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Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness (pc) (pc) [Any %] [Single Segment] [Character: Fighter]
Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness (pc) (pc) [Any %] [Single Segment] [New Game+] [Character: Thief]
Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness (pc) (pc) [Any %] [Single Segment] [Character: Wizard]
Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness (pc) (pc) [Any %] [Single Segment] [Character: Thief]

Verifier Responses

Quote from gammadragon:
Audio and video are good. There is an FPS counter in the top right of the screen in all 4 videos (FRAPS) but it doesn't block the view. As the runner offered, audio commentary is always a nice bonus, but not a requirement for verification.

Good execution with some minor interface errors and accidental clicks, but that's expected in Sierra adventure games (it wasn't designed for speedrunning!). There were a few wrong turns along the way but in general the movement is very fast and fluid. I was actually quite impressed with some of the arcade/puzzle sections (Dr. Cranium's antwerp maze).

Each of the four speedruns (Fighter, Wizard, Thief and Thief NG+) seem well routed and carefully thought out. It definitely feels like quite a bit of effort was taken to optimize the routes and everything is done in a sensible order, or well explained in the runners notes. I can't think of any major improvements. Apart from the obvious things, everything is detailed in the runner's notes. Unless some new glitches are found which allow bypassing of certain sections of the main quest, The only improvements I can see relate to better execution and better RNG. These are definitely good enough for an accept from me.

One thing that I may be able to shed light on is around the slime column - the runner's comments mention the glitch where the game fails to recognize that AVOOZL was spelled correctly, costing extra time to retry it. From my experience, the key thing which makes all the difference is to click exactly on each letter, rather than near the letter or inside the area surrounded by the letter. I remember playing this game a long time ago and being stuck on this "puzzle" for ages, thinking I had the wrong answer when actually it was the glitch that was breaking it. The same goes for the other hexapod symbol puzzle in the swamp, but that puzzle is skipped by turning the skill slider right down.

Verdict: Accept all

My time calculations below:

Fighter:
First control: 00m 25s, Final action: 33m 57s, Total: 33m 22s

Wizard:
First control: 00m 29s, Final action: 33m 55s, Total: 33m 26s

Thief:
First control: 00m 27s, Final action: 33m 08s, Total: 32m 41s

Thief NG+:
First control: 00m 28s, Final action: 30m 12s, Total: 29m 44s


Quote from btrim:
AV good

Quality of play is very good with some minor mistakes.  Routing of each character looks great.  Keeping the conversations to the minimum triggers and resting / sleeping in appropriate rooms. I can't remember if you can sleep until evening in your room.  I'm not sure if that would save a significant amount of time or just save clicks from multiple rests.

Using magic for every character is definitely a great strategy. It's too bad it removes some of the differences between the runs, but it's clearly faster.


Quote from Crow!:
A/V: recording quality is good.  The empty space on the sides should be cropped, and the rest of the screen should be resized to 4:3.

Rules stuff: the "NG+" run is actually an import run.

Critiques regarding gameplay:
He had a very hard time clicking the sliders during combat.
Errors with right clicking to next cursor icon (it's pretty hard).
I'm not convinced that constantly switching back to running stance is worth it in Avoozl's cave.

Fighter specific: Pathing error going toward Gypsy camp.
Wizard specific: some derping in selecting a place to rest before heading into the swamp, plus pathing error on the way to the fairy fight.  Video cuts out before the credits begin.
Thief specific: an odd bug I've never seen before makes entering the iron maiden pathway take 5 seconds longer than it should.

Overall, the routing is smart and the execution is on par with what I expect for a game of this length.  Accept to all 4 runs.


Decision: Accept

Congratulations to Paul 'The Reverend' Miller!
Thread title:  
Edit history:
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:09:47 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:09:36 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:08:42 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:06:48 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:06:16 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:06:02 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:05:35 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:04:54 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:04:42 pm
Everyday is puppies and sunshine...
I am extremely grateful for the positive response on these submissions.  I'll make some comments on the runs here for each of the verifiers, who have my sincerest thanks for their patience in watching about 2 hours worth of QFG4.  Cheesy  Rewatching these, I see so many mistakes I want to shake my head in frustration at times, but even in my new runs my route is not any different.

There is a final issue:
Crow! very correctly pointed out during the QFG1 quality test (done after these QFG4 submissions) that 4:3 is the original screen aspect ratio that this game runs in, but my encodes are 16:9 because of the way GOG did their settings in their release.  Crow! mentions this too in his verify, and I think he is right.  It would be easy to resize them to the correct aspect ratio in VirtualDub.  I have the original FRAPS recordings still, and could do the aspect fix along with cropping out the FRAPS counter for the StatID final encode.  What are the admins' thoughts on this?
Edit history:
mrprmiller: 2015-03-23 07:26:05 am
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:29:30 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:28:22 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:25:00 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:13:55 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:12:13 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:11:35 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 06:56:42 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 06:55:07 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 06:54:11 pm
Everyday is puppies and sunshine...
For gammadragon:

Quote:
There is an FPS counter in the top right of the screen in all 4 videos (FRAPS) but it doesn't block the view.

These were actually my first submissions, and I did not know what to expect.  I know much more about the process now.  Cheesy  Those blasted numbers won't show up in my later submissions, obviously, and will be cropped out of these runs for the StatID encode.

Quote:
As the runner offered, audio commentary is always a nice bonus, but not a requirement for verification.

That still stands.  If commentary on the ins and outs are wanted, I'd be happy to give them.  The problem is that I know so much more now and because of the verification process delay on these runs (I submitted my Fighter run back in December) I actually have beaten all four of these accepted times.  Cheesy  I feel like it would be a commentary track saying, "I made this little mistake here, and here, and here, and here..."

Quote:
Good execution with some minor interface errors and accidental clicks, but that's expected in Sierra adventure games (it wasn't designed for speedrunning!).

Very true.  I am sure in every Sierra submission that I do, time will ALWAYS be able to be saved with better click optimization.

Quote:
I can't think of any major improvements.

I have a few already.  Cheesy  How about a new Domovoi glitch I discovered that saves two screen transitions and a flight of stairs?  Wink  Also, I found out recently through reading the score sheet that I can skip fighting the Pit Monster at the end as the Thief just by stealthing (this is probably the most embarrassing of the time losses, now that I know it exists).

Thanks to running the other games (and Crow!), I found out that you can press TAB to enter the inventory in some of the Sierra games.  You can also press ESC to exit the inventory in this game, which saves you time moving the mouse around and allows you to line up your icon sooner.  My newest runs on this do it.

Quote:
One thing that I may be able to shed light on is around the slime column - the runner's comments mention the glitch where the game fails to recognize that AVOOZL was spelled correctly, costing extra time to retry it. From my experience, the key thing which makes all the difference is to click exactly on each letter, rather than near the letter or inside the area surrounded by the letter. I remember playing this game a long time ago and being stuck on this "puzzle" for ages, thinking I had the wrong answer when actually it was the glitch that was breaking it.

I think I was possibly the first person on the Quest for More Glory forums to post that solution, and in further study, I think I was wrong.  lol - What I have found when reviewing some of my older material is that it really was speed/cycle related, but I fooled myself.  The reason I fooled myself is that in taking the time to use precision in clicking the actual letter, I took a little extra time to make sure it was lined up right, and in that extra time the game realizes you actually did click the previous letter.  If you take an extra quarter to half-second in between each letter, the game gives me no problem regardless of location of the click.  In my recent attempts, I actually cannot remember the last time I ran into this glitch because I just took a second or two longer to spell it out.  It certainly is an annoying glitch, especially when you know you spelled it right EVERY SINGLE TIME and it is supposed to work.

Quote:
The same goes for the other hexapod symbol puzzle in the swamp, but that puzzle is skipped by turning the skill slider right down.

True, but I like my solution way better.  Cheesy  I cannot believe they actually built in the ability to automatically "brute force" the combination.  Very unlike the usual unforgiving nature of these Sierra adventure games.
Edit history:
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:17:23 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:15:43 pm
Everyday is puppies and sunshine...
For btrim:

Quote:
I can't remember if you can sleep until evening in your room.  I'm not sure if that would save a significant amount of time or just save clicks from multiple rests.

Nope; can't.  That would cut a ton of time though, and would actually change the route of one of the runs.

Quote:
Using magic for every character is definitely a great strategy. It's too bad it removes some of the differences between the runs, but it's clearly faster.

If it wasn't for that blasted swamp area...  Smiley  I completely agree; magic makes the game look quite a bit similar between the runs.  In QFG2, though, this is even worse if you can believe it.  There is really only one difference in route in the whole run because of class.  It is why I am only submitting one run on that game (unless more are wanted).
Edit history:
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:21:31 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:19:53 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:19:28 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:19:20 pm
Everyday is puppies and sunshine...
For Crow!:

Quote:
He had a very hard time clicking the sliders during combat.

There is always a worry that you haven't got it quite right.  Makes me wish Arcade mode was ACTUALLY consistent.  Luckily this really only affects the Fighter run, and I agree.

Quote:
Errors with right clicking to next cursor icon (it's pretty hard).

So annoying to watch now in hindsight, because I use the "Insert" key now to make it much smoother and consistent.

Quote:
I'm not convinced that constantly switching back to running stance is worth it in Avoozl's cave.

There's a balance.  In Tentacle Monster Room, DEFINITELY, especially in the Thief, because the speed at which you climb up on the tight-rope is directly affected by your movement type.  In the Bone Ritual room, I'd still say "Yes," but it is important to click the doors/actions BEFORE you change the type so you are on a kind of "auto-pilot."  In the Blood Ritual room, I'd still say yes, because it affects your speed up and down the altar and stairs (the real problem is why the Speed slider decides it is going to switch.)  Breath Ritual room, it's probably not important to switch.  Sense Ritual, there's a lot of walking, so I defend my decision.  Cheesy

Quote:
Pathing error going toward Gypsy camp.

That was so embarrassing.

Quote:
Video cuts out before the credits begin.

Yeah, I am completely not sure what happened at the end of that video.  I chalk it up to being an amateur at recording these.  Much better at it now.  I had a scoring error also that was VERY strange, where it said I had a perfect 500 score, where I KNOW I should only be in the 420-440 range (haven't calculated it properly).

Quote:
an odd bug I've never seen before makes entering the iron maiden pathway take 5 seconds longer than it should.

I may have clicked too many times, which seems to set the Iron Maiden nuts.  Timing on that is needlessly more finicky than anything, but what isn't in this game?
Edit history:
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:18:51 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-03-22 07:13:25 pm
Everyday is puppies and sunshine...
Would love to see these verifiers back on my other Quest for Glory games waiting for verifiers:

Quest for Glory II - https://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/verificationoffer/1607/
Quest for Glory III - https://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/verificationoffer/1609/
Dude, I'm watching this run for pre-release check. I'd like to read your comments while I'm at it (just curious). Can you somehow send them to me?
Everyday is puppies and sunshine...
Just made it down to the shore for vacation. Second i can I'll get them to you. Aren't they attached to the verification screen?
Edit history:
Judgy: 2015-06-08 07:49:22 am
Judgy: 2015-06-08 07:49:15 am
Borderlands 2 Glitch Hunter/ router.
Quote from mrprmiller:
Just made it down to the shore for vacation. Second i can I'll get them to you. Aren't they attached to the verification screen?


Sadly not, once they get to Pre-release-check the files are moved to a separate location (video files only) without the comments file. so it will be there on your "my runs" page but they're not available to us along side the PRC links.
Edit history:
mrprmiller: 2015-06-08 08:12:17 am
mrprmiller: 2015-06-08 08:06:28 am
Everyday is puppies and sunshine...
These are the comments that I made.  that being said, they are well out of date (6 months now. Lol) and I know better on some finer points now.  Let me know if it works.  I can't really check the link easily from my iPad.

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=3BBB4CF1AECD3534!7891&authkey=!AHTc8u_0FvsUlsI&ithint=folder%2c

And thanks for all your work!