thoughts on banning PJ64 entirely from zsr leaderboards?

[Pheenoh]

If we're gonna ban emu from LBs and shut out half the community

Calm your hostility. No one is preventing anyone from still doing runs on emulator, and it's even been said they would stay on the leaderboards. The only people being shut out are those irrationally upset and quitting speedrunning if this happens.

Honestly iQue is a joke and Wii VC is also inaccurate

iQue is a joke? In what way? Wii VC wasn't intentionally created to try to perfectly emulate N64, so naturally it's inaccurate. Neither will be banned in the foreseeable future however, unless you can give extremely solid arguments as to why they should.

ban everything else thats faster than the original hardware and ACTUALLY make things "fair"

I would love to see this, but the idea of "running on the fastest official version" is too ingrained in the speed running community.

[Izraill]

Ban emu just means that people who can't access consoles as easily as all of you seem to are getting excluded from speedrunning.

[gamestabled]

Can we just make it clear that nobody is getting excluded from speedrunning? Whether emu is taken off leaderboards, or kept separate on leaderboards, absolutely DOES NOT hinder your ability to run and enjoy the game. If your only motive in playing is the leaderboard, then thats your own problem.

[MichaelRadar]

Can we just make it clear that nobody is getting excluded from speedrunning? Whether emu is taken off leaderboards, or kept separate on leaderboards, absolutely DOES NOT hinder your ability to run and enjoy the game. If your only motive in playing is the leaderboard, then thats your own problem.

Yes but a community that is as inviting and promoting further growth as possible is beneficial for everyone...? Even if that is "their own problem" it's still important to tailor (at least in some part) the community to be open to new players. Leaderboards mean something to some players. Being able to see their name compared to other runners might be a primary motivation for that player, and I wouldn't want to stop that.

Pheenoh:

This is highly opinionated, and would be hard to say what is or isn't serious. I view any OoT category that isn't Any% or 100% as basically a joke with arbitrary restrictions, but there's still people who will do runs. If the previously removed "Child Dungeons" category has shown us anything, it's that people will do runs of anything that has any kind of "officialness" to it.

You're misunderstanding me, I mean that nobody would take a person with the highest gamecube any% time seriously. When I said "console category" I meant like GC, VC etc. So if we were to split it up by console, some sections (again gamecube comes to mind) would be kind of underwhelming, which makes me feel it isn't worth doing.

Growing the community is great, but along with growth you're also gonna get more people who want to try to cheat, which is infinitely more easier (and also unintentionally possible to the ignorant) on emulator. Additionally, the community would still grow even if emulator runs are removed from verified boards or outright banned. The community grew immensely before the leaderboards were in place, the community grew before a large amount of people did runs on emulator, and the community will continue to grow, regardless of the aforementioned acceptance.

Very true, but it just feels like the friendlier the better right? Some people really value leaderboards and think they are important, and if that brings in more people, that should be considered. Obviously the scene is growing, but something potentially hurting the pace of that growth might not be a good idea

Running on the fastest official version of a game has been around since before SDA. It's too difficult to outright ban an official version of the game without mass community agreement (see: GBA version of LTTP). With (unofficial) emulators, it's easy, since they're made to compare to very specific console versions, are unofficial, and can do a very poor job of emulating said console.

It really isn't. Emulators, cheating devices for them, and the games themselves are free for most people. You can't artificially modify a console's base frame rate settings without modifying the hardware in some sort of fashion (which requires a console and the equipment to do so, both not free), but all you have to do is change a setting or two in an emulator, or tick on an action replay code. Of course, AR codes are easily attainable on console, but they're also more noticeable than a very slightly raised or varied frame rate setting.

Yeah you're right that's fair.

Again just trying to state the opinion I believe I would have had when I first started running the game, as that wasn't long ago. It seemed pretty intimidating, and any incentive/ removal of barriers that I could get really motivated me. That's all

Good discussion guys 

[Pheenoh]

Ban emu just means that people who can't access consoles as easily as all of you seem to are getting excluded from speedrunning.

People literally aren't reading the thread at all. They're just posting and leaving.

[TaylorTotFTW]

If we're gonna ban emu from LBs and shut out half the community, might as well ban everything besides N64 while we're at it. Honestly iQue is a joke and Wii VC is also inaccurate. I'm not saying this is a good idea, but if we ban emu we might as well ban everything else thats faster than the original hardware and ACTUALLY make things "fair".

People who still play the original console are at a complete disadvantage for most categories and I feel it shouldn't be this way. The best time for an N64 game should be the best time on an N64 console.

If Nintendo officially re-releases a game on different hardware, there is literally 0 reason to not use it if it is faster. N64 elitism is a very archaic way of thinking that unfortunately happens to be perpetuated by a handful of other communities as well, and really isn't something that is taken seriously in the modern speedrunning scene. However, this thread is dedicated to discussing a ban of a non-official release from the leaderboards, so moving on:

As someone who has joined this community (and as such is pretty much a no name on this issue) really recently, I think the idea of banning PJ64 would really have deterred me from ever joining the scene in the first place. Which is something is something that speedrunners should really value, since I personally believe growing the scene is equally as important as making sure things are competitive. From an outsiders perspective, speedrunning is already a pretty inclusive community and a lot of the tricks  a player is required to learn don't have tutorials, or don't have modern versions of them...so the barriers to entry seem large to a new player (even with zsr being so useful). The game changes constantly so most of the new tricks I've had to learn are from other speed runners, or trying to figure it out on my own, and I think that is just one example of how in its present state there are still significant barriers to entry.

Even though I disagree with some of this and some other points you stated later on, I know exactly where you're coming from. I started speedrunning OoT (what feels like not all that long ago) running old MST off of my mom's shitty laptop on PJ64 with a PS3 controller. Even though most of the tricks and technical things were explained on ZSR, there was still a lot that I had to pick up and learn from people in the community as you said (although I never felt like the community was particularly inclusive). I understand that the amount of things that a completely new person to the community has to learn is pretty daunting, and that banning emulator submissions to the leaderboards may just add to that barrier, but I strongly feel that moving from emulator to some sort of official version is a natural stepping stone. How the majority of the community feels about emulator is that it is not something that is or should be encouraged, but rather begrudgingly accepted and appropriately restricted so as to not shut out new players. Restricting emulator submissions from the ZSR leaderboards to some effect (I would not be completely against simply hiding emulator times by default rather than banning them from submission altogether) is, I feel, another positive way to encourage this desired behavior.

Can we just make it clear that nobody is getting excluded from speedrunning? Whether emu is taken off leaderboards, or kept separate on leaderboards, absolutely DOES NOT hinder your ability to run and enjoy the game. If your only motive in playing is the leaderboard, then thats your own problem.

Absolutely this.

[Izraill]

Can we just make it clear that nobody is getting excluded from speedrunning? Whether emu is taken off leaderboards, or kept separate on leaderboards, absolutely DOES NOT hinder your ability to run and enjoy the game. If your only motive in playing is the leaderboard, then thats your own problem.

Not being able to compare your times (at least to other emulator players) may not be excluding from spedrunning, but it certainly looks and feels like being excluded from the community "oh, you can speedrun if you want, but it doesn't count at all".

IMO, Emulator runs should be separated from console in the leaderboards if it can't stay as it is right now. Personally, I don't see why change it. It's not like an emulator will beat a console time for a WR, with VC and iQue having the advantage.

[qwerty1605]

I know I speak for myself and others when saying that I didn't really care either way until this thread. This thread has really taught me a lot about the plight of the emulator speedrunner and it has really made me realize that Emulator should be banned because there are no good reasons to support it that Cosmo didn't already mention

[MichaelRadar]

Not being able to compare your times (at least to other emulator players) may not be excluding from spedrunning, but it certainly looks and feels like being excluded from the community "oh, you can speedrun if you want, but it doesn't count at all".

Basically yeah. It might not be direct exclusion, but you can't really argue that is encouraging either right?

I plan to switch to VC soon, and I agree that an official console transition is natural, but I just hate the idea of people feeling more intimidated as a result of this idea I guess?

Even though I disagree with some of this and some other points you stated later on, I know exactly where you're coming from. I started speedrunning OoT (what feels like not all that long ago) running old MST off of my mom's shitty laptop on PJ64 with a PS3 controller. Even though most of the tricks and technical things were explained on ZSR, there was still a lot that I had to pick up and learn from people in the community as you said (although I never felt like the community was particularly inclusive).

I don't think the community is inclusive necessarily, but it does feel like you have to know people who know more than you to improve if there are no tutorials available. Major streamers just don't have the time to explain tricks often, and they are usually the ones who are up-to-date on everything. I was lucky to meet other players that could assist me in some of the problems I had along the way, and

[MichaelRadar]

I know I speak for myself and others when saying that I didn't really care either way until this thread. This thread has really taught me a lot about the plight of the emulator speedrunner and it has really made me realize that Emulator should be banned because there are no good reasons to support it that Cosmo didn't already mention

But those reasons that Cosmo mentioned (that I argue are good reasons) are basically just being elaborately echoed by a lot of people...?

[qwerty1605]

But those reasons that Cosmo mentioned (that I argue are good reasons) are basically just being elaborately echoed by a lot of people...?

oh no you misunderstand me

some of them are getting elaborated, but the majority of the other reasons for keeping it that are posted in this thread are what make me really want to ban it

[TaylorTotFTW]

I don't think the community is inclusive necessarily, but it does feel like you have to know people who know more than you to improve if there are no tutorials available. Major streamers just don't have the time to explain tricks often, and they are usually the ones who are up-to-date on everything. I was lucky to meet other players that could assist me in some of the problems I had along the way, and

I don't know, I think being forced to actually interact with the community in some way is what gives the speedrunning community a personal feel. Besides, as Pheenoh also mentioned, OoT is one of the most if not the most well documented speedgame as far as resources go. The vast majority of other video games will force you to find he right people to talk to if you want the scoop on glitches and tech for speedrunning it.

[nathanisbored]

Since other people have brought this up, I guess I don't feel totally silly saying I don't mind the idea of only playing on N64 since it's the original hardware. I don't think it's a beneficial idea for the community as a whole, and I certainly don't think it's going to happen, but it's something that I've secretly felt in the past.

And since people have mentioned cheating, it's also possible to splice runs. We're not just talking about blatant cheating like savestates or cheat codes. It's probably easier to do when the run has a lot of savewarps or something, but I'm just saying.


I don't want to get too off topic, but I will say that getting into speedrunning OoT is quite a bit overwhelming, probably now more than ever, just because there seems to be SOO much to learn about the game (not just the structure or layout of the game that you would learn from playing through it casually, but all the subtle mechanics, physics, techniques, strategies, setups, etc.). You don't need to know EVERYTHING about the game to learn a certain category, but I do think you get better at the game the more experience and knowledge you have about it, so just copying strats from a world record video might be effective short-term, but less so in the long run.

ZSR is unfortunately becoming a less and less valuable resource for information, not just because it gets outdated, but because of all the tutorials and explanations on YouTube and Twitch nowadays which are so much more to the point and easy to understand. While we ARE working on getting ZSR out of this slump, and it is useful for storing miscellaneous information, it seems like the vision of ZSR in the future is still a very wikipedia-like format (which I like, but it's also lacking). We have loads of technical information and multiple pages networked together, but we still don't have a simplified explanation for the things that people need to learn, and we certainly don't have an explanation for every individual strategy for a trick (there are like 10 million ganondoor setups now for example, and while it's impractical to put them all on ZSR, almost all of them have value over the others in some aspect). I do think video tutorials fit better for this sort of thing, but I wish ZSR was a place you could go to get all the help you needed.

Wow, I really got off topic. I might continue this in a more appropriate thread, but I guess my point is that in making the site better, we can make it easier to get into running the game regardless of emulator and all that stuff.

[MichaelRadar]

I don't know, I think being forced to actually interact with the community in some way is what gives the speedrunning community a personal feel. Besides, as Pheenoh also mentioned, OoT is one of the most if not the most well documented speedgame as far as resources go. The vast majority of other video games will force you to find he right people to talk to if you want the scoop on glitches and tech for speedrunning it.

I definitely like that too, but it just sucks if you haven't made those friends. Plus just because it's a well documented speed game doesn't mean it is super easy to learn. Nathan has a huge point in my opinion.

For example, I used to be like semi-pro level in StarCraft 2. That game had a TON of content that made it SO easy to learn more and more stuff. I feel because of that, I improved as much as I did and that amount of avaialble knowledge made the scene more competitive

Comparatively, because the OoT/speedrunning community is smaller, even it having the most resources of any speed game doesn't mean it is easy to pick up. New strats seem to come out regularly and there are still tons of strategies I still don't know how to do because I just can't find the resources I need



This all is starting to get off topic though lol.

[DeathBasket]

If Nintendo officially re-releases a game on different hardware, there is literally 0 reason to not use it if it is faster. N64 elitism is a very archaic way of thinking that unfortunately happens to be perpetuated by a handful of other communities as well, and really isn't something that is taken seriously in the modern speedrunning scene.

My issue with VC is that the game isn't running on hardware, it's just another emulator. That you had to buy the console the emulator is running on shouldn't make a difference. I don't have a problem with people playing VC and it's been around a while and isn't about to change. It's just with my background I don't understand why people treat VC and PJ64 as completely different things.

Plus sides of sticking with N64 though:
-don't have to buy a new console every time a 'faster' version is discovered (if you really want to compete)
-don't have to (illegally) modify the console to get the faster version of a game
-times are 'accurate' (how well would you have to play to get sub 19 OoT on original hardware?)
-nice debug screen on game crash instead of a horrible noise
-unofficial leaderboard can allow WAD injects and 1.0/1.1 for OoT on PJ64 again

Honestly I don't have a problem with the way it is now. Switching to one 'official' platform would stop people arguing about version differences and whatnot but it seems this isn't something the majority is willing to do, which is fine. People aren't going to want to switch to a 'slower' platform and I understand this, just putting out my ideas.