MechWarrior 2: Ghost Bear's Legacy

PROX

Edit history:

PROX: 2022-02-07 07:29:31 pm

PROX: 2022-02-07 07:28:07 pm

2022-02-07 07:24:53 pm

Quote from Worn_Traveler:

I forgot about this series.

I watched the three videos and seeing each run submitted here improve was really cool. The video quality on the third video was way better and some of the movement in the underwater level made more sense now that I could make out landscape.

There was a brief "Null segment" that flashed on to the game screen during the DNA 1 segment.

I look forward to reading the comments for this should it be published. Keep up the great work!

Yeah, the developers missed that one. It was pretty notorious when the expansion pack came out lol

LotBlind

Edit history:

LotBlind: 2022-02-08 05:50:36 am

2022-02-08 05:50:26 am

I added the "Bloodname Missions" tag to this run. I also created segmented categories in case someone wants to run the game that way, squeezing everything out of each mission. Also we can always generate whatever the hard difficulty is called. Will watch the latest run later.

PROX

2022-02-08 01:09:08 pm

Quote from LotBlind:

I added the "Bloodname Missions" tag to this run. I also created segmented categories in case someone wants to run the game that way, squeezing everything out of each mission. Also we can always generate whatever the hard difficulty is called. Will watch the latest run later.

Nice, that'll be very helpful. As far as segments are concerned, I do have IL times, but some of them have commentary in the main video, so I'll have to re-record those.

LotBlind

Edit history:

LotBlind: 2022-02-08 02:08:02 pm

2022-02-08 02:07:13 pm

I'm guessing you didn't complete most of your runs so it didn't save the real old gold splits? Otherwise getting that many is unusual.

I'm curious why the explosions create those opaque rectangles? Is that a setting in the game to save CPU or something?

Your comments are now very helpful! I finally understand why you can just enter mountains like that. Good for understanding this run as a whole Tongue

BTW: In the future, either plain text or html formats are better than .doc since those we have to convert. It looks mostly the same on this occasion but it can cause it to look different from intended as well.

20:37 - There is still some artifacting here but it's not nearly as bad. Did you try DOSBox native recording as per one of my suggestions btw? If you think of more ways to improve on the quality, don't hesitate to try.

29:35 - This looks really silly because it's exactly the kind of thing that can only happen if you haven't made the same mistake before (or if you're distracted). The more attempts you do, the less of these kinds of unforced errors there will be.

Another small thing would be at times when you have plenty of ammo, starting to fire hitscan weapons slightly before enemies are in range will save a little time each time, with no downsides (?) Otherwise you're losing your own reaction time's worth of time.

oh, and despite the small artifacting that luckily only affects a few parts of the run, I think this can now receive an

accept

I'm guessing you didn't complete most of your runs so it didn't save the real old gold splits? Otherwise getting that many is unusual.

I'm curious why the explosions create those opaque rectangles? Is that a setting in the game to save CPU or something?

Your comments are now very helpful! I finally understand why you can just enter mountains like that. Good for understanding this run as a whole :P BTW: In the future, either plain text or html formats are better than .doc since those we have to convert. It looks mostly the same on this occasion but it can cause it to look different from intended as well.

20:37 - There is still some artifacting here but it's not nearly as bad. Did you try DOSBox native recording as per one of my suggestions btw? If you think of more ways to improve on the quality, don't hesitate to try.

29:35 - This looks really silly because it's exactly the kind of thing that can only happen if you haven't made the same mistake before (or if you're distracted). The more attempts you do, the less of these kinds of unforced errors there will be.

Another small thing would be at times when you have plenty of ammo, starting to fire hitscan weapons slightly before enemies are in range will save a little time each time, with no downsides (?) Otherwise you're losing your own reaction time's worth of time.

oh, and despite the small artifacting that luckily only affects a few parts of the run, I think this can now receive an

accept

PROX

Edit history:

PROX: 2022-02-08 02:39:06 pm

PROX: 2022-02-08 02:36:01 pm

PROX: 2022-02-08 02:35:23 pm

2022-02-08 02:33:22 pm

Quote from LotBlind:

I'm guessing you didn't complete most of your runs so it didn't save the real old gold splits? Otherwise getting that many is unusual.

I'm curious why the explosions create those opaque rectangles? Is that a setting in the game to save CPU or something?

Your comments are now very helpful! I finally understand why you can just enter mountains like that. Good for understanding this run as a whole Tongue

BTW: In the future, either plain text or html formats are better than .doc since those we have to convert. It looks mostly the same on this occasion but it can cause it to look different from intended as well.

20:37 - There is still some artifacting here but it's not nearly as bad. Did you try DOSBox native recording as per one of my suggestions btw? If you think of more ways to improve on the quality, don't hesitate to try.

29:35 - This looks really silly because it's exactly the kind of thing that can only happen if you haven't made the same mistake before (or if you're distracted). The more attempts you do, the less of these kinds of unforced errors there will be.

Another small thing would be at times when you have plenty of ammo, starting to fire hitscan weapons slightly before enemies are in range will save a little time each time, with no downsides (?) Otherwise you're losing your own reaction time's worth of time.

oh, and despite the small artifacting that luckily only affects a few parts of the run, I think this can now receive an

accept

Thanks! I appreciate the feedback as well, yes, I can fire as I approach the mechs, but sometimes startup rng messes with me. It's not really possible to gauge since the mechs tend to start up whenever they feel like it. That mistake I made is actually pretty rare honestly. I usually don't hit the wall, or miss the Naga. I guess I get a bit nervous when a run goes incredibly well. Some of the stuff that happened in it was pretty crazy.

The reason why the explosions create those rectangles in wireframe is because those are stock images or rather, gifs.

Yes, I failed most of my runs due to either bad rng, weird mech movement, weird collision with mechs after they explode, Underwater Strike shenanigans, or I ran out of ammo because mechs were being holograms rather than solid objects.

Also weapon range is a thing as well, so that needs to be taken into account, plus ballistics have a bad habit of either phasing through mechs sometimes, or they end up hitting an arm or the torso when you're clearly aiming at the leg. Mechs have bounding spheres rather than hurtboxes. I can't even count how many times I've run out of ammo just because I fired at the mech too much lol

[quote="LotBlind"]I'm guessing you didn't complete most of your runs so it didn't save the real old gold splits? Otherwise getting that many is unusual.

I'm curious why the explosions create those opaque rectangles? Is that a setting in the game to save CPU or something?

Your comments are now very helpful! I finally understand why you can just enter mountains like that. Good for understanding this run as a whole :P BTW: In the future, either plain text or html formats are better than .doc since those we have to convert. It looks mostly the same on this occasion but it can cause it to look different from intended as well.

20:37 - There is still some artifacting here but it's not nearly as bad. Did you try DOSBox native recording as per one of my suggestions btw? If you think of more ways to improve on the quality, don't hesitate to try.

29:35 - This looks really silly because it's exactly the kind of thing that can only happen if you haven't made the same mistake before (or if you're distracted). The more attempts you do, the less of these kinds of unforced errors there will be.

Another small thing would be at times when you have plenty of ammo, starting to fire hitscan weapons slightly before enemies are in range will save a little time each time, with no downsides (?) Otherwise you're losing your own reaction time's worth of time.

oh, and despite the small artifacting that luckily only affects a few parts of the run, I think this can now receive an

accept[/quote]

Thanks! I appreciate the feedback as well, yes, I can fire as I approach the mechs, but sometimes startup rng messes with me. It's not really possible to gauge since the mechs tend to start up whenever they feel like it. That mistake I made is actually pretty rare honestly. I usually don't hit the wall, or miss the Naga. I guess I get a bit nervous when a run goes incredibly well. Some of the stuff that happened in it was pretty crazy.

The reason why the explosions create those rectangles in wireframe is because those are stock images or rather, gifs.

Yes, I failed most of my runs due to either bad rng, weird mech movement, weird collision with mechs after they explode, Underwater Strike shenanigans, or I ran out of ammo because mechs were being holograms rather than solid objects.

Also weapon range is a thing as well, so that needs to be taken into account, plus ballistics have a bad habit of either phasing through mechs sometimes, or they end up hitting an arm or the torso when you're clearly aiming at the leg. Mechs have bounding spheres rather than hurtboxes. I can't even count how many times I've run out of ammo just because I fired at the mech too much lol

SDAVerification

2022-02-08 04:53:44 pm

Decision posted.

LotBlind

2022-02-09 01:13:06 pm

Well, grats for this one and don't hesitate to complain profusely about the game you're running in your comments if you submit again! Good luck...

PROX

2022-02-16 11:15:56 pm

So I'm curious as to when the game page will be ready. I don't know how long that generally takes. I know my video needed to be edited and whatnot.

LotBlind

Edit history:

LotBlind: 2022-02-17 08:22:57 am

2022-02-17 08:22:41 am

Yes, so that generally takes a month or two. Now that there's no more runs to verify, I'll get on writing the update and doing other necessary things in the backend. IsraeliRD will time the run.

PROX

2022-02-17 11:54:14 am

Ah gotcha. No problem

LotBlind

2022-02-24 01:48:35 pm

Can you tell us if there's any reason to separate MW2 and this expansion into different games on different gamepages? That could be smart if the game behaves in quite a different way if the expansion is installed, like did you say the AI is a lot better?

PROX

Edit history:

PROX: 2022-02-24 11:37:03 pm

PROX: 2022-02-24 11:36:22 pm

2022-02-24 11:33:52 pm

Quote from LotBlind:

Can you tell us if there's any reason to separate MW2 and this expansion into different games on different gamepages? That could be smart if the game behaves in quite a different way if the expansion is installed, like did you say the AI is a lot better?

It is an expansion, but it's a separate game that uses the same engine. It'll be best if the game pages are different since they are two different games. You'd need one for Mechwarrior 2 31st Century Combat and one for Ghost Bear's Legacy. It's like Mechwarrior 3 and Mechwarrior 3 Pirate's Moon.

LotBlind

2022-03-01 01:45:23 pm

Ok, so be it.

PROX

Edit history:

PROX: 2022-04-03 12:27:12 am

PROX: 2022-04-02 10:03:21 pm

PROX: 2022-04-02 09:23:55 pm

PROX: 2022-04-02 08:59:44 pm

PROX: 2022-04-02 08:11:32 pm

2022-04-02 08:06:46 pm

Hey, it's been about a month or so since I last heard anything. Any updates on the progress of the game page?

EDIT: nvm, I see it lol. Thanks, though I have to wonder why the time is incorrect. The correct time is 35:20 with the bloodname missions included, and 31:55 without the bloodname missions, so I don't know what happened there lol. The bloodname missions count in the overall time for the category

IsraeliRD

2022-04-03 07:51:28 am

Dragon Power Supreme

SDA timing for PC games such as this one excludes menus & loading screens from timing. I hope this helps!

PROX

2022-04-03 11:06:27 am

Ah I see. That makes more sense then

LotBlind

2022-04-05 06:43:16 am

I have trouble remembering this stuff as well... that means your menu mistakes didn't particularly count against you in the runs where there were some.

PROX

2022-04-05 12:55:12 pm

Quote from LotBlind:

I have trouble remembering this stuff as well... that means your menu mistakes didn't particularly count against you in the runs where there were some.

It's fine. I was really surprised when I saw the time because I have livesplit running on the side whenever I do full runs. Either way, I'll still do the menuing well because I also upload to speedrun.com.

LotBlind

2022-04-08 08:02:53 am

Yeah, SDA does some stuff better (or "better") but it takes more effort. Like timing in general, I think so-called community timing from pressing "new game" in the menu is more a convenience thing rather than a statement that it makes more sense than start-of-control to end-of-control like we do. This particular rule I asked Israeli why it exists. Here's what he said:

sometimes the menus have loading screens between some sections of the menuing, and i didn't want the headache of figuring out what are the loading screens, so i decided to focus strictly on gameplay. this can't be ILs either because the way the game is set up, a chosen Mech stays with you for a few missions before you have the option to change it (and stick with it for a few missions)
8:42
it also makes it easier should we receive future runs to very quickly time the speedrun
8:42
some menus in some games are faster/slower depending on the CPU as well, fun ain't it

So it's actually a convenience thing for US to time it like this, turns out, but it's still more precise in the sense that at least CPU speeds don't impact menu loading times like this.

Yeah, SDA does some stuff better (or "better") but it takes more effort. Like timing in general, I think so-called community timing from pressing "new game" in the menu is more a convenience thing rather than a statement that it makes more sense than start-of-control to end-of-control like we do. This particular rule I asked Israeli why it exists. Here's what he said:

sometimes the menus have loading screens between some sections of the menuing, and i didn't want the headache of figuring out what are the loading screens, so i decided to focus strictly on gameplay. this can't be ILs either because the way the game is set up, a chosen Mech stays with you for a few missions before you have the option to change it (and stick with it for a few missions)
8:42
it also makes it easier should we receive future runs to very quickly time the speedrun
8:42
some menus in some games are faster/slower depending on the CPU as well, fun ain't it

So it's actually a convenience thing for US to time it like this, turns out, but it's still more precise in the sense that at least CPU speeds don't impact menu loading times like this.

PROX

2022-04-08 03:02:09 pm

Quote from LotBlind:

sometimes the menus have loading screens between some sections of the menuing, and i didn't want the headache of figuring out what are the loading screens, so i decided to focus strictly on gameplay. this can't be ILs either because the way the game is set up, a chosen Mech stays with you for a few missions before you have the option to change it (and stick with it for a few missions)

It's funny he brought that up because it's actually possible to do IL runs in this game as well. Once you complete the campaign, you can go back to previous missions and select whatever mech you want before starting the mission (except underwater strike for obvious reasons.) The bloodname missions are also not a part of that list on the file select screen either which is really weird, but hey, at least you can play the normal campaign missions by themselves. Mech 2 31cc did it better with a cheat code which allows you to access any mission at any given time. You just need to name yourself "freebirthtoad" and you have access to the complete campaign at any time. It's a good way to practice and grind for IL times in that game. 31cc has a list on the file select screen too, but it doesn't let you select a mech on that screen. It only allows you to play with the default stock mech that would normally be assigned to you. In GBL, the list takes you to the mechlab and you can basically do whatever you want after you complete the game. If you're still in the middle of the campaign, however, you're stuck with the mech you chose initially. It's really weird how it works, but yeah.

[quote="LotBlind"]sometimes the menus have loading screens between some sections of the menuing, and i didn't want the headache of figuring out what are the loading screens, so i decided to focus strictly on gameplay. this can't be ILs either because the way the game is set up, a chosen Mech stays with you for a few missions before you have the option to change it (and stick with it for a few missions)[/quote]

It's funny he brought that up because it's actually possible to do IL runs in this game as well. Once you complete the campaign, you can go back to previous missions and select whatever mech you want before starting the mission (except underwater strike for obvious reasons.) The bloodname missions are also not a part of that list on the file select screen either which is really weird, but hey, at least you can play the normal campaign missions by themselves. Mech 2 31cc did it better with a cheat code which allows you to access any mission at any given time. You just need to name yourself "freebirthtoad" and you have access to the complete campaign at any time. It's a good way to practice and grind for IL times in that game. 31cc has a list on the file select screen too, but it doesn't let you select a mech on that screen. It only allows you to play with the default stock mech that would normally be assigned to you. In GBL, the list takes you to the mechlab and you can basically do whatever you want after you complete the game. If you're still in the middle of the campaign, however, you're stuck with the mech you chose initially. It's really weird how it works, but yeah.

LotBlind

2022-04-09 08:47:04 am

Okay then, ILs are a-go. If there's usually non-trivial differences (I assume there would be), we can even split it into NG ILs (with the default mech) and NG+ ILs (with any mech you like).

PROX

2022-04-09 01:06:42 pm

Quote from LotBlind:

Okay then, ILs are a-go. If there's usually non-trivial differences (I assume there would be), we can even split it into NG ILs (with the default mech) and NG+ ILs (with any mech you like).

NG ILs might as well just be a segmented speedrun at that point lol

LotBlind

2022-04-10 09:18:13 am

If the differences are small, then sure. We can give the runners the go-ahead for submitting various kinds of categories within reason but ultimately they decide what's actually worthwhile. I'll get watching those new ILs soon btw.