Yes, LiveSplit is the primary software that people use. It simply has the most features and integrations.

As for the window being distracting, not really. I can't speak for anyone else but when I'm focusing on a game window I tend to tunnel vision on that small area and just ignore everything else.

Features that I commonly use in LiveSplit, as can be seen in any of my VODs:

Number of finished runs/number of attempts Delta graph showing how behind/ahead I am visually Sum of best segments Total possible timesave (current split) Total time played

If I'm playing Sonic Adventure 2 specifically, I also have a secondary set of times up showing my IGT values for each stage, and use an autosplitter that does the splitting and timing for me.

There are other features but they obviously take up progressively more space, many people prefer a minimalist layout.

My attempt at doing 2 Player 2 PCs in Sonic Adventure 2: Battle with a_moustache.

What do I mean by this? A while ago he hosted an online marathon, and needed to use my PC to broadcast from as my hardware is quite powerful, so I gave him permission to remotely control my PC for the weekend to broadcast from.

During the planning stages of the marathon we were dicking around and discovered that if SA2B was launched, we both had control on our respective keyboards whilst he was controlling my system, albeit with about a second of input latency for him. We decided to try playing the game with me doing the directional inputs and him doing the action button inputs.

Didn't go so well. Was really fun, though.

Nothing like that should happen, realistically. If you're going for a top time like that in a game, you'll no doubt know the rules by then so you'll know what counts for a legit run. If you happen to get details wrong in the submission such as the wrong time, run date, etc, that is not ground for rejection.

It's not a "bother" to make sure the player hasn't split late, it literally takes a few seconds. There may be many games that use ingame timing for which it's possible to time to the frame, but honestly players should be doing that themselves before submitting. If not, it's the mod's responsibility to correct it without making a fuss. That's just part of the role.

@PresJPolk: You don't even check to make sure the timing and run date are correct??

You'll get the same answer wherever you ask this: It depends on the game. Ask the game mods. Generally speaking, older games are fine as the emulation is very accurate, but there's no reason not to ask the guys who make the rules.

There's no way this could really work, as the URLs for each game are defined by the moderators.

On the Pokemon point, the aforementioned methods through BizHawk SHOULD be sufficient to look into stuff like that, since as far as I understand encounter pools are just an assigned block of values, e.g. if there were 256 encounter values and 20 of them corresponded to a specific encounter, that would equate to a 7.8~% encounter chance.

Can't speak to how useful it will be if you really want to break it down to just assembly and then recreate it from the ground up, though.

I'm not really sure what you're asking because your terms seem a little confused.

If you're trying to get under the hood to really evaluate how a game works, Bizhawk is probably the better option as it's built for TASing, and you have a lot of useful tools with a good UI to make the job easier. I used it to locate specific RAM addresses in Sparkster SNES, if that's the sort of thing you're trying to do.

This is why people should not use Twitch VODs.

^ Your point is only valid if your objective in speedrunning is to just have a good time.

If you're someone hunting for WRs, especially in competitive and relatively optimised games, having hours upon hours to practice is NOT optional.

For the purpose of submitting a new game you should really just go with "As much of the game as possible" if you can't provide a full run.

Fulltime job Committed relationship Moderator duties in multiple games

I seriously envy those who have no commitments and are able to just spend as much time as they want on speedrunning.

My ranks are slipping from where they used to be, and the only reason I can't maintain them or stay on top is because I just cannot put the hours in. I still enjoy speedrunning a lot and consider it my primary recreational hobby, but I often wish there was actual money in it.

T3's run is the only one breaking the rules (Times w/ lower than 1:10 IGT require video) and I assume it was grandfathered in due to being old. Presumably, the rules will affect all submissions from hereon out.

@blueYOSHI deleting your original post is pretty bad form considering now it looks like I'm chewing out someone else.

This thread is not intended for you to appeal to the site admins to overturn a moderator's decision. This thread is for when a moderator is impossible to contact.

If the mod in question is active and disagrees with how you think the game should be formatted, it's not the place of site staff to intervene and overrule them. Either keep in touch with him and try to convince him otherwise, or just deal with it.

I am not referring to mods who occasionally miss a detail during verification, I'm referring to mods who consistently and habitually verify stuff without actually, well, verifying anything. Timing being incorrect, significant portions of a run being flat-out missing, etc. I see that shit too much, and it reflects very badly on a community.

"Quite possible they didn't realize it. I don't know what position the submitted run is but some LB's do not put things under intense scrutiny and just make sure things make sense."

This is called "Bad moderation".

Imagine calling an emulator a game.

The practical result of this will be that the only runs that get a substantial number of likes are the WR runs, which will reinforce the idea in the minds of many that their runs aren't worth anything if they're not WR.

I think this would actually have a net negative impact on the community.