I assume you want to prevent cheating. But then one can abuse such system by airstrafing at 1000 fps, then switch to 100fps just before jumping to avoid triggering the cap.
I don’t think it is possible to implement frame rate restrictions robustly. You need to check the recorded demos if you don’t trust the runner.
For competition sake, to create a playing field that’s fair for most to enter, I would support a 250 fps limit. One, this is probably the most the common max fps used over the last 10 years or so, two it’s not too much lower accel than 500 or 1000 fps. Three, the large majority of computers can get 250 nearly all the time, r_draviewmodel to take weapon off screen can reasonably help lower end CPUs get there, pretty much any i5 or older 3.5GHz should do the trick, this leaves some room for years into the future too, keeping top end CPUs satisfied, as they’re not able to get 1000 fps all the time or anything like that. Four, obviously this works well with special jump script which has become the most commonly used script in all of goldsource and there’s many runners past, present and future that would like to compete in a category with this, with or without script regulations and acceptance that mimics the mutiplayer standards established over last 17 years of competitive gaming with rule sets.
Just an example:
While other players in CSGO are playing on 60-300fps and me only on 20fps they have a huge advantage. Not fair… but nothing against any rule.
What about saying “1000fps best time” and “250fps best time”… would be an easy solution in my opinion.
If the people who are running on the vanilla game with no scripts are happy, and the people who are running scripted categories on community modded versions are happy, why are you trying to force two large groups into some random-ass standard that nobody seems to want except for you?
Because SpiderWaffle appears to be overestimating his power in the GoldSrc community.
Perhaps he thinks that because he did a great segmented run a few years ago means he is eligible to change the rules to something more along the lines of his preference.
I’m not trying to do that, why do you think or what do you think I’m doing?
I’m satisfied there’s enough runners, 5-10, and subtle reasons to warrant mwheel only category. Also as PJC and I have discussed there’s reason for other options and runners who support that, and overlap between the pools of players and their common vested interest. I think it’s best if all the players work together to find a mod or package type solution of some sort that will allow the seperate categories in one place, and help the whole gold source community synergize.
Am I clear?
…Are you trying to get banned or what’s the deal here?
If I understood this correctly you no longer want same rules for SS/RTA runs and segmented runs, which seemed to be your main goal when you came back a while ago to discuss rules. And that you would want some kind of all-in-one package/mod thing that everyone could use. While this seems like a nice idea, who’s gonna actually create this mod?
I’m not only curious who’s going to make the mod, but how useful could it possibly be to make it worth anyone’s time to even start to try? Again, if the people who are running vanilla are HAPPY, and the people who aren’t running vanilla are HAPPY (though potentially this group isn’t “certain” what config settings everyone should be using, but either way that doesn’t matter to the vanilla people) then why make a mod that tries to encapsulate both sets? Vanilla runners should continue to run vanilla and non-vanilla runners can either A. have separate categories for their different configs (which I think is the best option, though it leads to the most “diversification” of the leaderboards) or B. all decide on exactly one set of rules (which still wouldn’t affect the vanilla people). IMO, putting everyone under a one-size-fits-all ruleset for a game like Half-Life that has seen a billion and seven iterations and mods through the years just isn’t fair to everyone.
People following the current vanilla ruleset are using a non-official client (NGHL) from 2005~ together with older WON DLL’s from 2001. This is already not legit by SDA standards, it would be a much better solution to have one single client or mod that packs everything. Easy switch between official versions such as WON, steam, pipe and a mod standard. Please take a look at this picture I made: http://i.imgur.com/8vlmYcQ.png
Nobody is trying to make a “one-size-fits-all ruleset”. But wherever it’s possible it would be nice to cut down the amount of categories.
Didn’t SDA accept runs on Bunnymod? Was that an official release?
SDA standards have never seemed to matter to the sourceruns/goldsrc community so I’m not even sure why that was brought up.
I asked this in IRC but I don’t remember if anyone answered, but does anyone even run anything other than scriptless? Scriptless is the only thing even tracked on speedrun.com, which leads me to believe that the other communities within goldsrc are fairly small… Perhaps if one of those runners wanted it bad enough they could make a launcher, but it doesn’t seem like any of the ~10 people that actively run the game have any need or desire to simplify setup.
Also, well… I’m no expert, but as far as I know, the NGHL / Steam client (I’d guess preferably Steam for vanilla since it’s an official build) is only used for recording demos through map loads. The actual game behaviour is almost entirely defined in the WON DLLs, so as long as the FPS is no higher than 100, the actual gameplay is identical to a vanilla WON client (I’m pretty sure 
). And as z1m said (ninja’d me 
) SourceRuns (with the exception of some specific people) is diverging away from the SDA anyway in order to let the actual Source / GoldSrc communities decide on rules instead of following SDA’s arbitrary guidelines - which actually are a “one-size-fits-all” policy applied to all games in existence - which clearly doesn’t work.
The point is it’s already a “mod”, why not make it a good modification where every category is available rather than having several different ways of installing clients/mods to get the desired category. This mod could include useful HUD elements, better options etc.
Well, all segmented runs use scripts, so yes. There are probably some 25+ people, hard to say exactly. As for SS runs with scripts, currently only I do it, maybe havenoimagination as well? I believe the scripted category isn’t used for SS because it requires to much work. If there was a standard where only basic scripts were used there’d probably be more, people are not exactly given a choice but simply follows the no-script ruleset.
As a sidenote, quite a lot of people on that speedrun.com list are commonly streamers from twitch and are not involved in the community, they are just enjoying speedrunning this game until their interest moves to something else.
Oh and, regarding bunnymod, yes they accepted that back when SW was active. They found out it wasn’t legit and now don’t allow mods anymore etc
It’s a small minority doing non-scriptless (excluding the TASers). The reason only scriptless is tracked on speedrun.com leaderboards currently is because the ‘scripted’ category has no rules or limits, so it’s impossible for it to be considered a competitive category until you bring in some sort of restrictions, otherwise you can technically just script literally anything you want and it essentially becomes the same thing as a TAS, without the tools part. In fact, there’s even the possibility of exporting TAS script to raw HL script now, so that makes it even more complicated. Also, it just so happens that the scriptless side of the community is in favor of vanilla game runs and the scripted side is in favor of playing on a mod (out of coincidence I guess); I’ve said that we can add a leaderboard for the mod under the appropriate section (there is a section for mods/ROM hacks etc), but in order for that to happen there needs to be:
A. More than one player doing SS/RTA runs on this mod (and in the same category).
B. Rules/categories/other standards decided and agreed on by the players of that mod.
As mentioned, currently treetooon, quadrazid and havenoimagination are the only players that have done SS runs on Bunnymod afaik but in different categories anyway. The rest of the scripted runners are more focused on segmented runs which is pretty irrelevant to the leaderboards due to the non-competitive nature.
NGHL is literally an old Steam client (3248 to be precise) but has been modified (not sure how) to be ‘non-steam’ so it’s a completely legitimate client to play on even by SDA standards (not that it’s been brought up with them, but there would be literally no reason not to allow it to my knowledge).
Other than the working demos, there’s also the fact that WON simply does not run very well on some modern machines (Elgu for example could get something like 1000fps in Steam/NGHL, but only like 80 in WON iirc). There’s also the better loading times but they won’t be important once some sort of in-game timer is developed. What you’ve said though is 100% correct (about the game’s behaviour, FPS etc).
Well, I’m seeing 13 people right now in the IRC that are actively involved in the community whilst being on the leaderboards, there’s more that aren’t logged in.
Again, if the people who are running vanilla are HAPPY, and the people who aren't running vanilla are HAPPY (though potentially this group isn't "certain" what config settings everyone should be using, but either way that doesn't matter to the vanilla people) then why make a mod that tries to encapsulate both sets?
Because currently the community has hamstrung itself with a mess of a solution or lack there of making it unclear, complicated, requiring illegal Russian hosted clients, arbitrary combinations of clients DLLs, injections ect; everyone’s not all that happy, quad enough left for almost a year now partly due to lack of clarity of standards, I get messages from new players all the time with confusion about what mods scripts to use, ect.
A common encapsulation with the decided templates of standards would be a far better solution that would make things clear and easy for new members to enter. There’s really no downside, just lots of major pluses.
Bottom line, all the facts suggest goldsource speedrunning should be among the largest if not he largest speedrunning community. The age groups and demographs lineup well, like with N64 games, about twice as copies of HL were sold than any other game speedran, such as SM64, OoT, GE. Those communities are all about 200-300 strong each, where as goldsource is maybe 50. This lack of a common place to find an easy to setup standard I feel is the largest culprit. Once we have that I’d expect the community to be 300 strong within 1.5-2 years.
We’re okay, but nearly as happy as we could be, and there’s no reason not to try, I trying and willing to help in w/e way I can.
As mentioned, currently treetooon, quadrazid and havenoimagination are the only players that have done SS runs on Bunnymod afaik but in different categories anyway. The rest of the scripted runners are more focused on segmented runs which is pretty irrelevant to the leaderboards due to the non-competitive nature.
I have, the first ever run done in 2003, I was actively running with this a few years back, helping quad a lot too with his SS easy run. Sylnki I know did scripted bunnymod SS runs, there’s a CS source guy, 19yo, 2k twitch viewers that regularly runs scripted SS runs. I hear about other people like this or trying to start up in my various social media asking me questions and stuff. Personally if I had a clear solution to scripted SS runs, like this encapsulation package mod, I’d be streaming them 2 hours a day.
I’d just like to point out that Half Life is also still currently available for sale and is packaged in a number of Valve packs on steam, so and kind of sales figures are basically irrelevant there. I’d wager that more people owned SM64 vs Half Life as children, especially since gaming PCs tend to be geared towards adults rather than children. Nostalgia plays a HUGE part in determining what games people speedrun. If someone wants to run Half Life badly enough, a moderately high barrier of entry isn’t going to deter them. If the problem is as bad as you suggest, then who the hell let it get that way? If you’re such a pillar of the community, why didn’t you bring this up much much sooner (and potentially deal with the issue yourself)?
Santo Dellorto, 13, Italy
Steve Dickinson, 17, UK
Sven Nilsson, 15, Sweden
Explain to these guys each and every week from where to where, how and why to download, install and copy Half-Life games, versions, files, categories, scripts and settings.
Sounds fun? It’s not. The setup wouldn’t be for the ~10 active players (like anyone knows how many players that are active, or the definition of active). The mod would be for new players that wants to try speedrunning who knows nothing about versions or categories. Which I do know for sure is several people each week.
I do not help several people each week. Supporting these guys would be a full time job which isn’t likely for anyone to do.
A package installer and clear rules would be very effective to simplify things indeed. What’s in it and who’s making it is another thing.
While you all seem to think Spider-Waffle is here rambling nonsense and ruining your wellness. His main point is that it’s too hard to enter HL speedrunning (any category) which you all know is true.
Sourceruns has a wiki, which can be used to list instructions and downloads and emergency contacts. We use it for the portal unpack.
That’s a very inelegant solution with loads of extra troublshooting and sleuthing for players to figure out. Quake was a similar way with fuhquake, joequake, different settings to get framerates, I was very interested in quake speedrunning, particularly around 2002-2004, I found it unclear, no great way to load from saves, start demos, wasn’t sure how it was done, what the rules were, scripts, fps, ect. The result was I never submitted a demo or got that involved despite the hundreds of hours I spent playing quake freely.
Small barriers, confusion, uncertainty are exaggerated by human nature and psychology, it’s NOT a matter of intellectual availability, it’s emotional: #1 international best seller explains:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MgBikgcWnY#t=18m29
HL has sold about twice as much as any of those N64 games by 2007, I’m saying the community could be twice, 600, there’s other factors obviously, but it lends itself to speedrunning well which is the major other factor, so 300 shouldn’t be too hard to find.
Why are you opposed to a better solution? It seems like your just trying to muck things and argue for the sake of being a problem or thorn, attacking people not points, leading down sub-topic or red herrings, not explaining any reasoning or rational, ***what’s the plus side of leaving things in a mess to you?***How about you state your case before throwing off-topic mud around?
I tried to help establish standards at SDA, got banned, tried on this forum, got thread closed, tried on your IRC channel, got banned… I’ve been trying, putting community before myself, but attitudes like yours have been slowing efforts. I’ve done just about everything I reasonably can to help the community, what more do you want from me?
