Hey guys,

I just changed the rules to be a little more specific for the full game runs and for the ILs. The full game run timer starts on first input and ends when the last cutscene starts to play.

ILs use IGT to time since it's super easy to see that. I also changed IL difficulty to basically whatever's fastest. Normal alone doesn't really make sense to me.

Let me know if this doesn't work for you or if there are gripes.

I guess that's fair. It's up to you guys anyway, since you all run it!

The reason I said bootcamp is I know there are plenty of games that start at the very, very start. But honestly, I'm not sold on that either so let's change it to attack.

Maybe try contacting one/multiple mod(s) via twitter or twitch. They could possibly give you a quicker answer because it looks like they don't check the forums.

You'd have to ask on the board for that game. They simply might not accept any emulator runs, in which case, you'd be shit out of luck.

#48 wasn't on the roof. It was on the glass walkway right next to Snatch, down the stairs there. I've annotated the map here: http://imgur.com/Dyk7Dhs

Let me know if you think things should be rearranged. This was done by going to view them and trying to just think of what missions would be most appropriate.

Ah I didn't know that about #48. I just started going through some of these today to see where they'd be feasible. I'll likely go through most, if not all, of the ones that aren't marked on your guide.

I thought 11 hours seemed high and then did some math. Assuming each activity takes 20 mins, all 6 levels, that's 6.66 extra hours, or thereabouts. Some might take longer, some might take shorter, and it'll suck if we fail any. That's a decent amount extra. I forgot there were so many activities.

And I thought any% was long...I guess this is why I'm glitch hunting!

Awesome. I totally lied about having enough time too. Beginning of my last semester at school and I'm already swamped so maybe in 6 months or so I can get a chance to actually run 100%. I'll still try to practice here and there, though.

As for the tags:

1. It looks like 14 and 15 can be done during Bleeding Out (R4?) when you're waiting for a ride to the hospital.

2. 46 and 47 can likely be done while waiting for Dane to circle around in his limo in the last mission. Maybe get 47 after the pyramid scheme and only go for 46 during the last mission. I can't think of anything else taking place around that area.

3. 24, 25, and 26 will likely be best done during S1. I was thinking maybe around the Samedi stronghold but you don't have a heli during that part and each are pretty out of the way.

4. It's a tough call cause I'm not positive what ends up close to there but I'd go for 36 after buying a car (After Thank You and Good Night). If you buy the best car, you should be able to drive that pretty easily and then take a taxi to Demo Derby from there.

5. 2 and 5, I'd get during the Mayhem that always, always, always takes you to the Marina district.

6. 49 is probably best for Room Service. Either that or Bonding Experience since you might end in that area. That one's a little hit or miss though.

7. 12 would be best around Three Kings I think

8 ) 48 would probably be before going into the court house in Appointed Defender

9. 3 should definitely be done at the end of the Science Museum. It's basically right there after jumping out of the building.

Also, now that I wrote this up, I kind of want to go in and validate what I've said and annotate the map further. There's also quite a few missing for the CDs so it'll be best to annotate that instead of listing them here.

I didn't know that about the PC port. If needed, we can split that into separate categories. I've already worked with subcategories on other games so it's not too bad. I think it's generally better to just say run on whatever's fastest similarly to what they do in Zelda.

I bet easy is faster as well. Just in general, if they die quicker and you get more ammo, the run will be that much better. But I can see why people would prefer other difficulties.

Hey Maddavid,

I'll try to explain as best I can though these decisions can easily be overruled by everyone else.

1. I just set up new difficulty categories. Have at em.

2. Either should work. Whatever you wanna do!

3. Not entirely sure but I'd say rule of thumb is start timing when you can move and end on last possible input.

4. Start at bootcamp.

Good luck!

And to add to that, you don't even necessarily need to run the game to be an mod. I got grandfathered in to Black Ops III cause I'm a series mod but I don't run it. It's still pretty simple to verify runs there. All you really need is some knowledge about the game.

Yeah, I can give it a shot. My guess is that it's RNG from a pool. For instance, the 3 mayhem levels we get, the first is always Truck Yard, I believe it is. Then it's one of 3: Downtown, Red Light, or Projects. The third is always one of those two is hasn't chosen from yet. And the fourth seems to always be the Hotels and Marina but we don't do that.

I'll see if the randomness for anything is something we might control.

I got some changing RAM values during the rarer Tornado spawn (isn't there until you turn around and look back). I'm not sure if this tells us anything we didn't know but it's cool to see exactly when it spawns.

Awesome. That's much better! Thanks, Crimson.

Hey CrimsonHelm, I just rejected the submitted run. Without some sort of proof, I'd have to do that. Because this isn't a heavily contested game, I'd say videos of runs aren't absolutely necessary but you'd need to provide a screenshot or...something to try and prove that you completed in the time you said you did. I would definitely prefer videos but I'm not the end-all here. This might be a good time for a chat about what kinds of runs to accept.

EDIT: I actually just went and saw there is a run accepted without any proof so I went and accepted yours too.

I still personally opt for a rule change to require video proof but we can see what the "community" thinks of this.

A tetralogy run! Ohhhhhh man. That's a freaking marathon. I'm guessing, since it's tetra, it doesn't involve GOOH?

And yeah, the activities are what will really kill this. It'll take some effort to make those all consistent enough.

Hey Sellz, any update on routing this? I've been increasingly interested in trying a run but have been intimidated by the damn activities. I might be ready to give it some sort of shot if you've got a route lying around (or at least I can start practicing).

I just started to take a look through the RAM for the game using Cheat Engine. I'll document my findings as I come across them. I already have some interesting things, it looks like.

First off, what I'll explain some things at a higher level of what I've found out. It looks to me that the Stamina isn't placed in the player struct like health and respect are. I've found offsets for health, respect, player coordinates and plenty other things. Some of which I only have a vague idea about and others which I have a clue as to what they are. The time of day interestingly seems to be in the player struct. Alternatively, it just might happen that the player struct has been laid out in memory close to other structures so what I actually see is different structs with different data. The reason I believe if to be all in a player struct is that the respect is referenced from the struct base with an offset (addr+1200). At the top of that struct is some pointers and then what are clearly player coordinates.

Interestingly, stamina doesn't seem to be included here and is in a place in memory before the player struct. This is part of the reason that I believe the infinite sprint glitch works. It might not have anything ¤real¤ to do with it in the end, since it could easily be some kind of check to see if a condition has been met but the fact that it's in another location in memory is still interesting.

Furthermore, stamina is CONSTANTLY being written to. If you're running, it's being overwritten decreased. If you stop, it's being increased. As soon as you're at max, it's being overwritten with the same value (9000). If you have infinite sprint, this is only slightly different. When you're running, it goes up to 10,000 and stays steady, constantly writing that. When you stop, it drops back to 9000 and writes that repeatedly.

On top of that, in either case, it also writes using a different function whenever you stop running. I haven't figured out the case of that one but the other two are exactly what you'd expect given what I've said. When running, it's a load-increment (or decrement)-store. Otherwise, just a constant load-store. From the start, that seems like weird unnecessary programming but who am I to judge. I've needed some funky work arounds, myself.

Using cheat engine, I've been able to dynamically modify how much respect of money I've been given and I've also been able to make myself (along with all NPCs) invincible.

I have quite a bit more work ahead of me, trying to understand this assembly and make heads or tails of it all but this is a halfway decent start.

EDIT 1: I have most definitely figured out a boolean value that dictates whether or not the Tornado is on the map. Addr 0x02FCE538+0x7C if you want to try it for yourself with Cheat Engine. The struct at 0x02FCE538 is the struct specifically for the Tornado. Looking at offset 0x80, it says heli_fight as a string and a little further down, there's another string that says Tornado. This is preeeeeetty good news, I think. We can analyze this struct and see if there's any way to exploit randomness. Right now, I'm trying to find if there's any particular thing that causes the Tornado to come up with a 1 in offset 0x7C. Atm, I've just figured out that it simply does happen. I've tested with the Police Station spawn and a garage spawn. Also note that changing this value directly doesn't appear to cause a spawn but simply tells you whether it's there or not so it's likely being called in a function that spawns it and sets that.

^ That's essentially what I'm asking for in my described second ideal method.

I'm trying to revamp the CoD: Zombies boards a bit and I wanted to include some subcategories but I'm unsure how to use some functions properly. Right now, I've got a whole bunch of subcategories that are working as expected but I wanted to add an option for High Rounds as well. There are 2 options that I see that would keep it clean and a third I know how to do and can implement if nothing else works.

I'll reference this board for now: http://www.speedrun.com/cod_black_ops_ii_zombies Right now it'd be nice to keep the boards as they are but add a Parent category at the bottom level, where the Easter Egg and Pack-A-Punch categories are that's just "High Rounds" and when a user clicks on it, it will expand below that for different categories, namely Round 30, Round 50, etc. I don't think this can work with how the site is built but it's still my number 1 option.

My second option is to add a general category under the number of players that is High Rounds and then a general category for other including Easter Eggs, Pack-A-Punch, etc. This will look similar to this: http://imgur.com/nl3tFwJ

I feel like this should be doable but the issue I've had here is that the categories are still all the same under those headings. I.e. both categories show Easter Egg, PaP, etc., along with all of the high rounds so it essentially doesn't eliminate possible subcategories that people can submit into. I feel like this should be doable but I'm unsure if it is.

The third option is to just add each high round category where the rest currently are. This is easiest but I wanted to weigh my options first as this will also add clutter and the whole idea with subcategories is to declutter.

I have just begun moving all the boards over to a new format that can be currently seen. If there were runs that I missed moving over to the new format, you can find them under your profile page under runs. Go ahead and resubmit them for verification and I'll add it back in. If, for some reason, you can't find the run there, simply submit it again. Sorry if this affects you, I tried my best to get everything copied over again if possible. This change gives the boards added flexibility in how they display runs and is ideal in what we try to accomplish.