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Messages - Don

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31
News and Updates / Re: TSC Marathon 2014
« on: May 05, 2014, 07:42:29 pm »
offering: Sonic Labyrinth



EDIT:

I would also offer Sonic Colours - Gameland Stages, as it's nice, short, and shows a much different level design from the Egg Shuttle. They're very different.

32
News and Updates / Re: An Apology and Handling BS
« on: April 12, 2014, 05:08:42 pm »
I would be open to help, if such help was wanted. I have some knowledge in the area of Sonic Advance and SA2B, but mostly Sonic Colours.

33
Yes. For Times, there should be a rule disallowing anything but a full run of the stage.

Main point being you can quit the stage, reenter it at a star post, and the timer will be at 0:00 and you could finish it in a lower time than possible in a normal full-stage run.

34
So, all in all, we're absolutely sure that any mode can be used to obtain rings for the future ring charts, but there will only be one category which is sonic/rings, right?

35
Special Stages indeed do not have a timer. They're the same special stages as in Sonic 1, the only difference being the speed in which the stage moves, which is iirc slightly faster. Also the jumping felt a little different.

As I've said before I don't think scores might be that reliable simply due to the fact that not all enemies spawn at all times for everyone, so it would be down to luck for people to get high scores in some stages.

36
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 07, 2014, 09:57:58 pm »
In this one post, I will say exactly what I think:

This rule is bad. It creates more loop holes than there are right now, it just straight up ignores that some emulators are better than others on a competetive level, as they don't actually have capabilities to TAS, and are simply more viable than others.

We're basically making this rule to avoid trusting our competitors using them. We would want to catch people that abuse emulator functions for their own good and stray away from using them without any rule breaking.

While emulator "hiccups" that change how games work might be a thing in certain  games, I must say that the emulator experience I have had with Fusion made it rather hard for me to cheat anything, or TAS anything, and it always went at full speed.

The current active rule with emulation is that "If the game doesn't run at full speed, the stat is void." Making a rule such as the one proposed in this thread has a greater effect on the competition as a whole; But an emulator ban would have the same effect.

My reasoning is that if we think we're ready to distrust the emulator users as a whole, we might as well make consoles and official re-releases (for the most part) be the only acceptable way of competing. It would get rid of all possible distrust in emulators that there is.

Personally, I would prefer keeping the current rules intact, because it keeps an even competetive field, over this new rule. I would even go as far to say that an updated proof system would be an even better solution.

Yet if we're arguing that emulators bring advantages that, I assume TSC has known for at least a couple years, and change it now, then getting rid of single emulators that are known to do such things would be the most logical conclusion. Yes some people will be forced out of their comfort zone, some people might not want to actually use console, but that's not what should be relevant.

What should be relevant is that there are emulators out there that only rely on processing power to slow the game down, which would already be covered by the overall rule stated earlier. Now If we don't trust people to at least not abuse savestates in their runs, then we should ban all emulators, no exceptions.

The trust system here is at risk. If you're willing to give up some of it, it's inevitable that all of it is questionable. However if we ban emulators, it means that we at least trust people to be legitimate on their consoles. If we target-ban emulators, then we can get rid of the variable that is "TASing" with more extensive tools than just savestates.

EDIT: By keeping the current rules I mean the rules before this topic.

37
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 07, 2014, 09:27:46 pm »
So...

how does banning emulators not do that?

38
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 07, 2014, 09:19:46 pm »
To go back to SDM's argument that: 'You cast aside this kind of methodology as if convenience is something you want to ban because "heaven forbid we used an emulator!"'

I just don't see the point of the rule. I've already said time and time again, that if we're going to put proof on emulator and emulator ONLY, just to see if some runs were fake, TASed, or whatever else, we might as well ban emulators. Convenience was never a point I made, it was on SDM's side in this second part of the discussion, that I had to point out in order to show the flaws of the logic behind it. Which, he still hasn't responded why it's impossible to get a 3 dollar version of an official emulator that adds a minor extra inconvenience.

But I digress.

It's to directly take away the tools to make fake, maybe unobtainable stats from the current "herd of black sheep" you were talking about way earlier in the topic.

I am merely extending your own logic rather than using my own. My personal opinion is that emulators should stay as is, we've been catching BSers lately, and that means that we have been able to discern fake from real stats without any addition to the competetive system.

If our concern is not being taken seriously as a competetive site, then we need an entire new proof system rather than a sub-optimal rule that targets just a certain group of people instead of keeping the playing field even.


39
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 07, 2014, 08:53:15 pm »
Hold up.

I made a single personal attack on S&A for being banned because I didn't know better, since he was supposed to be banned and I didn't know about the situation. Things like that do not mean that I KEPT attacking people.

Also I have said a multitude of times that there's official emulators that bring barely any less convenience than your inofficial emulators.

Yes, I have given examples with you in it, but not as a personal attack. I did not once say something like "I CANT BELIEVE SDM WANTS THIS RULE, I CANT BELIEVE HE HAS MORE CONVENIENCE THAN ME, ETC."

I've been trying to keep as neutral as possible and will continue to do so.

P.S.: Don't call me bitchy. Neither of these rules even concern me as a competitor, it's just that banning emulators would be a purer step if you will, as it gets rid of all inofficial emulation, hiccups, TASability and what not, with a few exceptions for rare to obtain games.

40
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 06, 2014, 11:34:20 am »
I'm just going to answer this once and then hopefully be done with it, because I myself get tired of having to repeat this over and over and over again:

Emulators are not supposed to give you an edge over consoles, even if it's just convenience.

You can drink all you want if you think it enhances your skills in competing, as long as you do it on console, as it's not going to give you an edge that emulation could bring. And that is the actual issue here, not the fact that you're a drunk playing video games. Also as Staf stated, there are viable official alternatives to doing that, so... try convincing me again, pal. Better yet, don't.

41
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 06, 2014, 10:59:33 am »
You could also argue that defending convenience is kind of silly. People go out of their way to compete on consoles. If we're talking about "fair and serious competetion", then it's not fair for someone like FF or SDM to use savestates in order not to have to set up a run on an official version of the game. It basically discourages console usage, as far as convenience goes and that is a part of competing, whether you like it or not. I've tried to defend the convenience of half-casual competitors and was chewed out for it. It's not going to work that way, flimsy.

42
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 06, 2014, 10:40:48 am »
Common sense that gives you an edge competetively, because setting up a run is preparation, which is part of competing.

Or are you going to argue that preparing to have 99 lives in say, unleashed, in order to get a series of attempts through, is not a competetive edge that everybody can work for? I know people that dont even save their stat, they record it and then reset their console in order not to lose that edge/preparation time. If there was a way to savestate for that game or emulate it, it would give you a competetive edge in terms of preparation.

I've already stated that for Sonic Advance in one of my prior posts where emulators get the edge for not having to reset the game and wait 20 seconds.



The only difference is that you don't have to work for it and take it for granted, SDM. It IS a competetive edge, you just don't see it or argue with it because you want to protect your convenience. And yes, it is lazyness, because you can't be arsed to either savestate with an official emulator or use level select.

43
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 06, 2014, 10:22:49 am »
You're a little late on that, we've been talking about grandfathering stats in ever since the start of the conversation. Either way, the old stats will have an advantage no matter WHAT rule we come up with, and I keep saying that over and over again.

Saying that keeping emulators because old stats might have had an advantage there is like admitting to stats only being competable on emulator, which is a moot point because you are not supposed to have an competetive edge on emulator.

44
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 06, 2014, 08:17:05 am »
Are you just straight up ignoring the fact that there's official emulators with savestate functions, or how many damn times to I have to say that they exist?

It's just stupid trying to argue with convenience when there's a clear, official alternative, if you absolutely  HAVE to rely on savestates in order to be competetive. Also if there was anything wrong with that it would just be seen as a version difference, because it still is official.

Also what could possibly promote fair competition more than banning unofficial emulators?

45
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 06, 2014, 06:12:55 am »
You know, there are stat that are impossible to beat.

Because they're maxed.

To go back on the topic: I don't think lazyness should be rewarded with easier obtainable stats, if we're gonna talk banning emulators because they're inaccurate, untrustworthy, occasionally hiccup, or any other actual issues, the reason that "I don't want to have to set up anything else than a savestate" is... not very logical.

Given that you would only take 5 more seconds to set up a savestate with SMC+, anyway.
I mean if you're not even willing to take these 5 more seconds in order to assure proper and fair competition, then I don't know what the heck you're doing on this site, because I couldn't even consider you a "serious" competitor. That is, if 5 seconds is the thing that would keep you from competing.

That is if we're planning to make this site more serious about it's competition, because either way.
Also if we're gonna talk about how 'unfair' it would be to keep emulator stats with savestates: We'll have to keep them, without proof, even if we accept this rule. So either way, I already brought up competetive distortion in the last discussion about this and nobody cared. You can't just bring something up that was an argument in the last topic and expect that it will work this time, because in both cases, the competition of old will have an advantage over the new rules.

EDIT: Also, if something was possible on JUST emulator, then why wasn't it banned in the first place? I thought this is what originated this discussion?

46
Beef / Re: Concerns: Modded Wiis and Backwards Compability
« on: April 05, 2014, 09:52:49 pm »
Now the thing is, loading the game from a harddrive does not change the game. At all.

It's comparable to how a game is installed on a harddrive for a computer. It's properly installed and read from that hard drive. Now, the only reason why anything ELSE would happen, is if you somehow modified your copy.

There is no room for error in reading a disc, unless the disc is at fault.

47
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 05, 2014, 02:15:24 pm »
You know spindashmaster, you're kind of right.

Except this isnt a choice of food, this is competition. This is a serious issue for me that people want to keep emulators for selfish, convenience reasons, and that's all that matters in our little conversation. I can understand that people want to make this site more serious for competition, but god forbid you have to use actual consoles or ports of the games you want to play, because the one-press-button-reset isnt a thing!

P.S.: Everytime I RA Sonic Advance I have to reset and wait around 20 seconds until i can start again, because it takes that long to reset the game in console. I make that decision actively, because it would be unfair to say that emulator usage would bring the advantage of savestates to begin with.

48
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 05, 2014, 01:57:17 pm »
I don't know SDM, you clearly provide that your ~convenience~ is something you would want to keep.
With that i would go to my initial statement that the rule is void, because there are even more people that are not going to get top stats, are casual competitors, and probably wouldnt want to have to deal with submitting proof for every single green or blue stat they're getting.

Also flimsy, no matter WHAT we do: This is going to be a BIG change for TSC. If we take the rule, we will still grandfather those stats. If we ban emulators, we will still grandfather those stats, since we have no way to prove or not prove most of these stats as emulated or not. You can't really break a law that hasn't existed, so...

All in all, I'm just seeing "I would rather keep emulators for MY convenience sake, because i'm not going to be bothered by the rule." rather than "We want a fair playing field between consoles and emulators." Maybe I really am too biased, but still.

If we're gonna make convenience a thing I'm not gonna shut up about it.

Banning emulators is the only step that makes sense and everybody suffers from it the same. And you gain the fact that inaccurate emulation will never be a thing.

49
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 05, 2014, 01:34:18 pm »
SDM, your convenience will not be troubled if you have sonic gems collection, as it covers all non-SMC+ games with official savestate options.

50
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 05, 2014, 01:19:53 pm »
you can store multiple saves.

you can load one save at a time, and it will stay saved.


Now could you please stop making me sound like i'm trying to sell SMC+!

51
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 05, 2014, 01:16:32 pm »
~Any~ arguments for convenience of emulators should be void. IF you want to use that you could use sonic mega collection (+), which has a savestate feature, and cost me like 3 euros.

52
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 05, 2014, 12:54:43 pm »
I would say ban emulators (for the most part). We should bring up that certain games, such as sonic jam and sonic pocket adventure, are rather rare to come by, so we should find a special ruling for those.

As for the stats, they should probably remain untouched. I would go as far to say that we wouldn't even be able to look at them and be able to tell which of those were indeed emulator stats and which not.

Also it would be unfair to undo 10 years of work on this site, but times change. If we make this rule I am sure that we will be able to keep the site emulator free from now on.

53
Beef / Concerns: Modded Wiis and Backwards Compability
« on: April 05, 2014, 12:51:11 pm »
Okay fellas, I made a new topic under a broader name, since Dios Mios, Harddrives and backwards compability.

To go back to TimpZ reasoning: The stage does not "expect" to be loaded X seconds, seeing how loading times don't just vary from Hard Drive to Hard Drive. While Wiis are standardized hardware, mine has a halfway broken laser, and my harddrive sometimes still loads slower or faster randomly. I'm gonna guess it's stage dependend.

Either way: My point still stands that there is not enough differences to force proof onto harddrives, because as far as I know it does not influence gameplay. The game 'triggers' when you can move, you should know that. Example: Sweet Mountain 6, or any stage Sonic starts running automatically. You know how the game behaves. You shouldn't bring Sonic 2 into this, seeing how largely different the hardware difference is in this case. As for Generations and Unleashed, which are much closer to this example, Parax already told you how it works in the other thread.

54
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 05, 2014, 12:48:13 pm »
Parax, I would personally propose a new Topic so it's not stained with all the off-topic in here.

55
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 05, 2014, 12:44:08 pm »
Fin.

56
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 05, 2014, 12:22:08 pm »
Like I said: I can see the problem for Dios Mios, but not for actual Wii Games, since it's not emulation.

And no, I am not missing the point here. I am just merely bringing up that "official" emulation does not mean "reliable".

57
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 05, 2014, 12:04:21 pm »
I am not misinterpreting you, I am merely questioning your logic. Just because you don't know how something might behave doesn't mean it will always be in the favor of the person using it, nor does it mean that physical copies

Also why is that question so impossible to answer? I am just asking that if you don't know how well the emulation of the game is because of backwards compability, put proof on it, because that's what you're asking right now.

 To give another example: I have shadow the hedgehog for xbox and play it on 360. I've been told it behaves differently than on xbox, which is why it results in a lot more softlocks and crashes.
I can crash the game by just pressing start at a weird time.
I just told you that the Wii playing a Wii game on harddrive is not prone to doing that, because i have a lot of experience with it and tried a lot of stuff with it.

My Wii playing my game on a harddrive is better than my 360 'emulating' my xbox game. That is a fact that I can rely on, even if you think I'm biased, I have a lot of experience to back it up. If you want I can also bring a lot of evidence to show to what ends backwards compability can screw up a game, i would just need to record my shadow the hedgehog adventures.

You can't just apply logic and then back it up by saying "but even if official emulation screws up, it's fine".

As for that, there's a rule for Sonic 3: * Any re-released version of this game (official or unofficial) that has been modified to create a functional change to level layouts is not permitted for use in competition.

If we were to translate that, it means we could use wrong backwards compability emulation as an actual argument, or maybe say that all re-releases should be put proof on because they're not to be trusted, even if they're on standardized hardware. I mean my SMC+ game can crash too, as it's a windows game, so i should always put proof on any stat that i can make with it, right?

TL;DR: This whole thing is foolish and we already derailed the topic enough as is.

58
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 05, 2014, 11:44:30 am »
I can't even state how wrong this is. You're assuming things because you don't know how they work. We should also just put proof on Wii's for playing gamecube discs and put proof on 360 users reading xbox discs, because you don't know how it affects the gameplay, right?

I can see problems with maybe dios mios, but for Wii games: The wii is literally reading a disc from a hard drive. There is NO EMULATION INVOLVED. I switch the usage of disc and harddrive from time to time and I don't see any different behaviour from just changing the medium you use.

Maybe that might also be because, for both, I use my own disc. If there was any difference with any other discs, well...
Colours has this small feature where different copies have a different internal timer. I wouldn't be surprised if there were really small, other changes depending on the copy of colours you use.

Nonetheless: There shouldn't be any huge issues, and even if there were, you could not benefit from them. Crashing a game in the middle of an IL is not exactly... helpful.

EDIT: I've managed to crash my game on disc before, so... I really don't think it's a harddrive issue.

59
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 05, 2014, 09:33:49 am »
You're probably overthinking this; Whenever I play with my Wii and the disc inside it, it loads slower than a normal wii would because the laser is slightly broken. Also, the way that the stages in colours work, is not depending on loading. It has a drawing distance depending on your camera, DsS showcased it once in one of his streams where he was able to break through something because his camera was weird.

Also, how is the wii supposed to emulate games for itself? As far as I know, using a USB loader just means that the wii reads a digital disc and everything that goes with it; It's not emulating a wii to read it, therefore it's not exactly emulation moreso than a different way to read a disc. It shouldn't be an issue of emulation in this case, really

60
News and Updates / Re: New rules regarding emulators
« on: April 05, 2014, 08:11:36 am »
TimpZ I use an USB HDD, but I use my own copy of the game on it, so shouldn't it almost exactly be the same?

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