Quest for Glory - Single Segment Multi-Game Gauntlet (All Five Games)

mrprmiller

Edit history:

mrprmiller: 2016-01-20 03:07:26 pm

mrprmiller: 2015-03-23 11:23:24 pm

mrprmiller: 2015-03-12 08:22:06 pm

mrprmiller: 2015-03-12 06:29:36 pm

mrprmiller: 2015-03-12 06:26:45 pm

mrprmiller: 2015-03-12 06:24:16 pm

2015-03-12 06:22:22 pm

Everyday is puppies and sunshine...

This discussion was in the PC games discussion thread, but since there is no precedent for a multigame single-segment category, I am moving the discussion to the casual speedrunning section.

Been working on this series for quite a number of years, and I have runs for pretty much every category in for verification now. QFG1 and 4 are in private verification already. Run on the GOG.com versions, with GOG.com settings with a few changes preventing crashes already accepted as legitimate in verification. Only difference was QFG2, which is an earlier, unpatched version that allows the "sell beard" glitch to happen, with one patch added to that version to correct an importing issue (all characters were imported as Fighters; this cannot happen, obviously :D). Also, changed output to OpenGL to allow Fraps to record it.

On a technical note, I made up a batch file which would mount A: as to an EXPORT folder and automatically load the next game when I hit a key (Y/N doesn't matter).

Verifiers for two games are still available if anyone is interested:
Quest for Glory 3 - https://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/verificationoffer/1609/
Quest for Glory 2 - https://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/verificationoffer/1607/

Anyway, I finally did a speedrun of the first FOUR games. I'm having trouble recording QFGV because I have a non-standard monitor size that makes the game's 1024x768 look pretty bad, but if I can figure it out I will be working on that game as well to incorporate it. I have QFG5 working, and will start practicing now. It's the one I am LEAST familiar with. My first attempt went well, but the audio went out of sync for some reason. As it stands now, though, here is the second attempt:

I have it estimated at 1:26:23, Any%. Did all four runs as the Thief, only because the Thief is consistently the fastest in the first four games, with very little RNG to worry about that isn't correctable.

Four reloads: two from deaths, two from glitches; all in QFG2. Only one of the deaths was pretty costly. I am a father of two with another on the way, a husband, a grad student and a minister; I only get this stuff done when I have a few free hours, which isn't often anymore. Smiley

Any suggestions on improvements would be great.

Thread title:

This discussion was in the PC games discussion thread, but since there is no precedent for a multigame single-segment category, I am moving the discussion to the casual speedrunning section.

Been working on this series for quite a number of years, and I have runs for pretty much every category in for verification now.  QFG1 and 4 are in private verification already.  Run on the GOG.com versions, with GOG.com settings with a few changes preventing crashes already accepted as legitimate in verification.  Only difference was QFG2, which is an earlier, unpatched version that allows the "sell beard" glitch to happen, with one patch added to that version to correct an importing issue (all characters were imported as Fighters; this cannot happen, obviously :D).  Also, changed output to OpenGL to allow Fraps to record it.

On a technical note, I made up a batch file which would mount A: as to an EXPORT folder and automatically load the next game when I hit a key (Y/N doesn't matter).

Verifiers for two games are still available if anyone is interested:
Quest for Glory 3 - https://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/verificationoffer/1609/
Quest for Glory 2 - https://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/verificationoffer/1607/

Anyway, I finally did a speedrun of the first FOUR games.  [s]I'm having trouble recording QFGV because I have a non-standard monitor size that makes the game's 1024x768 look pretty bad, but if I can figure it out I will be working on that game as well to incorporate it.[/s]  I have QFG5 working, and will start practicing now.  It's the one I am LEAST familiar with.  My first attempt went well, but the audio went out of sync for some reason.  As it stands now, though, here is the second attempt:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCxZs9Hdwtk

I have it estimated at 1:26:23, Any%.  Did all four runs as the Thief, only because the Thief is consistently the fastest in the first four games, with very little RNG to worry about that isn't correctable.

Four reloads: two from deaths, two from glitches; all in QFG2.  Only one of the deaths was pretty costly.  I am a father of two with another on the way, a husband, a grad student and a minister; I only get this stuff done when I have a few free hours, which isn't often anymore.  :)

Any suggestions on improvements would be great.

mrprmiller

Edit history:

mrprmiller: 2015-03-23 11:43:22 pm

mrprmiller: 2015-03-23 11:41:53 pm

2015-03-23 11:28:01 pm

Everyday is puppies and sunshine...

Discovered a new glitch in the first game that I would consider game-shattering. With so many run-killing ones, it was nice to finally find one after all this time that is beneficial. On the marathon run, it will immediately save 5 minutes and make a Low% QFG1, and it is 100% consistent. I'm thrilled, obviously... but that wasn't good enough.

So I put together all the beneficial glitches I know of and got these runs. I start time when I gain control of the character, and time ends when I lose it by going through the exit in the Brigand Leader's Room.

Fighter is around 2:35:

Magic-User is around 2:34:

Thief is around 2:19:

mrprmiller

Edit history:

mrprmiller: 2015-03-25 09:17:52 am

2015-03-25 08:57:40 am

Everyday is puppies and sunshine...

New PB time on the first four games using the new skip: 1:22:36. Shaved off four minutes, and the gameplay looks much smoother despite the short drop in time. I believe my other times are consistent enough to not change drastically.

The new route in game one keeps my health much lower than I was used to and QFG2 becomes VERY dangerous. I found out that one hit from the Fire Elemental kills you, so that requires a safety save. I also found out that the fire room in the Forbidden City is WAY more dangerous than it ever was, and pretty much requires a health pill to get through. The mana pill I bought ended up not being important enough to warrant the trip, because if you wish for health from the djinni you get enough of a boost to survive the jump, which makes the 7MP Levitate unnecessary.

Will be uploading to Youtube soon.

mrprmiller

Edit history:

mrprmiller: 2015-03-28 05:54:40 am

mrprmiller: 2015-03-26 02:34:39 pm

2015-03-26 09:01:49 am

Everyday is puppies and sunshine...

1:22:36 - ~~Some kind of encoding error, which put lines through it. Will re-encode later and try to figure out what happened going from the AVI to Yua to YouTube, but the gameplay is largely viewable.~~ New video is up and everything looks nice. DOS was working at 16:9 but the games themselves seem to be in the 4:3 aspect. So I ran through a 16:9 at 4:3 settings through Yua and got those lines... will need to work on some settings to not cut out the DOS parts, even though they aren't important. Anyway, if any is keeping up, enjoy.

Crow!

2015-03-31 12:03:13 pm

What's that gemma?

QFG1's looking pretty silly now. I always did like 100% better, and if assembling the Dispel potion isn't even necessary, any% is starting to look suspiciously similar to a credits warp run.

mrprmiller

Edit history:

mrprmiller: 2015-03-31 01:17:09 pm

2015-03-31 12:34:32 pm

Everyday is puppies and sunshine...

Completely agree, which is why I think it should be a separate category (major-skips) if skipping the dispel potion. The Dispel Potion basically is the purpose of the entire quest (barring Baba Yaga, which would only add a minute or so), and relies so heavily on a last minute glitch that it skips the entire premise of the game. I submitted a Thief major-skip run, and in my comments file, advocated for it to be considered something separate. It is a little different from a credit's warp; there's still plenty of places to die. I still occasionally mess up and die in the Brigand's Base every couple of attempts, of which I am ashamed to say.

I did find a standard automatic death "save" you can use if you can use for the last part of the Brigand's Cafeteria. If the chandelier is about to fall on them, and you actually click too early on the door, normally you'll get the message about them barging in and killing you still. If you move your mouse over the open door and click furiously, and if the chandelier does actually fall before you die, you can make another attempt to get through the door and save yourself from death. I thought I may have found a skip through that room with this glitch, but I believe the way the room is programmed is that the door only becomes an exit once the chandelier falls.

Thief and Magic-User are completely identical to the click in a single QFG1 with this Dispel skip route. The Fighter needs to grind a bit still, but isn't much slower. About 45 seconds to a minute is my guess. It actually changes my Fighter Any% route pretty considerably, because Throwing is now pretty much useless (ironically, because the throwing skill is the catalyst for big glitch).

If there was a category for the multi-game assault on SDA, it would need to be ironed out as to what is glitched/too much... which might be a discussion for some games, but I think we all agree that skipping the Dispel Potion is certainly a little different from Any%. It also is pretty funny, no matter how many times I see it.

I may or may not work on 100% next. The possibility of new skips does excite me, though.

That being said, in the multi-game gauntlet, Thief and Magic-User would be a bit different to make sure you had Flame Dart and Trigger. I'm not sure those would automagically appear, because they do not for the Thief, hence why I get Fetch. I'll do some tests to find out. The Fighter is the Any% route that scares me the most, as Weapon Skill, Strength, Vitality and Agility are vastly important in game three, but underleveled by the time you get there. You could use the Djinni to give yourself a boost in two of these stats in QFG2, but it would require some clever grinding to actually be strong/durable/skilled enough to kill the T-Rex for the horn in QFG3. Also, you need 125 Throwing in QFG3 to trigger the Fighter scenes. What a mess.

I'm encoding a new Anthology run now, which is around 1:15:41 when combining the times for all the games. It'll be up tonight, likely. The link to the video is in this post. Knocked off about seven minutes from my PB, which shocked me, and may in part be related to me using a Roland MT-32 sound emulator. It sounds so nice. Also, I had flawless RNG in QFG3 the likes of which I had never seen.

I have been doing some routing on QFG5 and version number is going to play a big role, I believe.

Completely agree, which is why I think it should be a separate category (major-skips) if skipping the dispel potion.  The Dispel Potion basically is the purpose of the entire quest (barring Baba Yaga, which would only add a minute or so), and relies so heavily on a last minute glitch that it skips the entire premise of the game.  I submitted a Thief major-skip run, and in my comments file, advocated for it to be considered something separate.  It is a little different from a credit's warp; there's still plenty of places to die.  I still occasionally mess up and die in the Brigand's Base every couple of attempts, of which I am ashamed to say.

I did find a standard automatic death "save" you can use if you can use for the last part of the Brigand's Cafeteria.  If the chandelier is about to fall on them, and you actually click too early on the door, normally you'll get the message about them barging in and killing you still.  If you move your mouse over the open door and click furiously, and if the chandelier does actually fall before you die, you can make another attempt to get through the door and save yourself from death.  I thought I may have found a skip through that room with this glitch, but I believe the way the room is programmed is that the door only becomes an exit once the chandelier falls.

Thief and Magic-User are completely identical to the click in a single QFG1 with this Dispel skip route.  The Fighter needs to grind a bit still, but isn't much slower.  About 45 seconds to a minute is my guess.  It actually changes my Fighter Any% route pretty considerably, because Throwing is now pretty much useless (ironically, because the throwing skill is the catalyst for big glitch).

If there was a category for the multi-game assault on SDA, it would need to be ironed out as to what is glitched/too much... which might be a discussion for some games, but I think we all agree that skipping the Dispel Potion is certainly a little different from Any%.  It also is pretty funny, no matter how many times I see it.

I may or may not work on 100% next.  The possibility of new skips does excite me, though.

That being said, in the multi-game gauntlet, Thief and Magic-User would be a bit different to make sure you had Flame Dart and Trigger.  I'm not sure those would automagically appear, because they do not for the Thief, hence why I get Fetch.  I'll do some tests to find out.  The Fighter is the Any% route that scares me the most, as Weapon Skill, Strength, Vitality and Agility are vastly important in game three, but underleveled by the time you get there.  You could use the Djinni to give yourself a boost in two of these stats in QFG2, but it would require some clever grinding to actually be strong/durable/skilled enough to kill the T-Rex for the horn in QFG3.  Also, you need 125 Throwing in QFG3 to trigger the Fighter scenes.  What a mess.

I'm encoding a new Anthology run now, which is around [b]1:15:41[/b] when combining the times for all the games.  It'll be up tonight, likely.  The link to the video is in this post.  Knocked off about seven minutes from my PB, which shocked me, and may in part be related to me using a Roland MT-32 sound emulator.  It sounds so nice.  Also, I had flawless RNG in QFG3 the likes of which I had never seen.

I have been doing some routing on QFG5 and version number is going to play a big role, I believe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_61ggjq34o

mrprmiller

Edit history:

mrprmiller: 2015-11-20 05:55:19 am

2015-11-20 05:54:32 am

Everyday is puppies and sunshine...

Been some time since I updated, but after completing Dragon Fire the multi-game gauntlet's time, if I add it to the end of this run, is going to clock in around 1:23:00. I'll be working on that around Christmas time. But I've also managed to skip a portion of the Raseir waiting sequence on this first day!... and I have no idea how I did it. Doing seeming unimportant or worthless actions (button smashing and moving the mouse) seems to make the sequence go faster, but over a full minute was skipped. If this could be reproduced in day two of Raseir, I think we'd be looking at the Holy Grail of skips for this series.

Gotta work on finding out how to make it happen.

mrprmiller

2016-01-20 03:08:59 pm

Everyday is puppies and sunshine...

Here is the test product, before RPG Limit Break 2016, where I will be running this series :

I have left out a few new tricks, too. Wink

Silentsigil

2016-01-23 08:24:11 pm

This is friggin amazing. Congratulations, mrpmiller.

mrprmiller

2016-01-23 10:19:12 pm

Everyday is puppies and sunshine...

Thanks, sigil. I've already beaten this time, and the time allotted for RPG Limit Break 2016 is 1:40:00 total. In other words, I should be good. Cheesy

LotBlind

2016-03-04 10:51:29 am

Hmm.... I gotta watch it when the time comes.

Inb4 "Oh was it two weeks ago?"