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.
However, I am in favour of the idea of putting a time based cap on the legitimacy of PJ64 runs like ZFG suggested. Under 20 minutes still seems a bit too extreme, but somewhere in that range is good. It's worth mentioning that (to me) there exists enough stigma against emulator use that I always figured I would have to switch eventually, as I was of the mindset that nobody would take an emu world record seriously.
ALSO, I feel if you split the leaderboards by system, that wouldn't really matter because certain console categories wouldn't be taken seriously. Like nobody plays gamecube so having the best gamecube time is pretty meaningless when that system is so bad for speed running.
Any of the cheating arguments are silly to me as I would hope most people are bound a bit by honour, and more importantly I think it is easy to cheat on other systems as well so we kind of just have to trust people on that one.
My biggest problem with banning emulator is that if you ban emulator why not make it so that only one system should be used in the first place? World records that were only records because of version differences always bugged me (any% iQue comes to mind), and even though systems like VC (which I prefer playing) are still considered "official releases" there seems to be a lot of debate surrounding version differences that could get shut down by switching to one universally accepted platform (something I'm not really in favour with).
Again i'm not as important of a person here, but I figured I would give my opinion as someone who has been following and running for about 6 months now.
I'm gonna note my thoughts on this post.
I think the idea of banning PJ64 would really have deterred me from ever joining the scene in the first place.
The ban was just on leaderboard submission (and has recently been suggested that they simply be moved to a seperate category, rather than removing them completely), nothing is stopping you from still doing runs.
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
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.
so the barriers to entry seem large to a new player (even with zsr being so useful)
It really isn't. There's more tutorials and documentation for Ocarina of Time speed running than any other game. And, again, this isn't preventing you from learning or even doing runs on emulator.
ALSO, I feel if you split the leaderboards by system, that wouldn't really matter because certain console categories wouldn't be taken seriously.
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.
more importantly I think it is easy to cheat on other systems as well so we kind of just have to trust people on that one.
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.
My biggest problem with banning emulator is that if you ban emulator why not make it so that only one system should be used in the first place?
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.
Again i'm not as important of a person here
No one here is any more important than anyone else. We're all speed runners.
