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XXY
Just a quick question, have these been submitted yet? I'm definately not asking Radix to "hurry things up" (that's the last thing I want him to do), only curious Tongue
The man made of sticks
Radix is undecided about whether to accept them or not.  However, with recent events, I wouldn't expect a decision for a while.  Nevertheless, they are all still available for download.
I think I read somewhere, that there was a bug in original DOS exe that made dodging homing missiles impossible on a fast PC. Has this been fixed in D1X?
Edit history:
Lag.Com: 2005-10-31 06:45:45 pm
sda loyalist
Because of physics being related to framerate? If you are talking about being unable to dodge homers that are coming right at you, I can say that bug is fixed; I've done it several times while recording.
For those interested, these runs might not end up on SDA, because of several not quite inconsiderable differences between Descent and D1X; I will continue to host all of the runs on my site, and... will actually update it now. Smiley

Edit: Site is fully updated, I think.
The man made of sticks
Levels 1-3 are outdated.  The newly added levels are missing their matching avis, as well.

I don't know what Radix thinks, but I personally would rather make the whole thing easier and just keep the runs as a separate entity.  This'll be easier than having to decide on a standard for runs recorded with source ports.  Frankly, I really didn't care to continue supporting the runs despite having spent so much time on them, as my attitude towards speedrunning has changed.
I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
This might not be posted? That's lame as hell. This is a great run. =\
XXY
I'll say. I don't know why it wouldn't be posted, but they're still on Lag's site for all to enjoy.
sda loyalist
Oops... I had updated all that, but I guess the finished version was still sitting on my hard drive. Now it's done. Smiley I may just take down all my old Trainee times, hehe...
Hi there,
I see, no post for more then 10 years here, so Im not sure if anyone cares, but Im working on new, faster runs last days! Did 11 levels so far:
Level 1: 0:26
Level 2: 1:05
Level 3: 1:10
Level 4: 1:34
Level 5: 1:32
Level 6: 1:24
Level 7: 2:29
Level 8: 2:10
Level 9: 1:30
Level 10: 1:57
Level S1: 0:59
Edit history:
LotBlind: 2016-04-09 11:57:05 am
People have definitely been running this game (at least once at a marathon too), but I'm not sure about ILs. I presume you know the community? You might wanna look for them on speedrun.com. Otherwise I'll be very happy to watch your record runs once you have them all ready for the verification! I don't know if you've submitted before/speedrun a lot, but if you're improving on already decent (no pun intended) records without new tricks or glitches, then it probably has to be passable Tongue Otherwise posting a few here to get feedback doesn't hurt.

Are you running hotshot? I know that's the go-to difficulty for this game along with insane so it can be accepted as a community thing. BTW: if you did "max" runs as that one guy on YT suggested (I'm looking at his video now), that also has potential to be accepted for SDA IMO. I wrote something about it here.

I don't think it's SDA-worthy but in general more Doom categories, specifically pacifist or "tyson" would be cool to see. Not killing anything is a challenge of its own right. Shame there's no in-fighting or such. "Tyson" means lasers and concussion missiles only I suppose. Anyway...
thanks for reply. Well, I don't know the community, Im new here. I just found this topic by google, so I signed here to share my "work".
Btw something has changed about verification during years? I know that stx-Ville's runs didn't pass due to rebirth thingy... Would be great to see descent officially in SDA!

No new tricks, just faster execution, in some cases little bit different route. Hotshot difficulty, deathless. I already posted levels 1-10 to youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZACA5NM46_EXZf_AYZMRTPAc9yV5CZcD

Actually, I also did some max runs on insane difficulty in near past (level 1-8, 10, S1, 12 and 22): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZACA5NM46_GY2TEcyXJl9S7uLGIRhEzc

Anyway, I believe ILs should be done deathless, otherwise you would very often kill yourself after blowing up the reactor. Im ok with deaths in single segment of entire game, but the main category for IL should be deathless imo.
About max category, it is little bit complicated. It is worthy category, no doubt, but without some program detecting robots, it can be hard to prove, if everything is gone. I'm very sure my runs are valid, but once I had to play the level again because I wasn't 100% sure if some robot was destroyed by other robot (which was very likely), or is somewhere hidden (unlikely, but not impossible).
About versions: because the game can be bought off Steam/GOG, Rebirth is not required to run the game and therefore isn't allowed as per SDA. Although right now there seem to be some problems with legal purchasing: http://www.planetdescent.net/index.php?topic=1463.0

That's likely to be temporary though so in case you already have either one of those (or are playing the old unpatched versions on a native system) you could keep running those. Otherwise here's the rules page.

I'm not going to get into categories since I don't run and can't devote more time to the game. Still based on what you and the guy on YT have said, I still don't see a legit reason why ILs need to be deathless as opposed to as fast as possible. It's the other way around: first comes speed. Whatever other categories you wanna add aside from that, you may if the community feels it's interesting enough. As I said, I only know of Doom as the exception to this, and the Doom community is basically the oldest one so its rules predate SDA. I don't know about the Descent community.

I took a look at one of the max runs but I won't have time for any more sadly, not unless something can actually be submitted to SDA, because then I can watch them in verification (I generally never have time for runs that don't either need feedback or are being processed). If you wanna suggest some category definition at some point, you can PM one of the guys marked in green in the users list directly. They're also usually a bit busy and don't tend to read threads a lot.
Srry for my late response:

I use rebirth v 0.58.1. so I guess it can't be official here. But since like "everyone" use this port, I believe it is the right choice. Btw single segment runs accepted on speedrun.com are also done in this version of rebirth.

About deaths in ILs: Technically you are ofc right. My point is, that in past there was interest only at deathless ILs, so I give it more credit and I find it objectively more important category.
Hello,

in case you are somehow interested in this game, you might enjoy watching it. I just finished speedrunning of 100% runs (cold start, no death, saving hostages, collecting extra lifes, destroying all robots level starts with) on INSANE difficulty! All levels. You can watch them all here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZACA5NM46_GY2TEcyXJl9S7uLGIRhEzc

I also made speedruns of deathless any% on hotshot in past and improved previous records by stx-Vile. Also all levels. You can watch them here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZACA5NM46_EXZf_AYZMRTPAc9yV5CZcD
Glad you managed to put out such nice runs! I took another read through some of the back-and-forth from before. I also took some time to see what the Rebirth port's features are. I see that it's mostly cosmetic and compatibility stuff (though it's not strictly needed because of the official rereleases, as I brought up earlier). However, one thing caught my eye: it seems demo files produced by the port are backwards-compatible? Can those be made to run reliably in the GOG/Steam version[s] of D1/2? I believe this is the way Doom runners know if a source port should be acceptable. I don't know off the top of my head what runs SDA may have that have been accepted run on source ports based on this but it's enough to bring it up with the rest of the staff. I obviously wasn't staff back then so I'm in a slightly different position now.

Did you record demo files at all?

The "max" category, alas, still doesn't seem verifiable. I'm not promising anything (and I don't know if you even care), but if we were to accept Rebirth demos, then perhaps some kind of modification would allow the displaying of kills for verification purposes as discussed before if some tech wiz can make it so.
Thank you! I just bought descent on Steam to try if my demo files work there and the answer is yes. I'm not expert to honestly say how much different the game is with rebirth port to original. But original game is in 320x240 resolution, so it is unplayble, since it requires a lot of precision to speedrun, mainly on insane. Rebirth also allows advantage configuration as changing buttons for weapons, disabling autoswitching to certain weapons after picking it up or order of autoselected weapons. These are just details, but useful details. So if I would be pedant, it is definitely not exactly the same as original. On the other hand, no one will ever play original again and no one would watch it, because you nearly can't say what is on the screen.

If it would be realistic to accept it, I can try ask on descent forum, if such a tool (display of kills) can be done.
Hmm... So basically we really don't like gameplay alterations. If the weapon switching was inconvenient in the original, that's just how it happens to be. You can't arbitrarily first code some improvements to the game, then call you speedrunning that version a speedrun of the game. Also the demo syncing thing (which is true for something like some Doom ports, Doom being a legacy case anyway), according to one of our staff members is different in Descent. In Doom, the game records your inputs and deterministically plays them back, causing everything else to happen the same way naturally (and proving, roughly, that the same demo could have been recorded in the original version). However, in Descent, it records every entity's positions on every frame. It essentially hammers everything into position each frame without really letting the engine recreate the gameplay. This would be why there's backwards-compatibility despite the obvious difference in the weapon pickups, which should cause desyncing to happen.

The resolution: It seems you should be able to edit the DOSBox configuration. Tell me if this causes a noticeably drop in framerate. Doing this config edit should be easy even if you've never done that, you just look for the dosbox.cfg file wherever the game is installed, open in notepad, go to the very bottom where the lines are that launch the game, and like this guy did, add -640x480 or something else after where the game exec file is.

I don't really think there's a compatibility issue with the GOG/Steam versions (which would be a reason we would consider it), so in principle we don't really wanna start accepting source ports just cause. If you disable those features (any that affect gameplay), you're back to playing essentially vanilla Descent again (but there may be subtle differences) so we might as well rule it out completely, and this way current and future differences won't change the gameplay at all. BTW: DOSBox allows changing keybinds so that's not an issue.

The majority of speedrunners out there these days don't really care much what SDA (or anyone else) thinks. They just think about their own convenience and make sometimes quite random allowances (like deleting some game files to remove cutscenes). SDA's rules, on the other hand, are something that developed over the course of time, shaped by tons of people coming to the forums and challenging the existing ones. For example, early on we didn't accept adventure game runs at all for understandable but silly reasons. If it wasn't for a site like SDA, the whole concept of a speedrun would be less-defined than it is today. If you feel legitimacy is something that can't be defined in a vacuum (of just one game or game series), feel free to do more runs on either of the official rereleases and submit those. Otherwise you can obviously still post about new runs in this thread.

As for the 100%, this is still problematic as before. In principle, we could allow hacking in an enemies-killed counter, but firstly this would be even more difficult to do in the official versions I imagine. Even if you argue by the game score definition (life items included), verifying would rely on a big amount of game knowledge so basically everyone would really just have to take the runner's word for it, and it's a bit confusing for the viewer because some enemies are ignored. I think it's a fun idea but sadly a lot of games just don't support such categories very well. SDA has been quite conservative about this kind of stuff, but that's why SRC is also good to have around, because we're not saying people shouldn't run such categories.

What we COULD maybe allow (this isn't a promise yet), is getting 0 points, however you lose all points when you die don't you? In any case there's deaths/deathless. That's a de facto accept and easy to verify. In any case feel free to comment on any of this.
I understand, that it can't be accepted here. Well, frame rate seems to be really low anyway in version from Steam, I can't play that well even with that edit in DOSBox configuration. But to be honest, I wouldn't play it again even if it would be "playable". I spent a lot of time to make these runs during last few years and I have other ambitions in life, so there is no way for me to think about doing it again. By descent players (at least from what I know) Rebirth is considered closest to original, it is let's say "unofficially official", so I felt it is best choice to play it this way.

100% is really problematic without kill counter. In some cases I had to play it again, because of lack of evidence (for example robot can be killed by missile of another robot and in that situation you don't earn points, so if it happens out of screen you can have a problem with verifying; or mixing robots from matcen to original robots etc), so even for experience player it can be really hard to verify and sometimes impossible. Some tool would help me a lot, but doesn't matter for me now, since I already managed to do them all in way, where it is possible to verify. But as you said a lot of experience with the game is needed.

Srry for my ignorance, what is SRC? Also I don't understand your last part. "What we COULD maybe allow (this isn't a promise yet), is getting 0 points, however you lose all points when you die don't you?" Can you explain it more widely please? I really don't know what do you mean :). ´Do you mean category, where have to finish the level without getting any points? (only must 5000 for destroying reactor)
We're going by the assumption that any game sold on GOG/Steam should be playable. I know there are exceptions, e.g. the config they've chosen isn't the optimal. In such cases, it may be justified to e.g. adjust the CPU cycles, however if this means you're gaining an advantage over somebody else with a slower computer, that presents a new problem. This is, in essence, the same as some other games where a frame cap is required. By "really low" how low do you mean (on 320x240?) and what kind of computer are you running it on? E.g. what modern game can you run and on what kinds of settings?

Speedrunners often don't really take the initiative to challenge whatever the previous guy did, whether or not that's the logical thing to have done. This is why we have to sometimes go against established procedures.

Sorry, by SRC I meant Speedrun.com. The 0 points (low%) was just an idea. Indeed this is a goal that's much much easier to track. It could simply be defined as the score counter never ticking up. Is it not possible to destroy the reactor using other bots? Did you say there was bot friendly fire?
Well, it is possible to play the game, but I can't imagine speedrunning it, especially on insane. I don't know how to find out exact frame rate, I don't have any program for it. I just say from what I saw, when I tried play it. My PC is old, intel core 2 quad 2,4 Ghz, 2 GB RAM, windows xp. I don't play computer games at all. The newest game I have played is trackmania, from 2008 or so? I chose rebirth because stx-Vile played it and did his hotshot speedruns in rebirth too. I also took his rules (deathless), to challenge him. Actually it was even more challenging, because I played it with fixed bug (he played it with buggy version, where you can easily destroy reactor by one fusion shot, because it hits reactor multiple times). Still I managed to beat all his times without that bug (except maxed run on secret level 2, there I tied him - it takes 9 seconds). So I think my decision was fine :).

About that 0 points - the only enemy's weapon that can cause a damage to another enemy is a missile, so you basicly need specific type of enemy close to reactor to make such a thing. And I actually don't know if it can make damage to reactor, never tried that. Anyway interesting idea, but that reactor 5000pts is a must.
Edit history:
LotBlind: 2018-12-01 12:57:54 pm
Ok, so I don't think we can rule out the official releases based on poor performance on a computer of the sort you described.

So the source port fixes a bug in the original? Or a bug that it itself introduced? In either case that kind of stuff is exactly why we don't like them. At no point can we ban running the original versions of these games, nor do we want to duplicate categories based on which port or version you're running.

I think there probably isn't a lot more to say, though it's good this discussion was had. If anyone is reading this and thinking of doing a low% run based on getting a 0 score, this should be fine, but if there's even a small chance of avoiding the 5000 points, you have to. Please do post here about any findings before recording such a run.
It is little bit more complicated. From what I heard there were changes even in original game. First release of the game had less powerful fusion and it took more energy from you. Also first boss had more stamina. Then they changed it in official game. Idk if there was fusion bug in both of this versions, but for sure at one of them yes. First release of rebirth had also this fusion bug, it was repaired in later version.
Edit history:
LotBlind: 2018-12-01 12:57:59 pm
All of the original patch versions are allowed, you choose whichever one is fastest. If you want more info on SDA's rules, you can read them here.

And in case the runs Marvin posted were flooded out, check out this post.
Ok, thank you for info.