My feelings on The Demon Rush
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Harri 'Rogston' Vaisanen and Esa 'SaunaChum' Kivirinta's "money" ILs
The "hesitate to say these videos are perfectly optimized" became a theme throughout verification because these ILs were improved twice (which is one reason why verification took so long)
Decision: Accept
Reason: We all love AI abuse.
Harri 'Rogston' Vaisanen and Esa 'SaunaChum' Kivirinta's "money" ILs
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I watched the highest quality vids, which are excellent. Thief never looked this crisp on my system... sound is also crisp and clear at all times.
There's some minor discrepancies between the in-game timer and actual time spent playing, due to unavoidable lag issues (most noticeable in level 8, where lag adds ten seconds difference between actual video running time and the game clock.) I don't like this aesthetically, but the standard in the sizeable Thief speedrunning community is to use the in-game timer from the final screen, so whatcha gonna do?
I hesitate to say these videos are perfectly optimized, since Thief is extremely freeform, but they're about as close as you can get without some kind of TAS (or barring some very unlikely bit of brilliance finding a glitch or route change after years of the whole community exploring.)
Excellent and highly amusing abuse of the AI. Thief AI is very clever in one respect - it's well designed to give the impression of being better than it really is. Just how bad it is is hysterically shown in mission 4, where he spends almost the entire level basically shoving the enemy he needs to be hiding from in the back. "Just the wind, I guess..."
Very well done. Accepted without reservations.
There's some minor discrepancies between the in-game timer and actual time spent playing, due to unavoidable lag issues (most noticeable in level 8, where lag adds ten seconds difference between actual video running time and the game clock.) I don't like this aesthetically, but the standard in the sizeable Thief speedrunning community is to use the in-game timer from the final screen, so whatcha gonna do?
I hesitate to say these videos are perfectly optimized, since Thief is extremely freeform, but they're about as close as you can get without some kind of TAS (or barring some very unlikely bit of brilliance finding a glitch or route change after years of the whole community exploring.)
Excellent and highly amusing abuse of the AI. Thief AI is very clever in one respect - it's well designed to give the impression of being better than it really is. Just how bad it is is hysterically shown in mission 4, where he spends almost the entire level basically shoving the enemy he needs to be hiding from in the back. "Just the wind, I guess..."
Very well done. Accepted without reservations.
The "hesitate to say these videos are perfectly optimized" became a theme throughout verification because these ILs were improved twice (which is one reason why verification took so long)
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This is why I was so hesitant to say the missions were optimized. 
New route looks legit. He's either manhandling the AI even worse than the original runner, though, or else there may be an audio problem - I don't hear a single verbal notification one of the patrollers has spotted him. It's /possible/ this indicates cheating of some sort with enemy 'senses' turned off, but I think it's highly unlikely.
New route looks legit. He's either manhandling the AI even worse than the original runner, though, or else there may be an audio problem - I don't hear a single verbal notification one of the patrollers has spotted him. It's /possible/ this indicates cheating of some sort with enemy 'senses' turned off, but I think it's highly unlikely.
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No audio or video issues.
Level 1: better time, less aesthetically pleasing (which is of course irrelevant.) Here it's obvious (unlike in the first version) that you're aggroing everything you run past, not outwitting them. Again, irrelevant, just noting.
Level 9: nice extra shortcut. Here the 'less aesthetically pleasing' bit involves the overlapping audio (not an audio problem as such, he just goes so fast he triggers multiple audio at the same time, which sounds silly).
Level 10: particularly large increase in gameplay speed here, great improvement.
Always great to see people this dedicated to improving their own game.
Level 1: better time, less aesthetically pleasing (which is of course irrelevant.) Here it's obvious (unlike in the first version) that you're aggroing everything you run past, not outwitting them. Again, irrelevant, just noting.
Level 9: nice extra shortcut. Here the 'less aesthetically pleasing' bit involves the overlapping audio (not an audio problem as such, he just goes so fast he triggers multiple audio at the same time, which sounds silly).
Level 10: particularly large increase in gameplay speed here, great improvement.
Always great to see people this dedicated to improving their own game.
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Hi!
Sorry for being late, like you can suspect, I haven't got time to watch this and analyze with needed attention.
All the levels are done wisely, quickly, sometimes tricky and lucky. Most of the tricks used are hard to learn because Thief engine is kinda buggy and you can stuck where you shouldn't have, you can't grab some item for no reason or can't climb some edge (this is where the perfect timing comes handy). Running Thief is not as easy as running Quake Therefore the run quality is very good. It's beating the previous run (not submitted to SDA though) but it's IL run, quite different category (speed potions not affordable when running and not collecting stuff).
As for the video quality - it's good. Yet strange things happen at the end of some runs. I mean there is an fps show at the upper left or right (depends on runner) corner of a screen for one or two last frames of a video. When this happens, everything is moved back (swords and other object which moved constantly at the end). This happens in vids no: 1, 5, 6, 7. There are sometimes black frames with no sound at the end, in one case following those with fps shown. It happens in vids no: 2, 4, 6.
It can be an effect of ending of the recording, saving to disk or similar process.
The sound is also good with exception of 3 mission (Bonehoard), where the sound level is about 18dB lower than in other vids! It has to be corrected.
Now for the timing:
There are two missions (6 and 8), where player needs to read a scroll or a book to complete objective or to get through. In game, the image of a page/scroll appears in front of a screen and the game is frozen. When recording vid it results in frozen frame with no sound underneath followed by the same frame with just an ambient hum heard. Then the sound unfreezes and in a next frame, the video. When counting time in these particular missions, I cut the idle regions from the video (I use Final Cut Pro - for the measuring time purposes also) so that time-counter unfreezes when the sound unfreezes. If I did the same but when the video unfreezes it would result in one frame faster timing per reading.
So the total time for the 6 mission (Cathedral) is 02:23:00 (min:sec:frame), not 02:22 as the game states.
In the 8 mission (Undercover) however, the time is 02:31:12. It is exactly 2:31 and a half. It's arguable whether is should be 2:31 or 2:32, especially when the moment of trimming is not clear (video or audio unfreeze). I think it's better to trust game timer, which is 2:32 in this case.
In mission 9 (Return to the Cathedral), the total video time was 00:35:09, rather than 39 secs measured by the game. Could the runner tell something more how did that happen? 4 seconds is a big deal and it didn't happen in any other mission (the timings were perfect).
10th mission (Escape) exact time was 00:54:02 (measured from the first non-black frame to the silence moment at the end before the victory music was played).
So after dealing with the timing cases, video endings cases and one low audio level case, I'd accept these runs and welcome Thief 1 to the SDA
Sorry for being late, like you can suspect, I haven't got time to watch this and analyze with needed attention.
All the levels are done wisely, quickly, sometimes tricky and lucky. Most of the tricks used are hard to learn because Thief engine is kinda buggy and you can stuck where you shouldn't have, you can't grab some item for no reason or can't climb some edge (this is where the perfect timing comes handy). Running Thief is not as easy as running Quake
As for the video quality - it's good. Yet strange things happen at the end of some runs. I mean there is an fps show at the upper left or right (depends on runner) corner of a screen for one or two last frames of a video. When this happens, everything is moved back (swords and other object which moved constantly at the end). This happens in vids no: 1, 5, 6, 7. There are sometimes black frames with no sound at the end, in one case following those with fps shown. It happens in vids no: 2, 4, 6.
It can be an effect of ending of the recording, saving to disk or similar process.
The sound is also good with exception of 3 mission (Bonehoard), where the sound level is about 18dB lower than in other vids! It has to be corrected.
Now for the timing:
There are two missions (6 and 8), where player needs to read a scroll or a book to complete objective or to get through. In game, the image of a page/scroll appears in front of a screen and the game is frozen. When recording vid it results in frozen frame with no sound underneath followed by the same frame with just an ambient hum heard. Then the sound unfreezes and in a next frame, the video. When counting time in these particular missions, I cut the idle regions from the video (I use Final Cut Pro - for the measuring time purposes also) so that time-counter unfreezes when the sound unfreezes. If I did the same but when the video unfreezes it would result in one frame faster timing per reading.
So the total time for the 6 mission (Cathedral) is 02:23:00 (min:sec:frame), not 02:22 as the game states.
In the 8 mission (Undercover) however, the time is 02:31:12. It is exactly 2:31 and a half. It's arguable whether is should be 2:31 or 2:32, especially when the moment of trimming is not clear (video or audio unfreeze). I think it's better to trust game timer, which is 2:32 in this case.
In mission 9 (Return to the Cathedral), the total video time was 00:35:09, rather than 39 secs measured by the game. Could the runner tell something more how did that happen? 4 seconds is a big deal and it didn't happen in any other mission (the timings were perfect).
10th mission (Escape) exact time was 00:54:02 (measured from the first non-black frame to the silence moment at the end before the victory music was played).
So after dealing with the timing cases, video endings cases and one low audio level case, I'd accept these runs and welcome Thief 1 to the SDA
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Ok, I donwloaded the levels, watched them and here are my comments:
Vid&audio quality is good except that Thief is a very very dark game (Dark engine haha).
Mission 1 - Bafford
Old time: 38s
New time: 37s
The gate trick is used and it saves this half a sec which takes time down to 37s. Also movement is better, especially near the end.
Mission 9 - Cathedral
Old time: 39s game counter / 35s real time
New time: 37s both game counter and real time
Timing self explanatory. Does the runner know about previous run strange time issue? Anyway this one is undoubtedly legit and consistent.
Nice tactics with this second blocked door is introduced.
Mission 10 - Escape
Old time: 54s
New time: 50s
4 seconds in such level is a lot. Enemies were dodged nicely, previous run included taking a fruit along the way and restoring some hps but it wasn't necessary after all.
Summary: very well done, these were one of the quickest levels. I wonder if recently discovered NPC lean speed trick will make this run being verified for another month...
Vid&audio quality is good except that Thief is a very very dark game (Dark engine haha).
Mission 1 - Bafford
Old time: 38s
New time: 37s
The gate trick is used and it saves this half a sec which takes time down to 37s. Also movement is better, especially near the end.
Mission 9 - Cathedral
Old time: 39s game counter / 35s real time
New time: 37s both game counter and real time
Timing self explanatory. Does the runner know about previous run strange time issue? Anyway this one is undoubtedly legit and consistent.
Nice tactics with this second blocked door is introduced.
Mission 10 - Escape
Old time: 54s
New time: 50s
4 seconds in such level is a lot. Enemies were dodged nicely, previous run included taking a fruit along the way and restoring some hps but it wasn't necessary after all.
Summary: very well done, these were one of the quickest levels. I wonder if recently discovered NPC lean speed trick will make this run being verified for another month...
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Verifier: I believe I watched all of them now, and what I said earlier stands pretty much
Verifier: good gameplay, good planning, good time
Verifier: the arbitrarily doing 'money runs' is what pains me, but I've told you about that before too
Verifier: and a few weeks back, before the additional levels were done, I talked about the earlier runs
Verifier: and well, most of them are still in the final product
Verifier: and I said basically what can be condensed to those three lines
Verifier: unless I missed some run (all those versions and updates are oh gosh confusing to keep track of) everything should be fine
Verifier: just mark those ILs as money runs
Verifier: they are neither continous play nor standard ILs
Verifier: since in some levels the runner uses money he didn't get in the previous level
Verifier: usually to buy speed pots
Verifier: good gameplay, good planning, good time
Verifier: the arbitrarily doing 'money runs' is what pains me, but I've told you about that before too
Verifier: and a few weeks back, before the additional levels were done, I talked about the earlier runs
Verifier: and well, most of them are still in the final product
Verifier: and I said basically what can be condensed to those three lines
Verifier: unless I missed some run (all those versions and updates are oh gosh confusing to keep track of) everything should be fine
Verifier: just mark those ILs as money runs
Verifier: they are neither continous play nor standard ILs
Verifier: since in some levels the runner uses money he didn't get in the previous level
Verifier: usually to buy speed pots
Decision: Accept
Reason: We all love AI abuse.
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