be allowed in any%?
To abuse chests resrocking, its a fast way to grind for money.

Yeah, that's the thought, misslyckad. So with the proposed groups, your current run would be Any% Easy (since you S&Q)

Yeah, saw that when o read it more clearly. Sorry for that! 🙂
Added a question about rebooting 🙂

My intuition says "sure why not" - not all that different from S&Q. That said, I doubt that it would be faster in basically any case - the startup screens take a decent chunk of time, and getting to the chests would take time as well. In Easy and Normal, at least, I never want for money. In hard, I won't want for money if I stop being bad and taking unnecessary damage.

Any/NMG -> E/N/H sounds ok to me

Done deal

The short answer is that they don't do the same thing. There are a few factors which make death warps different from S&Q:
- Health management is important since you want to take the least amount of time to achieve the fastest death warp possible
- The potential to have to continue with no potions (1 on Easy) from the point of death warp
- The loss of all accumulated spells
S&Q allows you to sidestep all of these concerns. When you start running the game, you're likely to find that your means of approaching NMG vs Any% is going to end up being subtly different as a result. 🙂

It's also worth noting that death warps were possible in the original WBIII, whereas S&Q wasn't (the only means of "saving" was obtaining a password from the church). The result is that the NMG category is very similar to the All Bosses category of WBIII.

Is there a runners discord? Just picked up this game

There is now!

http://www.speedrun.com/Wonder_Boy_The_Dragons_Trap/thread/6s04i

Hey, here's a facetious question: what about adding WE5T 0NE%? It would be a category in which the aim is to get all the Charm Stones, then fight Vampire Dragon with the direct warp. It'd be almost like a faster version of 100%?

Do a couple runs of it, see if it's fun - if it goes over well, then yeah let's add it. It sounds like probably a MISC category, given it's essentially 100% lite? Though I'm not sure.

So we finally have an NMG run which skips Captain Dragon. I'm still pretty iffy on whether it saves time (fighting daimyo without legendary sword is kind of painful with fish or dragon).

One of the earlier thoughts about NMG is that it was very similar to All Bosses in the original. I especially like this since it shows an area which gets skipped in Any%.

I wonder if adding the following rule to NMG is a good idea:
¤ Must defeat all bosses

I'd love to hear other runners' opinions here. I'd -especially- love to hear Wallach's take, since that run is what made me think that it'd be a good idea to add the rule.

I'm gonna agree, it's good idea
I would also suggest maybe changing NMG name to NMS(No Major Skips), since I wouldn't really consider Captain Dragon skip a glitch and quitout especially. Fishfly is a glitch, but it's not used as much in run(and also results in skip)